The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [46]
“Cannot some lady of the household instruct her?” Cazaril coaxed.
“They do not swim either,” said the Provincara firmly.
Betriz nodded confirmation. “They just wade.” She glanced up. “Could you teach us how to swim, Lord Caz?”
Iselle clapped her hands. “Oh, yes!”
“I…uh…” Cazaril stammered. On the other hand…in that company, he might keep his shirt on without comment. “I suppose so…if your ladies went along.” He glanced across at the Provincara. “And if your grandmother would permit me.”
After a long silence, the Provincara growled grudgingly, “Mind you don’t all catch chills.”
Iselle and Betriz, prudently, suppressed hoots of triumph, but they cast Cazaril sparkling glances of gratitude. He wondered if they thought he had made up the story of the night-ride drowning.
THE LESSONS BEGAN THAT AFTERNOON, WITH CAZARIL standing in the middle of the river trying to persuade two rather stiff young women that they would not drown instantly if they got their hair wet. His fear that he had overdone the dire safety warnings gradually passed as the women at length relaxed and learned to let the waters buoy them up. They were naturally more buoyant than Cazaril, though his months at the Provincara’s table had driven a deal of the wolf-gauntness from his bearded face.
His patience proved justified. By the end of the summer, they were splashing and diving like otters in the drought-shrunken stream. Cazaril had merely to sit in the shallows in water up to his waist and call occasional suggestions.
His choice of vantage had only partly to do with staying cool. The Provincara was right, he had to allow—swimming was lewd. And loose linen shifts, thoroughly wetted down and clinging to lithe young bodies, made fair mockery of the modesty they attempted to preserve, a stunning effect he carefully did not point out to his two blithe charges. Worse, the effect cut two ways. Wet linen trews clinging to his loins revealed a state of mind—um, body—um, recovering health—that he earnestly prayed they would not notice. Iselle didn’t seem to, anyway. He was not entirely sure about Betriz. Their middle-aged lady-in-waiting Nan dy Vrit, who declined the lessons but waded about in the shallows fully dressed with her skirts hoisted to her calves, missed nothing in the play, and was clearly hard-pressed to control her snickers. Charitably, she seemed to grant him his good faith, and did not laugh at him out loud, nor tattle on him to the Provincara. At least…he didn’t think she did.
Cazaril was uncomfortably conscious that his awareness of Betriz was increasing day by day. Not yet to the point of slipping anonymous bad poetry under her door, thank the gods for the shreds of his sanity. Playing the lute under her window was, perhaps fortunately, no longer within his gift. And yet…in the long summer quiet of Valenda, he had begun to dare to think of a life beyond the turning of an hourglass.
Betriz did smile at him—that was true, he did not delude himself. And she was kind. But she smiled at and was kind to her horse, too. Her honest friendly courtesy was hardly ground enough to build a dream mansion upon, let alone bring bed and linens and try to move in. Still…she did smile at him.
He stifled the idea repeatedly, but it kept popping up—along with other things, alas, especially during swimming lessons. But he’d sworn off ambition—he didn’t have to make a fool of himself anymore, dammit. His embarrassing arousal might be a sign of returning strength, but what good did it do him? He was as landless and penniless as in his days here as a page, and with far fewer hopes. He was mad to entertain fantasies of either lust or love, and yet…Betriz’s father was a landless man of good blood, living a life of service. Surely he could not despise a like sojourner.
Not despise Cazaril, no—dy Ferrej was too wise for that. But he was also wise enough to know his daughter’s beauty and connection with the royesse was a dowry that could bring her something rather better in the