Lois Bujold - The Curse of Chalion

"You make my hair stand on end. I thought I knew my way around the world, but... eh. But at least you were spared the worst."

"I don't know what is the worst," said Cazaril thoughtfully. "I was once used after a vile humor for the space of one hellish afternoon that made what happened to some of the boys look like a friendly gesture, but no Roknari risked hanging for it." Cazaril realized he'd never told anyone of the incident, not the kind acolytes of the temple hospital, not, certainly, anyone in the Provincara's household. He'd had no one he could talk to, till now. He continued almost eagerly. "My corsair made the mistake of tackling a lumbering Brajaran merchanter, and spotted its escorting galleys too late. As we were being chased off, I failed at my oar, fainted in the heat. To make some use of me despite all, the oar-master hauled me out of my chains, stripped me, and hung me over the stern rail with my hands tied to my ankles, to mock our pursuers. I couldn't tell if the crossbow bolts that thumped into the rail or the stern around me were good or bad aim on the Brajaran archers' parts, nor by what god's mercy I didn't end my life with a few in my ass. Maybe they thought I was Roknari. Maybe they were trying to end my misery." For the sake of Palli's widening eyes, Cazaril skipped certain of the more grotesque details. "You know, we lived with fear for months on end at Gotorget, till we were used to it, a sort of nagging ache in the gut that we learned to ignore, but that never quite went away."

Palli nodded.

"But I found out that... this is odd. I don't quite know how to say it." He'd never had a chance to try to put it into words, out where he could see it, till now. "I found there is a place beyond fear. When the body and the mind just can't sustain it anymore. The world, time... reorder themselves. My heartbeat slowed down, I stopped sweating and salivating... it was almost like some holy trance. When the Roknari hung me up, I'd been weeping in fear and shame, in agony for the disgust of it all. When the Brajarans finally veered off, and the oar-master took me down, all blistered from the sun... I was laughing. The Roknari thought I had gone mad, and so withal did my poor benchmates, but I didn't think so. The whole world was all... new.

"Of course, the whole world was only a few dozen paces long, and made of wood, and rocked on the water... all time was the turning of a glass. I planned my life by the hour as closely as one plans a year, and no further than an hour. All men were kind and beautiful, each in his way, Roknari and slave alike, lordly or vile blood, and I was a friend to all, and smiled. I wasn't afraid anymore. I did take care never to faint at my oar again, though."

His voice slowed, thoughtfully. "So whenever fear comes back into my heart, I am more pleased than anything, for I take it as a sign that I am not mad after all. Or maybe, at least, getting better. Fear is my friend." He looked up, with a quick, apologetic smile.

Palli was sitting plastered back against the wall, his legs tense, his dark eyes round as saucers, smiling fixedly. Cazaril laughed out loud.

"Five gods, Palli, forgive me. I did not mean to make you a donkey for my confidences, to carry them safely away." Or perhaps he had, for Palli would be going away tomorrow, after all. "They make a motley menagerie to burden you with. I'm sorry."

Palli waved away his apology as if batting a stinging fly. His lips moved; he swallowed, and managed, "Are you sure it wasn't just sunstroke?"

Cazaril chuckled. "Oh, I had the sunstroke, too, of course. But if it doesn't kill you, sunstroke passes off in a day or two. This lasted... months." Until the last incident with that terrified defiant Ibran boy, and Cazaril's resultant final flogging. "We slaves—"

"Stop that!" cried Palli, running his hands through his hair.

"Stop what?" asked Cazaril in puzzlement.

"Stop saying that. We slaves . You are a lord of Chalion!"

Cazaril's smile twisted. He said gently, "We lords, at our oars, then? We sweating, pissing, swearing, grunting gentlemen? I think not, Palli. On the galleys we were not lords or men. We were men or animals, and which proved which had no relation I ever saw to birth or blood. The greatest soul I ever met there had been a tanner, and I would kiss his feet right now with joy to learn he yet lived. We slaves, we lords, we fools, we men and women, we mortals, we toys of the gods—all the same thing, Palli. They are all the same to me now."

After a long, indrawn breath, Palli changed the subject abruptly to the little matters of managing his escort from the Daughter's military order. Cazaril found himself comparing useful tricks for treating leather rot and thrush infections in horses' hooves. Soon thereafter Palli retired—or fled—for the night. An orderly retreat, but Cazaril recognized its nature all the same.

Cazaril lay down with his pains and his memories. Despite the feast and the wine, sleep was a long time coming. Fear might be his friend, if that wasn't just bluff and bluster for Palli's sake, but it was clear the dy Jironal brothers were not. The Roknari reported you'd died of a fever was a lie outright, and, cleverly, quite uncheckable by now. Well, he was surely sheltered here in quiet Valenda.

He hoped he'd cautioned Palli sufficiently to walk warily at the court in Cardegoss and not put a foot in a pile of old manure unawares. Cazaril rolled over in the darkness and sent up a whispered prayer to the Lady of Spring for Palli's safety. And to all the gods and the Bastard, too, for the deliverance of all upon the sea tonight.

At the Temple pageant celebrating the advent of summer, Iselle was not invited to reprise her role of the Lady of Spring because that part was traditionally taken by a woman new-wed. A very shy and demure young bride handed off the throne of the reigning god's avatar to an equally well-behaved matron heavy with child. Cazaril saw out of the corner of his eye the divine of the Holy Family heave a sigh of relief as the ceremony concluded, this time, without any spiritual surprises.

Life slowed. Cazaril's pupils sighed and yawned in the stuffy schoolroom as the afternoon sun baked the stones of the keep, and so did their teacher; one sweaty hour he abruptly surrendered and canceled for the season all classes after the noon nuncheon. As Betriz had said, the Royina Ista did seem to do better as the days lengthened and softened. She came more often to the family's meals and sat almost every afternoon with her lady attendants in the shade of the gnarled fruit trees at the end of the Provincara's flower garden. She was not, however, permitted by her guardians to climb to the dizzy, breezy perches upon the battlements favored by Iselle and Betriz to escape both the heat and the disapproval of various aging persons disinclined to mount stairs.

Driven from his own bedchamber by its dog-breath closeness on a hazy hot day following an unusually heavy night's rain, Cazaril ventured into the garden seeking a more comfortable perch himself. The book under his arm was one of the few in the castle's meager library he had not previously read, not that Ordol's The Fivefold Pathway of the Soul: On the True Methods of Quintarian Theology was exactly one of his passions. Perhaps its leaves, fluttering loosely in his lap, would make his probable nap look more scholarly to passersby. He rounded the rose arbor and halted as he discovered the royina, accompanied by one of her ladies with an embroidery frame, occupying his intended bench. As the women looked up he dodged a couple of delirious bees and made an apologetic bow to them for his unintended intrusion.

"Stay, Castillar dy... Cazaril, is it?" murmured Ista, as he turned to withdraw. "How does my daughter go on in her new studies?"