The Hallowed Hunt

He spent the rest of the day not smiling at her, nor looking at her, nor riding near her, nor speaking to her, nor betraying any awareness of her existence in any way whatsoever. The effect seemed contagious; Gesca trotted near him to make some remark, took one look at his face, swallowed his words, and prudently retreated to the opposite end of the column. No one else approached him either, and Boleso’s retainers shrank from his glower. At his few commands, men hastened to obey.

Their start had been late and their progress slow, seldom pushing the horses faster than a walk. As a result they arrived that afternoon at a smaller town than any prior stop, though still more miles nearer Easthome than Ingrey would have liked. Ingrey ruthlessly sent Boleso’s men to bed down with their late master in Middletown’s rustic temple, and seized the sole inn for himself, his prisoner and her duenna, and Hetwar’s troop. He stalked the town’s perimeter in the twilight, all too brief a task. There could be no excursion this night to that crowded temple for undervoiced argument. Tomorrow night, he must select a larger town for their halt, Ingrey determined. And the next night... there weren’t enough next nights.

Since Gesca chose a bedroll in the taproom rather than to share Ingrey’s chamber, Ingrey took his still- recovering hurts to bed early, and alone.

WITH A SHORT LEG PLANNED FOR THEIR JOURNEY, INGREY DID not drive his men to an early start the next morning, either. He was still desultorily drinking bitter herb tea and nibbling bread in the little inn’s taproom when Lady Ijada descended with her new warden. He managed to return her nod without undue distortion of his features.

'Was your chamber comfortable?' he inquired, neutrally polite, too aware of the two guardsmen in earshot still finishing their repast at the trestle table across the room.

'It sufficed.' Her return frown was searching, but better than that hazardous smile.

He thought of asking after her dreams, but hesitated for the fear that this would prove not a neutral topic at all. Perhaps he might dare to ride by her side for a time later today; she seemed fully capable, once given the lead, of carrying on an oblique conversation before unfriendly ears that might convey more information than it appeared.

The sound of horses’ hooves and a jingle of harness from outside turned both their heads. 'Halloo the house!' a hoarse voice shouted, and the tapster-and-owner scurried out through the hall to greet these new customers, pausing to send a servant to roust the stableboys to take the gentlemen’s horses.

Ijada’s nostrils flared; she drifted toward the door in the innkeeper’s wake. Ingrey drained his clay beaker and followed, left hand reflexively checking his sword hilt. He came up behind her shoulder as she stepped onto the wooden porch.

Four armed men were dismounting. One was clearly a servant, two wore a familiar livery, and the last... Ingrey’s breath stopped in surprise. And then blew out in shock.

Earl-ordainer Wencel kin Horseriver paused in his saddle, his reins gathered in his gloved hands. The young earl was a slender man, wearing a tunic from which gold threads winked under a leather coat dyed wine-red. The coat’s wide collar was trimmed with marten fur, disguising his uneven build. His dark blond hair, lightened with a few streaks of premature gray, hung to his shoulders in ratty corkscrew strands, disheveled by his ride. His face was elongated, his forehead prominent, but his odd features were redeemed from potential ugliness by sharp blue eyes, fixed now on Ingrey. His presence here on this bright morning was unexpected enough. But the shock...

It seemed partly a scent, though borne on no breeze, partly a shadow, an intense density that made Wencel seem, somehow, vastly more there than any man around him. The scent was a little acrid, like urine, a little warm, like sweet hay, and deeply potent. And it appeared in Ingrey’s mind without passing through his nostrils. He bears a spirit animal.

Too.

And I have never perceived it before.

Ingrey’s head jerked toward Ijada; her face, also, had gone still with astonishment.

She senses it—smells it? Sees it? And it is a new thing to her as well. How new is it?

The perceptions, it appeared, ran three ways, for Wencel sat up with his head cocked, eyes widening, as his gaze first summed Ingrey, then turned to Ijada. Wencel’s lips parted as his jaw dropped a fraction, then tightened again in a crooked smile.

Of the three of them, the earl recovered first. 'Well, well, well,' he murmured. A pair of gloved fingers waved past his forehead in salute to Ingrey, then went to his heart to convey a shadow-bow to Ijada. 'How very strangely met we three are. I have not been so taken by surprise for... longer than you would believe.'

The innkeeper began a gabble of welcome, intercepted, at a jerk of Wencel’s chin, by one of his guardsmen, who took the man aside, presumably to explain what would be wanted of his humble house by his highborn guests. By trained civility, Ingrey went to Wencel’s horse’s head, though he did not really want to stand any nearer to the earl. The animal snorted and sidled at his hand on the bridle, and his grip tightened. The horse’s shoulders were wet with sweat from the morning’s gallop, the chestnut hairs curled and darkened, white lather showing between its legs. Whatever brings him, Wencel wastes no time.

Staring down at Ingrey, Wencel drew a long breath. 'You are just the man I wanted to see, cousin. Lord Hetwar takes pity on your aversion to ceremony, so repeatedly expressed in your otherwise laconic letters. So I am sent to take over my late brother-in-law’s cortege. A family duty, as I’m the only relative neither prostrate with grief, laid down with illness, or still stuck on bad roads halfway to the border. A royal show of equipment and mourners follows on to join us in Oxmeade. I had thought to meet you there last night, according to your ever- changing itineraries.'

Ingrey licked dry lips. 'That will be a relief.'

'I thought it might be.' His eyes went to Ijada, and the sardonic, rehearsed cadences ceased. He lowered his head. 'Lady Ijada. I cannot tell you how sorry I am for what has happened—for what was done to you. I regret that I was not there at Boar’s Head to prevent this.'

Ijada inclined her head in acknowledgment, if not, precisely, in forgiveness. 'I’m sorry you were not at Boar’s Head, too. I did not desire this high blood on my hands, nor... the other consequences.'

'Yes... ' Wencel drawled the word out. 'It seems we have much more to discuss than I’d thought.' He shot Ingrey a tight-lipped smile and dismounted. At his adult height, Wencel was only half a hand shorter than his cousin; for reasons unclear to Ingrey, men regularly estimated his own height as greater than it was. In a much lower voice, Wencel added, 'Strangely secret things, since you did not choose to discuss them even with the sealmaster. Some might chide you for that. Be assured, I am not one of them.'

Wencel murmured a few orders to his guardsmen; Ingrey gave up the reins to Wencel’s servant, and the inn’s stableboys came pelting up to lead the retinue away around the building.

'Where might we go to talk?' said Wencel. 'Privately.'

'Taproom?' said Ingrey, nodding to the inn.

The earl shrugged. 'Lead on.'

Ingrey would have preferred to follow, but led off perforce. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Wencel offer a polite arm to Lady Ijada, which she warily evaded by making play with lifting her riding skirts up the steps and passing ahead of him.

'Out,' Ingrey said to Hetwar’s two breakfasting men, who scrambled up in surprise at the sight of the earl. 'You can take your bread and meat with you. Wait outside. See that no one disturbs us.' He closed the taproom door behind them and the confused warden.

Wencel, after an indifferent glance around the old-fashioned rush-strewn chamber, tucked his gloves in his belt, seated himself at one of the trestle tables, and waved Ingrey and Ijada to the bench across from him. His hands clasped each other on the polished boards, motionless but not relaxed.