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left alone. Until the
Ibran-speaking officer, flanked by two of his seniors, approached them in the
level light of sunset. He had some papers in his hand, and an intent,
disturbed expression on his face. He stopped before Ista, sitting on a log
with her back to a tree. She kept silence, making him speak first.
"Greetings, Sera."
He gave the title an odd emphasis in his mouth. Without another word, he
handed her the papers.
It was a letter, half-finished, rumpled from a sojourn in a saddlebag. The
handwriting was Foix's, strong and square. Ista's heart sank even before she
read the salutation. It was addressed to Chancellor dy
Cazaril, in Cardegoss. After a respectful and unmistakable listing of the
great courtier's offices and ranks, it began:
"My Dearest Lord:
"I continue my report as I may. We have left Casilchas behind and come at
length to Vinyasca:
there is to be a festival here tomorrow. I was glad to be shut of Casilchas.
Learned dy Cabon has no notion of proper secrecy or even discretion. By the
time he was done blundering about, half the town knew full well that Sera dy
Alejo was the dowager royina, and came to court her, which I
think did not please her much.
"Upon further observation, I am coming to agree with you; Royina Ista is not
mad in any usual sense, though there are times when she makes me feel very
strange and foolish, as though she sees or senses or knows things I do not.
She still spends long periods in silence, somewhere far off in her sad
thoughts. I do not know why I ever thought women chattered. It would be some
relief if she would talk more. As for whether her pilgrimage is the result of
some god-driven impulse, as you feared after your long prayers in Cardegoss, I
still cannot tell. But then, I rode beside towering miracles with you for
weeks and never knew, so that shows nothing.
"The Daughter's festival should be a welcome diversion from my worries. I will
continue this tomorrow."
The next day's date followed, and the neat writing recommenced.
"The festival went well"
there followed two paragraphs of droll description.
"Dy Cabon has gone off to get very drunk. He says it is to blot out bad
dreams, though I think it is more likely to induce them. Ferda is not best
pleased with him, but the divine has had closer to do with Royina Ista than
any of us, so perhaps he needs it. At first I thought him a fat nervous idiot,
as I wrote you before, but now I begin to wonder if the idiot may not be me.
"I will write more on this head at our next stop, which is to be some dire
hamlet in the hills where some saint came from. I'd be from there, too, if I
had the choice. I should be able to dispatch this letter securely from the
Daughter's house in Maradi, if we turn that way. I will try to suggest it. I
do not think we should venture any farther north, and I have run out of things
to read."
The letter broke off there, with half a page left to fill. Foix had evidently
been too shaken to add a report on the bear before the Jokonans had overtaken
them next day.
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Ista looked up. One Jokonan, dark-haired and younger, was watching her with a
delighted, avaricious smile. The older, shorter one, who wore a green baldric
more heavily encrusted with gold and who she thought was the expedition's
commander, or at any rate surviving senior officer, frowned more thoughtfully.
She read wider strategic considerations in his eyes, far more disturbing than
mere greed. The
Ibran-speaking officer looked apprehensive.
She made one more effort to clutch her torn incognito to her, futile as it
seemed. She held out the paper in an indifferent hand. "What is this to me?"
Her translator took it back. "Indeed Royina." He favored her with a bow in the
Roknari court style, right hand sweeping down before him, thumb tucked in the
palm: one part irony, one part wariness.
The commander said in Roknari, "So, this is Royina Iselle's infamous mad
mother, truly?" It seems so, my lord. "The largesse of the gods has fallen
upon us," said the dark-haired one in a voice that vibrated with excitement.
He made the Quadrene four-point sign of blessing, touching forehead, navel,
groin, and heart, his thumb carefully folded inward. "In one lucky blow, all
of our pains are repaid and our fortunes are made. I thought they kept her
locked up in a castle. How is it they were so careless as to let her out to
wander about on the roads like this?" said the commander. "Her guard could not
have anticipated us here. We did not anticipate us here," the dark-haired one
said.
The commander frowned at the letter, though it was plain he could not read
more than one word in three of it without the help of his officer. "This spy
of their chancellor babbles too carelessly of the gods. It is impious."
And it worries you. Good, Ista thought. It was hard to think of Foix as a spy.
Although her estimate of his subtlety and wits rose another notch, for he'd
not let fall the least hint of his mandate to report upon her. It made perfect
sense in retrospect, of course. If he had been writing to anyone in the world
but Lord dy Cazaril, it would have offended Ista deeply, but all of Chalion
was in the chancellor's charge and her own debt to the man was as boundless as
the sea.
The commander cleared his throat, and continued to Ista in heavily accented
Ibran, "You think you are god-touched, mad queen?"
Ista, sitting very still, allowed her lips to curve up just a trifle,
enigmatic. "If you were god-touched, you would not have to ask. You would know
the answer."
He jerked back, eyes narrowing. "Blasphemous Quintarian."
She gave him her best impassive stare. "Inquire of your god. I promise you
shall meet Him soon. His mark is on your brow, and His arms are open to
receive you."
The dark-haired one made a noise of inquiry; the Ibran-speaking officer
translated her cool remark, an arrow shot at random from Ista's point of view.
Although it hardly needed communion with the gods to make that prophecy, given
the Jokonan raiders' precarious situation. The commander's lips thinned still
more, but he made no further attempt to cross words with her. He at least
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