Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [186]
Liss did so, cinching in the graceful waist. Ista pulled on the overrobe, shook out the wide sleeves, and fastened it closed beneath her breasts with the amethyst-and-silver mourning brooch. The meaning of the heirloom had shifted, it seemed to her, half a dozen times since it had come into her possession. All its old woes had drained out utterly, last night. Today she wore it new-filled with stern sorrow for Arhys, and for those who had ridden with him. All about her must be renewed, in this hour.
“The hair next,” she instructed, sitting on the bench. “Something quick and neat. I do not mean to go out to them looking like a madwoman dragged through a hedge, or a haystack hit by lightning.” She smiled in memory. “Put it in one braid.”
Liss swallowed hard and began brushing. And said, for the fourth or fifth time since dawn on the tower, “I wish you would take me with you.”
“No,” said Ista with regret. “Ordinarily, you would be much safer as the servant of a valuable hostage than left in a crumbling fortress about to fall. But if I should fail in what I attempt, Joen would make demon fodder of you, steal your mind and memories and courage for her own. Or take you in trade for her sorcerer-slaves that Arhys killed last night, and set you on me not as my servant but as her guard. Or worse.”
And if Ista succeeded . . . she had no idea what might happen after that. Saints were no more immune to steel than sorcerers, as her predecessor the late saint of Rauma—was no longer able to testify.
“What could be worse?” The long strokes of the brush faltered. “Do you think she has enslaved Foix and his bear? Yet?”
“I’ll know in an hour.” What worse might be, should Liss fall into Joen’s hands, suddenly occurred to Ista. Now that would be the perfect, unholy union of two hearts: to feed Liss to Foix’s bear, and let Foix’s own caring drive him mad with horror and woe as their souls mixed . . . Then she wondered whose mind was blacker, Joen’s, to do such a thing, or her own, to impute such a course to Joen. It seems I am not a nice person, either.
Good.
“There are some white ribbons here. Should I braid them in?”
“Yes, please.” The pleasant, familiar yank of the plaiting went on swiftly, behind Ista’s back. “If you see any chance of it at all, I want you to escape. That is your highest duty to me now, my courier. To carry away the word of all that has happened here, though they call you mad for it. Lord dy Cazaril will believe you. At all costs, get you to him.”
Silence, behind her.
“Say, ‘I promise, Royina,’ “ she instructed firmly.
A little mulish hesitation, then a whisper: “I promise, Royina.”
“Good.” Liss pulled the last bowknot tight; Ista rose. Lady Cattilara’s white silk slippers did not fit Ista, but Liss knelt and tied on a pair of pretty white sandals that did well enough, binding the ribbons around Ista’s ankles.
Liss led the way to the outer chamber, opening the door to the gallery for Ista to step through.
Lord Illvin was leaning against the wall outside, arms folded. It seemed he had also found half a cup of water to bathe in, for though he still reeked more than slightly, his hands and fresh-shaved face were clean of blood and dirt. He was dressed in the colors of court mourning, in the light fabrics of this northern summer: black boots, black linen trousers, a sleeveless black tunic set off with thin lines of lavender piping, a lilac brocade sash with black tassels wrapped about his waist. In the hot noon, he had dispensed with the weight of the lavender vest-cloak, though an anxious Goram hovered with the garment folded over his arm. Goram had arranged his master’s hair in the pulled-back, elegant braiding in which Ista had first seen it; the frosted black queue down the back was tied with a lavender cord. Illvin straightened as he saw her and gave her a sketch of a courtier’s bow, truncated, she suspected, by bloodless dizziness.
“What is this?” she asked suspiciously.
“What, I had not thought you slow of wit, dear Royina. What does it look like?”
“You are not going with