The Hallowed Hunt

Ingrey swallowed. He had to force his voice above a whisper. 'I think so.'

'Good. Good.' Gesca backed along the wall, then turned and walked rapidly away into the shadows, glancing often over his shoulder.

Jaws clamped shut, hardly daring to breathe, Ingrey paced the other way, turning at the corner. A lantern hanging on a bracket beside the door of the narrow house burned steadily, guiding him in.

CHAPTER TWELVE

INGREY DIDN’T HAVE TO POUND ON THE DOOR TO WAKE THE house, for the porter, though wearing a nightshirt and with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, came at his first quiet knock. The firm way the man locked up again behind Ingrey did convey a strong hint that this should be the last expedition of the night. He readied a candle in a glass holder to assist Ingrey’s way up the stairs.

Ingrey took it with muttered thanks and scuffed up the steps. Light glimmered above on his landing, which proved to be from both a lamp burning low on a table and another candlestick sitting on the steps up to the next floor. Beside it, Lady Ijada crouched, wrapped in a robe of some dark material. She raised her head from her knees as Ingrey swung out of the constricted staircase with a slight clatter of his sword sheath against the wood.

'You are safe!' she said huskily, rubbing her eyes.

Ingrey blinked around into the shadows, startled. The last time any woman had waited up in concern for him was... beyond the reach of his memory. There was no sign of her warden, nor of his servant Tesko. 'Should I not be?'

'Gesca came, three hours ago or more, and said you’d never come to Lord Hetwar’s!'

'Oh. Yes. I was diverted.'

'I was imagining the most bizarre things befalling you.'

'Did they include a six-hundred-pound ice bear and a pirate poet?'

'No... '

'Then they weren’t the most bizarre after all.'

Her brows drew down; she rose and stepped off the stairs, recoiling as his no-doubt vaporous breath reached her flaring nostrils. She waved a hand to disperse the reek and made a face. 'Are you drunk?'

'By my standards, yes. Although I can still walk and talk and dread tomorrow morning. I spent the evening trapped with twenty-five mad southern islanders and the ice bear on their boat. They did feed me. Have you seen Tesko?'

She nodded toward his closed door. 'He came with your things. I think he fell asleep awaiting you.'

'Unsurprising.'

'What of my letter? I worried it had gone astray.'

Oh. It was her letter she’d feared for, why she had waited up in the dark. 'Safely delivered.' Ingrey considered this. 'Delivered, anyway. How safe a man Learned Lewko is, I would hesitate to guess. He dresses like a Temple clerk, but he’s not one.'

'You once said what sort of Temple-men you thought would take up my case. Which did you judge him to be? Straight or crooked?'

'I... doubt he’s a bribable man. It does not follow that he will be on your side.' Ingrey hesitated. 'He is god-touched.'

She cocked her head. 'You look a little god-touched yourself, just now.'

Ingrey jerked. 'How can you tell?'

Her pale fingers extended, in the flickering shadows, as if to feel his face. 'I once saw one of my father’s men dragged by his horse. He was not badly hurt, but he rose very shaken. Your face is more set, and not covered with blood and dirt, but your eyes look like his did. A bit wild.'

He almost leaned into her hand, but it fell back too soon. 'I’ve had a very strange night. Something happened at the temple. Lewko is coming to see you tomorrow, by the way. And me. I think I’m in trouble.'

'Come, then, and tell me.' She drew him down to sit beside her on the steps, her eyes wide and dark with renewed disquiet.

Ingrey stumbled through a description of his encounter with the bear and its god in the temple court, which twice made her gasp and once made her giggle. He was a little taken aback at the giggle. She listened with fascination to his description of Jokol, his boat, and his verse. 'I thought,' said Ingrey, 'what happened with Fafa was the white god’s doing, in His wrath at the dishonest grooms. But just now, coming back here with Gesca, it happened again. The weirding voice. I did not know if it was my wolf, or me. Five gods, I am no longer sure where I leave off and it begins! It has never spoken like this before. It has never spoken at all.'

Ijada said thoughtfully, 'The fen folk claimed that wisdom songs were magical, once. Long ago.'

'Or far away.' The singing woman at the forest’s edge... 'This is here, and now, and in deadly earnest. What I wonder is, does Wencel know of such powers? Does he possess them? Why did he not use them on us? I think he stole and read your letter while we were at dinner with him, by the way. Learned Lewko says it was opened.'

Ijada sat up and caught her breath. 'Oh! What did the letter say?'

'I did not read it, but I gather it described the events at Red Dike in some detail. So, at least from the time he came back in to join us at the table, Wencel knew of the geas, and he knew that I concealed it from him. Did you sense a change in his conversation, then?'

Ijada frowned. 'If anything, he seemed more forthcoming. In hope of coaxing a like frankness?'

Ingrey shrugged. 'Perhaps.'

'Ingrey... '

'Hm?'

'What do you know of banner-carriers?'

'Scarcely more than I know of shamans. I have read some Darthacan accounts of battles with the Old Wealdings. The Darthacans did not love our bannermen. The spirit warriors, and indeed, all the kin warriors, fought fiercely to defend their standards. If the banner-carrier refused to retreat, then the warriors would fight to the last around him—or her, I suppose, if Wencel speaks true. Audar’s soldiers always tried to bring the banners down as quickly as possible, for that reason. It was said one of the banner-carrier’s tasks was to cut the throats of our own who were too wounded to carry away. It was considered an honorable ending. The wounded warrior, if he still could speak, was expected to bless the bannerman and thank the blade.'

Ijada shivered. 'I did not know that part.'

Her expression grew inward for a moment, on what thoughts Ingrey could scarcely guess. Her dream at the Wounded Woods? But warriors already dead could scarcely require such a gruesome service from their bannerwoman.

Ijada added, 'See what Wencel knows, when you ask him about Holytree.'

'Mm, and there’s another meeting I’m not looking forward to. I don’t think Wencel is going to be best pleased with me over this spectacle tonight. Farcical as it was, I drew the Temple’s attention in the most serious way. I am afraid of Lewko.'

'Why? If he is a friend and mentor of Hallana’s, he cannot be dishonorable.'

'Oh, I’m sure he would be a good friend. And an implacable enemy. It is merely worrisome to imagine him on the other side.' Or was this just habit? He remembered the earnest divines at Birchgrove, torturing him back to silent sanity. It had left pain as an unreliable guide to Ingrey of the line between his friends and his enemies.

Ijada said impatiently, 'What side do you imagine you are on?'

Ingrey’s thoughts came to a full stop. 'I don’t know. Every wall seems to curve away from me. I spin in circles.' He glanced up, finding her eyes, close to his, turned amber in the shadows. The pupils were wide in the dimness, as if to drink him in. He might fall into them as deep wells, and drink deep in turn. She possessed physical beauty, yes, and beneath that the edgy thrilling wildness of her leopard spirit. But beyond that... something more. He wanted to reach through her to that something, something terribly important... 'You are my side. And you are not alone.'