Paladin of Souls (Curse of Chalion)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Perhaps,” said Ista. “Yet not without advancing Jokonan goals. The saint of Rauma is dead, and Porifors … is much distracted.”

  He glanced up sharply at this. “Arhys still leads us—does he not?”

  “For the moment. It’s clear his reserves are drawing down.”

  Illvin, reminded, took another bite of bread and dutifully chewed. His face screwed up in thought. He swallowed, and said, “It occurs to me that we do have one here who must know all the inward plans, if such exist, of whoever in Sordso’s court is behind this. The demon itself. We should question it again. More firmly.” He added after a reflective moment, “It might be better if Arhys were not present this time.”

  “I … quite see your point. Here, perhaps, tomorrow?”

  “If it may be arranged. Not sure if Catti will agree, without Arhys persuading her.”

  “She must be made to,” said Ista.

  “I will have to leave that part to you.”

  With some relief, if Ista read him right. She said, “But were these losses all of Jokona’s sorcerers, or two of many? If all the elementals that have lately been found in Chalion are lost or escaped from the same source, how many more were captured as intended? And how? Perhaps these two were sacrificed, as a commander with many men would send some into a breach, knowing he will bear losses, but counting the gain to himself worth the cost. But not if he has few men. Unless he is very desperate …” She tapped her fingers on her chair arm. “No, it cannot be Joen. She would not put a demon into her own daughter.” She glanced at Goram. “Unless she were terribly ignorant of their nature and effects, and in that case I can hardly see how she could control one sorcerer, let alone many.”

  Illvin cast her an odd look. “You love your own daughter very much, I take it.”

  “Who would not?” Ista’s smile softened. “She is the bright star of Chalion. Beyond my hope and my deserving, for I could do little enough for her during my dark times.”

  “Hm.” He smiled curiously at her. “And yet you said you’d never loved anyone enough to guess at heaven’s hope.”

  She made a little excusing gesture. “I think the gods may give us children to teach us what true love really is, that we may be fitted for Their company at the last. A lesson for those of us whose hearts are too dull and inert to learn any other way.”

  “Inert? Or merely …”

  The rope of white fire was beginning to attenuate; his hand fell back weakly to his coverlet. Goram glanced with dismay at the amount of food still left on the tray. Ista watched Illvin sink back, his eyes closing, and clenched her teeth with frustration. She wanted that mind in her service against this conundrum, but Arhys’s body seemed equally needed today. She wished it were winter, that she might steal another hour for Illvin. But it was too beastly hot to let the march start to rot.

  “Come again, shining Ista,” he breathed with a fading sigh. “Bring Catti …”

  Gone. It was like watching him die, every day. She did not desire the practice.

  ISTA TURNED ASIDE AT THE STAIRS DOWN TO THE STONE COURT. “Learned, please attend upon me. We must talk.”

  “And I, Royina?” said Liss hopefully.

  “You may … make yourself comfortable within call.”

  Taking the hint, Liss strolled away to a bench on the court’s far end. After an uncertain moment, Foix followed after her, looking not displeased. They put their heads together the moment they sat down.

  Ista led dy Cabon back to the bench in the cloister walk’s shade and gestured him to a seat. He settled himself with a tired grunt. The days of riding and anxiety had told on him; his stained white robes hung loosely, and his belt was cinched in a few new notches. Ista, remembering the god’s immense girth and overflowing abundance in dy Cabon’s dream-borrowed body, could not, on the whole, regard this shrinking as an improvement.

  She sat beside him, and began, “You say you witnessed the banishing of an elemental, when the ferret’s rider was discharged from the world. How exactly was it accomplished? What did you see?”

  He shrugged his thick shoulders. “There was not a great deal to see with my poor eyes. The archdivine of Taryoon led me into the presence of the divine who had volunteered for the task. A very elderly woman, she was, frail as paper in the temple hospital bed. She seemed three-fourths detached from the world already. There is so much to delight us in the world of matter—to tire of it seems ungrateful to me, but she told me she’d had all the pain she could eat and would pass from this banquet to a better one. She genuinely desired her god, as a weary sojourner desires his own bed.”

  Ista said, “A man I know who had a mystic vision, under the most extraordinary circumstances, once told me he saw the dying souls rising up like flowers in the goddess’s garden. But he was a devotee of the Lady of Spring. I think each god may have some different metaphor—fine animals for the Son of Autumn, I have heard, strong men and beautiful women for the Father and the Mother. For the Bastard—what?”

  “He takes us as we are. I hope.”

  “Hm.”

  “But no,” dy Cabon continued, “there were no special tricks or even prayers. The divine said she did not need them. As she was the one doing the dying, I didn’t argue. I asked her what it was like, dying. She gave me such a look out of the corner of her eye, and told me, pretty tartly, that when she found out she’d be sure to let me know. The archdivine signed me to cut the ferret’s throat then, which I did, into a basin. The old woman sighed, and snorted, as if at some other foolish remark like mine, which we could not hear. And then she stopped. It took her only a moment to pass from life to death, but it was unmistakable. Not a sleep. An emptying out. And that was that. Except for the cleaning up after.”

  “That … is not especially helpful,” sighed Ista.

  “It was what I saw. I suspect she saw more. But I can scarcely imagine what.”

  “In my dream—the dream you entered into—the god kissed me twice. The first time on the brow”—she touched the spot—“as His Mother once did, and so I recognized it as the gift of second sight, of seeing the world of spirit directly as the gods do, for I had received it so before. But then he kissed me a second time, on—in—my mouth. More deeply and disturbingly. Learned, tell me, what was the meaning of that second kiss? You must know—you were right there.”

  He gulped and blushed. “Royina, I cannot guess. The mouth is the Bastard’s own theological sign and signifier upon our bodies, as the thumbs are upon our hands. Did He give you no other clues but me?”

  She shook her head. “The next day, Goram, with some very confused notion about a royina—even if only a dowager royina—being able to undo what a princess had done, invited me in to kiss his master. And for an elated moment, I thought I’d solved the riddle—that it was to be a kiss of life, as in the children’s story. But it didn’t work. Nor on Lord Arhys, when I attempted him, later. I did not take the trial further afield, fortunately for my reputation in this castle. The kiss was clearly something else, some other gift or burden.”

  Ista drew breath. “I face a three-way knot. Two parts may be loosed together; if I could find some way to banish Cattilara’s demon, Illvin would be freed, and the marchess saved. But what hope may be found for Arhys? I saw his soul, Learned. He is surely sundered, or my inner eyes are blind. It would be bad enough to complete his death, and lose him to his god. It would be worse to secure his damnation, and lose him to nothingness.”

  “I … um … know that some souls, suffering especially disrupted deaths, have lingered for a few days, to be helped on their way by the prayers and ceremonies of their funerals. Slipped through the doors of their deaths before they quite shut.”

  “Might the rites of the Temple help him find his way to his god, then?” It was a bizarre image; would Arhys walk to his own funeral, lie down on his bier?

  He grimaced. “Three months seems very late. Choice is the trial of all who are trapped in time; and that choice is the last one time imposes. If his mo
ment for decision still lingered, through some habit of the body, could your second sight tell?”

  “Yes,” said Ista lowly. “It can. But I want another answer. I do not like this one. I had hopes of that kiss, but it failed.”

  He scratched his nose in puzzlement. “You said the god spoke to you. What did He say?”

  “That I was sent here, in answer to prayers, Illvin’s among others, probably. The Bastard dared me, by my own son’s god-neglected death, not to turn aside.” She frowned fiercely in memory, and dy Cabon edged a little back from her. “I asked Him what the gods, having taken Teidez, could give me that I would trade spit for. He answered, Work. His blandishments were all decorated about with annoying endearments that would have bought a human suitor a short trip to the nearest mud puddle by the hands of my servants. His kiss on my brow burned like a brand. His kiss on my mouth”—she hesitated, went on doggedly—“aroused me like a lover, which I most certainly am not.”

  Dy Cabon edged farther back, smiling in anxious placation, and made little agreeing-denying motions, his hands like flippers. “Indeed not, Royina. No one could mistake you for such.”

  She glowered at him, then went on. “Then He disappeared, leaving you holding the sack. So to speak. If this was prophecy, it bodes you ill, Learned.”

  He signed himself. “Right, right. Um. If the first kiss was a spiritual gift, so ought the second to be. Yes, I quite see that.”

  “Yes, but He didn’t say what it was. Bastard. One of his little jokes, it seems.”

  Dy Cabon glanced up as if trying to decide if that were prayer or expletive, guessed correctly, and took a breath, marshaling his thoughts. “All right. But He did say. He said, Work. If it sounds like a joke, it was probably quite serious.” He added more cautiously, “It seems you are made saint again, will or nil.”

  “Oh, I can still nil.” She scowled. “That’s what we all are, you know. Hybrids, of both matter and spirit. The gods’ agents in the world of matter, to which they have no other entrée. Doorways. He knocks on my door, demanding entry. He probes with his tongue like a lover, mimicking above what is desired below. Nothing so simple as a lover, he, yet he desires that I open myself and surrender as if to one. And let me tell you, I despise his choice of metaphors!”

  Dy Cabon flippered frantically at her again. It made her want to bite him. “You are a very fortress of a woman, it is true!”

  She stifled a growl, ashamed to have let her rage with his god spill over onto his humble head. “If you don’t know the other half of the riddle, why were you put there?”

  “Royina, I know not!” He hesitated. “Maybe we should all sleep on it.” He cringed at her blistering look, and tried again. “I will endeavor to think.”

  “Do.”

  At the other end of the courtyard, Foix and Liss were now sitting closer together. Foix held Liss’s hand, which she did not draw back, and spoke earnestly over it. She was listening to him, in Ista’s jaundiced view, with entirely too credulous an expression on her face. Ista rose abruptly, and called her to attend. She had to call twice to summon her notice. The girl scrambled up hastily, but her smile lingered like perfume in the air.

  LADY CATTILARA, IN SOME DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO SUSTAIN HER role of chatelaine before her new guests, held a dinner that afternoon in the same chamber where she and her ladies had entertained Ista on the second night. Arhys was again out; a very few of his officers attended, clearly more to make a convenient hasty meal than to play courtier. Cattilara had seated Foix as far from herself at the high table as she could, given his claim to Ista’s side as her present guard captain. Despite the distance, it seemed to Ista that the two remained highly aware of each other throughout the strained meal. Aware, but plainly not attracted.

  Learned dy Cabon, nervous, nevertheless led the prayers with admirable discretion, keeping his pleas for godly blessings safely vague. The conversations that commenced as the food was passed limped along; the divine took refuge from them in industrious chewing. He did not neglect to listen, however, Ista noted with approval.

  Ista found one of Arhys’s senior officers on her right hand, buffering Liss and Foix down at the end. He was polite, undaunted by her rank, but preoccupied. After a few pragmatic exchanges about the food and wine, he abruptly said to her, “My lord has told us that he is very ill. Had you heard?”

  “Yes. I am aware. We have discussed it.”

  “Indeed, I had marked that he was pale, and not eating or sleeping well, but I had not expected … if he is that ill, should he not be made to rest?” He glanced across at Cattilara as if considering a potential alliance against his forceful commander, for Arhys’s good.

  “Rest will bring no cure for what he has,” said Ista.

  “I fear his riding about in this weather may worsen his sickness.”

  “I don’t see how it can.”

  Cattilara, on Ista’s left, glowered at her.

  “I did not know you for a physician, Royina.” He let his tone trail off invitingly.

  “I’m not. Alas.”

  “Quite the reverse,” murmured Cattilara resentfully.

  The officer blinked uncertainly, but finally mustered the perception to veer from a subject so clearly unpalatable to the marchess. “Brigands from the princedoms do not normally ride so close to Porifors, I assure you, Royina. But we chewed them well enough this morning, I think they will be discouraged from new attempts.”

  “They were rather more than brigands, I thought,” said Ista. “Troops, or so their tabards proclaimed, though I suppose real brigands wouldn’t hesitate to so disguise themselves. Has Sordso the Sot roused himself to some more military posture than heretofore, or do you think someone else in his court may be probing your defenses?”

  “I should never have thought it of Sordso, but indeed, since the unfortunate death of his sister Umerue, I have heard that a great change has come over him. We shall have to find him another nickname if this keeps on.”

  “Oh?”

  Thus encouraged, he turned eagerly to a safer court gossip than his own. “It is said that he has bestirred himself about his army, which he never did before. And given up drinking. And dismissed all his boon companions. And, quite abruptly, he has married, to an heiress of Borsasnen. And taken two official concubines as well, which the Roknari name as wives so as to avoid the stigma of bastardy there. Which he had not troubled to before, for all one hears that his advisors had long urged him to wed. He sounds quite a reformed soul. Not to mention energized, though perhaps the new wives will prove the cure for that. We rather hope this extreme virtue will not last. His poetry was not bad; it would be a shame to lose it.” He grinned briefly.

  Ista’s brows rose. “This sounds not at all as Lord Illvin described the man, but I suppose Illvin has not had much chance to follow developments in Jokona, or indeed, anywhere else, in the past few months.”

  His head jerked around. “Illvin described—does he speak, now? Did he speak to you, Royina? Oh, that is hopeful news!”

  Ista glanced back at Cattilara, listening with her jaw clamped shut. “He has brief periods of lucidity. I have spoken with him almost daily since I came here. There is no doubt that his wits are intact, but he remains very weak. I think he is by no means out of danger yet.” She returned Cattilara’s glower.

  “Still—still—we feared his wits were gone for good, when he did not awaken. They were as great a loss to Porifors as Arhys’s sword arm … would be.” He caught the marchess’s scowl and covered his confusion in a bite, and another.

  The ordeal of dinner was not dragged out with more than a perfunctory musical interlude, to Ista’s relief. Dy Cabon went to his room for some much-needed rest, and Foix accompanied Arhys’s officer to see what help his little troop might lend to Porifors in exchange for their board. And, if Ista’s estimation of Foix held true, to decant from the man most of the pertinent defensive information about the fortress and its denizens. Foix’s next letter to Cardegoss was likely to be very inform
ative. She wondered if he’d yet confessed his new pet to Chancellor dy Cazaril, or if that gap might be smoothly concealed in the very abundance of his tidings.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  LISS WAS BRUSHING OUT ISTA’S HAIR BEFORE BED, A TASK THE girl seemed to enjoy—Ista suspected it brought back happy memories of the stables—when a diffident knock sounded at the door of the outer chamber. Liss went to answer it and returned a moment later.

  “It’s one of Lord Arhys’s pages. He says his lord waits below, and would beg a word with you.”

  Ista’s brows went up. “At this hour? Very well. Tell him I will be down directly.”

  Liss went to convey the message, and Ista slipped out of her wrapper and back into the lavender linen shift and black silk overrobe. Her hand hesitated over the mourning brooch, lying on the table, then fastened the soft black fabric beneath her breasts with it as before. Inadvertently appropriate garb, for Arhys’s presence, she reflected. With Liss carrying a candle in a glass vase to light their steps, she went out on the gallery.

  Lord Arhys stood at the foot of the stairs, holding a torch aloft, looking up intently. He still wore his sword and boots, as if just returned from riding out. Ista was glad to see a coat of mail beneath his gray-and-gold tabard. The night air was soft and still from the day’s heat, and the flame gave a steady light, cast down over his pale features.

  “Royina, I would speak with you. Apart.”

  Ista gestured toward the bench at the courtyard’s far end, and he nodded.

  “Wait here,” Ista said quietly to Liss, and the girl nodded and plunked down at the top of the steps. Ista descended and paced across the pavement at Arhys’s side. He handed his torch to his page, but the boy could not reach the bracket high on a carved pillar, and Arhys smiled briefly and took it back to set therein. He dismissed the page to keep Liss company. Ista and he settled themselves on either end of the stone slab, still not wholly cooled from its day’s baking. The starry depths of the sky, bounded above by the roofs’ rectangle, seemed to swallow the golden glow of Liss’s candle and the torch, and give back nothing. Arhys’s face was a gilded shadow against the deeper shadows, but his eyes gleamed.