A/N: Cazaril ponders what to do next after the bathhouse incident at the beginning of The Curse of Chalion.
Cazaril was still reeling.
The fear on the boy's face and the bathhouse keeper's sputtering brought back all the shame from the galleys that he had tried to suppress. He should have been more careful, should have remembered.
As he stumbled through the town, he was reminded of the three rules that a man, especially a soldier, had to follow.
"Guard your honor," his commander had told him.
He supposed he'd done a fair job of that. He'd been loyal and brave. It hadn't gotten him anywhere, but that wasn't the point. He could have done any number of things differently and he might be rich and powerful. But he'd done the noble, or stupid, thing, depending on your point of view.
The second rule was even more important: "Let your reputation fall where it will."
He was a doing a pretty good job of that so far. He chuckled bitterly; it was a dry, racking sound that came out more as a cough. He had a moment of doubt about returning to Valenda. He had no idea what people would think of him. Would they think he was dead, or a deserter? He already had one man believing he was some sort of sexual deviant; he didn't need anyone to think worse of him than that.
The final admonition was perhaps the most difficult: "And outlive the bastards."
He had managed to survive thus far, but he imagined that his enemies were far better off than he. They certainly did not have to face bouts of weeping, one of which he could feel stealing upon him. Wonderful, I can add madness to perversion and desertion. He tried to quell such despairing thoughts. The worst that could happen was that his old mistress would turn him away. He would be no worse off than he was now.
The only thing to do was to go to the washerwoman's place, gather his clothes, and head off to see what awaited him at the Provincara's.