The Hallowed Hunt

left your father dead and you... well. They were quite jumbled and wild. And certainly incomplete. Would you tell me the full tale?'

Ingrey, braced for more questions about Hallana, hesitated in confusion, then mustered his memories once more. He had held them for years in silence, yet now recounted them aloud for the third time in a week. His story seemed to grow smoother with repetition, as though the account were slowly coming to replace the event, even in his own mind. Wencel chewed and listened, frowning.

'Your wolf was different than your father’s,' he said, as Ingrey wound down after describing, as best he could, the wolfish turmoil in his mind that had blended into his weeks of delirium.

'Well, yes. For one thing, it was not diseased. Or at least... not in the same way. It made me wonder if animals could get the falling sickness, or some like disease of the mind.'

'How did your father’s huntsman come by it?'

'I do not know. He was dead before I recovered enough to ask anything.'

'Huh. For I had heard'—a slight emphasis on that last word, a significant pause—'that it was not the wolf originally intended for you. That the rabid wolf had killed its pack mate, a day before the rite was to be held. And that the new wolf was found that night, sitting outside the sick wolf’s cage.'

'Then you have heard more than I was told. It could be, I suppose.'

Wencel tapped his spoon beside his plate in a faint, nervous tattoo, seemed to catch himself, and set it down.

Ingrey added, 'Did your mother say anything to you about your stallion? That morning when you awoke changed.'

'No. That was the morning she died.'

'Not of rabies!'

'No. And yet I have wondered, since. She died in a fall from a horse.'

Ingrey pursed his lips. Ijada’s eyes widened.

'It died in the accident, too,' Wencel added. 'Broke its leg. The groom cut its throat—it was said. By the time I came to wonder about it—some time afterward—she was long buried, and the horse butchered and gone. I have meditated by her grave, but there is no lingering aura to be sensed there. No ghosts, no answers. Her death was wrenching to me, so soon, just four months after my father’s. I was not insensible to the parallels with your case, Ingrey, but if Wolfcliff brother and sister had some plan concocted, some intent, no one confided it to me.'

'Or some conflict,' Ijada suggested thoughtfully, looking back and forth between the pair of them. 'Like two rival castles, one on each side of the Lure, building their battlements higher.'

Wencel opened a hand in acknowledgment of the possible point, though his frown suggested that the idea did not sit easily with him.

'In all this time, you must have developed theories, Wencel,' said Ingrey.

Wencel shrugged. 'Guesses, conjectures, fantasies, more like. My nights grew full of them, till I was wearied beyond measure with the wondering.'

Ingrey chased his last bite of dumpling across his plate, and said in a lower tone, 'Why did you never approach me before, then?'

'You were gone to Darthaca. Permanent exile, for all I knew. Then your family lost all trace of you. You might have been dead, as far as anyone had heard to the contrary.'

'Yes, but what about after? When I returned?'

'You seemed to have reached a place of safety, under Hetwar’s protection. Safer with your dispensation than I was with my secrets, certainly. I envied you that. Would you have thanked me for throwing your life back into doubt and disarray?'

'Perhaps not,' Ingrey conceded reluctantly.

A crisp double knock sounded at the room’s thick door. Ijada started, but Wencel merely called, 'Come!'

Wencel’s clerk poked his head around the door and murmured apologetically, 'The message you were awaiting has arrived, my lord.'

'Ah, good. Thank you.' Wencel pushed back from the table, and to his feet. 'Excuse me. I shall return in a few moments. Pray continue.' He gestured at the serving dishes.

As soon as Wencel exited, a pair of servants bustled in to clear used plates, lay new courses, renew the wine and water, and retreat again with equally wordless bows. Ingrey and Ijada were left looking at each other. Some tentative exploration under the dish covers revealed dainties, fruits, and sweets, and Ijada brightened. They helped one another to the most interesting tidbits.

Ingrey glanced at the closed door. 'Do you think Princess Fara knows of Wencel’s beast?' he asked her.

She studied a piece of honeyed marzipan and ate it before replying. Her frown was not, Ingrey thought, for the food. 'It would fit some things that I didn’t understand about them. Their relationship seemed strange to me, although I didn’t necessarily expect such a high marriage to be like my mother’s. Either of hers. For all that he is not handsome, I think Fara wanted Wencel to be in love with her. In some more courtly fashion than he displayed.'

'Was he not courtly?'

'Oh, he was always polite, that I saw. Cool and courteous. I never saw why she seemed to have always a touch of fear around him, for he never raised his hand or even his voice to her. But if it was fear for him, and not—or not just—of him, perhaps that explains it.'

'And was he in love with her?'

Her frown deepened. 'It’s hard to say. He was so often moody, so distant and silent, for days on end it seemed. Sometimes, if there were visitors to Castle Horseriver, he would rouse himself, and there would be a spate of conversation and wit—he’s really extraordinarily learned. Yet he has spoken more in one evening to you, here, than I ever heard him speak at any meal with his wife. But then... you are arresting to him in ways that she is not.' Her eyes slid toward and away from him, and he knew she tested her inner senses.

So are you, now, Ingrey realized. 'He has only a little time to assure himself of his own safety in this new tangle. Perhaps that explains why he’s pushing. He is pushing—don’t you think?' Ingrey at least felt pressed.

'Oh, yes.' She paused in thought. 'Too, it may be an outpouring long suppressed. Who could he speak to of this, before us, now? He’s worried, yes, but also... I don’t know. Excited? No—subtler or stranger than that. Surely joyful cannot be the word.' Her lips screwed up.

'I shouldn’t think so,' Ingrey said dryly.

The door clicked open, and Ingrey’s gaze jerked up. It was Wencel, returning. He seated himself again with an apologetic gesture.

'Is your business settled?' Ijada inquired politely.

'Well enough. If I have not yet said so, Ingrey, let me congratulate you on the speed of your mission. It does not look as though I shall be able to emulate it, to my regret. I’ll likely send you ahead with Lady Ijada tomorrow, as her presence in the cortege is like to be, hm, awkward, as it is turned into a parade. At half march all the way on to Easthome, five gods spare me.'

'Where in Easthome am I to be sent?' Ijada asked, a little tensely.

'That is a matter still being settled. I should know by tomorrow morning. No place vile, if I have my way.' He stared at her through lidded eyes.

Ingrey stared at them both, daring to extend his senses beyond sight. 'You two are different from each other. Your beast is much darker, Wencel. Or something. Her cat makes me think of sundappled shade, but yours... goes all the way down.' Past the limits of his perceptions.

'Indeed, I think that leopardess must have been at the peak of its condition,' said Wencel. He cast Ijada a smile, as if to reassure her that the comment was well meant. 'It has a fresh and pure power. A Weald warrior