Both horses stumbled, and Fara's went down. Ingrey had already kicked his feet free of his stirrups. He lunged out of his saddle, slid over the flanks of her plunging horse, and made a valiant grab for the princess.
She'd kept a grasp on one stirrup. Her wallowing mount might well have towed her to the far bank, but Ingrey's grip and weight yanked her away. She gave a brief cry ending in a gurgle as her head went under. Horseriver whipped around in time to see Ingrey trying to pull her back to the surface as they both were swept downstream.
“Stay!” the earl cried. Ingrey jerked in response, but though that uncanny voice might command man or beast, it had no effect on the heavy current. The water was chill but not bitterly so, and this time, Ingrey managed to avoid clouting his head on a boulder. But this time, he also discovered immediately, his partner could in truth not swim. He renewed his grip on the flailing woman and gasped as he in turn went under, and his struggle for breath grew as unfeigned as hers.
He still managed to push them back into the swiftest current three times, as his longer legs dragged the gravel, until at last the stream broadened and slowed in a pool so shallow that even Fara's feet could touch bottom. Sliding and floundering, they waded to shore.
Ingrey scanned the bank. They had passed some mighty tangles of brush, a stretch of high and rocky overhangs that had constricted the waters into a frighteningly speedy chute, and now, a clot of young willows growing thickly along the farther shore. Wencel, especially if he'd stopped to secure their abandoned mounts, would not soon catch up with them. Ingrey had a very clear idea of just how much delay such a sopping mishap might cause, and hoped to extend it even further.
It was not in Ingrey's present interests to clarify this. “My duty, my lady. And my fault-my horse stumbled into yours.”
“I thought I-I thought we were both going to drown.”
So did I. “No, my lady.”
“Did we…” she hesitated, turning her dark eyes up at him. “Did we escape?”
Ingrey took a long breath, and let it out slowly. Distance from the hallow king was, as he'd hoped, sobering-but not enough. The unwanted sense of Wencel that had replaced his link with Ijada was still present, body deep. The earl was urgent, somewhere upstream. But not panicked. “I don't think so. But we may be able to delay.”
“To what end?”
“We must be followed. You must be followed. Maybe more quickly than Wencel thinks. Biast will be frantic on your behalf.” The earl might have pictured them not being missed till the next day, but Ijada would have known instantly. Would she have thought him killed? Would she have been able to communicate with anyone? Lewko, Hallana? Would Gesca have listened to her pleas to seek them, late last night? Once faintly guilty for intimidating Gesca on her behalf, Ingrey was now sorry he had not terrorized the lieutenant more. Five gods help her. And us.
And if They are as interested as They seemed, where are They now, curse Them?
Fara stood shivering in a patch of sunlight, her heavy sodden garments clinging to her solid form, hair knocked loose from its braiding tailing in wet, miserable strands down her face. Ingrey was in little better case, wet leathers squeaking irritatingly as he moved. He stepped apart, drew his blades, and made a futile effort to wipe them dry.
“Holytree, that was. Bloodfield. The Wounded Woods that are.”
“Ijada's woods? Her dower land?” She stared in astonishment. “Is this for her, somehow?”
“The other way around. It is the Woods that Wencel desires, not their heiress. They are old, old and accursed.”
Fara's face pinched in, half-reassured, half-more alarmed. “Why? Why did he drag me from Papa's deathbed, what evil thing does he intend? Why did he defile me with this, this…” She turned in a circle, clawing at her breast as if she could so dig out her unwanted haunt.
Ingrey caught her clay-cold hands and held them. “Stop, lady. I do not know why you are wanted. Ijada thought I was destined to cleanse the ghosts of the Woods of their spirit animals, as I did for Prince Boleso. If this is what Wencel wants of me, I don't know why he doesn't just say so; it seems no improper charge.”
She looked up at him eagerly. “Can you take this horrible animal thing out of me, as well? As you did for my brother? Now?”
“Not while you live. The Old Weald shamans cleansed their comrades' souls only after death, it appears.”
“Then you had best outlive me,” she said slowly.
“I don't know. I don't know what will happen.”
Her face grew stonier. She grated, “I could make certain of it.”
“No, lady!” His grip tightened. “We are not in such dire straits yet, though I will swear to you if you wish that I will try, if our deaths fall out that way.”
She gripped him back, looking disturbingly possessive for an instant. “Perhaps. Perhaps.” She released him and wrapped her arms around her torso, shoulders hunching.
“Then you could not cleanse Wencel, alive, either,” she continued, brows pinching in worry.
“Wencel, well, Wencel is not just infested with a simple spirit horse like yours. He is…possessed, I suppose is as good a word as any, by a spirit, a soul, a concatenation…he claims, anyway, to be the sundered ghost of the last hallow king of the Old Weald.” More than claims. “Kept alive whether he will or nil by a great spell based in Bloodfield.”
Her voice went hushed. “Do you think he has gone mad?”
“Yes.” He added reluctantly, “But he's not lying. Not about that.”
Fara stared at him for a long, long moment. He almost expected her to ask, Do you think you have gone mad? to which Ingrey did not know the answer, but instead she said, “I felt it when he changed. He changed last night, when Papa died.”
“Yes. He reclaimed his kingship, or some missing part of it. Now he is…well, I'm not sure what he is. But he races time.”
She shook her head. “Wencel always ignored time. He was maddening, that way.”
“This thing in Wencel's body isn't really Wencel. I have to keep remembering that.”
She rubbed her temples.
“Is your head bothering you?” Ingrey asked cautiously.
“No. It's very strange.”
How should they delay further? Split up, so as to take longer to find? A clever notion; he could get back in the water, which was immune to the hallow king's glamour, and let it carry him downstream for miles until Wencel overtook him. Ingrey tried to remember if they'd passed any waterfalls coming up. But no. He could not leave this woman alone, shivering in the wilderness, waiting for the uncanny chimera she'd married to find her. “Prince-marshal Biast commanded me to guard you. We cannot separate.”
“Wencel will search first along the banks. Let us at least go a little more into the woods.”
It would not be enough to elude Horseriver altogether; he could already feel the tug of their tie, growing tighter. But truth to tell, he was becoming wildly curious about Bloodfield. He wanted to see it, needed to see it. And the straightest way was to let Horseriver take him there. But not too swiftly. Wencel might have had all he required in Ingrey and Fara, but Ingrey didn't think he had all he needed. I need Ijada. I'm sure of it. Did Horseriver know it, to separate them so? Trust in the gods, They will supply? Hardly. He wondered suddenly if it was as hard for the gods to have faith in Ingrey as it was for him to have faith in Them, and a weird wild urge to show Them how it should be done swept him for a moment.
Whatever fey look had possessed him made Fara step back. “I will follow you,” she said faintly.
They turned to scramble into the brush. Over rotting logs, up past the high-water mark of a second stony bank, into deeper shade. Out across a sunny meadow high with purple thistles and prickling weeds that laid a dotted trail of burrs on their damp clothes. Through scratching brambles into more shade, laced with fine spiderwebs that caught across their mouths. The hike did some good, he thought, if only to render them drier by the exercise.