The Curse of Chalion

He lurched around to the end of his bed, fell to his knees, and flipped open the lid of his trunk. He dived down amongst the folded garments, scented with cloves as proof against moths, until he came to a black velvet vest-cloak folded around a brown wool robe. Folded around a ciphered notebook that he had never finished deciphering when the crooked judge had fled Valenda, that it had seemed too late to return to the Temple without embarrassing explanations. Feverishly, he drew it out, and lit more candles. There's not much time left. About a third of it was left untranslated. Forget all the failed experiments. Go to the last page, eh?

Even in the bad cipher, the wool merchant's despair came through, in a kind of strange shining simplicity. Eschewing all his previous bizarre elaborations, he had turned at the last not to magic, but to plain prayer. Rat and crow only to carry the plea, candles only to light his way, herbs only to lift his heart with their scents, and compose his mind to purity of will; a will then put aside, laid wholehearted on the god's altar. Help me. Help me. Help me.

Those were the last words entered in the notebook.

I can do that, thought Cazaril in wonder.

And if he failed... there would still be Betriz and her knife.

I will not fail. I've failed practically everything else in my life. I will not fail death.

He slipped the book under his pillow, locked his door behind him, and went to find a page.

The sleepy boy he selected was waiting in the corridor upon the pleasure of the lords and ladies at their dinner in Orico's banqueting hall, where Iselle's nonappearance was doubtless the subject of much gossip, not even kept to a whisper since none of the principals were present. Dondo roistered privately in his palace with his hangers-on; Orico still cowered out in the woods.

He fished a gold royal from his purse and held it up, smiling through the O of his thumb and finger. "Hey, boy. Would you like to earn a royal?"

The Zangre pages had learned to be wary; a royal was enough to buy some truly intimate services from those who sold such. And enough to be a caution, to those who didn't care to play those games. "Doing what, my lord?"

"Catch me a rat."

"A rat, my lord? Why?"

Ah. Why. Why, so that I can work the crime of death magic upon the second most powerful lord in Chalion, of course! No.

Cazaril leaned his shoulders against the wall, and smiled down confidingly. "When I was in the fortress of Gotorget, during the siege three years ago—did you know I was its commander? until my brave general sold it out from under us, that is—we learned to eat rats. Tasty little things, if you could catch enough of them. I really miss the flavor of a good, candle-roasted rat haunch. Catch me a really big, fat one, and there will be another to match this." Cazaril dropped the coin in the page's hand, and licked his lips, wondering how crazed he looked right now. The page was edging farther from him. "You know where my chamber is?"

"Yes, m'lord?"

"Bring it there. In a bag. Quick as you can. I'm hungry." Cazaril lurched off, laughing. Really laughing, not feigning it. A weird, wild exhilaration filled his heart.

It lasted until he reached his bedchamber again and sat to plan the rest of his ploy, his dark prayer, his suicide. It was night; the crow would not fly to his window at night, even for the piece of bread he'd snatched from the banqueting hall before returning to the main block. He turned the bread roll over in his hands. The crows roosted in Fonsa's Tower. If they wouldn't fly to him, he could crawl to them, over the roof slates. Sliding in the dark? And then back to his chamber, with a squawking bundle under his arm?

No. Let the bundle be the bagged rat. If he did the deed there, in the shadow of the broken roof upon whatever scorched and shaking platform still stood inside, he'd only have to make the trip one way. And... death magic had worked there once before, eh? Spectacularly, for Iselle's grandfather. Would Fonsa's spirit lend his aid to his granddaughter's unholy soldier? His tower was a fraught place, sacred to the Bastard and his pets, especially at night, midnight in the cold rain. Cazaril's body need never be found, nor buried. The crows could feast upon his remains, fair trade for the depredation he planned upon their poor comrade. Animals were innocent, even the grisly crows; that innocence surely made them all a little sacred.