Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [111]
Arhys was looking sick. For a walking corpse, this ought to have been an improvement, Ista thought, but it wasn’t. “Catti has it,” he whispered.
He wasn’t arguing with her about this one, she noticed. Ista nodded approval, feeling absurdly like some tutor commending a pupil for getting his sums right. “Yes. Catti has it now. And her bidding is for it to keep you alive. Well, animate. In as far as its powers may be forced to work that way.”
Arhys’s mouth opened, closed. He said at last, “But . . . those things are dangerous! They consume people alive—sorcerers lose their souls to them. Catti, she must be treated—I must summon the Temple theologians, to cast it out of her—”
“Hold a moment, Arhys,” said Illvin, sounding strained. “I think we need to think this through . . .”
A thumping sounded on the gallery outside: running feet. Two pairs. The door was yanked open. Cattilara, barefoot, in disarrayed riding dress, her hair wind-wild, tumbled through gasping. Liss followed, nearly as out of breath.
“Arhys!” Cattilara cried, and flung herself upon him. “Five gods, five gods! What has that woman done to you?”
“Sorry, Royina,” Liss muttered to Ista’s ear. “We were in the middle of this field when she suddenly cried that there was something wrong with her lord, ran for her horse, and galloped off. There was no diverting her with anything short of a crossbow bolt.”
“Sh. It’s all right.” Ista quelled a twinge of nausea at her trick on Catti, effective though it had been. “Well—sufficient. Wait by Goram, but do not speak or interrupt. No matter how strange what you hear may sound.”
Liss dipped dutifully and went to lean on the wall by the groom, who nodded welcome. She cocked her head dubiously at Lady Cattilara, sobbing in Lord Arhys’s enfeebled grip.
Cattilara grasped his hand in turn, tested its weakness, and turned her tear-stained face up to her husband’s. “What has she done to you?” she demanded.
“What have you done to me, Catti?” he asked gently in turn. He glanced at his brother. “To both of us?”
Cattilara looked around, glaring at Ista and at Illvin. “You tricked me! Arhys, whatever they say, they lie!”
Illvin’s brows went up. “Now, there’s a comprehensive indictment,” he murmured.
Ista tried to ignore the distracting surfaces for a moment. The demon was as tightly closed as Ista had yet seen it, dense and shiny, as if, all other routes blocked, it was trying to flee inside itself. It seemed to tremble.
As if in terror? Why? What does it think I can do to it? More: What does it know that I don’t? Ista frowned in mystification.
“Catti.” Arhys stroked her wild hair, patting it smooth, absorbing her sobs on his shoulder. “It’s time to tell the truth. Sh, now. Look at me.” He took her chin, turned it to his face, smiled into her wet eyes with a look that would have made Ista’s heart, she thought, melt and run down into her shoes. It had an even less useful effect on the hysterical Catti. She slithered out of his weak grip and crouched at his feet, weeping on his knees like a lost child, her only clear words a repeated, No, no!
Illvin rolled his eyes ceilingward, and rubbed at his forehead in exasperation with an equally weak swipe. He looked as though he would gladly trade what was left of his soul at this moment for escape from the room. He glanced up to meet Ista’s commiserating gaze; she held up two fingers, Wait . . .
“Yes, yes,” Arhys murmured to his wife. His hand, on her head, gave it a soft little shake from side to side. “I command all here at Porifors; all its lives are in my hands. I have to know all. Yes.”
“Good, Arhys,” muttered Illvin. “Stand up to her, for once.”
Ista pressed her hand to her mouth, for Arhys was speaking. Yes, better that this should come from him. She will not resist him, or at least, not as much.
“What happened after you stabbed the . . . sorceress?” Arhys asked. “How did you capture her demon?”
Catti sniffled, swallowed, choked, and coughed. In a rough voice she