The women followed the groom to the end of the gallery. He opened the door, backed up, bowed again. Ista hesitated, then followed Liss inside.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE ROOM WAS LIGHTER THAN SHE'D SEEN IT IN HER VISION, the shutters on the far wall open now to the blue sky beyond. The effect was airy and gracious. The chamber didn't smell like a sickroom, no bunches of heavy-scented herbs hanging from the rafters failing to mask an underlying tang of feces, vomit, sweat, or despair. Just cool air, wood wax, and a faint, not unpleasing aroma of masculine occupation. Not unpleasing at all.

Ista forced her gaze to the bed, and stood rooted.

The bed was made. He rested atop the counterpane not like a man in a sickbed, but like a man who had lain down for but a moment in the middle of a busy day. Or like a corpse laid out in best garb for his funeral. Long and lean, exactly as in her dreams, but dressed very differently: not patient or sleeper, but courtier. A tan tunic embroidered with twining leaves was fastened up to his neck. Matching trousers were tucked into polished boots buckled up to his calves. A maroon vest-cloak spread beneath and beside him, and a sheathed sword lay upon the neatly arranged folds, its inlaid hilt beneath his slack left hand. A seal ring gleamed on one finger.

His hair was not merely combed back from his high forehead, but braided in neat cords up from each temple and over his crown. The dark, frosted length of it ended in a queue brought back over his right shoulder to rest upon his chest, the tail of it, beyond the maroon tie,

brushed out straight. He was shaved, and that recently. A scent of lavender water tickled Ista's nostrils.

She became aware that Goram was watching her with a painful intensity, his hands flexing as they gripped each other.

All this silent beauty must be his work. What must the man on the bed have been to receive such devotion from this lackey now, when he had so plainly lost all power to punish or reward?

"Five gods," gasped Liss. "He's dead."

Goram sniffed. "No, he's not. He don't rot."

"But he's not breathing!"

"Does too. You can tell with the mirror, see." He sidled around the bed and picked up a tiny hand mirror from a nearby chest. With a glower at the girl from under his bristling eyebrows, he held it beneath Lord Illvin's nostrils. "See?"

Liss bent nearer across the unmoving form and cast a wary glance downward. "That's your thumbprint."

"Is not!"

"Well. .. maybe ..." Liss straightened and backed away with a jerky gesture, as if inviting Ista to take her vacated place by the bedside and judge for herself.

Ista drew nearer under Goram's anxious eye, trying to find something to say to the grizzled fellow. "You care for him well. A tragedy, that Ser dy Arbanos should have been hewn down like this."

"Aye," he said. He swallowed and added, "So ... go on, lady."

"I beg your pardon?"

"So... kiss him."

For just a moment, she pressed her teeth so hard together that her jaw twinged. But there was no suppressed merriment in Goram's seamed, strained face, no hint of japery. "I don't follow you."

He chewed on his lip. "It was a princess put him here. I thought maybe you could wake him. Being a royina and all." He added after a doubtful moment, "Dowager royina."

He was deathly serious, she saw to her dismay. She said as gently as she could, "Goram, that's a children's story. We are not children here, alas."

A slight choking noise made her glance aside. Liss's face was screwed up, but she forbore to laugh, five gods be thanked.

"You could try. It wouldn't hurt to try." He was rocking again in his unease, forward and back.

"I fear it would do no good, either."

"No harm," he repeated doggedly. "Got to try something."

He must have spent several hours in the meticulous preparation of the scene, of his master, for her view. What desperate hope could drive him to such bizarre lengths?

Maybe he has dreams, too. The thought clotted her breath.

The memory of the Bastard's second kiss heated her face. What if it had been not unholy jest, but another gift—one meant to be passed along? Might it be granted to her to perform a miracle of healing, as agreeably as this? So are the saints seduced by their gods. Her heart thumped in concealed excitement. A life for a life, and by the grace of the Bastard, my sin is lifted.

In a kind of fascination, she bent forward. The closely shaved skin of Illvin's jaw was stretched too thinly over the fine bones. His lips were neutral in color, a little parted upon pale, square teeth.

Neither warm nor cold, as her lips pressed upon them...

She breathed into that mouth. She remembered that the tongue was the organ held sacred to the Bastard, as womb for the Mother, male organs for the Father, heart for the Brother, and brain for the Daughter. Because the tongue was the source of all lies, the Quadrene heretics falsely charged. She dared secretly to trace those teeth, touch the cool tip of his tongue with hers, as the god had invaded her mouth in her dream. Her fingers spread, hovering over his heart, not quite venturing to touch, to feel for a bandage wrapped around his chest beneath that decorated tunic. His chest did not rise. His dark eyes, and she knew their color by heart already, did not open in wonder. He lay inert.

She swallowed a wail of disappointment, concealed chagrin, straightened. Found her voice, lost somewhere. "As you see. It does no good." Foolish hope and foolish failure.

"Eh," said Goram. His eyes were narrowed, sharp upon her. He, too, looked disappointed, but by no means crushed. "Must be something else."

Let me out of here. This is too painful.

Liss, standing watching this play, cast Ista a look of mute apology. A lecture on a handmaiden's duties in screening the importunate, the simple, and the strange from her lady's presence seemed in order, later.

"But you are the one he was going on about," repeated Goram in an insistent tone. Recovering his audacity, it seemed. Or perhaps the futility of her kiss had reduced his awe of her. She was, after all, merely a dowager royina, obviously insufficiently potent to breathe the near dead to life. "Not tall, hair curled all wild down your back, gray eyes, face all still—grave, he said you were grave." He looked her up and down and gave a short nod, as if satisfied with her graveness. "The very one."

"Who said—who described me so to you?" demanded Ista, exasperated.

Goram jerked his head toward the bed. "Him."

"When?" Ista's voice came out sharper than she'd intended; Liss jumped.

Goram's hands opened. "When he wakes up."

"Does he wake up? I thought—Lady Cattilara gave me to understand—he had never come out of his swoon after he was stabbed."

"Eh, Lady Catti," said Goram, and sniffed. Ista wasn't certain if he was making a comment or just clearing his nose. "But he don't stay awake, see. He comes up most every day for a while, around noon. We mainly try to get as much food into him as we can, while he can swallow without choking. He don't get enough. He's wasting away, you can see it. Lady Catti, she came up with a smart idea to put goat's milk down his throat with a little leather tube, and you can see that it helps, but not enough. He's too thin now. Every day, his grip is less strong."

"Is he coherent, when he wakes?"

Goram shrugged. "Eh."

Not an encouraging answer. But if he waked at all, why not now, for her kiss, or at any other time? Why just at the time that his brother slept his motionless sleep... her mind shied from the thought.

Goram added, "He does go on, sometimes. Some would say he just raves."