The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [31]
Iselle had little contact with her brother’s household across the courtyard, except to meet at meals, or when they made up a party for a ride out into the countryside. Cazaril gathered the two children had been closer, before the onset of puberty had begun to drive them into the separate worlds of men and women.
The royse’s stern secretary-tutor, Ser dy Sanda, seemed unnecessarily unnerved by Cazaril’s empty rank of castillar. He laid claim to a higher place at table or in procession above the mere ladies’ tutor with an insincerely apologetic smile that served—every meal—to draw more attention than it purported to soothe. Cazaril considered trying to explain to the man just how much he didn’t care, but doubted he’d get through, so contented himself with merely smiling back, a response which confused dy Sanda terribly as he kept trying to place it as some sort of subtle tactic. When dy Sanda showed up in Iselle’s schoolroom one day to demand his maps be returned, he seemed to expect Cazaril to defend them as though they were secret state papers. Cazaril produced them promptly, with gentle thanks. Dy Sanda was forced to depart with his huff barely half-vented.
Lady Betriz’s teeth were set. “That fellow! He acts like, like…”
“Like one of the castle cats,” Iselle supplied, “when a strange cat comes around. What have you done to make him hiss at you so, Cazaril?”
“I promise you, I haven’t pissed outside his window,” Cazaril offered earnestly, a remark that made Betriz choke on a giggle—ah, that was better—and look around guiltily to be sure the waiting woman was too far off to hear. Had that been too crude? He was sure he didn’t quite have the hang of young ladies yet, but they had not complained of him, despite the Darthacan. “I suppose he imagines I would prefer his job. He can’t have thought it through.”
Or perhaps he had, Cazaril realized abruptly. When Teidez had been born, his heirship to his new-wed half brother Orico had been much less apparent. But as year had followed year, and Orico’s royina still failed to conceive a child, interest—possibly unhealthy interest—in Teidez must surely have begun to grow in the court of Chalion. Perhaps that was why Ista had left the capital, taking her children out of that fervid atmosphere to this quiet, clean country town. A wise move, withal.
“Oh, no, Cazaril,” said Iselle. “Stay up here with us. It’s much nicer.”
“Indeed, yes,” he assured her.
“It’s not just. You’ve twice Ser dy Sanda’s wits, and ten times his travels! Why do you endure him so, so…” Betriz seemed at a loss for words. “Quietly,” she finally finished. She stared away for a moment, as if afraid he would construe she’d swallowed a term less flattering.
Cazaril smiled crookedly at his unexpected partisan. “Do you think it would make him happier if I presented myself as a target for his foolishness?”
“Clearly, yes!”
“Well, then. Your question answers itself.”
She opened her mouth, and closed it. Iselle nearly choked on a short laugh.
Cazaril’s sympathy for dy Sanda increased, however, one morning when he turned up, his face so drained of blood as to be almost green, with the alarming news that his royal charge had vanished away, not to be found in house or kitchen, kennel or stable. Cazaril buckled on his sword and readied himself to ride out with the searchers, his mind already quartering the countryside and the town, weighing the options of injuries,