The Curse of Chalion

Ten minutes later, a maid arrived with a warming pan full of hot coals and a feather quilt; a few minutes after that, a manservant with a can of hot water and firm instructions to see him washed and put back to bed in dry nightclothes. This, in a castle gone mad with the disruption of every courtier and lady at once trying to prepare themselves for an unscheduled public appearance of utmost formality. Cazaril questioned nothing. The servant had just finished tucking him into the hot dry envelope of his sheets when Betriz reappeared with a crockery bowl on a tray. She propped his door open and seated herself on the edge of his bed.

"Eat this."

It was bread soaked in steaming milk, laced with honey. He accepted the first spoonful in bemused surprise, then struggled up on his pillows. "I'm not that sick." Attempting to regain his dignity, he took the bowl from her; she made no objection, as long as he continued to eat. He discovered he was ravenous. By the time he'd finished, he'd stopped shivering.

She smiled in satisfaction. "Your color's much less ghastly now. Good."

"How fares the royesse?"

"Vastly better. She's... I want to say, collapsed, but I don't mean overcome. The blessed release that comes when an unbearable pressure is suddenly removed. It's a joy to look upon her."

"Yes. I understand."

Betriz nodded. "She's resting now, till time to dress." She took the empty bowl from him, set it aside, and lowered her voice. "Cazaril, what did you do last night?"

"Nothing. Evidently."

Her lips thinned in exasperation. But what use was it to lay the burden of his secret upon her now? Confession might relieve his soul, but it would put hers in danger in any subsequent investigation that demanded oath-sworn testimony from her.

"Lord dy Rinal had it that you paid a page to catch you a rat last night. It was that news that sent Chancellor dy Jironal pelting up to your bedchamber, dy Rinal told me. The page said you'd claimed you wanted it to eat."

"Well, so. It's no crime for a man to eat a rat. It was a little memorial feast, for the siege of Gotorget."

"Oh? You just said you'd eaten nothing since yesterday morning." She hesitated, her eyes anxious. "The chambermaid also said there was blood in your pot that she emptied this morning."

"Bastard's demons!" Cazaril, who had slid down into his covers, struggled up again. "Is nothing sacred to castle gossip? Can't a man even call his chamber pot his own here?"

She held out a hand. "Lord Caz, don't joke. How sick are you?"

"I had a bellyache. It's eased off now. A passing thing. So to speak." He grimaced, and decided not to mention the hallucinations. "Obviously, the blood in the pot was from butchering the rat. And the bellyache just what I deserved, for eating such a disgusting creature. Eh?"

She said slowly, "It's a good story. It all hangs together."

"So, there."

"But Caz—people will think you're strange."

"I can add them to the collection along with the ones who think I rape girls. I suppose I need a third perversion, to balance me properly." Well, there was being suspected of attempting death magic. That could balance him over a gallows.

She sat back, frowning deeply. "All right. I won't press you. But I was wondering..." She wrapped her arms around herself, and regarded him intently. "If two—theoretical—persons were to attempt death magic on the same victim at the same time, might they each end up... half-dead?"

Cazaril stared back—no, she didn't look sick—and shook his head. "I don't think so. Given all the various vain attempts that people have made to compel the gods with death magic, if it could happen that way, it surely would have before now. The Bastard's death demon is always portrayed in the Temple carvings with a yoke over his shoulders and two identical buckets, one for each soul. I don't think the demon can choose differently." Umegat's words came back to him, I'm afraid that's just the way it works. "I'm not even sure the god can choose differently."

Her eyes narrowed further. "You said, if you weren't back this morning, not to worry for you, or look for you. You said you'd be all right. You also said, if the bodies are not burned properly, terrible uncanny things happen to them."

He shifted uncomfortably. "I made provision." Of sorts.

"What provision? You sneaked away, leaving none who cared for you to know where to look or even whether to pray!"

He cleared his throat. "Fonsa's crows. I climbed over the roof to Fonsa's Tower to, ah, say my prayers last night. If, if things had, ah, come out differently, I figured they'd clear up the mess, just as their brethren clean up a battlefield, or a stray sheep lost over a cliff."

"Cazaril!" she cried in indignation, then hastily lowered her voice to a near whisper. "Caz, that's, that's... you mean to tell me you crawled off all alone, to die in despair, expecting to leave your body to be eaten by... that's horrid!"