The Curse Of Chalion Part 6

"I don't know what is the worst," said Cazaril thoughtfully. "I was once used after a vile humor for the s.p.a.ce of one h.e.l.lish afternoon that made what happened to some of the boys look like a friendly gesture, but no Roknari risked hanging for it." Cazaril realized he'd never told anyone of the incident, not the kind acolytes of the temple hospital, not, certainly, anyone in the Provincara's household. He'd had no one he could could talk to, till now. He continued almost eagerly. "My corsair made the mistake of tackling a lumbering Brajaran merchanter, and spotted its escorting galleys too late. As we were being chased off, I failed at my oar, fainted in the heat. To make some use of me despite all, the oar-master hauled me out of my chains, stripped me, and hung me over the stern rail with my hands tied to my ankles, to mock our pursuers. I couldn't tell if the crossbow bolts that thumped into the rail or the stern around me were good or bad aim on the Brajaran archers' parts, nor by what G.o.d's mercy I didn't end my life with a few in my a.s.s. Maybe they thought I was Roknari. Maybe they were trying to end my misery." For the sake of Palli's widening eyes, Cazaril skipped certain of the more grotesque details. "You know, we lived with fear for months on end at Gotorget, till we were used to it, a sort of nagging ache in the gut that we learned to ignore, but that never quite went away." talk to, till now. He continued almost eagerly. "My corsair made the mistake of tackling a lumbering Brajaran merchanter, and spotted its escorting galleys too late. As we were being chased off, I failed at my oar, fainted in the heat. To make some use of me despite all, the oar-master hauled me out of my chains, stripped me, and hung me over the stern rail with my hands tied to my ankles, to mock our pursuers. I couldn't tell if the crossbow bolts that thumped into the rail or the stern around me were good or bad aim on the Brajaran archers' parts, nor by what G.o.d's mercy I didn't end my life with a few in my a.s.s. Maybe they thought I was Roknari. Maybe they were trying to end my misery." For the sake of Palli's widening eyes, Cazaril skipped certain of the more grotesque details. "You know, we lived with fear for months on end at Gotorget, till we were used to it, a sort of nagging ache in the gut that we learned to ignore, but that never quite went away."

Palli nodded.

"But I found out that...this is odd. I don't quite know how to say it." He'd never had a chance to try to put it into words, out where he could see it, till now. "I found there is a place beyond fear. When the body and the mind just can't sustain it anymore. The world, time...reorder themselves. My heartbeat slowed down, I stopped sweating and salivating...it was almost like some holy trance. When the Roknari hung me up, I'd been weeping in fear and shame, in agony for the disgust of it all. When the Brajarans finally veered off, and the oar-master took me down, all blistered from the sun...I was laughing. The Roknari thought I had gone mad, and so withal did my poor benchmates, but I didn't think so. The whole world was all...new. themselves. My heartbeat slowed down, I stopped sweating and salivating...it was almost like some holy trance. When the Roknari hung me up, I'd been weeping in fear and shame, in agony for the disgust of it all. When the Brajarans finally veered off, and the oar-master took me down, all blistered from the sun...I was laughing. The Roknari thought I had gone mad, and so withal did my poor benchmates, but I didn't think so. The whole world was all...new.

"Of course, the whole world was only a few dozen paces long, and made of wood, and rocked on the water...all time was the turning of a gla.s.s. I planned my life by the hour as closely as one plans a year, and no further than an hour. All men were kind and beautiful, each in his way, Roknari and slave alike, lordly or vile blood, and I was a friend to all, and smiled. I wasn't afraid anymore. I did take care never to faint at my oar again, though."

His voice slowed, thoughtfully. "So whenever fear comes back into my heart, I am more pleased than anything, for I take it as a sign that I am not mad after all. Or maybe, at least, getting better. Fear is my friend." He looked up, with a quick, apologetic smile.

Palli was sitting plastered back against the wall, his legs tense, his dark eyes round as saucers, smiling fixedly. Cazaril laughed out loud.

"Five G.o.ds, Palli, forgive me. I did not mean to make you a donkey for my confidences, to carry them safely away." Or perhaps he had, for Palli would be going away tomorrow, after all. "They make a motley menagerie to burden you with. I'm sorry."

Palli waved away his apology as if batting a stinging fly. His lips moved; he swallowed, and managed, "Are you sure it wasn't just sunstroke?"

Cazaril chuckled. "Oh, I had the sunstroke, too, of course. But if it doesn't kill you, sunstroke pa.s.ses off in a day or two. This lasted...months." Until the last incident with that terrified defiant Ibran boy, and Cazaril's resultant final flogging. "We slaves-"

"Stop that!" cried Palli, running his hands through his hair.

"Stop what?" asked Cazaril in puzzlement.

"Stop saying saying that. that. We slaves We slaves. You are a lord of Chalion!"

Cazaril's smile twisted. He said gently, "We lords, at our oars, then? We sweating, p.i.s.sing, swearing, grunting gentlemen? I think not, Palli. On the galleys we were not lords or men. We were men or animals, and which proved which had no relation I ever saw to birth or blood. The greatest soul I ever met there had been a tanner, and I would kiss his feet right now with joy to learn he yet lived. We slaves, we lords, we fools, we men and women, we mortals, we toys of the G.o.ds-all the same thing, Palli. They are all the same to me now."

After a long, indrawn breath, Palli changed the subject abruptly to the little matters of managing his escort from the Daughter's military order. Cazaril found himself comparing useful tricks for treating leather rot and thrush infections in horses' hooves. Soon thereafter Palli retired-or fled-for the night. An orderly retreat, but Cazaril recognized its nature all the same.

Cazaril lay down with his pains and his memories. Despite the feast and the wine, sleep was a long time coming. Fear might be his friend, if that wasn't just bluff and bl.u.s.ter for Palli's sake, but it was clear the dy Jironal brothers were not. The Roknari reported you'd died of a fever The Roknari reported you'd died of a fever was a lie outright, and, cleverly, quite uncheckable by now. Well, he was surely sheltered here in quiet Valenda. was a lie outright, and, cleverly, quite uncheckable by now. Well, he was surely sheltered here in quiet Valenda.

He hoped he'd cautioned Palli sufficiently to walk warily at the court in Cardegoss and not put a foot in a pile of old manure unawares. Cazaril rolled over in the darkness and sent up a whispered prayer to the Lady of Spring for Palli's safety. And to all the G.o.ds and the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, too, for the deliverance of all upon the sea tonight.

6.

At the Temple pageant celebrating the advent of summer, Iselle was not invited to reprise her role of the Lady of Spring because that part was traditionally taken by a woman new-wed. A very shy and demure young bride handed off the throne of the reigning G.o.d's avatar to an equally well-behaved matron heavy with child. Cazaril saw out of the corner of his eye the divine of the Holy Family heave a sigh of relief as the ceremony concluded, this time, without any spiritual surprises. the advent of summer, Iselle was not invited to reprise her role of the Lady of Spring because that part was traditionally taken by a woman new-wed. A very shy and demure young bride handed off the throne of the reigning G.o.d's avatar to an equally well-behaved matron heavy with child. Cazaril saw out of the corner of his eye the divine of the Holy Family heave a sigh of relief as the ceremony concluded, this time, without any spiritual surprises.

Life slowed. Cazaril's pupils sighed and yawned in the stuffy schoolroom as the afternoon sun baked the stones of the keep, and so did their teacher; one sweaty hour he abruptly surrendered and canceled for the season all cla.s.ses after the noon nuncheon. As Betriz had said, the Royina Ista did seem to do better as the days lengthened and softened. She came more often to the family's meals and sat almost every afternoon with her lady attendants in the shade of the gnarled fruit trees at the end of the Provincara's flower garden. She was not, however, permitted by her guardians to climb to the dizzy, breezy perches upon the battlements favored by Iselle and Betriz to escape both the heat and the disapproval of various aging persons disinclined to mount stairs.

Driven from his own bedchamber by its dog-breath closeness on a hazy hot day following an unusually heavy night's rain, Cazaril ventured into the garden seeking a more comfortable perch himself. The book under his arm was one of the few in the castle's meager library he had not previously read, not that Ordol's The Fivefold Pathway of the Soul: On the True Methods of Quintarian Theology The Fivefold Pathway of the Soul: On the True Methods of Quintarian Theology was exactly one of his pa.s.sions. Perhaps its leaves, fluttering loosely in his lap, would make his probable nap look more scholarly to pa.s.sersby. He rounded the rose arbor and halted as he discovered the royina, accompanied by one of her ladies with an embroidery frame, occupying his intended bench. As the women looked up he dodged a couple of delirious bees and made an apologetic bow to them for his unintended intrusion. was exactly one of his pa.s.sions. Perhaps its leaves, fluttering loosely in his lap, would make his probable nap look more scholarly to pa.s.sersby. He rounded the rose arbor and halted as he discovered the royina, accompanied by one of her ladies with an embroidery frame, occupying his intended bench. As the women looked up he dodged a couple of delirious bees and made an apologetic bow to them for his unintended intrusion.

"Stay, Castillar dy...Cazaril, is it?" murmured Ista, as he turned to withdraw. "How does my daughter go on in her new studies?"

"Very well, my lady," said Cazaril, turning back and ducking his head. "She is very quick at her arithmetic and geometry, and very, um, persistent in her Darthacan."

"Good," said Ista. "That's good." She stared away briefly across the sun-bleached garden.

The companion bent over her frame to tie off a thread. Lady Ista did not embroider. Cazaril had heard it whispered by a maidservant that she and her ladies had worked for half a year upon an elaborate altar cloth for the Temple. Just as the last st.i.tches were set, the royina had suddenly seized it and burned it in the fireplace of her chamber when her women had left her alone for a moment. True tale or not, her hands held no needle today, but only a rose.

Cazaril searched her face for deeper recognition. "I wondered...I have meant to ask you, my lady, if you remembered me from the days I served your n.o.ble father as a page here. A score of years ago, now, so it would be no wonder if you had forgotten me." He ventured a smile. "I had no beard then." Helpfully, he pressed his hand over the lower half of his face.

Ista smiled back, but her brows drew down in an effort of recognition that was clearly futile. "I'm sorry. My late father had many pages, over the years."

"Indeed, he was a great lord. Well, no matter." Cazaril shifted his book from hand to hand to hide his disappointment, and smiled more apologetically. He feared her nonrecall had nothing to do with her nervous state. He had more likely simply never registered upon her in the first place, an eager young woman looking forward and upward, not down or back.

The royina's companion, hunting in her color box, murmured, "Drat," and glanced up in appraisal at Cazaril. "My lord dy Cazaril," she said, smiling invitingly. "If it would be no trouble to you, might you stay and keep my lady good company while I run up to my room and find my dark green silk?"

"No trouble at all, lady," said Cazaril automatically. "That is, um..." He glanced at Ista, who gazed back at him levelly, with an unsettling tinge of irony. Well, it wasn't as though Ista were given to shrieking and raving. Even the tears he had sometimes seen in her eyes welled silently. He gave the companion a little half bow as she rose; she seized him by the arm and took him a little way around the arbor.

She stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. "All will be well. Just don't mention Lord dy Lutez. And stay by her, till I return. If she she starts going on again about old dy Lutez, just...don't leave her." She darted off. starts going on again about old dy Lutez, just...don't leave her." She darted off.

Cazaril considered this hazard.

The brilliant Lord dy Lutez had been for thirty years the late Roya Ias's closest advisor: boyhood friend, brother in arms, boon companion. Over time Ias had loaded him with every honor that was his to command, making him provincar of two districts, chancellor of Chalion, marshal of his household troops, and master of the rich military order of the Son-all the better to control and compel the rest, men murmured. It had been whispered by enemies and admirers alike that dy Lutez was roya in Chalion in all but name. And Ias his royina...

Cazaril sometimes wondered if it had been weakness or cleverness on Ias's part, to let dy Lutez do the dirty work and take the heat of the high lords' grumbling, leaving his master with the name only of Ias the Good Ias the Good. Though not, Cazaril conceded, Ias the Strong Ias the Strong, nor Ias the Wise Ias the Wise, nor, the G.o.ds knew, ever Ias the Lucky Ias the Lucky. It was dy Lutez who had arranged Ias's second marriage to the Lady Ista, surely giving lie to the persistent rumor among the highborn of Cardegoss of an unnatural love between the roya and his lifelong friend. And yet...

Five years after the marriage, dy Lutez had fallen from the roya's grace, and all his honors, abruptly and lethally. Accused of treason, he'd died under torture in the dungeons of the Zangre, the great royal keep at Cardegoss. Outside of the court of Chalion, it was whispered that his real treason had been to love the young Royina Ista. In more intimate circles, a considerably more hushed whisper had it that Ista had at last persuaded her husband to destroy her hated rival for his love.

However the triangle was arranged, in the shrinking geometry of death it had collapsed from three points to two, and then, as Ias turned his face to the wall and died not a year after dy Lutez, one alone. And Ista had taken her children and fled the Zangre, or was exiled therefrom.

Dy Lutez. Don't mention dy Lutez Don't mention dy Lutez. Don't mention, therefore, most of the history of Chalion for the past generation and a half. Right.

Cazaril returned to Ista and, somewhat warily, sat in the departed companion's chair. Ista had taken to shredding her rose, not wildly, but very gently and systematically, plucking the petals and laying them upon the bench beside her in a pattern mimicking their original form, circle within circle in an inward spiral.

"The lost dead visited me in my dreams last night," Ista continued conversationally. "Though they were only false dreams. Do yours ever visit you so, Cazaril?"

Cazaril blinked, and decided she was too aware for this to be dementia, even if she was a trifle elliptical. And besides, he had no trouble catching her meaning, which would surely not be the case if she were mad. "Sometimes I dream of my father and mother. For a little time, they walk and talk as in life...so I regret to wake again, and lose them anew."

Ista nodded. "False dreams are sad that way. But true dreams are cruel. The G.o.ds spare you from ever dreaming their true dreams, Cazaril."

Cazaril frowned, and c.o.c.ked his head. "All my dreams are but confused throngs, and disperse like smoke and vapors upon my waking."

Ista bent her head to her denuded rose; she now was spreading the golden powdery stamens, fine as snips of silk thread, in a tiny fan within the circle of petals. "True dreams sit like lead upon the heart and stomach. Weight enough to...drown our souls in sorrow. True dreams walk in the waking day. And yet betray us still, as certainly as any man of flesh might swallow back his vomited promises, like a dog its cast-up dinner. Don't put your trust in dreams, Castillar. Or in the promises of men." She raised her face from her array of petals, her eyes suddenly intent. our souls in sorrow. True dreams walk in the waking day. And yet betray us still, as certainly as any man of flesh might swallow back his vomited promises, like a dog its cast-up dinner. Don't put your trust in dreams, Castillar. Or in the promises of men." She raised her face from her array of petals, her eyes suddenly intent.

Cazaril cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Nay, lady, that would be foolish. But it's pleasant to see my father, from time to time. For I shall not meet him any other way again."

She gave him an odd, tilted smile. "You don't fear your dead?"

"No, my lady. Not in dreams."

"Perhaps your dead are not very fearsome folk."

"For the most part, no, ma'am," he agreed.

High in the wall of the keep, a cas.e.m.e.nt window swung wide, and Ista's companion leaned out and stared down into the garden. Apparently rea.s.sured by the sight of her lady in gentle conversation with her shabby courtier, she waved and disappeared again.

Cazaril wondered how Ista pa.s.sed the time. She did not sew, apparently, nor did she seem much of a reader, nor did she keep musicians of her own. Cazaril had seen her sporadically at prayers, some weeks spending hours in the ancestors' hall, or at the little portable altar kept in her chambers, or, far more rarely, escorted by her ladies and dy Ferrej down to the temple in town, though never at its crowded moments. Other times weeks would pa.s.s when she seemed to keep no observances to the G.o.ds at all. "Have you much consolation in prayers, lady?" he asked curiously.

She glanced up, and her smile flattened a trifle. "I? I have not much consolation anywhere. The G.o.ds have surely made a mock of me. I would return the favor, but they hold my heart and my breath hostage to their whims. My children are prisoners of fortune. And fortune is gone mad, in Chalion."

He offered hesitantly, "I think there are worse prisons than this sunny keep, lady."

Her brows rose, and she sat back. "Oh, aye. Were you ever to the Zangre, in Cardegoss?"

"Yes, when I was a younger man. Not lately. It was a vast warren. I spent half my time lost in it."

"Strange. I was lost in it, too...it is haunted, you know."

Cazaril considered this matter-of-fact comment. "I shouldn't be surprised. It is the nature of a great fortress that as many die in it as build it, win it, lose it...men of Chalion, the renowned Roknari masons before us, the first kings, and men before them I'm sure who crept into its caves, on back into the mists of time. It is that sort of prominence." High home of royas and n.o.bles for generations-rank on rank of men and women had ended their lives in the Zangre, some quite spectacularly...some quite secretly. "The Zangre is older than Chalion itself. It surely...acc.u.mulates."

Ista began gently pressing the thorns from her rose stem, and lining them up in a row like the teeth of a saw. "Yes. It acc.u.mulates acc.u.mulates. That's the word, precisely. It collects calamity like a cistern, as its slates and gutters collect rainwater. You will do well to avoid the Zangre, Cazaril."

"I've no desire to attend court, my lady."

"I desired to, once. With all my heart. The G.o.ds' most savage curses come upon us as answers to our own prayers, you know. Prayer is a dangerous business. I think it should be outlawed." She began to peel her rose stem, thin green strips pulling away to reveal fine white lines of pith.

Cazaril had no idea what to say to this, so merely smiled hesitantly.

Ista began to pull the whip of pith apart lengthwise. "A prophecy was told of the Lord dy Lutez, that he should not drown except upon a mountaintop. And that he never feared to swim thereafter, no matter how violent the waves, for everyone knows there is no water upon a mountaintop; it all runs away to the valleys."

Cazaril swallowed panic, and looked around surrept.i.tiously for the returning attendant. She was not yet in sight. Lord dy Lutez, it was said, had died under the water torture in the dungeons of the Zangre. Beneath the castle stones, but still high enough above the town of Cardegoss. He licked slightly numb lips, and tried, "You know, I never heard that while the man was alive. It is my opinion that some tale-spinner made it up later, to sound shivery. Justifications...tend to accrue posthumously to so spectacular a fall as his was."

Her lips parted in the strangest smile yet. She drew the last threads of the stem pith apart, aligned them upon her knee, and stroked them flat. "Poor Cazaril! How did you grow so wise?"

Cazaril was saved from trying to think of an answer for this by Ista's attendant, who emerged again from the door of the keep with a hank of colored silk in her hands. Cazaril leapt to his feet and nodded to the royina. "Your good lady returns..."

He gave a little bow in pa.s.sing to the attendant, who whispered urgently to him, "Was she sensible, my lord?"

"Yes, perfectly." In her way... In her way...

"Nothing of dy Lutez?"

"Nothing...remarkable." Nothing he he cared to remark upon, certainly. cared to remark upon, certainly.

The attendant breathed relief and pa.s.sed on, fixing a smile on her face. Ista regarded her with bored tolerance as she began chattering about all the items that she'd had to overturn and hunt through to find her strayed thread. It crossed Cazaril's mind that no daughter of the Provincara's, nor mother of Iselle's, could possibly be short of wit.

If Ista spoke to very many of her duller company with the cryptic leaps of thought she'd sprung on him, it was little wonder rumors circulated of madness, and yet...her occasional opacity of discourse felt more like cipher than babble to him. Of an elusive internal consistency, if only one held the key to it. Which, granted, he did not. Not that that wasn't also true of some sorts of madness he had seen...

Cazaril clutched his book and went off to seek some less disturbing shade.

SUMMER ADVANCED AT A LAZY PACE THAT EASED Cazaril's mind and body both. Only poor Teidez chafed at the inactivity, hunting being curtailed by the heat, the season, and his tutor. He did pot rabbits with a crossbow in the dawn mists around the castle, to the earnest applause and approval of all the castle's gardeners. The boy was so out-of-season-hot and restless and plump-if ever there was a born dedicat to the Son of Autumn, G.o.d of the hunt, war, and cooler weather, Cazaril judged it was surely Teidez. Cazaril's mind and body both. Only poor Teidez chafed at the inactivity, hunting being curtailed by the heat, the season, and his tutor. He did pot rabbits with a crossbow in the dawn mists around the castle, to the earnest applause and approval of all the castle's gardeners. The boy was so out-of-season-hot and restless and plump-if ever there was a born dedicat to the Son of Autumn, G.o.d of the hunt, war, and cooler weather, Cazaril judged it was surely Teidez.

Cazaril was a little surprised to be accosted on the way to nuncheon one warm noon by Teidez and his tutor. Judging by both their reddened faces, they were in the middle of another of their tearing arguments.

"Lord Caz!" Teidez hailed him breathlessly. "Didn't the old provincar's swordmaster too too take the pages to the abattoir, to slay the young bulls-to teach them courage, in a real fight, not this, this, dancing about in the dueling ring!" take the pages to the abattoir, to slay the young bulls-to teach them courage, in a real fight, not this, this, dancing about in the dueling ring!"

"Well, yes..."

"See, what did I tell you!" Teidez cried to dy Sanda.

"We practiced in the ring, too," Cazaril added immediately, for the sake of solidarity, should dy Sanda need it.

The tutor grimaced. "Bull-baiting is an old country practice, Royse. Not befitting training for the highborn. You are destined to be a gentleman-at the least!-not a butcher's apprentice."

The Provincara kept no swordmaster in her household these days, so she'd made sure the royse's tutor was a trained man. Cazaril, who had occasionally watched his practice sessions with Teidez, respected dy Sanda's precision. Dy Sanda's swordsmanship was pretty enough, if not quite brilliant. Sporting. Honorable. But if dy Sanda also knew the desperate brutal tricks that kept men alive on the field, he had not shown them to Teidez.

Cazaril grinned wryly. "The swordmaster wasn't training us to be gentlemen. He was training us to be soldiers. I'll give his old method this credit-any battlefield I was ever on was a lot more like a butcher's yard than it was like a dueling ring. It was ugly, but it taught us our business. And there was no waste to it. I can't think it mattered at the end of the day to the bulls whether they died after being chased around for an hour by a fool with a sword, or were simply stalled and thwacked on the head with a mallet." Though Cazaril had not cared to stretch the business out, as some of the young men had, making macabre and dangerous play with the maddened animals. With a little practice he had learned to dispatch his beast with a sword thrust nearly as quickly as the butcher might. "Grant you, on the battlefield we didn't eat what we killed, except sometimes the horses."

Dy Sanda sniffed disapproval at his wit. He offered placatingly to Teidez, "We might take the hawks out tomorrow morning, my lord, if the weather holds fine. And if you finish your cartography problems."

"A ladies' sport-with hawks and pigeons-pigeons! What do I care for pigeons!" In a voice of longing Teidez added, "At the roya's court at Cardegoss, they hunt wild boar in the oak forests in the fall. That's a real sport, a man's sport. They say those pigs are dangerous!"

"Very true," said Cazaril. "The big tuskers can disembowel a dog-or a horse. Or a man. They're much faster than you expect."

"Did you ever hunt at Cardegoss?" Teidez asked him eagerly.

"I followed my lord dy Guarida a few times there."

"Valenda has no boars." Teidez sighed. "But we do have bulls! At least it's something. something. Better than pigeons-or rabbits!" Better than pigeons-or rabbits!"

"Oh, potting rabbits is a useful soldier's training, too," Cazaril offered consolingly. "In case you ever have to hunt rats for table. It's much the same skill."

Dy Sanda glared at him. Cazaril smiled and bowed out of the argument, leaving Teidez to his badgering.

Over nuncheon, Iselle took up a descant version of a similar song, though the authority she a.s.sailed was her grandmother and not her tutor.

"Grandmama, it's so hot hot. Can't we go swimming in the river as Teidez does?"

As the summer simmered on, the royse's afternoon rides with his gentleman-tutor and his grooms and the pages had been exchanged for afternoon swims at a sheltered pool in the river upstream of Valenda-the same spot overheated denizens of the castle had frequented when Cazaril had been a page. The ladies were, of course, excluded from these excursions. Cazaril had politely declined invitations to join the party, pleading his duties to Iselle. The true reason was that stripping naked to swim would display all the old disasters written in his flesh, a history he did not care to expound upon. The misunderstanding with the bath man still mortified him, in memory.

"Certainly not!" said the Provincara. "That would be entirely immodest."

"Not with with him," said Iselle. "Make up our own party, a ladies' party." She turned to Cazaril. "You said the ladies of the castle swam when you were a page!" him," said Iselle. "Make up our own party, a ladies' party." She turned to Cazaril. "You said the ladies of the castle swam when you were a page!"

"Servants, Iselle," said her grandmother wearily. "Lesser folk. It's not a pastime for you."

Iselle slumped, hot and red and pouting. Betriz, spared the unbecoming flush, drooped at her place, looking pale and wilted instead. Soup was served. Everyone sat eyeing their steaming bowls with revulsion. Maintaining the standards-as always-the Provincara picked up her spoon and took a determined sip.

Cazaril said suddenly, "But the Lady Iselle can can swim, can she not, your grace? I mean, she presumably was taught, when she was younger?" swim, can she not, your grace? I mean, she presumably was taught, when she was younger?"

"Certainly not," said the Provincara.

"Oh," said Cazaril. "Oh, dear." He glanced around the table. Royina Ista was not with them, this meal; relieved of concern for a certain obsessive subject, he decided that he dared. "That puts me in mind of a most horrible tragedy."