The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold [96]
She smiled in satisfaction. “Your color’s much less ghastly now. Good.”
“How fares the royesse?”
“Vastly better. She’s…I want to say, collapsed, but I don’t mean overcome. The blessed release that comes when an unbearable pressure is suddenly removed. It’s a joy to look upon her.”
“Yes. I understand.”
Betriz nodded. “She’s resting now, till time to dress.” She took the empty bowl from him, set it aside, and lowered her voice. “Cazaril, what did you do last night?”
“Nothing. Evidently.”
Her lips thinned in exasperation. But what use was it to lay the burden of his secret upon her now? Confession might relieve his soul, but it would put hers in danger in any subsequent investigation that demanded oath-sworn testimony from her.
“Lord dy Rinal had it that you paid a page to catch you a rat last night. It was that news that sent Chancellor dy Jironal pelting up to your bedchamber, dy Rinal told me. The page said you’d claimed you wanted it to eat.”
“Well, so. It’s no crime for a man to eat a rat. It was a little memorial feast, for the siege of Gotorget.”
“Oh? You just said you’d eaten nothing since yesterday morning.” She hesitated, her eyes anxious. “The chambermaid also said there was blood in your pot that she emptied this morning.”
“Bastard’s demons!” Cazaril, who had slid down into his covers, struggled up again. “Is nothing sacred to castle gossip? Can’t a man even call his chamber pot his own here?”
She held out a hand. “Lord Caz, don’t joke. How sick are you?”
“I had a bellyache. It’s eased off now. A passing thing. So to speak.” He grimaced, and decided not to mention the hallucinations. “Obviously, the blood in the pot was from butchering the rat. And the bellyache just what I deserved, for eating such a disgusting creature. Eh?”
She said slowly, “It’s a good story. It all hangs together.”
“So, there.”
“But Caz—people will think you’re strange.”
“I can add them to the collection along with the ones who think I rape girls. I suppose I need a third perversion, to balance me properly.” Well, there was being suspected of attempting death magic. That could balance him over a gallows.
She sat back, frowning deeply. “All right. I won’t press you. But I was wondering…” She wrapped her arms around herself, and regarded him intently. “If two—theoretical—persons were to attempt death magic on the same victim at the same time, might they each end up…half-dead?”
Cazaril stared back—no, she didn’t look sick—and shook his head. “I don’t think so. Given all the various vain attempts that people have made to compel the gods with death magic, if it could happen that way, it surely would have before now. The Bastard’s death demon is always portrayed in the Temple carvings with a yoke over his shoulders and two identical buckets, one for each soul. I don’t think the demon can choose differently.” Umegat’s words came back to him, I’m afraid that’s just the way it works. “I’m not even sure the god can choose differently.”
Her eyes narrowed further. “You said, if you weren’t back this morning, not to worry for you, or look for you. You said you’d be all right. You also said, if the bodies are not burned properly, terrible uncanny things happen to them.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I made provision.” Of sorts.
“What provision? You sneaked away, leaving none who cared for you to know where to look or even whether to pray!”
He cleared his throat. “Fonsa’s crows. I climbed over the roof to Fonsa’s Tower to, ah, say my prayers last night. If, if things had, ah, come out differently, I figured they’d clear up the mess, just as their brethren clean up a battlefield, or a stray sheep lost over a cliff.”
“Cazaril!” she cried in indignation, then hastily lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Caz, that’s, that’s…you mean to tell me you crawled off all alone, to die in despair, expecting to leave your body to be eaten by…that’s horrid!”
He was startled to see tears welling in her eyes. “Hey, now! It’s not so bad. Right soldierly, I thought.” His hand began to reach for the drops on her cheeks, then hesitated and fell back to