Lois Bujold - The Curse of Chalion

Other men arrived in the courtyard. Babble and noise and cries from the wounded washed between the walls, and tales repeated over and over in rising voices. Cazaril ignored it all, taken up with his pebble again. He wondered where it had come from, how it had arrived there. What it had been before it was a pebble. A rock? A mountain? Where? For how many years? It filled his mind. And if a pebble could fill his mind, what might a mountain do? The gods held mountains in their minds, and all else besides, all at once. Everything, with the same attention he gave to one thing. He had seen that, through the Lady's eyes. If it had endured for longer than that infinitesimal blink, he thought his soul would have burst. As it was he felt strangely stretched. Had that glimpse been a gift, or just a careless chance?

"Cazaril?"

A trembling voice, the voice he had been waiting for. He looked up. If the pebble was amazing, Betriz's face was astounding. The structure of her nose alone could have held him entranced for hours. He abandoned the pebble at once for this better entertainment. But water welled up, shimmering, in her brown eyes, and her face was drained of color. That wasn't right. Worst of all, her dimples had gone into hiding.

" There you are," he said happily. His voice was a muzzy croak. "Kiss me now."

She gulped, knelt, shuffled up to him on her knees, and stretched her neck. Her lips were warm. The perfume of her mouth was nothing at all like a goddess's, but like a human woman's, and very good withal. His lips were cold, and he pressed them to hers as much to borrow her heat and youth as anything. So. He'd been swimming in miracle every day of his life, and hadn't even known it.

He eased his head back. "All right." He did not add, That's enough , because it wasn't. "You can draw the sword out now."

Men moved around him, mostly worried-looking strangers. Betriz rubbed her face, undid the frogs of his tunic, and stood and hovered. Someone gripped his shoulders. A page proffered a folded pad to clap to his wound, and someone else held lengths of bandages ready to wrap his torso.

Cazaril squinted in uncertainty. Betriz was here: therefore, Iselle must be, must be... "Iselle? Bergon?"

"I'm here, Lord Caz." Iselle's voice came off to his side.

She moved around in front of him, staring at him in extreme dismay. She had shed her heavily embroidered outer robes in her flight, and still seemed a trifle breathless. She had also shed the black cloak of the curse... had she not? Yes, he decided. His inner vision was darkening, but he did not mistake this.

"Bergon is with my uncle," she continued, "helping to clear dy Jironal's remaining men from the area." Her voice was firm in its disregard of the tears running down her face.

"The black shadow is lifted," he told her, "from you and Bergon. From everyone."

" How ?"

"I'll tell you all about it, if I live."

" Caz aril!"

He grinned briefly at the familiar, exasperated cadences around his name.

"You live, then!" Her voice wavered. "I—I command you!"

Dy Tagille knelt in front of Cazaril.

Cazaril gave him a short nod. "Draw it."

"Very straight and smoothly, Lord dy Tagille," Iselle instructed tensely, "so as not to cut him any worse."

"Aye, my lady." Dy Tagille licked his lips in apprehension and grasped the sword's hilt.

"Carefully," gasped Cazaril, "but not quite so slowly, please ..."

The blade left him; a warm gush of liquid spurted from the mouth of his wound after it. Cazaril had hoped to pass out, but he only swayed as pads were clapped to him and held hard fore and aft. He stared down expecting to see his lap awash in blood, but no flood of red met his sight; it was a clear liquid, merely tinged with pink. Sword must have lanced my tumor . Which was not , it appeared, and the Bastard fry Rojeras for inflicting that nightmare upon him, stuffed with some grotesque demon fetus after all. He tried not to think, At least not anymore. A murmur of astonishment passed among the ring of watchers as the scent of celestial flowers from this exudation filled the air.

He let himself fall, boneless and unresisting, into his eager helpers' arms. He did manage to surreptitiously scoop up his pebble before the willing hands bore him off up the stairs to his bedchamber. They were excited and frightened, but he was growing delightfully relaxed. It seemed he was to be fussed over, lovely. When Betriz held his hand, as he was eased into his bed, he gripped hers and did not let go.

A tapping and low voices at his chamber door drew Cazaril from his doze. The room was dim. A single candle flame pushing back a deep dark told him night was fallen. He heard the physician, who had been sitting with him, murmuring, "He is sleeping, Roy—Royina..."

"No, I'm not," Cazaril called eagerly. "Come in." He tensed his arms to push himself upright, then thought better of it. He added, "Make more light. A deal more light. I want to see you."

A great party of persons shuffled into his chamber, attempting to make themselves quiet and gentle, like a parade gone suddenly shy. Iselle and Bergon, with Betriz and Palli attendant upon them; the archdivine of Taryoon, with the little judge of the Father staring around in his wake. They quite filled the room. Cazaril smiled up amiably at them from his horizontal paradise of clean linens and stillness as candle was held to candle and the flames multiplied.

Bergon looked down at him in apprehension and whispered hoarsely to the physician, "How is he?"

"He passed a deal of blood in his water earlier, but less tonight. He has no fever yet. I daren't let him have more than a few sips of tea, till we know how his gut wound progresses. I don't know how much pain he bears."

Cazaril decided he preferred to speak for himself. "I hurt, no doubt of that." He made another feeble attempt to roll up, and winced. "I would sit up a little. I cannot talk looking up all your noses like this." Palli and Bergon rushed to help gently raise him, plumping pillows behind him.

"Thank you," said Iselle to the physician, who bowed and, taking the royal hint, stepped out of the way.

Cazaril eased back with a sigh, and said, "What has transpired? Is Taryoon under attack? And don't talk in those funereal whispers, either."

Iselle smiled from the foot of his bed. "Much has happened," she told him, her voice reverting to its normal firm timbre. "Dy Jironal had men advancing as fast as they could march from both his son-in-law in Thistan and from Valenda, to follow up in support of his spies and abductors got in at the festival. Late last night the column coming down the road from Valenda met the delegation carrying our letter to Orico in Cardegoss, and captured them."

"Alive, yes?" said Cazaril in alarm.

"There was some scuffle, but none killed, thank the gods. Much debate followed in their camp."

Well, he had sent the most sensible, persuasive men of weight and worth that Taryoon could muster for that embassy.

"Later in the afternoon, we sent out parties of parley. We included some of dy Jironal's men who had witnessed the fight in the courtyard, and... and whatever that miraculous blue fire was that killed him, to explain and to testify. They cried and gibbered a lot, but they were very convincing. Cazaril, what really —oh, and they say Orico is dead."

Cazaril sighed. I knew that. "When?"

The archdivine of Taryoon replied, "There's some confusion about that. A Temple courier rode through to us this afternoon with the news. She bore me a letter from Archdivine Mendenal in Cardegoss saying it was the night after the royesse's—the royina's wedding. But dy Jironal's men all say he told them Orico had died the night before it, and so he was now rightful regent of Chalion. I suppose he was lying. I'm not sure it matters, now."