The Curse of Chalion

Dy Maroc held his arms widespread, hopefully, looking as if he wondered if he was allowed to tackle the creature out of the air as it swooped by him. Cazaril, about to cry Caz, Caz to be safe, was suddenly overcome with theological curiosity. He already knew the truth—what else might this test reveal? He stood still and straight, lips parted, and watched in disturbed fascination as the crow ignored the open window and flapped straight to his shoulder.

"Well," he said quietly to it, as it dug in its claws and shifted from side to side. "Well." It tilted its black beak, regarding him with expressionless, beady eyes.

Iselle and Betriz jumped up and down and whooped, hugging each other and nearly frightening the bird off again. Dy Sanda smiled grimly. Dy Jironal gritted his teeth; dy Maroc looked faintly appalled.

Orico dusted his plump hands. "Good. That settles that. Now, by the gods, I want my dinner."

ISELLE, BETRIZ, AND DY SANDA SURROUNDED CAZARIL like an honor guard and marched him out of Ias's Tower to the courtyard.

"How did you know to come to my rescue?" Cazaril asked them. Surreptitiously, he glanced up; no crows were circling, just now.

"I had it from a page that you were to be arrested this morning," said dy Sanda, "and I went at once to the royesse."

Cazaril wondered if dy Sanda, like himself, kept a private budget to pay for early news from various observers around the Zangre. And why his own arrangements hadn't worked a trifle better in this case. "I thank you, for covering my"—he swallowed the word, back—"blind side. I should have been dismissed by now, if you all hadn't come to stand up for me."

"No thanks needed," said dy Sanda. "I believe you'd have done as much for me."

"My brother needed someone to prop him," said Iselle a trifle bitterly. "Else he bows to whatever force blows most proximately."

Cazaril was torn between commending her shrewdness and suppressing her frankness. He glanced at dy Sanda. "How long—do you know—has this story about me been circulating in the court?"

He shrugged. "Some four or five days, I think."

"This was the first we heard of it!" said Betriz indignantly.

Dy Sanda opened his hands in apology. "Likely it seemed too raw a thing to pour in your maiden ears, my lady."

Iselle scowled. Dy Sanda accepted reiterated thanks from Cazaril and took his leave to check on Teidez.

Betriz, who had grown suddenly quiet, said in a stifled voice, "This was all my fault, wasn't it? Dondo struck at you to avenge himself for the pig. Oh, Lord Caz, I'm sorry!"

"No, my lady," said Cazaril firmly. "There is some old business between Dondo and me that goes back to before... before Gotorget." Her face lightened, to his relief; nevertheless, he seized the chance to add prudently, "Grant you, the prank with the pig didn't help, and you should not do anything like that again."

Betriz sighed, but then smiled just a little bit. "Well, he did stop pressing himself upon me. So it helped that much."

"I can't deny that's a benefit, but... Dondo remains a powerful man. I beg you—both—to take care to walk wide around him."

Iselle's eyes flicked toward him. She said quietly, "We're under siege here, aren't we. Me, Teidez, all our households."

"I trust," sighed Cazaril, "it is not quite so dire. Just go more carefully from now on, eh?"

He escorted them back to their chambers in the main block, but did not take up his calculations again. Instead, he strode back down the stairs and out past the stables to the menagerie. He found Umegat in the aviary, persuading the small birds to take dust baths in a basin of ashes as proof against lice. The neat Roknari, his tabard protected by an apron, looked up at him and smiled.

Cazaril did not smile back. "Umegat," he began without preamble, "I have to know. Did you pick the crow, or did the crow pick you?"

"Does it matter to you, my lord?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

Cazaril's mouth opened, and shut. He finally began again, almost pleadingly. "It was a trick, yes? You tricked them, by bringing the crow I feed at my window. The gods didn't really reach into that room, right?"

Umegat's brows rose. "The Bastard is the most subtle of the gods, my lord. Merely because something is a trick, is no guarantee you are not god-touched." He added apologetically, "I'm afraid that's just the way it works." He chirped at the bright bird, apparently now done with its flutter in the ashes, coaxed it onto his hand with a seed drawn from his apron pocket, and popped it back into its nearby cage.

Cazaril followed, arguing, "It was the crow that I fed. Of course it flew to me. You feed it too, eh?"

"I feed all the sacred crows of Fonsa's Tower. So do the pages and ladies, the visitors to the Zangre, and the acolytes and divines of all the Temple houses in town. The miracle of those crows is that they're not all grown too fat to fly." With a neat twist of his wrist, Umegat secured another bird and tipped it into the ash bath.