“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.
“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.”
“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 the horror that happened to your father.”
“Why did you never say anything to me? My disaster was no secret. I wish I had known I was not alone!”
“Ingrey, I was thirteen, and terrified! Not least that if my defilement were discovered, they would do to me what they were doing to you! I didn't think I could survive it. I was never strong and athletic, like you. The thought of such torture as you endured sickened me. My only hope seemed concealment, at all costs. By the time I was sure of my own sanity again, and I began to regain my courage, you were gone, exiled, shuffled out of the Weald by your embarrassed uncle. And how could I have communicated? A letter? It would certainly have been intercepted and read, by your keepers or mine.” He breathed deeply, and brought his rapid and shaky voice back under control. “How odd it is to find us roped together now. We could all burn jointly, you know. Back to back to back.”
“Powers that can grant such mercies can also rescind them,” said Wencel darkly. “Ijada and I, then. Not the relation, front to front, that my wife feared, but a holy union of sorts.”
Ijada did not flinch from this remark, but stared at Wencel with a tense new interest, her brows drawn in. Reassessing, perhaps, a man she'd thought she'd known, that she was discovering she had not known at all? As I am?
Wencel focused on Ingrey's grubby bandages. “What happened to your hands?”
“Tripped over a table. Cut myself with a carving knife,” Ingrey answered, as indifferently as possible. He caught Ijada's curious look, out of the corner of his eye, and prayed she would not see fit to expand upon the tale. Not yet, anyway.
Instead, she asked the earl, “What is your beast? Do you know?”
He shrugged. “I had always thought it was a horse, for the Horserivers. That made sense to me, as much as anything in this could.” He drew a long, thoughtful breath, and his chill blue eyes rose to meet theirs. “There have been no spirit warriors in the Weald for centuries, unless maybe some remnant survived hidden in remote refuges. Now there are three new-made, not just in the same generation, but in the same room. Ingrey and I, I have long suspected were of a piece. But you, Lady Ijada…I do not understand. You do not fit. I would urge you search for this missing sorcerer, Ingrey. At the very least, the hunt for such a vital witness might delay proceedings against Ijada.”
Wencel's hands spread flat on the table in unease. “We are all in each other's hands now. I had imagined my secret safe with you, Ingrey, but now it seems you were merely ignorant of it. I've been alone so long. It is hard for me to learn trust, so late.”
Ingrey bent his head in wry agreement.
Wencel pulled his shoulders back, wincing as though they ached. “Well. I must refresh myself, and pay my respects to my late brother-in-law's remains. How are they preserved, by the way?”
“He's packed in salt,” said Ingrey. “They had a plentiful supply at Boar's Head, for keeping game.”
A bleak amusement flashed in Wencel's face. “How very direct of you.”
“I didn't have him properly skinned and gutted, though, so I expect the effect will be imperfect.”
“It's as well the weather is no warmer, then. But it seems we'd best not delay.” Wencel let out a sigh, planted both palms on the tabletop, and pushed himself wearily to his feet. For an instant, the blackness of his spirit seemed to strike Ingrey like a blow, then he was just a tired young man again, burdened too soon in life with dangerous dilemmas. “We'll speak again.”
The earl made his way out to the porch, where his retainers jumped alertly to their feet to escort him toward the town temple. In the door of the taproom, Ingrey touched Ijada's arm. She turned, her lips tight.
“What do you make of Wencel's beast?” he asked her, low-voiced.
She murmured back, “To quote Learned Hallana, if that's a stallion, I'm the queen of Darthaca.” Her eyes rose to meet his, level and intent. “Your wolf is not much like a wolf. And his horse is not much like a horse. But I will say this, Ingrey; they are both a lot like each other.”
much like a horse. But I will say this, Ingrey; they are both a lot like each other.” T
I NGREY RETURNED UPSTAIRS TO PACK HIS SADDLEBAGS, THEN
sought Gesca. The lieutenant's gear was gone from the corner of the taproom. Ingrey walked down the muddy street of Middletown-better named Middlehamlet, in his view-to the small wooden temple, in hopes of finding him. He reviewed which of the half dozen village stables they had commandeered for their horses and equipment Gesca was likely to have gone to next, but the plan proved unnecessary; Gesca was standing in the shade of the temple's wide porch. Speaking, or being spoken to, by Earl Horseriver.
Gesca glanced up at Ingrey, twitched, and fell silent; Wencel merely gave him a nod.