"But must you ride alone, Cazaril?" asked Betriz unhappily. "I don't like that."

Iselle pursed her lips. "As far as Valenda, I think he must. There is scarcely anyone in Cardegoss I would trust to dispatch with him." She studied Cazaril in doubt. "In Valenda, perhaps my grandmother may supply men. In truth, you should not arrive at the Fox's court alone and unattended. I don't want us to appear desperate to him." She added a trifle bitterly, "Although we are."

Betriz plucked at her black velvets. "But what if you fall ill on the road? Suppose your tumor grows worse? And who would know to burn your body if you die?"

Palli's head swiveled round. "Tumor? Cazaril! What is this, now?"

"Cazaril, didn't you tell him? I thought he was your friend!" Betriz turned to Palli. "He means to jump on a horse and ride—ride!—off to Ibra with a great uncanny murderous tumor in his gut, and no help on the road. I don't think that's brave, I think it's stupid. To Ibra he must go, for want of any other equal to the deed, but not alone like this!"

Palli sat back, his thumb across his lips, and studied Cazaril through narrowing eyes. He said at last, "I thought you looked sick."

"Yes, well, there's nothing to be done about it."

"Um... just how bad... I mean, um, are you..."

"Am I dying? Yes. How soon? No one knows. Which makes my life different from yours, as Learned Umegat points out, not at all. Well, who wants to die in bed?"

"You did, you always said. Of extreme old age, in bed, with somebody's wife."

"Mine, by preference," Cazaril sighed. "Ah, well." He managed not to look at Betriz. "My death is the gods' problem. For me, I ride as soon as a horse can be saddled." He grunted to his feet, and collected the book and the packet.

Palli glanced at Betriz, who clenched her hands together and stared beseechingly at him. He muttered an oath under his breath, stood, and strode abruptly to the door to the antechamber, which he jerked open. Foix dy Gura, his ear to the other side, staggered upright, and blinked and smiled at his commander. His brother Ferda, leaning on the opposite wall, snorted.

"Hello, boys," said Palli smoothly. "I have a little task for you."

CAZARIL, PALLI AT HIS HEELS, STRODE OUT THE ZANGRE gates dressed for winter riding, the saddlebag slung over his shoulder heavy with a change of clothes, a small fortune, theology, and arguable treason.

He found the dy Gura brothers already in the stable yard before him. Sped back to Yarrin Palace by Palli's urgent orders, they had also changed out of their blue-and-white court dress into garb more practical for riding, with tall and well-worn boots.

Betriz was with them, wrapped in a white wool cloak. They had their heads close together, and Betriz was gesticulating emphatically. Foix glanced up to see Cazaril approaching; his broad face set in a sober and rather intimidated expression. He made a motion, and said something; Betriz glanced over her shoulder, and the conversation abruptly ceased. The brothers turned around and made small bows to Cazaril. Betriz stared at him steadily, as if his face were some lesson he'd set her to memorize.

"Ferda!" said Palli. The horse-master came to attention before him. Palli withdrew two letters from his vest-cloak, one sealed, one merely folded. "This"—he handed the folded paper to Ferda—"is a letter of authorization from me, as a lord dedicat of the Daughter's Order, entitling you to whatever assistance you may need to draft from our sister chapters on your journey. Any costs to be settled up with me at Palliar. This other"—he handed across the sealed letter—"is for you to open in Valenda."

Ferda nodded, and tucked them both away. The second letter of hand put the dy Gura brothers under Cazaril's command in the name of the Daughter, with no other details. Their trip to Ibra was going to make an interesting surprise for them.

Palli walked about them, inspecting with a commander's eye. "You have enough warm clothes? Armed for bandits?" They displayed polished swords and readied crossbows—bowstrings protected from dampness, with a sufficiency of quarrels—gear all in good condition. Only a few flakes of snow now spun through the moist air to land on wool and leather and hair, there to melt to small droplets. The dawn snowfall had proved a mere dusting, here in town. In the hills it would likely be heavier.

From beneath her cloak, Betriz produced a fluffy white object. Cazaril blinked it into focus as a fur hat in the style of Chalion's hardy southern mountaineers, with flaps meant to be folded down over the ears with the fur inward and tied under the chin. While both men and women wore similar styles, this one was clearly meant for a lady, in white rabbit skin with flowers brocaded in gold thread over the crown. "Cazaril, I thought you might need this in the high passes."

Foix raised his brows and grinned, and Ferda snickered behind his hand. "Fetching," he said.

Betriz reddened. "It was the only thing I could find in the time I had," she said defensively. "Better than having your ears freeze!"

"Indeed," said Cazaril gravely. "I do not have so good a hat. I shall be very grateful." Ignoring the grinning youths, he took it from her and knelt to pack it carefully in his saddlebag. It wasn't just a gesture to gratify Betriz, though he smiled inwardly at her sniff in Ferda's direction; when the brothers met the winter wind in the border mountains, those grins would vanish soon enough.

Iselle appeared through the gates, in a velvet cloak so dark a purple as to be almost black, attended by a shivering Chancellery clerk who handed over a numbered courier's baton in exchange for Cazaril's signature in his ledger. He clapped the ledger shut and scurried back over the drawbridge and out of the cold.

"You were able to get dy Jironal's order?" Cazaril inquired, tucking the baton into a secure inner pocket of his coat. The baton would command its bearer fresh horses, food, and clean, if hard and narrow, beds in any Chancellery posting house on the main roads across Chalion.

"Not dy Jironal's. Orico's. Orico is still roya in Chalion, though even the Chancellery clerk had to be reminded of the fact." Iselle snorted softly. "The gods go with you, Cazaril."

"Alas, yes," he sighed, then realized that had been not an observation, but a farewell. He bowed his head to kiss her chilled hands. Betriz eyed him sideways. He hesitated, then cleared his throat and took her hands as well. Her fingers spasmed around his at the touch of his lips, and her breath drew in, but her eyes stared away over his head. He straightened to see the dy Gura brothers shrinking under her glower.

A Zangre groom led out three saddled courier horses. Palli clasped hands with his cousins. Ferda took the reins of what proved to be Cazaril's horse, a rangy roan that matched his height. The muscular Foix hastened to give him a leg up, and as he settled in the saddle with a faint grunt inquired anxiously, "Are you all right, sir?"

They hadn't even started yet; what had Betriz been telling them? "Yes, it's all fine," Cazaril assured him. "Thank you." Ferda presented him with his reins, and Foix assisted him in tying on his precious saddlebags. Ferda leapt lightly aboard his horse, his brother climbed more heavily onto his, and they started out of the stable yard. Cazaril turned in his saddle to watch Iselle and Betriz making their way back across the drawbridge and through the Zangre's great gate. Betriz looked back, and raised her hand high; Cazaril returned the salute. Then the horses rounded the first corner, and the buildings of Cardegoss hid the gate from his view. A single crow followed them, swooping from gutter to cornice.

On the first street, they met Chancellor dy Jironal riding slowly up from Jironal Palace, flanked by two armed retainers on foot. He'd obviously been home to wash and eat and change his clothes, and attend to his more urgent correspondence. Judging from his gray face and bloodshot eyes, he'd had no more sleep than Iselle the night past.

Dy Jironal reined in, and gave Cazaril an odd little salute. "Where away, Lord Cazaril"—his eye took in the light courier saddles, stamped with the castle-and-leopard of Chalion—"upon my Chancellery's horses?"

Cazaril returned a half bow from his saddle. "Valenda, my lord. The Royesse Iselle decided she did not want some stranger bearing the bad news to her mother and grandmother, and has dispatched me as her courier."

"Mad Ista, eh?" Dy Jironal's lips screwed up. "I do not envy you that task."

"Indeed." Cazaril let his voice go hopeful. "Order me back to Iselle's side, and I shall obey you at once."

"No, no." Dy Jironal's lip curled just slightly in satisfaction. "I can think of no man more fitted for this sad duty. Ride on. Oh—when do you mean to return?"

"I'm not yet sure. Iselle desired me to be sure her mother was going to be all right before I returned. I do not expect Ista to take the news well."

"Truly. Well, we'll watch for you."

I wager you will. He and dy Jironal exchanged guarded nods, and the two parties rode on in their opposite directions. Cazaril glanced back to catch dy Jironal glancing back, just before he turned the corner toward the Zangre's gates. Dy Jironal would know no ambush could now catch Cazaril's start on the courier horses. The return was another opportunity. Except that I won't be coming back on this road.

Or at all? He'd turned over in his mind all the disasters that might follow failure; what would be his fate if he succeeded? What did the gods do with used saints? He'd never to his knowledge met one, save perhaps, now, Umegat... a thought that was not, upon consideration, very reassuring.

They reached the city gate and crossed over the bridge to the river road. Fonsa's crow did not follow farther, but perched upon the gate's high crenellations and vented a few sad caws, which echoed as they descended into the ravine. The Zangre's cliff wall, naked of verdure in the winter, rose high and stark across the dark, rapid water of the river. Cazaril wondered if Betriz would watch from one of the castle's high windows as they passed along the road. He wouldn't be able to see her up there, so high and shadowed.

His bleak thoughts were scattered by the thud and splash of hooves. An inbound courier flashed past them, galloping horse lathered and blowing. He—no, she—waved at them in passing. Female couriers were much favored by some of the Chancellery's horse-masters, at least on the safer routes, for they claimed their light weight and light hands spared the animals. Foix waved back, and turned in his saddle to watch her flying black braids. Cazaril didn't think he was just admiring her horsemanship.

Ferda nudged his mount up next to Cazaril's. "May we gallop now, my lord?" he asked hopefully. "Daylight is dear, and these beasts are fresh."

But five gods, I'm not. Cazaril took a breath of grim anticipation. "Yes."

He clapped his booted heels to the roan's side, and the animal bounded into a long-strided canter. The road opened before them across the snow-streaked dun landscape, winding into gray mists heavy with the faint sweet rot of winter vegetation. Vanishing into uncertainty.

They came to Valenda at dusk on the following day. The town bulked black against a pewter sky, its deepening shadows relieved here and there by the orange flare of some torch or candle, faint sparks of light and life. They'd had no remounts on the branch road to Valenda, courier stations being reserved for the route to the Baocian provincial seat of Taryoon, so the last leg had been a long one for the horses. Cazaril was content to let the tired beasts walk, heads down on a long rein, the remaining stretch through the city and up the hill. He wished he could stop here, stop, and sink down by the side of the road, and not move for days. In minutes, it would be his task to tell a mother that her son was dead. Of all the trials he expected to face on this journey, this was the worst.

Too soon, they reached the Provincara's castle gates. The guards recognized him at once and ran shouting for the servants; the groom Demi held his horse, and was the first to ask, Why are you here, my lord? The first, but not the last.

"I bear messages to the Provincara and the Lady Ista," Cazaril replied shortly, bent over his pommel. Foix popped up at his horse's shoulder, staring up expectantly; Cazaril heaved his off leg up over the horse's haunches, kicked free of the other stirrup, and dropped to his feet. His knees buckled, and he would have fallen then, but for the strong hand that caught his elbow. They'd made good time. He wondered dizzily how dearly he would pay for it. He stood a moment, trembling, till his balance returned to him. "Is Ser dy Ferrej here?"

"He has escorted the Provincara to a wedding feast in town," Demi told him. "I don't know when they mean to return."

"Oh," said Cazaril. He was almost too tired to think. He'd been so exhausted last night, he'd fallen asleep in the posting-house bunk within minutes of being steered to it by his helpers, and slept even through Dondo. Wait for the Provincara? He'd meant to report to her first, and let her determine how to tell her daughter. No. This is unbearable. Get it over with. "In that case, I will see the Lady Ista first."

He added, "The horses need to be rubbed down and watered and fed. These are Ferda and Foix dy Gura, men of good family in Palliar. Please see that they are given... everything. We've not eaten." Nor washed, but that was obvious; everyone's sweat-soaked woolens were splashed with winter road mud, hands grimed, faces streaked with dirt. They were all three blinking and weary in the torchlight of the courtyard. Cazaril's fingers, stiff from clutching his reins in the cold since dawn, plucked at the ties of his saddlebags. Foix took that task from him, too, and pulled the bags off the horse. Cazaril rather determinedly took them back from him, folded them over his arm, and turned. "Take me to Ista now, please," he said faintly. "I have letters for her from the Royesse Iselle."

A house servant led him within, and up the stairs in the new building. The man had to wait for Cazaril to climb slowly after him. His legs felt like lead. Murmurs rose and fell between the man and the royina's attendants, as he negotiated Cazaril's entry to her chambers. The air within was perfumed with bowls of dried flower petals and aglow with candlelight and warmth from the corner fireplace. Cazaril felt huge and awkward and filthy in this dainty sitting room.

Ista sat on a cushioned bench, dressed in warm wraps, her dun hair bound in a thick rope down her back. Like Sara, the inky shadow of the curse hung about her. So. I was right in that guess.