The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [40]
His voice slowed, thoughtfully. “So whenever fear comes back into my heart, I am more pleased than anything, for I take it as a sign that I am not mad after all. Or maybe, at least, getting better. Fear is my friend.” He looked up, with a quick, apologetic smile.
Palli was sitting plastered back against the wall, his legs tense, his dark eyes round as saucers, smiling fixedly. Cazaril laughed out loud.
“Five gods, Palli, forgive me. I did not mean to make you a donkey for my confidences, to carry them safely away.” Or perhaps he had, for Palli would be going away tomorrow, after all. “They make a motley menagerie to burden you with. I’m sorry.”
Palli waved away his apology as if batting a stinging fly. His lips moved; he swallowed, and managed, “Are you sure it wasn’t just sunstroke?”
Cazaril chuckled. “Oh, I had the sunstroke, too, of course. But if it doesn’t kill you, sunstroke passes off in a day or two. This lasted…months.” Until the last incident with that terrified defiant Ibran boy, and Cazaril’s resultant final flogging. “We slaves—”
“Stop that!” cried Palli, running his hands through his hair.
“Stop what?” asked Cazaril in puzzlement.
“Stop saying that. We slaves. You are a lord of Chalion!”
Cazaril’s smile twisted. He said gently, “We lords, at our oars, then? We sweating, pissing, swearing, grunting gentlemen? I think not, Palli. On the galleys we were not lords or men. We were men or animals, and which proved which had no relation I ever saw to birth or blood. The greatest soul I ever met there had been a tanner, and I would kiss his feet right now with joy to learn he yet lived. We slaves, we lords, we fools, we men and women, we mortals, we toys of the gods—all the same thing, Palli. They are all the same to me now.”
After a long, indrawn breath, Palli changed the subject abruptly to the little matters of managing his escort from the Daughter’s military order. Cazaril found himself comparing useful tricks for treating leather rot and thrush infections in horses’ hooves. Soon thereafter Palli retired—or fled—for the night. An orderly retreat, but Cazaril recognized its nature all the same.
Cazaril lay down with his pains and his memories. Despite the feast and the wine, sleep was a long time coming. Fear might be his friend, if that wasn’t just bluff and bluster for Palli’s sake, but it was clear the dy Jironal brothers were not. The Roknari reported you’d died of a fever was a lie outright, and, cleverly, quite uncheckable by now. Well, he was surely sheltered here in quiet Valenda.
He hoped he’d cautioned Palli sufficiently to walk warily at the court in Cardegoss and not put a foot in a pile of old manure unawares. Cazaril rolled over in the darkness and sent up a whispered prayer to the Lady of Spring for Palli’s safety. And to all the gods and the Bastard, too, for the deliverance of all upon the sea tonight.
6
At the Temple pageant celebrating the advent of summer, Iselle was not invited to reprise her role of the Lady of Spring because that part was traditionally taken by a woman new-wed. A very shy and demure young bride handed off the throne of the reigning god’s avatar to an equally well-behaved matron heavy with child. Cazaril saw out of the corner of his eye the divine of the Holy Family heave a sigh of relief as the ceremony concluded, this time, without any spiritual surprises.
Life slowed. Cazaril’s pupils sighed and yawned in the stuffy schoolroom as the afternoon sun baked the stones of the keep, and so did their teacher; one sweaty hour he abruptly surrendered and canceled for the season all classes after the noon nuncheon. As Betriz had said, the Royina Ista did seem to do better as the days lengthened and softened. She came more often to the family’s meals and sat almost every afternoon with her lady attendants