The Curse of Chalion

He and Lady Betriz came up as Teidez and the page collaborated on inserting the squealing creature into a large canvas sack, where it clearly didn't want to go. Betriz bent to give the struggling animal a quick scratch behind its flapping ears. "My thanks, Lady Pig! You played your part superbly. But it's time to go back to your home now."

The page hoisted the heavy sack up over his shoulder, saluted the assembled company, and staggered off, grinning.

"What is going on up here?" demanded Cazaril, torn between laughter and alarm.

"Oh, it was the greatest jest!" cried Teidez. "You should have seen the look on Lord Dondo's face!"

Cazaril just had, and it hadn't inspired him with mirth. His stomach sank. "What have you done?"

Iselle tossed her head. "Neither my hints not Lady Betriz's plain words having served to discourage Lord Dondo's attentions, or to convince him they were unwelcome, we conspired to make him the assignation of love he desired. Teidez undertook to secure our player from the stable. So, instead of the virgin Lord Dondo was confidently expecting to find waiting when he went tiptoeing up to Betriz's bed in the dark, he found—Lady Pig!"

"Oh, you traduce the poor pig, Royesse!" cried Lord dy Rinal. "She may have been a virgin, too, after all!"

"I'm sure she was, or she would not have squealed so," the laughing lady on his arm put in.

"It's only too bad," said dy Sanda acidly, "she was not to Lord Dondo's taste. I confess I'm surprised. From all reports of the man, I'd have thought he'd lie down with anything." His eyes flicked sideways, to check the effect of these words on the grinning Teidez.

"And after we'd doused her with my best Darthacan perfume, too," sighed Betriz hugely. The merriment in her eyes was underscored by a glittering rage and sharp satisfaction.

"You should have told me," Cazaril began. Told him what? Of this prank? It was clear enough they knew he would have suppressed it. Of Dondo's continued pressings? Just how vile had they been? His fingernails bit into his palm. And what could he have done about them, eh? Gone to Orico, or Royina Sara? Futile...

Lord dy Rinal said, "It will be the best tale of the week in all of Cardegoss—and the best tail, too, if a curly one. Lord Dondo hasn't played the butt for years, and I do think it was past his turn. I can hear the oinking already. The man won't sit to a pork dinner for months without hearing it. Royesse, Lady Betriz"—he swept them a bow—"I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

The two courtiers and the lady took themselves off, presumably to spread the jest to whatever of their friends were still awake.

Cazaril, suppressing the first several remarks trying to rip from his lips, finally ground out, "Royesse, that was not wise."

Iselle frowned back, undaunted. "The man wears the robes of a holy general of the Lady of Spring yet undertakes to rob women of their virginity, sacred to Her, just as he robs... well, so you say we have no proof of what else he robs. We had proof enough of this, by the goddess! At least this may teach him the unwisdom of attempting to steal from my household. The Zangre is supposed to be a royal court, not a barnyard!"

"Cheer up, Cazaril," dy Sanda advised him. "The man cannot revenge his outraged vanity upon the royse and royesse, after all." He glanced around; Teidez had gone off up the corridor to collect the trampled ribbons the pig had shed in its attempted flight. He lowered his voice, and added, "And it was well worth the trouble for Teidez to see his, ah, hero in a less flattering light. When the amorous Lord Dondo stumbled out of Betriz's bedchamber with the strings of his trousers in his hands, he found all our witnesses lined up waiting. Lady Pig nearly knocked him down, escaping between his legs. He looked an utter fool. It's the best lesson I've been able to bring off all this month we've been here. Maybe we can start to regain some lost ground in that direction, eh?"

"I pray you may be right," said Cazaril carefully. He did not say aloud his reflection that the royse and the royesse were the only people Dondo could not revenge himself upon.

Nevertheless, there was no sign of retaliation in the next several days. Lord Dondo took the raillery of dy Rinal and his friends with a thin smile, but a smile nonetheless. Cazaril sat to every meal in the expectation of, at the very least, a certain pig served up roasted with ribbons round its neck to the royesse's table, but the dish did not appear. Betriz, at first infected by Cazaril's nerves, was reassured. Cazaril was not. For all his hot temper, Dondo had amply demonstrated just how long he could wait for his opportunities without forgetting his wounds.