The Hallowed Hunt

'I felt a god brush past me, Ingrey! Why?'

He opened his mouth. Hesitated.

She continued in the same fierce whisper, 'All my life I have prayed, and all my life I have been refused answer. I scarcely believed in the gods anymore, or if I did, it was only to curse them for their indifference. They betrayed my father, who had served Them loyally all his life. They betrayed my mother, or They were powerless to save her, which was as bad or worse. If a god has come to me, He certainly hasn’t come for me! In all your calculating, how do you sum that?'

'High court politics,' said Ingrey slowly, 'are as godless as anything I know. If you press on to Easthome, you choose your death. Martyrdom may be a glory, but suicide is a sin.'

'And just what do you press on to, Lord Ingrey?'

'I have Lord Hetwar himself as a patron.' I think. 'You will have no one.'

'Not every Temple divine in Easthome can be venal. And I have my mother’s kin!'

'Earl Badgerbank was at that conference that dispatched me. Are you so sure he was there in your interests? I’m not.'

She hitched her skirts away from him. 'I,' she announced, 'shall pray now for guidance. You may be quiet.' She flounced forward into the pose of deepest supplication, prone on the floor, arms outflung, her face turned from him.

Ingrey lay on his back and stared at the domed ceiling, angry, dizzy, and a little ill. Hergi’s potion was beginning to wear off, he feared. His frustrated thought circled, then drifted, but not into piety. He let his tired eyelids shut.

After a formless time, Ijada’s tart voice inquired, 'Are you praying or napping? And are you, in either case, done?'

He blinked his eyes open to find her standing over him. Napping, apparently, for he had not heard her rise. 'I am at your disposal, lady.' He started to sit up, stifled a yelp, and lay back more carefully.

'Yes, well, I’m not surprised, you know. Did you look, afterward, at what you did to those poor chains?' She held out an exasperated hand. Curious as to her strength, he grasped her hand and wrist with both hands. She leaned back like a sailor hauling on a rope, and he wallowed up.

As they made their way out under the portico into the autumn sun, Ingrey asked, 'And what guidance did you receive for all your prayers, lady?'

She bit her lip. 'None. Though my thoughts are less disordered, so a little quiet meditation did that much good at least.' Her sideways glance at him was enigmatic. 'Somewhat less disordered. It’s just that... I can’t help thinking about... '

He made an encouraging noise of inquiry.

She burst out, 'I still can’t believe that Hallana married Oswin!'

THEY FOUND IJADA’S WARDEN IN THE TAPROOM OF HER INN. SHE was sitting in the corner with Rider Gesca, their heads bent together, tankards and a platter with bread crumbs, cheese rinds, and apple cores on the table between them. The walk up the warm street had loosened Ingrey’s stiff muscles a trifle, and he fancied he strolled rather than limped over to them. They looked up, and their talk ceased.

'Gesca.' Ingrey nodded toward the platter, reminded that he had not eaten yet. 'How is the food, down here?'

'The cheese is excellent. Stay away from the beer, though—it’s gone sour.'

Ijada’s eyes widened, but she forbore comment.

'Ah. Thank you for the warning.' He leaned over and nabbed the last bread crust. 'And what have you two been finding to talk about?'

The warden looked frightened, but Gesca, with a hint of challenge, merely said, 'I’ve been telling Ingrey stories.'

'Ingrey stories?' Ijada said. 'Are there many?'

Ingrey controlled a grimace.

Gesca, grinning at the encouragement, said, 'I was just telling the tale of how Hetwar’s train was attacked by those bandits in the forest of Aldenna, on the way home from Darthaca, and how you won your place in his household. It was my good word in the sealmaster’s ear that did it, after all.'

'Was it?' said Ingrey, trying to decide if Gesca was gabbling nervously or not. And if so, why.

'We were a large party,' Gesca continued to the women, 'and well armed, but this was a troop of outlaws who had fled to the forest and grown to over two hundred men, mostly by the addition of discharged soldiers and vagabonds and runaways. They were the plague of the country round about, and we likely looked rich enough that they dared to try us. I was right behind Ingrey in the van when they fell on us. They realized their mistake soon enough. Astonishing swordplay.'

'I’m not that good,' said Ingrey. 'They were bad.'

'I didn’t say good, I said astonishing. I’ve seen swordmasters, and you’re not, nor am I. But those bastard moves of yours—they should not have worked, but... When it became apparent that no one would best you if you had room to swing your steel, one bear of a fellow closed on you in a grapple. I was maybe fifteen feet away at the time, and I had my own troubles, but still—you tossed your sword in the air, grabbed the fellow’s head, snapped his neck, caught the sword descending, and turned and beheaded the bandit coming up behind you. One continuous move.'

Ingrey had no memory of the moment, though he recalled the attack, of course. The beginning and the end of it, anyway. 'Gesca, you are making up tales to swagger with.' Gesca was near a decade older than Ingrey; perhaps the staid middle-aged warden seemed a less unlikely object for dalliance to him.

'Ha. If I were making up grand lies for swagger, I’d tell them on myself. At that point, the rest turned and ran. You hewed down the slowest... ' Gesca trailed off, not completing the story. Ingrey suddenly guessed why. He had come back to himself while methodically dispatching the wounded. Red to the elbows, the blood smell overpowering. Gesca, face appalled, gripping him by the shoulders and crying, Ingrey! Father’s tears, man, save some for hanging! He had... not exactly forgotten that. He had merely refrained from revisiting the memory.

Gesca covered his hesitation by taking a swig of beer, evidently remembered its taste too late, and swallowed anyway. He made a face and wiped his lips. 'It was at that point that I recommended to Hetwar that he make your place permanent. My thinking was purely selfish. I wanted to make sure that you never ended up on the opposite side to me in a fight.' Gesca smiled up at him, but not with his eyes.

Ingrey’s return smile was equally austere. Subtlety, Gesca? How unlike you. What are you trying to say to me?

The ache from his head blow day before yesterday was returning. Ingrey decided to repair to his own inn to find food. He bade the warden to her duty, instructing the women to lock their chamber door once more, and withdrew.

CHAPTER SEVEN

AFTER FORAGING A MEAL OF SORTS IN HIS INN’S COMMON room, Ingrey returned to his chamber to fall across his bed once more. He was a day and a half late fulfilling the Reedmere dedicat’s prescription of rest for his aching head blow, and he apologized humbly in his heart to her. But for all his exhaustion, in the warming afternoon, sleep would not come.

It was no good dashing about arranging all in secret for Ijada’s midnight escape if she refused to mount and ride away. She must be persuaded. If her secret beast was discovered, would they burn her? He imagined the flames licking up around her taut body, evil orange caresses, igniting the oil-soaked shift such prisoners were dressed in to speed their agony. He visualized her swinging from a hemp rope and oak beam, in