Still, they brushed through the lessons pretty well, even the long drill on court Roknari grammatical modes. His prickly demeanor did not invite consolation. The ladies, bless their steadfast wits, did not attempt to inflict any on him. By the end the two young women were treating him almost normally again, as he plainly desired, though around Betriz’s grave mouth no dimples solaced him.
Iselle rose to shake out her knots by pacing about the chamber; she stopped to stare out the window at the chill winter mist that filled the ravine below the Zangre’s walls. She rubbed absently at her sleeve, and remarked querulously, “Lavender is not my color. It’s like wearing a bruise. There is too much death in Cardegoss. I wish we’d never come here.”
Considering it impolitic to agree, Cazaril merely bowed, and withdrew to make himself ready to go down to dinner.
The first flakes of winter snow powdered the streets and walls of Cardegoss that week, but melted off in the afternoons. Palli kept Cazaril informed of the arrival of his fellow lord dedicats, filtering in to the capital one by one, and in turn decanted Zangre gossip from his friend. Mutual aid and trust, Cazaril reflected, but also a dual breach of the walls that each of them, in theory, helped to man. Yet if it ever came down to choosing sides between the Temple and the Zangre, Chalion would already have lost.
Dy Jironal, Royse Teidez in tow, returned as if blown in by the cold southeast wind that also dumped an unwelcome gift of sleet on the town in passing. To Cazaril’s relief, the chancellor was empty-handed, balked of quarry in his quest for justice and revenge. No telling from dy Jironal’s set face if he had despaired of his hunt, or had just been drawn back by spies, riding hard and fast, to tell him of the forces gathering in Cardegoss that were not of his own summoning.
Teidez dragged back to his quarters in the castle looking tired, sullen, and unhappy. Cazaril was not surprised. Chasing down every death for three provinces around that had occurred during the night of Dondo’s taking-off had surely been gruesome enough even without the vile weather.
During his bedazzlement by Dondo’s practiced sycophancy, Teidez had neglected his elder sister’s company. When he came to visit Iselle’s chambers that afternoon, he both accepted and returned a sisterly embrace, seeming more eager to talk to her than he had for a long time. Cazaril withdrew discreetly to his antechamber and sat with his account books open, fiddling with his drying quill. Since Orico had for a betrothal gift assigned the rents of six towns to the support of his sister’s household, and not taken them back when funeral had replaced wedding, Cazaril’s accounts and correspondence had grown more complex.
He listened meditatively through the open door to the rise and fall of the young voices. Teidez detailed his trip to his sister’s eager ears: the muddy roads and floundering horses, the tense and cranky men, indifferent food and chilly quarters. Iselle, in a voice that betrayed more envy than sympathy, pointed out how good a practice it was for his future winter campaigns. The cause of the journey was scarcely touched upon between them, Teidez still baffled and offended by his sister’s rejection of his late hero, and Iselle apparently unwilling to burden him with knowledge of the more grotesque causes of her antipathy.
Besides being shocked by the sudden and dreadful nature of Lord Dondo’s murder, Teidez must be one of the few who’d known the man who genuinely mourned him. And why not? Dondo had flattered and cajoled and made much of Teidez. He’d showered the boy with gifts and treats, some toxically inappropriate for his age, and how was Teidez to grasp that grown men’s vices were not the same as grown men’s honors?
The elder dy Jironal must seem a cold and unresponsive companion by comparison. The expedition had apparently left a trail of disruption behind as its inquiries grew rough and ready in dy Jironal’s frustration. Worse, dy Jironal, who needed Teidez desperately, was insufficiently adept at concealing how little he liked him, and had left him to his handlers—secretary-tutor, guards, and servants—treating him as tailpiece rather than lieutenant. But if, as his surly words hinted, Teidez had begun to reciprocate his chief guardian’s dislike, it was surely for all the wrong reasons. And if his new secretary was taking up any of the abandoned load of his noble education, nothing in Teidez’s tale gave hint of it.
At length, Nan dy Vrit bade the young people prepare for dinner, and drew the visit to a close. Teidez walked slowly out through Cazaril’s antechamber, frowning at his boots. The boy was grown almost as tall as his half brother Orico, his round face hinting that in future he might grow as broad as well, though for now he kept youth’s muscular fitness. Cazaril turned a leaf in his account book at random, dipped his pen again, and glanced up with a tentative smile. “How do you fare, my lord?”
Teidez shrugged, but then, halfway across the room, wheeled back, and came to Cazaril’s table. His expression was not miffed—or not merely miffed—but tired and troubled as well. He drummed his finger briefly on the wood, and stared down over the pile of books and papers. Cazaril folded his hands and cast him an encouraging look of inquiry.
Teidez said abruptly, “There’s something wrong in Cardegoss. Isn’t there.”
There were so many things wrong in Cardegoss, Cazaril scarcely knew how to take Teidez’s words. He said cautiously, “What makes you think that?”
Teidez made a little gesture, pulled short. “Orico is sickly, and does not rule as he should. He sleeps so much, like an old man, but he’s not that old. And everyone says he’s lost his”—Teidez colored slightly, and his gesture grew vaguer—“you know . . . cannot act as a man is supposed to, with a woman. Has it never struck you that there is something uncanny about his strange illness?”
After a slight hesitation, Cazaril temporized, “Your observations are shrewd, Royse.”
“Lord Dondo’s death was uncanny, too. I think it’s all of a piece!”
The boy was thinking; good! “You should take your thoughts to . . .” not dy Jironal, “your brother Orico. He is the most proper authority to address them.” Cazaril tried to imagine Teidez getting a straight answer out of Orico, and sighed. If Iselle could not draw sense from the man, with all her passionate persuasion, what hope had the much less articulate Teidez? Orico would evade answer unless stiffened to it in advance.
Should Cazaril take this tutelage into his own hands? Not only had he not been given authority to disclose the state secret, he wasn’t even supposed to know it himself. And . . . the knowledge of the Golden General’s curse needed to come straight to Teidez from the roya, not around him or despite him, lest it take up a suspicious tinge of conspiracy.
He’d been silent too long. Teidez leaned forward across the table, eyes narrowing, and hissed, “Lord Cazaril, what do you know?”
I know we dare not leave you in ignorance much longer. Nor Iselle either. “Royse, I shall talk to you of this later. I cannot answer you tonight.”
Teidez’s lips tightened. He swiped a hand through his dark amber curls in a gesture of impatience. His eyes were uncertain, untrusting, and, Cazaril thought, strangely lonely. “I see,” he said in a bleak tone, and turned on his heel to march out. His low-voiced mutter carried back from the corridor, “I must do it myself . . .”