Fara settled swiftly into a very private widowhood, under her brother's protection. If her spirit horse rendered her less a prize for some new political marriage, she seemed more grimly pleased than regretful. Her sick headaches did not recur.
Just exactly how Lewko and Oswin between them produced a divine for Prince Jokol, Ingrey never found out, but he and Ijada did come down to the docks to bid the island prince and his comrades farewell. The young divine looked nervous and clung to the ship's rail as though he expected to get seasick going downriver, but seemed very brave and determined. Fafa the ice bear, in a move of swift wit on someone's part, was gifted to King Biast as an ordination present, and took up residence on a nearby farm, with his own pond to swim in.
Withal, snow was flying by the time Ingrey and Ijada rode out of Easthome free, on the southeastern road toward the Lure Valley, with Learned Lewko's expert company. Ingrey spurred them all onward despite the cold. That he was too late about this business was all too probable-but that he might be just too late seemed unendurable. They came to the confluence of the Lure and the Birchbeck on the winter solstice, the Father's Day, an accident of timing that gave Ingrey's heart hope despite his reason and the learned saint's advice.
“Of course,” said Ingrey, with a polite nod. Islin returned the courtesy and took himself out of the great hall.
Ingrey glanced around. A couple of good beeswax candles in silvered sconces cast a warm honeyed flicker over the chamber; a fire burning low in the stone fireplace drove back some of the chill. Beyond the window slits, only midnight darkness lurked, though the gurgle of the fast-flowing Birchbeck, not yet frozen over though its banks were rimed with ice, came up faintly through them. The room was much the same as on the fateful day he and his father had received their wolf sacrifices here, and yet…not. It is smaller and more rustic than I remembered. How can a stone-walled room grow smaller?
Ijada said in a worried voice, “Your cousin seemed very reserved all through dinner. Do you think our spirit animals disturb him?”
Ingrey's lips twitched up in a brief, unfelt smile. “Perhaps a little. But I think mostly he's wondering if I mean to use my new influence at court to take back his patrimony.” Islin was only a little older than Ingrey, and had inherited his seat from Ingrey's uncle some three years past.
“Would you wish to?” Ijada asked curiously.
Ingrey's brows bent. “No. Too many bad memories haunt this place; they overtop my good ones and sink them. I would rather leave them all behind. Save for one.”
Ijada nodded to Lewko. “So, saint. What does your holy sight reveal? Is Islin right? Are there no ghosts here?”
Ingrey lifted his head, closed his eyes, and sniffed. “From time to time, it seems I smell an odd little dankness in the air. But at this time of year, that's no surprise.” He opened his eyes again. “Ijada?”
“I am too untutored to be certain, I'm afraid. Learned?”
Lewko shrugged. “If the god will touch me tonight, any ghosts nearby will be attracted to the aura. Not by any spell of mine, you understand; it just happens. I will pray for my second sight to be shared. The gods are in your debt, Ingrey, Ijada; if only you can receive, I think They will give. Compose yourselves to quietude, and we shall see.” Lewko signed himself, closed his eyes, and clasped his hands loosely before him. He seemed to settle into himself; his lips moved, barely, on his silent prayer.
Ingrey did his best to quell all desire, will, and fear in his own mind; he wondered if just being very, very tired would be enough, instead.
At length Lewko opened his eyes again, stepped forward, and wordlessly kissed first Ijada, then Ingrey on their foreheads. His lips were cool, but Ingrey felt a strange welcome warmth flush through him. He blinked.
“Oh!” said Ijada, looking with interest around the chamber. “Learned, is that one?” She pointed; Ingrey saw a faint pale blob floating past, circling in toward Lewko, scarcely more substantial than a puff of breath in frosty moonlight.
“Aye,” said Lewko, following her gaze. “There is nothing to fear, mind you, though much to pity. That soul is long sundered, fading and powerless.” To imply that Ijada, who had shared the terror and triumph at Bloodfield, might fear a ghost seemed absurd to Ingrey. His own fears lay on another level. “Learned, could it be my father?”
“No,” Ingrey admitted.
“Then it is some other, long lost. Dying beyond death.” Lewko signed the Five at it, and it drifted back into the walls.
“Why would the god lend us this sight, if there was nothing to see?” said Ingrey. “It makes no sense. There must be more.”
Lewko looked around the now-empty chamber. “Let us make a little patrol around the castle, then, and see what turns up. But Ingrey-don't hope too hard. The ghosts of Bloodfield had great spells and all the life of that dire ground to sustain them beyond their time. Lord Ingalef, I fear, had none of that.”
“He had his wolf,” said Ingrey stubbornly. “It might have made some difference.” At his tone, Ijada's hand found his, and squeezed; they left the chamber arm in arm, and took the opposite direction in the corridor from Lewko, the better to quarter the castle while this gift of second sight lasted.
In the bleak winter darkness the castle was cold and dank even without ghosts, but Ingrey found his night sight keener than heretofore. They paced the corridors and chambers, Ijada trailing her hand over the walls. Exiting the main keep, they circled the buildings along the inner bailey wall; in the shadows of the stable, warm with the breath and bodies of the horses, Ijada whispered, “Look, another!”
The pale mist circled them both as if in anxiety, but then faded again.
“Was it…?” asked Ijada.
“I think not. It was simple like the first. Let us go on.”
As they trod across the snow in the narrow courtyard, Ingrey muttered, “I am too late. I should have come earlier.”
“But it rides me to know that there might have once been a time for rescue, and it slipped through my hands. I scarcely know whether to blame myself, or my uncle, or the Temple, or the gods…”
“Blame none, then. My mother and father both died before their times. Yes, they went to their gods, which was some consolation to me, but-not enough. Never enough. Death is not a performance to rate ourselves upon, or berate ourselves upon either.”
He squeezed her hand in return and bent to kiss her hair in the moonlight.
They made their way up the inner steps of the wall and along the sentry walk to the battlement's highest point, above the river, and paused to look out across the steep valley of the Birchbeck. The water of the stream rippled like black silk between the steel sheen of the spreading ice along its banks. The snow cover on the slopes caught the light of the westering moon in a pale blue glow, webbed with the bare tree branches like charcoal strokes, save where stands of black fir marked the rises, or clusters of holly made mystery in the dells. The bare boles of the birches blended with the snow and shadows, eluding the eye.
They stood for a time, gazing out. Ijada shivered despite her woolens, and Ingrey wrapped himself around her like a cloak. She smiled gratefully over her shoulder. You warm me just as much as I warm you, love…
For once, Ingrey sensed the revenant before Ijada, although she felt him stiffen and instantly turned her head to follow his glance. A few paces away floated a shape like mist in the moonlight, denser than the others had been, elongated, almost a man length. Within it, another shadow lurked, like smoke shrouded by fog.
Ingrey's arms spasmed around Ijada, then released her. “Fetch Learned Lewko, hurry!”
Ingrey stood silent, scarcely daring to breathe, lest this image fade or flee like the others. A head end it seemed to have, and feet, but he could not discern any features. His imagination tried to paint it with his father's face, but a chilled realization came over him that he no longer remembered exactly what Lord Ingalef had looked like. His father's appearance had never greatly mattered to Ingrey; it was his solid presence that had warmed, and his rumbling voice, resonating in a chest to which a child-ear pressed, that had promised safety.