The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [52]
The man was currying the beast vigorously. A cloud of yellow and black hairs rose from the pair as the leopard writhed on the table in what Cazaril recognized, after a blink, as feline ecstasy. Cazaril’s eye was so locked by the leopard, it took him another moment to recognize the man as Roya Orico.
The dozen years since Cazaril had last glimpsed him had not been kind. Orico had never been a handsome man, even in the vigor of his youth. He was a little below average in height, with a short nose unfortunately broken in a riding accident in his teens and now looking rather like a squashed mushroom in the middle of his face. His hair had been auburn and curly. It was now roan, still curly but much thinner. His hair was the only thing about him that was thinner; his body was grossly broadened. His face was pale and puffy, with baggy eyelids. He chirped at his spotted cat, who rubbed its head against the roya’s tunic, shedding more hairs, then licked the brocade vigorously with a tongue the size of a washcloth, evidently pursuing a large gravy stain that had trailed down over the roya’s impressive paunch. The roya’s sleeves were rolled up, and half a dozen scabbed scratches scored his arms. The great cat caught a bare arm, and held it in its yellow teeth briefly, but did not close its jaws. Cazaril unwound his clutching fingers from his sword hilt, and cleared his throat.
As the roya turned his head, Cazaril fell to one knee. “Sire, I bear you respectful greetings from the Dowager Provincara of Baocia, and this her letter.” He held out the paper, and added, just in case no one had mentioned it to him yet, “Royse Teidez and Royesse Iselle are arrived safely, sire.”
“Oh, yes.” The roya jerked his head at the elderly groom, who went to relieve Cazaril of the letter with a graceful bow.
“Her Grace the Dowager instructed me to deliver it into your hand,” Cazaril added uncertainly.
“Yes, yes—just a moment—” With some effort, Orico bent over his belly to give the cat one quick hug, then clipped a silver chain to its collar. Chirping some more, he urged it to leap lightly from the table. He dismounted more heavily, and said, “Here, Umegat.”
This was evidently the groom’s name, not the cat’s, for the man stepped forward and took the silver leash in exchange for the letter. He led the beast to its cage a little way down the aisle, unceremoniously shoving it in with a knee to its rump when it paused to rub on the bars. Cazaril breathed a little easier when the groom locked the cage.
Orico broke the seal, scattering wax on the swept tiled floor. Absently, he motioned Cazaril to his feet and read slowly down the Provincara’s spidery handwriting, pausing to move the paper closer or farther and squinting now and then. Cazaril, falling easily back into his old courier mode, folded his hands behind his back and waited patiently to be questioned or dismissed at Orico’s will.
Cazaril eyed the groom—head groom?—as he waited. Even without the clue of the name, the man was obviously of Roknari descent. Umegat had been tallish, but was now a little stooped. His skin, which must have been burnished gold in his youth, was leathery, its color faded to ivory. Fine wrinkles wreathed his eyes and mouth. His curly bronze hair, going gray, was tightly bound to his head in two