Umegat’s breath puffed from his lips, and he shook his head; drawn from his trouble by its reflection in that aged face, he reached across to grip the undergroom’s hand. “Sh. Sh. Aren’t we a pair, now.” He sighed, and sank back on his pillows. “Never say the Bastard has no sense of humor.” After a moment his eyes closed. Exhausted, or shutting it all out, Cazaril was not sure which.
He choked down his own terrified demand of, Umegat, what should we do now? Umegat was in no condition to do anything, even give direction. Even pray? Cazaril hardly dared ask him to pray for Teidez, under the circumstances.
Umegat’s breath thickened, and he dropped into an uneasy doze. Softly, careful to make no sound, the undergroom laid out his shaving gear on a side table and sat patiently to await his wakening again. The physician made notes and left quietly. Cazaril followed her out to the gallery overlooking the courtyard. Its central fountain was not playing in this chill, and the water in it was dark and scummy in the gray winter light.
“Is he punished?” he asked her.
She rubbed the back of her neck in a weary gesture. “How do I know? Head injuries are the strangest of all. I once saw a woman whose eyes appeared wholly undamaged go blind from a blow to the back of her head. I’ve seen people lose speech, lose control of half their body but not the other half. Are they punished? If so, the gods are evil, and that I do not believe. I think it is chance.”
I think the gods load the dice. He wanted to urge her to take good care of Umegat, but clearly she already was doing so, and he didn’t want to sound frantic, or as though he doubted her skill or dedication. He bade her a polite good morning instead, and took himself off to track down the archdivine and apprise him of the ugly turn of Teidez’s wound.
He found Archdivine Mendenal in the temple at the Mother’s altar, celebrating a ceremony of blessing upon a rich leather merchant’s wife and newborn daughter. Cazaril perforce waited until the family had laid their thanksgiving offerings and filed out again before approaching him and murmuring his news. Mendenal turned pale, and hurried off to the Zangre at once.
Cazaril had developed unsettling new views of the efficacy and safety of prayer, but laid himself down on the cold pavement before the Mother’s altar anyway, thinking of Ista. If there was little hope of mercy for Teidez’s own sake, lured into violent sacrilege and left there by Dondo, surely the Mother might spare some pity for his mother Ista? The goddess’s message to him via Her acolyte’s dream the other day had sounded merciful. In a way. Though it might prove to be merely brutally practical. Prone on the polished patterned slates, he could feel the lethal lump in his belly, an uncomfortable mass seeming the size of his doubled fists.
He rose at length and sought out Palli at Provincar dy Yarrin’s narrow old stone palace. Cazaril was conducted by a servant to a guest chamber at the back of the house. Palli was seated at a small table, writing in a ledger, but laid his quill aside when Cazaril entered and motioned his visitor to a chair across from him.
As soon as the servant had shut the door behind him Cazaril leaned forward and said, “Palli, could you, at need, ride courier to Ibra in secret for the Royesse Iselle?”
Palli’s brows climbed. “When?”
“Soon.”
He shook his head. “If by soon you mean now, I think not. I am much taken up with my duties as a lord dedicat—I have promised dy Yarrin my voice and my vote in the Council.”
“You could leave a proxy with dy Yarrin, or some other trusted comrade.”
Palli rubbed his shaven chin, and vented a dubious, “Hm.”
Cazaril considered claiming to be a saint of the Daughter, and pulling rank on Palli, dy Yarrin, and their entire military order. It would require complicated explanations. It would require divulging the secret of Fonsa’s curse. It would entail not merely admitting, but asserting, his . . . peculiar disorder. God-touched. God-ravished. And sounding as mad or madder than Ista ever had. He compromised. “I think this may be the Daughter’s business.”
Palli’s lips screwed up. “How can you tell?”
“I just can.”
“Well, I can’t.”
“Wait, I know. Before you go to sleep tonight, pray for guidance.”
“Me? Why don’t you?”
“My nights are . . . full.”
“And since when did you believe in prophetic dreams? I thought you always claimed it was nonsense, people fooling themselves, or pretending to an importance they could otherwise never claim.”
“It’s a . . . recent conversion. Look, Palli. Just do it for, for the experiment. To please me, if you will.”
Palli made a surrendering gesture. “For you, yes. For the rest of it . . .” His black brows lowered. “Ibra . . . ? Just who would I be riding in secret from?”
“Dy Jironal. Mostly.”
“Oh? Dy Yarrin might be interested in that. Something in it for him?”
“Not in any direct way, I don’t think.” Cazaril added reluctantly, “And likewise secret from Orico.”
Palli sat back, his head tilting. His voice lowered. “Coy, Caz. Just what kind of noose are you offering to put round my neck, here? Is this treason?”
“Worse,” Cazaril sighed. “Theology.”
“Eh?”
“Oh, that reminds me.” Cazaril pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to decide if his headache was getting worse. “Tell dy Yarrin his councils are being reported by some spy to dy Jironal. Though he may be canny enough to realize it already, I don’t know.”
“Worse and worse. Are you getting enough sleep, Caz?”
A bark of bitter laughter broke from Cazaril’s lips. “No.”
“You always did go strangely fey when you were overtired, y’know. Well, I’m not riding anywhere on the basis of a bunch of dark hints.”
“In the event, you’d be given full knowledge.”
“When I am given full knowledge, then I’ll decide.”
“Fair enough,” Cazaril sighed. “I will discuss it with the royesse. But I didn’t want to propose to her a man who would fail her.”
“Hey!” said Palli indignantly. “When have I failed?”
“Never, Palli. That’s why I thought of you.” Cazaril grinned and, with a little grunt of pain, pushed to his feet. “I must return to the Zangre.” Briefly, he described the unpleasant progression of Teidez’s claw mark.
Palli’s face grew very sober indeed. “Just how bad is it?”
“I don’t . . .” Caution tempered Cazaril’s frankness. “Teidez is young, strong, well fed. I see no reason why he cannot throw off this infection.”
“Five gods, Caz, he’s the hope of his House. What will Chalion do if he doesn’t? And Orico laid low as well!”
Cazaril hesitated. “Orico . . . hasn’t been well for some time, but I’m sure dy Jironal never imagined them both becoming so sick at once. You might note to dy Yarrin that our dear chancellor is going to be fairly distracted for the next few days. If the lord dedicats want to get past him to Orico’s bed and get anything signed, now might be their best chance.”
He extracted himself from Palli’s cascade of second thoughts, although not from Palli’s insistence that he take the dy Gura brothers for escort. Climbing the hill once more, his circling calculations of how to effect Iselle’s escape from the wreck of her cursed House spiraled inward on a much simpler grim determination not to fall down in front of these earnest young men, to be hauled home stumbling with his arms across their shoulders.