Dy Cabon flippered frantically at her again. It made her want to bite him. "You are a very fortress of a woman, it is true!"
She stifled a growl, ashamed to have let her rage with his god spill over onto his humble head. "If you don't know the other half of the riddle, why were you put there?"
"Royina, I know not!" He hesitated. "Maybe we should all sleep on it." He cringed at her blistering look, and tried again. "I will endeavor to think."
"Do."
At the other end of the courtyard, Foix and Liss were now sitting closer together. Foix held Liss's hand, which she did not draw back, and spoke earnestly over it. She was listening to him, in Ista's jaundiced view, with entirely too credulous an expression on her face. Ista rose abruptly, and called her to attend. She had to call twice to summon her notice. The girl scrambled up hastily, but her smile lingered like perfume in the air.
LADY CATTILARA, IN SOME DESPERATE ATTEMPT TO SUSTAIN HER role of chatelaine before her new guests, held a dinner that afternoon in the same chamber where she and her ladies had entertained Ista on the second night. Arhys was again out; a very few of his officers attended, clearly more to make a convenient hasty meal than to play courtier. Cattilara had seated Foix as far from herself at the high table as she could, given his claim to Ista's side as her present guard captain. Despite the distance, it seemed to Ista that the two remained highly aware of each other throughout the strained meal. Aware, but plainly not attracted.
Learned dy Cabon, nervous, nevertheless led the prayers with admirable discretion, keeping his pleas for godly blessings safely vague. The conversations that commenced as the food was passed limped along; the divine took refuge from them in industrious chewing. He did not neglect to listen, however, Ista noted with approval.
Ista found one of Arhys's senior officers on her right hand, buffering Liss and Foix down at the end. He was polite, undaunted by her rank, but preoccupied. After a few pragmatic exchanges about the food and wine, he abruptly said to her, "My lord has told us that he is very ill. Had you heard?"
"Yes. I am aware. We have discussed it."
"Indeed, I had marked that he was pale, and not eating or sleeping well, but I had not expected ... if he is that ill, should he not be made to rest?" He glanced across at Cattilara as if considering a potential alliance against his forceful commander, for Arhys's good.
"Rest will bring no cure for what he has," said Ista.
"I fear his riding about in this weather may worsen his sickness."
"I don't see how it can."
Cattilara, on Ista's left, glowered at her.
"I did not know you for a physician, Royina." He let his tone trail off invitingly.
"I'm not. Alas."
"Quite the reverse," murmured Cattilara resentfully.
The officer blinked uncertainly, but finally mustered the perception to veer from a subject so clearly unpalatable to the marchess. "Brigands from the princedoms do not normally ride so close to Porifors, I assure you, Royina. But we chewed them well enough this morning, I think they will be discouraged from new attempts."
"They were rather more than brigands, I thought," said Ista. "Troops, or so their tabards proclaimed, though I suppose real brigands wouldn't hesitate to so disguise themselves. Has Sordso the Sot roused himself to some more military posture than heretofore, or do you think someone else in his court may be probing your defenses?"
"I should never have thought it of Sordso, but indeed, since the unfortunate death of his sister Umerue, I have heard that a great change has come over him. We shall have to find him another nickname if this keeps on."
"Oh?"
Thus encouraged, he turned eagerly to a safer court gossip than his own. "It is said that he has bestirred himself about his army, which he never did before. And given up drinking. And dismissed all his boon companions. And, quite abruptly, he has married, to an heiress of Borsasnen. And taken two official concubines as well, which the Roknari name as wives so as to avoid the stigma of bastardy there. Which he had not troubled to before, for all one hears that his advisors had long urged him to wed. He sounds quite a reformed soul. Not to mention energized, though perhaps the new wives will prove the cure for that. We rather hope this extreme virtue will not last. His poetry was not bad; it would be a shame to lose it." He grinned briefly.
Ista's brows rose. "This sounds not at all as Lord Illvin described the man, but I suppose Illvin has not had much chance to follow developments in Jokona, or indeed, anywhere else, in the past few months."
His head jerked around. "Illvin described—does he speak, now? Did he speak to you, Royina? Oh, that is hopeful news!"
Ista glanced back at Cattilara, listening with her jaw clamped shut. "He has brief periods of lucidity. I have spoken with him almost daily since I came here. There is no doubt that his wits are intact, but he remains very weak. I think he is by no means out of danger yet." She returned Cattilara's glower.
"Still—still—we feared his wits were gone for good, when he did not awaken. They were as great a loss to Porifors as Arhys's sword arm... would be." He caught the marchess's scowl and covered his confusion in a bite, and another.
The ordeal of dinner was not dragged out with more than a perfunctory musical interlude, to Ista's relief. Dy Cabon went to his room for some much-needed rest, and Foix accompanied Arhys's officer to see what help his little troop might lend to Porifors in exchange for their board. And, if Ista's estimation of Foix held true, to decant from the man most of the pertinent defensive information about the fortress and its denizens. Foix's next letter to Cardegoss was likely to be very informative. She wondered if he'd yet confessed his new pet to Chancellor dy Cazaril, or if that gap might be smoothly concealed in the very abundance of his tidings.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LISS WAS BRUSHING OUT ISTA'S HAIR BEFORE BED, A TASK THE girl seemed to enjoy—Ista suspected it brought back happy memories of the stables—when a diffident knock sounded at the door of the outer chamber. Liss went to answer it and returned a moment later.
"It's one of Lord Arhys's pages. He says his lord waits below, and would beg a word with you."
Ista's brows went up. "At this hour? Very well. Tell him I will be down directly."
Liss went to convey the message, and Ista slipped out of her wrapper and back into the lavender linen shift and black silk over robe. Her hand hesitated over the mourning brooch, lying on the table, then fastened the soft black fabric beneath her breasts with it as before. Inadvertently appropriate garb, for Arhys's presence, she reflected. With Liss carrying a candle in a glass vase to light their steps, she went out on the gallery.
Lord Arhys stood at the foot of the stairs, holding a torch aloft, looking up intently. He still wore his sword and boots, as if just returned from riding out. Ista was glad to see a coat of mail beneath his gray-and-gold tabard. The night air was soft and still from the day's heat, and the flame gave a steady light, cast down over his pale features.
"Royina, I would speak with you. Apart."
Ista gestured toward the bench at the courtyard's far end, and he nodded.
"Wait here," Ista said quietly to Liss, and the girl nodded and plunked down at the top of the steps. Ista descended and paced across the pavement at Arhys's side. He handed his torch to his page, but the boy could not reach the bracket high on a carved pillar, and Arhys smiled briefly and took it back to set therein. He dismissed the page to keep Liss company. Ista and he settled themselves on either end of the stone slab, still not wholly cooled from its day's baking. The starry depths of the sky, bounded above by the roofs' rectangle, seemed to swallow the golden glow of Liss's candle and the torch, and give back nothing. Arhys's face was a gilded shadow against the deeper shadows, but his eyes gleamed.