The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [128]
After a slight hesitation, Cazaril temporized, “Your observations are shrewd, Royse.”
“Lord Dondo’s death was uncanny, too. I think it’s all of a piece!”
The boy was thinking; good! “You should take your thoughts to…” not dy Jironal, “your brother Orico. He is the most proper authority to address them.” Cazaril tried to imagine Teidez getting a straight answer out of Orico, and sighed. If Iselle could not draw sense from the man, with all her passionate persuasion, what hope had the much less articulate Teidez? Orico would evade answer unless stiffened to it in advance.
Should Cazaril take this tutelage into his own hands? Not only had he not been given authority to disclose the state secret, he wasn’t even supposed to know it himself. And…the knowledge of the Golden General’s curse needed to come straight to Teidez from the roya, not around him or despite him, lest it take up a suspicious tinge of conspiracy.
He’d been silent too long. Teidez leaned forward across the table, eyes narrowing, and hissed, “Lord Cazaril, what do you know?”
I know we dare not leave you in ignorance much longer. Nor Iselle either. “Royse, I shall talk to you of this later. I cannot answer you tonight.”
Teidez’s lips tightened. He swiped a hand through his dark amber curls in a gesture of impatience. His eyes were uncertain, untrusting, and, Cazaril thought, strangely lonely. “I see,” he said in a bleak tone, and turned on his heel to march out. His low-voiced mutter carried back from the corridor, “I must do it myself…”
If he meant, talk to Orico, good. Cazaril would go to Orico first, though, yes, and if that proved insufficient, return with Umegat to back him up. He set his pens in their jar, closed his books, took a breath to steel himself against the twinges that stabbed him with sudden movement, and pushed to his feet.
AN INTERVIEW WITH ORICO WAS EASIER RESOLVED upon than accomplished. Taking him as still an ambassador for Iselle’s Ibran proposal, the roya ducked away from Cazaril on sight, and set the master of his chamber to offer up a dozen excuses for his indisposition. The matter was made more difficult by the need for this conversation to take place in private, just between the two of them, and uninterrupted. Cazaril was walking down the corridor from the banqueting hall after supper, head down and considering how best to corner his royal quarry, when a thump on his shoulder half spun him around.
He looked up, and an apology for his clumsy abstraction died on his lips. The man he’d run into was Ser dy Joal, one of Dondo’s now-unemployed bravos—and what were all those ripe souls doing for pocket money these days? Had they been inherited by Dondo’s brother?—flanked by one of his comrades, half-grinning, and Ser dy Maroc, who frowned uneasily. The man who’d run into him, Cazaril corrected himself. The candlelight from the mirrored wall sconces made bright sparks in the younger man’s alert eyes.
“Clumsy oaf!” roared dy Joal, sounding just a trifle rehearsed. “How dare you crowd me from the door?”
“I beg your pardon, Ser dy Joal,” said Cazaril. “My mind was elsewhere.” He made a half bow, and began to go around.
Dy Joal dodged sideways, blocking him, and swung back his vest-cloak to reveal the hilt of his sword. “I say you crowded me. Do you give me the lie, as well?”
This is an ambush. Ah. Cazaril stopped, his mouth tightening. Wearily, he said, “What do you want, dy Joal?”
“Bear witness!” Dy Joal motioned to his comrade and dy Maroc. “He crowded me.”
His comrade obediently replied, “Aye, I saw,” though dy Maroc looked much less certain.
“I seek a touch with you for this, Lord Cazaril!” said dy Joal.
“I see that you do,” said Cazaril dryly. But was this drunken stupidity, or the world’s simplest form of assassination? A duel to first blood, approved practice and outlet for high spirits among young courtly hotheads, followed by The sword slipped, upon my honor! He ran upon it! and whatever number of paid witnesses one could afford