Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [108]
Lord Arhys’s knees gave way, and he collapsed in a heap.
“Goram, help the march to a chair,” Ista instructed. Hold, she silently commanded her invisible ligature, and it did.
She walked up by Illvin’s bedside, studying the nodes of light. Go up, she commanded them silently, and made to push them with her hands, concentrate them at the forehead and the mouth, as Cattilara had at . . . that other theological point. The light pooled as she willed. Stay there. She cocked her head and studied the effect. Yes. I think.
Goram hurried to drag the chair, made of polished, interlaced curves of wood, out from the wall to Illvin’s bedside. He hauled the startled-looking Arhys up by the shoulders and sat him in it. Arhys closed his mouth, rubbing at his face with a suddenly weak and shaking hand. Grown numb, was he? She ruthlessly stole Goram’s stool and set it at the end of the bed, settling herself where she could best watch both brothers’ faces.
Illvin’s eyes opened; he took a breath and worked his jaw. Weakly, he began to push himself up on one elbow, until his gaze took in his brother, sitting at his right hand gaping at him.
“Arhys!” His voice rang with joy. His sudden smile transformed his face; Ista rocked back, blinking, at the engaging man so revealed. Goram bustled to shove pillows behind his back. He struggled up further, openmouthed with wonder. “Ah! Ah! You are alive! I did not believe them—they would never meet my eyes, I thought they lied to spare me—you are saved! I am saved. Five gods, we are all saved!” He collapsed back, wheezing and grinning, burst into shocking tears for five breaths, then regained control of his gasping.
Arhys stared like a stunned ox.
The slur was gone from Illvin’s voice now, Ista noted with relief, though his lower limbs lay nearly paralyzed. She prayed that his wits would be likewise clarified. In a level tone that she was far from feeling, she asked, “Why did you believe your brother to be dead?”
“Ye gods, what was I to think? I felt that cursed knife go in—to the hilt, or I never survived a battle at some other poor bastard’s expense—I could feel the push and give against my hand when it pierced the heart. I almost vomited.”
Five gods, please, not fratricide. I didn’t want this to be fratricide . . . She kept her voice steady despite the shaking in her belly. “How did you come to this pass? Tell me everything. Tell me from the beginning.”
“She took him off to her chambers.” He added to Arhys, “I was in a panic, because Cattilara had heard it from that meddling maidservant, and was determined to go up after you. I was sure she was unnatural by then—”
“Which she?” said Ista. “Princess Umerue?”
“Yes. The glittering golden girl. Arhys”—his grin returned, notably twisted—“if you would please stop falling over backward every time some aspiring seductress blows a kiss at you, it would be a great comfort to your relatives.”
Arhys, his eyes crinkling with a delight that mirrored Illvin’s, bent his head in a sheepish look. “I swear, I do nothing to encourage them.”
“That, I’ll grant, is perfectly true,” Illvin assured Ista, as an aside. “Not that it’s any consolation to the rest of us, watching the women flock past us without a glance in order to hang on him. Reminds me of a kitchen boy feeding his hens.”
“It’s not my doing. They throw themselves at me.” He glanced at Ista, and added dryly, “On staircases, even.”
“You could duck,” suggested Illvin sweetly. “Try it sometime.”
“I do, blast you. You’ve a highly flattering view of my ripening years if you imagine Cattilara leaves me any spare interest in dalliance, these days.”
Ista wasn’t quite sure how this statement squared with his actions on their first ride,