The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [222]
This eager courtesy daunted Cazaril far more than Bonneret’s former superciliousness. He mumbled some incoherent excuse for his intrusion, pleaded weariness from the road, and fled back downstairs.
He filled a little time inventorying his clothing and too-few books and arranging them in his new chamber. Amazingly, nothing seemed to be missing from his possessions. He wandered to his narrow window, which looked down over the town. He swung his casement wide and craned his neck out, but no sacred crows flew in to visit him. With the curse broken, the menagerie gone, did they still roost in Fonsa’s Tower? He studied the temple domes, and made plans to seek out Umegat at his first opportunity. Then he sat in bewilderment.
He was shaken, and knew it partly for an effect of fatigue. His energy was still fragile, spasmodic. His healing gut wound ached from the morning’s riding, although not as much as when Dondo had used to claw him from the inside. He was gloriously unoccupied, a fact that alone had been enough to keep him ecstatically happy for days. It didn’t seem to be working this afternoon, though. All his urgent push to arrive here made this quiet rest that everybody thought he ought to be having feel rather a letdown.
His mood darkened. Maybe there was no use for him in this new Chalion-Ibra. Iselle would need more learned, smoother men now to help manage her vastly enlarged affairs than a battered and, well, strange ex-soldier with a weakness for poetry. Worse—to be culled from Iselle’s service was to be exiled from Betriz’s daily presence. No one would light his reading candles at dusk, or make him wear warm unfashionable hats, or notice if he fell ill and bring him frightening physicians, or pray for his safety when he was far from home….
He heard the clatter and noise of what he presumed was Iselle and Bergon’s party returning from the ceremonies at the temple, but even at an angle his window did not give a view onto the courtyard. He ought to rush out to greet them. No. I’m resting. That sounded mulish and petulant even to his own inward ear. Don’t be a fool. But a dreary fatigue anchored him in his chair.
Before he could overcome his wash of melancholy, Bergon himself bustled into his chamber, and then it became impossible to stay down-at-the-mouth. The royse was still wearing the brown, orange, and yellow robes of the holy general of the Son’s Order, with its broad sword belt ornamented with the symbols of autumn, all looking a lot better on him than they ever had on old gray dy Jironal. If Bergon was not a joy to the god, there was no pleasing Him at all. Cazaril rose, and Bergon embraced him, inquired after his trip from Taryoon and his healing, barely waited for the answer, tried to tell him in turn of eight things at once, then burst out laughing at himself.
“There will be time for all this shortly. Right now I am on a mission from my wife the royina of Chalion. But tell me first and privately, Lord Caz—do you love the Lady Betriz?”
Cazaril blinked. “I…she…very fond, Royse.”
“Good. I mean, I was sure of it, but Iselle insisted I ask first. Now, and very important—are you willing to be shaved?”
“I—what?” Cazaril’s hand went to his beard. It was not at all as scraggly as it had started out, it had filled in nicely, he thought, and besides, he kept it neatly trimmed. “Is there some reason you ask me this? Not that it matters greatly, beards grow back, I suppose…”
“But you’re not madly attached to it or anything, right?”
“Not madly, no. My hand was shaky for a time after the galleys, and I did not care to carve myself bloody, but I could not afford a barber. Then I just became used to it.”
“Good.” Bergon returned to the doorway, and thrust his head through to the corridor. “All right, come in.”
A barber and a servant holding a can of hot water trooped in at the royse’s command. The barber made Cazaril sit, and whipped his cloth around him. Cazaril found himself soaped up before he could make remark. The servant