Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [209]
At length, exhausted, she rolled over and slept.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ARHYS’S FUNERAL TOOK PLACE THE NEXT MORNING IN THE LITTLE temple in the town of Porifors, as if an ordinary border lord had died in an ordinary battle. The provincar of Caribastos had ridden in with a troop too late to bear arms, but in time to help bear up the sealed coffin, together with dy Oby, dy Baocia, Illvin, Foix, and one of Arhys’s senior officers. It was as honorable an escort as might be had.
The sacred animal of the Father of Winter here was a fine old gray deerhound, his coat brushed to a silvery sheen for the occasion; he sat at once by the bier when his acolyte-groom led him up, and would not be moved from his guard-place thereafter. The normally articulate Illvin was pallid and close-throated. He managed only a simple He was a great-souled man, in a voice that slid, then stepped back to Ista’s side. It was plain that any further demand for speech would have cracked him. To spare him, dy Oby and dy Caribastos stepped forward to deliver all the proper orations, listing their late relative’s and liegeman’s public achievements.
Lady Cattilara, too, was pale and quiet. She did not speak much to Illvin, or vice versa, just the necessary practical exchanges. There would never be friendship between them, exactly; but the blood they’d mingled on the tower, Ista judged, had bought them enough mutual respect to survive upon. Cattilara, jaw tight, even managed a polite nod to Ista. For the three of them, the morning’s rite was a redundant farewell, more a social burden to be endured than an hour of parting.
After the interment and the funeral meal, the military men dragged Illvin off for conclave. Lady Cattilara made scant work of packing, left her ladies to deal with the rest, and rode out under the escort of one of her brothers, bound for Oby. It would be after nightfall before she reached it; but Ista, remembering her own horror of the Zangre after Ias’s death, had no trouble understanding Cattilara’s desire not to sleep another night in her emptied marriage bed. Cattilara bore away great grief in her heart, down that eastern road, but not, Ista thought, a crippling burden of hatred, rage, or guilt along with it. What would eventually grow to fill that emptiness, Ista did not know—but she felt that it would not be stunted.
EARLY THE NEXT AFTERNOON, LORD ILLVIN CAME TO ISTA IN DY BAOCIA’S camp. They climbed the path above the spring, partly for the view, which took in both Castle Porifors and the valley it guarded, partly to shed any of Ista’s would-be attendants less athletic than Liss. Illvin gallantly spread his vest-cloak upon a rock for Ista to seat herself. Liss wandered nearby, looking longingly at an enticing cork-oak tree that her dress prevented her from climbing.
Ista nodded to Illvin’s belt, where both Arhys’s and Cattilara’s keys now hung. “Provincar dy Caribastos has confirmed your command of Porifors, I see.”
“For the moment, at least,” said Illvin.
“For the moment?”
He stared thoughtfully along the ridge to where the stronghold’s walls rose from the rocks. “It’s odd. I was born in Porifors—lived here almost all of my life—yet I’ve never owned it, nor expected to. It belongs today to my niece Liviana—a nine-year-old girl who lives half a province away. Yet it is my home, if anyplace is. I own half a dozen little estates in Caribastos, unentailed scatterings from my mother—but they are mere possessions, barely visited. Still, necessarily, Porifors must be defended.”
“By you—necessarily?”
He shrugged. “It is the key fortress, along this border.”
“I think this border may be about to shift.”
He grinned briefly. “Indeed. Things are stirring, in our counsels. I’m stirring ‘em. I don’t need Arhys’s gifts to tell that this is a boon of timing and chance not to be wasted.”
“I trust so. I expect Marshal dy Palliar and Chancellor dy Cazaril to ride into the gates of Porifors within the week. If my brother’s and dy