The Curse of Chalion

Chapter 2

As he climbed the last slope to the main castle gate, Cazaril regretted he’d had no way to provision himself with a sword. The two guards in the green-and-black livery of the provincar of Baocia watched his unarmed approach without alarm, but also without any of the alert interest that might presage respect. Cazaril saluted the one wearing the sergeant’s badge in his hat with only an austere, calculated nod. The servility he’d practiced in his mind was for some back gate, not this one, not if he expected to get any farther. At least, by the courtesy of his laundress, he’d been able to provision himself with the right names.

“Good evening, Sergeant. I am here to see the castle warder, the Ser dy Ferrej. I am Lupe dy Cazaril.” Leaving the sergeant to guess, preferably wrongly, if he’d been summoned.

“On what business, sir?” the sergeant asked, polite but unimpressed.

Cazaril’s shoulders straightened; he didn’t know from what unused lumber room in the back of his soul the voice came, but it came out clipped and commanding nonetheless: “On his business, Sergeant.”

Automatically, the sergeant saluted. “Yes, sir.” His nod told off his fellow to stay sharp, and he gestured Cazaril to follow him through the open gate. “This way, sir. I’ll ask if the warder will see you.”

Cazaril’s heart wrung as he stared around the broad cobbled courtyard inside the castle gates. He’d worn out how much shoe leather, scampering across these stones on errands for the high household? The master of the pages had complained of bankruptcy in buskins, till the Provincara, laughing, had inquired if he would truly prefer a lazy page who would wear out the seat of his trousers instead, for if so, she could find a few to plague him with.

She still ran her household with a keen eye and a firm hand, it appeared. The liveries of the guards were in excellent condition, the cobbles of this yard were swept clean, and the small bare trees in tubs, flanking the major doorways, had flowers forced from bulbs gracing their feet, blooming bright and fair and perfectly timed for the Daughter’s Day celebration tomorrow.

The guard gestured Cazaril to wait upon a bench against a wall still blessedly warm from the day’s sun, while he went to the side door leading to the office quarters, and spoke to a house servant there who might, or might not, turn out the warder for this stranger. He’d not paced halfway back to his post before his comrade stuck his head around the gate to call, “The royse returns!”

The sergeant turned his head toward the servants’ quarters to take up the bellow, “The royse returns! Look sharp, there!” and quickened his march.

Grooms and servants tumbled from various doors around the courtyard as a clatter of hooves and halloing voices sounded from outside the gates. First through the stone arches, with a self-supplied fanfare of unladylike but triumphant whoops, rode a pair of young women on blowing horses belly-splashed with mud.

“We win, Teidez!” the first called over her shoulder. She was dressed in a riding jacket of blue velvet, with a matching blue wool split skirt. Her hair escaped from under a girl’s lace cap, somewhat askew, in ringlets neither blond nor red but a sort of glowing amber in the shaft of setting sunlight. She had a generous mouth, pale skin, and curiously heavy-lidded eyes, squeezed now with laughter. Her taller companion, a panting brunette in red, grinned and twisted in her saddle as the rest of the cavalcade followed.

An even younger gentleman, in a short scarlet jacket worked with beasts in silver thread, followed on an even more impressive horse, glossy black with silken tail bannering. He was flanked by two wooden-faced grooms, and followed by a frowning gentleman. He shared his—sister’s? yes, surely—curly hair, a shade redder, and wide mouth, more pouting. “The race was over at the bottom of the hill, Iselle. You cheated.”

She made an Oh, pooh face at her royal brother. Before the scrambling servant could position the ladies’ mounting bench he was trying to bring to her, she slid from her saddle, bouncing on her booted toes.

Her dark-haired companion also preceded her groom to the dismount and handed off her reins to him, saying, “Give these poor beasts an extra walk, till they are quite cool, Deni. We have misused them terribly.” Somewhat belying her words, she gave her horse a kiss on the middle of its white blaze, and, as it nudged her with practiced assurance, slipped it some treat from her pocket.

Last through the gate, a couple of minutes behind, came a red-faced older woman. “Iselle, Betriz, slow down! Mother and Daughter, you girls cannot gallop over half the hinterland of Valenda like a pair of lunatics!”

“We are slowed down. Indeed, we’re stopped,” the dark-haired girl pointed out logically. “We cannot outrun your tongue, good heart, no matter how we try. It is too fast for the speediest horse in Baocia.”

The older woman made a moue of exasperation and waited for her groom to position her mounting bench. “Your grandmother bought you that lovely white mule, Royesse, why don’t you ever ride him? It would be so much more suitable.”

“And so much more sloooow,” the amber-haired girl, laughing, shot back. “And anyway, poor Snowflake is all washed and braided for the procession tomorrow. The grooms would have been heartbroken if I’d taken him out and run him through the mud. They plan to keep him wrapped in sheets all night.”

Wheezing, the older woman allowed her groom to help her dismount. Afoot again, she shook out her skirted legs and stretched her apparently aching back. The boy departed in a cluster of anxious servants, and the two young women, uncrushed by their waiting woman’s continuing murmur of complaint, raced each other to the door to the main keep. She followed, shaking her head.

As they approached the door, a stoutish middle-aged man in severe black wool exited, and remarked to them in passing, in a voice without rancor but perfectly firm, “Betriz, if ever you gallop your horse home uphill like that again, I will take him from you. And you can use up your excessive energy running after the royesse on foot.”

She dropped him a swift curtsey, and a daunted murmur of, “Yes, Papa.”

The amber-haired girl came instantly to attention. “Please excuse Betriz, Ser dy Ferrej. The fault was mine. Where I led, she had no choice but to follow.”

His brow twitched, and he gave her a little bow. “Then you might meditate, Royesse, on what honor a captain can claim, who drags his followers into an error when he knows he will himself escape the punishment.”

The amber-haired girl’s wide lips twisted at this. After a long glance up under her lashes, she, too, dropped him a fraction of a curtsey, before both girls escaped further chastisement by dodging indoors. The man in black heaved a sigh. The waiting woman, laboring after them, cast him a nod of thanks.

Even without these cues, Cazaril could have identified the man as the castle warder by the clink of keys at his silver-studded belt, and the chain of office around his neck. He rose at once as the man approached him, and essayed a cursedly awkward bow, pulled short by his adhesions. “Ser dy Ferrej? My name is Lupe dy Cazaril. I beg an audience of the Dowager Provincara, if . . . if it is her pleasure.” His voice faltered under the warder’s frown.

“I do not know you, sir,” said the warder.

“By the gods’ grace, the Provincara may remember me. I was once a page, here”—he gestured around rather blindly—“in this household. When the old provincar was alive.” The closest thing to a home he had left, he supposed. Cazaril was unutterably weary of being a stranger everywhere.

The gray brows rose. “I will inquire if the Provincara will see you.”

“That’s all I ask.” All he dared ask. He sank back to his bench, and wound his fingers together, as the warder stumped back into the main keep.

After several miserable minutes of suspense, stared at sidelong by passing servants, Cazaril looked up at the warder’s return. Dy Ferrej eyed him with bemusement.

“Her Grace the Provincara grants you an interview. Follow me.”

His body had stiffened, sitting in the gathering chill; Cazaril stumbled a little, and cursed his stumble, as he followed the warder indoors. He scarcely needed a guide. The plan of the place came back to him, tumbling through his memory with every turning. Through this hall, across those blue-and-yellow-patterned tiles, up this stair and that one, through a whitewashed inner chamber, and then the room on the western wall she’d always favored for sitting in this time of day, with the best light for her seamstresses, or for reading. He had to duck his head a little through its low door, as he’d never had to before; it seemed the only change. But not a change in the door.

“Here is the man as you bade, your grace,” the warder announced Cazaril neutrally, declining to either endorse or deny his claimed identity.

The Dowager Provincara was seated in a wide wooden chair, made soft for her aging bones with cushions. She wore a sober dark green gown suitable to her high-ranked widowhood, but declined a widow’s cap, choosing instead to have her graying hair braided up around her head in two knots and twined with green ribbons, locked with jeweled clasps. She had a lady companion almost as old as herself seated by her side, a widow also, judging by the garb of a lay dedicat of the Temple that she wore. The companion clutched her needlework and regarded Cazaril with an untrusting frown.

Praying his body would not betray him now with some twitch or stumble, Cazaril levered himself down onto one knee before her chair and bowed his head in respectful greeting. Her clothes were scented with lavender, and a dry old-woman smell. He looked up, searching her face for some sign of recognition. If she did not know him now, then no one he would become in truth, and swiftly.

She gazed back, and bit her lip in wonder. “Five gods,” she murmured softly. “It really is you. My lord dy Cazaril. I bid you welcome to my house.” She held out her hand for him to kiss.

He swallowed, almost gasping, and bent his head over it. Once, it had been fine and white, the nails perfect and pearl-rubbed. Now the knuckles stood out, and the thin skin was brown-spotted, though the nails were still as well kept as when she’d been a matron in her prime. She did not, by the smallest jerk, react to the couple of tears he dropped helplessly upon its back, but her lips curved up a little. Her hand drifted from his light grasp to touch his beard and trace one of the gray streaks. “Dear me, Cazaril, have I grown that old?”

He blinked rapidly up at her. He would not, he would not break down weeping like an overwrought child . . . “It has been a long time, Your Grace.”

“Tsk.” Her hand turned, and the dry fingers tapped him on the cheek. “That was your cue to say I haven’t changed a bit. Didn’t I teach you how to lie to a lady better than that? I had no idea I was so remiss.” With perfect composure, she retrieved her hand and nodded to her companion.

“May I make you known to my cousin, the Lady dy Hueltar. Tessa, may I present my lord the Castillar dy Cazaril.”

From the corner of his eye Cazaril saw the warder, with a breath of relief, relax his guard, folding his arms and leaning against the doorframe. Still on his knee, Cazaril made a clumsy bow in the dedicat’s direction.

“You are all kindness, Your Grace, but as I no longer hold Cazaril, nor its keep, nor any of my father’s lands, I do not claim his title either.”

“Don’t be foolish, Castillar.” Beneath her bantering tone, her voice sharpened. “My dear Provincar is dead these ten years, but I’ll see the Bastard’s demons eat the first man who dares to call me anything less than Provincara. We have what we can hold, dear boy, and never let them see you flinch or falter.”

Beside her, the dedicat stiffened in disapproval of these blunt words, if not, perhaps, of the sentiment behind them. Cazaril judged it imprudent to point out that the title by right now belonged to the Provincara’s daughter-in-law. Her son the present provincar and his wife likely judged it imprudent, too.

“You will always be the great lady to me, Your Grace, whom we worshipped from afar,” Cazaril offered.

“Better,” she approved judiciously. “Much better. I do like a man who can pull his wits about him.” She waved at her warder. “Dy Ferrej, fetch the castillar a chair. One for yourself, too; you loom like a crow there.”

The warder, apparently accustomed to such addresses, smiled and murmured, “Certainly, Your Grace.” He pulled up a carved chair for Cazaril, with a gratifying murmur of Will my lord be seated?, and retrieved another for himself from the next chamber, placing it a little apart from his lady and her guest.

Cazaril scrambled up and sank down again in blessed comfort. He ventured tentatively, “Was that the royse and royesse I saw come in from riding as I arrived, Your Grace? I should not have troubled you with my intrusion, had I known you had such visitors.” He would not have dared.

“Not visiting, Castillar. They are living here with me for now. Valenda is a quiet, clean town, and . . . my daughter is not entirely well. It suits her to retire here, after the too-hectic court.” A weary look flickered in her eyes.

Five gods, the Lady Ista was here as well? The Dowager Royina Ista, Cazaril hastily corrected this thought. When he had first come to serve Baocia, as unformed a larva as any boy of like degree, the Provincara’s youngest daughter Ista had seemed already a grown woman, though only a few years older than himself. Fortunately, even at that foolish age, he’d not been so foolish as to confide his hopeless infatuation of her to anyone else. Her high marriage soon after to Roya Ias himself—her first, his second—had seemed her beauty’s proper destiny, despite the royal couple’s disparity of age. Cazaril supposed Ista’s early widowhood might have been expected, though not as early as it had proved.

The Provincara brushed aside her fatigue with an impatient flash of her fingers, and followed with a, “And what of yourself? The last I heard of you, you were riding courier for the provincar of Guarida.”

“That was . . . some years ago, Your Grace.”

“How did you come here?” She looked him over, her brows drawing down. “Where is your sword?”

“Oh, that.” His hand vaguely touched his side, where neither belt nor sword hung. “I lost it at . . . When the March dy Jironal led Roya Orico’s forces up to the north coast for the winter campaign these . . . three? yes, three years ago, he made me castle warder of the fortress at Gotorget. Then dy Jironal had that unfortunate reversal . . . we held the keep nine months against the Roknari forces. The usual, you know. I swear there was not a rat left unroasted in Gotorget when the word came through that dy Jironal had made treaty again, and we were ordered to lay down our arms and march out, and turn the fortress over to our foes.” He offered up a brief, unfelt smile; his left hand curled in his lap. “For my consolation, I was informed our fortress cost the Roknari prince an extra three hundred thousand royals, in the treaty tent. Plus considerably more in the field that nine-month, I calculate.” Poor consolation, for the lives we spent. “The Roknari general claimed my father’s sword; he said he was going to hang it in his tent, to remember me by. So that was the last I saw of my blade. After that . . .” Cazaril’s voice, growing stronger through this reminiscence, faltered. He cleared his throat, and began again. “There was an error, some mix-up. When the list of men to be ransomed arrived, together with the chests of royals, my name had been left off it somehow. The Roknari quartermaster swore there was no mistake, because the amounts counted out evenly with the names, but . . . there was some mistake. All my officers were rescued . . . I was put in with the unransomed men, and we were all marched to Visping, to be sold to the Roknari corsair masters as galley slaves.”

The Provincara drew in her breath. The warder, who had been leaning farther and farther forward in his seat during this recital, burst out, “You protested, surely!”

“Oh, five gods, yes. I protested all the way to Visping. I was still protesting as they dragged me up the gangplank and chained me to my oar. I kept protesting till we put to sea, and then I . . . learned not to.” He smiled again. It felt like a clown’s mask. Happily, no one seized on that weak error.

“I was on one ship or another for . . . for a long time.” Nineteen months, eight days, he had counted it out later. At the time, he could not have told one day from the next. “And then I had the greatest piece of good fortune, for my corsair ran afoul of a fleet of the roya of Ibra, out on maneuvers. I assure you Ibra’s volunteers rowed better than we did, and they soon ran us down.”

Two men had been beheaded in their chains by the increasingly desperate Roknari, for deliberately—or accidentally—fouling their oars. One of them had been sitting near Cazaril, his benchmate for months. Some of the spurting blood had got in his mouth; he could still half taste it, when he made the mistake of thinking of it. He could taste it now. When the corsair was taken, the Ibrans had trailed the Roknari, some still half-alive, behind the ship on ropes made of their own guts, till the great fishes had eaten them. Some of the freed galley slaves had helped row, with a will. Cazaril could not. That last flaying had brought him within hours of being cast overboard by the Roknari galley master as broken and useless. He’d sat on the deck, muscles twitching uncontrollably, and wept.

“The good Ibrans put me ashore in Zagosur, where I fell ill for a few months. You know how it is with men when a long strain is removed of a sudden. They can grow . . . rather childish.” He smiled apologetically around the room. For him, it had been collapse and fever, till his back half healed; then dysentery; then an ague. And, throughout it all, the bouts of inconsolable weeping. He’d wept when an acolyte offered him dinner. When the sun came out. When the sun went in. When a cat startled him. When he was led to bed. Or at any time, for no cause. “The Temple Hospital of the Mother’s Mercy took me in. When I felt a little better”—when the weeping had tailed mostly off, and the acolytes had decided he was not mad, merely nervous—“they gave me a little money, and I walked here. I was three weeks on the road.”

The room was dead silent.

He looked up, to see that the Provincara’s lips had gone tight with anger. Terror wrenched his empty stomach. “It was the only place I could think of!” he excused himself hastily. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The warder blew out his breath and sat back, staring at Cazaril. The lady companion’s eyes were wide.

In a vibrating voice, the Provincara declared, “You are the Castillar dy Cazaril. They should have given you a horse. They should have given you an escort.”

Cazaril’s hands flapped in frightened denial. “No, no, my lady! It was . . . it was enough.” Well, almost. He realized, after an unsteady blink, that her anger wasn’t at him. Oh. His throat tightened, and the room blurred. No, not again, not here . . . He hurried on. “I wished to place myself in your service, lady, if you can find any use for me. I admit I . . . can’t do much. Just now.”

The Provincara sat back, her chin resting lightly on her hand, and studied him. After a moment, she said, “You used to play the lute very pleasantly, when you were a page.”

“Uh . . .” Cazaril’s crooked, callused hands tried to hide themselves in each other for a spasmodic instant. He smiled in renewed apology, and displayed them briefly on his knees. “I think not now, my lady.”

She leaned forward; her gaze rested for a moment on his half-mangled left. “I see.” She sat back again, pursing her lips. “I remember you read all the books in my husband’s library. The master of the pages was always complaining of you for that. I told him to leave you alone. You aspired to be a poet, as I recall.”

Cazaril was not sure his right hand could close around a pen, at present. “I believe Chalion was saved from a deal of bad poetry, when I went off to war.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Come, come, Castillar, you quite daunt me with your offer of service. I’m not sure poor Valenda has posts enough to occupy you. You’ve been a courtier—a captain—a castle warder—a courier—”

“I haven’t been a courtier since before Roya Ias died, my lady. As a captain . . . I helped lose the battle of Dalus.” And rotted for nearly a year in the dungeons of the royacy of Brajar, thereafter. “As a castle warder, well, we lost the siege. As a courier, I was nearly hanged as a spy. Twice.” He brooded. And three times put to the torture in violation of parley. “Now . . . now, well, I know how to row boats. And five ways of preparing a dish of rats.”

I could relish a mighty dish of rat right now, in fact.

He did not know what she read in his face, for all that her sharp old eyes probed him. Perhaps it was exhaustion, but he hoped it was hunger. He was fairly sure it was hunger, for she at last smiled crookedly.

“Then come to supper with us, Castillar, though I’m afraid my cook cannot offer you rat. They are not in season, in peaceful Valenda. I shall think on your petition.”

He nodded mute thanks, not trusting his voice to not break.

It being still winter, the main meal of the household’s day had been taken at noon, formally, in the great hall. The evening supper was a lighter repast, featuring, by the Provincara’s economy, the leftover breads and meats from noon, but by her pride, the very best of them, supplemented by a generous libation of her excellent wines. In the shimmering heat of the high plains summer, the procedure would be reversed; nuncheon would be light fare, and the main meal taken after nightfall, when Baocians of all degrees took to their cooler courtyards to eat by lantern light.

They sat down only eight, in an intimate chamber in a new building quite near the kitchens. The Provincara took the center of the table, and placed Cazaril on her honored right. Cazaril was daunted to find the Royesse Iselle on his other side, and the Royse Teidez across from her. He took heart again when the royse chose to while away the wait for all to be seated by flicking bread-balls at his older sister, a maneuver sternly suppressed by his grandmother. A retaliatory gleam in the royesse’s eye was only sidetracked, Cazaril judged, by some timely distraction from her companion Betriz, seated across and a little down from him.

Lady Betriz smiled across the board at Cazaril in friendly curiosity, revealing an elusive dimple, and seemed about to speak, but then the servant passed among them with a basin for hand-washing. The warm water was scented with verbena. Cazaril’s hands shook as he dipped and wiped them on the fine linen towel, a weakness he concealed as soon as he might by hiding them in his lap. The chair directly across from him remained empty.

Cazaril nodded to it, and asked the Provincara diffidently, “Will the dowager royina be joining us, Your Grace?”

Her lips pressed closed. “Ista is not well enough tonight, unfortunately. She . . . takes most of her meals in her chamber.”

Cazaril quelled a moment of unease, and resolved to ask someone else, later, exactly what troubled the royse and royesse’s mother. That brief compression suggested something chronic, or lingering, or too painful to be discussed. Her long widowhood had spared Ista the further dangers of childbirth that were the bane of young women, but then there were all those frightening female disorders that overtook matrons . . . As Roya Ias’s second wife, Ista had been wed in his middle age when his son and heir Orico was already full-grown. In the little time Cazaril had been at the court of Chalion, years ago, he had watched her only from a discreet distance; she’d seemed happy, the light of the roya’s eye when the marriage was new. Ias had doted upon toddler Iselle and upon Teidez, a babe in the nurse’s arms.

Their happiness had been darkened during the unfortunate tragedy of Lord dy Lutez’s treason, which, most observers agreed, had hastened the aging roya’s death by grief. Cazaril couldn’t help wondering if the illness that had evidently driven Royina Ista from her stepson’s court had any unfortunate political elements. But the new roya Orico had been respectful of his stepmother, and kind to his half siblings, by all reports.

Cazaril cleared his throat to cover the growling of his stomach and gave attention to the royse’s superior gentleman-tutor, on the far end of the table beyond Lady Betriz. The Provincara, with a regal nod of her head, desired him to lead the prayer to the Holy Family blessing the approaching meal. Cazaril hoped it was approaching rapidly. The mystery of the empty chair was solved when the castle warder Ser dy Ferrej hurried in late, and made brief apologies all round before seating himself.

“I was caught by the divine of the Order of the Bastard,” he explained as bread, meat, and dried fruit were passed.

Cazaril, hard-pressed not to fall on his food like a starving dog, made a politely inquiring noise, and took his first bite.

“The most earnestly long-winded young man,” dy Ferraj expanded.

“What does he want now?” asked the Provincara. “More donations for the foundling hospital? We sent down a load last week. The castle servants are refusing to give up any more of their old clothes.”

“Wet nurses,” said dy Ferrej, chewing.

The Provincara snorted. “Not from my household!”

“No, but he wanted me to pass the word that the Temple was looking. He was hoping someone might have a female relative who would be moved to pious charity. They had another babe left at the postern last week, and he’s expecting more. It’s the time of year, apparently.”

The Order of the Bastard, by the logic of its theology, classified unwanted births among the things-out-of-season that were the god’s mandate: including bastards—naturally—and children bereft of parents untimely young. The Temple’s foundling hospitals and orphanages were one of the order’s main concerns. In all, Cazaril thought that a god who was supposed to command a legion of demons ought to have an easier time shaking out donations for his good works.

Cautiously, Cazaril watered his wine; a crime to treat this vintage so, but on his empty stomach it was sure to go straight to his head. The Provincara nodded approvingly at him, but then entered into an argument with her lady cousin on the same subject, emerging partially triumphant with half a glass of wine undiluted.

Ser dy Ferrej continued, “The divine had a good story, though; guess who died last night?”

“Who, Papa?” said Lady Betriz helpfully.

“Ser dy Naoza, the celebrated duelist.”

It was not a name Cazaril recognized, but the Provincara sniffed. “About time. Ghastly man. I did not receive him, though I suppose there were fools enough who did. Did he finally underestimate a victim—I mean, opponent?”

“That’s where the story gets interesting. He was apparently assassinated by death magic.” No bad raconteur, dy Ferrej quaffed wine while the shocked murmur ran around the table. Cazaril froze in mid-chew.

“Is the Temple going to try to solve the mystery?” asked Royesse Iselle.

“No mystery to it, though I gather it was rather a tragedy. About a year ago, dy Naoza was jostled in the street by the only son of a provincial wool merchant, with the usual result. Well, dy Naoza claimed it for a duel, of course, but there were those on the scene who said it was bloody murder. Somehow, none of them could be found to testify when the boy’s father tried to take dy Naoza to justice. There was some question about the probity of the judge, too, it was rumored.”

The Provincara tsked. Cazaril dared to swallow, and say, “Do go on.”

Encouraged, the castle warder continued, “The merchant was a widower, and the boy not just an only son, but an only child. Just about to be married, too, to turn the knife. Death magic is an ugly business, true, but I can’t help having a spot of sympathy for the poor merchant. Well, rich merchant, I suppose, but in any case, far too old to train up to the degree of swordsmanship required to remove someone like dy Naoza. So he fell back on what he thought was his only recourse. Spent the next year studying the black arts—where he found all his lore is a good puzzle for the Temple, mind you—letting his business go, I was told—and then, last night, took himself off to an abandoned mill about seven miles from Valenda, and tried to call up a demon. And, by the Bastard, succeeded! His body was found there this morning.”

The Father of Winter was the god of all deaths in good season, and of justice; but in addition to all the other disasters in his gift the Bastard was the god of executioners. And, indeed, god of a whole purseful of other dirty jobs. It seems the merchant went to the right store for his miracle. The notebook in Cazaril’s vest suddenly seemed to weigh ten pounds; but it was only in his imagination that it felt as though it might scorch through the cloth and burst into flame.

“Well, I don’t have any sympathy for him,” said Royse Teidez. “That was cowardly!”

“Yes, but what can you expect of a merchant?” observed his tutor, from down the table. “Men of that class are not trained up in the kind of code of honor a true gentleman learns.”

“But it’s so sad,” protested Iselle. “I mean, about the son about to be wed.”

Teidez snorted. “Girls. All you can think about is getting married. But which is the greater loss to the royacy? Some moneygrubbing wool-man, or a swordsman? Any duelist that skilled must be a good soldier for the roya!”

“Not in my experience,” Cazaril said dryly.

“What do you mean?” Teidez promptly challenged him.

Abashed, Cazaril mumbled, “Excuse me. I spoke out of turn.”

“What’s the difference?” Teidez pressed.

The Provincara tapped a finger on the tablecloth and shot him an indecipherable look. “Do expand, Castillar.”

Cazaril shrugged, and offered a slight, apologetic bow in the boy’s direction. “The difference, Royse, is that a skilled soldier kills your enemies, but a skilled duelist kills your allies. I leave you to guess which a wise commander prefers to have in his camp.”

“Oh,” said Teidez. He fell silent, looking thoughtful.

There was, apparently, no rush to return the merchant’s notebook to the proper authorities, and also no difficulty. Cazaril might search out the divine at the Temple of the Holy Family here in Valenda tomorrow at his leisure, and turn it over to be passed along. It would have to be decoded; some men found that sort of puzzle difficult or tedious, but Cazaril had always found it restful. He wondered if he ought, as a courtesy, to offer to decipher it. He touched his soft wool robe, and was glad he’d prayed for the man at his hurried burning.

Betriz, her dark brows crimping, asked, “Who was the judge, Papa?”

Dy Ferrej hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “The Honorable Vrese.”

“Ah,” said the Provincara. “Him.” Her nose twitched, as though she’d sniffed a bad smell.

“Did the duelist threaten him, then?” asked Royesse Iselle. “Shouldn’t he—couldn’t he have called for help, or had dy Naoza arrested?”

“I doubt that even dy Naoza was foolish enough to threaten a justiciar of the province,” said dy Ferrej. “Though it was probable he intimidated the witnesses. Vrese was, hm, likely handled by more peaceful means.” He popped a fragment of bread into his mouth and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, miming a man warming a coin.

“If the judge had done his job honestly and bravely, the merchant would never have been driven to use death magic,” said Iselle slowly. “Two men are dead and damned, where it might have only been one . . . and even if he’d been executed, dy Naoza might have had time to clean his soul before facing the gods. If this is known, why is the man still a judge? Grandmama, can’t you do something about it?”

The Provincara pressed her lips together. “The appointment of provincial justiciars is not within my gift, dear one. Nor their removal. Or their department would be rather more orderly run, I assure you.” She took a sip of her wine and added to her granddaughter’s frowning look, “I have great privilege in Baocia, child. I do not have great powers.”

Iselle glanced at Teidez, and at Cazaril, before echoing her brother’s question, in a voice gone serious: “What’s the difference?”

“One is the right to rule—and the duty to protect! T’ other is the right to receive protection,” replied the Provincara. “There is alas more difference between a provincar and a provincara than just the one letter.”

Teidez smirked. “Oh, like the difference between a royse and a royesse?”

Iselle turned on him and raised her brows. “Oh? And how do you propose to remove the corrupt judge—privileged boy?”

“That’s enough, you two,” said the Provincara sternly, in a voice that was pure grandmother. Cazaril hid a smile. Within these walls, she ruled, right enough, by an older code than Chalion’s. Hers was a sufficient little state.

The conversation turned to less lurid matters as the servants brought cakes, cheese, and a wine from Brajar. Cazaril had, surreptitiously he hoped, stuffed himself. If he didn’t stop soon, he would make himself sick. But the golden dessert wine almost sent him into tears at the table; that one, he drank unwatered, though he managed to limit himself to one glass.

At the end of the meal prayers were offered again, and Royse Teidez was dragged off by his tutor for studies. Iselle and Betriz were sent to do needlework. They departed at a gallop, followed at a more sedate pace by dy Ferrej.

“Will they actually sit still for needlework?” Cazaril asked the Provincara, watching the departing flurry of skirts.

“They gossip and giggle till I can’t bear it, but yes, they’re very handy,” said the Provincara, the disapproving purse of her lips belied by the warmth of her eyes.

“Your granddaughter is a delightful young lady.”

“To a man of a certain age, Cazaril, all young ladies start to look delightful. It’s the first symptom of senility.”

“True, my lady.” His lips twitched up.

“She’s worn out two governesses and looks to be bent on destroying a third, by the way the woman complains of her. And yet . . .” the Provincara’s tart voice grew slower, “she needs to be strong. Someday, inevitably, she will be sent far from me. And I will no longer be able to help her . . . protect her . . .”

An attractive, fresh young royesse was a pawn, not a player, in the politics of Chalion. Her bride-price would come high, but a politically and financially favorable marriage might not necessarily prove a good one in more intimate senses. The Dowager Provincara had been fortunate in her personal life, but in her long years had doubtless had opportunity to observe the whole range of marital fates awaiting highborn women. Would Iselle be sent to far Darthaca? Married off to some cousin in the too-close-related royacy of Brajar? Gods forbid she should be bartered away to the Roknari to seal some temporary peace, exiled to the Archipelago.

She studied him sidelong, in the light from the lavish branches of candles she had always favored. “How old are you now, Castillar? I thought you were about thirteen when your father sent you to serve my dear Provincar.”

“About that, yes, Your Grace. I’m thirty-five.”

“Ha. You should shave off that nasty mess growing out of your face, then. It makes you look fifteen years older than you are.”

Cazaril considered some quip about a turn in the Roknari galleys being very aging to a man, but he wasn’t quite up to it. Instead he said, “I hope I did not annoy the royse with my maunderings, my lady.”

“I believe you actually made young Teidez stop and think. A rare event. I wish his tutor could manage it more often.” She drummed her thin fingers briefly on the cloth and drained the last of her tiny glass of wine. She set it down, and added, “I don’t know what flea-ridden inn you’ve put up at down in town, Castillar, but I’ll dispatch a page for your things. You’ll lodge here tonight.”

“Thank you, Your Grace. I accept with gratitude.” And alacrity. Thank the gods, oh, five times five, he was gathered in, at least temporarily. He hesitated, embarrassed. “But, ah . . . it won’t be necessary to trouble your page.”

She raised a brow at him. “That’s what they exist for. As you may recall.”

“Yes, but”—he smiled briefly, and gestured down himself—“these are my things.”

At her pained look, he added weakly, “I had less, when I fell off the Ibran galley in Zagosur.” He’d been dressed in a breechclout of surpassing filthiness, and scabs. The acolytes had burned the rag at their first opportunity.

“Then my page,” said the Provincara in a precise voice, still regarding him levelly, “will escort you to your chamber. My lord Castillar.”

She added, as she made to rise, and her cousin-companion hastened to assist her, “We’ll speak again tomorrow.”

The chamber was one in the old keep reserved for honored guests, more on account of having been slept in by several historical royas than for its absolute comfort; Cazaril had served its guests himself a hundred times. The bed had three mattresses, straw, feather, and down, and was dressed in the softest washed linen and a coverlet worked by ladies of the household. Before the page had left him, two maids arrived, bearing wash water, drinking water, towels, soap, a tooth-stick, and an embroidered nightgown, cap, and slippers. Cazaril had been planning to sleep in the dead man’s shirt.

It was abruptly all too much. Cazaril sat down on the edge of the bed with the nightgown in his hands and burst into wracking sobs. Gulping, he gestured the unnerved-looking servitors to leave him.

“What’s the matter with him?” he heard the maid’s voice, as their footsteps trailed off down the corridor, and the tears trailed down the inside of his nose.

The page answered disgustedly, “A madman, I suppose.”

After a short pause, the maid’s voice floated back faintly, “Well, he’ll fit right in here, then, won’t he . . .”