Lois Bujold - The Curse of Chalion

But it might have mattered, had events taken a different path... Cazaril frowned in curious speculation.

"In any case," put in Bergon, "between the news of dy Jironal's startling taking-off, and the failure and capture of their infiltrators, and the realization that they marched not against a rebellious Heiress, but their rightful royina, the columns have broken up. The men are returning to their homes. I'm just back from overseeing that." Indeed, he was mud-splashed, bright-eyed with the exuberance of success—and relief.

"Do you think the truce will hold?" asked Cazaril. "Dy Jironal held the strings of a very considerable network of power and relations, all of whom still have their interests at risk."

Palli grunted, and shook his head. "They have not the backing of forces from the Order of the Son, now it's headless—worse, they've the near certainty that control of the order will pass out of their faction now. I think the Jironal clan will learn caution."

"The provincar of Thistan has already sent us a letter of submission," put in Iselle, "just arrived. It looks to have been hastily penned. We plan to wait one more day to be sure the roads are clear, and to give thanks to the gods in the temple of Taryoon. Then Bergon and I will ride for Cardegoss with a contingent of my uncle's cavalry, for Orico's funeral and my coronation." Her mouth turned down. "I fear we will have to leave you here for a time, Lord Caz."

He glanced at Betriz, watching him, her eyes dark with concern. Where Iselle rode, Betriz, her first courtier, must needs follow.

Iselle went on, "Don't speak if it pains you too much, but Cazaril... what happened in the courtyard? Did the Daughter truly strike dy Jironal dead with a bolt of lightning?"

"His body looked it, I must say," said Bergon. "All cooked . I've never seen anything like it."

"That is a good story," said Cazaril slowly, "and will do for most men. You here should know the truth, but... I think this truth should go no further, eh?"

Iselle quietly bade the physician excuse himself. She glanced curiously at the little judge. "And this gentleman, Cazaril?"

"The Honorable Paginine is... is in the way of being a colleague of mine. He should stay, and the archdivine as well."

Cazaril found his audience ranged around his bed, staring at him rather breathlessly. Neither Paginine nor the archdivine, nor Palli, knew the preamble about Dondo and the death demon, Cazaril realized, and so he found himself compelled to revert to that beginning, though in as few words as he could make come out sensibly. At least he hoped it sounded coherent, and not like the ravings of a madman.

"Archdivine Mendenal in Cardegoss knows all this tale," he assured the shocked-looking pair from Taryoon. Palli's mouth was twisted in something between astonishment and indignation; Cazaril evaded his eye a trifle guiltily. "But when dy Jironal bade his men hold me unarmed, and ran me through—when he murdered me, the death demon bore us all off in an unbalanced confusion of killers and victims. That is, the demon bore the pair of them, but somehow my soul was attached, and followed... what I saw then... the goddess..." his voice faltered. "I don't know how to open my mouth and push out the universe in words. It won't fit. If I had all the words in all the languages in the world that ever were or will be, and spoke till the end of time, it still couldn't..." He was shivering, suddenly, his eyes blurred with tears.

"But you weren't really dead, were you?" said Palli uneasily.

"Oh, yes. Just for a little while... for an odd angle of little that came out, um, very large. If I had not died in truth, I could not have ripped open the wall between the worlds, and the goddess could not have reached in to take back the curse. Which was a drop of the Father's blood, as nearly as I could tell, though how the Golden General came by such a gift I know not. That's a metaphor, by the way. I'm sorry. I have not... I have not the words for what I saw. Talking about it is like trying to weave a box of shadows in which to carry water." And our souls are parched. "The Lady of Spring let me look through Her eyes, and though my second sight is taken back—I think—my eyes do not seem to work quite the same as they did..."

The archdivine signed himself. Paginine cleared his throat, and said diffidently, "Indeed, my lord, you do not make that great roaring light about you anymore."

"Do I not? Oh, good." Cazaril added eagerly, "But the black cloak about Iselle and Bergon, it is gone as well, yes?"

"Yes, my lord. Royse, Royina, if it please you. The shadow seems to be lifted altogether."

"So all is well. Gods, demons, ghosts, the whole company, all gone. There's nothing odd left about me now," said Cazaril happily.

Paginine screwed up his face in an expression that was not quite appalled, not quite a laugh. "I would not go so far as to say that, my lord," he murmured.

The archdivine nudged Paginine, and whispered, "But he speaks the truth, yes? Wild as it seems..."

"Oh, yes, Your Reverence. I have no doubt of that." The bland stare he traded Cazaril bore rather more understanding than that of the archdivine's, who was looking astonished and overawed.

"Tomorrow," Iselle announced, "Bergon and I shall make a thanksgiving procession to the temple, walking barefoot to sign our gratitude to the gods."

Cazaril said in muzzy worry, "Oh. Oh, do be careful, then. Don't step on any broken glass or old nails, now."

"We shall watch out for each other's steps the whole way," Bergon promised him.

Cazaril added aside to Betriz, his hand creeping across the coverlet to touch hers, "You know, I am not haunted anymore. Quite a load off my mind, in more ways than one. Very liberating to a man, that sort of thing..." His voice was dropping in volume, raspy with fatigue. Her hand turned under his, and gave a secret squeeze.

"We should withdraw and let you rest," said Iselle, frowning in renewed worry. "Is there anything you desire, Cazaril? Anything at all?"

About to reply No, nothing , he said instead, "Oh. Yes. I want music."

"Music?"

"Perhaps some very quiet music," Betriz ventured. "To lull him to sleep."

Bergon smiled. "If it please you, then, see to it, Lady Betriz." The mob withdrew, tiptoeing loudly. The physician returned. He let Cazaril drink tea, in trade for making more blood-tinted piss for him to examine suspiciously by candlelight and growl at in an unsettling fashion.

At length, Betriz came back with a nervous-looking young lutenist who appeared to have been wakened out of a sound sleep for this command performance. But he worked his fingers, tuned up, and played seven short pieces. None of them was the right one; none evoked the Lady and Her soul-flowers, till he played an eighth, an interlaced counterpoint of surpassing sweetness. That one had a faint echo of heaven in it. Cazaril had him play it through twice more, and cried a little, upon which Betriz insisted that he was too tired and must sleep now, and bore the young man off again.

And Cazaril still hadn't had a chance to tell her about her nose. When he tried to explain this miracle to the physician, the man responded by giving him a large spoonful of syrup of poppies, after which they ceased to alarm each other for the rest of the night.

IN THREE DAYS' TIME HIS WOUNDS STOPPED LEAKING scented fluid, closing cleanly, and the physician permitted Cazaril thin gruel for breakfast. This revived him enough to insist on being allowed out to sit in the spring sun of the courtyard. The expedition seemed to require an inordinate number of servants and helpers, but at last he was guided carefully down the stairs and into a chair lined with wool-padded and feather-stuffed cushions, with his feet propped up on another cushioned chair. He shooed away his helpers and gave himself over to a most delicious idleness. The fountain burbled soothingly. The trees in the tubs unfurled more fragrant flowers. A pair of little orange-and-black birds stitched the air, bringing dry grass and twigs to build a nest tucked up in the carvings on one of the gallery's supporting posts. An ambitious litter of paper and pens lay forgotten on the small table at Cazaril's elbow as he watched them flit back and forth.