The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [131]
If he took this into his own hands, should he first tell Teidez, as Heir of Chalion, and appeal for his aid in protecting his sister? Or Iselle, and enlist her help in managing the more difficult Teidez? The second choice would better allow him to hide his complicity behind the royesse’s skirts, but only if the secret of his guilt survived her shrewd cross-examination.
A scraping of hooves broke into his self-absorption. He looked up just in time to dodge from the path of the cavalcade starting out from the stables. Royse Teidez, mounted on his fine black horse, led a party of his Baocian guards, their captain and two men. The royse’s black-and-lavender mourning garb made his round face appear drawn and pale in the winter sunlight. Dondo’s green stone glinted on the guard captain’s hand, raised to return Cazaril’s polite salute.
“Where away, Royse?” Cazaril called. “Do you hunt?” The party was armed for it, with spears and crossbows, swords and cudgels.
Teidez drew up his fretting horse and stared briefly down at Cazaril. “No, just a gallop along the river. The Zangre is…stuffy, this morning.”
Indeed. And if they just happened to flush a deer or two, well, they were prepared to accept the gods’ largesse. But not really hunting while in mourning, no. “I understand,” said Cazaril, and suppressed a smile. “It will be good for the horses.” Teidez lifted his reins again. Cazaril stepped back, but then added suddenly, “I would speak to you later, Royse, on the matter that concerned you yesterday.”
Teidez gave him a vague wave, and a frown—not exactly assent, but it would do. Cazaril bowed farewell as they clattered out of the stable yard.
And remained bent over, as the worst cramp yet kicked him in the belly with the power of a horse’s hind hooves. His breathing stopped. Waves of pain seemed to surge through his whole body from this central source, even to burning spasms in the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. A hideous vision shook him of Rojeras’s postulated demon-monster preparing to bloodily claw its way out of him into the light. One creature, or two? With no bodies to keep their spirits apart, bottled under the pressure of the Lady’s miracle, might Dondo and the demon have begun to blend together into one dreadful being? It was true that he’d distinguished only one voice, not a duet, baying at him from his belly in the night. His knees sank helplessly to the cold cobbles. He drew in a shuddering breath. The world seemed to churn around his head in short, dizzy jerks.
After a few minutes, a shadow trailing a powerful aroma of horses loomed at his shoulder. A gruff voice muttered in his ear, “M’lord? You all right?”
Cazaril blinked up to see one of the stable grooms, a middle-aged fellow with bad teeth, bending over him. “Not…really,” he managed to reply.
“Ought you go indoors, sir?”
“Yes…I suppose…”
The groom helped him to his feet with a hand under his elbow, and steadied him back through the gates to the main block. At the bottom of the stairs Cazaril gasped, “Wait. Not yet,” and sat heavily upon the steps.
After an awkward minute the groom asked, “Should I get someone for you, m’lord? I should return to my duties.”
“It’s…just a spasm. It will pass off in a few minutes. I’m all right now. Go on.” The pain was dwindling, leaving him feeling flushed and strange.
The groom frowned uncertainly, staring down at Cazaril, but then ducked his head and departed.
Slowly, as he sat quietly on the stair, he began to regain his breath and balance, and was able to straighten his back again. The world stopped pulsing. Even the couple of ghost-blotches that had crept out of the walls to cluster at his feet grew quiescent. Cazaril eyed them in the shadows of the stairwell, considering what a cold and lonely