Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [8]
Vrit, Sera Nan dy: (VRIT, rhymes with hit) Middle-aged lady-in-waiting to Iselle.
Yarrin: (dy - YAR-in, rhymes with “far in”, dee) A Provincar of Chalion; lord dedicat of the Daughter’s Order; highest-ranking lord of Chalion holding allegiance to the Daughter’s Order.(Paladin Souls) Holy General of the Daughter’s Order
Yarrin: (YAR-in, rhymes with “far in”) - A province of Chalion. Dedicat of the Daughter’s Order; highest-ranking lord of Chalion holding allegiance to the Daughter’s Order.
Yiss, March dy: (YIHS) Darthacan noble, has twin 12-year-old sons.
Yiss: (YIHS) A land-locked territory located between Ibra and Darthaca, which pays fealty to Darthaca but is independent of it. Called the “high march” of Yiss because of Yiss’s historical state as a politically independent entity.
Zagosur: (ZAHG-o-sir) A port city of Ibra, nearly 300 miles from Baocia.
Zangre: (ZAN-gry, rhymes with angry) The great royal keep of Chalion, located at Cardegoss.
Zavar: (Zaa-VAR) A castle in Chalion, close to the Ibran border.
Zavar, Castillar dy: Holder of the fortress of Zavar.
© 2002-2003 by Nancy Barber & Lois McMaster Bujold
E-BOOK EXTRA
Chalion Miscellany
UNIFORMS
Divine of the father - gray robe and carmine shoulder braid
Baocian guard - green and black
Soldier - brothers of the Lady of Spring - tabards of blue with sigil worked in white, gray cloaks, silver badges
Daughter’s military order (Palli) - blue trousers and tunic, white tabard
Officer of the Taryoon Municipal Court - black-and-gray robes and red shoulder braid
Master physician - master’s braid sewn over the shoulder of robes
Lay dedicat of the Temple Hospital of the Mother’s Mercy - green robes
Arch - divine - five-colored robes
Court robes of the general of the Order of the Son - layers of brown, orange, and yellow
Court robes of the general of the Order of the Daughter - blue and white
Service livery of the Zangre - tunic and leggings and a knee-length tabard with the symbol of Chalion embroidered on it
RANKS OF NOBILITY
Rank Rough equivalent
roya/royina king
(royse/royesse) (prince/princess)
provincar/provincara duke
march/marchess marquess
castillar/castillara earl or baron
ser/sera knight-baronet
PROVINCES OF CHALION
(Note: there are 16 provinces of Chalion)
Baocia (centralmost)
Caribastos (northwest)
Guarida (north)
Ildar
Labran (north, borders Roknar)
Thistan (east of Baocia)
Tolnoxo
Yarrin
CHAPTER ONE
I STA LEANED FORWARD BETWEEN THE CRENELLATIONS ATOP THE gate tower, the stone gritty beneath her pale hands, and watched in numb exhaustion as the final mourning party cleared the castle gate below. Their horses’ hooves scraped on the old cobblestones, and their good-byes echoed in the portal’s vaulting. Her earnest brother, the provincar of Baocia, and his family and retinue were last of the many to leave, two full weeks after the divines had completed the funeral rites and ceremonies of the interment.
Dy Baocia was still talking soberly to the castle warder, Ser dy Ferrej, who walked at his stirrup, grave face upturned, listening to the stream, no doubt, of final instructions. Faithful dy Ferrej, who had served the late Dowager Provincara for all the last two decades of her long residence here in Valenda. The keys of the castle and keep glinted from the belt at his stout waist. Her mother’s keys, which Ista had collected and held, then turned over to her older brother along with all the other papers and inventories and instructions that a great lady’s death entailed. And that he had handed back for permanent safekeeping not to his sister, but to good, old, honest dy Ferrej. Keys to lock out all danger . . . and, if necessary, Ista in.
It’s only habit, you know. I’m not mad anymore, really.
It wasn’t as though she wanted her mother’s keys, nor her mother’s life that went with them. She scarcely knew what she wanted. She knew what she feared—to be locked up in some dark, narrow place by people who loved