Ijada nodded, some similar reflection sobering her face. She tapped the tabletop. 'If the Temple were brought to attend upon his spell, what might they do?'
'I’m not sure. Nothing, I think, except by sorcery or miracle.'
'The gods are already hip deep in this. With very little reference to the Temple.'
'So it would seem.' Ingrey sighed.
'So what are we to do?’
Ingrey rubbed the back of his neck, which ached. 'Wait, I think. Still. I will go to Horseriver’s household. And spy, but not only for Hetwar. Maybe I will find something there to make sense of this, some piece yet lacking.'
'At what danger to yourself?' she fretted.
Ingrey shrugged.
She looked dissatisfied. 'Something feels horribly unbalanced in this pause.'
'What pause?' Ingrey snorted. 'This unmerciful day has battered me half to bits.'
Her hands waved in renewed exasperation. 'While I have been mewed up in this house!'
He leaned forward, hesitated for a fraction of fear, and kissed her. She did not retreat. There was no sudden shock this time, no change in his sense of her, but that was only because her steady presence had never faded from their first kiss. He could feel it, a current like a millrace flowing between them. The arousal of his body was muted now in exhaustion, the pleasure of her lips drowned in a desperate uneasiness. She clutched him back not in lust or love, it seemed, but starveling trust: not in his dubious abilities, but in him whole. Wolf and all. His heart heated in wonder. He trembled.
She drew back and smoothed his hair from his brow, half-smiling, half-worried. 'Have you eaten?' she asked practically.
'Not lately.'
'You look so tired. Perhaps you should.'
'Hetwar said the same.'
'Then it is so.' She rose. 'I will order the kitchen to bestir itself for you.'
He pressed the back of her hand to his throbbing forehead, before reluctantly releasing her.
Halfway to the door, she looked over her shoulder, and said, 'Ingrey... '
'Hm?' He lifted his head from where it had sunk down upon his arms crossed on the table.
'If Wencel is truly some mystical hallow king, and you are truly his heir... what does that make you?'
'Huh.' She shook her head and went out.
INGREY SLEPT LATER THAN HE’D INTENDED THE NEXT MORNING, and his new orders arrived earlier than he’d expected, by the hand of Gesca.
Still adjusting the jerkin and knife belt he’d just donned, Ingrey descended the staircase to meet his erstwhile lieutenant in the entry hall. Gesca lowered his voice to Ingrey’s ear as the porter shuffled out the door to the kitchen, calling for his boy.
'You are to report to Earl Horseriver.'
'Already? That was fast. What of my prisoner?'
'I am to take your place as house warden.'
Ingrey stiffened. 'In whose name? Hetwar’s or Horseriver’s?'
'Hetwar’s, and the archdivine’s.'
'Do they plan to move her elsewhere?'
'No one has told me yet.'
Ingrey’s eyes narrowed, studying the nervous lieutenant. 'And whom did you report to after Hetwar’s meeting, last night?'
'Why should I have reported to anyone?'
With a casual step that fooled no one, Ingrey backed the man to the wall, leaning on his braced arm and turning to trap Gesca’s gaze. 'You may as well admit you went to Horseriver. If Wencel means me to serve him as I served Hetwar, I will be deep in his councils before long.'
Gesca’s lips parted, but he only shook his head.
'No good, Gesca. I knew of your letters to him.' It was another shot in the almost-dark, but by the lieutenant’s jerk, it hit the target.
'How did you—I thought there was no harm in it! He was Lord Hetwar’s own ally! I just thought I was doing a favor for m’lord’s friend.'
'Suitably recompensed, one feels certain.'
'Well... I am not a rich man. And the earl is not a nip-purse.' Gesca’s brows drew down in new wariness. 'How did you know? I’d swear you never saw.'
'By Wencel’s so-timely arrival at Middletown. Among other things.'
'Oh.' Gesca’s shoulders slumped, and he grimaced.
So was Gesca unhappy to have been lured into disloyalty to Hetwar, or merely unhappy to have been caught at it? 'Slipping down the slope, are you? It makes a man as vulnerable to give favors as to take them. I seldom do either, therefore.' Ingrey smiled his most wolfish, the better to uphold the illusion of his invulnerability in Gesca’s mind.
Gesca’s voice went small. 'Are you going to turn me in?'
'Have I accused you yet?'
'That’s not an answer. Not from you.'
'True.' Ingrey sighed. 'If you were to confess yourself to Hetwar, instead of waiting for an accusation, you’d be more likely to earn a reprimand than a dismissal. Hetwar cares less for perfect honesty from his men, than that he understands precisely the limits of their guile. It’s a comforting certainty of a kind, I suppose.'
'And what of your limits, then? What comfort does he find in them?'
'We keep each other alert.' Ingrey looked Gesca over. 'Well, there could be worse wardens.'
'Aye, and worse-looking wards.'
Ingrey dropped his tone of edgy banter in favor of a much purer menace. 'You will treat Lady Ijada with the strictest courtesy while she is in your charge, Gesca. Or the wrath of Hetwar, the Temple, Horseriver, and the gods combined will be the least of your worries.'
Gesca flinched under his glower. 'Give over, Ingrey. I am no monster!'
'But I am,' Ingrey breathed. 'Clear?'
Gesca scarcely dared inhale. 'Very.'
'Good.' Ingrey stepped away, and though he had in fact not touched him, Gesca slumped like a man released from a throttling grip, patting his throat as if to probe for bruises. Or tooth marks.
Ingrey scuffed back upstairs to roust Tesko to pack his meager belongings again for transfer to Horseriver’s mansion. He reviewed his last night’s meeting with Hetwar and its probable effect, as filtered through Gesca’s memory and wits, on Horseriver. As long as Ingrey was not so stupid as to pretend to conceal it from the earl, he doubted Horseriver would be much disturbed by the assignment to spy on him. And the earl would surely have gleaned from Gesca the fact that Ingrey had kept the darkest of his secrets. On the whole, Gesca’s little betrayal of trust might prove more useful than not, Ingrey decided.
As Tesko tottered off down the stairs under a load of his master’s gear, Ingrey mounted the next flight and rapped on Ijada’s door. He was pleased to hear the bolt scrape back before the door opened to reveal the woman warden’s suspicious eye.
'Lady Ijada, if you please.'
Ijada shouldered past the woman into the little upstairs hall, her expression grave and questioning.
Ingrey ducked his head at her. 'I am called away to Earl Horseriver’s already. Gesca will be taking my place as your keeper, for a time.'
She brightened at the familiar name. 'That’s not so bad, then.'
'Perhaps. I’ll try to come back and speak with you if I find, um, better understandings of things.'
