Free Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold Page A

holiday at the gods' expense. My purse shall more than compensate the Temple."
    "That does not concern me." Dy Cabon waved away these pecuniary considerations. "Lady. I have read. I have talked to my superiors. I have taken thought. I have—well, never mind that now." He drew a breath. "Are you aware, Royina—do you realize—I have found reason to think, you see, that you may be extraordinarily spiritually gifted." His gaze upon her face was deeply searching.
    Found reason where? What garbled, secret tales had the man heard? Ista sat back; did not, quite, recoil. "I am afraid that is not so."
    "I believe you underestimate yourself. Seriously underestimate yourself. This sort of thing is, I admit, rare in a woman of your rank, but I have come to realize you are a very unusual woman. But I believe that, with prayer, guidance, meditation, and instruction, you might reach a pitch of spiritual sensitivity, of fulfilled calling, that, well, that most of us who wear our god's colors only dream about and long for. These are not gifts to be lightly cast aside."
    Not
lightly, indeed. With great violence.
How in five gods' names had he come by this sudden delusion? Dy Cabon's eager face, she realized, was afire with the look of a man seized by a grand idea. Was he picturing himself as her proud spiritual mentor? He would not be turned from his conviction that he was called to aid her to some life of holy service by any vague excuses on her part. He would not be stopped by anything less than the whole truth. Her stomach sank. No.
    Yes.
It was not, after all, as though she had not made full confession before, to another god-gripped man. Perhaps these things grew easier with practice.
    "You are mistaken. Understand, Learned. I have walked down that road already, to its bitterest end. Once, I was a saint."
    It was his turn to recoil, in astonishment. He gulped.
"You
were a vessel of the gods?" His face bunched up with consternation. "That explains . . . something. No, it doesn't." He grasped his hair, briefly, but let it go unravaged. "Royina, I do
not
understand. How came you to be god-touched? When was this miracle?"
    "Long, long ago." She sighed. "Formerly, this story was a state secret. A state crime. I suppose it is no longer. Whether it will in time become rumor or legend or dead and buried, I know not. In any case, it is not to be shared, not even with your superiors. Or, if you seem to have cause to do so, take your instruction first from the Chancellor dy Cazaril. He knows all the truth of it."
    "They say he is very wise," said dy Cabon, wide-eyed now.
    "For once, they say right." She paused, marshaling her thoughts, her memories, her words. "How old were you when Roya Ias's great courtier, Lord Arvol dy Lutez, was executed for treason?"
    Dy Lutez. Ias's boyhood companion, brother in arms, greatest servant throughout his darkly troubled thirty-five-year reign. Powerful, intelligent, brave, rich, handsome, courteous . . . there seemed no end to the gifts that the gods—and the roya—had piled upon the glorious Lord dy Lutez. Ista had been eighteen when she'd married Ias. Ias and his right arm dy Lutez had reached their fifties. Dy Lutez had arranged the marriage, the aging roya's second, for already there were worries about Ias's sole surviving son and heir, Orico.
    "Why, I was a young child." He hesitated, cleared his throat. "Though I heard it talked about, later in my life. The rumor was ..." He stopped abruptly.
    "The rumor you heard was that dy Lutez had seduced me and died for it at my royal husband's hands, yes?" she supplied coolly.
    "Urn, yes, lady. Was it—it wasn't—"
    "No. It was not true."
    He breathed covert relief.
    Her lips twisted. "It was not me he loved in that way, but Ias. Dy Lutez should have been a lay dedicat of
your
order, I think, instead of holy general of the Son's."
    In addition to bastards, the occasional artist, and other jetsam of the world, the Bastard's Order was the refuge of those to whom it