Lois Bujold - The Curse of Chalion

"Cazaril!" the crow cried shrilly from this new perch.

"You must be a master teacher of tongues indeed, my lord dy Cazaril." Umegat smiled more broadly. "I hear you," he assured the crow. "If you will duck your head, my lord, I will endeavor to remove your passenger."

Cazaril did so. Murmuring something in Roknari, Umegat persuaded the bird onto his arm, carried it to the doors, and flung it into the air. It flapped away, cawing, to Cazaril's relief, more ordinary caws.

They proceeded to the aviary, where Iselle found herself as popular among the brilliant little birds from the cages as Cazaril was with the ragged crow; they hopped upon her sleeve, and Umegat showed her how to coax them to take grains from between her teeth.

They turned next to the perch birds. Betriz admired a large bright green one with yellow breast feathers and a ruby throat. It clicked its thick yellow beak, wobbled from side to side, and stuck out a narrow black tongue.

"This is a fairly recent arrival," Umegat told them. "I believe it has had a difficult and wandering life. Tame enough, but it's taken time and patience to calm it down."

"Does it speak?" asked Betriz.

"Yes," said Umegat, "but only rude words. In Roknari, perhaps fortunately. I think it must have once been a sailor's bird. March dy Jironal brought it back from the north this spring, as war booty."

Reports and rumors of that inconclusive campaign had come to Valenda. Cazaril wondered if Umegat had ever been war booty—as he had been—and if that was how he'd first been brought to Chalion. He said dryly, "Pretty bird, but it seems a poor trade for three towns and control of a pass."

"I believe Lord dy Jironal gained rather more movables than that," Umegat said. "His baggage train, returning to Cardegoss, took an hour to file through the gates."

"I've had to deal with slow mules like that, too," murmured Cazaril, unimpressed. "Chalion lost more than dy Jironal gained on that ill-conceived venture."

Iselle's eyebrows bent. "Was it not a victory?"

"By what definition? We and the Roknari princedoms have been pushing and shoving over that border area for decades. It used to be good land—it's now a waste. Orchards and olive groves and vineyards burned, farms abandoned, animals turned loose to go wild or starve—it's peace, not war, that makes wealth for a country. War just transfers possession of the residue from the weaker to the stronger. Worse, what is bought with blood is sold for coin, and then stolen back again." He brooded, and added bitterly, "Your grandfather Roya Fonsa bought Gotorget with the lives of his sons. It was sold by March dy Jironal for three hundred thousand royals. It's a wondrous transmutation, where the blood of one man is turned into the money of another. Lead into gold is nothing to it."

"Can there never be peace in the north?" asked Betriz, startled by his unusual vehemence.

Cazaril shrugged. "Not while there is so much profit in war. The Roknari princes play the same game. It is a universal corruption."

" Winning the war would end it," said Iselle thoughtfully.

"Now there's a dream," sighed Cazaril. "If the roya could sneak it past his nobles without their noticing they were losing their future livelihoods. But no. It's just not possible. Chalion alone could not defeat all five princedoms, and even if by some miracle it did, it has no naval expertise to hold the coasts thereafter. If all the Quintarian royacies were to combine, and fight hard for a generation, some immensely strong and determined roya might push it through and unite the whole land. But the cost in men and nerve and money would be vast."

Iselle said slowly, "Greater than the cost of this endless sucking drain of blood and virtue to the north? Done once—done right once—would be done for all time."

"But there is none to do it. No man with the nerve and vision and will. The roya of Brajar is an aging drunkard who sports with his court ladies, the Fox of Ibra is tied down with civil strife, Chalion..." Cazaril hesitated, realizing his stirred emotions were luring him into impolitic frankness.

"Teidez," Iselle began, and took a breath. "Maybe it will be Teidez's gift, when he comes to full manhood."

Not a gift Cazaril would wish on any man, and yet the boy did seem to have some nascent talents in that direction, if only his education in the next few years could bring them into sharp and directed focus.

"Conquest isn't the only way to unite peoples," Betriz pointed out. "There's marriage."

"Yes, but no one can marry three royacies and five princedoms," Iselle said, wrinkling her nose. "Not all at once, anyway."

The green bird, perhaps irritated at losing the attention of its audience, chose this moment to vent a remarkably lewd phrase in rude Roknari. Sailor's bird, indeed—a galley-man's bird, Cazaril judged. Umegat smiled dryly at Cazaril's involuntary snort but raised his brows slightly as Betriz and Iselle clamped their lips shut and turned a suffused pink, caught each other's gazes, and nearly lost their gravity. Smoothly, he reached for a hood and popped it over the bird's head. "Good night, my green friend," he told it. "I think you are not quite ready for polite society, here. Perhaps Lord dy Cazaril should stop in and teach you court Roknari too, eh?"

Cazaril's thought that Umegat seemed perfectly capable of teaching court Roknari all by himself was interrupted when a surprisingly brisk step at the door of the aviary proved to be Orico, wiping bear spittle on his trousers and smiling. Cazaril decided the castle warder's comment that first day was right: his menagerie did seem to be a consolation to the roya. His eye was clear, and color brightened his face again, visibly improved from the soggy exhaustion he'd evidenced immediately after breakfast.

"You must come see my cats," he told the ladies. They all followed him into the stone aisle, where he proudly showed off cages containing a pair of fine golden cats with tufted ears from the mountains of south Chalion, and a rare blue-eyed albino mountain cat of the same breed with striking black ear tufts. This end of the aisle also held a cage containing a pair of what Umegat named Archipelago sand foxes, looking like skinny, half-sized wolves, but with enormous triangular ears and cynical expressions.

With a flourish, Orico turned finally to his obvious favorite, the leopard. Let out on its silver chain, it rubbed itself around the roya's legs and made odd little growly noises. Cazaril held his breath as, encouraged by her brother, Iselle knelt to pet it, her face right next to those powerful jaws. Those round, pellucid amber eyes looked anything but friendly to him, but their lids did half close in evident enjoyment, and the broad brick-colored nose quivered as Iselle scratched the beast vigorously under the chin, and ran her spread fingers through its fabulous spotted coat. When Cazaril knelt, however, its growl took what seemed to his ear a decidedly hostile edge, and its distant amber stare encouraged no such liberties. Cazaril prudently kept his hands to himself.

The roya choosing to linger to consult with his head groom, Cazaril walked his ladies back to the Zangre, as they argued amiably over which had been the most interesting beast in the menagerie.

"What did you think the most curious creature there?" Betriz charged him.

Cazaril took a moment before replying, but in the end decided on the truth. "Umegat."

Her mouth opened to object to this supposed levity, but then closed again as Iselle cast him a sharp look. A thoughtful silence descended, which reigned all the way to the castle doors.

THE SHORTENING OF THE DAYLIGHT RUNNING ON INTO autumn was felt to be no loss by the inhabitants of the Zangre, for the lengthening nights continued to be made brilliant by candlelight, feasting, and fêtes. The courtiers took turns outdoing one another providing the entertainments, freely spending money and wit. Teidez and Iselle were dazzled, Iselle, fortunately, not totally; with the aid of Cazaril's undervoiced running commentary, she began to look for hidden meanings and messages, watch for intents, calculate expenditures and expectations.