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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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?”