The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [116]
The thumbless groom set down a pail, hurried up to him, bowed, and made welcoming noises.
“I have come to see Umegat,” Cazaril told him. The little old man bowed again and beckoned him onward. He led Cazaril down the aisle. The beautiful animals all lurched to the front of their stalls to snort at him, and the sand foxes jumped up and yipped excitedly as he passed.
A stone-walled chamber at the far end proved to be a tack room converted to a work and leisure room for the menagerie’s servants. A small fire burned cheerfully in a fieldstone fireplace, taking the chill off. The faint, pleasant scent of woodsmoke combined with that of leather, metal polish, and soaps. The wool-stuffed cushions on the chairs to which the groom gestured him were faded and worn, and the old worktable was stained and scarred. But the room was swept, and the glazed windows, one on either side of the fireplace, had the little round panes set in their leads polished clean. The groom made noises and shuffled out again.
In a few minutes, Umegat entered, wiping his hands dry on a cloth and straightening his tabard. “Welcome, my lord,” he said softly. Cazaril felt suddenly uncertain of his etiquette, whether to stand as for a superior or sit as for a servant. There was no court Roknari grammatical mode for secretary to saint. He sat up and half bowed from the waist, awkwardly, by way of compromise. “Umegat.”
Umegat closed the door, assuring privacy. Cazaril leaned forward, clasping his hands upon the tabletop, and spoke with the urgency of patient to physician. “You see the ghosts of the Zangre. Do you ever hear them?”
“Not normally. Have you?” Umegat pulled out a chair and seated himself at right angles to Cazaril.
“Not these—” He batted away the most persistent one, which had followed him inside. Umegat pursed his lips and flipped his cloth at it, and it flitted off. “Dondo’s.” Cazaril described last night’s internal uproar. “I thought he was trying to break out. Can he succeed? If the goddess’s grip fails?”
“I am certain no ghost can overpower a god,” said Umegat.
“That’s…not quite an answer.” Cazaril brooded. Perhaps Dondo and the demon meant to kill him from sheer exhaustion. “Can you at least suggest a way to shut him up? Putting my head under the pillow was no help at all.”
“There is a kind of symmetry to it,” observed Umegat slowly. “Outer ghosts that you may see but not hear, inner ghosts that you may hear but not see…if the Bastard has a hand in it, it may have something to do with maintaining balance. In any case, I am sure your preservation was no accident and would not be accidentally withdrawn.”
Cazaril absorbed this for a moment. Daily duties, eh. Today’s had brought some curious turns. He spoke now as comrade to comrade. “Umegat, listen, I’ve had an idea. We know the curse has followed the House of Chalion’s male line, Fonsa to Ias to Orico. Yet Royina Sara wears nearly as dark a shadow as Orico does, and she is no spawn of Fonsa’s loins. She must have married into the curse, yes?”
The fine lines of Umegat’s face deepened with his frown. “Sara already bore the shadow when I first came, years ago, but I suppose…yes, it must have been so.”
“Ista likewise, presumably?”
“Presumably.”
“So—could Iselle marry out of the curse? Shed it with her marriage vows, when she leaves her family of birth behind and enters into the family of her husband? Or would the curse follow her to taint them both?”
Umegat’s brows went up. “I don’t know.”
“But you don’t know that it’s impossible? I was thinking that it might be a way to salvage…something.”
Umegat sat back. “Possibly.