Cazaril was the only one here with the air, if not the fact, of authority needed to carry out this next step. "You are going straight to your chamber, until your brother orders otherwise. are going straight to your chamber, until your brother orders otherwise. I I will escort you there." will escort you there."

"Take your hand off me!" Teidez yelped, as Cazaril's iron grip closed around his upper arm. But he did not quite dare to struggle against whatever he was seeing in Cazaril's face.

Cazaril said through his teeth, in a voice dripping false cordiality, "No, indeed. You are wounded, young lord, and I have a duty to help you to a physician." He added under his breath, to Teidez's ear alone, "And I will knock you flat and drag you, if I have to."

Teidez, recovering what dignity he could, grumbled to his guard captain, "Go quietly with them, then. I'll send for you later, when I have proved Lord Cazaril's error." Since his two captors had already spun the captain around and were marching him out, this ended up addressed to the Baocian's back, and fell a little flat. The injured grooms had crept up to Palli's side, and were trying to help him with Umegat. Palli glanced over his shoulder and gave Cazaril a quick, rea.s.suring wave.

Cazaril nodded back, and, under the guise of lending support, strong-armed the royse out of the nightmarish abattoir he had made of the roya's menagerie. Too late, too late, too late... Too late, too late, too late... beat in his brain with every stride. Outside, the crows were no longer whirling and screaming in the air. They hopped about in agitation upon the cobbles, seeming as bewildered and directionless as Cazaril's own thoughts. beat in his brain with every stride. Outside, the crows were no longer whirling and screaming in the air. They hopped about in agitation upon the cobbles, seeming as bewildered and directionless as Cazaril's own thoughts.

Still keeping a grip on Teidez, Cazaril marched him through the Zangre's gates, where, now now, more guards had appeared. Teidez closed his lips on further protest, though his sullen, angry, and insulted expression boded no good for Cazaril later on. The royse scorned to favor his wounded leg, though it left a trail of bloodied footprints across the cobbles of the main courtyard.

Cazaril's attention was jerked leftward when one of Sara's waiting women and a page appeared in the doorway to Ias's Tower. "Hurry, hurry!" the woman urged the boy, who dashed toward the gates, white-faced. He nearly caromed off Cazaril in his haste.

"Where away, boy?" Cazaril called after him.

He turned and danced backward for a moment. "Temple, lord. Dare not stay-Royina Sara-the roya has collapsed!" He turned and sprinted in earnest through the gates; the guards stared at him, and, uneasily, back toward Ias's Tower.

Teidez's arm, beneath Cazaril's hand, lost its stiff resistance. Beneath his scowl, a scared look crept into his eyes, and he glanced aside warily at his self-appointed detainer.

After a moment's indecision, Cazaril, not letting go of Teidez, wheeled around and started for Ias's Tower instead. He hurried to catch up with the waiting woman, who had ducked back inside, and called after her, but she seemed not to hear him as she scurried up the end stairs. He was wheezing as he reached the third floor, where Orico kept his chambers. He stared in apprehension down its central corridor.

Royina Sara, her white shawl bundled about her and a woman at her heels, was hurrying up the hall. Cazaril bowed anxiously as she came to the staircase.

"My lady, what has happened? Can I help?"

She touched her hand to her frightened face. "I scarcely know yet, Castillar. Orico-he was reading aloud to me in my chambers while I st.i.tched, as he sometimes does, for my solace, when suddenly he stopped, and blinked and rubbed his eyes, and said he could not see the words anymore, and that the room was all dark. But it wasn't! Then he fell from his chair. I cried for my ladies, and we put him in his bed, and have sent for a Temple physician."

"We saw the roya's page," Cazaril a.s.sured her. "He was running as fast as he could."

"Oh, good..."

"Was it an apoplexy, do you think?"

"I don't think...I don't know. He speaks a little, and his breath is not very labored...What was all that shouting, down by the stables, earlier?" Distractedly, not waiting for an answer, she pa.s.sed him and mounted the stairs.

Teidez, his face gone leaden, licked his lips but said no more as Cazaril turned him around and led him down to the courtyard.

The royse did not find his voice again till they were mounting the stairs in the main block, where he repeated breathlessly, "It cannot be. Dondo told me the menagerie was black sorcery, a Roknari curse to keep Orico sick and weak. And I could see see that it was so." that it was so."

"A Roknari curse, there truly is, but the menagerie is a white miracle that keeps Orico alive despite it. Was. Till now," Cazaril added bitterly.

"No...no...it's all wrong. Dondo told me-"

"Dondo was mistaken." Cazaril hesitated briefly. "Or else Dondo wished to hurry the replacement of a roya who favored his elder brother with one who favored himself."

Teidez's lips parted in protest, but no sound came from them. Cazaril didn't think the royse could be feigning the shocked look in his eyes. The only mercy in this day, if mercy it was-Dondo might have misled Teidez, but he seemed not to have corrupted him, not to that extent. Teidez was tool, not co-conspirator, not a willing fratricide. Unfortunately, he was a tool that had kept on functioning after the workman's hand had fallen away. And whose fault was it that the boy swallowed down lies, when no one would feed him the truth? And whose fault was it that the boy swallowed down lies, when no one would feed him the truth?

The sallow fellow who was the royse's secretary-tutor looked up in surprise from his writing desk as Cazaril swung the boy into his chambers.

"Look to your master," Cazaril told him shortly. "He's injured. He is not to quit this building until Chancellor dy Jironal is informed what has occurred, and gives him leave." He added, with a little sour satisfaction, "If you knew of this outrage, and did nothing to prevent it, the chancellor will be furious with you."

The man paled in confusion; Cazaril turned his back on him. Now to go see what was happening with Umegat...

"But Lord Cazaril," Teidez's voice quavered. "What should I do?"

Cazaril spat over his shoulder, as he strode out again, "Pray."

18.

As he turned onto the end stairs, Cazaril heard a woman's slippers scuffing rapidly on the steps. He looked up to find Lady Betriz, her lavender skirts trailing, hurrying down toward him. Cazaril heard a woman's slippers scuffing rapidly on the steps. He looked up to find Lady Betriz, her lavender skirts trailing, hurrying down toward him.

"Lord Cazaril! What's going on? We heard shouting-one of the maids cried Royse Teidez has run mad, and tried to slay the roya's animals!"

"Not mad-misled. I think. And not tried-succeeded." In a few brief, bitter words, Cazaril described the horror in the stable block.

"But why why?" Her voice was husky with shock.

Cazaril shook his head. "A lie of Lord Dondo's, nearly as I can tell. He convinced the royse that Umegat was a Roknari wizard using the animals to somehow poison the roya. Which turned the truth exactly backwards; the animals sustained Orico, and now he has collapsed. Five G.o.ds, I cannot explain it all here upon the stairs. Tell Royesse Iselle I will attend upon her soon, but first I must see to the injured grooms. Stay away-keep Iselle away from the menagerie." And if he didn't give Iselle action, she'd surely take it for herself..."Wait upon Sara, both of you; she's half-distracted."

Cazaril continued on down the stairs, past the place where he had been-deliberately?-decoyed away by his own pain, earlier. Dondo's demonic ghost made no move to grip him now now.

Back at the menagerie, Cazaril found that the excellent Palli and his men had already carried off Umegat and the more seriously injured of the undergrooms to the Mother's hospital. The remaining groom was stumbling around trying to catch a hysterical little blue-and-yellow bird that had somehow escaped the Baocian guard captain and taken refuge in the upper cornices. Some servants from the stable had come over and were making awkward attempts to help; one had taken off his tabard and was sweeping it up, trying to knock the bird out of the air.

"Stop!" Cazaril choked back panic. For all he knew, the little feathered creature was the last thread by which Orico clung to life. He directed the would-be helpers instead to the task of collecting the bodies of the slain animals, laying them out in the stable courtyard, and cleaning up the b.l.o.o.d.y mess on the tiles inside. He scooped up a handful of grains from the vellas' stall, remains of their last interrupted dinner, and coaxed the little bird down to his own hand, chirping as he'd seen Umegat do. Rather to his surprise, the bird came to him and suffered itself to be put back into its cage.

"Guard it with your life," he told the groom. Then added, scowling for effect, "If it dies, you die." An empty threat, though it must do for now; the grooms, at least, looked impressed. If it dies, Orico dies? If it dies, Orico dies? That suddenly seemed frighteningly plausible. He turned to lend a hand in dragging out the heavy bodies of the bears. That suddenly seemed frighteningly plausible. He turned to lend a hand in dragging out the heavy bodies of the bears.

"Should we skin them, lord?" one of the stable hands inquired, staring at the results of Teidez's h.e.l.lish hunt piled up outside on the paving stones.

"No!" said Cazaril. Even the few of Fonsa's crows still lingering about the stable yard, though they regarded the b.l.o.o.d.y carca.s.ses with wary interest, made no move toward them. "Treat them...as you would the roya's soldiers who had died in battle. Burned or buried. Not skinned. Nor eaten, for the G.o.ds' sakes." Swallowing, Cazaril bent and added the bodies of the two dead crows to the row. "There has been sacrilege enough this day." And the G.o.ds forfend Teidez had not slain a holy saint as well as the sacred animals.

A clatter of hooves heralded the arrival of Martou dy Jironal, fetched, presumably, from Jironal Palace; he was followed up the hill by four retainers on foot, gasping for breath. The chancellor swung down from his snorting, sidling horse, handed it off to a bowing groom, and advanced to stare at the row of dead animals. The bears' dark fur riffled in the cold wind, the only movement. Dy Jironal's lips spasmed on unvoiced curses. "What is this madness?" He looked up at Cazaril, and his eyes narrowed in bewildered suspicion. "Did you you set Teidez onto this?" Dy Jironal was not, Cazaril judged, dissimulating; he was as off-balance as Cazaril himself. set Teidez onto this?" Dy Jironal was not, Cazaril judged, dissimulating; he was as off-balance as Cazaril himself.

"I? No! I do not control Teidez." Cazaril added sourly, "And neither, it appears, do you. He was in your constant company for the past two weeks; had you no hint of this?"

Dy Jironal shook his head.

"In his defense, Teidez seems to have had some garbled notion that this act would somehow help the roya. That he'd no better sense is a fault of his age; that he had no better knowledge...well, you and Orico between you have served him ill. If he'd been more filled with truth, he'd have had less room for lies. I've had his Baocian guard locked up, and taken him to his chambers, to await..." the roya's orders the roya's orders would not be forthcoming now. Cazaril finished, "your orders." would not be forthcoming now. Cazaril finished, "your orders."

Dy Jironal's hand made a constricted gesture. "Wait. The royesse-he was closeted with his sister yesterday. Could she have set him on?"

"Five witnesses will say no. Including Teidez himself. He gave no sign yesterday that this was in his mind." Almost no sign. Should have, should have, should have... Should have, should have, should have...

"You control the Royesse Iselle closely enough," snapped dy Jironal bitterly. "Do you think I don't know who encouraged her in her defiance? I fail to see the secret of her pernicious attachment to you, but I mean to cut that connection."

"Yes." Cazaril bared his teeth. "Dy Joal tried to wield your knife last night. He'll know to charge you more for his services next time. Hazard pay." Dy Jironal's eyes glittered with understanding; Cazaril took a breath, for self-control. This was bringing their hostilities much too close to the surface. The last thing he desired was dy Jironal's full attention. "In any case, there is no mystery. Teidez says your amiable brother Dondo plotted this with him, before he died."

Dy Jironal stepped back a pace, eyes widening, but his teeth clenched on any other reaction.

Cazaril continued, "Now, what I I should dearly like to know is-and you are in a better position to guess the answer than I am-did should dearly like to know is-and you are in a better position to guess the answer than I am-did Dondo Dondo know what this menagerie really did for Orico?" know what this menagerie really did for Orico?"

Dy Jironal's gaze flew to his face. "Do you?"

"All the Zangre knows by now: Orico was stricken blind, and fell from his chair, during the very moments his creatures were dying. Sara and her ladies brought him to his bed, and have sent for the Temple physicians." This answer both evaded the question and abruptly redirected dy Jironal's attention; the chancellor paled, whirled away, and made for the Zangre gates. He did not, Cazaril noted, stay to inquire after Umegat. Clearly, dy Jironal knew what the menagerie did; did he understand how?

Do you?

Cazaril shook his head and turned the other way, for yet another weary march down into town.

Cardegoss's Temple Hospital of the Mother's Mercy was a rambling old converted mansion, bequeathed to the order by a pious widow, on the street beyond the Mother's house from the Temple Square. Cazaril tracked Palli and Umegat through its maze to a second-floor gallery above an inner courtyard. He spotted the chamber readily by the reunited dy Gura brothers standing guard outside its closed door. They saluted and pa.s.sed him through.

He entered to find Umegat laid out unconscious upon a bed. A white-haired woman in a Temple physician's green robes bent over him st.i.tching up the lacerated flap of his scalp. She was a.s.sisted by a familiar, dumpy middle-aged woman whose viridescent tinge owed nothing to her green dress. Cazaril could still see her faint effulgence with his eyes closed. The archdivine of Cardegoss himself, in his five-colored vestment, hovered anxiously. Palli leaned against a wall with his arms crossed; his face lightened, and he pushed to his feet when he saw Cazaril.

"How goes it?" Cazaril asked Palli in a low voice.

"Poor fellow's still out cold," Palli murmured back. "I think he must have taken a mighty whack. And you?"

Cazaril repeated the tale of Orico's sudden collapse. Archdivine Mendenal stepped closer to listen, and the physician glanced over her shoulder. "Had they told you of this turn, Archdivine?" Cazaril added.

"Oh, aye. I will follow Orico's physicians to the Zangre as soon as I may."

If the white-haired physician wondered why an injured groom should claim more of the archdivine's attention than the stricken roya, she gave no more sign than a slight lifting of her eyebrows. She finished her last neat st.i.tch and dipped a cloth in a basin to wash the crusting gore from the shaved scalp around the wound. She dried her hands, checked the rolled-back eyes under Umegat's lids, and straightened. The Mother's midwife gathered up Umegat's cut-away left braid and the rest of the medical mess, and made all tidy.

Archdivine Mendenal clutched his fingers together, and asked the physician, "Well?"

"Well, his skull is not broken, that I can feel. I shall leave the wound uncovered to better mark bleeding or swelling. I can tell nothing more until he wakes. There's naught to do now but keep him warm and watch him till he stirs."

"When will that be?"

The physician stared down dubiously at her patient. Cazaril did, too. The fastidious Umegat would have hated his present crumpled, half-shorn, desperately limp appearance. Umegat's flesh was still that deathly gray, making his golden Roknari skin look like a dirty rag. His breath rasped. Not good. Not good. Cazaril had seen men who looked like that go on to recover; he'd also seen them sink and die. Cazaril had seen men who looked like that go on to recover; he'd also seen them sink and die.

"I cannot say," the physician replied at last, echoing Cazaril's own mental diagnosis.

"Leave us, then. The acolyte will watch him for now."

"Yes, Your Reverence." The physician bowed, and instructed the midwife, "Send for me at once if he either wakes, or takes a fever, or starts to convulse." She gathered up her instruments.

"Lord dy Palliar, I thank you for your aid," the archdivine said. He added, "Lord Cazaril, please stay."

Palli said merely, "You're entirely welcome, Your Reverence," then after a heartbeat, as the hint penetrated, "Oh. Ah. If you're all right, Caz...?"

"For now."

"Then I should perhaps return to the Daughter's house. If you need anything, at any time, send for me there, or at Yarrin Palace, and I'll 'tend upon you at once. You should not go about alone." He gave Cazaril a stern look, to be sure this was understood as command and not parting pleasantry. He, too, then bowed, and, opening the door for the physician, followed in her wake.

As the door closed, Mendenal turned to Cazaril, his hands outstretched in pleading. "Lord Cazaril, what should we do?"

Cazaril recoiled. "Five G.o.ds, you're you're asking asking me me?"

The man's lips twisted ruefully. "Lord Cazaril, I've only been the archdivine of Cardegoss for two years. I was chosen because I was a good administrator, I fancy, and to please my family, because my brother and my father before him were powerful provincars. I was dedicated to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's Order at age fourteen, with a good dower from my father to a.s.sure my care and advancement. I have served the G.o.ds faithfully all my life, but...they do not speak to me." He stared at Cazaril, and glanced aside to the Mother's midwife, with an odd hopeless envy in his eyes, devoid of hostility. "When a pious ordinary man finds himself in a room with three working saints-if he has any wits left-he seeks instruction, he does not feign to instruct."

"I am not..." Cazaril bit back the denial. He had more urgent concerns than arguing over the theological definition of his current condition, though if this was sainthood, the G.o.ds must am not..." Cazaril bit back the denial. He had more urgent concerns than arguing over the theological definition of his current condition, though if this was sainthood, the G.o.ds must exceed exceed themselves for d.a.m.nation. "Honorable Acolyte-I'm sorry, I have forgotten your name?" themselves for d.a.m.nation. "Honorable Acolyte-I'm sorry, I have forgotten your name?"

"I am Clara, Lord Cazaril."

Cazaril gave her a little bow. "Acolyte Clara. Do you see-do you not not see-Umegat's glow? I've never seen him when-is it supposed to go out when a man is asleep or unconscious?" see-Umegat's glow? I've never seen him when-is it supposed to go out when a man is asleep or unconscious?"

She shook her head. "The G.o.ds are with us waking and sleeping, Lord Cazaril. I'm sure I don't have the strength of sight you do, but indeed, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d has withdrawn his presence from Learned Umegat."

"Oh, no," breathed Mendenal.

"Are you sure?" said Cazaril. "It could not be a defect in my-in your second sight?"

She glanced at him, wincing a little. "No. For I can see you plainly enough. I could see you before you came in the door. It is almost painful to be in the same room with you."

"Does this mean the miracle of the menagerie is broken?" asked Mendenal anxiously, gesturing at the unconscious groom. "We have no dike now against the tide of this black curse?"

She hesitated. "Umegat no longer hosts the miracle. I do not know if the b.a.s.t.a.r.d has transferred it to another's will."

Mendenal wheeled to stare hopefully at Cazaril. "His, perhaps?"

She frowned at Cazaril, absently holding her hand to her brow as if to shade her eyes. "If I am a saint, as Learned Umegat has named me, I am only a small domestic one. If Umegat's tutelage had not sharpened my perceptions over the years, I should merely have thought myself unusually lucky in my profession."

Luck, Cazaril couldn't help reflecting, had not been his his most salient experience since he'd stumbled into the G.o.ds' maze. most salient experience since he'd stumbled into the G.o.ds' maze.

"And yet the Mother only reaches through me from time to time, then pa.s.ses on. Lord Cazaril...blazes. From the day I first saw him at Lord Dondo's funeral. The white light of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and the blue clarity of the Lady of Spring, both at once, the constant living presence of two G.o.ds, all mixed with some other dark thing I cannot make out. Umegat could see more clearly. If the b.a.s.t.a.r.d has added more to the roil already there, I cannot tell."

The archdivine touched brow, lips, navel, groin, and heart, fingers spread wide, and stared hungrily at Cazaril. "Two G.o.ds, two G.o.ds at once, and in this room!"

Cazaril bent forward, hands clenching, hideously reminded by the pressure of his belt of the terrifying distention beneath it. "Did Umegat not make known to you what I did to Lord Dondo? Did you not talk to Rojeras?"

"Yes, yes, and I spoke to Rojeras too, good man, but of course he could not understand-"

"He understood better than you seem to. I bear death and murder in my gut. An abomination, for all I know taking physical and not just psychic form, engendered by a demon and Dondo dy Jironal's accursed ghost. Which screams at me nightly, by the way, in Dondo's voice, with all his vilest vocabulary, and Dondo had a mouth like the Cardegoss main sewer. With no way out but to tear me open. It is not holy, it is disgusting disgusting!"

Mendenal stepped back, blinking.

Cazaril clutched his head. "I have terrible dreams. And pains in my belly. And rages. And I'm afraid Dondo is leaking."

"Oh, dear," said Mendenal faintly. "I had no idea, Lord Cazaril. Umegat said only that you were skittish, and it was best to leave you in his hands."

"Skittish," Cazaril repeated hollowly. "And oh, did I mention the ghosts?" It was surely a measure of...something, that they seemed the least of his worries.