The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [0]
The Curse of Chalion
Contents
1
Cazaril heard the mounted horsemen on the road before he…
2
As he climbed the last slope to the main castle…
3
The sounds of the household stirring—calls from the courtyard,…
4
So it was Cazaril found himself, the next morning, introduced…
5
The Royesse Iselle's sixteenth birthday fell at the midpoint of…
6
At the Temple pageant celebrating the advent of summer, Iselle…
7
The royse and royesse's caravan approached Cardegoss from the south…
8
The first night's welcoming banquet was followed all too soon…
9
Cazaril spent the following day in smiling anticipation of the…
10
Cazaril sat in his bedchamber with a profligacy of candles…
11
Cazaril was just exiting his bedchamber on the way to…
12
Cazaril's eyes pulled open against the glue that rimmed their…
13
The royesse was so drained by the ordeal of Lord…
14
Cazaril had to allow Umegat's wine this much merit—it…
15
After some time casting about the Zangre they ran Orico…
16
Two afternoons later, Cazaril was sitting unguardedly at his worktable…
17
It was by chance, late the following morning, that Cazaril…
18
As he turned onto the end stairs, Cazaril heard a…
19
Cazaril found the Zangre eerily quiet the following day. After…
20
Iselle's eyes, though reddened with fatigue and grief, were dry.
21
They came to Valenda at dusk on the following day.
22
Cazaril regretfully gave up use of the Chancellery's courier remounts…
23
At the last moment, with principles agreed upon, treaties written…
24
They retraced Cazaril's outbound route across western Chalion, changing horses…
25
In a palace frantic with preparations, Cazaril found himself the…
26
Distraught, Cazaril kept to his chamber all morning. In the…
27
Cazaril put a hand to the pavement, shoving himself to…
28
A tapping and low voices at his chamber door drew…
29
Palli had sent Ferda galloping ahead while Cazaril lingered by…
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Lois McMaster Bujold
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Cazaril heard the mounted horsemen on the road before he saw them. He glanced over his shoulder. The well-worn track behind him curled up around a rolling rise, what passed for a hill on these high windy plains, before dipping again into the late-winter muck of Baocia’s bony soil. At his feet a little rill, too small and intermittent to rate a culvert or a bridge, trickled greenly across the track from the sheep-cropped pastures above. The thump of hooves, jangle of harness, clink of bells, creak of gear and careless echo of voices came on at too quick a rhythm to be some careful farmer with a team, or parsimonious pack-men driving their mules.
The cavalcade trotted around the side of the rise riding two by two, in full panoply of their order, some dozen men. Not bandits—Cazaril let out his breath, and swallowed his unsettled stomach back down. Not that he had anything to offer bandits but sport. He trudged a little way off the track and turned to watch them pass.
The horsemen’s chain shirts were silvered, glinting in the watery morning sunlight, for show, not for use. Their tabards of blue, dyes almost matching one with another, were worked with white in the sigil of the Lady of Spring. Their gray cloaks were thrown back like banners in the breeze of their passing, pinned at their shoulders with silver badges that had all the tarnish polished off today. Soldier-brothers of ceremony, not of war; they would have no desire to get Cazaril’s stubborn bloodstains on those clothes.
To Cazaril’s surprise, their captain held up a hand as they came near. The column crashed raggedly to a halt, the squelch and suck of the hooves trailing off in a way that would have had Cazaril’s father’s old horse-master bellowing grievous and entertaining insults at such a band of boys as this. Well, no matter.
“You there, old fellow,” the leader called across the saddlebow of his banner-carrier at Cazaril.
Cazaril, alone on the road, barely kept his head from swiveling around to see