The Hallowed Hunt

me and threw me down on the bed. I fought him. He was muttering under his breath, spells or raving or both, I don’t know. I believed him, that he had done this before—his very mind was a menagerie, howling. The leopard distracted him in its death throes, and I wrenched out from under him. I tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. The door was locked. He’d put the key in his robe.'

'Did you scream for help?'

'I suppose so. I scarcely know. My throat was raw, after, so I suppose I must have. The window was hopeless. The forest beyond seemed to go on forever, in the night. I called on my father’s spirit, on his god, for my aid, out of the dark.'

Ingrey couldn’t help thinking that in such an extremity Lady Ijada would call on her proper patroness, the Daughter of Spring, the goddess to Whom virginity was sacred. It seemed very strange for a woman to call on Her Brother of Autumn. Though this is His season. The Lord of Autumn was the god of young men, harvest, the hunt, comradeship—and war. And the weapons of war?

'You turned,' said Ingrey, 'and found the hammer handle under your hand.'

The hazel eyes widened. 'How did you know?'

'I saw the chamber.'

'Oh.' She moistened her lips. 'I struck him. He lunged at me, or... or lurched. I struck him again. He stopped. Fell, and did not rise. He wasn’t dead yet—his body spasmed, when I was groping in his robe for the key, and I nearly fainted. I fell to the floor on my hands and knees, anyway, and the room darkened. I... it... Finally, I got the door unbarred and called his men in.'

'Were they—what? Angry?'

'More frightened than angry, I think. They argued forever, and blamed each other, and me, and whatever they could think of. Even Boleso. It took them ages to decide to lock me up and send a courier.'

'What did you do?'

'I sat on the floor, mostly. I was feeling very unwell. They asked me such stupid questions. Had I killed him? Did they imagine he’d bludgeoned himself? I was glad for my cell, when they finally put me in it. I don’t think Ulkra ever noticed I could bar its door from the inside.'

Ingrey wondered. In the most neutral voice he could muster, he said, 'Did Prince Boleso complete his rape?'

Her face lifted; her eyes glinted. 'No.'

Truth rang in that voice, and a kind of rocky triumph. In the uttermost extremity, abandoned by all who should have protected her, she’d found that she need not abandon herself. A powerful lesson. A dangerous lesson.

In an equally flat tone he asked, 'Did he complete his rite?'

This time, she hesitated. 'I don’t know. I am not sure... what his intent was.' She gazed down into her lap; her hands gripped each other. 'What will happen next? Rider Ulkra said you would take me in charge. Where to?'

'Easthome.'

'Good,' she said, with unexpected fervor. 'The Temple there will surely help me.'

'You do not fear your trial?'

'Trial? I defended myself! I was betrayed into this horror!'

'It is possible,' he said, still very level-voiced, 'that some powerful people will not care to hear you proclaim so. Think. You cannot prove attempted rape, for one thing. A half dozen men could testify that you appeared to go to Boleso willingly.'

'Compared to fleeing into the woods to be eaten by the wild beasts, willing, yes. Compared to bringing a brutal death on anyone who tried to help me, willingly.' She stared at him in sudden incredulity. 'Do you not believe me?'

'Oh, yes.' Oh, yes. 'But I am not your judge.'

She frowned, a glint of white teeth pressing into a lower lip gone pale. In a moment, her spine straightened again. 'In any case, if the rape was not witnessed, the unlawful rite was. They all saw the leopard. They saw the secret drawings on the prince’s body. Not assertions, but material things, that any man might reach out and touch.'

Not anymore. If not innocent, she was an innocent, Ingrey had no doubt. Lady Ijada, you have no idea what you are pitting yourself against.

A step sounded on the floorboards; Ingrey looked up to see Ulkra approaching, seeming to loom and crouch simultaneously. 'Your pleasure, my lord?' he inquired nervously.

To be anywhere but here, doing anything but this.

He’d been over two days in the saddle. He was, he decided abruptly, too mortally tired to ride another mile today. Boleso could be in no hurry to gallop to his funeral, and divine judgment. And Ingrey had no burning desire to rush this accursed naive girl to her earthly judgment, either. She was not afraid of the right things. Five gods help him, she seemed not afraid of anything.

'Will you,' he said to her, 'give me your word, if I order your guard lightened, that you will not attempt to escape?'

'Of course,' she said. As if surprised he even felt a need to ask.

He gestured to the housemaster. 'Put her in a proper room. Give her her things back. Find a decent maid, if any is to be found in this place, to attend her and help her pack. We’ll leave for Easthome with Boleso’s body at first light tomorrow.'

'Yes, my lord,' said Ulkra, ducking his head in relieved assent.

Ingrey added as an afterthought, 'Have any men of the household fled, since Boleso’s death?'

'No, my lord. Why do you ask?'

Ingrey gave a vague gesture, indicating no reason that he cared to share. Ulkra did not pursue the question.

Ingrey creaked to his feet. He felt as if his muscles squeaked louder protest than his damp leathers. Lady Ijada gave him a grateful curtsey, and turned to follow the housemaster. She looked back over her shoulder at him as she turned onto the staircase, a grave, trusting glance.

His duty was to deliver her to Easthome. Nothing more. Into the hands of... no one friendly to her cause. His fingers clenched and unclenched on his hilt.

Nothing more.

CHAPTER TWO

THE CORTEGE, SUCH AS IT WAS, LUMBERED OUT THE CASTLE gate in the dawn fog. Ingrey set six of Boleso’s guards riding before and six behind what might charitably be described as a farm wagon. The wagon was burdened with a hastily cobbled-together oblong box, heavy with Boleso’s body and the coarse salt, meant to preserve game, which made his last bed. In some sad effort at proper ceremony, Rider Ulkra had found a stag hide to cover the coffin, and funereal cloths to wrap the posts at the corners of the wagon bed, in lieu of draperies unlikely to survive the local roads. Whatever attempts the guardsmen had made to furbish up their gear for this somber duty were lost from view in the clinging mists. Ingrey’s eye was more concerned for the security of the ropes that bound the box in place.

The teamster that Ulkra had drafted was a local yeoman, owner of both wagon and team, and he kept his sturdy horses well in hand during the first precarious turns and bumps of the narrow road. By his side, his wife hung on grimly but expertly to the wooden brake, which shrieked against the wheel as the wagon descended. She was a staid older woman, a better female chaperone for his prisoner, Ingrey thought, than the slatternly and frightened