Cazaril sat by the table in a cushioned chair, wonderfully unlike a saddle even if the room did still seem to be rocking around him. He was beginning to dislike horses almost as much as he disliked boats. His head felt stuffed with wool, and his body didn't bear thinking about. He broke into the exchange of courtly amenities to croak, "What word have you from Valenda? Do you hold any new messages from the Royesse Iselle?" Ferda pressed a glass of watered wine into his hand, and he gulped half of it at once.

The dedicat-commander gave him a little understanding headshake, his lips tightening. "Chancellor dy Jironal marched a thousand more of his men into the town last week. He has another thousand bivouacked along the river. They patrol the countryside, looking for you. Searchers have stopped here twice. He holds Valenda tight in his grip."

"Didn't Provincar dy Baocia have any men there?"

"Yes, two companies, but they were badly outnumbered. No one would start the fight at Royse Teidez's interment, and after that they dared not."

"Have you heard from March dy Palliar?"

"He used to bring the letters. We've had no direct word from the royesse for five days. It's rumored that she is very ill and sees no one."

Bergon's eyes widened in alarm. Cazaril squinted and rubbed his aching head. "Ill? Iselle? Well... maybe. Or else held close-confined by dy Jironal, and the illness a tale put about." Had one of Cazaril's letters fallen into the wrong hands? He had feared they might have to either spirit the royesse out of Valenda, or break her free by force of arms, preferably the former. He hadn't planned what to do if she had fallen, perhaps, too sick to ride at this critical moment.

His muzzy brain evolved a mad vision of somehow sneaking Bergon in to her, over the rooftops and balconies like a lover in a poem. No. A night of secret love between them might break the curse, channel it back somehow to the gods who had spilled it, but he couldn't see how it would miraculously make away with two thousand or so very fleshly soldiers.

"Does Orico still live?" he asked at last.

"As far as we've heard."

"We can do nothing more tonight." He wouldn't trust any plan that came out of his tired brain tonight. "Tomorrow, Foix and Ferda and I will go into Valenda on foot, in disguise, and reconnoiter. I promise you I can pass for a road vagabond. If we can't see our way clear, then fall back to Provincar dy Baocia's people in Taryoon, and plan again."

"Can you walk, my lord?" asked Foix in a dubious voice.

Right now, he wasn't sure if he could stand up. He glowered helplessly at Foix, who was tired but resilient, pink rather than gray after days in the saddle. Youth. Eh. "By tomorrow, I will." He rubbed his face. "Do dy Jironal's men realize they are not guardians but prison-keepers? That they are being led into possible treason against the rightful Heiress?"

The dedicat-commander sat back, and opened his hands. "Such charges are being flung about like snowballs from both parties right now. Rumors that the royesse has sent agents into Ibra to contract a marriage with the new Heir are flying everywhere." He gave Royse Bergon an apologetic nod.

So much for the secrecy of his mission. He considered the pitfalls of potential party lines in Chalion. Iselle and Orico versus dy Jironal, all right. Iselle versus Orico and Dy Jironal... hideously dangerous.

"The news has had a mixed reception," the commander continued. "The ladies look on Bergon with approval and want to make a romance of it all, because it's said that he is brave and well-favored. Soberer heads worry that Iselle may sell Chalion to the Fox, because she is, ah, young and inexperienced."

In other words, foolish and flighty. Sober heads had much to learn. Cazaril's lips drew back on a dry grin. "No," he mumbled. "We have not done that." He realized that he was speaking to his knees, his forehead having unaccountably sunk to the table and anchored there.

After about a minute Bergon's voice murmured gently in his ear, "Caz? Are you awake?"

"Mm."

"Would you like to go to bed, my lord?" the dedicat-commander inquired after another pause.

"Mm."

He whimpered a little as strong hands under each arm forced him to his feet. Ferda and Foix, leading him off somewhere, cruelly. The table had been soft enough... He didn't even remember falling into the bed.

SOMEONE WAS SHAKING HIS SHOULDER.

A hideously cheerful voice bellowed in his ear, "Rise and ride, Captain Sunshine!"

He spasmed and clawed at his covers, tried to sit up, and thought better of the effort. He pulled open his glued-shut eyelids, blinking in the candlelight. The identity of the voice finally penetrated. "Palli! You're alive!" He meant to shout joyfully. At least it came out audibly. "What time is it?" He struggled again to sit up, making it onto one elbow. He seemed to be in some evicted officer-dedicat's plainly furnished bedchamber.

"About an hour before dawn. We've been riding all night. Iselle sent me to find you." He raised his brace of candles higher. Bergon was standing anxiously at his shoulder, and Foix too. "Bastard's demons, Caz, you look like death on a trencher."

"That... has been observed." He lay back down. Palli was here. Palli was here, and all was well. He could shove Bergon and all his burdens off onto him, lie here, and not get up. Die alone and in peace, taking Dondo out of the world with him. "Take Royse Bergon and his company to Iselle. Leave me—"

"What, for dy Jironal's patrols to find? Not if I value my future fortune as a courtier! Iselle wants you safe with her in Taryoon."

"Taryoon? Not Valenda?" He blinked. "Safe?" This time he did struggle up, and all the way to his feet, where he passed out.

The black fog lifted, and he found Bergon, round-eyed, holding him slumped on the edge of the bed.

"Sit a minute with your head down," Palli advised.

Cazaril obediently bent over his aching belly. If Dondo had visited him last night, he'd not been home. The ghost had kicked him a few times in his sleep, though, it felt like. From the inside out.

Bergon said softly, "He ate nothing when we came in last night. He collapsed straightaway, and we put him to bed."

"Right," said Palli, and jerked his thumb at the hovering Foix, who nodded and slipped out of the room.

"Taryoon?" Cazaril mumbled from the vicinity of his knees.

"Aye. She gave all two thousand of dy Jironal's men the slip, she did. Well, first of all, before that, her uncle dy Baocia pulled his men out and went home. The fools let him go; thought it was a danger removed from their midst. Yes, and made free to move at will! Then Iselle rode out five days running, always with a troop of dy Jironal's cavalry for escort, and gave them more exercise than they cared for. Had 'em absolutely convinced she meant to escape while riding. So when she and Lady Betriz went walking out one day with old Lady dy Hueltar, they let her go by. I was waiting with two saddled horses, and two women to change cloaks with 'em and go back with the old lady. We were gone down that ravine so fast... The old Provincara undertook to conceal she'd flown for as long as possible, pass it off that she was ill in her mother's chambers. They've doubtless tumbled to it by now, but I'll wager she was safe with her uncle in Taryoon before Valenda knew she was gone. Five gods, those girls can ride! Sixty miles cross-country between dusk and dawn under a full moon, and only one change of horses."

"Girls?" said Cazaril. "Is Lady Betriz safe, too?"

"Oh, aye. Both of 'em chipper as songbirds, when I left 'em. Made me feel old."

Cazaril squinted up at Palli, five years his junior, but let this pass. "Ser dy Ferrej... the Provincara, Lady Ista?"

Palli's face sobered. "Still hostages in Valenda. They all told the girls to go on, you know."