The Hallowed Hunt

Ingrey was uncertain what creature Wencel bore within. Of course, he’d had no clear perception of Ijada’s, either, till his wolf had come unbound again. Even now, if he had not known from seeing both the leopard’s corpse and its renewed spirit in their place of battle with the geas, he might not have been able to put a name to that disquieting wild presence within her.

Far more disturbing to Ingrey was the question, When? He had seen Wencel only twice since his own return from his Darthacan exile four years ago. The earl had been but lately married to Princess Fara, and had taken his bride back to his rich family lands along the lower Lure River, two hundred miles from Easthome. The first time the new-wed Horserivers had returned to the capital, for a midwinter celebration of the Father’s Day three years back, Ingrey had been away on a mission for Hetwar to the Cantons. The next visit, he had seen his cousin only at a gathering at the king’s hall when Prince Biast had received his marshal’s spear and pennant from his father’s hand. Wencel had been taken up with the ceremony, and Ingrey had been tied down in Hetwar’s train.

They’d passed face-to-face but briefly. The earl had acknowledged his disreputable and disinherited cousin with a courteous nod, unsurprised recognition with no hint of aversion, but had not sought him out thereafter. Ingrey had thought Wencel vastly improved over the unprepossessing youth he remembered, and had assumed that the burden of his early inheritance and high marriage had matured him, gifted him with that peculiar gravity. Had there been something strange underlying that gravity, even then? The next time they had met was in Hetwar’s chambers, a week ago. Wencel had been quiet, self-effacing, among that group of grim older men—mortified, or so Ingrey had guessed, for he would not meet Ingrey’s eyes. Ingrey could barely remember his saying anything at all.

Wencel was speaking to Ijada, his eyes downcast in chagrin. 'My lady wife has done you a great wrong, Ijada, and it is surely the gods’ own justice that it has rebounded upon her head. She lied to me at first, claiming that it was your wish to stay with Boleso, until the courier from Boar’s Head brought that dark enlightenment. I swear I gave her no just cause for her jealousy. I should be more furious with her than I am, if her betrayal had not so clearly contained its own punishment. She weeps incessantly, and I... I scarcely know how to unravel this tangle and reweave the honor of my house.' He raised his head again.

The intensity of his gaze upon Ijada was not only, Ingrey thought, perturbation with her leopard. I think Princess Fara was not so astray in her jealousy as Wencel feigns. Four years married, and no heir to the great and ancient house of Horseriver; did that silence conceal barrenness, disaffection, some subtler impotence? Had it fueled a wife’s fears, justly or no?

'I do not know how you may do so either,' returned Ijada. Ingrey was uncertain if the edgy chill of this represented anger or fear, and stole a glance at her face. That pure profile was remarkably expressionless. He suddenly wanted to know exactly what she saw when she looked at Wencel.

Wencel tilted his head in no less frowning a regard. 'What is that, anyway? Surely not a badger. I would guess a lynx.'

Ijada’s chin rose. 'A leopard.'

Wencel’s mouth screwed up in surprise. 'That is no... and where did that fool Boleso get a... and why... my lady, I think you had better tell me all that happened there at Boar’s Head.'

She glanced at Ingrey; he gave a slow nod. Wencel was as wound up in this as any of them, it seemed, on more than one level, and he appeared to have Hetwar’s confidence. So... does Hetwar know of Wencel’s beast, or not?

Ijada gave a short, blunt account of the night’s deeds, factual as Ingrey understood the events, but with almost no hint of her own thoughts or emotions, devoid of interpretations or guesses. Her voice was flat. It was like watching a dumb show.

Wencel, who had listened with utmost attention, but without comment, turned his sharp gaze to Ingrey. 'So where is the sorcerer?'

'What?'

He gestured at Ijada. 'That did not happen spontaneously. There must have been a sorcerer. Illicit, to be sure, if he was both dabbler in the forbidden and tool to such a dolt as Boleso.'

'Lady Ijada—my impression from Lady Ijada’s testimony was that Boleso performed the rite himself.'

'We were alone together in his bedchamber, certainly,' said Ijada. 'If I ever encountered any such person in Boleso’s household, I never recognized him as a sorcerer.'

Wencel absently scratched the back of his neck. 'Hm. Perhaps. Yet... Boleso never learned such a rite by himself. He’d taken up many creatures, you say? Gods, what a fool. Indeed... No. If his mentor was not with him, he must certainly have been there recently. Or disguised. Hidden in the next room. Or fled?'

'I did wonder if Boleso might have had some accomplice,' Ingrey admitted. 'But Rider Ulkra asserted that no servant of the house had slipped away since the prince’s death. And Lord Hetwar would surely not have sent even me to arrest such a perilous power without Temple assistance.' Yes, Ingrey might have encountered something far less benign than salutary pig-delusions.

... Such as a geas? What if his murderous compulsion had not come with him from Easthome after all? He kept his eyes from widening at this new thought. 'Hetwar could not have suspected the true events.' But then why the sealmaster’s insistence on Ingrey’s discretion? Mere politics?

'The reports of the tragedy that Hetwar received that first night were garbled and inadequate, I grant you,' said Wencel with a scowl. 'Leopards were entirely missing from them, among other things. Still... I could wish you had secured the sorcerer, whoever he was.' His gaze wandered back to Ijada. 'At the least, confession from such a prisoner might have helped a lady of my household to whom I owe protection.'

Ingrey flinched at the cogency of that. 'I doubt I should be here, alive or sane, if I had surprised the man.'

'An arguable point,' Wencel conceded. 'But you, of all men, should have known to look.'

Had the geas been fogging Ingrey’s thinking? Or just his own numb distaste for his task? He sat back a little, and, having no defense, countered on another flank: 'What sorcerer did you encounter? And when?'

Wencel’s sandy brows twitched up. 'Can you not guess?'

'No. I did not sense your... difference, in Hetwar’s chamber. Nor at Biast’s installation, which was the last time I’d seen you before.'

'Truly? I was not sure if I had managed to conceal my affliction from you, or you had merely chosen to be discreet. I was grateful, if so.'

'I did not sense it.' He almost added, My wolf was bound, but to do so would be to admit that it now was not. And he had no idea where he presently stood with Wencel.

'That’s a comfort. Well. It came to me at much the same time as yours, if you must know. At the time of your father’s death—or perhaps, I should say, of my mother’s.' At Ijada’s look and half-voiced query, he added aside to her, 'My mother was sister to Ingrey’s father. Which would make me half a Wolfcliff, except for all the Horseriver brides that went to his clan in earlier generations. I should need a pen and paper to map out all the complications of our cousinship.'

'I knew you had a tie, but I did not realize it was so close.'

'Close and tangled. And I have long suspected that all those tragedies falling together like that were somehow bound up one in another.'

Ingrey said slowly, 'I knew my aunt had died sometime during my illness, but I had not realized it was so near to my father’s death. No one spoke of it to me. I’d assumed it was grief, or one of those mysterious wastings that happen to women in middle age.'

'No. It was an accident. Strangely timed.'

Ingrey hesitated. 'Ties... Did you meet the sorcerer who placed your beast in you? Was it Cumril for you, too?'

Wencel shook his head. 'Whatever was done to me was done while I was sleeping. And if you think that wasn’t the most confusing awakening of my life... !'

'Did it not sicken you, or drive you mad?'

'Not so much as yours, apparently. There was clearly something wrong with yours. I mean, over and above