Chapter 24

   They retraced Cazaril’s outbound route across western Chalion, changing horses at obscure rural posts of the Daughter’s Order. At every stop he inquired anxiously for any further ciphered messages from Iselle or news from Valenda that might reveal the tactical situation into which they rushed. He grew increasingly uneasy at the absence of letters. In the original plan, they had envisioned Iselle waiting with her grandmother and mother, guarded by her uncle dy Baocia’s troops. Cazaril feared this ideal condition no longer held.
   They checked at midevening twenty-five miles short of Valenda at the village of Palma. The region around Palma was noted for its fine pasturage; a post of the Daughter’s Order there devoted itself to raising and training remounts for the Temple. Cazaril was certain of obtaining fresh horses in Palma. He prayed for fresh intelligence as well.
   Cazaril did not so much dismount from his blown horse as fall slowly, all in a piece, as if his body were carved from a single block of wood. Both Ferda and Foix had to support him through the order’s sprawling compound. They brought him into a shabbily comfortable chamber, where a bright fire burned in a fieldstone fireplace. A plain pine table had been hastily cleared of someone’s card game. The dedicat-commander of the post hurried in to wait upon them. The man glanced uncertainly from dy Tagille to dy Sould; his gaze passed over Bergon, who’d dressed as a groom since the border for caution’s sake. The commander fell into apologetic confusion when the royse was introduced, and sent his lieutenant scurrying for food and drink to offer his distinguished company.
   Cazaril sat by the table in a cushioned chair, wonderfully unlike a saddle even if the room did still seem to be rocking around him. He was beginning to dislike horses almost as much as he disliked boats. His head felt stuffed with wool, and his body didn’t bear thinking about. He broke into the exchange of courtly amenities to croak, “What word have you from Valenda? Do you hold any new messages from the Royesse Iselle?” Ferda pressed a glass of watered wine into his hand, and he gulped half of it at once.
   The dedicat-commander gave him a little understanding headshake, his lips tightening. “Chancellor dy Jironal marched a thousand more of his men into the town last week. He has another thousand bivouacked along the river. They patrol the countryside, looking for you. Searchers have stopped here twice. He holds Valenda tight in his grip.”
   “Didn’t Provincar dy Baocia have any men there?”
   “Yes, two companies, but they were badly outnumbered. No one would start the fight at Royse Teidez’s interment, and after that they dared not.”
   “Have you heard from March dy Palliar?”
   “He used to bring the letters. We’ve had no direct word from the royesse for five days. It’s rumored that she is very ill and sees no one.”
   Bergon’s eyes widened in alarm. Cazaril squinted and rubbed his aching head. “Ill? Iselle? Well… maybe. Or else held close-confined by dy Jironal, and the illness a tale put about.” Had one of Cazaril’s letters fallen into the wrong hands? He had feared they might have to either spirit the royesse out of Valenda, or break her free by force of arms, preferably the former. He hadn’t planned what to do if she had fallen, perhaps, too sick to ride at this critical moment.
   His muzzy brain evolved a mad vision of somehow sneaking Bergon in to her, over the rooftops and balconies like a lover in a poem. No. A night of secret love between them might break the curse, channel it back somehow to the gods who had spilled it, but he couldn’t see how it would miraculously make away with two thousand or so very fleshly soldiers.
   “Does Orico still live?” he asked at last.
   “As far as we’ve heard.”
   “We can do nothing more tonight.” He wouldn’t trust any plan that came out of his tired brain tonight. “Tomorrow, Foix and Ferda and I will go into Valenda on foot, in disguise, and reconnoiter. I promise you I can pass for a road vagabond. If we can’t see our way clear, then fall back to Provincar dy Baocia’s people in Taryoon, and plan again.”
   “Can you walk, my lord?” asked Foix in a dubious voice.
   Right now, he wasn’t sure if he could stand up. He glowered helplessly at Foix, who was tired but resilient, pink rather than gray after days in the saddle. Youth. Eh. “By tomorrow, I will.” He rubbed his face. “Do dy Jironal’s men realize they are not guardians but prison-keepers? That they are being led into possible treason against the rightful Heiress?”
   The dedicat-commander sat back, and opened his hands. “Such charges are being flung about like snowballs from both parties right now. Rumors that the royesse has sent agents into Ibra to contract a marriage with the new Heir are flying everywhere.” He gave Royse Bergon an apologetic nod.
   So much for the secrecy of his mission. He considered the pitfalls of potential party lines in Chalion. Iselle and Orico versus dy Jironal, all right. Iselle versus Orico and Dy Jironal… hideously dangerous.
   “The news has had a mixed reception,” the commander continued. “The ladies look on Bergon with approval and want to make a romance of it all, because it’s said that he is brave and well-favored. Soberer heads worry that Iselle may sell Chalion to the Fox, because she is, ah, young and inexperienced.”
   In other words, foolish and flighty. Sober heads had much to learn. Cazaril’s lips drew back on a dry grin. “No,” he mumbled. “We have not done that.” He realized that he was speaking to his knees, his forehead having unaccountably sunk to the table and anchored there.
   After about a minute Bergon’s voice murmured gently in his ear, “Caz? Are you awake?”
   “Mm.”
   “Would you like to go to bed, my lord?” the dedicat-commander inquired after another pause.
   “Mm.”
   He whimpered a little as strong hands under each arm forced him to his feet. Ferda and Foix, leading him off somewhere, cruelly. The table had been soft enough… He didn’t even remember falling into the bed.


* * *

   Someone was shaking his shoulder.
   A hideously cheerful voice bellowed in his ear, “Rise and ride, Captain Sunshine!”
   He spasmed and clawed at his covers, tried to sit up, and thought better of the effort. He pulled open his glued-shut eyelids, blinking in the candlelight. The identity of the voice finally penetrated. “Palli! You’re alive!” He meant to shout joyfully. At least it came out audibly. “What time is it?” He struggled again to sit up, making it onto one elbow. He seemed to be in some evicted officer-dedicat’s plainly furnished bedchamber.
   “About an hour before dawn. We’ve been riding all night. Iselle sent me to find you.” He raised his brace of candles higher. Bergon was standing anxiously at his shoulder, and Foix too. “Bastard’s demons, Caz, you look like death on a trencher.”
   “That… has been observed.” He lay back down. Palli was here. Palli was here, and all was well. He could shove Bergon and all his burdens off onto him, lie here, and not get up. Die alone and in peace, taking Dondo out of the world with him. “Take Royse Bergon and his company to Iselle. Leave me—”
   “What, for dy Jironal’s patrols to find? Not if I value my future fortune as a courtier! Iselle wants you safe with her in Taryoon.”
   “Taryoon? Not Valenda?” He blinked. “Safe?” This time he did struggle up, and all the way to his feet, where he passed out.
   The black fog lifted, and he found Bergon, round-eyed, holding him slumped on the edge of the bed.
   “Sit a minute with your head down,” Palli advised.
   Cazaril obediently bent over his aching belly. If Dondo had visited him last night, he’d not been home. The ghost had kicked him a few times in his sleep, though, it felt like. From the inside out.
   Bergon said softly, “He ate nothing when we came in last night. He collapsed straightaway, and we put him to bed.”
   “Right,” said Palli, and jerked his thumb at the hovering Foix, who nodded and slipped out of the room.
   “Taryoon?” Cazaril mumbled from the vicinity of his knees.
   “Aye. She gave all two thousand of dy Jironal’s men the slip, she did. Well, first of all, before that, her uncle dy Baocia pulled his men out and went home. The fools let him go; thought it was a danger removed from their midst. Yes, and made free to move at will! Then Iselle rode out five days running, always with a troop of dy Jironal’s cavalry for escort, and gave them more exercise than they cared for. Had ’em absolutely convinced she meant to escape while riding. So when she and Lady Betriz went walking out one day with old Lady dy Hueltar, they let her go by. I was waiting with two saddled horses, and two women to change cloaks with ’em and go back with the old lady. We were gone down that ravine so fast… The old Provincara undertook to conceal she’d flown for as long as possible, pass it off that she was ill in her mother’s chambers. They’ve doubtless tumbled to it by now, but I’ll wager she was safe with her uncle in Taryoon before Valenda knew she was gone. Five gods, those girls can ride! Sixty miles cross-country between dusk and dawn under a full moon, and only one change of horses.”
   “Girls?” said Cazaril. “Is Lady Betriz safe, too?”
   “Oh, aye. Both of ’em chipper as songbirds, when I left ’em. Made me feel old.”
   Cazaril squinted up at Palli, five years his junior, but let this pass. “Ser dy Ferrej… the Provincara, Lady Ista?”
   Palli’s face sobered. “Still hostages in Valenda. They all told the girls to go on, you know.”
   “Ah.”

  Foix brought him a bowl of bean porridge, hot and aromatic, on a tray, and Bergon himself arranged his pillows and helped him sit up to eat it. Cazaril had thought he was ravenous, yet found himself unable to force down more than a few bites. Palli was keen to get away while the darkness still cloaked their numbers. Cazaril struggled to oblige, letting Foix help him back into his clothes. He dreaded the attempt to ride again.
   In the post’s stable yard, he found that their escort, a dozen men of the Daughter’s Order who’d followed Palli from Taryoon, waited with a horse litter slung between two mounts. Indignant at first, he let Bergon persuade him into it, and the cavalcade swung away into the graying dark. The rough back roads and trails they took made the litter jounce and sway nauseatingly. After half an hour of this, he cried for mercy, and undertook to climb on a horse. Someone had thought to bring along a smooth-paced ambler for this very purpose, and he clung to the saddle and endured its rippling gait while they swung wide around Valenda and its occupiers’ patrols.
   In the afternoon, they dropped down from some wooded slopes onto a wider road, and Palli rode alongside him. Palli eyed him curiously, a little sideways.
   “I hear you do miracles with mules.”
   “Not me. The goddess.” Cazaril’s smile twisted. “She has a way with mules, it seems.”
   “I’m also told you’re strangely hard on brigands.”
   “We were a strong company, well armed. If the brigands hadn’t been set onto us by dy Joal, they would never have attempted us.”
   “Dy Joal was one of dy Jironal’s best swords. Foix says you took him down in seconds.”
   “That was a mistake. Besides, his foot slipped.”
   Palli’s lips twitched. “You don’t have to go around telling people that, you know.” He stared ahead between his horse’s bobbing ears for a time. “So, the boy you defended on the Roknari galley was Bergon himself.”
   “Yes. Kidnapped by his brother’s bravos, it turned out. Now I know why the Ibran fleet rowed so hard after us.”
   “Did you never guess who he really was? Then or later?”
   “No. He had… he had a deal more self-control than even I realized at the time. That one will make a roya worth following, when he comes into his own.”
   Palli glanced ahead to where Bergon rode with dy Sould, and signed himself in wonder. “The gods are on our side, right enough. Can we fail?”
   Cazaril snorted bitterly. “Yes.” He thought of Ista, Umegat, the tongueless groom. Of the deathly straits he was in. “And when we fail, the gods do, too.” He didn’t think he’d ever quite realized that before, not in those terms.
   At least Iselle was safe for now behind the shield of her uncle; as Heiress, she would attract other ambitious men to her side. She would have many, not least Bergon himself, to protect her from her enemies, although advisors wise enough to also protect her from her friends might be harder for her to come by… But what provision against the looming hazards could he effect for Betriz?
   “Did you get the chance to know Lady Betriz better while you escorted the cortege to Valenda, and after?” he asked Palli.
   “Oh, aye.”
   “Beautiful girl, don’t you think? Did you get much conversation with her father, Ser dy Ferrej?”
   “Yes. A most honorable man.”
   “So I thought, too.”
   “She’s very worried for him right now,” Palli added.
   “I can imagine. And him for her, both now and later. If… if all goes well, she will be a favorite of the future royina. That kind of political influence could be worth far more to a shrewd man than a mere material dowry. If the man had the wit to see it.”
   “No question of it.”
   “She’s intelligent, energetic…”
   “Rides well, too.” Palli’s tone was oddly dry.
   Cazaril swallowed, and with an effort at a casual tone got out, “Couldn’t you just see her as the future Marchess dy Palliar?”
   Palli’s mouth turned up on one side. “I fear my suit would be hopeless. I believe she has another man in her eye. Judging from all the questions she’s asked me about him, anyway.”
   “Oh? Who?” He tried, briefly and without success, to convince himself Betriz dreamed of, say, dy Rinal, or one of the other courtiers of Cardegoss… eh. Lightweights, the lot of them. Few of the younger men had the wealth or influence, and none the wit, to make her a good match. In fact, now Cazaril came to consider the matter, none of them was good enough for her.
   “It was in confidence. But I definitely think you should ask her all about it, when we get to Taryoon.” Palli smiled, and urged his horse forward.
   Cazaril considered the implications of Palli’s smile, and of the white fur hat still tucked into his saddlebags. The woman you love, loves you? Had he any real doubt of it? There was, alas, more than enough impediment to twist this joyous suspicion into sorrow. Too late, too late, too late. For her fidelity he could return her only grief; his bier would be too hard and narrow to offer as a wedding bed.
   It was a grace note in this lethal tangle nonetheless, like finding a survivor in a shipwreck or a flower blooming in a burned-over field. Well… well, she must simply get over her ill-fated attachment to him. And he must exert the utmost self-control not to encourage it in her. He wondered if he could promote Palli to her if he put it as the last request of a dying man.
   Fifteen miles out from Taryoon, they were met by a large Baocian guard company. They had a hand litter, and relays of men to carry it aloft; too far gone by now to be anything but grateful, Cazaril let himself be loaded into it without protest. He even slept for a couple of hours, lumping along wrapped in a feather quilt, his aching head cushioned by pillows. He woke at length and watched the dreary darkening winter landscape wobble past him like a dream.
   So, this was dying. It didn’t seem as bad, lying down. But please, just let me live to see this curse lifted from Iselle. It was a great work, one any man might look back on and say, That was my life; it was enough. He asked nothing more now but to be permitted to finish what he’d started. Iselle’s wedding, and Betriz made safe—if the gods would but give him those two gifts, he thought he could go in quiet content. I’m tired.


* * *

   They entered the gates of the Baocian provincial capital of Taryoon an hour after sunset. Curious citizens collected in the path of their little procession, or marched beside it with torches to light the way, or hurried out to watch from balconies as they passed. On three occasions, women tossed down flowers, which after their first uncertain flinch, Bergon’s Ibran companions caught; it helped that the ladies had good aim. The young lords sent hopeful and enthusiastic kisses through the air in return. They left interested murmurs in their wake, especially up on the balconies. Near the city center Bergon and his friends, escorted by Palli, were diverted to the town palace of the wealthy March dy Huesta, one of the provincar’s chief supporters and, not coincidentally, his brother-in-law. The Baocian guard carried Cazaril’s litter on at a smart pace to the provincar’s own new palace, down the street from the cramped and lowering old fortress.
   Clutching his precious saddlebags containing the future of two countries, Cazaril was brought by dy Baocia’s castle warder to a fire-warmed bedchamber. Numerous wax lights revealed two waiting man-servants with a hip bath, extra hot water, soap, scissors, scents, and towels. A third man bore in a tray of mild white cheese, fruit cakes, and quantities of hot herb tea. Someone was taking no chances with Cazaril’s wardrobe, and had laid out a change of clothing on the bed, court mourning complete from fresh undergarments through brocades and velvets out to a silver and amethyst belt. The transformation from road wreckage to courtier took barely twenty minutes.
   From his filthy saddlebags Cazaril drew his packet of documents, wrapped in oilcloth around silk, and checked them for dirt and bloodstains. Nothing untoward had leaked in. He discarded the grubby oilcloth and tucked the offerings under his arm. The castle warder guided Cazaril through a courtyard where workmen labored by torchlight to lay down the last paving stones, and into an adjoining building. They passed through a series of rooms to a spacious tiled chamber softened with rugs and wall hangings. Man-high iron candelabras holding five lights each, intricately wrought, shed a warming glow. Iselle sat in a large carved chair by the far wall, attended by Betriz and the provincar, also all in court mourning.
   They looked up as he entered, the women eagerly, the middle-aged dy Baocia’s expression tempered with caution. Iselle’s uncle bore only a slight resemblance to his younger sister Ista, being solid rather than frail, though he was not overtall either, and he shared Ista’s dun hair color, gone grizzled. Dy Baocia was attended in turn by a stout man Cazaril took for his secretary, and an elderly fellow in the five-colored robes of the archdivine of Taryoon. Cazaril eyed him hopefully for any flicker of god light, but he was only a plain devout.
   The dark cloud still hung thickly about Iselle in Cazaril’s second sight, though, roiling in a sluggish and sullen fashion. But not for much longer, by the Lady’s grace.
   “Welcome home, Castillar,” said Iselle. The warmth of her voice was like a caress on his brow, her use of his title a covert warning.
   Cazaril signed himself. “Five gods, Royesse, all is well.”
   “You have the treaties?” dy Baocia asked, his gaze fixing on the packets under Cazaril’s arm. He held out an anxious hand. “There has been much concern over them in our councils.”
   Cazaril smiled slightly and walked past him to kneel at Iselle’s feet, managing with careful effort not to grunt with pain, or pitch over in unseemly clumsiness. He brushed his lips across the backs of the hands she held out to him, and pressed the packet of documents in them, and them alone, as they turned palm up. “All is as you commanded.”
   Her eyes were bright with appreciation. “I thank you, Cazaril.” She glanced up at her uncle’s secretary. “Fetch a chair for my ambassador, please. He has ridden long and hard, with little rest.” She began folding back the silk.
   The secretary brought up a chair with a wool-stuffed cushion. Cazaril smiled rather fixedly in thanks and considered the problem of getting up again gracefully. Rather to his embarrassment, Betriz knelt to his side, and after a second more, the archdivine to his other, and both contrived to hoist him up. Betriz’s dark eyes searched him, lingering briefly and fearfully on his tumor-distended midsection, but she could do no more here than smile in encouragement.
   Iselle was reading the marriage contract, though she spared a moment as Cazaril seated himself to cast a small smile in his direction. Cazaril watched and waited. As she finished each page she handed the rectangle of calligraphed and ink-stamped parchment up to her hovering uncle, who had them fairly snatched in turn by the archdivine. The secretary was last in line, but no less intent in his perusal. He collected the pages reverently back into order as they came to him.
   Dy Baocia clutched his hands together and watched as the archdivine’s eyes sped down the last page. He held the parchment out silently to the stout secretary.
   “Well?” said the provincar.
   “She hasn’t sold Chalion.” The archdivine signed himself and opened both hands palm out in thanks to the gods. “She’s bought Ibra! My congratulations, Royesse, to your ambassador—and to you.”
   “To us all,” said dy Baocia. All three men were looking vastly more cheerful.
   Cazaril cleared his throat. “Indeed, but I trust you will not say as much to Royse Bergon. The treaties are potentially advantageous to both sides, after all.” He glanced at dy Baocia’s secretary. “Though perhaps it would allay people’s fears to have the articles copied out in a large fair hand and posted on the wall beside your palace doors, for everyone to read.”
   Dy Baocia frowned uncertainly, but the archdivine nodded, and said, “A very wise suggestion, Castillar.”
   “It would please me very much,” said Iselle in a soft voice. “I pray you, Uncle, have it seen to.”
   A breathless page burst into the chamber, to skid to a stop before dy Baocia and blurt, “Your lady says Royse Bergon’s party ’proaches at the gate, and you are to ’tend on her at once to welcome him.”

   “I’m on my way.” The provincar took a breath and smiled at his niece. “And so we bring your lover to you. Remember now, you must demand all the kisses of submission, brow, hands, and feet. Chalion must be seen to rule Ibra. Guard the pride and honor of your House. We must not let him put himself above you, or he will quickly become overweening. You must start as you mean to go on.”
   Iselle’s eyes narrowed. Around her, the shadow darkened, seeming to tighten its grip.
   Cazaril sat up, and shot her a look of alarm and a tiny headshake. “Royse Bergon has pride also, no less honorable than your own, Royesse. And he will stand before his own lords here, too.”
   She hesitated; then her lips firmed. “I shall start as I mean to go on.” Her voice was suddenly not soft at all, but steel-edged. She gestured at the contract. “The substance of our equality is there, Uncle. My pride demands no greater show. We shall exchange the kisses of welcome, each to each, upon our hands alone.” The darkness uncurled a little; Cazaril felt an odd shiver, as though some predatory shadow had passed over his head and flown on, thwarted.
   “An admirable discretion,” Cazaril endorsed this in relief.
   The page, dancing from foot to foot, held open the door for the provincar, who swept out in haste.
   “Lord Cazaril, how was your journey?” Betriz taxed him in this interlude. “You look so… tired.”
   “A weary lot of riding, but it all went well enough.” He shifted in his seat and smiled up at her.
   Her dark brows arched. “I think we must have Ferda and Foix in, to tell us more. Surely it was not so plain and dull as that.”
   “Well, we had a little trouble with brigands in the mountains. Dy Jironal’s doing, I’m fairly sure. Bergon acquitted himself very well. The Fox… went easier than I expected, for a reason I didn’t.” He leaned forward, and lowered his voice to them both. “You remember my benchmate on the galleys I told of, Danni, the boy of good family?”
   Betriz nodded, and Iselle said, “I am not likely to forget.”
   “I didn’t guess how good a family. Danni was an alias Bergon gave, to keep himself secret from his captors. It seems his kidnapping was a ploy of Ibra’s late Heir. Bergon recognized me when I stood before the Ibran court—he had changed and grown almost out of reckoning.”
   Iselle’s lips parted in astonishment. After a moment she breathed, “Surely the goddess gave you to me.”
   “Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “I’ve come to that conclusion myself.”
   Her eyes turned toward the double doors on the opposite side of the chamber. Her hands twisted in her lap in a sudden flush of nerves. “How shall I recognize him? Is he—is he well-favored?”
   “I don’t know how ladies judge such things—”
   The doors swung wide. A great mob of persons surged through: pages, hangers-on, dy Baocia and his wife, Bergon and dy Sould and dy Tagille, and Palli bringing up the rear. The Ibrans had been treated to baths as well, and wore the best clothes they’d managed to pack in their meager bags, supplemented, Cazaril was fairly sure, with some judicious emergency borrowings. Bergon’s eyes flicked in a smiling panic from Betriz to Iselle, and settled on Iselle. Iselle gazed from face to face among the three strange Ibrans in a momentary terror.
   Tall Palli, standing behind Bergon, pointed at the royse and mouthed, This one! Iselle’s gray eyes brightened, and her pale cheeks flooded with color.
   Iselle held out her hands. “My lord Bergon dy Ibra,” she said in a voice that only quavered a little. “Welcome to Chalion.”
   “My lady Iselle dy Chalion,” Bergon, striding up to her, returned breathlessly. “Dy Ibra thanks you.” He knelt to one knee, and kissed her hands. She bent her head, and kissed his.
   Bergon rose again and introduced his companions, who bowed properly. With a slight scrape, the provincar and the archdivine, with their own hands, brought up a chair for Bergon and set it by Iselle’s on the other side from Cazaril. From a leather pouch dy Tagille held out, Bergon produced his royal greeting-gift, a necklace of fine emeralds—one of the last of his mother’s pieces not pawned by the Fox to buy arms. The white horses unfortunately were still back on the road somewhere. Bergon had been going to bring a rope of new Ibran pearls, but had made the substitution on Cazaril’s most earnest advice.
   Dy Baocia made a little speech of welcome, which would have been rather longer if Iselle’s aunt, catching her niece’s eye, had not seized a pause in his periods to invite the assembled company into the next room to partake of refreshments. The young couple was left to have some private speech, and bent their heads together, largely inaudible to the eager eavesdroppers who lingered by the open doors and frequently peeked in to see how they were getting along.
   Cazaril was not least forward among this number, craning his neck anxiously from his repositioned chair and alternating between nibbling on little cakes and biting his knuckles. Their voices grew sometimes louder, sometimes softer; Bergon gestured, and Iselle twice laughed out loud, and three times drew in her breath, her hands going to her lips, eyes widening. Iselle lowered her voice and spoke earnestly; Bergon tilted his head and listened intently, and never took his eyes from her face, except twice to glance out at Cazaril, after which they lowered their voices still further.
   Lady Betriz brought him a glass of watered wine, nodding at his grateful thanks. Cazaril felt he could guess who had taken the thought to have the hot water and servants and food and clothes waiting ready for him. Her fresh skin glowed golden in the candlelight, smooth and youthful, but her somber dress and pulled-back hair lent her an unexpectedly mature elegance. An ardent energy, on the verge of moving into power and wisdom…
   “How did you leave things in Valenda, do you think?” Cazaril asked her.
   Her smile sobered. “Tense. But we hope with Iselle drawn out, it will grow less so. Surely dy Jironal will not dare offer violence to the widow and mother-in-law of Roya Ias?”
   “Mm, not as his first move. In desperation, anything becomes possible.”
   “That’s true. Or at least, people stop arguing with you about what’s possible and what’s not.”
   Cazaril considered the young women’s wild night ride that had flipped their tactical situation so abruptly topside-to. “How did you get away?”
   “Well, dy Jironal had apparently expected us all to cower in the castle, intimidated by his show of arms. You can imagine how that sat with the old Provincara. His women spies watched Iselle all the time, but not me. I took Nan and we went about the town, doing little domestic errands for the household, and observing. His men’s defenses all faced outward, prepared to repel would-be rescuers. And no one could keep us from going to the temple, where Lord dy Palliar stayed, to pray for Orico’s health.” Her smile dimpled. “We became very pious, for a time.” The dimple faded. “Then the Provincara got word, I don’t know through what source, that the chancellor had dispatched his younger son with a troop of his House cavalry to secure Iselle and bring her in haste back to Cardegoss, because Orico was dying. Which may be true, for all we know, but all the better reason not to place herself in dy Jironal’s hands. So escape became urgent, and it was done.”
   Palli had drifted over to listen; dy Baocia strolled up to join them.
   Cazaril gave dy Baocia a nod. “Your lady mother wrote me of promises of support from your fellow provincars. Have you gained any more assurances?”
   Dy Baocia rattled off a list of names of men he had written to, or heard from. It was not as long as Cazaril would have liked.
   “Thus words. What of troops?”
   Dy Baocia shrugged. “Two of my neighbors have promised more material support to Iselle, at need. They don’t relish the sight of the chancellor’s personal troops occupying one of my towns any more than I do. The third—well, he’s married to one of dy Jironal’s daughters. He sits tight for the moment, saying as little as possible to anyone.”
   “Understandable. Where is dy Jironal now, does anyone know?”
   “In Cardegoss, we think,” said Palli. “The Daughter’s military order still remains without a holy general. Dy Jironal feared to absent himself for long from Orico’s side lest dy Yarrin get in and persuade Orico to his party. Orico himself is hanging by a thread, dy Yarrin reports secretly to me. Sick, but not, I think, witless; the roya seems to be using his own illness to delay decision, trying to offend no one.”
   “Sounds very like him.” Cazaril fingered his beard and glanced up at dy Baocia. “Speaking of the Temple’s soldiers, how large a force of the Brother’s Order is stationed in Taryoon?”
   “Just a company, about two hundred men,” the provincar answered. “We are not garrisoned heavily like Guarida or other of the provinces bordering the Roknari princedoms.”
   That was two hundred men inside Taryoon’s walls, Cazaril reflected.
   Dy Baocia read his look. “The archdivine will have speech with their commander later tonight. I think the marriage treaty will do much to persuade him that the new Heiress is loyal to, ah, the future of Chalion.”
   “Still, they do have their oaths of obedience,” murmured Palli. “It would be preferable not to strain them to breaking.”
   Cazaril considered riding times and distances. “Word of Iselle’s flight from Valenda will surely have reached Cardegoss by now. News of Bergon’s arrival must follow on its heels. At that point dy Jironal will see the regency he counted upon slipping through his fingers.”
   Dy Baocia smiled in elation. “At that point, it will be over. Events are moving much faster than he—or indeed, anyone—could have anticipated.” The sidelong look he cast Cazaril tinged respect with awe.
   “Better that way,” said Cazaril. “He must not be pricked into making moves he cannot later back away from.” If two sides, both cursed, struck against each other in civil war, it was perfectly possible for both sides to lose. It would be the perfect culmination of the Golden General’s death gift for all of Chalion to collapse in upon itself in such agony. Winning consisted of finessing the struggle so as to avert bloodshed. Although when Bergon moved Iselle out of the shadow, it would presumably leave poor Orico still in it, and dy Jironal sharing his nominal master’s fate… And what of Ista, then? “Bluntly, much depends upon when the roya dies. He could linger, you know.” The curse would surely twist Orico toward whatever fate was most ghastly. This would seem a more reliable guide if there were not so very many ways disasters could play out. Umegat’s menagerie had been averting, Cazaril realized, a deal more evil than just ill health. “Looking ahead, we must consider what sops to offer to Chancellor dy Jironal’s pride—both before Iselle’s ascent to the royacy, and after.”
   “I don’t think he’ll be content with sops, Caz,” Palli objected. “He’s been roya of Chalion in all but name for over a decade.”
   “Then surely he must be getting tired,” sighed Cazaril. “Some plums to his sons would soften him. Family loyalty is his weakness, his blind side.” Or so the curse suggested, which deformed all virtue to an obverse vice. “Ease him out, but show favor to his clan… pull his teeth slowly and gently, and it’s done.” He glanced up at Betriz, listening intently; yes, she could be counted on to report this debate to Iselle, later.
   In the other chamber, Iselle and Bergon rose. She laid her hand on his proffered arm, and they both stole shy glances at their partner; two persons looking more pleased with each other, Cazaril was hard put to imagine. Although when Iselle entered the reception room with her fiancй and glanced around triumphantly at the assembled company, she looked quite as pleased with herself. Bergon’s pride had a slightly more dazzled air, though he spared Cazaril, scrambling up from his seat, a reassuringly determined nod.
   “The Heiress of Chalion,” said Iselle, and paused.
   “And the Heir of Ibra,” Bergon put in.
   “Are pleased to announce that we will take our marriage oaths,” Iselle continued, “before the gods, our noble Ibran guests, and the people of this town…”
   “In the temple of Taryoon at noon upon the day after tomorrow,” Bergon finished.
   The little crowd broke into cheers and congratulations. And, Cazaril had no doubt, calculations of the speed at which a column of enemy troops might ride; to which the answer worked out, Not that fast. United and mutually strengthened, the two young leaders could move at need thereafter in close coordination. Once Iselle was married out from under the curse, time was on their side. Every day would gain them more support. Unstrung by the most profound relief, Cazaril sank back into his chair, grinning with the pain of the anguished cramp in his gut.

Chapter 25

   In a palace frantic with preparations, Cazaril found himself the next day the only man with nothing to do. Iselle had arrived in Taryoon with little more than the clothes she rode in; all of Cazaril’s correspondence and books of her chambers were still in Cardegoss. When he attempted to wait upon her and inquire what duties she desired of him, he found her rooms crammed with mildly hysterical tire-women being directed by her Aunt dy Baocia, all charging in and out with piles of garments in their arms.
   Iselle fought her head out through a swaddling of silks to gasp, “You’ve just ridden over eight hundred miles on my behalf. Go rest, Cazaril.” She held her arm out obediently while a woman tried a sleeve upon it. “No, better—compose two letters for my uncle’s clerk to copy out, one to all the provincars of Chalion, and one to every Temple archdivine, announcing my marriage. Something they can read out to the people. That should be a nice, quiet task. When you have all seventeen—no, sixteen—”
   “Seventeen,” put in her aunt, from the vicinity of her hem. “Your uncle will want one for his chancellery records. Stand straight.”
   “When all are made ready, set them aside for me and Bergon to sign tomorrow after the wedding, and then see that they are sent out.” She nodded firmly, to the annoyance of the tire-woman trying to adjust her neckline.
   Cazaril bowed himself out before he was stuck with a pin, and leaned a moment over the gallery railing.
   The day was exquisitely fair, promising spring. The sky was a pale-washed blue, and mild sunlight flooded the newly paved courtyard, where gardeners were carting in orange trees in full flower in tubs, rolling them out to stand around the now-bubbling fountain. He diverted a passing servant and had a writing table brought out and set in the sun for himself. And a chair with a thick, soft cushion, because while a lot of those eight hundred miles were now a blur in his mind, his backside seemed to remember them all. He leaned back with the warm light falling on his face, and his eyes closed, composing his periods, then bent forward to scribble. Dy Baocia’s clerk carried off the results for copying out in a much fairer hand than Cazaril’s soon enough, and then he just leaned back with his eyes closed, period.
   He didn’t even open them for the approaching footsteps, till a clank on his table surprised him. He looked up to find a servant, directed by Lady Betriz, setting down a tray with tea, a jug of milk, a dish of dried fruit, and bread glazed with nuts and honey. She dismissed the servant and poured the tea herself, and pressed the bread upon him, sitting on the edge of the fountain to watch him eat it.
   “Your face looks very gaunt again. Haven’t you been eating properly?” she inquired severely.
   “I have no idea. What lovely sunshine this is! I hope it holds through tomorrow.”
   “Lady dy Baocia thinks it will, though she said we might have rain again by the Daughter’s Day.”
   The scent of the orange blossoms pooled in the shelter of the court, seeming to mix with the honey in his mouth. He swallowed tea to chase the bread and observed in idle wonder, “In three days’ time it will be exactly a year since I walked into the castle of Valenda. I wanted to be a scullion.”
   Her dimple flashed. “I remember. It was last Daughter’s Day eve that we first met each other, at the Provincara’s table.”
   “Oh, I saw you before that. Riding into the courtyard with Iselle and… and Teidez.” And poor dy Sanda.
   She looked stricken. “You did? Where were you? I didn’t see you.”
   “Sitting on the bench by the wall. You were too busy being scolded by your father for galloping to notice me.”
   “Oh.” She sighed, and trailed her hand through the fountain’s little pool, then shook off the cold drops with a frown. The Daughter of Spring might have breathed out today’s air, but it was still Old Winter’s water. “It seems a hundred years ago, not just one.”
   “To me, it seems an eye blink. Time… outruns me now. Which explains why I wheeze so, no doubt.” He added quietly after a moment, “Has Iselle confided to her uncle about the curse we seek to break tomorrow?”
   “No, of course not.” At his raised brows, she added, “Iselle is Ista’s daughter. She cannot speak of it, lest men say she is mad, too. And use it as an excuse to seize… everything. Dy Jironal thought of it. At Teidez’s interment, he never missed a chance to pass some little comment on Iselle to any lord or provincar in earshot. If she wept, wasn’t it too extravagant; if she laughed, how odd that she should do so at her brother’s funeral; if she spoke, he whispered that she was frenetic; if she fell silent, wasn’t she grown strangely gloomy? And you could just watch men begin to see what he told them they were seeing, whether it was there or not. Toward the end of his visit there, he even said such things in her hearing, to see if he could frighten and enrage her, and then accuse her of becoming an unbalanced virago. And he circulated outright lies, as well. But I and Nan and the Provincara were onto his little game by then, and we warned Iselle, and she kept her temper in his company.”
   “Ah. Excellent girl.”
   She nodded. “But as soon as we heard the chancellor’s men were coming to fetch her back to Cardegoss, Iselle was frantic to escape Valenda. Because once he’d got her close-confined, he could put about any story he pleased of her behavior, and who would there be to deny it? He might get the provincars of Chalion to approve the extension of his regency for the poor mad girl for as long as he pleased, without ever having to raise a sword.” She took a breath. “And so she dares not mention the curse.”
   “I see. She is wise to be wary. Well, the gods willing it will soon be over.”
   “The gods and the Castillar dy Cazaril.”
   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 them. 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 dream?—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.
   No… the shadow followed them.
   Cazaril squeezed his eyes shut and open again. His breath stopped.
   The choking cloud that wrapped Iselle, now wrapped Bergon, too.
   Iselle smiled across at her husband, and Bergon smiled back at her; last night, they had looked excited and tired and a little scared. This morning, they looked like two people in love. With blackness boiling up around them both like the smoke from a burning ship.
   As they approached, Iselle sang him a cheerful, “Good morning, Lord Caz!”
   Bergon grinned, and said, “Will you not join us, sir? We have much to give thanks together for this morning, do we not?”
   Cazaril’s lips drew back on the travesty of a smile. “I… I… a little later. I left something in my room.”
   He heaved himself up and rushed past them up the stairs. He turned and looked again from the gallery as they passed out of the courtyard. Still trailing shadows.
   He slammed the door of his chamber behind himself and stood gasping, almost weeping. Gods. Gods. What have I done?
   I haven’t freed Iselle. I’ve cursed Bergon.

Chapter 26

   Distraught, Cazaril kept to his chamber all morning. In the afternoon a page knocked, with the unwelcome news that the royse and royesse desired him to attend upon them in their rooms. Cazaril considered feigning illness, though he hardly need feign. No, for Iselle would surely bring physicians down upon him, probably in packs—he remembered the last time, with Rojeras, and shuddered. With a boundless reluctance, he straightened his garments, making himself presentable, and walked out around the gallery to the royal suite.
   The sitting room’s high casement windows were open to the cool spring light. Iselle and Bergon, still in festive dress from the noon banquet at the March dy Huesta’s palace, awaited him. They sat around the corner from each other at a table that bore paper, parchment, and new pens, with a third chair pulled invitingly to the other side. Their heads, amber and brown, were bent together in low-voiced conversation. The shadow still boiled slowly around them, viscous as hot tar. At Cazaril’s step, they both looked up at him and smiled. He moistened his lips and bowed, his face stiff.
   Iselle gestured at the papers. “Our next most urgent task is to compose a letter to my brother Orico, to acquaint him of the steps we have taken, and assure him of our most loyal submission. I think we should include extracts of all the articles of our marriage most favorable to Chalion, to help reconcile him to it, don’t you think?”
   Cazaril cleared his throat and swallowed.
   Bergon’s brows drew inward. “Caz, you look as pale as a… um. Are you all right? Please, sit down!”
   Cazaril managed a tiny headshake. Again he was tempted to flee into some malingering lie—or half-truth, now, for he was feeling sick enough. “Nothing is all right,” he whispered. He sank to one knee before the royse. “I have made a vast mistake. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
   Iselle’s wary, startled face blurred in his vision. “Lord Caz…?”
   “Your marriage”—he swallowed again, and forced his numb lips to speak on—“has not lifted the curse from Iselle as I’d hoped. Instead, it has spread it to you both.”
   “What? ” breathed Bergon.
   Tears clogged Cazaril’s voice. “And now I know not what to do…”
   “How do you know this?” Iselle asked urgently.
   “I can see it. I can see it on you both now. If anything, it’s even darker and thicker. More grasping.”
   Bergon’s lips parted in dismay. “Did I… did we do something wrong? Somehow?”
   “No, no! But both Sara and Ista married into the House of Chalion, and into the curse. I thought it was because men and women were different, that it somehow followed the male line of Fonsa’s heirs along with the name.”
   “But I am Fonsa’s heir, too,” said Iselle slowly. “And flesh and blood are more than just names. When two become wed, it doesn’t mean that one disappears and only the other remains. We are joined, not subsumed. Oh, is there nothing we can do? There must be something!”
   “Ista said,” Cazaril began, and stopped. He was not at all sure he wanted to tell these two decisive young people what Ista had said. Iselle might take thought again…
   Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be, Iselle had cried. It was much too late to shelter her now. By the wrath of the gods, she was to be the next royina of Chalion. With the right to rule came the duty to protect—the privilege of receiving protection had to be left behind with childhood’s other toys. Even protection from bitter knowledge. Especially from knowledge.
   Cazaril swallowed to unlock his throat. “Ista said there was another way.”
   He climbed into the chair and sat heavily. In a broken voice, in terms so plain as to be almost brutal, Cazaril repeated the tale Ista had told him of Lord dy Lutez, Roya Ias, and her vision of the goddess. Of the two dark hellish nights in the Zangre’s dungeons with the bound man and the vat of icy water. When he finished, both his listeners were pale and staring.
   “I thought—I feared—I might be the one,” Cazaril said. “Because of the night I tried to barter my life for Dondo’s death. I was terrified that I might be the one. Iselle’s dy Lutez, as Ista named me. But I swear before all the gods, if I thought it would work, I’d have you take me outside right now and drown me in the courtyard fountain. Twice. But I cannot become the sacrifice now. My second death must be my last, for the death demon will fly away with my soul and Dondo’s, and I don’t see how there can be any getting it back into my body then.” He rubbed his wet eyes with the back of his hand.
   Bergon gazed at his new wife as if his eyes could swallow her. He finally said huskily, “What about me?”
   “What?” said Iselle.
   “I undertook to come here to save you from this thing. So, the method’s just got a little harder, that’s all. I’m not afraid of the water. What if you drowned me?”
   Cazaril’s and Iselle’s instant protests tumbled out together; Cazaril gave way with a little wave of his hand. Iselle repeated, “It was tried once. It was tried, and it didn’t work. I’m not about to drown either one of you, thank you very much! No, nor hang you either, nor any other horrid thing you can think of. No!”
   “Besides,” Cazaril put in, “the goddess’s words were, a man must lay down his life three times for the House of Chalion. Not of the House of Chalion.” At least, according to Ista. Had she repeated her vision verbatim? Or did her words embed some treacherous error? Never mind, so long as they deterred Bergon from his horrifying suggestion. “I don’t think you can break the curse from the inside, or it would have been Ias, not dy Lutez, who put himself into the barrel. And, five gods forgive me, Bergon, you are now inside this thing.”
   “It feels wrong anyway,” said Iselle, her eyes narrowing. “Some kind of cheat. What was that thing you told me Saint Umegat said, when you’d asked him what you should do? About daily duties?”
   “He said I should do my daily duties as they came to me.”
   “Well, and so. Surely the gods are not done with us.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “It occurs to me… my mother lay down twice in childbed for the House of Chalion. She never had the chance for a third such trial. That is certainly a duty that the gods give to one.”
   Cazaril considered the havoc that the curse might wreak, intersecting with the hazards of pregnancy and childbirth as it had intersected with the chances of Ias’s and Orico’s battles, and shivered. Barrenness like Sara’s was the least of the potential disasters. “Five gods, Iselle, I think we’d do better to put me into the barrel.”
   “And besides,” said Bergon, “the goddess said a man. She did say a man, didn’t She, Caz?”
   “Uh… that was Lady Ista’s account of the words, yes.”
   “The divines say, when the gods instruct men in their pious duties, they mean women, too,” Iselle growled. “You can’t have it both ways. Anyway, I lived under the curse for sixteen years, unknowing. I survived somehow.”
   But it’s getting worse now. Stronger. Teidez’s death seemed a fair example to Cazaril of its working out—the boy’s special strengths and virtues, few as they had been, all twisted to a dire ill. Iselle and Bergon between them had many strengths and virtues. The scope for the curse’s distortions was immense.
   Iselle and Bergon were gripping hands across the tabletop. Iselle knuckled her eyes with her free hand, pinched the bridge of her nose, and sniffed deeply.
   “Curse or no curse,” she said, “we must make dutiful submission to Orico, and at once. So that dy Jironal cannot declare me to be in revolt. If only I were by Orico, I know I could persuade him of the benefit of this marriage to Chalion!”
   “Orico is very persuadable,” Cazaril admitted dryly. “It’s making him stay persuaded that’s the difficult part.”
   “Yes, and I don’t forget for a moment that dy Jironal is with Orico in Cardegoss. My greatest fear is that the chancellor may, upon hearing this news, somehow persuade Orico to again change the terms of his will.”
   “Attach enough of the provincars of Chalion to your party, Royesse, and they may be willing to help you resist any such late codicils.”
   Iselle frowned deeply. “I wish we might go up to Cardegoss. I should be by Orico, if this proves to be his deathbed. We should be in the capital when events unfold.”
   Cazaril paused, then said, “Difficult. You must not put yourself in dy Jironal’s hands.”
   “I had not planned to go unattended.” Her smile flashed darkly, like the moon on a knife blade. “But we should seize every legal nicety as well as every tactical advantage. It would be well to remind the lords of Chalion that all the chancellor’s legal power flows to him through the roya. Only.”
   Bergon said uneasily, “You know the man better than I do. Do you think dy Jironal will just sit still at this news?”
   “The longer he can be induced to sit, the better. We gain support daily.”
   “Have you heard anything of dy Jironal’s response?” Cazaril asked.
   “Not yet,” said Bergon.
   The time lag ran both ways, alas. “Let me know at once if you do.” Cazaril drew a long breath, flattened out a clean sheet of paper, and picked up a quill. “Now. How do you two wish to style yourselves…?”

* * *

   The problem of how to deliver this politically vital missive was a trifle delicate, Cazaril reflected, crossing the courtyard below the royal chambers with the signed and sealed document in his hands. It would not do to toss it into a courier bag for delivery at the gallop to the Zangre Chancellery. The article needed a delegation of men of rank not only to give it, and Iselle and Bergon, the proper weight, but also to assure that it was delivered to Orico and not dy Jironal. Trustworthy men must read the letter out accurately to the dying roya in his blindness, and give politic answers to any questions Orico might have about his sister’s precipitate nuptials. Lords and divines—some of each, Cazaril decided. Iselle’s uncle was fitted to recommend suitable men who might ride out fast, and tonight. His stride lengthened, as he started in search of a page or servant to tell him dy Baocia’s whereabouts.
   Under the tiled archway into the court, he met Palli and dy Baocia himself, hurrying in. They, too, both still wore their banquet garb.
   “Caz!” Palli hailed him. “Where were you at dinner?”
   “Resting. I… had a bad night.”
   “What, and here I’d have sworn you were the only one of us who went to bed sober.”
   Cazaril let this one pass. “What’s this?”
   Palli held up a sheaf of opened letters. “News from dy Yarrin in Cardegoss, sent in haste by Temple courier. I thought the royse and royesse should know at once. Dy Jironal rode out of the Zangre before midmorning yesterday, none knows where.”
   “Did he take troops—no, tell it once. Come on.” Cazaril turned on his heel and led the way back up the gallery stairs to the royal chambers. One of Iselle’s servants admitted them, and went to bring the young couple out to the sitting room again. While they were waiting Cazaril showed them the letter to Orico and explained its contents. The provincar nodded judiciously, and named some likely lords for the task of carrying it to Cardegoss.
   Iselle and Bergon entered, Iselle still patting her braided hair into place, and the three men bowed to them. Royse Bergon, at once alert to the papers in Palli’s hand, bade them be seated around the table.
   Palli repeated his news of dy Jironal. “The chancellor took only a light force of his household cavalry. It seemed to dy Yarrin that he meant to ride either a short way, or very fast.”
   “What news of my brother Orico?” asked Iselle.
   “Well, here…” Palli passed the letter to her for examination. “With dy Jironal out of the way, dy Yarrin tried at once to get in to see the roya, but Royina Sara said he was asleep, and refused to disturb his rest for any supplication. Since she had undertaken to smuggle in dy Yarrin before despite dy Jironal, he fears the roya may have taken a turn for the worse.”
   “What’s the other letter?” asked Bergon.
   “Old news, but interesting all the same,” said Palli. “Cazaril, what in the world is the old archdivine saying about you? The commander of the Taryoon troop of the Order of the Son came to me, all a-tremble—he seems to think you’re god-touched and dares not approach you. He wanted to talk to a man who bore Temple oaths like himself. He’d received a copy of an order that had gone out from the Chancellery to all the military posts of the Order of the Son in western Chalion—for your arrest, if it please you, for treason. You are slandered—”
   “Again?” murmured Cazaril, taking the letter.
   “And accused of sneaking into Ibra to sell Chalion to the Fox. Which, since all the world now knows the real case, falls a trifle flat.”
   Cazaril scanned down the order. “I see. This was his net to catch me if his assassins failed at the border. He set it out a bit too late, I’m afraid. As you say, old news.”
   “Yes, but it has a sequel. This obedient fool of a troop commander sent a letter in turn to dy Jironal, admitting he’d seen you but excusing himself from arresting you. He protested that the arrest order was clearly a misapprehension. That you had acted under the Royesse Iselle’s orders, and had done great good for Chalion, and no treason; that the marriage was immensely popular with the people of Taryoon. And that everyone thinks the royesse is extremely beautiful, too. That the new Heiress was seen by everyone as wise and good, and a great relief and hope after the disasters of Orico’s reign.”
   Dy Baocia snorted. “Which, as they are concomitantly the disasters of dy Jironal’s reign, works out to an unintended insult. Or was it unintended?”
   “I rather think so. The man is, um, plain-minded and plainspoken. He says he meant it to help persuade dy Jironal to turn to the royesse’s support.”
   “It’s more likely to effect the opposite,” said Cazaril slowly. “It would persuade dy Jironal that his own support is failing rapidly and that he had better take action at once to shore it up. When would dy Jironal have received this sage advice from his subordinate?”
   Palli’s lips twisted. “Early yesterday morning.”
   “Well… there’s nothing in it that he would not have received from other sources by then, I suppose.” Cazaril passed the order over to Bergon, waiting with keen interest.
   “So, dy Jironal’s out of Cardegoss,” said Iselle thoughtfully.
   “Yes, but gone where?” asked Palli.
   Dy Baocia pulled his lip. “If he left with so few men, it has to be to somewhere that his forces are mustered. Somewhere within striking distance of Taryoon. That means either to his son-in-law the provincar of Thistan, to our east, or to Valenda, to our northwest.”
   “Thistan is actually closer to us,” said Cazaril.
   “But in Valenda, he holds my mother and sister hostage,” said dy Baocia grimly.
   “No more now than before,” said Iselle, her voice stiff with suppressed worry. “They bade me go, Uncle…”
   Bergon was listening with close attention. The Ibran royse had grown up with civil war, Cazaril was reminded; he might be disturbed, but he showed no signs of panic.
   “I think we should ride straight for Cardegoss while dy Jironal is out of it, and take possession,” said Iselle.
   “If we are to mount such a foray,” her uncle demurred, “we should take Valenda first, free our family, and secure our base. But if dy Jironal is mustering men to attack Taryoon, I do not wish to strip it of defenses.”
   Iselle gestured urgently. “But if Bergon and I are out of Taryoon, dy Jironal will have no reason to attack it. Nor Valenda either. It’s me he wants—must have.”
   “The vision of dy Jironal ambushing your column on the road, where you are out in the open and vulnerable, doesn’t appeal to me much either,” said Cazaril.
   “How many men could you spare to escort us to Cardegoss, Uncle?” Iselle asked. “Mounted. The foot soldiers to follow at their best speed. And how soon could they be mustered?”
   “I could have five hundred of horse by tomorrow night, and a thousand of foot the day after,” dy Baocia admitted rather reluctantly. “My two good neighbors could send as many, but not as soon.”
   Dy Baocia could pull out double that number from his hat, Cazaril thought, if he weren’t hedging. Too great a care could be as fatal as too great a carelessness when the moment came to hazard all.
   Iselle folded her hands in her lap and frowned fiercely. “Then have them make ready. We will keep the predawn vigil of prayers for the Daughter’s Day and attend the procession as we had planned. Uncle, Lord dy Palliar, if it please you send out what men you can find to ride in all directions for news of dy Jironal’s movements. And then we’ll see what new information we have by tomorrow night, and take a final decision then.”
   The two men bowed, and hurried out; Iselle bade Cazaril stay a moment.
   “I did not wish to argue with my uncle,” she said to him in a tone of doubt, “but I think Valenda is a distraction. What do you think, Cazaril?”
   “From the point of view of the roya and royina of Chalion-Ibra… it does not command a position of geographic importance. Whoever may hold it.”
   “Then let it be a sink for dy Jironal’s forces instead of our own. But I suspect my uncle will be difficult about it.”
   Bergon cleared his throat. “The road to Valenda and the road to Cardegoss run together for the first stage. We could put it about that we were making for Valenda, but then strike for Cardegoss instead at the fork.”
   “Put it about to who?”

   “Everyone. Pretty nearly. Then whatever spies dy Jironal has among us will send him haring off in the wrong direction.”
   Yes, actually, this was the son of the Fox of Ibra… Cazaril’s brows twitched up in approval.
   Iselle thought it over, then frowned. “It works only if my uncle’s men will follow us.”
   “If we lead, they’ll have no choice but to follow us, I think.”
   “My hope is to avoid a war, not start one,” said Iselle.
   “Then not marching up to a town full of the chancellor’s forces makes sense, don’t you think?” said Bergon.
   Iselle smiled mistily, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek; he touched the spot in mild wonder. “We shall both take thought until tomorrow,” she announced. “Cazaril, start that letter toward my brother Orico all the same, as if we meant to sit tight here in Taryoon. Perchance we shall overtake it on the road and deliver it ourselves.”


* * *

   With dy Baocia’s and the archdivine’s guidance, Cazaril found no lack of eager volunteers in town or temple to take the royesse’s letter to Cardegoss. Men seemed to be flocking to the royal couple’s side. Those who’d missed the wedding itself were now pouring into town for the Daughter’s Day celebration tomorrow. All that youth and beauty acted as a powerful talisman upon men’s hearts; the Lady of Spring’s season of renewal was being strongly identified with Iselle’s impending reign. The trick would be to get the governance of Chalion on a more even footing while the mood held, so that it might still stand strong in less happy hours. Surely no witness here in Taryoon would ever quite forget this time of hope; it would still linger in their eyes when they looked at an older Iselle and Bergon.
   Thus Cazaril oversaw a party of a dozen grave men climb into their saddles at a time of night when most men were climbing into their beds. He gave the official documents into the hands of a senior divine, a sober lord who had risen high in the Order of the Father. The March dy Sould rode with them, as Bergon’s witness and spokesman. The earnest ambassadors clattered out of the temple plaza, and Palli walked Cazaril back to dy Baocia’s palace and wished him good night.
   The little distracting flurry of action fading in his mind, Cazaril’s steps grew heavy again as he climbed the stairs of his courtyard gallery. The weight of the curse was a secret burden dragging down all bright hopes. A younger Orico had started out his reign just as eager and willing as Iselle, a dozen years ago. As if he’d believed then that if only he applied enough effort, goodwill, steady virtue, he could overcome the black blight. But it had all gone wrong…
   There were worse fates than becoming Iselle’s dy Lutez, Cazaril reflected. He might become Iselle’s dy Jironal. How much frustration, how much corrosion could a loyal man endure before going mad, watching such a long slow drain of youth and hope into age and despair? And yet, whatever Orico had been, he had held on long enough for the next generation to gain its chance. Like some doomed little hero holding back a dike of woe, and drowning while the others escaped the tide.
   Cazaril readied himself for bed, and his nightly attack, but Dondo was surprisingly quiescent. Exhausted? Recouping his forces? Waiting… Despite that malevolent presence and promise, Cazaril slept at last.


* * *

   A servant woke him an hour before dawn and led him by candlelight down into the courtyard, where the royal couple’s inner household was to have its holy vigil. The air was chill and foggy, but a few faint stars directly overhead promised a fair dawning soon. Ibran-style prayer mats had been arranged around the central fountain, and each person took their station upon them, on knees or prone as they were so moved; Iselle and Bergon knelt side by side. Lady Betriz placed herself between the royesse and Cazaril. Dy Tagille and dy Cembuer, yawning, hurried in to join them on the outer ring of rugs, with some half a dozen other persons of lesser rank. A divine from the temple led a short prayer aloud, then invited all to meditate upon the blessings of the turning season. All over Taryoon, winter’s fires were being extinguished. When all was in readiness, the last candles were blown out. A profound darkness and silence descended.
   Quietly, Cazaril laid himself prone upon his rug, arms outstretched. He told over the couple of spring prayers he knew three times each, but then gave up trying to fill his mind with rote words to keep his thoughts out. If he let his thoughts run their course, perhaps some silence would follow. And in it he might hear… what?
   He changed the subject, Betriz had charged, when the answers were too difficult for him. He’d tried to do so to the gods. He hadn’t fooled them either, apparently.
   Ista had been given her chance to lift the curse, and failed; and had failed, it seemed, for her generation. If he failed, he suspected he would not be allowed to go around to try again. So would Iselle or Bergon or both get to be the new Orico, holding back the tide until they foundered, to create the next chance?
   They will be vastly unlucky in their children. He knew it, suddenly, with a cold clarity. The whole of their scheme for peace and order rode upon the hope of a strong, bright heir to follow them both. They would pour themselves until empty into children miscarried, dead, mad, exiled, betrayed…
   I’d storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.
   He knew where it was. It was on the other side of every living person, every living creature, as close as the other side of a coin, the other side of a door. Every soul was a potential portal to the gods. I wonder what would happen if we all opened up at once? Would it flood the world with miracle, drain heaven? He had a sudden vision of saints as the gods’ irrigation system, like the one around Zagosur; a rational and careful opening and closing of sluice gates to deliver each little soul-farm its just portion of benison. Except that this felt more like floodwaters backed up behind a cracking dam.
   Ghosts were exiles upon the wrong border, people turned inside out. Why didn’t it work the other way around? What would it be like to be an anti-ghost of flesh let loose in a world of spirit? Would one be frustratingly invisible to most spirits, impotent there, as ghosts were invisible to most men?
   And if I can see ghosts sundered from their bodies, why I can’t see them when they’re still in their bodies? Had he ever tried? How many people were ranged around him right now? He closed his eyes and tried to see them in the dark with his inner sight. His senses were still confused by matter; somewhere in the outer rank of prayer rugs, someone started to snore, and was nudged awake with a startled grunt by a snickering companion. If only it worked that way, it would be like seeing through a window into heaven.
   If the gods saw people’s souls but not their bodies, in mirror to the way people saw bodies but not souls, it might explain why the gods were so careless of such things as appearance, or other bodily functions. Such as pain? Was pain an illusion, from the gods’ point of view? Perhaps heaven was not a place, but merely an angle of view, a vantage, a perspective.
   And at the moment of death, we slide through altogether. Losing our anchor in matter, gaining… what? Death ripped a hole between the worlds.
   And if one death ripped a little hole in the world, quickly healed, what would it take to rip a bigger hole? Not a mere postern gate to slip out of, but a wide breach, mined and sapped, one that holy armies might pour in through?
   If a god died, what kind of hole would it rip between earth and heaven? What was the Golden General’s blessing-curse anyway, this exiled thing from the other side? What kind of portal had the Roknari genius opened for himself, what kind of channel had he been…?
   Cazaril’s swollen belly cramped, and he rolled a little sideways to give it ease. I am a most peculiar locus at present. Two exiles from the world of spirit were trapped inside his flesh. The demon, which did not belong here at all, and Dondo, who should have left but was anchored by his unrelinquished sins. Dondo did not desire the gods. Dondo was a clot of self-will, a leaden plug, digging into his body with claws like grappling hooks. If not for Dondo, he could run away.
   Could I?
   He imagined it… suppose this lethal anchor were suddenly and—ha—miraculously removed. He could run away… but then he’d never know how it might have worked out. That Cazaril. If only he’d hung on another day, another mile, he might have saved the world. But he quit just an hour too soon… Now, there was a damnation to make the sundered ghosts seem a faint quaint amusement. A lifetime—an eternity?—of second-guessing himself.
   But the only way ever to know for certain was to ride it out all the way to his destruction.
   Five gods, I am surely mad. I believe I would limp all the way to the Bastard’s hell for that frightful curiosity’s sake.
   Around him, he could hear the others breathing, the occasional little rustle of fabric. The fountain burbled gently. The sounds comforted him. He felt very alone, but at least it was in good company.
   Welcome to sainthood, Cazaril. By the gods’ blessings, you get to host miracles! The catch is, you don’t get to choose what they are…
   Betriz had it exactly backward. It wasn’t a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you. Could an old siege-master learn to surrender, to open his gates?
   Into your hands, O lords of light, I commend my soul. Do what you must to mend the world. I am at your service.
   The sky was brightening, turning from Father Winter’s gray to the Daughter’s own fine blue. In the shadowed court, Cazaril could see the shapes of his companions begin to shade and fill with the light’s gift of color. The scent of the orange blossoms hung heavily in the dawn damp, and more faintly, the perfume of Betriz’s hair. Cazaril pushed back up onto his knees, stiff and cold.
   From somewhere in the palace, a man’s bellow split the air, and was abruptly cut off. A woman shrieked.

  Chapter 27

   Cazaril put a hand to the pavement, shoving himself to his feet, and pushed back his vest-cloak from his sword hilt. All around him, the others were rising and looking about in alarm.
   “Dy Tagille.” Bergon motioned to his Ibran companion. “Go see.”
   Dy Tagille nodded and departed at a run.
   Dy Cembuer, his right arm still in a sling, clenched and unclenched his left hand, awkwardly freed his sword hilt, and began striding after him. “We should bar the gate.”
   Cazaril glanced around the courtyard, and at the tiled archway. Its decorative wrought-iron gate swung wide after dy Tagille. Was there another entrance? “Royesse, Royse, Betriz, you must not get trapped in here.” He ran after dy Cembuer, his heart already pounding. If he could get them out before the—
   A frantic page pelted through as dy Cembuer reached the archway. “My lords, help, armed men have broken into the palace!” He looked wildly over his shoulder.
   And here they are. Two men, swords out, ran in the page’s track. Dy Cembuer, trying to push the gate shut with his sword in his left hand, barely ducked the first blow. Then Cazaril was upon them. His first swing was wild, and his target parried it with a clang that echoed around the court.
   “Get out!” he screamed over his shoulder. “Over the roofs if you have to!” Could Iselle climb in her court dress? He could not look to see if he was obeyed, for his opponent recovered and bore in hard. The bravos, soldiers, whatever they were, wore ordinary street clothes, no identifying colors or badges—the better to infiltrate the city in little groups, mixed in with the festival crowd, no doubt.
   Dy Cembuer slashed his man. A heavy return blow landed on his broken arm, and he whitened and fell back with a muffled cry. Another soldier appeared around the corner and ran toward the archway, wearing the Baocian colors of green and black, and for a moment Cazaril’s heart lifted in hope. Until he recognized him as Teidez’s suborned guard captain—growing ever more expert in betrayal, apparently.
   The Baocian captain’s lips drew back as he saw Cazaril, and he gripped his sword grimly, moving in beside his comrade. Cazaril had neither breathing space nor a hand free to try to close the gate on them again, and besides, dy Cembuer’s opponent had fallen in the path. Cazaril did not dare fall back. This narrow choke point forced them to come at him one at a time, the best odds he was likely to get today. His hand was growing numb from the ringing blows transmitted up his blade into his hilt, and his gut was cramping. But his every gasping breath bought another stride of running time for Bergon and Iselle and Betriz. One step, two steps, five steps… Where was dy Tagille? Nine steps, eleven, fifteen… How many men were coming up after these? His blade hacked a piece out of his first attacker’s jaw, and the man reeled back with a bloody cry, but it only left the guard captain with a better angle for attack. The man still wore Dondo’s green ring. It flashed as his sword darted and parried. Forty steps. Fifty…
   Cazaril fought in an exaltation of terror, so hard-pressed to defend himself that the supernatural dangers of a successful thrust of his own, of the death demon tearing his soul out of his body along with his dying victim’s, scarcely seemed to apply. Cazaril’s world narrowed; he no longer sought to win the day, or this fight, or his life, but merely another stride. Each stride a little victory. Sixty… something… he was losing count. Begin again. One. Two. Three…
   I am probably going to die now. Twice was no charm. He howled inside with the waste of it, mad with regret that he could not die enough. His arm was shaking with fatigue. This gate wanted a swordsman, not a secretary, but the royesse’s private holy vigil had included only the few nobles. Was no one coming up behind him in support? Surely even the old servants could grab something and throw it… Twenty-two…
   Could he fall back across the courtyard to the stairs? Was the royal party gone up the stairs yet? He threw a frantic glance backward, a mistake, for he lost his rhythm; with a scree of metal, the captain’s sword snaked his from his tingling grip. His blade clattered across the stone, spinning. The Baocian bore Cazaril violently backward through the archway and knocked him to the pavement. Half a dozen attackers surged through the gate after the captain and spread out across the courtyard; a couple of them, prudent and experienced, kicked him in passing to keep him down. He still didn’t know who they were, but he had no doubt whose they were.
   Coughing, he rolled on his side in time to see dy Jironal, swearing, stride through the gate in the wake of another half dozen men. Dy Cembuer was still down, bent in on himself, teeth clenched in agony. Were Iselle and Bergon safe away? Down a servants’ stair, over the roof tiles? Pray the gods they had not panicked and barricaded themselves in their chambers… Dy Jironal headed toward the stairs to the gallery, where a little knot of his men waited to make a concerted rush.
   “Martou!” Cazaril bellowed, wrenching over and up onto his knees.
   Dy Jironal swung round as though spun on the end of a rope. “You!” At his motion, the Baocian guard captain and another soldier grasped Cazaril by the arms, bending them up behind him, and dragged him to his feet.
   “You are too late!” Cazaril called. “She’s wed and bedded, and there’s no way you can undo it now. Chalion owns Ibra at the fairest price ever paid, and all the country celebrates its good fortune. She is the Child of Spring and the delight of the gods. You can’t win against her. Give over! Save your life, and the lives of your men.”
   “Wed?” snarled dy Jironal. “Widowed, if needs be. She is a mad traitor and the whore of Ibra and accursed, and I’ll not have it!” He whirled again toward the stairs.
   “You’re the whore, Martou! You sold Gotorget for Roknari money that I refused, and you sold me to the galleys to stop my mouth!” Cazaril glared around frantically at the hesitating troop. Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven… “This liar sells his own men. Follow him, and you risk betrayal the first moment he smells profit!”
   Dy Jironal turned again, drawing his sword. “I’ll stop your mouth, you miserable fool! Hold him up.”
   Wait, no—
   The two men holding Cazaril jerked a little apart, their eyes widening, as dy Jironal began to stride forward, twisting for a mighty two-handed swing. “My lord, it’s murder,” faltered the man holding Cazaril’s left arm. The beheading arc was blocked by Cazaril’s captors, and dy Jironal changed in mid-career to a violent low thrust, lunging forward with all the weight of his fury behind his arm.
   The steel pierced silk brocade and skin and muscle and drove through Cazaril’s gut, and Cazaril was nearly jerked off his feet with the force of it.
   Sound ceased. The sword was sliding through him as slowly as a pearl dropped in honey, and as painlessly. Dy Jironal’s red face was frozen in a rictus of rage. On either side of Cazaril, his captors bent and leaned away, mouths creeping open on startled cries that never emerged.
   With a yowl of triumph that only Cazaril heard, the death demon coursed up the sword blade, leaving it red-hot in its wake, and into dy Jironal’s hand. With a scream of anguish, a black syrup that was Dondo poured after. Crackling blue-white sparks grew around dy Jironal’s sword arm like ivy twining, and then spiraled around his whole body. Slowly, dy Jironal’s head tilted back, and white fire came from his mouth as his soul was uprooted from him. His hair stood on end, and his eyes widened and boiled white. The driven sword still moved with his falling weight, and Cazaril’s flesh sizzled around it. White and black and red whirled together, braided round each other, and flowed away in no direction. Cazaril’s perception was drawn into the twisting cyclone’s wake, up out of his body like a rising column of smoke. Three deaths and a demon all bound together. They flowed into a blue Presence…
   Cazaril’s mind exploded.
   He opened outward, and outward, and outward still, till all the world lay below him as if seen from a high mountain. But not the realm of matter. This was a landscape of soul-stuff; colors he could not name, of a shattering brilliance, bore him up upon a glorious turbulence. He could hear all the minds of the world whispering, a sighing like wind in a forest—if one could but distinguish, simultaneously and separately, the song of each leaf. And all the world’s cries of pain and woe. And shame and joy. And hope and despair and aspiration… A thousand thousand moments from a thousand thousand lives poured through his distending spirit.
   From the surface below him, little bubbles of soul-color were boiling up one by one and floating into a turning dance, hundreds, thousands, like great raindrops falling upward… It is the dying, pouring in through the rents of the worlds into this place. Souls gestated by matter in the world, dying into this strange new birth. Too much, too much, too much… His mind could not hold it all, and the visions burst from him like water falling through his fingers.
   He’d once thought of the Lady of Spring as a sort of pleasant, gentle young woman, in his vague and youthful conceptualizations. The divines and Ordol had honed it scarcely further than to a mental picture of a nice immortal lady. This overwhelming Mind listened to every cry or song in the world at once. She watched the souls spiral up in all their terrible complex beauty with the delight of a gardener inhaling the scent of Her flowers. And now this Mind turned Her attention fully upon Cazaril.
   Cazaril melted, and was cupped in Her hands. He thought She drank him, siphoning him out of the violent concatenation of the dy Jironal brothers and the demon, who shot away elsewhere. He was blown from Her lips again, back down in a tightening spiral through the great slash in the world that was his death, and once again into his body. Dy Jironal’s sword blade was just emerging from his back. Blood bloomed around the metal point like a rose.
   And now to work, the Lady whispered. Open to me, sweet Cazaril.
   Can I watch? he asked tremulously.
   Whatever you can bear, is permitted.
   He sank back in a languid ease, as the goddess flowed through him into the world. His lips curved up in a smile, or started to; his fleshly body was as sluggish as those of the men around him in the courtyard. He seemed to be sinking to his knees. Dy Jironal’s corpse had not yet finished falling to the pavement, although his dead hand had spasmed from his sword hilt. Dy Cembuer was lifting himself upon his good arm, his mouth opening upon a cry that was going to eventually become, Cazaril! Some men were throwing themselves prone. Some were starting to run.
   The goddess drew the curse of Chalion like thick black wool into Her hands. Lifting it from Iselle and Bergon, somewhere in the streets of Taryoon. From Ista in Valenda. From Sara in Cardegoss. From all the land of Chalion, mountain to mountain, river to plain. Cazaril could not sense Orico in the dark fog. The Lady spun it out again through Cazaril. As it twisted through him into the other realm, its darkness fell away, and then he wasn’t sure if it was a thread or a stream of bright clean water, or wine, or something even more wonderful.
   Another Presence, solemn and gray, waited there, and took it up. And took it in. And sighed in something like relief, or completion, or balance. I think it was the blood of a god. Spilled, soiled, drawn up again, cleaned, and returned at last…
   I don’t understand. Was Ista mistaken? Did I miscount my deaths?
   The goddess laughed. Think it through…
   Then the vast blue Presence poured out of the world through him like a river thundering over a waterfall. The beauty of a triumphal music he knew he would never quite remember, till he came to Her realm again, cracked his heart. The great rent drew closed. Healed. Sealed.
   And, abruptly as that, it all was gone.


* * *

   The crack of the stone pavement hitting his knees was his first returning sensation. Desperately, he held himself upright, sitting on his heels, so as not to wrench the sword blade around in his flesh. The hilt and a handspan of bright blade hung below his downward-turning gaze, driven at a crooked upward angle into his stomach just below and to the left of his navel. The point seemed to come out somewhere to the right of his spine, and higher. Now came the pain. As he drew his first shuddering breath, the weapon bobbed a trifle. The stink of cauterized flesh assailed his nostrils, mixed with a celestial perfume like spring flowers. He trembled with shock and cold. He tried to hold very still.
   He had a distressing urge to giggle. That would hurt. More…
   Not all the scorched-meat smell was from him. Dy Jironal lay before him. Cazaril had seen corpses burned from the outside in—never before from the inside out. The chancellor’s hair and clothes smoked a little, but then went out without catching to flame.
   Cazaril’s attention was arrested by a pebble that lay on the pavement near his knee. It was so dense. So persistent. The gods could not lift so much as a feather, but he, a mere human, might pick up this ancient unchanging object and place it wherever he wished, even into his pocket. He wondered why he had never appreciated the stubborn fidelity of matter. A dried leaf lay nearby, even more stunning in its complexity. Matter invented so many forms, and then went on to generate beauty beyond itself, minds and souls rising up out of it like melody from an instrument… matter was an amazement to the gods. Matter remembered itself so very clearly. He could not think why he had failed to notice it before. His own shaking hand was a miracle, as was the fine metal sword in his belly, and the orange trees in the tubs—one was tipped over now, wonderfully fractured and spilling—and the tubs, and the birdsong starting in the morning, and the water—water! Five gods, water!—in the fountain, and the morning light filtering into the sky…
   “Lord Cazaril?” came a faint voice from his elbow.