The Complete Chalion

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  The elder of Cattilara’s ladies glanced at Ista and at the bright silks, and seemed to correctly interpret this. Much rummaging in chests and some trips to other storage places produced at length some dresses and robes of sterner cut and much-less-trailing hemlines, in suitable black and lilac. Ista smiled and shook her head at the jewel case. Cattilara contemplated the choices therein, and suddenly curtseyed and excused herself.

  Ista heard her steps outside on the gallery turn in again almost at once; then through the wall, a reverberation of voices, Cattilara’s and a man’s. Lord Arhys had returned, evidently. His timbre and cadences were distinctive. The light steps dashed back, then slowed to a lady’s dignity. Cattilara entered, her lips curled up with satisfaction, and held out her hand.

  In it lay a rich silver mourning brooch set with amethysts and pearls.

  “My lord has not very many pieces inherited from his great father,” she said shyly, “but this is one of them. He’d be honored if you would choose to have it, for those past times’ sake.”

  Ista, surprised by the sight, vented a huff of a laugh. “Indeed. I know the piece. Lord dy Lutez used to wear it in his hat, upon occasion.” Roya Ias had given it to him—one of the least of his many gifts, which had run to half his royacy before it all had come crashing down.

  Cattilara gazed at her with eyes shining, Ista would swear, in a muted romantic glow. The marchess, presumably, shared her husband’s heroic theories about his father’s fall. Ista was still not sure if Arhys had believed her denial of a sexual involvement with a man whose reputation as a lover had been scarcely less famous than his reputation as a soldier, or if he’d merely acceded to her story for courtesy’s sake. Did he imagine her still in mourning for dy Lutez? For Ias? For lost love of whatever object? The brooch was an ambiguous message, if message it was.

  Arhys’s flesh beneath her hand, as she had touched that misplaced wound, had been stiff and cool as wax. And yet he had risen, walked and rode, talked, kissed his wife, laughed or growled as grumpily as any breathing husband might. Ista might have convinced herself by now that she’d had a hallucination, or a dream, but for Ferda’s witness to the material reality of the blood on her palm.

  Ista wrapped her hand around the mystery of his intentions, and said, “Thank you, and thank your lord for me.”

  Cattilara looked immensely pleased with herself.

  Ista was laid down upon Lady Cattilara’s bed with her still-damp hair spread out on a linen towel, under the guard of the acolyte on a stool across the chamber. Cattilara swept her ladies out before her and left her honored guest to rest until the evening meal was served. Probably, Ista thought, to dash off and oversee its preparation. In the quiet of the dim chamber, exhaustion and the immense relief of clean skin and clothing lent Ista a sensation—illusion?—of having come to sanctuary at last. Her headache could just be a touch of fever from her sores and her nightmare ride…despite the lingering hum of tension on the edge of her nerves, her eyelids drooped.

  At a cool breath on her cheek, they opened again in irritation. No surprise that this castle had ghosts—all old fortresses did—nor that they emerged to investigate a visitor… She rolled onto her side. A faint white blob floated in her vision. As she stared, dismayed and frowning, two more slipped out of the walls and collected with it, as if drawn to her warmth. Ancient spirits, these, formless and decayed to near oblivion. Merciful oblivion. Her lips drew back in a fierce frown. “Be gone, sundered,” she whispered. “I can do nothing for you.” A swipe of her hand scattered the shapes like fog, and they dispersed from her inner sight. No mirror would reflect these visions, no companion share them.

  “Royina?” the acolyte’s voice came in a dozy murmur.

  “Nothing,” said Ista. “I dream.”

  No dream, that, but her inner vision grown clear again. Undesired, unwelcomed, resented. And yet…she was come to a very murky place, in this bright afternoon. Perhaps she was going to need such clarity.

  The gods give no gifts without hooks embedded.

  Remembering her vivid, disturbing dream from earlier, Ista hardly dared allow herself to drop off again. She half dozed for the turning of a glass, until Cattilara and her ladies came to collect her again.

  The senior lady-in-waiting dressed Ista’s hair in what was obviously an accustomed style, braided back from her face and falling loose behind. On Cattilara, the fall made fascinating ripples; Ista suspected her own dun mop, snarling at her nape, had more the effect of a mat of scouring weed. But a lavender linen shift, with a black silk overrobe pinned together beneath her breasts by the mourning brooch, made a suitably dignified display. Display, she was fairly certain, would be her next task.

  Summer’s heat came early to this northern province. The tables had been set up in the court, and the meal timed for when the westering sun dropped below the roofline, the advancing shadow sparing the diners the light’s hammering. The head table, at the court’s far end, faced the star fountain, and two other longer ones ran perpendicular to it.

  Ista found herself set at Lord Arhys’s right hand, with Lady Cattilara on her other side. If Arhys had been stunning in mail and leather, splashed with blood, he was devastating in a courtier’s garb of gray touched with gold, and splashed with verbena. He smiled warmly. Ista’s heart turned over; she gathered the shreds of her reserve and returned cooler greetings, then forced herself to look away from him.

  Ferda was given an honored place beyond the marchess. An elderly gentleman in the robes of a Temple divine was seated one space over from Lord Arhys’s left hand. One of Arhys’s senior officers began to approach them, but halted at the two fingers Lord Arhys held up above the empty seat, nodded understanding, and went to take a place at one of the lesser tables.

  Lady Cattilara, watching this, leaned behind Ista to murmur to her husband, “My lord. With these honored guests, surely tonight we should use the place.”

  Arhys’s eyes darkened. “Tonight least of all, then.” His brows bent at her in a scowl; one finger touched his lips. In warning?

  Cattilara settled back, her mouth taut. She twitched it back into a smile for Ista’s sake, and addressed a polite triviality to Ferda. Ista was pleased to see the remainder of Ferda’s company, refreshed and washed and lent clean clothes, scattered along the other tables. Arhys’s officers and Cattilara’s women and a few habitués in Temple dress made up the rest. Important citizens from the town at the castle’s feet would doubtless be paraded before Ista at ensuing meals.

  The elderly divine shuffled to his feet and quavered the prayers: of thanksgiving for the previous day’s victory and marvelous rescue of the royina, of supplication for the healing of the wounded, of blessing upon the meal about to be served. He continued with some special if slightly vague reference to the steadfastness of Ferda and his men, in this the Daughter’s Season, which Ista could see gratified the officer-dedicat. “And as ever, we especially beg the Mother, with Her Season impending, for the recovery of our Lord dy Arbanos.” He made a gesture of blessing over the empty chair at Lord Arhys’s left hand, and Arhys nodded, sighing under his breath. A nearly wordless murmur of assent ran round the officers at the other tables, and, Ista saw, some bleak frowns.

  As the servants began to pass among them with pitchers of wine and water and the first platters of food, Ista asked, “Who is Lord dy Arbanos?”

  Cattilara eyed Arhys warily, but he merely replied, “Illvin dy Arbanos, my master of horse. He has been…unwell, these two months. I save his seat, as you see.” His last remark had almost a mulish air. He added after a long moment, “Illvin is also my half brother.”

  Ista sipped at her goblet of watered wine, drawing family trees in her head. Another dy Lutez bastard, unacknowledged? But the great courtier had made a point of claiming all his scattered progeny, with regular prayers and offerings to the Bastard’s Tower for their protection. Perhaps this one had been got upon some woman already married, then folded silently into her family by the acquiescence of her c
uckolded husband…? The name suggested it. Silently, yet not secretly, if this dy Arbanos had claimed a place of the march and had his claim honored.

  “It was a great tragedy,” Cattilara began.

  “Too great to darken this evening’s celebration with,” growled Arhys. No gentle hint, that.

  Cattilara fell silent; then, with obvious effort, evolved some inconsequential chatter about her own family in Oby, remarks upon father and brothers and their clashes with the Roknari stragglers along their border during last fall’s campaigns. Lord Arhys, Ista noted, took little upon his plate, and that little merely pushed about with his fork.

  “You do not eat, Lord Arhys,” Ista ventured at last.

  He followed her glance to his plate with a rather pained smile. “I am troubled with a touch of tertiary fever. I find starving it to be the most effective treatment, for me. It will pass soon.”

  A group of musicians who had seated themselves in the gallery struck up a lively air, and Arhys, though not Cattilara, took it for pretext enough to let the limping conversation pause. Shortly after, he excused himself and went to consult with one of his officers. Ista eyed the empty seat beyond him, its place fully set. Someone had laid a cut white rose across the plate, in offering or prayer.

  “Lord dy Arbanos appears to be much missed, in your company,” said Ista to Cattilara.

  She glanced across the courtyard to locate her husband, leaning over another table in conversation and safely out of earshot. “Greatly missed. Truly, we despair of his recovery, but Arhys will not hear…it is very sad.”

  “Is he a much older man than the march?”

  “No, he’s my lord’s younger brother. By two years, nearly. The two have been inseparable most of their lives—the castle warder raised them together after the death of their mother, my father says, and made no distinction between them. Illvin has been master of horse here for Arhys for as long as I can remember.”

  Their mother? Ista’s mind ratcheted backward over the hypothesized family tree. “This Illvin…is not a son of the late Chancellor dy Lutez, then?”

  “Oh, no, not at all,” said Cattilara earnestly. “It was a great romance, though, I’ve always thought, in its day. It is said—” She glanced around, blushed a little, and lowered her voice, leaning in toward Ista. “The Lady of Porifors, Arhys’s mother—it is said, when Lord dy Lutez left her to attend court, she fell in love with her castle warder, Ser dy Arbanos, and he with her. Dy Lutez hardly ever returned to Porifors, and the date for Lord Illvin’s birth…well, it just didn’t work. It was a very open secret, I gather, but Ser dy Arbanos did not acknowledge Illvin until after their mother died, poor lady.”

  And another reason for dy Lutez’s long neglect of his northern bride emerged…but which was cause and which effect? Ista’s hand touched the brooch at her breast. What a quandary this Illvin must have posed for dy Lutez’s vanity and possessiveness. Had it been a gracious and forgiving gesture, to yield him legally to his real father, or a mere relief to slide the bastard boy off the crowded roll of dy Lutez’s heirs?

  “What illness befell him?”

  “Not exactly an illness. A very unexpected…tragedy, or cruel accident. Made worse by all the guesses and uncertainly. It was a great grief to my lord, and shock to all of Porifors…oh, but he returns to us.” Lord Arhys had straightened and was heading back to his high place. The officer to whom he had been speaking rose, gave him an acknowledging half salute, and made his way out of the courtyard. Cattilara lowered her voice still further. “It disturbs my lord deeply to speak of it. I will tell you all the tale of it privately, later, hm?”

  “Thank you,” said Ista, not knowing quite how to respond to all this mysterious evasion. She knew what she wanted to ask next. Is Lord Illvin a long, lean man, with hair like a stream of frosted night? Dy Arbanos the younger might, after all, be short, or round as a barrel, or bald, or with hair of flaming red. She could ask, Cattilara would say so, and the knot in Ista’s stomach could then relax.

  The plates were cleared. Some soldiers, under the direction of the officer Arhys had dispatched, brought in an array of boxes, chests, bags, and assorted armloads of weapons and armor, to lay in heaps before the high table. The spoils of yesterday morning’s battle, Ista realized. Lord Arhys and Lady Cattilara went together to lift a small chest to Ista’s place and open it before her.

  Ista’s head nearly jerked back at the reek of mortality and woe that rose from the mess of gauds piled within. It was not, she realized at once, a stink she sensed with her nose. It seemed she was to be the first inheritor of the Jokonan disaster. A select mound of rings and pins and bracelets of finer workmanship or obvious femininity gleamed in the fading light. How much of it had been lately stolen from Rauma? How much intended for Jokonan girls who would not see their suitors again? She took a breath, fixed a befitting smile of gratitude upon her face, and mustered a few appropriate words, commending Arhys and his men on their courage and swift response to the raiders’ incursion, raising her voice to carry her compliments to the far tables.

  An especially fine sword was then presented to Ferda, to his obvious pleasure. Cattilara bestowed a few pieces upon her ladies, Arhys distributed the bulk to his officers, with personal words or jokes, and the residue was disposed to the divine for prayers in the town temple. A young dedicat, apparently the elderly divine’s personal prop, took charge of it with thanks and blessings.

  Ista let her finger glide over the contents of her box. It made her skin crawl. She did not want this mortal legacy. Well, there was a solution for that. She started to pick out one ring for her brave handmaiden, formed of tiny galloping gold horses—where was Liss by now? But after a hesitant moment, her hand drifted to a curved dagger with a jeweled hilt. It had a certain elegant practicality that seemed more in the riding girl’s style. With a sigh, recalling that all her money was at the bottom of a river in Tolnoxo, she withdrew a few trinkets for vails as well. She laid both ring and dagger aside, and pushed the box down toward Ferda.

  “Ferda. Pick out the best piece for your absent brother. And the four next best for our wounded and the men who were left with them. Something appropriate for dy Cabon, too. Each man of your company may then take what he likes. The rest, please see that it comes to the Daughter’s Order, with my thanks.”

  “Certainly, Royina!” Ferda smiled, but then his smile faded. He leaned closer across the marchess’s empty seat. “I wanted to ask you. Now that you are indeed delivered to a place of safety, and look to be secure here under the march’s protection for a time, may I have your leave to go and search for Foix, and Liss and the divine?”

  I do not know what this strange place is, but I do not name it safety. She could not say so aloud. Almost, she wanted to order him to ready his men for her departure tomorrow. Tonight. Impractical, impossible. Impolite. The Daughter’s men were nearly as exhausted as she was. Half their horses were still back on the road with Porifors’s grooms, being brought along in slow stages.

  “You are as much in need of rest as any of us,” she temporized.

  “I will rest better when I know what has happened to them.”

  She had to allow the truth of that, but the thought of being trapped here without her own escort sent a shiver of unease along her nerves. She frowned in uncertainty as Lady Cattilara fluttered back to her place.

  Lord Arhys also returned, to lower himself into his chair with a covertly weary sigh. Ista asked after his letters of inquiry on her missing people’s behalf. He listened in what seemed to Ista especially grave sympathy to Ferda’s concern for his brother, but opined that it was too early for a reply. By tacit agreement, no one mentioned the complication of the bear-demon.

  “We know that Liss, at least, found her way to the provincar of Tolnoxo,” argued Ista. “Others might have given warning of the raiders, but only she knew that I was among the taken. And if she made it to safety, she will surely have had the sense to ask for searchers for your brother and the good divine.”<
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  “That’s…true.” Ferda’s lips wrinkled, tugged between reassurance and worry. “If they listened to her. If they gave her shelter…”

  “The chancellery’s courier stations will have given her refuge even if dy Tolnoxo did not, though if he did not reward her courage with a proper hospitality—and her pleas with all aid—he will certainly hear from me about it. And from Chancellor dy Cazaril, too, I warrant. By Lord Arhys’s letters, the world will shortly know where we have fetched up. If our strays find their way to Porifors while you are running about hunting for them, Ferda, you will miss them all the same. In any case, you surely cannot intend to hare off in the dark, tonight. Let us see what counsel—or messages—tomorrow morning brings.”

  Ferda had to agree to the sense of that.

  A cool twilight was falling in the court. The musicians concluded their offering, but no dancing or masque was presented. The men made sure that the last of the wine did not go to waste, and final prayers and blessings were offered. The divine doddered away on his dedicat’s arm, trailed by his rustic temple’s people. Arhys’s officers made slightly awed courtesies to the dowager royina, seeming honored to be permitted to kneel and kiss her legendary hands. But from the way they strode off afterward, faces already intent upon anticipated tasks, Ista was reminded that this was a working fortress.

  Cattilara made to put a helpful hand under her elbow as she rose.

  “Now I can take you to your rooms, Royina,” she said, smiling. She glanced briefly at Arhys. “They are not so large, but…the roof is in better repair.”

  The food and the wine, Ista had to admit, had combined to destroy any ambition of hers for further movement tonight. “Thank you, Lady Cattilara. That would be good.”