“Oh,” said Ista in surprise. “I believe I met him, years ago, at court in Cardegoss.” Our Fat Cabon, as he was jovially dubbed by the roya; but he’d died as bravely as any thinner gentleman of the roya’s service at the disastrous battle of Dalus. She added after a moment, “You have the look of him.”
The divine ducked his head in apparent pleasure. “I am not sorry for it.”
Some impulse of mischief prompted Ista to ask, because it was certain no one else present would, “And are you also a son of Lady dy Cabon?”
The divine’s eye glinted in response over a forkful of roast. “Alas, no. But my father took some joy in me nonetheless, and settled a dower upon me at the Temple when I came of the age for schooling. For which I—eventually—came to thank him very much. My calling did not come upon me as a lightning bolt, to be sure, but slowly, as a tree grows.” Dy Cabon’s round face and divine’s robes made him look older than he was, Ista decided. He could not be above thirty, perhaps much less.
For the first time in a long while, the conversation turned not on various people’s illnesses, aches, pains, and digestive failures, but widened to the whole of Chalion-Ibra. The dy Gura brothers had considerable witness to report of last year’s successful campaign by the Marshal dy Palliar to retake the mountain fortress of Gotorget, commanding the border of the hostile Roknari princedoms to the north, and young Royse-Consort Bergon’s seasoning attendance there upon the field of battle.
Ferda said, “Foix here took a bad knock from a Roknari war hammer during the final assault on the fortress, and was much abed this winter—a mess of broken ribs, with inflammation of the lungs to follow. Chancellor dy Cazaril took him up as a clerk while his bones finished knitting. Our cousin dy Palliar thought a little light riding would help him regain his condition.”
A faint blush colored Foix’s broad face, and he ducked his head. Liss’s gaze at him sharpened a trifle, though whether imagining him with sword or with pen in hand Ista could not tell.
Lady dy Hueltar did not fail to register her usual criticism of Royina Iselle for riding to the north to be near her husband and these stirring events, even though—or perhaps that was, because—she had been brought safely to bed of a girl thereafter.
“I do not think,” said Ista dryly, “that Iselle staying slugabed in Cardegoss would have resulted in a boy, however.”
Lady dy Hueltar mumbled something; Ista was reminded of her own mother’s sharp critique when she had borne Iselle to Ias, those long years ago. As if anything she might have done would have made it come out any differently. As if, when it had come out differently in her second confinement, it was any better . . . her brow wrinkled in old pain. She looked up to intersect dy Cabon’s sharp glance.
The divine swiftly turned the subject to lighter matters. Dy Ferrej had the pleasure of trotting out an old tale or two for a new audience, which Ista could not begrudge him. Dy Cabon told a warm joke, albeit milder than many Ista had heard over the roya’s table; the courier girl laughed aloud, caught a frown from Lady dy Hueltar, and held a hand over her mouth.
“Please don’t stop,” said Ista to her. “No one has laughed like that in this household for weeks. Months.” Years.
What might her pilgrimage be like if, instead of dragging a lot of tired guardians out on a road that suited their old bones so ill, she could travel with people who laughed? Young people, not brought low by old sin and loss? People who bounced? People to whom, dare she think it, she was an elder to be respected and not a failed child to be corrected? At your command, Royina, not, Now, Lady Ista, you know you can’t . . .
She said abruptly, “Learned dy Cabon, I thank the Temple for taking thought for me, and I shall be pleased to have your spiritual guidance upon my journey.”
“You honor me, Royina.” Dy Cabon, sitting, bowed as deeply as he could over his belly. “When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow,” said Ista.
A chorus of objection rose around the table: lists of persons and support not assembled, ladies-in-waiting, their maids, their grooms, of clothing, gear, of transport animals, of dy Baocia’s small army not yet arrived.