Lois Bujold - The Curse of Chalion

Grooms and servants whisked away horses and baggage. Cazaril refused, in what he hoped was a dignified manner, the support of the castle warder's proffered arm, at least until they should have reached the stairs. The castle warder called him back as he started toward the main block.

"Your room has been moved by order of the royina to Ias's Tower," the castle warder explained, "that you may be near her and the royse."

"Oh." That had a pleasing sound to it. Agreeably, Cazaril followed the man up to the third floor, where Royse Bergon and his Ibran courtiers had taken their new residence, although Bergon had evidently chosen another official bedchamber for himself than the one Orico had lately died in. Not, Cazaril was given to understand, that the royse slept there. Iselle had just moved into the old royina's suite, above. The castle warder showed Cazaril to the room near Bergon's that was to be his. Someone had moved his trunk and few possessions over from his old chamber, and entirely new clothing for tonight's banquet was already laid out waiting. Cazaril let the servants bring him wash water, but then shooed them away and lay down obediently to rest.

This lasted about ten minutes. He rose again and prowled up one flight to examine his new office arrangements. A maidservant, recognizing him, curtsied him past. He poked his nose into the chamber Sara had kept for her secretary. As he expected, it was now filled with his records, books, and ledgers from the royesse's former household, with a great many more added. Unexpectedly, a neat dark-haired fellow, who looked to be about thirty years old, manned his broad desk. He wore the gray robe and carmine shoulder braid of a divine of the Father, and was scratching figures into one of Cazaril's own account books. Opened correspondence lay fanned out at his left hand, and a larger stack of finished letters rose at his right.

He glanced up at Cazaril in polite but cool inquiry. "May I help you, sir?"

"I—excuse me, I do not believe we have met. Who are you?"

"I am Learned Bonneret, Royina Iselle's private secretary."

Cazaril's mouth opened, and shut. But I'm Royina Iselle's private secretary! "A temporary appointment, is it?"

Bonneret's eyebrows went up. "Well, I trust it shall be permanent."

"How came you by the post?"

"Archdivine Mendenal was kind enough to recommend me to the royina."

"Lately?"

"Excuse me?"

"You are lately appointed?"

"These two weeks past, sir." Bonneret frowned in faint annoyance. "Ah—you have the advantage of me, I believe?"

Quite the reverse. "The royina... didn't tell me," said Cazaril. Was he discarded, shunted from his position of trust? Granted, the avalanche of tasks attendant upon Iselle's ascension to the royacy was hardly going to halt while Cazaril slowly recovered; someone had to attend to them. And, Cazaril noted by the outgoing inscriptions, Bonneret had beautiful handwriting. The divine was frowning more deeply at him. He supplied, "My name is Cazaril."

Bonneret's frown evaporated, to be replaced with an even more alarming awed smile; he dropped his quill, spattering ink, and scrambled abruptly to his feet. "My lord dy Cazaril! I am honored!" He bowed low. "What may I do to help you, my lord?" he repeated, in a very different tone.

This eager courtesy daunted Cazaril far more than Bonneret's former superciliousness. He mumbled some incoherent excuse for his intrusion, pleaded weariness from the road, and fled back downstairs.

He filled a little time inventorying his clothing and too-few books and arranging them in his new chamber. Amazingly, nothing seemed to be missing from his possessions. He wandered to his narrow window, which looked down over the town. He swung his casement wide and craned his neck out, but no sacred crows flew in to visit him. With the curse broken, the menagerie gone, did they still roost in Fonsa's Tower? He studied the temple domes, and made plans to seek out Umegat at his first opportunity. Then he sat in bewilderment.

He was shaken, and knew it partly for an effect of fatigue. His energy was still fragile, spasmodic. His healing gut wound ached from the morning's riding, although not as much as when Dondo had used to claw him from the inside. He was gloriously unoccupied, a fact that alone had been enough to keep him ecstatically happy for days. It didn't seem to be working this afternoon, though. All his urgent push to arrive here made this quiet rest that everybody thought he ought to be having feel rather a letdown.

His mood darkened. Maybe there was no use for him in this new Chalion-Ibra. Iselle would need more learned, smoother men now to help manage her vastly enlarged affairs than a battered and, well, strange ex-soldier with a weakness for poetry. Worse—to be culled from Iselle's service was to be exiled from Betriz's daily presence. No one would light his reading candles at dusk, or make him wear warm unfashionable hats, or notice if he fell ill and bring him frightening physicians, or pray for his safety when he was far from home... .

He heard the clatter and noise of what he presumed was Iselle and Bergon's party returning from the ceremonies at the temple, but even at an angle his window did not give a view onto the courtyard. He ought to rush out to greet them. No. I'm resting. That sounded mulish and petulant even to his own inward ear. Don't be a fool. But a dreary fatigue anchored him in his chair.

Before he could overcome his wash of melancholy, Bergon himself bustled into his chamber, and then it became impossible to stay down-at-the-mouth. The royse was still wearing the brown, orange, and yellow robes of the holy general of the Son's Order, with its broad sword belt ornamented with the symbols of autumn, all looking a lot better on him than they ever had on old gray dy Jironal. If Bergon was not a joy to the god, there was no pleasing Him at all. Cazaril rose, and Bergon embraced him, inquired after his trip from Taryoon and his healing, barely waited for the answer, tried to tell him in turn of eight things at once, then burst out laughing at himself.

"There will be time for all this shortly. Right now I am on a mission from my wife the royina of Chalion. But tell me first and privately, Lord Caz—do you love the Lady Betriz?"

Cazaril blinked. "I... she... very fond, Royse."

"Good. I mean, I was sure of it, but Iselle insisted I ask first. Now, and very important—are you willing to be shaved?"

"I—what?" Cazaril's hand went to his beard. It was not at all as scraggly as it had started out, it had filled in nicely, he thought, and besides, he kept it neatly trimmed. "Is there some reason you ask me this? Not that it matters greatly, beards grow back, I suppose..."

"But you're not madly attached to it or anything, right?"

"Not madly, no. My hand was shaky for a time after the galleys, and I did not care to carve myself bloody, but I could not afford a barber. Then I just became used to it."

"Good." Bergon returned to the doorway, and thrust his head through to the corridor. "All right, come in."

A barber and a servant holding a can of hot water trooped in at the royse's command. The barber made Cazaril sit, and whipped his cloth around him. Cazaril found himself soaped up before he could make remark. The servant held the basin beneath his chin as the barber, humming under his breath, went to work with his steel. Cazaril stared down cross-eyed over his nose as blobs of soapy gray and black hair splatted into the tin basin. The barber made unsettling little chirping noises, but at last smiled in satisfaction and grandly gestured the basin away. "There, my lord!" Some work with a hot towel and a cold lavender-scented tincture that stung completed his artistic effort. The royse dropped a coin into the barber's hand that made him bow low and, murmuring compliments, retreat backwards through the door again.