Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [86]
“What?” he asked blankly. “He was here? And I missed Him?” His round face grew distraught.
If these were real dreams, each the other’s . . . “Where are you now?” asked Ista urgently. “Is Foix with you?”
“What?”
Ista’s eyes sprang open.
She was lying on her back in the dark bedchamber, tangled in her fine linen sheets and Cattilara’s translucent nightclothes. Quite alone. She spat a foul word.
It was drawing toward midnight, she guessed; the fortress had fallen silent. In the distance, filtering through her window lattices, the faint sawing of insects grated. A night bird warbled a low, liquid note. A little dull moonlight seeped in, rendering the room not quite pitch-black.
She wondered whose prayers could have drawn her here. All sorts of persons prayed to the Bastard as the god of last resort, not just those of dubious parentage. It could be anyone in Porifors. Except, she supposed, a man who’d never woken from an exsanguinated collapse. If ever I find who has done this to me, I’ll make them wish they’d never so much as recited a rhyme at bedtime . . .
A cautious creak and scuff of steps sounded on the stairs to the gallery.
Ista fought her way clear of the sheets, swung her bare feet onto the boards, and padded silently to the window that gave onto the court. She unbarred the wooden inner shutter and swung it back; fortunately, it did not squeak. She pressed her face to the ornate iron lace of the outer grating and peered into the court. The waning moon had not yet dropped below the roofline. Its sickly light angled onto the gallery.
Ista’s dark-adapted eyes could make out clearly the tall, graceful form of Lady Cattilara, in a pale robe, unattended, gliding along the balcony. She paused at the door at the far end, gently swung it open, and slipped within.
Am I to follow? Sneak and spy, listen at windows, peer in like a thief? Well, I will not!
No matter how benighted curious You make me, curse You . . .
By no force could the gods compel her to follow Lady Cattilara to her afflicted brother-in-law’s bedchamber. Ista closed the shutter, turned, marched back to her bed. Burrowed under the covers.
Lay awake, listening.
After a few furious minutes, she rose again. She silently lifted a stool to the window and sat, leaning her head against the iron lattice, watching. Faint candlelight leaked through the gratings opposite. At length, it went out. A little time more, and the door half opened again, just wide enough for a slim woman to twist through. Cattilara retraced her steps, descended the stairs. She did not appear to be carrying anything.
So, she oversaw the sick man’s care. Not beneath a chatelaine’s duties, for a man so highborn, an officer so essential, a relative so close and, apparently, esteemed by her husband. Perhaps Lord Illvin was due some midnight medication, some hopeful treatment that the physicians had ordered. There were a dozen possible mundane, harmless explanations.
Well, a handful.
One or two, at least.
Ista hissed through her teeth and returned to her bed. It was a long, galling time before she slept again.
FOR A WOMAN WHO HAD STILL BEEN FLITTING AROUND THE CASTLE secretly at midnight, Lady Cattilara appeared at Ista’s chambers much too soon after dawn, bursting with cheerful hospitality and the plan of dragging Ista to the temple in the village for morning prayers of thanksgiving. With an effort, Ista suppressed the twinging tension the young marchess’s presence induced in her. When Ista arrived in the flower-decked entry court to discover Pejar holding a horse for her, it was too late to beg off. Muscles still sore, feeling altogether decrepit, in anything but a thankful mood, she let herself be loaded aboard. Pejar led her mount at a decorous pace. Lady Cattilara walked ahead in the procession, head high, arms swinging freely, and had breath to spare to sing a hymn with her ladies as they descended the treacherous twisting path.
The village of Porifors, tightly crowded behind its gates, was clearly a town-in-waiting for either more walls, or