“I’ve never seen so many of the Zangre’s ghosts collected in one place. They must be attracted to you just like the sacred animals.”
“Can anyone else see them?”
“Anyone with the inner eye. That’s three in Cardegoss, to my knowledge.”
And two of them are here. “Have they been around all this time?”
“I glimpse them now and then. They’re usually more elusive. You needn’t be afraid of them. They are powerless and cannot hurt you. Old lost souls.” In response to Cazaril’s rather stunned stare, Umegat added, “When, as happens from time to time, no god takes up a sundered soul, it is left to wander the world, slowly losing its mindfulness of itself and fading into air. New ghosts first take the form they had in life, but in their despair and loneliness they cannot maintain it.”
Cazaril wrapped his arms around his belly. “Oh.” His mind tried to gallop in three directions at once. So what was the fate of those souls the gods did accept? And just what exactly was happening to the enraged spirit so miraculously and hideously lodged in him? And . . . the Dowager Royina Ista’s words came back to him. The Zangre is haunted, you know. Not metaphor or madness after all, it appeared, but simple observation. How much else, then, of the eerie things she’d said might be not derangement, but plain truth—seen with altered eyes?
He glanced up to find Umegat regarding him thoughtfully. The Roknari inquired politely, “And how are you feeling today?”
“Better this afternoon than this morning.” He added a little reluctantly, “Better than yesterday.”
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet. Later, perhaps.” He rubbed a hand over his beard. “What’s happening out there?”
Umegat sat back and shrugged. “Chancellor dy Jironal, finding no candidates in the city, has ridden out of Cardegoss in search of the corpse of his brother’s murderer and any confederates left alive.”
“I trust he will not seize some innocent in error.”
“An experienced Inquirer from the Temple rides with him, which should suffice to prevent such mistakes.”
Cazaril digested this. After a moment, Umegat added, “Also, a faction in the military order of the Daughter’s house has sent couriers riding out to all its lord dedicats, calling them to a general council. They mean not to allow Roya Orico to foist another commander like Lord Dondo onto them.”
“How should they defy him? Revolt?”
Umegat hastily waved away this treasonable suggestion. “Certainly not. Petition. Request.”
“Mm. But I thought they protested last time, to no avail. Dy Jironal will not be wanting to let control of that order slip from his hands.”
“The military order is backed by the whole of its house, this time.”
“And, ah . . . what have you been doing today?”
“Praying for guidance.”
“And did you get an answer?”
Umegat smiled ambiguously at him. “Perhaps.”
Cazaril considered for a moment how best to phrase his next remark. “Interesting gossip you’re privy to. I take it, then, that it would now be redundant for me to go down to the temple and confess to Archdivine Mendenal for Dondo’s murder?”
Umegat’s brows went up. “I suppose,” he said after a moment, “that it should not surprise me that the Lady of Spring has chosen a sharp-edged tool.”
“You are a divine, a trained Inquirer. I didn’t imagine you could, or would, evade your oaths and disciplines. You immobilized me to give yourself time to report, and confer.” Cazaril hesitated. “That I am not presently under arrest should tell me . . . something about that conference, but I’m not at all sure what.”
Umegat studied his hands, spread on his knees. “As a divine, I defer to my superiors. As a saint, I answer to my god. Alone. If He trusts my judgment, so perforce must I. And so must my superiors.” He looked up, and now his gaze was unsettlingly direct. “That the goddess has set your feet on some journey on her behalf—courier—is abundantly plain from Her hour-by-hour preservation of your life. The Temple is at . . . not your service, but Hers. I think I can promise you, none shall interfere with you.”
Cazaril was stung into a wail. “But what am I supposed to be doing?”
Umegat’s voice grew almost apologetic. “Speaking just from my own experience, I would surmise—your daily duties as they come to you.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
“Yes. I know.” Umegat’s lips twitched in a dry humor. “So the gods humble the would-be wise, I think.” He added after a moment, “Speaking of daily duties, I must return now to mine. Orico is unwell today. Feel free to visit the menagerie anytime you are so moved, my lord dy Cazaril.”
“Wait—” Cazaril held out a hand as Umegat rose. “Can you tell me—does Orico know of the miracle of the menagerie? Does he understand—does he even know he is accursed? I’ll swear Iselle knows naught of it, nor Teidez.” Royina Ista, on the other hand . . . “Or does the roya just know he feels better for contact with his animals?”
Umegat gave a little nod. “Orico knows. His father Ias told him, on his deathbed. The Temple has made many secret trials to break this curse. The menagerie is the only one that has seemed to do any good.”
“And what of the Dowager Royina Ista? Is she shadowed like Sara?”
Umegat tugged his queue and frowned thoughtfully. “I could better guess if I’d ever met her face-to-face. The dy Baocia family removed her from Cardegoss shortly before I was brought here.”
“Does Chancellor dy Jironal know?”
The frown deepened. “If he does, it was not from my lips. I have often cautioned Orico not to discuss his miracle, but . . .”
“If Orico has kept something from dy Jironal, it would be a first.”
Umegat shrugged acknowledgment, but added, “Given the early disasters in his reign, Orico believes that any action he dares take will rebound to the detriment of Chalion. The chancellor is the tongs by which the roya attempts to handle all matters of state without spilling his bane thereupon.”
“Some might wonder if dy Jironal is the answer to the curse, or part of it.”
“The proxy seemed to work at first.”
“And lately?”
“Lately—we’ve redoubled our petitions to the gods for aid.”
“And how have the gods answered?”
“It would seem—by sending you.”
Cazaril sat up in renewed terror, clutching his bedclothes. “No one sent me! I came by chance.”
“I’d like an accounting of those chances, someday soon. When you will, my lord.” Umegat, with a deeply hopeful gaze that frightened Cazaril quite as much as any of his saintly remarks, bowed himself out.
After a few more hours spent cowering under his quilts, Cazaril decided that unless a man could dither himself to death, he wasn’t going to die this afternoon. Or if he was, there was nothing he could do about it. And his stomach was growling in a decidedly unsupernatural fashion. As the chill autumn light faded he crept out of bed, stretched his aching muscles, dressed himself, and went down to dinner.
The Zangre was extremely subdued. With the court plunged into deep mourning, no fêtes or music were offered tonight. Cazaril found the banqueting hall thin of company; neither Iselle’s household nor Teidez’s were present, Royina Sara absented herself, and Roya Orico, his dark shadow clinging about him, ate hastily and departed immediately thereafter.
The reason for Teidez’s absence, Cazaril soon learned, was that Chancellor dy Jironal had taken the royse with him when he rode out on his mission of investigation. Cazaril blinked and fell silent at this news. Surely dy Jironal could not be attempting to continue the seduction by corruption his brother had taken so well in hand? Downright austere by comparison to Dondo, he had not the taste or style for such puerile pleasures. It was impossible to imagine him roistering with a juvenile. Was it too much to hope he might be reversing his strategy for ascendancy over Teidez’s mind, taking the boy up after a true fatherly manner, apprenticing him to statecraft? The young royse was half-sick with idleness as well as dissolution; almost any exposure to men’s work must be medicine for him. More probably, Cazaril thought wearily, the chancellor simply dared not let his future handle upon Chalion out of his grip for an instant.