Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [94]
In a kind of fascination, she bent forward. The closely shaved skin of Illvin’s jaw was stretched too thinly over the fine bones. His lips were neutral in color, a little parted upon pale, square teeth.
Neither warm nor cold, as her lips pressed upon them . . .
She breathed into that mouth. She remembered that the tongue was the organ held sacred to the Bastard, as womb for the Mother, male organs for the Father, heart for the Brother, and brain for the Daughter. Because the tongue was the source of all lies, the Quadrene heretics falsely charged. She dared secretly to trace those teeth, touch the cool tip of his tongue with hers, as the god had invaded her mouth in her dream. Her fingers spread, hovering over his heart, not quite venturing to touch, to feel for a bandage wrapped around his chest beneath that decorated tunic. His chest did not rise. His dark eyes, and she knew their color by heart already, did not open in wonder. He lay inert.
She swallowed a wail of disappointment, concealed chagrin, straightened. Found her voice, lost somewhere. “As you see. It does no good.” Foolish hope and foolish failure.
“Eh,” said Goram. His eyes were narrowed, sharp upon her. He, too, looked disappointed, but by no means crushed. “Must be something else.”
Let me out of here. This is too painful.
Liss, standing watching this play, cast Ista a look of mute apology. A lecture on a handmaiden’s duties in screening the importunate, the simple, and the strange from her lady’s presence seemed in order, later.
“But you are the one he was going on about,” repeated Goram in an insistent tone. Recovering his audacity, it seemed. Or perhaps the futility of her kiss had reduced his awe of her. She was, after all, merely a dowager royina, obviously insufficiently potent to breathe the near dead to life. “Not tall, hair curled all wild down your back, gray eyes, face all still—grave, he said you were grave.” He looked her up and down and gave a short nod, as if satisfied with her graveness. “The very one.”
“Who said—who described me so to you?” demanded Ista, exasperated.
Goram jerked his head toward the bed. “Him.”
“When?” Ista’s voice came out sharper than she’d intended; Liss jumped.
Goram’s hands opened. “When he wakes up.”
“Does he wake up? I thought—Lady Cattilara gave me to understand—he had never come out of his swoon after he was stabbed.”
“Eh, Lady Catti,” said Goram, and sniffed. Ista wasn’t certain if he was making a comment or just clearing his nose. “But he don’t stay awake, see. He comes up most every day for a while, around noon. We mainly try to get as much food into him as we can, while he can swallow without choking. He don’t get enough. He’s wasting away, you can see it. Lady Catti, she came up with a smart idea to put goat’s milk down his throat with a little leather tube, and you can see that it helps, but not enough. He’s too thin now. Every day, his grip is less strong.”
“Is he coherent, when he wakes?”
Goram shrugged. “Eh.”
Not an encouraging answer. But if he waked at all, why not now, for her kiss, or at any other time? Why just at the time that his brother slept his motionless sleep . . . her mind shied from the thought.
Goram added, “He does go on, sometimes. Some would say he just raves.”
Liss said, “Is it uncanny, do you think? Some Roknari sorcery?”
Ista flinched at the notion. I wasn’t going to ask it. I wasn’t going to suggest it. I want nothing to do with the uncanny. “Sorcery is illegal in the princedoms, and the Archipelago.” For more than just theological reasons; it was scarcely encouraged in Chalion, either. Yet given opportunity—and sufficient desperation, criminality, or hubris—a stray demon might present as much temptation to a Quadrene as to a Quintarian. More, since a Quadrene who had contracted a demon risked dangerous accusations of heretical transgression if he sought assistance from his Temple.
Goram shrugged again.