With the greatest effort, Cazaril kept himself from jolting up and screaming. He glanced down at his swollen belly in terror, and carefully away. He had thought his affliction spiritual, not physical. It had not occurred to him that it could be both at once. This was an intrusion of the supernatural into the solid that seemed all too plausible, given his case. He choked out, “Do they grow to a hundred pounds, too?”
“The two I excised were much smaller,” Rojeras assured him.
Cazaril looked up in sudden hope. “You can cut them out, then?”
“Oh—only from dead persons,” said the physician apologetically.
“But, but . . . might it be done?” If a man were brave enough to lie down and offer himself in cold blood to razor-edged steel . . . if the abomination could be carved out with the brutal speed of an amputation . . . Was it possible to physically excise a miracle, if that miracle were in fact made flesh?
Rojeras shook his head. “On an arm or a leg, maybe. But this . . . You were a soldier—you’ve surely seen what happens with dirty belly wounds. Even if you chanced to survive the shock and pain of the cutting, the fever would kill you within a few days.” His voice grew more earnest. “I have tried it three times, and only because my patients threatened to kill themselves if I would not try. They all died. I don’t care to kill any more good people that way. Do not tease and torment yourself with such desperate impossibilities. Take what you can of life meantime, and pray.”
It was praying that got me into this—or this into me . . . “Do not tell the royesse!”
“My lord,” said the physician gravely, “I must.”
“But I must not—not now—she must not dismiss me to my bed! I cannot leave her side!” Cazaril’s voice rose in panic.
Rojeras’s brows rose. “Your loyalty commends you, Lord Cazaril. Calm yourself! There is no need for you to take to your bed before you feel the need. Indeed, such light duties as may come your way in her service may occupy your mind and help you to compose your soul.”
Cazaril breathed deeply, and decided not to disabuse Rojeras of his pleasant illusions about service to the House of Chalion. “As long as you make it clear that I am not to be exiled from my post.”
“As long as you grasp that this is not a license to exert yourself unduly,” Rojeras returned sternly. “You are plainly in need of more rest than you have allowed yourself.”
Cazaril nodded hasty agreement, trying to look at once biddable and energetic.
“There is one other important thing,” Rojeras added, stirring as if to take his leave but not yet rising. “I only ask this because, as you say, you are a man of reason, and I think you might understand.”
“Yes?” said Cazaril warily.
“Upon your death—long delayed, we must pray—may I have your note of hand saying I might cut out your tumor for my collection?”
“You collect such horrors?” Cazaril grimaced. “Most men content themselves with paintings, or old swords, or ivory carvings.” Offense struggled with curiosity, and lost. “Um . . . how do you keep them?”
“In jars of wine spirits.” Rojeras smiled, a faint embarrassed flush coloring his fair skin. “I know it sounds gruesome, but I keep hoping . . . if only I learn enough, someday I will understand, someday I will be able to find some way to keep these things from killing people.”
“Surely they are the gods’ dark gifts, and we cannot in piety resist them?”
“We resist gangrene, by amputation, sometimes. We resist the infection of the jaw, by drawing out the bad tooth. We resist fevers, by applications of heat and cold, and good care. For every cure, there must have been a first time.” Rojeras fell silent. After a moment he said, “It is clear that the Royesse Iselle holds you in much affection and esteem.”
Cazaril, not knowing quite how to respond to this, replied, “I have served her since last spring, in Valenda. I had formerly served in her grandmother’s household.”
“She is not given to hysterics, is she? Highborn women are sometimes . . .” Rojeras gave a little shrug, in place of saying something rude.
“No,” Cazaril had to admit. “None of her household are. Quite the reverse.” He added, “But surely you don’t have to tell the ladies, and distress them, so . . . so soon?”
“Of course I do,” said the physician, although in a gentled tone. He rose to his feet. “How can the royesse choose good actions without good knowledge?”
An all too cogent point. Cazaril chewed on it in embarrassment as he followed the dedicat back upstairs.
Betriz leaned out onto the corridor at the sound of their approaching steps. “Is he going to be all right?” she demanded of Rojeras.
Rojeras held up a hand. “A moment, my lady.”
They made their way into the royesse’s sitting chamber, where Iselle waited bolt upright on the carved chair, her hands tight in her lap. She accepted Rojeras’s bow with a nod. Cazaril didn’t want to watch, but he did want to know what was said, and so sank into the chair Betriz anxiously dragged up for him, and to which Iselle pointed. Rojeras remained standing in the presence of the royesse.
“My lady,” Rojeras said to Iselle, bowing again as if in apology for his bluntness, “your secretary is afflicted with a tumor in his gut.”
Iselle stared at him in shock. Betriz’s face drained of all expression. Iselle swallowed, and said, “He’s not . . . not dying, surely?” She glanced fearfully at Cazaril.
Rojeras, losing his grip on his stated principles of forthrightness in the face of this, retreated briefly into courtly dissimulation. “Death comes to all men, variously. It is beyond my skills to say how long Lord Cazaril may yet live.” His glance aside caught Cazaril’s hard, pleading stare, and he added faithfully, “There is no reason he may not continue in his secretarial duties as long as he feels well enough. You should not permit him to overtax himself, however. By your leave, I should like to return each week to reexamine him.”
“Of course,” said Iselle faintly.
After a few more words on the subject of Cazaril’s diet and duties, Rojeras made a courteous departure.
Betriz, tears blurring her velvety brown eyes, choked, “I didn’t think it was going to be—had you guessed this when—Cazaril, I don’t want you to die!”
Cazaril replied ruefully, “Well, I don’t want me to die either, so that makes two of us.”
“Three,” said Iselle. “Cazaril—what can we do for you?”
Cazaril, about to reply, nothing, seized this opportunity instead to rap out firmly, “This above all—kindly do not discuss this with every castle gossiper. It is my earnest desire that this stay private information for—for as long as may be.” For one thing, the news that Cazaril was dying might give dy Jironal some fresh ideas about his brother’s death. The chancellor had to return to Cardegoss soon, possibly frustrated enough to start rethinking his missing corpse problem.
Iselle accepted this with a slow nod, and Cazaril was permitted to return to his antechamber, where he failed to concentrate upon his account books. After the third time Lady Betriz tiptoed out to inquire if he wanted anything, once at the royesse’s instigation and twice on her own, Cazaril counterattacked by declaring it was time for some long-neglected grammar lessons. If they weren’t going to leave him alone, he might as well make use of their company. His two pupils were very subdued, ladylike, and submissive this afternoon. Even though this meek studious virtue was something he’d long wished for, he found himself hoping it wouldn’t last.