The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [32]
Before Cazaril was moved to point out the range of possibilities to dy Sanda, whose mind was utterly fixated on bandits, Teidez himself rode in to the courtyard, muddy and damp, a crossbow slung over his shoulder, a boy groom following behind, and a dead fox hung over his saddlebow. Teidez stared at the half-assembled cavalcade with surly horror.
Cazaril abandoned his attempt to climb on his horse without pulling something that hurt, lowered himself to a seat on his mounting block with the bay gelding’s reins in his hand, and watched in fascination as four grown men began to belabor the boy and the obvious.
Where have you been? scarcely needed asked, Why did you do that? likewise, Why didn’t you tell anyone? grew more apparent by the minute. Teidez endured it with his teeth closed, for the most part.
When dy Sanda paused for breath, Teidez thrust his limp and ruddy prey at Beetim the huntsman. “Here. Skin this for me. I want the pelt.”
“Pelt’s no good at this season, young lord,” said Beetim severely. “The hair’s all thin, and falls out.” He shook his finger at the vixen’s dark dugs, heavy with milk. “And it’s bad luck to take a mother animal in the Daughter’s season. I’ll have to burn its whiskers, or its ghost’ll be back, stirring up my dogs all night long. And where are the cubs, eh? You should’ve slain them as well, while you were at it, it’s right cruel to leave them to starve. Or have you two gone and hidden them somewhere, eh?” His glower took in the shrinking boy groom.
Teidez threw his crossbow to the cobbles, and snarled in exasperation, “We looked for the den. We couldn’t find it.”
“Yes, and you—!” dy Sanda turned on the unlucky groom. “You know you should have come to me—!” He abused the groom in much blunter terms than he’d dared to vent upon the royse, ending with the command, “Beetim, go beat the boy for his stupidity and insolence!”
“With a will, m’lord,” said Beetim grimly, and stalked away toward the stables, the fox’s scruff in one hand and the cowering groom’s in the other.
The two senior grooms led the horses back to their stalls. Cazaril gave up his mount gladly and considered his breakfast—now, it appeared, not to be indefinitely delayed. Dy Sanda, anger succeeding his terror, confiscated the crossbow and drove the sullen Teidez indoors. Teidez’s voice floated back in a last counterargument before the door banged closed upon the pair, “But I’m so bored …!”
Cazaril puffed a laugh. Five gods, but what a horrible age that was to be for any boy. All full of impulses and energy, plagued with incomprehensible arbitrary adults with stupid ideas that did not involve skipping morning prayers to go fox hunting on a fair spring morning—he glanced up at the sky overhead, brightening to a washed cerulean as the dawn mists burned away. The quietude of the Provincara’s household, balm to Cazaril’s soul, was doubtless acid to poor constricted Teidez.
Any word of advice from the newly employed Cazaril was not likely to be well received by dy Sanda, as matters stood between them at present. But it seemed to Cazaril that if dy Sanda was looking to guard his future influence over the royse when he came to a man’s estate with its full power and privilege of a high lord—at the very least—of Chalion, he was going about it exactly backward. Teidez was more likely to shed him at the first opportunity.
Still, dy Sanda was a conscientious man, Cazaril had to grant. A viler man of like ambition might well be pandering to Teidez’s appetites instead of attempting to control them, winning not loyalty but addiction. Cazaril had met a noble scion or two so corrupted by his attendants…but not in dy Baocia’s household. While the Provincara was in charge, Teidez was unlikely to encounter such parasites. On that comforting reflection, Cazaril pushed off the block and climbed to his feet.
5
The Royesse Iselle’s sixteenth birthday fell at the midpoint of spring, some six weeks after Cazaril had