Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [207]
“Lord Illvin, brother, may I introduce Captain Goram dy Hixar, late of Roya Orico’s cavalry via the service of Lord Dondo dy Jironal. More recently of service, if an involuntary one, to Sordso of Jokona, as swordmaster and horseman. In a sense.”
Goram looked up from his sobbing, his face stunned. Stunned, but not slack: its shape seemed to tighten along with the mending mind underneath.
“You have returned his memories and his wits? But Ista, this is wonderful!” cried Illvin. “Now he may find his family and his home at last!”
“Just what it is, remains to be seen,” murmured Ista. “But his soul is now his own, and complete.”
Goram’s steel-gray eyes met hers, and for a moment, did not look away. They were filled with amazement, and a roil of other emotions; she rather thought one of them was anguish. She gave him a grave nod, acknowledging it all. He returned a shaken jerk of his head.
“Learned,” she continued, “you begged a gift of witness, and you have it. Please help Captain dy Hixar back to his chamber. He needs to rest quietly, for until he has time to put them back in order, his mind and memories will be very unsettled. Some spiritual comfort . . . may not come amiss, when he is ready.”
“Indeed, Royina,” said dy Cabon, signing himself joyously. “It will be my honor.” He helped Goram—dy Hixar—to his feet, and led him off through the archway. Illvin stared after, then turned his dark eyes thoughtfully on her.
Dy Baocia inquired in a small voice, “Ista, what just happened?”
“Princess Joen, through her demon, was in the habit of stealing useful bits of other people’s souls for her sorcerers. From, among others, prisoners of war. Prince Sordso was her greatest construct, and full of such fragments. When Sordso’s demon passed through me yesterday, the god gave it to me to recognize and retain the portion of Captain dy Hixar woven among the rest, and to return it to him here. It is part of the task the Bastard has laid on me, to hunt demons in the world, pluck them from their mounts, and relay them to His hell.”
“This task . . . is now done, yes?” he said hopefully. Or, possibly, worriedly. He glanced around the shambles of Porifors. “Yesterday, right?”
“No, I expect it is only beginning. In the past three years Joen released a very plague of elementals. They have escaped all over the Five Princedoms and the royacies, though their greatest concentration is likely still in Jokona. The woman who had this calling before me was killed in Rauma. It is not an easy, not an easy . . . duty to train for. If I read the god aright—He delights in obscurity and riddles—I think He wanted a successor who would be rather better guarded, through what promises to be a, ah, theologically difficult period.”
Illvin’s eyes glinted, listening to this. He murmured, “Much becomes clear.”
“He told me He did not want to train another porter,” Ista added, “and that He fancied a royina for a time. His exact words.” She let her slight pause emphasize this last. “I am called. I come.” And you may either help, brother, or get out of my way. “I expect to form a traveling court, small and adaptable; the god’s duties are likely to continue physically wearing. My clerk—as soon as I appoint one—and yours must deal shortly with forwarding my dower income, as I doubt my tasks will take me back to Valenda.”
Dy Baocia digested it all for a moment, then cleared his throat and said cautiously, “My men are setting up our camp by the spring to the east of the castle; will you take your ease there, Ista, or return to your rooms in here?”
Ista glanced up at Illvin. “That will be for Porifors’s chatelaine to decide. But until this fortress has had more time to recover, I would not burden it with my expanded household. I will rest in your camp for a while.”
Illvin gave her a short nod in appreciation of her delicacy, and all that went unspoken in it: until after the dead are buried.
Her brother offered to escort her to his tents, as he was going in that direction,