Cazaril vented a short laugh.
Paginine brightened visibly to both Cazaril’s inner and outer eye, and smiled dryly. “Ah, you understand.”
“Oh, yes.”
“But you, sir . . .” Paginine turned to the archdivine with a troubled look. “I said god-touched, but that hardly describes what I’m seeing. It . . . it almost hurts to look at him. Three times since I was given the sight I have met others who are also god-afflicted, but I’ve never seen anything like him.”
“Saint Umegat in Cardegoss said I looked like a burning city,” Cazaril admitted.
“That’s . . .” Paginine eyed him sidewise. “That’s well put.”
“He was a man of words.” Once.
“What is your gift?”
“I, uh . . . I think I am the gift, actually. To the Royesse Iselle.”
The archdivine touched his hand to his lips, then hastily signed himself. “So that explains the stories circulating about you!”
“What stories?” said Cazaril in bewilderment.
“But Lord Cazaril,” the judge broke in, “what is that terrible shadow hanging about Royesse Iselle? That is no godly thing! Do you see it, too?”
“I’m . . . working on it. Getting rid of that ugly thing seems to be my god-given task. I think I’m almost done.”
“Oh, that’s a relief.” Paginine looked much happier.
Cazaril realized he wanted nothing so much as to take Paginine aside to talk shop. How do you deal with these matters? The archdivine might be pious, perhaps a good administrator, possibly a learned theologian, but Cazaril suspected he didn’t understand the discomforts of the saint trade. Paginine’s bitter smile told all. Cazaril wanted to go get drunk with him, and compare complaints.
To Cazaril’s embarrassment, the archdivine bowed low to him, and said in an awed, hushed voice, “Blessed Sir, is there anything I can do for you?”
Betriz’s question echoed in his mind, Have you discovered how to save yourself? Maybe you couldn’t save yourself. Maybe you had to take turns saving each other . . . “Tonight, no. Tomorrow . . . later in the week, there is a personal matter I should like to wait upon you about. If I may.”
“Certainly, Blessed Sir. I am at your service.”
They returned to the party. Cazaril was exhausted, and longed for bed, but the courtyard below his chamber door was full of noisy revelers. A breathless Betriz asked him once to dance, from which exercise he smilingly excused himself; she didn’t lack for partners. Her gaze checked him often, as he sat watching from the wall and nursing his watered wine. He did not lack for company, as a string of men and women struck up friendly conversations with him, angling for employment in the future royina’s court. To all of them he returned courteous but noncommittal replies.
The Ibran lords were collecting Chalionese ladies rather as spilled honey collected ants, and looking very happy indeed. Halfway through the evening, Lord dy Cembuer arrived, completing their company and their delight. The Ibrans exchanged tales of their respective journeys, to the awe and fascination of their eager Chalionese listeners. To Cazaril’s intense political pleasure, Bergon was cast as the hero of this romantic adventure, with Iselle no less as heroine for her night ride from Valenda. As appealing unifying myths went, this one was going to beat dy Jironal’s feeble fable of Poor Mad Iselle all hollow, Cazaril rather thought. And our tale is true!
At last came the hour and the ceremony Cazaril had been breathlessly awaiting, where Bergon and Iselle were conducted up to their bedchamber. Neither, Cazaril was pleased to note, had drunk enough to become inebriated. Since his own wine had somehow grown less watered as the evening progressed, he found himself a little tongue-tied when the royse and royesse called him up to the foot of the staircase to give and receive ceremonial kisses of thanks upon their hands. Moved, he signed himself and called down hopeful blessings on their heads. The solemn grateful intensity of their return gazes discomfited him.
Lady dy Baocia had arranged a small choir to sing prayers to waft the couple on their way upstairs; the crystal voices served to suppress the ribaldry to manageable proportions. Iselle was no more than beautifully blushing and starry-eyed when she and Bergon leaned over the railing to give smiling thanks to all, and throw down flowers.
They disappeared into the candlelit glow of their suite, and the doors swung shut behind them. Two of dy Baocia’s officers took up station on the gallery to guard their repose. In a little while, most of the tire-women and attendants emerged, including Lady Betriz. She was instantly carried off by Palli and dy Tagille for more dancing.
The revels looked to continue till dawn, but to Cazaril’s relief a misty rain began to sift down out of the chilling sky, driving the musicians and dancers out of his courtyard and indoors to the adjoining building. Slowly, his hand heavy on the railing, Cazaril climbed the stairs to his own chamber, around the gallery corner from the royse and royesse’s. My duty is done. Now what?
He scarcely knew. A vast moral terror seemed lifted from his shoulders. Only he would live and die by his choices—and mistakes—now. I refuse to regret. I will not look back. A moment of balance, on the cusp of past and future.
He rather thought he would look up the little judge again tomorrow. The man’s company might well relieve his loneliness.
Actually, I’m not nearly lonely enough, he thought not much later as Dondo’s incoherent obscene bellows, released by their hour of ascendance, came roaring up to his inward ear. The sundered ghost was more wild with fury tonight than Cazaril had ever experienced it, its last vestiges of intelligence and sanity shredding away in its rage. Cazaril could imagine why, and grinned through his agony as he rolled on his bed, curled around the ghastly pulsing pain in his belly.
He almost blacked out, then forced himself up, and to consciousness, horrified by the possibility that the fiendishly aroused Dondo might try to take over his body while he was still alive in it and use it for some vile assault upon Iselle and Bergon. He writhed on the floor in something resembling convulsions, choking back the screams and filth that tried to fly from his mouth, no longer sure whose words they were.
When the attack passed, he lay panting on the cold boards, his nightgown rucked up around himself, his fingernails torn and bloody. He had vomited, and lay in it. He touched his wet beard to find spittle flayed to foam hanging around his lips. His stomach—or had that grotesque out-bulging been a dream?—had returned to its former mild distension, though his whole abdominal sheet still ached and quivered like torn muscles after some overtorqued exertion.
I can’t go on like this much longer. Something had to give way—his body, his sanity, his breath. His faith. Something.
He rose, and cleaned up the floor, and washed himself at his basin and found a clean dry shirt for a nightdress, then straightened his sweat-stained twisted sheets, lit all the candles in the room, and crawled back into bed. He lay eyes wide, devouring the light.
At length, the sounds of servants’ murmurs and quiet footsteps along the gallery told him the palace was awakening. He must have dozed, for his candles were burned out, and he didn’t remember them guttering. Gray light seeped in under his door and through his shutters.
There would be morning prayers. Morning prayers seemed a good plan, even if the idea of attempting to move was daunting. Cazaril rose. Slowly. Well, his wasn’t going to be the only hangover in Taryoon this morning. Even if he hadn’t been drunk. The household had put off court mourning for the wedding; he selected among the garments that had been bestowed upon him, achieving what he hoped was a sober yet cheerful result.