“Would you care to try his paces?”
“Later, perhaps. I am not wearing my leathers.” And ever since his be-wolfing at Birchgrove he'd always made new mounts peculiarly tense; he preferred to make their first acquaintance in private, in an enclosed space where the spooked horses might be more readily re-caught and remounted till they had come to mutual understanding, or at least mutual exhaustion. This one looked as though it might take some time to wear down to tameness, under him.
“Ah. Pity.”
Two stalls away, an unhorselike movement caught Ingrey's eye. Frowning, he walked down to peer into another loose box. His nostrils flared in surprise. An antlered stag abruptly raised its head from where it was lipping at a pile of hay, snorted, and sidled about. It banged its rack twice against the boards, causing a desultory wave of motion among the horses nearby.
“I think your presence disturbs him,” murmured Wencel, in a tone of dry amusement.
After turning in a few more circles, the handsome beast stilled at the back of the stall, though it did not yet lower its head again to the hay. Its dark and liquid eye glowered at the men. Ingrey judged it captive for some time, for it no longer struggled; new-taken stags could kill themselves in their first frenzy to escape.
Wencel's lips twisted a little as he studied the nervous beast past Ingrey's shoulder. “When one plays against such farsighted opponents as I do, it is as well to have more than one plan. But chances are it is fated for a spit. Come away, now.”
Horseriver did not look back as they exited the mews. Ingrey inquired, “Do you ride much for sport, these days? As I recall you were excited by your father's horses.” It had been one of the few topics his slow young cousin had actually chattered about, in fact.
“Was I?” said Horseriver absently. “I fear I feel about horses much as I feel about wives, these days. They last such a short time, and I am weary of butchering them.”
Unable to think of a response to that, Ingrey followed him silently up the hill.
He considered the method in Wencel's madness, or perhaps it was the other way around. Wencel's rationale for his murderous attempt on Ijada and its equally swift abandonment was too peculiar to be a lie, but it did not follow that he was necessarily correct in it. Still, Wencel's erratic tactics against the gods must have worked before. In naming Ijada god-bait, he was surely not mistaken. That alarm alone must be enough to trigger his nervous malice. He'd eluded four hundred years of this hunt if his claims were true.
The gods would do better to wait at some choke point and let Wencel flail all he liked till he arrived there. But the strange intensity of Wencel's greetings when they'd all met on the road to Easthome was now explained; the man must have been thinking five ways at once. Yes, but so must his Enemies.
A disturbing notion came to Ingrey: perhaps Ijada had not been the bait at that fated meeting after all. Perhaps I was. And Wencel has swallowed me down whole.
Fara's first response was angered insult that a daughter of the hallow king would be ordered before the bench like a common subject-her secret fears taking shelter in injured pride, Ingrey judged. But some clever man-Hetwar, no doubt-had made Prince-marshal Biast the deliverer of the unwelcome summons. Since Biast had less interest in defending dubious actions, and more in finding the truth, his levelheaded persuasion overcame his sister's nervous protests.
Thus it was that Ingrey found himself pacing up the steep hill to Templetown as part of a procession consisting of the prince-marshal, his banner-carrier Symark leading the princess's palfrey, Fara's two ladies-in-waiting who had attended her at Boar's Head, and Fara's matched twin pages. In the main temple court, Symark was dispatched to find directions to where the judges sat, and Fara slipped her brother's leash, briefly, to lead her ladies to kneel and pray in the Mother's court. Whether Fara was trying to call upon the goddess who had so signally ignored her prayers in the past, or merely wanted an unassailable excuse to compose herself in semi-privacy for a few minutes, Ingrey could not guess.
In either case, Ingrey was standing with Biast when an unexpected figure exited the Daughter's court.
“Ingorry!”
Prince Jokol waved cheerfully and trod across the pavement past the holy fire's plinth to where Ingrey waited. The giant islander was shadowed as usual by his faithful Ottovin, and Ingrey wondered if the young man was under instructions from his formidable-sounding sister to make sure her betrothed was returned from his wanderings in good order, or else. Jokol was dressed as before in his somewhat gaudy island garb, but now he had a linen braid dyed bright blue tied around his thick left biceps, mark of a prayer of supplication to the Daughter of Spring.
“Eh!” The big man shrugged. “Still I try to get my divine I was promised, but they put me off. Today, I try to see the headman, the archdivine, instead of those stupid clerks who always tell me to go away and come back later.”
“Do you pray for an appointment?” Ingrey nodded to Jokol's left sleeve.
Jokol clapped his right hand on the blue braid and laughed. “Perhaps I should! Go over his head, eh.”
Ingrey would have thought the Son of Autumn to be Jokol's natural guardian, or perhaps, considering recent events, the Bastard, not that praying to the god of disasters was exactly the safest course. “The Lady of Spring is not your usual Patroness, surely?”
“Oh, aye! She blesses me much. Today, I pray for poetry.”
“I thought the Bastard was the god of poetry.”
“Oh, Him, too, aye, for drinking songs and such. And for those great songs of when the walls come crashing down and all is burning, aye, that make your hairs all stand up, those are fine!” Jokol waved his arms to mime horripilating tragedies suitable for epic verse. “But not today. Today, I mean to make a beautiful song to my beautiful Breiga, to tell her how much I miss her in this stone city.”
Behind him, Ottovin rolled his eyes. Ingrey took it for silent comment on the sisterly object of the proposed song, not on the song itself. Ingrey was reminded that in addition to being the goddess of female virgins, the Daughter was also associated with youthful learning, civil order, and, yes, lyric poetry.
Biast was staring up at Jokol, looking impressed despite himself. “Is this by chance the owner of your ice bear, Ingrey?” he inquired.
Though longing to deny all association with the ice bear, now and forever, Ingrey was reminded of his social duties. “Pardon me, my lord. Allow me to present to you Prince Jokol of Arfrastpekka, and his kinsman Ottovin. Jokol, this is Prince-marshal Biast kin Stagthorne. Son of the hallow king,” he added, in case Jokol needed a touch of native guidance among the perils of Easthome high politics.
The promising mutual appraisal of the two princes was interrupted by the return of Symark, clutching the arm of a gray-robed acolyte. Having secured a guide to the proliferating hodgepodge of buildings that made up the Temple complex, Biast went to collect his sister from the Mother's court.
Jokol, taking the hint, made to bid Ingrey farewell. “I must try harder to see this archdivine fellow. It may take some time, so I should start, eh?”
“Wait,” said Ingrey. “I'll tell you who you should see. In a building two streets back, second floor-no, better.” He darted over to pluck a passing boy in Bastard's whites, a young dedicat of some sort, out of the thin stream of people passing through the central court bound on various errands. “Do you know the way to Learned Lewko's office?” he demanded of the boy.
The boy gave him an alarmed nod.