The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [144]
“How does Orico go on?” he asked the ladies anxiously. They had neither of them come to supper in the banqueting hall, instead remaining with the royina and the stricken roya above stairs.
Betriz answered, “He seemed calmer this evening, when he found he was not completely blind—he can see a candle flame with his right eye. But he is not passing water properly, and his physician thinks he is in danger of growing dropsical. He does look terribly swollen.” She bit her lip in worry.
Cazaril ducked his head at the royesse. “And were you able to see Teidez?”
Iselle sighed. “Yes, right after Chancellor dy Jironal dressed him down. He was too distraught to be sensible. If he were younger, I would name it one of his tantrums. I’m sorry he is grown too big to slap. He takes no food, and throws things at his servants, and now he’s freed from his chambers, is refusing to come out. There’s nothing to do when he gets like this but to leave him alone. He’ll be better tomorrow.” Her eyes narrowed at Cazaril, and her lips compressed. “And so, my lord. Just how long have you known of this black curse that hangs over Orico?”
“Sara finally talked to you…did she?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Iselle gave a tolerably accurate summation of the story of Fonsa and the Golden General, and the descent of the legacy of ill fortune through Ias to Orico. She did not mention herself or Teidez.
Cazaril chewed on a knuckle. “You have about half the facts, then.”
“I do not like this half portion, Cazaril. The world demands I make good choices on no information, and then blames my maidenhood for my mistakes, as if my maidenhood were responsible for my ignorance. Ignorance is not stupidity, but it might as well be. And I do not like feeling stupid.” Steel rang in these last words, unmistakably.
He bowed his head in apology. He wanted to weep for what he was about to lose. It was not to shield her maiden innocence, nor Betriz’s, that he had kept silent for too long, nor even dread of arrest. He had feared to lose the paradise of their regard, been sickened with the horror of becoming hideous in their eyes. Coward. Speak, and be done.
“I first learned of the curse the night after Dondo’s death, from the groom Umegat—who is no groom, by the way, but a divine of the Bastard, and the saint who hosted the miracle of the menagerie for Orico.”
Betriz’s eyes widened. “Oh. I…I liked him. How does he go on?”
Cazaril made a little balancing gesture with one hand. “Badly. Still unconscious. And worse, he’s”—he swallowed, Here we go—“stopped glowing.”
“Stopped glowing?” said Iselle. “I didn’t know he’d started.”
“Yes. I know. You cannot see it. There’s…something I haven’t told you about Dondo’s murder.” He took a breath. “It was me who sacrificed crow and rat, and prayed to the Bastard for Dondo’s death.”
“Ah! I’d suspected as much,” said Betriz, sitting straighter.
“Yes, but—what you don’t know is, I was granted it. I should have died that night, in Fonsa’s tower. But another’s prayers intervened. Iselle’s, I think.” He nodded to the royesse.
Her lips parted, and her hand went to her breast. “I prayed that the Daughter spare me from Dondo!”
“You prayed—and the Daughter spared me.” He added ruefully, “But not, as it turned out, from Dondo. You saw how at his funeral all the gods refused to sign that his soul was taken up?”
“Yes, and so he was excluded, damned, trapped in this world,” said Iselle. “Half the court feared he was loose in Cardegoss, and festooned themselves with charms against him.”
“In Cardegoss, yes. Loose…no. Most lost ghosts are bound to the place where they died. Dondo’s is bound to the person who killed him.” He shut his eyes, unable to bear looking at their draining faces. “You know my tumor? It’s not a tumor. Or not only