The Curse of Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  He made a little warding gesture and took another sip of tea. “When did dy Jironal learn I was gone to Ibra?”

  “I don’t think he guessed anything till after the cortege reached Valenda, and you weren’t to be found there. The old Provincara said he received some reports from his Ibran spies—I think that’s partly why, anxious as he was to get back and block dy Yarrin from Orico, he would not leave Valenda till he had his own household troops installed there.”

  “He sent assassins to intercept me at the border. I wonder if he thought I would just be returning alone, with the next round of negotiations? I don’t think he expected Royse Bergon so soon.”

  “No one did. Except Iselle.” She rubbed her fingers across the fine black wool of her vest-cloak lying over her knee. Her next glance up at him was uncomfortably penetrating. “While you have spent yourself trying to save Iselle…have you discovered how to save yourself?”

  He was silent a moment, then said simply, “No.”

  “It’s…it’s not right.”

  He glanced vaguely around the deliciously sunny court, avoiding her eyes. “I like this nice new building. It has no ghosts in it at all, do you know?”

  “You’re changing the subject.” Her frown deepened. “You do that a lot when you don’t want to talk about something. I just realized.”

  “Betriz…” He softened his voice. “Our feet were set on different paths from the night I called down death upon Dondo. I can’t go back. You are going to be living, and I am not. We can’t go on together, even if…well, we just can’t.”

  “You don’t know how much time you’re given. It could be weeks. Months. But if an hour is all the gift the gods give us, all the more insult to the gods to scorn it.”

  “It’s not the shortage of time.” He shifted miserably. “It’s the abundance of company. Think of us alone together—you, me, Dondo, the death demon…am I not a horror to you?” His tone grew almost pleading. “I assure you I’m a horror to me!”

  She glanced at his gut, then stared off across the courtyard, her jaw set mulishly. “I do not believe that being haunted is catching. Do you think I lack the courage?”

  “Never that,” he breathed.

  She addressed her feet in a growl. “I’d storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.”

  “What, didn’t you read old Ordol’s book while you were helping Iselle cipher those letters? He claims that the gods, and we, are both right here all the time, a shadow’s thickness apart. We’ve no distance to cross at all to get to each other.” I can see their world from where I sit, in fact. So Ordol was right. “But you cannot force the gods. It’s only fair, I suppose. They cannot force us, either.”

  “You’re doing it again. Twisting the topic.”

  “What are you planning to wear tomorrow? Shall it be pretty? You’re not allowed to outshine the bride, you know.”

  She glared at him.

  Up on the gallery, Lady dy Baocia popped out of Iselle’s chambers and called down to Betriz a complicated question involving what seemed to Cazaril a great many different fabrics. Betriz waved back and rose reluctantly to her feet. She flung rather sharply over her shoulder, as she made for the staircase, “Well, that may all be so, and you as doomed as you please, but if I’m thrown from a horse tomorrow and break my neck, I hope you feel a fool!”

  “More of a fool,” he murmured to the swish of her retreating skirts. The bright courtyard was a blur in his disobedient eyes, and he rubbed them clear with a hard, surreptitious swipe of his sleeve.

  THE WEDDING DAY DAWNED AS FAIR AS HOPED. The orange-blossom-scented courtyard was crowded as it could hold when Iselle, attended by her aunt and Betriz, appeared at the top of the gallery stairs. Cazaril tilted his face up and squinted happily. The tire-women had performed heroic feats with silks and satins, garbing her in all the shades of blue proper for a bride. Her blue vest-cloak was trimmed with as many Ibran pearls as could be found in Taryoon, patterned as a frieze of stylized leopards. A smattering of applause broke out as, moving a little stiffly in all her finery, she smiled and descended the steps. Her hair gleamed like a river of treasure in the sunlight. Two dy Baocia girl-cousins managed her train, under the sporadic direction of their mother. Even the curse seemed to wrap about her like some trailing sable robe. But not for much longer…

  Cazaril obediently fell in beside Provincar dy Baocia, and so found himself helping to lead the parade afoot through twisting streets to Taryoon’s nearby temple. Through a wonder of coordination, Bergon’s procession from March dy Huesta’s palace arrived at the temple portico simultaneously with Iselle’s. The royse wore the reds and oranges of his age and sex, and an expression of determined bravery that would not have been out of place on a man storming a bastion. Palli and his dozen soldier-brothers in court dress of their order had joined the royse’s party along with Foix and Ferda, so as not to let the Ibrans look, and perhaps feel, so outnumbered. Despite the short notice, Cazaril calculated that over a thousand persons of rank crowded into the temple’s round center court; and what seemed the entire citizenry of Taryoon lined the routes of the royesse and royse. A festival mood had clearly seized the city.

  The two processions coalesced in a swirl of color and entered the sacred precincts. Taryoon had good temple singers, and the enthusiastic choir made the walls fairly ring with their songs. The young couple, led by the archdivine, entered each of the temple’s lobes in turn. They knelt and prayed upon new carpets for the blessing of each god: to the Daughter and the Son, in thanks for their protection in life’s journey so far; and to the Mother and the Father, in hopes of passing into their company in due course.

  By theology and tradition, the Bastard had no official place in a ceremony of marriage, but all prudent couples sent a placating gift anyway. Cazaril and dy Tagille had been commissioned to play holy couriers today. They received the offerings from Bergon and Iselle and, along with a small but earnestly loud detachment of singing children, marched around the outside of the main building to the Bastard’s tower. A smiling, white-robed divine stood ready to receive them inside at the altar.

  The royal couple had been forced to borrow clothes, money, food, and housing for this day, but Bergon did not shortchange the god; dy Tagille laid down a fat purse of Ibran gold along with his prayers. Iselle sent a promise, written in her own hand, to undertake payment of roof repairs upon the Bastard’s tower in Cardegoss when she became royina there. Cazaril added a gift of his own—the blood-tainted rope of pearls, all the residue of Dondo’s broken string that had not fallen to the brigands. Such a difficult and cursed item was, absolutely without question, the god’s just affair, and Cazaril breathed a sigh of relief when it was off his hands at last.

  Proceeding back along the walkway from the Bastard’s tower behind the slightly wobbly choir of urchins, Cazaril glanced at the crowd and caught his breath. A man, middle-aged—around him hung a subdued gray light like a winter’s day. When Cazaril closed his eyes, the faint light still glowed there. He looked again with his first sight. The man wore the black-and-gray robes and red shoulder braid of an officer of the Taryoon Municipal Court—probably a petty judge. And petty saint of the Father, as Clara had been of the Mother in Cardegoss…?

  The man was staring back at Cazaril in openmouthed astonishment, his face drained. There was no chance for them to exchange any word here, as Cazaril was drawn back into the ceremonies inside the high, echoing court of the temple, but Cazaril resolved to ask the archdivine about him at the first opportunity.

  At the central fire, the newly married royse and royesse each made a short speech, then the archdivine, Cazaril, and everyone else paraded back through the banner-hung streets to dy Baocia’s new palace. There, a grand feast was laid on to fill the afternoon and the celebrators to happy repletion. The food was all the more amazing for having been assembled in just two days; Cazaril suspected supplies had been robbed from the Daughter’s Day festival, coming up. But he didn’t think the goddess would begrudge t
hem. As principal guests, both Cazaril and the archdivine had places to hold, so he didn’t get a chance for private speech until the after-dinner music and dancing drew the younger people off to the courtyards. At that point, the two men he sought found him.

  The petty judge stood at the archdivine’s shoulder looking unnerved. Cazaril and he exchanged a sidelong look as the archdivine performed a hasty introduction.

  “My lord dy Cazaril—may I present to you the Honorable Paginine. He serves the municipality of Taryoon…” The archdivine lowered his voice. “He says you are god-touched. Is this so?”

  “Alas, yes,” sighed Cazaril. Paginine nodded in an I thought so sort of way. Cazaril glanced around and drew the pair aside. It was hard to find a private spot; they ended up in a tiny inner court off one of the palace’s side entrances. Music and laughter carried through the darkening air. A servant lit torches in wall brackets and returned inside. Overhead, high clouds moved across the first stars.

  “Your colleague the archdivine of Cardegoss knows all about me,” Cazaril told the archdivine of Taryoon.

  “Oh.” The archdivine blinked and looked vastly relieved. Cazaril thought it was a misplaced confidence, but he elected not to rob it from him. “Mendenal is an excellent fellow.”

  “The Father of Winter has given you some gift, I see,” Cazaril said to the petty judge. “What is it?”

  Paginine ducked his head nervously. “Sometimes—not every time—He permits me to know who is lying in my justiciar’s chamber, and who is telling the truth.” Paginine hesitated. “It doesn’t always do as much good as you’d think.”

  Cazaril vented a short laugh.

  Paginine brightened visibly to both Cazaril’s inner and outer eye, and smiled dryly. “Ah, you understand.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But you, sir…” Paginine turned to the archdivine with a troubled look. “I said god-touched, but that hardly describes what I’m seeing. It…it almost hurts to look at him. Three times since I was given the sight I have met others who are also god-afflicted, but I’ve never seen anything like him.”

  “Saint Umegat in Cardegoss said I looked like a burning city,” Cazaril admitted.

  “That’s…” Paginine eyed him sidewise. “That’s well put.”

  “He was a man of words.” Once.

  “What is your gift?”

  “I, uh…I think I am the gift, actually. To the Royesse Iselle.”

  The archdivine touched his hand to his lips, then hastily signed himself. “So that explains the stories circulating about you!”

  “What stories?” said Cazaril in bewilderment.

  “But Lord Cazaril,” the judge broke in, “what is that terrible shadow hanging about Royesse Iselle? That is no godly thing! Do you see it, too?”

  “I’m…working on it. Getting rid of that ugly thing seems to be my god-given task. I think I’m almost done.”

  “Oh, that’s a relief.” Paginine looked much happier.

  Cazaril realized he wanted nothing so much as to take Paginine aside to talk shop. How do you deal with these matters? The archdivine might be pious, perhaps a good administrator, possibly a learned theologian, but Cazaril suspected he didn’t understand the discomforts of the saint trade. Paginine’s bitter smile told all. Cazaril wanted to go get drunk with him, and compare complaints.

  To Cazaril’s embarrassment, the archdivine bowed low to him, and said in an awed, hushed voice, “Blessed Sir, is there anything I can do for you?”

  Betriz’s question echoed in his mind, Have you discovered how to save yourself? Maybe you couldn’t save yourself. Maybe you had to take turns saving each other…“Tonight, no. Tomorrow…later in the week, there is a personal matter I should like to wait upon you about. If I may.”

  “Certainly, Blessed Sir. I am at your service.”

  They returned to the party. Cazaril was exhausted, and longed for bed, but the courtyard below his chamber door was full of noisy revelers. A breathless Betriz asked him once to dance, from which exercise he smilingly excused himself; she didn’t lack for partners. Her gaze checked him often, as he sat watching from the wall and nursing his watered wine. He did not lack for company, as a string of men and women struck up friendly conversations with him, angling for employment in the future royina’s court. To all of them he returned courteous but noncommittal replies.

  The Ibran lords were collecting Chalionese ladies rather as spilled honey collected ants, and looking very happy indeed. Halfway through the evening, Lord dy Cembuer arrived, completing their company and their delight. The Ibrans exchanged tales of their respective journeys, to the awe and fascination of their eager Chalionese listeners. To Cazaril’s intense political pleasure, Bergon was cast as the hero of this romantic adventure, with Iselle no less as heroine for her night ride from Valenda. As appealing unifying myths went, this one was going to beat dy Jironal’s feeble fable of Poor Mad Iselle all hollow, Cazaril rather thought. And our tale is true!

  At last came the hour and the ceremony Cazaril had been breathlessly awaiting, where Bergon and Iselle were conducted up to their bedchamber. Neither, Cazaril was pleased to note, had drunk enough to become inebriated. Since his own wine had somehow grown less watered as the evening progressed, he found himself a little tongue-tied when the royse and royesse called him up to the foot of the staircase to give and receive ceremonial kisses of thanks upon their hands. Moved, he signed himself and called down hopeful blessings on their heads. The solemn grateful intensity of their return gazes discomfited him.

  Lady dy Baocia had arranged a small choir to sing prayers to waft the couple on their way upstairs; the crystal voices served to suppress the ribaldry to manageable proportions. Iselle was no more than beautifully blushing and starry-eyed when she and Bergon leaned over the railing to give smiling thanks to all, and throw down flowers.

  They disappeared into the candlelit glow of their suite, and the doors swung shut behind them. Two of dy Baocia’s officers took up station on the gallery to guard their repose. In a little while, most of the tire-women and attendants emerged, including Lady Betriz. She was instantly carried off by Palli and dy Tagille for more dancing.

  The revels looked to continue till dawn, but to Cazaril’s relief a misty rain began to sift down out of the chilling sky, driving the musicians and dancers out of his courtyard and indoors to the adjoining building. Slowly, his hand heavy on the railing, Cazaril climbed the stairs to his own chamber, around the gallery corner from the royse and royesse’s. My duty is done. Now what?

  He scarcely knew. A vast moral terror seemed lifted from his shoulders. Only he would live and die by his choices—and mistakes—now. I refuse to regret. I will not look back. A moment of balance, on the cusp of past and future.

  He rather thought he would look up the little judge again tomorrow. The man’s company might well relieve his loneliness.

  ACTUALLY, I’M NOT NEARLY LONELY ENOUGH, he thought not much later as Dondo’s incoherent obscene bellows, released by their hour of ascendance, came roaring up to his inward ear. The sundered ghost was more wild with fury tonight than Cazaril had ever experienced it, its last vestiges of intelligence and sanity shredding away in its rage. Cazaril could imagine why, and grinned through his agony as he rolled on his bed, curled around the ghastly pulsing pain in his belly.

  He almost blacked out, then forced himself up, and to consciousness, horrified by the possibility that the fiendishly aroused Dondo might try to take over his body while he was still alive in it and use it for some vile assault upon Iselle and Bergon. He writhed on the floor in something resembling convulsions, choking back the screams and filth that tried to fly from his mouth, no longer sure whose words they were.

  When the attack passed, he lay panting on the cold boards, his nightgown rucked up around himself, his fingernails torn and bloody. He had vomited, and lay in it. He touched his wet beard to find spittle flayed to foam hanging around his lips. His stomach—or had that grotesque out-bulging been a drea
m?—had returned to its former mild distension, though his whole abdominal sheet still ached and quivered like torn muscles after some overtorqued exertion.

  I can’t go on like this much longer. Something had to give way—his body, his sanity, his breath. His faith. Something.

  He rose, and cleaned up the floor, and washed himself at his basin and found a clean dry shirt for a nightdress, then straightened his sweat-stained twisted sheets, lit all the candles in the room, and crawled back into bed. He lay eyes wide, devouring the light.

  AT LENGTH, THE SOUNDS OF SERVANTS’ MURMURS and quiet footsteps along the gallery told him the palace was awakening. He must have dozed, for his candles were burned out, and he didn’t remember them guttering. Gray light seeped in under his door and through his shutters.

  There would be morning prayers. Morning prayers seemed a good plan, even if the idea of attempting to move was daunting. Cazaril rose. Slowly. Well, his wasn’t going to be the only hangover in Taryoon this morning. Even if he hadn’t been drunk. The household had put off court mourning for the wedding; he selected among the garments that had been bestowed upon him, achieving what he hoped was a sober yet cheerful result.

  He went down to the courtyard to await the sun and the young people. No sun was to be had yet; the rain had stopped, but the sky was clouded and chill. Cazaril used his handkerchief to dry the stone edge of the fountain and seated himself. He exchanged a smile and a good morning with an old servingwoman who passed by with linens. A crow stalked about on the far end of the courtyard, looking for dropped scraps of food. Cazaril exchanged a tilted stare with it, but the bird evinced no special fascination with him. Upon consideration, he was more relieved than otherwise at its avian indifference.

  At last, up on the gallery, the doors Cazaril was waiting for swung open. The sleepy Baocian guards bracketing them stood to attention. Women’s voices sounded, and one man’s, low and cheerful. Bergon and Iselle appeared, dressed for morning prayers, her hand set lightly upon his proffered arm. They swung about to descend the stairs side by side, and stepped out of the gallery’s shadow.