“My hand may be a trifle shaky at present, but yes, I’ve done all that,” he admitted with belatedly rising wariness. Where was she going with this interrogation?
“Yes, yes!” She clapped her hands together; Cazaril flinched at the sharp noise. “The gods have surely landed you upon my wrist. Bastard’s demons take me if I haven’t the wit to jess you.”
Cazaril smiled bewildered inquiry.
“Cazaril, you said you sought a post. I have one for you.” She sat back triumphantly. “Secretary-tutor to the Royesse Iselle!”
Cazaril felt his jaw unhinge. He blinked stupidly at her. “What?”
“Teidez already has his own secretary, who keeps the books of his chambers, writes his letters, such as they are . . . it’s time Iselle possessed her own warder, at the gate between her women’s world and the greater one she’ll have to deal with. And besides, none of those stupid governesses have ever been able to handle her. She needs a man’s authority, that’s what. You have the rank, you have the experience . . .” The Provincara . . . grinned, was all one could call that horrifying gleeful expression. “What do you think, my lord Castillar?”
Cazaril swallowed. “I think . . . I think if you lent me a razor now, for me to cut my throat with, it would save ever so many steps. Please Your Grace.”
The Provincara snorted. “Good, Cazaril, good. I do so like a man who doesn’t underestimate his situation.”
Dy Ferrej, who’d at first looked startled and alarmed, eyed Cazaril with new interest.
“I’ll wager you could direct her mind to her Darthacan declensions. You’ve been there, after all, which none of these fool women have,” the Provincara went on, gaining enthusiasm. “Roknari, too, though we all pray she’ll never need that. Read Brajaran poetry to her, you used to like that, I remember. Deportment—you’ve served at the roya’s court, the gods know. Come, come, Cazaril, don’t look at me like a lost calf. It would be easy work for you, in your convalescence. Eh, don’t imagine I can’t see how sick you’ve been,” she added at his little negating gesture. “You wouldn’t have to answer but two letters a week at most. Less. And you’ve ridden courier—when you rode out with the girls, I wouldn’t have to listen to a lot of wheezing and whining afterward about saddle galls from those women with thighs like dough. As for keeping the books of her chamber—why, after running a fortress, it should be child’s play for you. What say you, dear Cazaril?”
The vision was at once enticing and appalling. “Couldn’t you give me a fortress under siege, instead?”
The humor faded in her face. She leaned forward, and tapped him on the knee; her voice dropped, and she breathed, “She will be, soon enough.” She paused, and studied him. “You asked if there was anything you could do to ease my burdens. For the most part, the answer is no. You can’t make me young, you can’t make . . . many things better.” Cazaril wondered anew how the strange fragile health of her daughter weighed upon her. “But can’t you give me this one little yes?”
She begged him. She begged him. That was all wrong. “I am yours to command, of course, lady, of course. It’s just . . . it’s just that . . . are you sure?”
“You are not a stranger here, Cazaril. And I am in the most desperate need of a man I can trust.”
His heart melted. Or maybe it was his wits. He bowed his head. “Then I am yours.”
“Iselle’s.”
Cazaril, his elbows on his knees, glanced up and across at her, at the thoughtfully frowning dy Ferrej, and back at the old woman’s intent face. “I . . . see.”
“I believe you do. And that, Cazaril, is why I shall have you for her.”
Chapter 4
So it was Cazaril found himself, the next morning, introduced into the young ladies’ schoolroom by the Provincara herself. This sunny little chamber was on the east side of the keep, on the top floor occupied by Royesse Iselle, Lady Betriz, their waiting woman, and a maid. Royse Teidez had chambers for his similar subhousehold in the new building across the courtyard, rather more generously proportioned, Cazaril suspected, and with better fireplaces. Iselle’s schoolroom was simply furnished with a pair of small tables, chairs, a single bookcase half-empty, and a couple of chests. With the addition of Cazaril, feeling overtall and awkward under the low-beamed ceiling, and the two young women, it was as full as it would hold. The perpetual waiting woman had to take her sewing into the next chamber, though the doors were left propped open between them.
It seemed Cazaril was to have a class, not just a pupil. A maiden of Iselle’s rank would almost never be left alone, and certainly not with a man, even a prematurely aged and convalescent one of her own household. Cazaril didn’t know how the two ladies felt about this tacit arrangement, but he was secretly relieved. Never had he felt more repulsively male—uncouth, clumsy, and degraded. In all, this cheerful, peaceful feminine atmosphere was about as far from a Roknari galley rower’s bench as it was possible for Cazaril to imagine, and he had to swallow a lump of delirious joy at the contrast as he ducked his head under the lintel and stepped inside.
The Provincara announced him briskly as Iselle’s new secretary-tutor, “Just as your brother has,” a clearly unexpected gift that Iselle, after a blink of surprise, accepted without the least demur. By her calculating look, the novelty and increased status of being instructed by a man was quite pleasing to her. Lady Betriz, too, Cazaril was heartened to note, looked alert and interested rather than wary or hostile.
Cazaril trusted he appeared scholarly enough to fool the young ladies, the wool merchant’s neat brown gown secured today by the castle warder’s silver-studded belt without the sword. He’d had the forethought to supply himself with all the books in Darthacan that a fast rummage through the remains of the late provincar’s library could supply, some half dozen random volumes. He dropped them with an impressive thump upon one of the little tables and favored both new pupils with a deliberately sinister smile. If this was to be anything like training young soldiers, young horses, or young hawks, the key was to take the initiative from the first moment, and keep it thereafter. He could be as hollow as a drum, so long as he was as loud.
The Provincara departed as briskly as she’d arrived. In the interest of pretending he had a plan while devising one, Cazaril started right in by testing the royesse’s command of Darthacan. He had her read a random page from one of the volumes, as it chanced on a topic that Cazaril knew welclass="underline" mining and sapping fortified lines during sieges. With much help and prompting, Iselle stumbled through three laborious paragraphs. Two or three questions Cazaril put to her in Darthacan challenging her to explicate the contents of what she’d just read left her sputtering and floundering.
“Your accent is terrible,” he told her frankly. “A Darthacan would find you nearly unintelligible.”
Her head came up, and she glared at him. “My governess said I was quite good. She said that I had a very melodic intonation.”
“Yes; you speak like a South Ibran fishwoman hawking her wares. They are very melodic, too. But any Darthacan lordling, and they are all arrogant as wasps about their dreadful tongue, would laugh in your face.” At least, they had in Cazaril’s, once. “Your governess flattered you, Royesse.”
She frowned across at him. “I take it you do not fancy yourself a flatterer, Castillar?”
Her tone and terms were a bit more double-leveled than he’d expected. His ironic return bow, from his seat on a chest drawn up to her table’s other side, was pulled shorter and a little less apologetic than he’d intended by the yank of his adhesions. “I trust I am not a complete lout. But if you desire a man to tell you comfortable lies about your prowess, and so fetter any hope of true excellence, I’m sure you may find one anywhere. Not all prisons are made of iron bars. Some are made of feather beds. Royesse.”