Liss's brows rose. "The Mother's acolyte said you could not ride far yet."
"Ought not, perhaps. Not comfortably. I could at need." Ista followed Liss's admiring glance around the court, shaded in the slanting light of the late day, and tried to evolve a reason for her unease that did not involve bad dreams. A rational, sensible reason, for a woman who was not mad in the least. She rubbed at the itch on her forehead. "We are too close to Jokona, here. I do not know what treaties of mutual aid presently exist between Jokona and Borasnen, but everyone knows the port of Visping is the prize of my royal daughter's eye. What is planned to happen in the fall will be no mere border raid. And there was a terrible event here this spring that can't have helped relations with the prince of Jokona in any way." Ista did not look toward that corner room.
"You mean how Porifors's master of horse was stabbed by that Jokonan courtier? Goram told me of it while we were swabbing down that fat palomino. Odd fellow—I think he's a little simple in the head—but he knows his trade." She added, "Here, Royina, you are limping worse than my second horse. Sit, rest." She chose a shaded bench at the court's far end, the one where Cattilara's ladies had collected the previous evening, and with an air of determined heedfulness settled Ista upon it.
After a moment of silence, she gave Ista a sidelong look. "Funny old man, Goram. He wanted to know if a royina outranked a princess. Because a princess was the daughter of a prince, but you were only the daughter of a provincar. And that Roya Orico's widow Sara was a dowager royina more recent than you. I said a Chalionese provincar was worth any Roknari prince, and besides, you were the mother of the royina of all Chalion-Ibra herself, and nobody else is that."
Ista forced herself to smile. "Royinas do not often come in his way, I expect. Did your answers pacify him?"
Liss shrugged. "Seemed to." Her frown deepened. "Isn't it a strange thing, for a man to lie stunned like that, for months?"
It was Ista's turn to shrug. "Palsy-strokes, broken heads, broken necks... drownings ... it happens that way, sometimes."
"Some recover though, don't they?"
"I think those that recover start to do so ... sooner. Most struck down that way do not live long thereafter, unless their care is extraordinary. It's a slow, ugly death for a man. Or anyone. Better to go swiftly, at the first."
"If Goram cares for Lord Illvin half as well as he cares for his horses, perhaps that explains it."
Ista became conscious that the runty man himself had emerged from the corner chamber and hunkered down behind the balustrade, watching them. After a time he rose, came down the stairs, and crossed the court. As he neared, his steps shortened, his head drew in like a turtle's, and his hands gripped one another.
He stopped a little distance off, bent his knees, and ducked his head, first to Ista, then to Liss, then back to Ista again as if to make sure. His eyes were the color of unpolished steel. His stare, from under those bushy brows, was unblinking.
"Aye," he said at last, to a point halfway between the two women. "She's the one he was going on about, no mistake." He pursed his lips, and his gaze suddenly fixed on Liss. "Did you ask her?"
Liss smiled crookedly. "Hello, Goram. Well, I was working up to it."
He wrapped his arms around himself, rocking forward and back. "Ask her, then."
Liss cocked her head. "Why don't you? She doesn't bite."
" 'B 'n 't," he mumbled obscurely, glowering at his booted feet. "You."
Liss shrugged amused bafflement and turned to Ista. "Royina, Goram wishes you to come view his master."
Ista sat back and was silent for a long, withheld breath. "Why?" she finally asked.
Goram peered up at her, then back down at his feet. "You were the one he was going on about."
"Surely," said Ista after another moment, "no man would wish to be seen in his sickbed by strangers."
"That's all right," Goram pronounced. He blinked, and stared hard at her.
Liss, her eyes crinkling, cupped her hand and whispered in Ista's ear, "He was more talkative in the stalls. I think you frighten him."
Articulate smooth persuasion, Ista thought she might resist. In this odd tangle, she could hardly find an end. Urgent eyes, tongue of wood, a silent pressure of expectation... She could curse a god. She could not curse a groom.
She glanced around the court. Neither midnight nor noon, now; no details matched her dreams. Her dream had held neither Goram nor Liss, the time of day was all wrong... maybe it was safe, benign. She drew a breath.
"So, then, Liss. Let us renew my pilgrimage party and go view another ruin."
Liss helped her up, her face alert with open curiosity. Ista climbed the stairs upon her arm, slowly. Goram watched her anxiously, his lips moving, as if mentally boosting her up each step.
The women followed the groom to the end of the gallery. He opened the door, backed up, bowed again. Ista hesitated, then followed Liss inside.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE ROOM WAS LIGHTER THAN SHE'D SEEN IT IN HER VISION, the shutters on the far wall open now to the blue sky beyond. The effect was airy and gracious. The chamber didn't smell like a sickroom, no bunches of heavy-scented herbs hanging from the rafters failing to mask an underlying tang of feces, vomit, sweat, or despair. Just cool air, wood wax, and a faint, not unpleasing aroma of masculine occupation. Not unpleasing at all.
Ista forced her gaze to the bed, and stood rooted.
The bed was made. He rested atop the counterpane not like a man in a sickbed, but like a man who had lain down for but a moment in the middle of a busy day. Or like a corpse laid out in best garb for his funeral. Long and lean, exactly as in her dreams, but dressed very differently: not patient or sleeper, but courtier. A tan tunic embroidered with twining leaves was fastened up to his neck. Matching trousers were tucked into polished boots buckled up to his calves. A maroon vest-cloak spread beneath and beside him, and a sheathed sword lay upon the neatly arranged folds, its inlaid hilt beneath his slack left hand. A seal ring gleamed on one finger.
His hair was not merely combed back from his high forehead, but braided in neat cords up from each temple and over his crown. The dark, frosted length of it ended in a queue brought back over his right shoulder to rest upon his chest, the tail of it, beyond the maroon tie,
brushed out straight. He was shaved, and that recently. A scent of lavender water tickled Ista's nostrils.
She became aware that Goram was watching her with a painful intensity, his hands flexing as they gripped each other.
All this silent beauty must be his work. What must the man on the bed have been to receive such devotion from this lackey now, when he had so plainly lost all power to punish or reward?
"Five gods," gasped Liss. "He's dead."
Goram sniffed. "No, he's not. He don't rot."
"But he's not breathing!"
"Does too. You can tell with the mirror, see." He sidled around the bed and picked up a tiny hand mirror from a nearby chest. With a glower at the girl from under his bristling eyebrows, he held it beneath Lord Illvin's nostrils. "See?"
Liss bent nearer across the unmoving form and cast a wary glance downward. "That's your thumbprint."
"Is not!"
"Well. .. maybe ..." Liss straightened and backed away with a jerky gesture, as if inviting Ista to take her vacated place by the bedside and judge for herself.
Ista drew nearer under Goram's anxious eye, trying to find something to say to the grizzled fellow. "You care for him well. A tragedy, that Ser dy Arbanos should have been hewn down like this."
"Aye," he said. He swallowed and added, "So ... go on, lady."