Lois Bujold - The Curse of Chalion

Dy Baocia's palace was very quiet, with its royal guests and its lord and lady all gone to Cardegoss. Cazaril therefore smiled with lazy delight when the wrought-iron gate under the end archway swung aside to admit Palli. The march had been assigned by his new royina the dull task of keeping watch over her convalescent secretary while everyone else went off to the grand events in the capital, which seemed to Cazaril rather an unfair reward for Palli's valiant service. Palli had attended upon him so faithfully, Cazaril felt quite guilty for wishing Iselle might have spared Lady Betriz instead.

Palli, grinning, gave him a mock salute and seated himself on the fountain's edge. "Well, Castillar! You look better. Very vertical indeed. But what's this"—he gestured to the table—"work? Before they left yesterday your ladies charged me to enforce a very long list of things you were not to do, most of which you will be glad to know I have forgotten, but I'm sure work was high on it."

"No such thing," said Cazaril. "I was going to attempt some poetry after the manner of Behar, but then there were these birds... there goes one now." He paused to mark the orange-and-black flash. "People compliment birds for being great builders, but really, these two seem terribly clumsy. Perhaps they are young birds, and this is their first try. Persistent, though. Although I suppose if I was to attempt to build a hut using only my mouth, I would do no better. I should write a poem in praise of birds. If matter that gets up and walks about, like you, is miraculous, how much more marvelous is matter that gets up and flies!"

Palli's mouth quirked in bemusement. "Is this poetry or fever, Caz?"

"Oh, it is a great infection of poetry, a contagion of hymns. The gods delight in poets, you know. Songs and poetry, being of the same stuff as souls, can cross into their world almost unimpeded. Stone carvers, now... even the gods are in awe of stone carvers." He squinted in the sun and grinned back at Palli.

"Nevertheless," murmured Palli dryly, "one feels that your quatrain yesterday morning to Lady Betriz's nose was a tactical mistake."

"I was not making fun of her!" Cazaril protested indignantly. "Was she still angry at me when she left?"

"No, no, she wasn't angry! She was persuaded it was fever, and was very worried withal. If I were you, I'd claim it for fever."

"I could not write a poem to all of her just yet. I tried. Too overwhelming."

"Well, if you must scribble paeans to her body parts, pick lips. Lips are more romantic than noses."

"Why?" asked Cazaril. "Isn't every part of her an amazement?"

"Yes, but we kiss lips. We don't kiss noses. Normally. Men write poems to the objects of our desire in order to lure them closer."

"How practical. In that case, you'd think men would write more poems to ladies' private parts."

"The ladies would hit us. Lips are a safe compromise, being as it were a stand-in or stepping-stone to the greater mysteries."

"Hah. Anyway, I desire all of her. Nose and lips and feet and all the parts between, and her soul, without which her mere body would be all still and cold and claylike, and start to rot, and be not an object of desire at all ."

"Agh!" Palli ran his hand through his hair. "My friend, you do not understand romance."

"I promise you, I do not understand anything anymore. I am gloriously bewildered." He lay back in his cushions and laughed softly.

Palli snorted, and bent forward to pick up the paper from the top of the pile, the only one so far with writing on it. He glanced down it, and his brows rose. "What's this? This isn't about ladies' noses." His face sobered; his gaze traveled back to the top of the page, and down once more. "In fact, I'm not just sure what it's about. Although it makes the hairs stand up on the backs of my arms..."

"Oh, that. It's nothing, I fear. I was trying—but it wasn't"—Cazaril's hands waved helplessly, and came back to touch his brow—"it wasn't what I saw." He added in explanation, "I thought in poetry the words might bear more freight, exist on both sides of the wall between the worlds, as people do. So far I'm just creating waste paper, fit only for lighting a fire."

"Hm," said Palli. Unobtrusively, he folded up the paper and tucked it inside his vest-cloak.

"I'll try again," sighed Cazaril. "Maybe I can get it right someday. I must write some hymns to matter, too. Birds. Stones. That would please the Lady, I think."

Palli blinked. "To lure Her closer?"

"Might."

"Dangerous stuff, this poetry. I think I'll stick to action, myself."

Cazaril grinned at him. "Watch out, my lord Dedicat. Action can be prayer, too."

Whispers and muffled giggles sounded from the end of the gallery. Cazaril looked up to see some servant women and boys crouched behind the carved railings, peeking through at him. Palli followed his glance. One girl popped up boldly and waved at them. Amiably, Cazaril waved back. The giggles rose to a crescendo, and the women scurried off. Palli scratched his ear and regarded Cazaril with wry inquiry.

Cazaril explained, "People have been sneaking in all morning to see the spot where poor dy Jironal was struck down. If he's not careful, Lord dy Baocia will lose his nice new courtyard to a shrine."

Palli cleared his throat. "Actually, Caz, they're sneaking in to peek at you . A couple of dy Baocia's servants are charging admission to conduct the curious in and out of the palace. I was of two minds whether to quash the enterprise, but if they're bothering you, I will..." He shifted, as if to rise.

"Oh. Oh, no, don't trouble them. I have made a great deal of extra work for the palace servants. Let them profit a bit."

Palli snorted, but shrugged acquiescence. "And you still have no fever?"

"I wasn't sure at first, but no. That physician finally let me eat, although not enough. I am healing, I think."

"That's a miracle in itself, worth a vaida to see."

"Yes. I'm not quite sure if putting me back into the world this way was a parting gift of the Lady, or just a chance benefit of Her need to have someone on this side to hold open the gate for Her. Ordol was right about the gods being parsimonious. Well, it's all right either way. We shall surely meet again someday." He leaned back, staring into the sky, the Lady's own blue. His lips curled up, unwilled.

"You were the soberest fellow I ever met, and now you grin all the time. Caz, are you sure She got your soul back in right way round?"

Cazaril laughed out loud. "Maybe not! You know how it is when you travel. You pack all your things in your saddlebags, and by the journey's end, they seem to have doubled in volume and are hanging out every which way, even though you'd swear you added nothing..." He patted his thigh. "Perhaps I am just not packed into this battered old case as neatly as I used to be."

Palli shook his head in wonder. "And so now you leak poetry. Huh."

TEN MORE DAYS OF HEALING LEFT CAZARIL NOT AT all bored with resting, if only his ease were not so empty of the people he desired. At last his longing for them overcame his revulsion at the prospect of getting on a horse again, and he set Palli to arranging their journey. Palli's protests at this premature exercise were perfunctory, easily overborne, as he was no less anxious than Cazaril to see how events in Cardegoss went on.

Cazaril and his escort, including the ever-faithful Ferda and Foix, traveled up the road in the fine weather in gentle, easy stages, a world apart from winter's desperate ride. Each evening Cazaril was helped from his horse swearing that tomorrow they would go more slowly, and each morning he found himself even more eager to push on. At length the distant Zangre again rose before his eyes. Against the backdrop of puffy white clouds, blue sky, and green fields, it seemed a rich ornament to the landscape.