Her frown vanished, as a servant entered and said, "The divine is here, my lady."

"Oh, good. Show her in at once."

The servant opened his mouth as if to speak, but then bowed and retreated.

The door swung wide again. A puffing figure of totally unexpected familiarity entered, and stopped, stranded upon a wall of stares. It was the fat young divine of the Bastard that Ista had met upon the road those two weeks or so ago. His white robes were only somewhat cleaner now, being free of loose detritus, but mottled with permanent faint stains about the hem and front.

His beginning smile grew uncertain. "Good evening, gentle ladies and my lords. I was told to attend here upon a certain Lady dy Hueltar. Something about a divine being wanted for a pilgrimage... ?"

Lady dy Hueltar recovered her voice. "I am she. But I had understood the temple was sending the Mother's physician, Divine Tovia. Who are you?"

That had almost come out Who are you? Ista felt, but for Lady dy Hueltar's grip on good address.

"Oh..." He bobbed a bow. "Learned Chivar dy Cabon, at your service."

He claimed a name of some rank, at least. He eyed Ista and Ser dy Ferrej; the recognition, Ista thought, ran two ways, as did the surprise.

"Where is Learned Tovia?" asked Lady dy Hueltar blankly.

"I believe she has ridden out upon a medical call of some special difficulty, at some distance from Valenda." His smile grew less certain still.

"Welcome. Learned dy Cabon," said Ista pointedly.

Dy Ferrej woke to his duties. "Indeed. I'm the castle warder, dy Ferrej; this is the Dowager Royina Ista ..."

Dy Cabon's eyes narrowed, and he stared sharply at Ista. "Are you, now ..." he breathed.

Dy Ferrej, ignoring or not hearing this, introduced the dy Gura brothers and the other ladies in order of rank, and lastly, and a bit reluctantly, "Liss, a chancellery courier."

Dy Cabon bowed to all with indiscriminate good cheer.

"This is all wrong—there must be some mistake, Learned dy Cabon," Lady dy Hueltar went on, with a beseeching sideways glance at Ista. "It is the dowager royina herself who proposes to undertake a pilgrimage this season, in petition of the gods for a grandson. You are not—this is not—we do not know—is a divine of the Bastard's Order, and a man at that, quite the most appropriate, um, person, um ..." She trailed off in mute appeal for someone, anyone, to extract her from this quagmire.

Somewhere inside, Ista was beginning to smile.

She said smoothly, "Mistake or no, I feel certain that our dinner is ready to be served. Will you please grace our table this evening with your scholarship, Learned, and lead us in the meal's invocation to the gods?"

He brightened vastly. "I should be most honored, Royina."

Smiling and blinking, he seated himself in the chair Ista indicated and looked hopeful as the servant passed among them with the basin of lavender-scented water for washing hands. He blessed the impending meal in unexceptionable terms and a good voice; whatever he was, he was no country rustic. He tucked into the courses presented with an enthusiasm that would have warmed the Provincara's cook's heart, could he have witnessed it, discouraged as he was by his long thrall to -elderly, indifferent appetites. Foix kept pace with him with no apparent effort.

"Are you of those Cabons related to the present Holy General dy Yarrin of the Daughter's Order?" Lady dy Hueltar inquired politely.

"I believe I am some sort of third or fourth cousin to him, lady," the divine replied after swallowing his bite. "My father was Ser Odlin dy Cabon."

Both dy Gura brothers stirred with interest.

"Oh," said Ista in surprise. "I believe I met him, years ago, at court in Cardegoss." Our Fat Cabon, as he was jovially dubbed by the roya; but he'd died as bravely as any thinner gentleman of the roya's service at the disastrous battle of Dalus. She added after a moment, "You have the look of him."

The divine ducked his head in apparent pleasure. "I am not sorry for it."

Some impulse of mischief prompted Ista to ask, because it was certain no one else present would, "And are you also a son of Lady dy Cabon?"

The divine's eye glinted in response over a forkful of roast. "Alas, no. But my father took some joy in me nonetheless, and settled a dower upon me at the Temple when I came of the age for schooling. For which I—eventually—came to thank him very much. My calling did not come upon me as a lightning bolt, to be sure, but slowly, as a tree grows." Dy Cabon's round face and divine's robes made him look older than he was, Ista decided. He could not be above thirty, perhaps much less.

For the first time in a long while, the conversation turned not on various people's illnesses, aches, pains, and digestive failures, but widened to the whole of Chalion-Ibra. The dy Gura brothers had considerable witness to report of last year's successful campaign by the Marshal dy Palliar to retake the mountain fortress of Gotorget, commanding the border of the hostile Roknari princedoms to the north,

and young Royse-Consort Bergon's seasoning attendance there upon the field of battle.

Ferda said, "Foix here took a bad knock from a Roknari war hammer during the final assault on the fortress, and was much abed this winter—a mess of broken ribs, with inflammation of the lungs to follow. Chancellor dy Cazaril took him up as a clerk while his bones finished knitting. Our cousin dy Palliar thought a little light riding would help him regain his condition."

A faint blush colored Foix's broad face, and he ducked his head. Liss's gaze at him sharpened a trifle, though whether imagining him with sword or with pen in hand Ista could not tell.

Lady dy Hueltar did not fail to register her usual criticism of Royina Iselle for riding to the north to be near her husband and these stirring events, even though—or perhaps that was, because—she had been brought safely to bed of a girl thereafter.

"I do not think," said Ista dryly, "that Iselle staying slugabed in Cardegoss would have resulted in a boy, however."

Lady dy Hueltar mumbled something; Ista was reminded of her own mother's sharp critique when she had borne Iselle to Ias, those long years ago. As if anything she might have done would have made it come out any differently. As if, when it had come out differently in her second confinement, it was any better ... her brow wrinkled in old pain. She looked up to intersect dy Cabon's sharp glance.

The divine swiftly turned the subject to lighter matters. Dy Ferrej had the pleasure of trotting out an old tale or two for a new audience, which Ista could not begrudge him. Dy Cabon told a warm joke, albeit milder than many Ista had heard over the roya's table; the courier girl laughed aloud, caught a frown from Lady dy Hueltar, and held a hand over her mouth.

"Please don't stop," said Ista to her. "No one has laughed like that in this household for weeks. Months." Years.

What might her pilgrimage be like if, instead of dragging a lot of tired guardians out on a road that suited their old bones so ill, she could travel with people who laughed Young people, not brought low by old sin and loss? People who bounced People to whom, dare she think it, she was an elder to be respected and not a failed child to be corrected? At your command, Royina, not, Now, Lady Ista, you know you can't...

She said abruptly, "Learned dy Cabon, I thank the Temple for taking thought for me, and I shall be pleased to have your spiritual guidance upon my journey."

"You honor me, Royina." Dy Cabon, sitting, bowed as deeply as he could over his belly. "When do we leave?"

"Tomorrow," said Ista.

A chorus of objection rose around the table: lists of persons and support not assembled, ladies-in-waiting, their maids, their grooms, of clothing, gear, of transport animals, of dy Baocia's small army not yet arrived.