The Curse of Chalion

Well did not describe it. Cazaril chose, "Calmly, Your Grace. At least, she did not fly into any sort of wild pelter, as I'd feared. I think the blows her life has dealt her have left her numb. I don't know how she'll be tomorrow. Her attendants have put her to bed."

The Provincara vented a sigh and blinked back tears.

Cazaril knelt to his saddlebags. "Iselle entrusted me with a letter for you. And there is a note for you, Ser dy Ferrej, from Betriz. She did not have time to write much." He handed out the two sealed missives. "They will both be coming here. Iselle means to have Teidez buried in Valenda."

"Oh," said the Provincara, cracking the cold wax of the letter's seal, careless of where the sprinkles fell. "Oh, how I long to see her." Her eyes devoured the penned lines. "Short," she complained. Her gray eyebrows went up. "Cazaril will explain everything to you, she says."

"Yes, Your Grace. I have much to tell you, some of it in confidence."

She waved out her companions. "Go, I will call you back." Dy Ferrej was breaking open his letter by the time he reached the door.

She sat with a rustle of fabric, still clutching the paper, and gestured Cazaril to another chair, which he pulled up to her knee. "I must see to Ista before she sleeps."

"I'll try to be succinct, Your Grace. This is what I have learned this season in Cardegoss. What I went through to learn it..." That cost, the cracking open of his world, Ista had understood at once; he was not sure the Provincara would grasp it. "Doesn't matter now. But Archdivine Mendenal in Cardegoss can confirm the truth of it all, if you get a chance at him. Tell him I sent you, and he will deny you nothing."

Her brows went up. "How is it you bend an archdivine?"

Cazaril snorted softly. "I pull rank."

She sat up, her lips thinning. "Cazaril, don't make stupid jokes with me. You grow as cryptic as Ista."

Yes, Ista's self-protective sense of—not humor, irony—likely was irritating, at close quarters. Ista. Who spoke for Ista? "Provincara... your daughter is heartbroken, ravaged in will. She longs for the release of death. But she is not mad. The gods are not so merciful."

The old woman hunched, as though his words grated over a raw spot. "Her grief is extravagant. Was no woman ever widowed before? Has none lost a child? I've suffered both, but I did not moan and mope and carry on so, not for years. I cried my hour, yes, but then I continued about my duties. If she is not broken in reason, then she is vastly self-indulgent."

Could he make her understand Ista's differences without violating Ista's tacit confidences? Well, even a partial truth might help. He bent his head to hers. "It all goes back to the great war of Fonsa the Fairly-Wise with the Golden General..." In the plainest possible terms, he detailed the inner workings of the curse upon the history of the House of Chalion. There were enough other disasters in Ias's reign that he scarcely needed to touch on the fall of dy Lutez. Orico's impotence, the slow corruption of his advisors, the failure of both his policies and his health brought the tale to the present.

The Provincara scowled. "Is all this vile luck a work of Roknari black magic, then?"

"Not... as I understand it. It is a spillage, a perversion of some ineffable divinity, lost from its proper place."

She shrugged. "Close enough. If it acts like black magic, then black magic it is. The practical question is, how to counter it?"

Cazaril wasn't sure about that close enough. Surely only correct understanding could lead to correct action. Ista and Ias had tried to force a solution, as though the curse were magic, to be countered by magic. A rite done by rote.

She added, "And does this link to this wild tale we heard of Dondo dy Jironal being murdered by death magic?"

That, at least, he could answer, none better. He had already decided to strip out as much of the unnatural detail as possible from her version of events. He did not think her confidence in him would be augmented by his babbling of demons, ghosts, saints, second sight, and even more grotesque things. More than enough remained to astound her. He began with the tale of Iselle's disastrous betrothal, although he did not attribute the source of Dondo's death miracle, concealing his act of murder as he'd concealed Ista's.

The Provincara was not so squeamish. "If Lord Dondo was as bad as you say," she sniffed, "I shall say prayers for that unknown benefactor!"

"Indeed, Your Grace. I pray for him daily."

"And Dondo a mere younger son—for Iselle! What was that fool Orico thinking?"