The Hallowed Hunt

CHAPTER NINETEEN

BY RELENTLESS PROWLING, INGREY FAMILIARIZED HIMSELF with every corner of the Horseriver mansion that day, to little effect. Wencel had arrived here bare weeks ago to attend on the hallow king in his worsening illness, and Fara had followed shortly despite her fatal diversion to Boar's Head. The city house was but lightly occupied, as though the couple were merely camping in it. There were no old secrets buried here, though five gods knew what Ingrey might find at Castle Horseriver. But the earl's haunt was two hundred miles away on the middle Lure, and Ingrey doubted anyone would be going back there till all this was long over.

As promised-or threatened-Earl Horseriver did conduct Ingrey later that afternoon to his stable mews, a stone building a few streets down the hill. Most of the great kins' livestock was kept outside the walls, in pastures along the Stork above the glassworks and the tanners. Horseriver's household was no exception, but a few beasts were kept nearby for the lord and lady, for grooms to use to collect other mounts at need, and for couriers. As befit the earl's state, the appointments within the mews were very fine: the central corridor paved with colored stone, the stall walls of rubbed oak, the metal bars decorated with twining bronze leaves. Ingrey was bemused to spy Ijada's showy chestnut mare, moving restlessly in a straight stall.

Ingrey refrained from patting its haunches, lest he be kicked. “I know this one-I'd guessed it might be one of yours.”

“Aye,” said Wencel absently. “She was too mettlesome for Fara. I was glad to find someone else to ride her.”

The gelding was undoubtedly a beautiful beast, well muscled, clean-limbed, its dappled coat polished to a shimmer by the earl's grooms. Ingrey suspected the animal concealed an explosive burst of speed. What else it might conceal-deadly geases sprang to mind-Ingrey could not tell. Did Wencel imagine it a bribe? So he might. Well, Ingrey could not look this gift in the mouth while the earl was watching. “Thank you, my lord,” he said, in a tone to match Horseriver's.

“Would you care to try his paces?”

“Later, perhaps. I am not wearing my leathers.” And ever since his be-wolfing at Birchgrove he'd always made new mounts peculiarly tense; he preferred to make their first acquaintance in private, in an enclosed space where the spooked horses might be more readily re-caught and remounted till they had come to mutual understanding, or at least mutual exhaustion. This one looked as though it might take some time to wear down to tameness, under him.

“Ah. Pity.”

Two stalls away, an unhorselike movement caught Ingrey's eye. Frowning, he walked down to peer into another loose box. His nostrils flared in surprise. An antlered stag abruptly raised its head from where it was lipping at a pile of hay, snorted, and sidled about. It banged its rack twice against the boards, causing a desultory wave of motion among the horses nearby.

“I think your presence disturbs him,” murmured Wencel, in a tone of dry amusement.

After turning in a few more circles, the handsome beast stilled at the back of the stall, though it did not yet lower its head again to the hay. Its dark and liquid eye glowered at the men. Ingrey judged it captive for some time, for it no longer struggled; new-taken stags could kill themselves in their first frenzy to escape.

Wencel's lips twisted a little as he studied the nervous beast past Ingrey's shoulder. “When one plays against such farsighted opponents as I do, it is as well to have more than one plan. But chances are it is fated for a spit. Come away, now.”

Horseriver did not look back as they exited the mews. Ingrey inquired, “Do you ride much for sport, these days? As I recall you were excited by your father's horses.” It had been one of the few topics his slow young cousin had actually chattered about, in fact.

“Was I?” said Horseriver absently. “I fear I feel about horses much as I feel about wives, these days. They last such a short time, and I am weary of butchering them.”

Unable to think of a response to that, Ingrey followed him silently up the hill.

He considered the method in Wencel's madness, or perhaps it was the other way around. Wencel's rationale for his murderous attempt on Ijada and its equally swift abandonment was too peculiar to be a lie, but it did not follow that he was necessarily correct in it. Still, Wencel's erratic tactics against the gods must have worked before. In naming Ijada god-bait, he was surely not mistaken. That alarm alone must be enough to trigger his nervous malice. He'd eluded four hundred years of this hunt if his claims were true.

The gods would do better to wait at some choke point and let Wencel flail all he liked till he arrived there. But the strange intensity of Wencel's greetings when they'd all met on the road to Easthome was now explained; the man must have been thinking five ways at once. Yes, but so must his Enemies.

A disturbing notion came to Ingrey: perhaps Ijada had not been the bait at that fated meeting after all. Perhaps I was. And Wencel has swallowed me down whole.

Fara's first response was angered insult that a daughter of the hallow king would be ordered before the bench like a common subject-her secret fears taking shelter in injured pride, Ingrey judged. But some clever man-Hetwar, no doubt-had made Prince-marshal Biast the deliverer of the unwelcome summons. Since Biast had less interest in defending dubious actions, and more in finding the truth, his levelheaded persuasion overcame his sister's nervous protests.

Thus it was that Ingrey found himself pacing up the steep hill to Templetown as part of a procession consisting of the prince-marshal, his banner-carrier Symark leading the princess's palfrey, Fara's two ladies-in-waiting who had attended her at Boar's Head, and Fara's matched twin pages. In the main temple court, Symark was dispatched to find directions to where the judges sat, and Fara slipped her brother's leash, briefly, to lead her ladies to kneel and pray in the Mother's court. Whether Fara was trying to call upon the goddess who had so signally ignored her prayers in the past, or merely wanted an unassailable excuse to compose herself in semi-privacy for a few minutes, Ingrey could not guess.

In either case, Ingrey was standing with Biast when an unexpected figure exited the Daughter's court.

“Ingorry!”

Prince Jokol waved cheerfully and trod across the pavement past the holy fire's plinth to where Ingrey waited. The giant islander was shadowed as usual by his faithful Ottovin, and Ingrey wondered if the young man was under instructions from his formidable-sounding sister to make sure her betrothed was returned from his wanderings in good order, or else. Jokol was dressed as before in his somewhat gaudy island garb, but now he had a linen braid dyed bright blue tied around his thick left biceps, mark of a prayer of supplication to the Daughter of Spring.

“Eh!” The big man shrugged. “Still I try to get my divine I was promised, but they put me off. Today, I try to see the headman, the archdivine, instead of those stupid clerks who always tell me to go away and come back later.”

“Do you pray for an appointment?” Ingrey nodded to Jokol's left sleeve.

Jokol clapped his right hand on the blue braid and laughed. “Perhaps I should! Go over his head, eh.”

Ingrey would have thought the Son of Autumn to be Jokol's natural guardian, or perhaps, considering recent events, the Bastard, not that praying to the god of disasters was exactly the safest course. “The Lady of Spring is not your usual Patroness, surely?”

“Oh, aye! She blesses me much. Today, I pray for poetry.”

“I thought the Bastard was the god of poetry.”

“Oh, Him, too, aye, for drinking songs and such. And for those great songs of when the walls come crashing down and all is burning, aye, that make your hairs all stand up, those are fine!” Jokol waved his arms to mime horripilating tragedies suitable for epic verse. “But not today. Today, I mean to make a beautiful song to my beautiful Breiga, to tell her how much I miss her in this stone city.”

Behind him, Ottovin rolled his eyes. Ingrey took it for silent comment on the sisterly object of the proposed song, not on the song itself. Ingrey was reminded that in addition to being the goddess of female virgins, the Daughter was also associated with youthful learning, civil order, and, yes, lyric poetry.

Biast was staring up at Jokol, looking impressed despite himself. “Is this by chance the owner of your ice bear, Ingrey?” he inquired.

Though longing to deny all association with the ice bear, now and forever, Ingrey was reminded of his social duties. “Pardon me, my lord. Allow me to present to you Prince Jokol of Arfrastpekka, and his kinsman Ottovin. Jokol, this is Prince-marshal Biast kin Stagthorne. Son of the hallow king,” he added, in case Jokol needed a touch of native guidance among the perils of Easthome high politics.

The promising mutual appraisal of the two princes was interrupted by the return of Symark, clutching the arm of a gray-robed acolyte. Having secured a guide to the proliferating hodgepodge of buildings that made up the Temple complex, Biast went to collect his sister from the Mother's court.

Jokol, taking the hint, made to bid Ingrey farewell. “I must try harder to see this archdivine fellow. It may take some time, so I should start, eh?”

“Wait,” said Ingrey. “I'll tell you who you should see. In a building two streets back, second floor-no, better.” He darted over to pluck a passing boy in Bastard's whites, a young dedicat of some sort, out of the thin stream of people passing through the central court bound on various errands. “Do you know the way to Learned Lewko's office?” he demanded of the boy.

The boy gave him an alarmed nod.

“Take this lord to him now.” He handed off the dedicat to a bemused Jokol. “Tell him Lord Ingrey sends a complication for his collection.”

“Will this Lewko help me to see the archdivine?” asked Jokol hopefully.

“Either that, or he'll go over Fritine's head. Threaten to give him Fafa; that will stimulate him on your behalf.” Ingrey grinned; for the god of vile jokes, this practically constituted a prayer, he decided. “He is a power in the Temple?”

Jokol pursed his lips, then nodded, brightening. “Very good! I thank you, Ingorry!” He trudged off after the boy, trailed by the dubious Ottovin.

Ingrey thought he heard someone laughing in his ear, but it wasn't Symark, who stood looking on somewhat blankly. A trick of the court's acoustics, perhaps. Ingrey shook his head to clear it, then pulled himself to an attitude of grave attention as Biast returned with the ladies.

Biast, after a glance around the court, gave Ingrey a peculiar stare, uncertain and searching. It occurred to Ingrey that the last time all of this party had been present in this place was two days ago, for Boleso's funeral. Was Biast wondering whether to believe in Ingrey's claimed shaman-miracle of cleansing his late brother's soul? Or-almost more disturbing-belief accepted, was he wondering what further consequences must flow from it?

In any case, the gray-robed acolyte led them around the temple into the maze of buildings housing clerks and works of the various holy orders. Some structures were new and purpose-built, but most were old and reassigned. They passed between two noisy and busy, if slightly dilapidated, former kin mansions, one now a foundling hospital run by the Bastard's Order, the other the Mother's infirmary, its colonnades echoing with the steps of physicians and green-clad acolytes, its tranquil gardens sheltering recovering patients and their attendants.

In the next street over they came to a large edifice, three stories high and built of the same yellow stone as Hetwar's palace, dedicated to the libraries and council rooms of the Father's Order. A winding staircase circled a spacious hall and brought them at length to a hushed, wood-paneled chamber.

The inquiries were already under way, it seemed, for a pair of retainers Ingrey thought he recognized from Boar's Head were just shouldering back out the door, looking daunted but relieved. They recognized the prince-marshal and princess and hastened to get out of their way, signing sketchy gestures of respect. Biast managed a return nod of polite acknowledgment, although Fara's neck stayed stiff, pride starched with mortification. Fara caught her breath in a little snort like a startled mare when the first person they encountered on the other side of the door was Boleso's housemaster, Rider Ulkra. Ulkra bowed, looking at least equally queasy.

The judges all rose and made obeisance to the prince-marshal and courtesies to the princess; a couple of dedicat-servants were sent scurrying to secure padded chairs for the Stagthorne haunches. While this was going on, Ingrey circled in on Ulkra, who swallowed nervously but returned his greeting.

“Have you been questioned yet?” Ingrey inquired politely.

“I was to be next.”

Ingrey lowered his voice. “And do you plan to tell the truth, or lie?”

Ulkra licked his lips. “What would Lord Hetwar desire of me, do you suppose?”

Did he still think Ingrey was Hetwar's man? So was Ulkra exceptionally shrewd, or just behindhand on capital gossip? “If I were you, I should be more worried about what Hetwar's future master desires.” He nodded toward Prince Biast, and Ulkra followed his glance, warily. “He is young now, but he won't stay that way for long.”

“Would one?” said Ingrey vaguely. “Let's find out.” He beckoned to Biast, who trod over curiously.

“Yes, Ingrey?”

“My lord. Rider Ulkra here cannot decide if you would wish him to tell the exact truth, or shade it to spare your sister chagrin. What that says about your reputation, I must leave you to decide.”

“Sh, Ingrey!” whispered Ulkra in furious embarrassment, with a fearful glance over his shoulder at the table down the room.

Biast looked taken aback. He said cautiously, “I promised Fara that none would shame her here, but certainly no man should violate his oath of truthsaying before the judges and the gods.”

“You set the path for your future court starting even now, prince. If you discourage men from speaking unpalatable truths in front of you, I trust you will develop your skill for sifting through pretty lies, for you will spend the rest of your reign, however short, wading in them.” Ingrey let his mild tone suggest that it was a matter of utter indifference to him which Biast chose; Ingrey would manage just the same.

Biast's lips twisted. “What was it Hetwar said of you? That you defy whom you choose?”

“Whom I please. I please Hetwar best so. But then, Hetwar is no man's fool.”

“Verily.” Biast's eyes narrowed; then he surprised and gratified Ingrey altogether by turning to Ulkra, and saying shortly, “Tell the exact truth.” He inhaled, and added on a sigh, “I'll deal with Fara as I must.”

Ulkra, eyes wide, bowed and backed away, presumably before Ingrey could wind him into further coils. The chairs arrived; Ingrey gave Biast a slight, sincere bow, rather ironically returned, and took his place on the rear bench where he could watch the whole room, and the door.

After a short, whispered consultation among the judges, Ulkra was called up to take his oath and answer the inquirers. Ulkra stood before them with his hands clenched behind his stout back, feet apart, taking some refuge in the soldierlike pose. The questions were to the point; the panel had already, it appeared, acquired some grasp of the outline of events at Boar's Head.

As nearly as Ingrey could discern, Ulkra did tell the exact truth of the chain of deeds that had led to Boleso's death, insofar as he was eyewitness. He did not leave out the leopard, nor his suspicions about Boleso's earlier “dabblings,” though he managed to cloak his own complicity of silence under protestations of the loyalty and discretion due from a senior servant. No, he had not suspected that Boleso's body servant was the illicit sorcerer Cumril. (So, the judges had heard of Cumril's existence-from Lewko?) At one point, the scholarly divine on the side bench silently passed a note across to one of the judges, who read it and followed up with a couple of especially penetrating and shrewd questions of the housemaster.

The unsubtle ugliness of Ijada's sacrifice at Boleso's bedroom door came through clearly enough to Ingrey's ear, despite Ulkra's self-serving phrasing of it. By the stiffening of Fara's features, this was the first fully objective account she had heard of the consequences at Boar's Head after she had abandoned her maiden-in-waiting there. She did not weep in whatever shame she swallowed, but her face might have been carved in wood. Good.

When Ulkra was dismissed, to flee from the chamber as swiftly as he decently could, Fara was called up. Ingrey, playing the courtier, made of helping her from her chair the chance to breathe in her ear, “I will know if you lie.” Her eyes shifted to him, coldly. “Should I care?” she murmured back.

She hesitated. “No.”

“Good. You begin to think like a princess.”

Her gaze grew startled as he squeezed her arm in encouragement before letting her go. And then, for a moment, thoughtful, as though a new road had opened up before her not previously perceived.

The judges kept their questions to her brief and courteous, as befit equally law and prudence. The truth she spoke was, like Ulkra's, softened in her own excuse, and the motivation of her jealousy largely left out, which Ingrey thought all to the good. But the most critical elements in his view-that the demand had come from Boleso, been accepted without consultation by Fara, and that Ijada was no seductress nor cheerful volunteer-seemed plain enough, between the lines. Fara was released with diplomatic thanks by the panel; her eyes squeezed shut in bleak relief as she turned away.

With Fara leading the way, her two senior ladies-in-waiting told the truth as well, including a few side incidents not witnessed by Fara that were even more damaging to Boleso. Biast looked decidedly unhappy, but made no move to interfere with the testimony; though there was no doubt the judges were very conscious of the prince-marshal's presence and expressions. The scholarly divine, Ingrey noticed, also sent sharp if covert glances Biast's way. If Biast had chosen to cast the right frowns, snort, or shift at the key moments, might he have shaped the questions? Distorted them in his late brother's favor? Perhaps; but instead he listened in guarded neutrality, as befit a man seeking truth before all other aims. Ingrey hoped that the idea of a blood-price might now be sounding better to him.

Shuffling echoed in the room as the party rose to leave. Ingrey directed the page to go in pursuit of his twin and bring around the princess's palfrey; the boy bobbed a bow, and replied, “Yes, Lord Ingrey!” in his high, clear voice before scampering out. The scholarly divine's head swiveled; he stared at Ingrey, frowning, then went to bend over the shoulder of one of the empaneled divines and murmur in his ear. Brows rising, the judge nodded, cast a glance Ingrey's way, and murmured back. He then raised his hand and his voice, and called, “Lord Ingrey! Would you stay a moment?”

“I will catch you up, my lord,” said Ingrey to him. Biast, with an expression that plainly said they would speak together later, nodded and followed his sister out.

Ingrey took up a stance before the judges' table reminiscent of Ulkra's, and waited, concealing extreme unease. He had not expected to be questioned today, or possibly at all.

The scholarly divine stood behind his colleague and folded his arms, shoulders hunched and face outthrust in his concentration upon Ingrey. With his beaklike nose and receding chin, he resembled a stork wading in the shallows, intent upon some fish or frog concealed below the water's surface. “I understand, Lord Ingrey, that you had an experience at Prince Boleso's funeral very pertinent to these proceedings.”

This man had to have spoken with Lewko. How much had the Bastard's divine conveyed to the Father's scholar? The two orders were not usually noted for their mutual cooperation. “I fainted from the heat. Anything else is not such testimony as is admissible in a trial, I thought.”

The man's lips pursed, and to Ingrey's surprise, he nodded in approval. But then said, “This is not a trial. It is an inquiry. You will observe I have not requested your oath.”

Was that of some arcane legal significance? From the slight nods of a couple of the judges, apparently so. The scribe, for one thing, had set aside her quill and showed no sign of taking it up again, although she was staring at Ingrey in some fascination. It seemed they were speaking, at the moment, off the record. Given the company, Ingrey was not sure this was any aid to him.

“Well…no.”

“Please describe your vision,” said the scholarly divine.

Ingrey blinked, once, slowly. If he refused to speak, how much pressure would they bring to bear? They would likely place him under oath; and then both speaking and silence would have potentially more dire consequences. Better this way. “I found myself, Lady Ijada, and Prince Boleso's sundered soul all together in a…place. A boundless place. I could see through Prince Boleso's torso. It was full of the spirits of dead animals, tumbling over each other in chaos and pain. The Lord of Autumn appeared.” Ingrey moistened his lips and kept his voice dead level. “The god requested me to call the animal spirits out of Boleso. Lady Ijada endorsed the request. I did so. The god took up Boleso's soul and went away. I woke up on the temple floor.” There, not too bad; as truthful as any madman and with quite a number of complications left out.

“How?” asked the divine curiously. “How did you call them out?”

“It was but a dream, Learned. One does not expect things to make sense in a dream.”

“Nevertheless.”

“I was…given a voice.” No need to say how, or by whom, was there?

“The weirding voice? As the voice you used on the rampant ice bear two days before?”

A couple of heads along the panel came up at that. Damn. “I have heard it called that.”

It was all Ingrey could do not to use it right now; paralyze this roomful of men and escape. Or else squeeze his strangely diffuse wolf into a tight little invisible ball under his heart. Fool, they cannot see it anyway. “I do not know.”

“More specifically,” the divine went on crisply, “Lady Ijada is imputed to have been defiled with the spirit of a dead leopard. It is the teaching of Temple history, which your vision with the late prince would seem to support, that such a defilement sunders a soul from the gods.”

“A dead soul,” Ingrey corrected cautiously. For both he and Ijada bore animal spirits, and yet the god had spoken to both. Not to Boleso, though, Ingrey realized. He was moved to explain how the shamans of the Old Weald had cleansed their departed comrades' spirits, then thought better of it. He was not at all moved to explain how he'd learned all this.

“Quite so. My question, then, is: were Lady Ijada to be executed as a result of her future trial, could you, Lord Ingrey, remove the defiling animal spirit from her soul as you did for Prince Boleso's?”

Ingrey froze. The first memory that roared back into his mind was of Wencel's worried vision of Ijada as an Old Weald courier sacrifice, opening Holytree to the gods. Wencel had thought that path safely blocked by Ijada's defilement. Not so safe, and not so blocked, if Ingrey could unblock it again. And I could. Five gods, and curse Them one and five, was this the unholy holy plan for the pair of them? Is this why You have chased us here? Thoughts tumbling, Ingrey temporized, “Why do you ask, Learned?”

“It is a theological fine point that I greatly desire clarified. Execution, properly speaking, is a punishment of the body for crimes in the world of matter. The question of the salvation or sundering of a soul and its god is not more affected than by any other death, nor should it be; for the improper sundering of a soul would be a heinous sin and burden upon the officers charged with such a duty. An execution that entails such an unjust sundering must be resisted. An execution that does not may proceed.” A silence followed this pronouncement; the divine added solicitously, “Do you follow the argument, my lord?”

A warm autumnal voice murmured, somewhere between his ear and his mind, If you deny Me and yourself before this little company, brother wolf, how shall you manage before a greater?

Ingrey did not know if his face drained white, though several of the judges stared at him in alarm. With an effort, he kept himself from swaying on his feet. Or, five gods forbid, falling down in a faint. Wouldn't that be a dramatic development, coming pat upon his words of disavowal.

“Hm,” said the scholarly divine, his gaze narrowing. “The point is an important one, however.”

“How, then, if I simplify it for you? If I have not this ability, the point is moot. If I have…I refuse to use it so.” Eat that.

“Could you be forced?” The divine's tone conveyed no hint of threat; it seemed the purest curiosity.

Ingrey's lips drew back in a grin that had nothing to do with humor, at all, at all; several of the men pushed back in their seats in an instinctive recoil. “You could try,” he breathed. Under the circumstances-under those circumstances, with Ijada's dead body cut down from a gallows and laid at his feet-he might just find out everything his wolf could really do. Until they cut him down as well.

“Hm.” The scholarly divine tapped his lips; his expression, strangely, seemed more satisfied than alarmed. “Most interesting.” He glanced down the panel. “Have you any more questions?” The senior judge, looking vastly disturbed, said, “Not…not at this time. Thank you, Most Learned, for your…um…always thought-provoking commentary.”

A slight tilt of the scholarly divine's head and a glint in his eye took this as more compliment than complaint, despite the tone. “Then I thank you, Lord Ingrey.”

It was clearly a dismissal, and not a moment too soon; Ingrey managed a civil nod and turned away, quelling an urge to run. He turned onto the gallery outside the chamber and drew a long breath, but before he could entirely compose himself again, heard footsteps behind him. He glanced back to see the strange divine following him out.

The lanky man signed the Five by way of greeting; a swift gesture, but very precise, neither perfunctory nor sketched. Ingrey nodded again, started to rest his hand on his sword hilt, decided the gesture might be interpreted as too threatening, and let his hands drift to clench each other behind his back. “May I help you, Learned?” Over the gallery rail, headfirst, perhaps?

“My apologies, Lord Ingrey, but I just realized that I was introduced before your party came in, but not again after. I am Learned Oswin of Suttleaf.”

Ingrey blinked; his mind, briefly frozen, bolted off again in a wholly unexpected new direction. “Hallana's Oswin?”

The divine smiled, looking oddly abashed. “Of all my titles, the truest, I fear. Yes, I'm Hallana's Oswin, for my sins. She told me much of your meeting with her at Red Dike.”

“Is she well?”

“Well, and delivered of a fine little girl, I am pleased to say. Who I pray to the Lady of Spring shall grow up to look like her mother and not like me, else she will have much to complain of when she is older.”

“I'm glad she is safe. Both safe. Learned Hallana worried me.” In more ways than one. He touched his still-bandaged right hand, reminded of how close he had come to retrieving his sword, in his scarlet madness in that upstairs room.

“Ah?”

“She would have terrified you, just like the rest of us. Yet somehow, we all survived her, again. She sent me here, you see. Quite drove me from her bedside. Which many women tend to do to their poor husbands after a childbirth, but not for such reasons.”

“Have you spoken with Learned Lewko?”

“Yes, at length, when I arrived last night.”

Ingrey groped for careful wording. “And on whose behalf did Hallana send you?” It occurred to him belatedly that the divine's alarming theological argument back in the chamber might well have been intended to impede Ijada's execution, not speed it.

“Well…well, now, that's a little hard to say.”

Ingrey considered this. “Why?”

For the first time, Oswin hesitated before he answered. He took Ingrey by the arm and led him away, around the corner of the gallery, well out of earshot of the door where a couple of what looked like more servants from Boar's Head were just being led inside by a gray-robed dedicat. Oswin leaned on the rail, looking down thoughtfully into the well of the hall; Ingrey matched his pose and waited.

When Oswin resumed, his voice was oddly diffident. “You are a man with much experience in the uncanny and the holy, I understand. The gods speak to you in waking visions, face-to-face.”

“No!” Ingrey began, and stopped. Denial again? “Well…in a way. I have had many bizarre experiences lately. They crowd upon me now. It does not make me deft.” Oswin sighed. “I cannot imagine growing deft in the face of this. You have to understand. I had never had a direct experience of the holy in my life, for all that I tried to serve my god as seemed best to me, according to my gifts as we are taught. Except for Hallana. She was the only miracle that ever happened to me. The woman seems vastly oversupplied with gods. At one point, I accused her of having stolen my share, and she accused me of marrying her solely to sustain a proper average. The gods walk through her dreams as though strolling in a garden. I just have dreams of running lost through my old seminary, with no clothes, late for an examination of a class I did not know I had, and the like.”

“Either, variously.” Oswin's brow furrowed. “And then there are the ones where I am wandering through a house that is falling apart, and I have no tools to repair…well, anyway.” He took a long breath, and settled into himself. “The night after our new daughter was born, I slept once again with Hallana. We both shared a significant dream. I woke crying out in fear. She was utterly cheery about it. She said it meant we must go at once to Easthome. I asked her if she had run mad, she could not rise and go about yet! She said she could put a pallet in the back of the wagon and rest the whole way. We argued about it all day. The dream came again the next night. She said that cinched the matter. I said she had a duty to the babe, to the children, that she could neither abandon them nor drag them along into danger. She gave way; I gloated. I took to my horse that afternoon. I was ten miles down the road before I realized that I had been neatly foxed.”

“How so?”

“Separated, there was no way for me to continue the argument. Or to stop her. I have no doubt she's upon the road right now, not more than a day behind me. I wonder if she will have brought the children? I shudder to picture it. If you see her, or her faithful servants, in this town before I do, tell her I have taken rooms for all of us at the Inn of Irises across from the Mother's Infirmary.” “Would, um, she be traveling with the same ones I met in Red Dike?”

“The dream,” Ingrey reminded him.

“My apologies. I do not normally rattle on like this. Perhaps that explains something about my Hallana…I have laid it before Learned Lewko, now you. There were five people in it: Hallana, me, Lewko, and two young men I had never seen before. Until today. Prince Biast was one of them. I nearly fell off my bench when he walked into the chamber and was named. The other was a stranger fellow still; a giant man with long red hair, who spoke in tongues.”

“Ah,” said Ingrey. “That would be Prince Jokol, no doubt. Tell him to give Fafa a fish for me, when you meet him. In fact, you might catch him now; I just sent him to Lewko. He could still be there.”

Oswin's eyes widened, and he straightened as though to dash off at once, but then shook his head and continued. “In the dream…I am a man of words, but I scarcely know how to describe it. All the five were god-touched. More, worse: the gods put us on and wore us like gauntlets. We shattered…”

They harry me hard, now, Horseriver had said. So it seemed. “Well, should you determine what it all meant, let me know. Were any others in the dream?” Me or Ijada, for example?

Oswin shook his head. “Just the five. So far. The dream did not seem finished, which upset me yet Hallana took in stride. I both long and fear to sleep, to find out more, but now I have insomnia. Hallana may be willing to run off into the dark, but I want to know where the stepping-stones will be.”

Oswin tapped a hand on the railing. “Hallana and I have argued this point-the foresight of the gods. They are the gods. They must know if anyone does.”

“Perhaps no one does,” said Ingrey easily.

The expression on Oswin's face was that of a man forced to swallow a vile-tasting medicine of dubious value. “I shall try Lewko, then. Perhaps this Jokol will know something more.”

“I doubt it, but good luck.”

“I trust we will meet again soon.”

“Nothing would startle me, these days.”

“Where might I reach you? Lewko said you were set as a spy upon Earl Horseriver, who also seems somewhat involved in this tangle.”

Ingrey hissed through his teeth. “I suppose it's fortunate Horseriver already knows that I spy on him, with that sort of loose gossip circulating.”

Oswin shook his head vehemently. “Neither loose nor gossip, and the circle is a tight one. Lewko had something like the dream, too, from what he says.”

Somewhat involved, indeed. “Stay away from Horseriver for the time being. He is dangerous. If you wish to see me, send a message there, but put no matter of import in the writing-assume it will be intercepted and read by hostile eyes before I see it.”