"Surely they are the gods' dark gifts, and we cannot in piety resist them?"

"We resist gangrene, by amputation, sometimes. We resist the infection of the jaw, by drawing out the bad tooth. We resist fevers, by applications of heat and cold, and good care. For every cure, there must have been a first time." Rojeras fell silent. After a moment he said, "It is clear that the Royesse Iselle holds you in much affection and esteem."

Cazaril, not knowing quite how to respond to this, replied, "I have served her since last spring, in Valenda. I had formerly served in her grandmother's household."

"She is not given to hysterics, is she? Highborn women are sometimes..." Rojeras gave a little shrug, in place of saying something rude.

"No," Cazaril had to admit. "None of her household are. Quite the reverse." He added, "But surely you don't have to tell the ladies, and distress them, so... so soon?"

"Of course I do," said the physician, although in a gentled tone. He rose to his feet. "How can the royesse choose good actions without good knowledge?"

An all too cogent point. Cazaril chewed on it in embarrassment as he followed the dedicat back upstairs.

Betriz leaned out onto the corridor at the sound of their approaching steps. "Is he going to be all right?" she demanded of Rojeras.

Rojeras held up a hand. "A moment, my lady."

They made their way into the royesse's sitting chamber, where Iselle waited bolt upright on the carved chair, her hands tight in her lap. She accepted Rojeras's bow with a nod. Cazaril didn't want to watch, but he did want to know what was said, and so sank into the chair Betriz anxiously dragged up for him, and to which Iselle pointed. Rojeras remained standing in the presence of the royesse.

"My lady," Rojeras said to Iselle, bowing again as if in apology for his bluntness, "your secretary is afflicted with a tumor in his gut."

Iselle stared at him in shock. Betriz's face drained of all expression. Iselle swallowed, and said, "He's not... not dying, surely?" She glanced fearfully at Cazaril.

Rojeras, losing his grip on his stated principles of forthrightness in the face of this, retreated briefly into courtly dissimulation. "Death comes to all men, variously. It is beyond my skills to say how long Lord Cazaril may yet live." His glance aside caught Cazaril's hard, pleading stare, and he added faithfully, "There is no reason he may not continue in his secretarial duties as long as he feels well enough. You should not permit him to overtax himself, however. By your leave, I should like to return each week to reexamine him."

"Of course," said Iselle faintly.

After a few more words on the subject of Cazaril's diet and duties, Rojeras made a courteous departure.

Betriz, tears blurring her velvety brown eyes, choked, "I didn't think it was going to be—had you guessed this when—Cazaril, I don't want you to die!"

Cazaril replied ruefully, "Well, I don't want me to die either, so that makes two of us."

"Three," said Iselle. "Cazaril—what can we do for you?"

Cazaril, about to reply, nothing, seized this opportunity instead to rap out firmly, "This above all—kindly do not discuss this with every castle gossiper. It is my earnest desire that this stay private information for—for as long as may be." For one thing, the news that Cazaril was dying might give dy Jironal some fresh ideas about his brother's death. The chancellor had to return to Cardegoss soon, possibly frustrated enough to start rethinking his missing corpse problem.

Iselle accepted this with a slow nod, and Cazaril was permitted to return to his antechamber, where he failed to concentrate upon his account books. After the third time Lady Betriz tiptoed out to inquire if he wanted anything, once at the royesse's instigation and twice on her own, Cazaril counterattacked by declaring it was time for some long-neglected grammar lessons. If they weren't going to leave him alone, he might as well make use of their company. His two pupils were very subdued, ladylike, and submissive this afternoon. Even though this meek studious virtue was something he'd long wished for, he found himself hoping it wouldn't last.

Still, they brushed through the lessons pretty well, even the long drill on court Roknari grammatical modes. His prickly demeanor did not invite consolation. The ladies, bless their steadfast wits, did not attempt to inflict any on him. By the end the two young women were treating him almost normally again, as he plainly desired, though around Betriz's grave mouth no dimples solaced him.

Iselle rose to shake out her knots by pacing about the chamber; she stopped to stare out the window at the chill winter mist that filled the ravine below the Zangre's walls. She rubbed absently at her sleeve, and remarked querulously, "Lavender is not my color. It's like wearing a bruise. There is too much death in Cardegoss. I wish we'd never come here."

Considering it impolitic to agree, Cazaril merely bowed, and withdrew to make himself ready to go down to dinner.

THE FIRST FLAKES OF WINTER SNOW POWDERED THE streets and walls of Cardegoss that week, but melted off in the afternoons. Palli kept Cazaril informed of the arrival of his fellow lord dedicats, filtering in to the capital one by one, and in turn decanted Zangre gossip from his friend. Mutual aid and trust, Cazaril reflected, but also a dual breach of the walls that each of them, in theory, helped to man. Yet if it ever came down to choosing sides between the Temple and the Zangre, Chalion would already have lost.

Dy Jironal, Royse Teidez in tow, returned as if blown in by the cold southeast wind that also dumped an unwelcome gift of sleet on the town in passing. To Cazaril's relief, the chancellor was empty-handed, balked of quarry in his quest for justice and revenge. No telling from dy Jironal's set face if he had despaired of his hunt, or had just been drawn back by spies, riding hard and fast, to tell him of the forces gathering in Cardegoss that were not of his own summoning.

Teidez dragged back to his quarters in the castle looking tired, sullen, and unhappy. Cazaril was not surprised. Chasing down every death for three provinces around that had occurred during the night of Dondo's taking-off had surely been gruesome enough even without the vile weather.

During his bedazzlement by Dondo's practiced sycophancy, Teidez had neglected his elder sister's company. When he came to visit Iselle's chambers that afternoon, he both accepted and returned a sisterly embrace, seeming more eager to talk to her than he had for a long time. Cazaril withdrew discreetly to his antechamber and sat with his account books open, fiddling with his drying quill. Since Orico had for a betrothal gift assigned the rents of six towns to the support of his sister's household, and not taken them back when funeral had replaced wedding, Cazaril's accounts and correspondence had grown more complex.

He listened meditatively through the open door to the rise and fall of the young voices. Teidez detailed his trip to his sister's eager ears: the muddy roads and floundering horses, the tense and cranky men, indifferent food and chilly quarters. Iselle, in a voice that betrayed more envy than sympathy, pointed out how good a practice it was for his future winter campaigns. The cause of the journey was scarcely touched upon between them, Teidez still baffled and offended by his sister's rejection of his late hero, and Iselle apparently unwilling to burden him with knowledge of the more grotesque causes of her antipathy.

Besides being shocked by the sudden and dreadful nature of Lord Dondo's murder, Teidez must be one of the few who'd known the man who genuinely mourned him. And why not? Dondo had flattered and cajoled and made much of Teidez. He'd showered the boy with gifts and treats, some toxically inappropriate for his age, and how was Teidez to grasp that grown men's vices were not the same as grown men's honors?