Ista hissed through her teeth and returned to her bed. It was a long, galling time before she slept again.
FOR A WOMAN WHO HAD STILL BEEN FLITTING AROUND THE CASTLE secretly at midnight, Lady Cattilara appeared at Ista's chambers much too soon after dawn, bursting with cheerful hospitality and the plan of dragging Ista to the temple in the village for morning prayers of thanksgiving. With an effort, Ista suppressed the twinging tension the young marchess's presence induced in her. When Ista arrived in the flower-decked entry court to discover Pejar holding a horse for her, it was too late to beg off. Muscles still sore, feeling altogether decrepit, in anything but a thankful mood, she let herself be loaded aboard. Pejar led her mount at a decorous pace. Lady Cattilara walked ahead in the procession, head high, arms swinging freely, and had breath to spare to sing a hymn with her ladies as they descended the treacherous twisting path.
The village of Porifors, tightly crowded behind its gates, was clearly a town-in-waiting for either more walls, or a reign of peace in which walls might be dispensed with. Its temple likewise was small and old, the altars of the four gods hardly more than arched niches off the central court, the Bastard's Tower one of those temporary outbuildings that had lasted beyond all expectation, or desire. Nevertheless, after the services the old divine was eager to show the dowager royina all of his temple's little treasures. Ferda signed Pejar to attend Ista and excused himself, claiming he would not be gone long. Ista's lips twitched at his timing.
The treasures proved not so little after all, as the temple was recipient of largesse from many of Lord Arhys's more successful raids and forays. Lord Illvin's name, too, came up often in the divine's enthusiastic inventory. Indeed, yes, the crime that had laid him low was a terrible, terrible event. Alas, that the rural temple physicians here could do naught for him, though there was still hope that wiser men imported from one of the greater cities in Ibra or Chalion might yet work wonders, when the agents Lord Arhys had dispatched finally succeeded in getting one here. The divine had run through his most interesting, or lurid, tales of provenance and had progressed to a detailed account of the building plans for a new temple, pending peace and the march and marchess's patronage, before Ferda returned.
His face was grave. He paused to kneel briefly in the niche of the Lady of Spring, his eyes closing and his lips moving, before coming to Ista's side.
"Excuse me, Learned," Ista ruthlessly overrode the divine's monologue. "I must speak to my good officer-dedicat."
They returned to the Lady's niche. "What, then?" asked Ista quietly.
His voice was equally quiet. "The morning courier from Lord dy Caribastos has ridden in. No news of Foix or dy Cabon, or of Liss. I therefore ask your leave to take two of my men and search for them." He glanced across in judicious admiration at Lady Cattilara, who had taken over the task of listening politely to the divine. "You are clearly in the best of hands, here. It will only take a few days to ride up to Maradi and back—Lord Arhys undertakes to lend us some good, fresh horses. I'd expect to return before you are ready to travel again."
"I ... mislike this. I do not care to dispense with your support, should some emergency arise."
"If Lord Arhys's troops cannot protect you, my handful could do no more," said Ferda. He grimaced. "As we have proved, I fear. Royina, under ordinary circumstances I would defer to you without hesitation." His voice grew lower still. "But then there is the matter of the bear."
"Dy Cabon is better fit to deal with those complications than either of us."
"If he lives," said Ferda heavily.
"I am sure he does." Ista decided she didn't want to explain how she knew. Worse, she could not likewise vouch for Foix.
"I know my brother. He can be forceful and persuasive. And tricky, if the first does not serve. If ... his will is not quite his own, and yet is informed by all his wits . . . I'm not sure dy Cabon could handle him. I can. I have ways." His face was lightened, temporarily, by a brief fraternal grin.
"Mm," said Ista. Persuasion, it seemed, ran in the family.
"And then there is Liss," he said more vaguely.
What there was about Liss, he did not expand upon, and Ista mercifully forbore to prod him. "I do dearly wish she were back by my side, that is so." She added after a moment, "And dy Cabon." Perhaps especially dy Cabon. Whatever the god was about, the bewildered young divine figured in it as well.
"Then may I have your leave, Royina? Dedicat Pejar can serve all your needs in this minor court, I am sure. And he is eager enough to do so."
Ista let the little flash of Cardegoss arrogance pass without comment. Were Porifors an ordinary rural court, Ferda would doubtless be correct. "Do you mean to go now?"
He ducked his head. "At once, please you. If there is any problem, the sooner I arrive, the better." He added to her frowning silence, "And if there isn't, then the sooner I may return."
She sucked on her lower lip in doubt. "And there is, as you say, the matter of the bear." Traps for bears, the god had said. Ms accursed pet,
escaped. No point in praying to the god for protection, either; if he could directly control his wild demons fled into the realm of matter, he presumably would, and not let his divine weakness depend upon human weakness.
"Very well," she sighed. "Go on, then. But return quickly." He offered a strained smile. "Who knows? I may meet them coming down the road from Tolnoxo and be back before nightfall." He knelt and kissed her hand, gratefully. By the time she drew a second breath, the flapping of his vest-cloak had already vanished out the temple's doors.
Luncheon, Ista discovered to her dismay, was to be a fete in the dowager royina's honor in the village square, complete down to a choir of village children offering a selection of songs, hymns, and earnest and not especially rhythmic local dances. Lord Arhys was not present; the young marchess did the honors for the castle, in a warm style obviously much approved by the proud and anxious parents. More than once, Ista caught her looking at the littlest ones with open longing in her eyes. When the urchins had stamped through their last erratic caper, and Ista had had her hands kissed by all and sundry, she was loaded back aboard her horse and permitted to escape. Surreptitiously, she wiped upon the animal's mane the slimy offering left on her fingers by the waif with the cold. She was by this time almost glad to see that horse. Almost.
DISMOUNTED AGAIN BACK IN THE FLORAL ENTRY COURT, ISTA WAS just trying to decide whether she was annoyed or glad for Lady Cattilara's delicately worded suggestion that perhaps a lady of the royina's age would care for an afternoon nap, when a whoop at the gate cried against its closing.
"Hallo, Castle Porifors! Courier from Castle Oby!"
Ista spun on her heel at the familiar, boisterous voice. Riding through the gate on a fat and lathered yellow nag was Liss. She wore her castle-and-leopard tabard, and held up a leather pouch in the official style, its wax seals bouncing on their strings. Her shirt, beneath the tabard, was as wet with sweat as the horse, and her face flushed with sunburn. Her mouth went round as she gazed about at the pots of color and greenery.
"Liss!" Ista cried in delight.
"Ha, Royina! So you are here after all!" Liss kicked loose her stirrups, swung her off leg up over her horse's neck, and jumped down. Grinning, she knelt courtier-fashion at Ista's feet; Ista raised her by her hands. It was all she could do not to hug her.
"How came you here, on this horse—did Ferda find you?"
"Well, I came here on this horse, of course, great slug that it is. Ferda? Is Ferda safe? Hallo, Pejar!"
The sergeant-dedicat at Ista's elbow grinned back broadly. "The Daughter be thanked, you made it!"
"If the tales I heard were true, you all were in worse case than I ever was!"
Ista said anxiously, "Ferda left here not three hours ago—you must have passed him on the road to Tolnoxo, surely?"
Liss's brow wrinkled. "I came in by the road from Oby, though."
"Oh. But how came you to be at—oh, come, come, sit with me and tell me every
thing! How I have missed your currying and grooming!"
"Yes, dearest Royina, but I must first hand off my letters, since I am a courier again for today, and see to this beast. It isn't mine, five gods be thanked. It belongs to the courier station midway between here and Oby. I should be grateful for a bucket of water, though."
Ista motioned to Pejar, and he nodded and dashed off.
Cattilara and her ladies drifted up. The marchess smiled in inviting puzzlement at the courier girl, and at Ista. "Royina . . . ?"
"This is my most loyal and brave royal handmaiden, Annaliss of Labra. Liss, make a curtsey to Lady Cattilara dy Lutez, Marchess of Porifors, and likewise these ..." Ista went down the ranks of Cattilara's ladies, who goggled at the courier girl. Liss complied with a series of friendly little dips at the string of introductions.
Pejar dashed up with a sloshing bucket. Liss grabbed it in passing and plunged her whole head in. She came up for air with a sigh of relief, and her soaked black braid swung droplets in an arc that nearly spattered Cattilara's recoiling ladies. "Ah! That's better. Five gods, but Caribastos is a hot country in this season." She allowed the bucket to continue to the horse, giving its side a hearty pat.
Pejar said eagerly, as the horse shoved at him getting its nose in the water, "We were sure you must have warned that crossroads village, but where you went after that, we could not guess."
"My good courier mount was done in by the time I reached there, but my tabard and chancellery baton persuaded them to lend me another. They had no soldiers fit to fight the Jokonans, so I left them to save themselves and rode east as fast as I could whip the poor blowing plow horse. Did the villagers escape harm?"
"They were all fled by the time we got there, close to sunset," said Pejar.
"Ah, good. Well, right after that same sunset I reached a courier station on the main road to Maradi, and once I'd convinced them I wasn't raving, they got the hunt up. Or so I thought. I slept there, and rode in to Maradi the next morning at a saner pace only to find the provincar of Tolnoxo just then leading his cavalry out the gates in pursuit. As fast as the Jokonans were moving, I greatly feared he was already too late."
"It did prove so," agreed Ista. "But a courier reached Castle Porifors in time for Lord Arhys to set an ambush along the line of the Jokonan retreat."
"Yes, that must have been one of the fellows who rode directly from my courier station, five gods rain blessings on their wits. One of them said he was native to this region. I'd hoped he might know what he was about."
"Did you hear anything of Foix and Learned dy Cabon?" asked Ista urgently. "We never saw them again after we hid them in that culvert."
Liss shook her head, frowning. "I told of them at the courier station, and I warned Lord dy Tolnoxo's lieutenants, when we passed, to be on watch for them both. I was not sure then if they'd been taken by the Jokonans, as you were, or if they had got away, or would follow the road forward or back or strike into the scrub, or what. So I went to the temple at Maradi, and found a senior divine of Learned dy Cabon's order, and told her of all our troubles, and that our divine was likely out on the road and much in need of help. And she undertook to send some dedicats to seek them."
"That was well thought of," Ista said, her voice warm with approval.
Liss smiled gratefully. "It seemed little enough. I waited a day at the chancellery's office in Maradi, but no word came back from Lord dy Tolnoxo's column. So I bethought me of a faster route south and volunteered to ride courier to Oby. I reckoned, since it was the greater fortress, you would most likely be rescued by its soldiers and brought there. Then I flew—I don't think any courier has ridden that road faster than I did, that day." She shoved a strand of wet hair out of her sunburned face, raking it back with her fingers. "All were still in suspense when I arrived at the fortress that night. But my labors were repaid next morning, when the letter came there from the march of Porifors that you were all safely rescued. Oby's lord and men had gone out on patrol for the Jokonans, too, but they came riding back that afternoon."
"My father is the march of Oby," observed Cattilara, an eager tinge leaking into her voice. "Did you see him?"
Liss made her unique half bow, half curtsey again. "He is in good health, my lady. I begged the boon from him of riding courier to Porifors, so I might most speedily rejoin the royina." She held up her pouch. "He saw me off at dawn this morning. I received this from his own hands. There may be something in here for you—ah." Her eye brightened at the approach of Porifors's castle warder, an aging, landless lordling who reminded Ista much of Ser dy Ferrej, except for being stringy instead of stout. The groom Goram followed in his wake. The warder took the pouch in charge, to Liss's obvious relief, and hastened away with it, after directing the groom to assist with the courier's horse.
"You must be exhausted," said Lady Cattilara, whose eyes had widened more than once during Liss's account. "Such a frightening ordeal!"
"Oh, but I love my task," said Liss cheerfully, slapping her dirty tabard. "People give me fast horses and get out of my way."
Ista's lips twitched up at this. Reason enough for joy, indeed.
But at least it appeared that she hadn't let Ferda go off on a fool's errand, for all that he had missed Liss on the road. And that she could hope that by the time he reached Maradi, he would find his bear-ridden brother and his conductor safely in the temple's charge there.
Liss, attempting to follow her horse as Goram led it away, made little excusing bows in all directions.
Ista said smoothly, "When my handmaiden has seen to her mount, she will be in need of a bath, as I was. And, I pray you, a loan of clothing as well. Her things were stolen by the Jokonans along with mine." Actually, Liss's extremely scant wardrobe had mostly been in her saddlebags. But Ista judged that Cattilara's ladies' noses were in the air at more than the reek of horses and sweat from the lowborn, high-riding girl.
"And fodder, pray you, dear Royina!" Liss called over her shoulder.
"It shall be worthy of your great ride, the fame of which shall reach Cardegoss itself in my next letter," Ista promised.
"So it is quick, it may be anything you please!"
LISS WAS A LONG TIME IN THE STABLES, BUT AT LAST SHE PRESENTED herself at Ista's new quarters. Cattilara's ladies, local petty lords' daughters who had nearly fallen over themselves for the honor of serving the dowager royina, were clearly less taken with the chore of serving Liss. But a bath Liss had, under Ista's firm eye, in between snatching bites from the tray of bread, olives, cheese, and dried fruit, and sloshing down cup after cup of lukewarm herb tea. Her rank riding clothes were sent off with the servants to be properly washed.
Cattilara's castoffs suited Liss's height and age much better than they did Ista's, even if they were a trifle too generously cut in the chest for the riding girl. Liss laughed in delight and awe, waving about one trailing, delicate sleeve, and Ista smiled at her pleasure with the unfamiliar richness.
One person's delight in Liss was unalloyed; the medical acolyte finally had someone to assume the care of Ista's hurts so that she might return to her neglected temple and family. Liss hadn't finished drying before the acolyte finished her tutelage, turned over a supply of bandages and ointments, gathered her things, received a suitable vail from Ista for her pains, and scampered off for home.
DINNER THAT AFTERNOON WAS PRESENTED IN A SMALLER CHAMBER off the courtyard of the star fountain, and proved to be an almost entirely female gathering, under Lady Cattilara's dominion. No chair was left ritually empty.
"Does Lord Arhys not dine tonight?" Ista asked as she was seated at the marchess's right hand. Or ever? "I should think his tertiary fever would worry you."
"Not nearly as much as his military duties," Lady Cattilara confided with a sigh. "He has taken some men on a patrol toward the northern border. My heart will be in my mouth till he returns. I am in agony inside with terror for him when he rides out, though of course I smile, and do not let him guess. If anything ever happened to him
, I believe I would go mad. Oh." She covered her gaffe with a sip of wine and held her cup up to Ista in salute. "But you understand, I'm sure. I wish I could keep him by my side forever."
"Is not his superior military craft a part of his"—admittedly appalling—"attractiveness? Hobble him, and you risk killing the very thing you admire in the attempt to preserve it."
"Oh, no," said Lady Cattilara seriously. Denying, but not answering, the objection, Ista noted. "I do make him write to me every day, when he is gone. If he forgot, I should be quite cross with him"—her lips turned up, and her eyes sparkled with laughter—"for a whole hour at least! But he doesn't forget. Anyway, he's supposed to be back by nightfall. I'll watch for him on the road from the north tower, and when I see his horse, my heart will stop choking me and start beating a thousand times a minute instead." Her face softened in anticipation.
Ista bit hard into a large mouthful of bread.
The food, in any case, was excellent. Lady Cattilara, or her castle cook, at least did not attempt to ape the excesses, or worse, what they imagined to be the excesses, of Cardegoss court feasting, but served simple, fresh fare. There did seem to be more sweets tonight, which Ista could not fault, and which Liss plainly relished, consuming an enviable portion. She was very quiet in this company, in what seemed to Ista unnecessary awe of her surroundings. Ista thought she would rather have heard Liss's tales than the local gossip that filled the time. When they had escaped the ladies and returned to the square stone court, Ista told her so, and chided her for her shyness.
"Truly," Liss admitted, "I think it's the dress. I felt a great gawk next to those highborn girls. I don't know how they manage all this fancy cloth. I'm sure I shall trip over myself and tear something."
"Then let us walk about in the colonnade, that I may stretch my scabs as the acolyte instructs, and that you may practice swishing in silks to do me honor in this court. And tell me more of your ride."
Liss shortened her steps in a most ladylike fashion, keeping to Ista's slow limp in the cool of the cloistered walkway. Ista primed her with questions about every aspect of her journey. Not that Ista needed a catalogue of every hair, fault, virtue, and quirk of every horse Liss had ridden for the past several days, but Liss's voice was such welcome music, it hardly mattered what it dwelt upon. Ista had less to report, she found, of her own ride, certainly not details of the Jokonan horseflesh, which she had mainly experienced as a penance. Nor had she desire to recall green flies gathering to feed on thickening blood.