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"We should withdraw and let you rest," said Iselle, frowning in renewed worry. "Is there anything you desire, Cazaril? Anything at all?"
About to reply No, nothing, he said instead, "Oh. Yes. I want music."
"Music?"
"Perhaps some very quiet music," Betriz ventured. "To lull him to sleep."
Bergon smiled. "If it please you, then, see to it, Lady Betriz." The mob withdrew, tiptoeing loudly. The physician returned. He let Cazaril drink tea, in trade for making more blood-tinted piss for him to examine suspiciously by candlelight and growl at in an unsettling fashion.
At length, Betriz came back with a nervous-looking young lutenist who appeared to have been wakened out of a sound sleep for this command performance. But he worked his fingers, tuned up, and played seven short pieces. None of them was the right one; none evoked the Lady and Her soul-flowers, till he played an eighth, an interlaced counterpoint of surpassing sweetness. That one had a faint echo of heaven in it. Cazaril had him play it through twice more, and cried a little, upon which Betriz insisted that he was too tired and must sleep now, and bore the young man off again.
And Cazaril still hadn't had a chance to tell her about her nose. When he tried to explain this miracle to the physician, the man responded by giving him a large spoonful of syrup of poppies, after which they ceased to alarm each other for the rest of the night.
IN THREE DAYS' TIME HIS WOUNDS STOPPED LEAKING scented fluid, closing cleanly, and the physician permitted Cazaril thin gruel for breakfast. This revived him enough to insist on being allowed out to sit in the spring sun of the courtyard. The expedition seemed to require an inordinate number of servants and helpers, but at last he was guided carefully down the stairs and into a chair lined with wool-padded and feather-stuffed cushions, with his feet propped up on another cushioned chair. He shooed away his helpers and gave himself over to a most delicious idleness. The fountain burbled soothingly. The trees in the tubs unfurled more fragrant flowers. A pair of little orange-and-black birds stitched the air, bringing dry grass and twigs to build a nest tucked up in the carvings on one of the gallery's supporting posts. An ambitious litter of paper and pens lay forgotten on the small table at Cazaril's elbow as he watched them flit back and forth.
Dy Baocia's palace was very quiet, with its royal guests and its lord and lady all gone to Cardegoss. Cazaril therefore smiled with lazy delight when the wrought-iron gate under the end archway swung aside to admit Palli. The march had been assigned by his new royina the dull task of keeping watch over her convalescent secretary while everyone else went off to the grand events in the capital, which seemed to Cazaril rather an unfair reward for Palli's valiant service. Palli had attended upon him so faithfully, Cazaril felt quite guilty for wishing Iselle might have spared Lady Betriz instead.
Palli, gri
"No such thing," said Cazaril. "I was going to attempt some poetry after the ma
Palli's mouth quirked in bemusement. "Is this poetry or fever, Caz?"
"Oh, it is a great infection of poetry, a contagion of hymns. The gods delight in poets, you know. Songs and poetry, being of the same stuff as souls, can cross into their world almost unimpeded. Stone carvers, now... even the gods are in awe of stone carvers." He squinted in the sun and gri
"Nevertheless," murmured Palli dryly, "one feels that your quatrain yesterday morning to Lady Betriz's nose was a tactical mistake."
"I was not making fun of her!" Cazaril protested indignantly. "Was she still angry at me when she left?"
"No, no, she wasn't angry! She was persuaded it was fever, and was very worried withal. If I were you, I'd claim it for fever."
"I could not write a poem to all of her just yet. I tried. Too overwhelming."
"Well, if you must scribble paeans to her body parts, pick lips. Lips are more romantic than noses."
"Why?" asked Cazaril. "Isn't every part of her an amazement?"
"Yes, but we kiss lips. We don't kiss noses. Normally. Men write poems to the objects of our desire in order to lure them closer."
"How practical. In that case, you'd think men would write more poems to ladies' private parts."
"The ladies would hit us. Lips are a safe compromise, being as it were a stand-in or stepping-stone to the greater mysteries."
"Hah. Anyway, I desire all of her. Nose and lips and feet and all the parts between, and her soul, without which her mere body would be all still and cold and claylike, and start to rot, and be not an object of desire at all."
"Agh!" Palli ran his hand through his hair. "My friend, you do not understand romance."
"I promise you, I do not understand anything anymore. I am gloriously bewildered." He lay back in his cushions and laughed softly.
Palli snorted, and bent forward to pick up the paper from the top of the pile, the only one so far with writing on it. He glanced down it, and his brows rose. "What's this? This isn't about ladies' noses." His face sobered; his gaze traveled back to the top of the page, and down once more. "In fact, I'm not just sure what it's about. Although it makes the hairs stand up on the backs of my arms..."
"Oh, that. It's nothing, I fear. I was trying—but it wasn't"—Cazaril's hands waved helplessly, and came back to touch his brow—"it wasn't what I saw." He added in explanation, "I thought in poetry the words might bear more freight, exist on both sides of the wall between the worlds, as people do. So far I'm just creating waste paper, fit only for lighting a fire."
"Hm," said Palli. Unobtrusively, he folded up the paper and tucked it inside his vest-cloak.
"I'll try again," sighed Cazaril. "Maybe I can get it right someday. I must write some hymns to matter, too. Birds. Stones. That would please the Lady, I think."
Palli blinked. "To lure Her closer?"
"Might."
"Dangerous stuff, this poetry. I think I'll stick to action, myself."
Cazaril gri
Whispers and muffled giggles sounded from the end of the gallery. Cazaril looked up to see some servant women and boys crouched behind the carved railings, peeking through at him. Palli followed his glance. One girl popped up boldly and waved at them. Amiably, Cazaril waved back. The giggles rose to a crescendo, and the women scurried off. Palli scratched his ear and regarded Cazaril with wry inquiry.
Cazaril explained, "People have been sneaking in all morning to see the spot where poor dy Jironal was struck down. If he's not careful, Lord dy Baocia will lose his nice new courtyard to a shrine."
Palli cleared his throat. "Actually, Caz, they're sneaking in to peek at you. A couple of dy Baocia's servants are charging admission to conduct the curious in and out of the palace. I was of two minds whether to quash the enterprise, but if they're bothering you, I will..." He shifted, as if to rise.