The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [147]
Needs must drive. He would broach it to Palli tomorrow.
CAZARIL PRAYED ON HIS KNEES BEFORE BED TO BE spared from the nightmare that had recurred three nights running, where Dondo grew back to life size within his swelling stomach and then, somehow dressed in his funeral robes and armed with his sword, carved his way out. Perhaps the Lady heard his plea; at any rate, he woke at dawn, his head and heart pounding, from a new nightmare. In this one, Dondo somehow sucked Cazaril’s soul into his own belly in his place, and escaped to take over Cazaril’s body. And then embarked on a career of rapine in the women’s quarters while Cazaril, helpless to stop him, watched. To his dismay, as he panted in the gray light and regained his grip on reality, Cazaril realized his body was painfully aroused.
So, was Dondo plunged into a lightless prison, sealed from sound, deprived of sensation? Or did he ride along as the ultimate spy and voyeur? Cazaril had not imagined making love to Be—to any lady since this damned affliction had been visited upon him; he imagined it now, a crowded quartet between the sheets, and shuddered.
Briefly, Cazaril envisioned escaping by the window. He might squeeze his shoulders through, and dive; the drop would be stupendous, the crunch at the end…quick. Or with his knife, taken to wrists or throat or belly or all three…He sat up, blinking, to find a half a dozen phantasms gathered avidly around him, crowding each other like vultures around a dead horse. He hissed, lurched, and swiped his arm through the air to scatter them. Could a body with its head smashed in be animated by one of them? The archdivine’s words implied so. Escape through suicide was blocked by this ghastly patrol, it seemed. Dreading sleep, he stumbled from bed and went to wash and dress.
Coming back from a perfunctory breakfast in the banqueting hall, Cazaril encountered a breathless Nan dy Vrit upon the stairs.
“My lady begs you ‘tend upon her at once,” Nan told him, and Cazaril nodded and pushed up the steps. “Not in her chambers,” Nan added, as he started past the third floor. “In Royse Teidez’s.”
“Oh.” Cazaril’s brows rose, and he turned instead to pass his own chamber and go down the hall to Teidez’s, Nan at his heels.
As he entered the office antechamber, twin to Iselle’s above, he heard voices from the rooms opening beyond; Iselle’s murmur, and Teidez’s, raised: “I don’t want anything to eat. I don’t want to see anyone! Go away!”
The sitting room was cluttered with weapons, clothes, and gifts, strewn about haphazardly. Cazaril picked his way across to the bedchamber.
Teidez lay back on his pillows, still in his nightgown. The close, moist air of the room smelled of boy sweat, and another tang. Teidez’s secretary-tutor hovered anxiously on one side of the bed; Iselle stood with her hands on her hips on the other. Teidez said, “I want to go back to sleep. Get out.” He glanced up at Cazaril, cringed, and pointed. “I especially don’t want him in here!”
Nan dy Vrit said, in a very domestic voice, “Now, none of that, young lord. You know better than to talk to old Nan that way.”
Teidez, cowed by some ancient habit, went from surly to whiney. “I have a headache.”
Iselle said firmly, “Nan, bring a light. Cazaril, I want you to look at Teidez’s leg. It looks very odd to me.”
Nan held a brace of candles high, supplementing the wan gray daylight from the window. Teidez at first clutched his blankets to his chest, but didn’t quite