The Hallowed Hunt

CHAPTER TWELVE

INGREY DIDN'T HAVE TO POUND ON THE DOOR TO WAKE THE house, for the porter, though wearing a nightshirt and with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, came at his first quiet knock. The firm way the man locked up again behind Ingrey did convey a strong hint that this should be the last expedition of the night. He readied a candle in a glass holder to assist Ingrey's way up the stairs.

Ingrey took it with muttered thanks and scuffed up the steps. Light glimmered above on his landing, which proved to be from both a lamp burning low on a table and another candlestick sitting on the steps up to the next floor. Beside it, Lady Ijada crouched, wrapped in a robe of some dark material. She raised her head from her knees as Ingrey swung out of the constricted staircase with a slight clatter of his sword sheath against the wood.

Ingrey blinked around into the shadows, startled. The last time any woman had waited up in concern for him was…beyond the reach of his memory. There was no sign of her warden, nor of his servant Tesko. “Should I not be?”

“Gesca came, three hours ago or more, and said you'd never come to Lord Hetwar's!”

“Oh. Yes. I was diverted.”

“I was imagining the most bizarre things befalling you.”

“Did they include a six-hundred-pound ice bear and a pirate poet?”

“No…”

“Then they weren't the most bizarre after all.”

Her brows drew down; she rose and stepped off the stairs, recoiling as his no-doubt vaporous breath reached her flaring nostrils. She waved a hand to disperse the reek and made a face. “Are you drunk?”

“By my standards, yes. Although I can still walk and talk and dread tomorrow morning. I spent the evening trapped with twenty-five mad southern islanders and the ice bear on their boat. They did feed me. Have you seen Tesko?”

She nodded toward his closed door. “He came with your things. I think he fell asleep awaiting you.”

“Unsurprising.”

“What of my letter? I worried it had gone astray.” Oh. It was her letter she'd feared for, why she had waited up in the dark. “Safely delivered.” Ingrey considered this. “Delivered, anyway. How safe a man Learned Lewko is, I would hesitate to guess. He dresses like a Temple clerk, but he's not one.”

“I…doubt he's a bribable man. It does not follow that he will be on your side.” Ingrey hesitated. “He is god-touched.”

She cocked her head. “You look a little god-touched yourself, just now.”

Ingrey jerked. “How can you tell?”

Her pale fingers extended, in the flickering shadows, as if to feel his face. “I once saw one of my father's men dragged by his horse. He was not badly hurt, but he rose very shaken. Your face is more set, and not covered with blood and dirt, but your eyes look like his did. A bit wild.”

He almost leaned into her hand, but it fell back too soon. “I've had a very strange night. Something happened at the temple. Lewko is coming to see you tomorrow, by the way. And me. I think I'm in trouble.”

“Come, then, and tell me.” She drew him down to sit beside her on the steps, her eyes wide and dark with renewed disquiet.

Ingrey stumbled through a description of his encounter with the bear and its god in the temple court, which twice made her gasp and once made her giggle. He was a little taken aback at the giggle. She listened with fascination to his description of Jokol, his boat, and his verse. “I thought,” said Ingrey, “what happened with Fafa was the white god's doing, in His wrath at the dishonest grooms. But just now, coming back here with Gesca, it happened again. The weirding voice. I did not know if it was my wolf, or me. Five gods, I am no longer sure where I leave off and it begins! It has never spoken like this before. It has never spoken at all.” Ijada said thoughtfully, “The fen folk claimed that wisdom songs were magical, once. Long ago.”

Ijada sat up and caught her breath. “Oh! What did the letter say?”

“I did not read it, but I gather it described the events at Red Dike in some detail. So, at least from the time he came back in to join us at the table, Wencel knew of the geas, and he knew that I concealed it from him. Did you sense a change in his conversation, then?”

Ijada frowned. “If anything, he seemed more forthcoming. In hope of coaxing a like frankness?”

Ingrey shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Ingrey…”

“Hm?”

“What do you know of banner-carriers?”

“Scarcely more than I know of shamans. I have read some Darthacan accounts of battles with the Old Wealdings. The Darthacans did not love our bannermen. The spirit warriors, and indeed, all the kin warriors, fought fiercely to defend their standards. If the banner-carrier refused to retreat, then the warriors would fight to the last around him-or her, I suppose, if Wencel speaks true. Audar's soldiers always tried to bring the banners down as quickly as possible, for that reason. It was said one of the banner-carrier's tasks was to cut the throats of our own who were too wounded to carry away. It was considered an honorable ending. The wounded warrior, if he still could speak, was expected to bless the bannerman and thank the blade.”

Ijada shivered. “I did not know that part.” Her expression grew inward for a moment, on what thoughts Ingrey could scarcely guess. Her dream at the Wounded Woods? But warriors already dead could scarcely require such a gruesome service from their bannerwoman.

“Mm, and there's another meeting I'm not looking forward to. I don't think Wencel is going to be best pleased with me over this spectacle tonight. Farcical as it was, I drew the Temple's attention in the most serious way. I am afraid of Lewko.”

“Why? If he is a friend and mentor of Hallana's, he cannot be dishonorable.”

“Oh, I'm sure he would be a good friend. And an implacable enemy. It is merely worrisome to imagine him on the other side.” Or was this just habit? He remembered the earnest divines at Birchgrove, torturing him back to silent sanity. It had left pain as an unreliable guide to Ingrey of the line between his friends and his enemies.

Ijada said impatiently, “What side do you imagine you are on?”

Ingrey's thoughts came to a full stop. “I don't know. Every wall seems to curve away from me. I spin in circles.” He glanced up, finding her eyes, close to his, turned amber in the shadows. The pupils were wide in the dimness, as if to drink him in. He might fall into them as deep wells, and drink deep in turn. She possessed physical beauty, yes, and beneath that the edgy thrilling wildness of her leopard spirit. But beyond that…something more. He wanted to reach through her to that something, something terribly important…“You are my side. And you are not alone.”

“Then,” she breathed, “neither are you.”

Oh. Neither time nor his heart stopped, surely, and yet he floated for the space of a breath as though he'd stepped from some great height, but not begun to fall. Weightless. “Sweet logician.”

Closing the handbreadth between their lips was the work of a second. Her eyes flared open.

A wave of lust ran in the track of that first shock, firing his loins, kindling an awareness of just how long it had been since he'd held a woman like this…. No, he'd never held a woman like this. The kiss grew abruptly passionate, and not chaste at all. He explored her mouth in desperate haste, and the white hands wrapping him fairly wrenched him toward her, crushing the softness of her body against his. Their breath synchronized; their heartbeats began hammering in time.

And then they were reaching through each other…

A magical kiss was suddenly not a romantic turn of phrase. It was not, in fact, romantic at all. It was terrifying beyond breath. She choked, he gasped, they drew apart, though their hands still gripped; not lustful now, but more like two people drowning.

Her eyes, wide before, were huge, the pupils stretched black with only a narrow ring of gold iris shimmering around them. “What are you…?” she began, as he panted, “What have you done?”

One hand released him to clutch at her heart, beneath the dark robe. “What was that?”

“I don't know. I've never…felt…”

A creak of floorboards, a clank, a scrape; Ingrey sprang back as his chamber door opened. Ijada folded her arms together like a woman freezing, and spat an unexpected short word under her breath. He had just time to cock a wry eyebrow at her, and she to grimace back at him, before he twisted to see Tesko poke his yawning face through the door into the dim hallway. “M'lord?” he inquired. “I heard voices…” He blinked in mild surprise at the pair sitting on the steps.

For a brief, self-indulgent moment, Ingrey pictured himself drawing his steel and beheading his servant. Alas, the hall was too narrow for such a swing to be executed properly. He gave over the vision with a long sigh and levered himself to his feet.

Tesko, perhaps sensing Ingrey's displeasure at the ill-timed interruption, bowed him warily into his chamber. The clubfooted youth had been issued half-trained to Ingrey when he had first taken up his place as Hetwar's more-than-courier. Used to caring for his own needs, Ingrey had treated the menial with an indifference that had overcome Tesko's initial terror of his violent reputation a little too completely. The day he had caught Tesko pilfering his sparse property, however, he had replaced repute with a vivid demonstration. After that Hetwar's other servants did more to whip their junior into shape than Ingrey ever had, for if Tesko were dismissed, he would have to be replaced with one of them.

Ingrey let Tesko remove his boots, gave curt orders for the predawn, and fell into bed. But not to sleep.

He was too spun up to sleep, too drunk to think straight, too exhausted to sit up. His blood seemed to hiss through his veins, growl in his ears. He was intensely conscious of every faint creak from overhead. Did Ijada's breathing still rise and fall in time with his? He was still aroused, and more than half-afraid to do anything about it, because if she felt his every heartbeat and movement the way he seemed to feel hers…

They had surely been falling toward that moment of meeting for days. He felt coupled to her now as though they were two hunting dogs, leashed to each other for their training. So who is the huntsman? What is the quarry? The heavy click of that binding reverberated in his bones: chains thinner than gossamer, stronger than iron, less readily parted.

HE MUST HAVE SLEPT EVENTUALLY, FOR TESKO NEARLY HAD TO pull him from the covers and onto the floor to wake him again. Tesko's jerky motions betrayed a fear balanced between the dangers of dealing with an Ingrey half-awake and the dangers of disobeying; Ingrey swallowed the glue from his mouth and assured his servant that disobeying would have been worse. Sitting up proved painful but not impossible.

He let Tesko help wash, shave, and dress him, in the interest of protecting his new bandage; Ingrey frowned to see it nearly soaked through again with browning blood, but there was not time to change it now. The filthy covering on his left wrist he at last abandoned, as that wound was now better than half-healed, all black scabs and new pink scars and greening bruises. The sleeves of his town garb-gray and dark gray-covered it well enough. With sword, knife, and clean boots, he was made presentable, if one ignored the bloodshot eyes and pale face.

He rejected bread with loathing, gulped tea, and took the stairs down with a faint clatter. He glanced up through two opaque floors. Ijada still sleeps. Good.

The chill, moist air outside was tinged with just enough light for Ingrey to make his way through the streets. He arrived at the opposite end of Kingstown with his head, though still aching, a little clearer for the walk.

Color was leaking back into the world with the dawn. The stolid cut stone of the wide front of Hetwar's palace took on a buttery hue. The night porter recognized Ingrey at once through the hatch in the heavy carved front doors, and swung one leaf just wide enough to admit him into the hushed, rich dimness. Ingrey turned down the offer of a page to announce him and made his way up the stairs toward the sealmaster's study. A few servants moved quietly about, drawing back curtains, stirring fires, carrying water.

“Is the prince here?” Ingrey murmured to him.

“Aye.”

“When did you arrive?”

“We reached the Kingstown gate about two hours ago. The prince left his baggage train in the mire near Newtemple. We rode all night.” Symark hitched his shoulders, dislodging a few small lumps of drying mud from his coat.

“Is that you, Ingrey?” Hetwar's voice called from within. “Enter.”

Symark raised a brow at him; Ingrey slipped inside. Hetwar, seated at his desk, motioned him to close the door behind him.

Ingrey made his bow to the prince-marshal, seated with his booted legs stretched out before him in a chair opposite Hetwar, then to the sealmaster. Both men returned acknowledging nods, and Ingrey stood with his hands clasped behind his back to await his next cue.

Biast looked as mud-flecked and road-weary as his bannerman. Prince Biast was a little shorter than his younger brother Boleso, and not quite as broadly built, but still shared the Stagthorne athleticism, brown hair, and long jaw, resolutely shaved. His eyes were a touch shrewder, and if he shared Boleso's sensuality and temper, they were rather better controlled. Biast had become heir presumptive only three years ago, on the untimely death through illness of the eldest Stagthorne brother, Byza. Prior to those expectations falling so heavily upon him, the middle prince had been guided toward a military career, the rigors of which had left him little time to match either Byza's reputation for courtly diplomacy or Boleso's notoriety for self-indulgence.

What neither sealmaster nor prince-marshal bore was any smell of the uncanny, to Ingrey's newly awakened inner senses. The perception did not ease him much. Magical powers worked sometimes; material powers worked all the time, and this chamber, these two men, fairly resonated with the latter.

Hetwar ran a hand through his thinning hair and favored Ingrey with a glower. “About time you showed up.”

“Sir,” said Ingrey neutrally.

Hetwar's brows rose at his tone, and his attention sharpened. “Where were you last night?”

“What have you heard so far, sir?”

Hetwar's lips curved a little at the cautious riposte. “An extraordinarily garbled tale from my manservant this morning. I trust that you did not actually enspell a giant rampaging ice bear in the temple court yesterday evening. What really happened?”

“I had gone up there for a brief errand on my way here, sir. Indeed, an acolyte had lost his hold on a new sacred animal, which had injured him. I, um, helped them regain control of the beast. When the Temple returned it to its donor, Learned Lewko requested me to accompany it back through town, for safety's sake, which I did.” Hetwar's eyes flashed up at Lewko's name. So, Hetwar knew who Lewko was, even if Ingrey had not.

A small snort from Biast, with a renewed look at Ingrey's pallor, testified to the prince-marshal's amusement. Good. Better to be the butt of a tale of drunken foolishness than the nexus of out-of-control illegal magic, shattering miracle, and worse.

Ingrey added, “Learned Lewko was witness to the whole of the incident with the bear, and the only one I would suggest that you regard as reliable.”

“He is peculiarly qualified.”

“So I understood, sir.”

A passing stillness of Hetwar's hands was all that revealed his reaction to this. He frowned and went on. “Enough of last night. I am told your journey with Prince Boleso's coffin was more eventful than your letters to me revealed.”

Ingrey ducked his head. “What did your letters from Gesca say?”

“Letters from Gesca?”

“He was not reporting to you?”

“He reported to me yesterday evening.”

“Not before?”

“No. Why?”

“I suspected he was penning reports. I assumed it was to you.”

“Did you see this?”

“No,” Ingrey admitted.

The eyebrows climbed again. Ingrey took a breath. “There are some things that happened on the journey even Gesca does not know.”

“Were you aware, sir, that Prince Boleso was experimenting with spirit magic? Animal sacrifice?”

Biast jerked in surprise at this; Hetwar grimaced, and said, “Rider Ulkra apprised me of some dabblings. Leaving a young man with that much energy too idle may have been a mistake. I trust you removed any unfortunate traces, as I requested; there is no point in besmirching the dead.”

“They were not idle dabblings. They were serious and successful attempts, if ill controlled and ill-advised, that led directly to a state of mind I can only name violent madness. Which also leads me to wonder, for obvious reasons, how long they had been going on. Wen-it is suspected the prince had the aid of an illicit sorcerer at one point or another. Lady Ijada testifies Boleso had some garbled theory that the rites were going to give him an uncanny power over the kin of the Weald. He strangled a leopard the night he tried to rape her, and she killed him trying to defend herself.”

Hetwar glanced worriedly at Biast, who was now sitting up listening with a darkening frown. Hetwar said, “Lady Ijada testifies? I trust you see the problem with that.”

“I saw the leopard, the strangling cord, the paint traces on Boleso's body, and the chamber. Ulkra and several others among the prince's household can confirm this. I believe her without reservation. I believed her from the first, but later, another incident confirmed my conviction.”

Hetwar opened a hand, inviting Ingrey to go on. His expression was anything but happy.

“It became apparent to me…it was revealed that…” This was harder than Ingrey had expected. “Someone, in Easthome or elsewhere, had undertaken a plot to murder my prisoner. It is not clear to me who, or why.” He kept half an eye on Biast as he said this; the prince looked startled. “It became clear how.”

“Me.”

Hetwar blinked. “Ingrey…” he began warningly.

“It was revealed to me, through four failed attempts on my prisoner's life and the help of a Temple sorcerer we met in Red Dike, one Learned Hallana-who was once a pupil of Learned Lewko's, by the by-that a compulsion or geas had been placed upon me by magical means. Hallana says it was not common demon magic, not something related to the white god's powers.”

Hetwar stared his swordsman up and down. “Understand, Ingrey, I do not-yet-accuse you of raving, but I fail to see how anyone, let alone an ordinary young woman, could survive any sort of single combat with you.”

Ingrey grimaced. “It turned out she could swim. Among other talents. The sorceress broke the geas in Red Dike, fortunately for us all.” Close enough to the truth, for his current purposes. “The event was extremely peculiar, from my point of view.”

“Gesca's, too, it seems,” muttered Hetwar.

In a perfectly calm, level voice, Ingrey said, “I am infuriated beyond bearing to have been so used.”

He had meant his tone to convey restrained displeasure; by the heat in his belly and tremble of his hands, he realized just how much truer his words were than he'd intended. Biast snorted at the odd juxtaposition of tone and content, but Hetwar, who was watching his body, went still.

“I wondered if it had been by you, sir,” Ingrey continued in the same deadly cadences.

“No, Ingrey!” said Hetwar. His eyes had gone a little wide; his hands, flat on the desk top, did not reach for the hilt of his court sword. Ingrey could see the strain of that withheld motion. Ingrey had spent four years watching Hetwar spin out truth or lies as the occasion demanded. Which was it now? His head was pounding, and his blood seemed to simmer. Was Hetwar conspirator, tool, blameless? It came to him that he did not have to guess.

“I didn't!”

Silence fell, with the force of an ax blade. Biast was suddenly plastered back in his chair.

Or perhaps I should have bitten my tongue in half.

“That is very good to know, sir,” Ingrey said, in a spuriously tranquil tone, deliberately easing his stance. Scramble out of this, now. “How does the hallow king fare?”

The silence stretched too long, as Hetwar stared at him. Without taking his eyes from Ingrey's mouth, he made a little commanding gesture at the dismayed Biast.

Biast, after a questioning look at the sealmaster, licked his lips. “I visited my father's bedside before I came here. He is worse than I had imagined. He recognized me, but his speech was very slurred, and he is very yellow and weak. He fell back to sleep almost at once.” The prince paused, and his voice fell further. “His skin is like paper. He was always…he was never…” The voice stopped before it broke, Ingrey thought.

“You must,” said Ingrey carefully, “both be giving thought to the risk of an election very soon.”

Hetwar nodded; Biast nodded more reluctantly. The prince-marshal's lidded eyes only half concealed a lingering alarm, and his glance at Hetwar plainly questioned whether Ingrey's eerie revolt was usual behavior for the sealmaster's infamous wolf-swordsman, or not. Hetwar's expression was grimly uninformative.

Ingrey said, “I am more than half-convinced that Boleso's forbidden experiments were aimed at a grasp for the hallow kingship.” “But he is the younger!” objected Biast, then added, “Was.”

Hetwar suddenly looked furiously thoughtful. “It is true,” he murmured, “that more votes have been bought and sold than actually exist. I'd wondered where the sink could be…”

“How much doubt is there of the prince-marshal's succession?” Ingrey asked Hetwar, with a diplomatic nod at Biast. “Should the king chance to die when so many are gathered in Easthome for Boleso's funeral, it seems to me the election could come to a head very quickly.”

Hetwar shrugged. “The Hawkmoors, and their whole eastern faction, have long been preparing for such a moment, as we all know. It has been four generations since their kin lost the kingship, but they still hunger for a return to their old ascendancy. They had not, I judged, secured enough certain votes, but given the uncertain ones…If Boleso had been secretly gathering those, they are now scattered again.”

“Do you see such scatterings returning to his brother's faction?” Ingrey glanced at Biast, who looked as though he was still digesting the intimation of fratricide, without pleasure.

“Perhaps not,” muttered Hetwar, brows drawn deeply down. “The Foxbriar kin, though they know their lord cannot win, surely know they hold a deciding edge if things run too close. If the ordainers were to fail repeatedly to effect a clear outcome, the argument could go to swords.”

Biast's frown was no happier, but his hand drifted resolutely to his hilt at these last words, a gesture Hetwar did not miss; he held up a restraining palm.

“Were Prince Biast removed,” said Ingrey carefully, “indeed, whether he were removed or not, it seems to me that a spell that could compel a murder could as secretly compel a vote.”

Ingrey had thought he'd held all of Hetwar's attention before. He'd been mistaken. “Really,” breathed Hetwar. He could hardly grow more still, but the stillness turned much colder. “And-Ingrey-can you perceive such spells?”

“Hm.” His stare on Ingrey grew freshly appraising.

And so I am saved, in Hetwar's eyes. Maybe.

Hetwar vented a noise between a groan and a sigh, running his hands through his hair once more. “And here I thought bribery, coercion, threats, and double-dealing were enough to contend with.” His eyes rose to Ingrey again, narrowing in new thought. “And whom do you suspect of this illicit magic? If not me,” he added dryly.

Ingrey gave him a polite, apologetic shrug. Apologetic, but unabashed. If you value your life, keep your secrets and mine… “I possess no proof yet sturdy enough to stand on. It's a serious accusation.”

Hetwar grimaced. “Your gift for understatement has not deserted you, I see. This is going to be Temple business, you know.”

Ingrey nodded, briefly and unhappily. He wanted the mage-even in his mind, he yet withheld the too-specific terms sorcerer or shaman -who had laid that evil geas upon him to be brought low. He was not at all sure he wished to be brought down with him. But to know that Hetwar, at least, was one wall that stood squarely at his back was an enormous relief. Ingrey prayed he had not damaged that wall in the testing of it.

And if Hetwar was not in league with Ijada's would-be murderer, then perhaps a plea for justice would have a chance, here? When else, indeed, was Ingrey likely to come face-to-face with Biast in the next few days? He took a breath.

“There remains the matter of Lady Ijada. If you desire to draw a veil over Boleso's late madness and blasphemy, a trial is the last thing you want. Let the inquest return a verdict of self-defense, or better still, accident, and let her go.” “She killed my brother,” said Biast, a little indignantly.

“The precedent is scarcely a good one for the royal house,” said Hetwar. “As well declare hunting season on Stagthornes, or all high lords. There are sound reasons the Father's Order spent so much effort eliminating that old custom. The rich might without fear purchase the lives of the poor.”

“And they don't now?” said Ingrey.

Hetwar gave him a little warning growl. “It is certainly to be preferred that her execution be swift and as painless as possible. Perhaps she might be granted a sword, instead of a rope or the pyre, or some like mercy.”

And I a swordsman. “There is more going on here than is yet…clear.” He had not wanted to play this card, but their closed expressions terrified him. He had planted his ideas in their heads; perhaps he should give them time to germinate. Should her life be forfeit, then, because I am afraid to speak? “I think she is god-touched. You pursue her at your peril.”

Biast snorted. “A murderess? I doubt it. If so, let the gods send her a champion.”

Ingrey held his breath lest it huff from his mouth like that of a man punched in the gut.

It seems They have. He's just not a very good one. You would think the gods could do better…

His pent breath found other words. “How long, my lords, has it been since the hallow kingship grew so hollow? This was once a sacred thing. How did we dare to come to treat it as merchandise to be bought and sold at the best market price? When did god-sworn warriors become peddlers?”

The words stung Hetwar, at least, for he sat up in open exasperation. “I use the gifts the gods have given me, including judgment and reason. My task, my tools. I have served the Weald since before you were born, Ingrey. There never was a golden age. It was always only iron.”

“Ingrey, peace!”

Biast was rubbing his brow, as though it ached. “Enough of this! If I am to attend the procession, I must go wash and dress.” He stood and stretched, wincing.

Hetwar rose at once. “Indeed, Prince-marshal. I, too, must ride out.” He frowned in frustration at Ingrey. “We will continue this when you have regained a more considered temper, Lord Ingrey. In the meantime, do not speak of these matters.”

“Learned Lewko desires to interview me.”

Hetwar blew out his breath. “Lewko, I know. A most unhelpful man, in my experience.”

“I defy the Temple at my gravest risk.”

“Oh? That's a new twist. I thought you defied anyone you damned well pleased.”

How long they would have locked each other's gazes, Ingrey was not sure, but Biast reached the door first. Hetwar perforce followed, waving Ingrey out. “You had better not lie to Lewko. I'll speak with him later. And with you later.” His gaze flicked down. “Don't drip on my carpets.”

Ingrey flinched, and clasped his right hand with his left. The bandage was wet through, and leaking.

“What happened to your-no, tell me later. Attend on me at the funeral rite. Dress properly,” Hetwar ordered.

“Sir.” Ingrey bowed to his retreating back. Symark, who had wandered away down the hall to examine Hetwar's tapestries, hurried to join the prince.

It was full morning in Easthome, lively with bustling crowds, when Ingrey regained the street and turned toward the river. Ijada was awake now, he felt in his heart. Awake, and not, at the moment, unduly distressed. The reassurance eased him. Without what he now realized was an endemic state of covert panic driving his strides, his feet found their own pace, and it was a slow one. Did this strange new perception run two ways? He would have to ask her. He trudged wearily back toward the narrow house.