The Curse of Chalion

Cazaril scrambled up and sank down again in blessed comfort. He ventured tentatively, "Was that the royse and royesse I saw come in from riding as I arrived, Your Grace? I should not have troubled you with my intrusion, had I known you had such visitors." He would not have dared.

"Not visiting, Castillar. They are living here with me for now. Valenda is a quiet, clean town, and... my daughter is not entirely well. It suits her to retire here, after the too-hectic court." A weary look flickered in her eyes.

Five gods, the Lady Ista was here as well? The Dowager Royina Ista, Cazaril hastily corrected this thought. When he had first come to serve Baocia, as unformed a larva as any boy of like degree, the Provincara's youngest daughter Ista had seemed already a grown woman, though only a few years older than himself. Fortunately, even at that foolish age, he'd not been so foolish as to confide his hopeless infatuation of her to anyone else. Her high marriage soon after to Roya Ias himself—her first, his second—-had seemed her beauty's proper destiny, despite the royal couple's disparity of age. Cazaril supposed Ista's early widowhood might have been expected, though not as early as it had proved.

The Provincara brushed aside her fatigue with an impatient flash of her fingers, and followed with a, "And what of yourself? The last I heard of you, you were riding courier for the provincar of Guarida."

"That was... some years ago, Your Grace."

"How did you come here?" She looked him over, her brows drawing down. "Where is your sword?"

"Oh, that." His hand vaguely touched his side, where neither belt nor sword hung. "I lost it at... When the March dy Jironal led Roya Orico's forces up to the north coast for the winter campaign these... three? yes, three years ago, he made me castle warder of the fortress at Gotorget. Then dy Jironal had that unfortunate reversal... we held the keep nine months against the Roknari forces. The usual, you know. I swear there was not a rat left unroasted in Gotorget when the word came through that dy Jironal had made treaty again, and we were ordered to lay down our arms and march out, and turn the fortress over to our foes." He offered up a brief, unfelt smile; his left hand curled in his lap. "For my consolation, I was informed our fortress cost the Roknari prince an extra three hundred thousand royals, in the treaty tent. Plus considerably more in the field that nine-month, I calculate." Poor consolation, for the lives we spent. "The Roknari general claimed my father's sword; he said he was going to hang it in his tent, to remember me by. So that was the last I saw of my blade. After that..." Cazaril's voice, growing stronger through this reminiscence, faltered. He cleared his throat, and began again. "There was an error, some mix-up. When the list of men to be ransomed arrived, together with the chests of royals, my name had been left off it somehow. The Roknari quartermaster swore there was no mistake, because the amounts counted out evenly with the names, but... there was some mistake. All my officers were rescued... I was put in with the unransomed men, and we were all marched to Visping, to be sold to the Roknari corsair masters as galley slaves."

The Provincara drew in her breath. The warder, who had been leaning farther and farther forward in his seat during this recital, burst out, "You protested, surely!"

"Oh, five gods, yes. I protested all the way to Visping. I was still protesting as they dragged me up the gangplank and chained me to my oar. I kept protesting till we put to sea, and then I... learned not to." He smiled again. It felt like a clown's mask. Happily, no one seized on that weak error.

"I was on one ship or another for... for a long time." Nineteen months, eight days, he had counted it out later. At the time, he could not have told one day from the next. "And then I had the greatest piece of good fortune, for my corsair ran afoul of a fleet of the roya of Ibra, out on maneuvers. I assure you Ibra's volunteers rowed better than we did, and they soon ran us down."

Two men had been beheaded in their chains by the increasingly desperate Roknari, for deliberately—or accidentally—fouling their oars. One of them had been sitting near Cazaril, his benchmate for months. Some of the spurting blood had got in his mouth; he could still half taste it, when he made the mistake of thinking of it. He could taste it now. When the corsair was taken, the Ibrans had trailed the Roknari, some still half-alive, behind the ship on ropes made of their own guts, till the great fishes had eaten them. Some of the freed galley slaves had helped row, with a will. Cazaril could not. That last flaying had brought him within hours of being cast overboard by the Roknari galley master as broken and useless. He'd sat on the deck, muscles twitching uncontrollably, and wept.