The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [70]
“It’s a cruel gift, though,” Iselle parried, “to give me combs but leave me no hair to hold with them.” She held a comb up and turned it, glittering and translucent, in the sunlight.
“But you may grow new hair, Royesse.”
“But can you grow new treasure?”
“As easily as you can grow new hair, I assure you.” He leaned on his elbow by her side, and grinned up at her, his head nearly in her lap.
Iselle’s amused smile faded. “Do you find your new post so profitable, then, Holy General?”
“Indeed.”
“You are miscast, then. Perhaps you should have played the bandit king today.”
Dondo’s smile thinned. “If the world were not so, how could I ever buy enough pearls to please the pretty ladies?”
Spots of color flared in Iselle’s cheeks, and she lowered her eyes. Dondo’s smile grew satisfied. Cazaril, his tongue clamped between his teeth, reached for a silver flagon of wine, with an eye to accidentally in this emergency spilling it down the back of Iselle’s neck. Alas, the flagon was empty. But to his intense relief, Iselle took a bite of bread and meat next, and chewed instead on it. It was notable, though, that she drew her skirts aside from Lord Dondo when next she shifted position.
The chill of the autumn evening was rising with the shadows from the low places when the replete company rode slowly back to the Zangre after the bandits’ picnic. Iselle reined in her dappled mare and fell back beside Cazaril for a moment.
“Castillar. Did you ever discover for me the truth of the rumor of the Daughter’s troops being sold for mercenaries?”
“One or two other men have said so, but it is not what I would call confirmed news.” It was, in fact, quite thoroughly confirmed, but Cazaril judged it imprudent to say so to Iselle just at this moment.
She frowned silently, then spurred her horse forward to catch up with Lady Betriz again.
THAT NIGHT THE SPARER-THAN-USUAL EVENING BANQUET broke up without dancing, and tired courtiers and ladies went off to an early bed or private pleasures. Cazaril found Dondo dy Jironal falling into step beside him in an antechamber.
“Walk with me a little, Castillar. I think we need to talk.”
Cazaril shrugged obligingly, and followed Dondo, feigning not to notice the two choice young bravos, a couple of Dondo’s riper friends, who padded along a few paces behind them. They exited the tower block at the narrow end of the fortress, onto an irregular little quadrangle of a courtyard overlooking the confluence of the rivers. At a hand signal from Dondo, his two friends waited by the door, leaning against the stone wall like bored and tired sentries.
Cazaril calculated the odds. He had reach on Dondo, and despite his subsequent illness, his months pulling the oar on the galleys had left his wiry arms much stronger than they looked. Dondo was doubtless better trained. The bravos were young. A little drunk, but young. At three-to-one, swordplay might not even be required. An unagile secretary, too full of wine after supper, taking a walk on the battlements, could slip and fall in the dark, bouncing off the rock face three hundred feet down to the water below; his broken body might be found next day without a single telltale stab wound in it.
A few lanterns in wall brackets cast flickering orange light across the paving stones. Dondo gestured invitingly to a carved granite bench against the outer wall. The stone was gritty and chill against Cazaril’s legs as he sat, the night breeze dank on his neck. With a little grunt, Dondo seated himself, too, automatically flipping his vest-cloak aside to free his sword hilt.
“So, Cazaril,” Dondo began. “I see you are quite close in the confidence of the Royesse Iselle, these days.”
“The post of her secretary is one of great responsibility. Of her tutor, even more so. I take it quite seriously.”
“No surprise there—you always took everything too seriously. Too much of a good thing can be a fault in a man, you know.”
Cazaril shrugged.
Dondo sat back and crossed his legs at the ankles, as if making himself comfortable for a chat with some