Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [119]
“Royse Bergon is a dear boy.” Not that Ista could help approving of anyone so plainly smitten with her daughter as Iselle’s young Ibran husband.
“His father the roya is a bit of a cactus, though. Dry, spiny, will make your fingers bleed.”
“Well, he’s our cactus now.”
“Indeed.”
Ista sat back with a troubled sigh. “The news of this—at least, the news that a highborn lady of Jokona’s court harbored a demon and attempted to suborn a Chalionese fortress by sorcery—should not be suppressed. I should write a warning to Archdivine Mendenal at Cardegoss, and to Chancellor dy Cazaril, at least.”
“That would be well,” he conceded reluctantly, “for all that I am gravely embarrassed by how closely Umerue came to succeeding. And yet—it wasn’t the archdivine of Cardegoss who was dragged by chance and his hair here to the hind end of Chalion. It was you. A more unlikely answer to my prayers I can scarcely imagine.” His mouth twisted up in puzzlement as he squinted at her.
“Did you pray to the Bastard, in your coherent moments?”
“Say, waking, rather than coherent. It all seems a fog till—yesterday? Yesterday just now. Yes, I prayed desperately. It was the only course left to me by then. I couldn’t even form the right words aloud. Just howling in my heart. To my god, whom I had abandoned—I haven’t been much for prayer since I became a man. If He’d said, Boot off, boy, you wanted to be on your own, now eat what you cooked, I should have thought Him within His rights.” He added more slowly, “Why you? Unless this tangle has some older roots still, with my brother’s father and Cardegoss court politics.”
His shrewd guess discomfited her. “I have an old, dry knot of guilt still left to be undone with the late Lord dy Lutez, yes, but it has nothing to do with Arhys. And no, Arvol was not my lover!”
Illvin looked taken aback at her vehemence. “I did not say so, lady!”
She let out her breath. “No, you didn’t. It’s Lady Cattilara who thinks the old slander is a romantic tale, five gods spare me. Arhys just wants to take me for some spiritual stepmother, I think.”
He surprised her by snorting. “He would.” His fondly exasperated headshake scarcely enlightened her as to how to interpret this cryptic remark.
She said a little tartly, “Until I heard you two speaking with each other, I had half decided you were the jealous murderer. The despised bastard brother, denied father, title, property, pushed over the edge by this last loss.”
His dry half laugh did not sound in the least offended. “I have encountered that delusion once or twice before. The truth is exactly the reverse. I had a father all my life, or at any rate, all of his. Arhys had—a dream. My father undertook the raising of us both, in all practical matters, and he tried to do well by Arhys, but it was always with that little extra mindful effort. To me, his love flowed without hindrance.
“But Arhys was never jealous or resentful because, you see, someday it would all be made right. Someday, his fine father would call him to court. When he was big enough. When he was good enough, a good enough swordsman, horseman, officer. The great Lord dy Lutez would place him at his right hand, present him to his glittering retinue, and say to all his powerful friends, See, this is my son, is he not well? Arhys would never wear his best things; he kept them packed for the journey. For when the call came. He was ready to leave on an hour’s notice. Then Lord dy Lutez died, and . . . the dream stayed a dream.”
Ista shook her head in sorrow. “In all the five years I knew him, Arvol dy Lutez scarcely mentioned Arhys. He never spoke of you. If he had not died in the dungeons of the Zangre that night . . . that summons still might never have come, I think.”
“I wondered, in retrospect. I pray you, don’t tell Arhys that.”
“I am not sure