Paladin of Souls - Lois McMaster Bujold [96]
Liss’s mouth opened; Ista’s hand nipped her arm before she could reply. Ista said, “I’m afraid he’s not very lucid. I had hoped he was an old retainer and could tell me about the brothers’ youth, but it proved not to be the case.”
Cattilara smiled in bright sympathy. “When Lord dy Lutez was still alive, and young, you mean? I’m afraid the chancellor—was he already Roya Ias’s chancellor, way back then, or just a rising courtier?—didn’t come much to Porifors.”
“So you’ve explained,” said Ista coolly. She allowed Cattilara to ease her and Liss into their own chambers and escape back to her nursing supervision.
Or whatever it was she did, in Illvin’s service. Ista wondered if there was anything lacing that goat’s milk in addition to the honey, or what strange spices might be sprinkled on that food he bolted, once a day. After which he gabbled incoherently, then slept the sun around, unable to be roused.
A seductively rational consideration, that one. Not a single dose of poison from a Roknari dagger, but an ongoing regimen, from a source much closer to home? It would account for the visible symptoms quite exactly. She was sorry she had thought of it. Less disturbing than dreams of white fire, though.
“Why did you pinch my arm?” Liss demanded when the door had closed.
“To stop your speech.”
“Well, I figured that. Why?”
“The marchess was not best pleased with her groom’s forwardness. I wished to save him a cuffing, or at least, sharp words.”
“Oh.” Liss frowned, digesting this. “I’m sorry I let him trouble you. He seemed harmless in the stables. I liked how he handled the horse. I never dreamed he would ask you for anything so foolish.” She added after a moment, “You were kind not to mock him, or refuse his plea.”
Kindness had nothing to do with it. “He certainly went to great pains to make it as attractive a proposition as possible.”
The merry glint returned to Liss’s eye in response to her wry tone. “That’s so. And yet . . . it made it all seem sadder, somehow.”
Ista could only nod agreement.
IT EASED ISTA’S HEART TO HAVE LISS’S PLAIN, PRACTICAL MINISTRATIONS again, readying her for bed. Liss bade her a cheerful good night and went off to sleep in the outer chamber, within call. She left the candle burning again at Ista’s bidding, and Ista sat up on her pillows and meditated on the day’s new revelations.
Her fingers drummed. She felt as restless as when she had used to pace round and round the battlements at Valenda Castle, till her feet blistered and the soles parted from her slippers and her attendants begged for mercy. That had been an opiate for thought, though, not its aid.
For all that it seemed a string of accidents had brought her to Porifors, the Bastard had claimed she was not here by chance. The gods were parsimonious, Lord dy Cazaril had once remarked to her, and took their chances where they found them. He had not pretended it was a positive feature, god-gnawed man that he was. Ista smiled in grim agreement.
How were prayers answered, anyway? For prayers were innumerable, but miracles were rare. The gods set others to their work, it seemed. For however vast a god might be, it had only the width of one soul at a time to reach into the world of matter: whether door, window, chink, crack, pinhole . . .
Demons, for all that they were supposedly legion, were not vast, possessing nothing like the infinite depth of those Eyes, but they seemed limited similarly; except that they could chew away at the edges of their living apertures, and so widen them, over time.
So who here must she reproach for praying for her advent? Or perhaps not for her, but just for help, and sending her was but a nasty jape of the Bastard’s. She had absolved Lord Illvin when she’d thought him senseless,