Who was presently chewing on his knuckles and staring at Ingrey in a most unsettling fashion, Ingrey realized. Ingrey favored him with a polite nod and waited for someone else to begin. Anyone but me. Five gods, my wits are unfit for this perilous company just now.
The archdivine plunged in at once. “Learned Lewko tells us you claim to have experienced a miracle in the Temple court this morning.”
Ingrey wondered how Fritine would react if he said, No, I granted one. I was disinclined, but the god begged me so prettily. Instead, he replied, “Nothing I could prove in a court of law, sir. Or so I am informed.”
Lewko shifted uncomfortably under his level look.
“I was there,” said the archdivine coolly.
“So you were.”
“I saw nothing.” To Fritine's credit, in his expression of mixed worry and suspicion, worry seemed uppermost.
Ingrey inclined his head in a suitably infuriating gesture of utter neutrality. Yes, let them reveal their thoughts first.
Prince-marshal Biast said, rather hopefully, “One could assert that the Son of Autumn taking Boleso's soul was good evidence against the accusation of his tampering with animal spirits.” “One could assert anything one pleased,” Ingrey agreed cordially. “And as long as one's eyewitness Cumril was found floating facedown in the Stork by tomorrow morning, there would be none to gainsay it. Certainly not me.”
“That will not happen,” said the archdivine. “Cumril is in strict custody. Justice will be served.”
“Good. Then howsoever Boleso's soul be rescued, at least his character will get what it deserves.”
Biast winced.
Hetwar said firmly, “So tell me, Lord Ingrey. At what point did you discover that Lady Ijada had also been infected with an animal spirit?”
Ah, they had indeed been comparing Ingrey stories. No help for it now. “The first day out from Boar's Head.”
With his usual deceptive calm, Hetwar inquired, “And you did not think this worthy of mention to me?”
Gesca, standing by the opposite wall and doing his best to appear invisible, shrank at that tone. And who were you penning your letters to, Gesca, if not Hetwar? Horseriver, judging by the neat way he'd turned up on the road. And if so, was Gesca a conduit to him still?
Ingrey replied, “At first opportunity, I placed the problem before Temple authority in the person of Learned Hallana. Who sent me to Learned Lewko.” In a sense. “I awaited his guidance, it being clearly a Temple concern, but alas it was delayed by the crisis of the ice bear. By the time we had another chance to speak, this afternoon, it was rather overridden by other matters.” Other matters? Or the same matter, from another angle of view? Who but the gods saw around all corners simultaneously? It was a disturbing new thought. Well, shift the blame to the saint-who was watching Ingrey's shuffle with a certain dry appreciation-and see who in this room dared to chide him.
Ingrey drew a long breath. “That such a grave charge is surely a matter for a proper Temple inquiry.”
“And what would that inquiry find?”
How great were Wencel's powers of concealment? Better than Ingrey's own, that was certain. “I imagine that would depend upon their competence, sir.”
“Ingrey.” Hetwar's warning tone, the special one pushed through his teeth, made both Gesca and Biast flinch, this time. Ingrey stood fast. “The man is an earl-ordainer, and we are on the verge of an election. I thought he was a staunch advocate of the rightful heir.”
He nodded to Biast, who nodded back gratefully. Fritine blinked, and said nothing.
Hetwar continued, “If this is not the case, I need to know! I cannot afford to lose his support in some untimely arrest.”
“Well,” said Ingrey blandly, “then your solution is simple. Wait until after you have extracted his vote to turn and attack him.”
Biast looked as though he'd bitten into a worm. Hetwar seemed, for a moment, as if he was actually considering this. Fritine looked blank indeed, and Ingrey wondered anew where his ordaining vote was promised.
Had Cumril's chances of kissing the Stork just gone up? Do I care? Ingrey sighed. Probably. Ingrey came to the glum realization that there was not a man in this room that he would fully trust with his newest revelations about Horseriver. I want Ijada.
Ingrey clenched his hands behind his back. My turn. “Archdivine. You are both theologian and ordainer. You must know if anyone does. Can you tell me-what is the precise theological difference between the hallow kingship of the Old Weald and its renewed form under Quintarian orthodoxy?”
Fritine drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “The old hallow king was elected by the heads of the thirteen strongest kin tribes. The new, by eight great kin houses and five Temple ordainers. The rights of blood and primogeniture are given greater precedence”-he glanced at Biast-“after the Darthacan manner. Since the election of the hallow king more often than not used to be a pretext for tribal warfare, this more peaceful transfer of powers between generations itself seems the mark of godly blessings.” His further nod to Biast gave impulsion to the hint, And let us keep it that way.
“A political answer was not what I asked for,” said Ingrey. “Was the old hallow king always a spirit warrior, or…or a shaman?” And how unsafe was it going to prove, to release that particular term into the conversation?
Lewko sat up with a look of growing interest. “I have heard something of the sort. The old hallow king was supposed to be the hub of many intertribal rites; perhaps more mage than holy, in truth.”
Ingrey tried to imagine any hallow king in the recent past as magical, and failed. Nor holy either, in truth. “So that-uncanny power-is all gone from the kingship?”
“Yes?” said Lewko.
Ingrey wasn't sure if that rising inflection was meant as assent or encouragement. “So-what's left? What makes the hallow kingship hallowed now?”
The archdivine's eyebrows went up. “The blessings of the five gods.” “Your pardon, Learned, but I get blessed by the five gods every Quarterday Service. It does not make me holy.”
Ingrey ignored him and forged on. “Is there any more to this kingly blessing than pious good wishes?”
The archdivine said sonorously, “There is prayer. The five archdivine-ordainers pray for guidance in their vote; all invite their gods for a sign.”
Ingrey rather thought he had delivered a couple of those signs himself, in clinking bags. It had not made him feel like a messenger of the gods. “What else? What other changes? There must be something more.” The slight strain in his voice betrayed too much urgency, and he swallowed to bring it back under close control. Five old kin groups were now missing from the mix, true, three of them extinct, two diminished. Five Temple-men replaced them smoothly enough, and who could say they were any less true representatives of their people? Yet the election had created Horseriver a mage-king once, created him something extraordinary. Aye, and he never stopped being it, did he? Was the present kingship empty in part because Horseriver held on to something in his deathlessness that he should have yielded back?
Biast, who had been jittering in his chair during this, interrupted. “If the accusation against Wencel is true, I am deeply concerned for the safety of my sister.”
Ingrey bore no love for Fara, after what she had done to Ijada, but considering his suspicions of the fate of Horseriver's last wife-mother, he had to allow the point. “Your concern seems valid to me, my lord.”
Hetwar sat up at that admission.
Ingrey added, “I am reminded, Sealmaster. Earl Horseriver has lately hinted to me that he desires my service. I beg you, if he asks, to say you will not release me. I fear to refuse him to his face. I don't wish to invoke his enmity.” Hetwar's brows drew down in furious thought. The archdivine stared, and said, “Two spirit-defiled men to be in the same house? Why does he desire this?”