“Ah!” Iselle’s eyes lit with approval. “Cazaril, can it be done?”
“There are practical difficulties,” he admitted. “All of which have practical solutions. The most critical is to discover a man you can trust to be your ambassador. He must have the wit to gain you the strongest possible position in negotiation with Ibra, the suppleness to avoid offending Chalion, nerve to pass in disguise across uneasy borders, strength for travel, loyalty to you and you alone, and courage in your cause that must not break. A mistake in this selection would be fatal.” Possibly literally.
She pressed her hands together, and frowned. “Can you find me such a man?”
“I will bend my thoughts to it, and look about me.”
“Do so, Lord Cazaril,” she breathed. “Do so.”
Lady Betriz said, in an oddly dry voice, “Surely you need not look far.”
“It cannot be me.” With a swallow, he converted I could fall dead at your feet at any moment to, “I dare not leave you here without protection.”
“We shall all think on it,” said Iselle firmly.
The Father’s Day festivities passed quietly. Chill rain dampened the celebrations in Cardegoss, and kept many from the Zangre from attending the municipal procession, though Orico went as a royal duty and as a result contracted a head cold. He turned this to account by taking to his bed and avoiding everyone thereby. The Zangre’s denizens, still in black and lavender for Lord Dondo, kept a sober Father’s Feast, with sacred music but no dancing.
The icy rain continued through the week. Cazaril, one sodden afternoon, was combining practical application with tutorial by teaching Betriz and Iselle how to keep accounts, when a crisp rap on the chamber door overrode a page’s diffident voice announcing, “The March dy Palliar begs to see my lord dy Cazaril.”
“Palli!” Cazaril turned in his chair, and levered himself to his feet with a hand on the table. Bright delight flooded both his ladies’ faces with sudden energy, driving out the ennui. “i wasn’t expecting you in Cardegoss so soon!”
“Nor was I.” Palli bowed to the women and favored Cazaril with a twisted grin. He dropped a coin in the page’s hand and jerked his head; the boy bent double, in a gradation that indicated deep approval of the amount of the largesse, and scampered off.
Palli continued, “I took only two officers and rode hard; my troop from Palliar follows at a pace that will not destroy horses.” He glanced around the chamber and shrugged his broad shoulders. “Goddess forfend! I didn’t think I was speaking prophecy, last time I was here. Gives me a worse chill than this miserable rain.” He cast off a water-spotted woolen cloak, revealing the blue-and-white garb of an officer of the daughter’s order, and ran a rueful hand through the bright drops beading in his dark hair. He clasped hands with Cazaril, and added, “Bastard’s demons, Caz, you look terrible!”
Cazaril could not, alas, respond to this with a very well put. He instead turned off the remark with a mumble of, “It’s the weather, I suppose. It makes everyone dull and drab.”
Palli stood back and stared him up and down. “Weather? When last I saw you, your skin was not the color of moldy dough, you didn’t have black rings around your eyes like a striped rock-rat, and, and, you looked pretty fit, not—pale, pinched, and potbellied.” Cazaril straightened up, indignantly sucking in his aching gut, as Palli jerked a thumb at him and added, “Royesse, you should get your secretary to a physician.”
Iselle stared at Cazaril in sudden doubt, her hand going to her mouth, as if really looking him for the first time in weeks. Which, he supposed, she was; her attentions had been thoroughly absorbed by her own troubles through these late disasters. Betriz looked from one of them to the other, and set her teeth on her lower lip.
“I don’t need to see a physician,” said Cazaril firmly, loudly, and quickly. Or any other such interrogator, dear gods.
“So all men say, in terror of the lancet and the purgative.” Palli waved away this stung protest. “The last one of my sergeants who developed saddle boils, I had to march in to the old leech-handler at sword’s point. Don’t listen to him, Royesse. Cazaril”—his face sobered, and he made an apologetic half bow to Iselle—“May I speak to you privately for a moment? I promise I shall not keep him from you long, Royesse. I cannot linger.”
Gravely, Iselle granted her royal permission. Cazaril, quick to catch the undertone in Palli’s voice, led him not to his office antechamber but all the way down the stairs to his own chamber. The corridor was empty, happily. He closed his heavy door firmly behind them, to thwart human eavesdroppers. The senile spirit smudges kept their confidences.
Cazaril took the chair, the better to conceal his lack of grace in movement. Palli sat on the edge of the bed, folded his cloak beside him, and clasped his hands loosely between his knees.
“The daughter’s courier to Palliar must have made excellent time despite the winter muds,” said Cazaril, counting days in his head.
Palli’s dark brows rose. “You know of that already? I’d thought it a, ah, quite private call to conclave. Though it will become obvious soon enough, as the other lord dedicats arrive in Cardegoss.”
Cazaril shrugged. “I have my sources.”
“I don’t doubt it. And so have I mine.” Palli shook his finger at him. “You are the only intelligencer in the Zangre that I would trust, at present. What, under the Gods’ eyes, has been happening here at court? The most lurid and garbled tales are circulating regarding our late Holy General’s sudden demise. And delightful as the picture is, somehow I don’t really think he was carried off bodily by a flight of demons with blazing wings called down by the Royesse Iselle’s prayers.”
“Ah . . . not exactly. He just choked to death in the middle of a drinking fest, the night before his wedding.”
“On his poisonous, lying tongue, one would wish.”
“Very nearly.”
Palli sniffed. “The lord dedicats whom Lord Dondo put in a fury—who are not only all the ones he failed to buy outright, but also those who’ve grown ashamed of their purchase since—have taken his taking-off as a sign the wheel has turned. As soon as our quorum arrives in Cardegoss, we mean to steal a march on the chancellor and present our own candidate for Holy General to Orico. Or perhaps a slate of three acceptable men, from which the roya might choose.”
“That would likely go down better. It’s a delicate balance between . . .” Cazaril cut off, loyalty and treason. “Too, dy Jironal has his own powers in the temple, as well as in the Zangre. You don’t want this infighting to turn too ugly.”
“Even dy Jironal would not dare disrupt the temple by setting soldiers of the son upon soldiers of the daughter,” said Palli confidently.
“Mm,” said Cazaril.
“At the same time, some of the lord dedicats—naming no names right now—want to go farther, maybe assemble and present evidence of enough of both the Jironals’ bribes, threats, peculations, and malfeasances to Orico that it would force him to dismiss dy Jironal as chancellor. Make the Roya take a stand.”
Cazaril rubbed his nose, and said warningly, “Forcing Orico to stand would be like trying to build a tower out of custard. I don’t recommend it. Nor will he readily be parted from dy Jironal. The Roya relies on him . . . more deeply than I can explain. Your evidence would need to be utterly overwhelming.”