The Hallowed Hunt

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Did you sense Wencel? Did you see him or hear his voice?”

  “No, not…not as he is. These visions were in your mind, I think. Were they not?”

  “Yes. Pictures from before-times, yes? The Old Weald. The massacre at Bloodfield.”

  She shuddered and touched her own neck, and the horrible crunch of the ax parting bone sounded again in Ingrey’s memory. She felt that, too.

  “Why do we share such things? What has happened between us?” she asked.

  “The pictures, those visions—Wencel put them in me. He is not just spirit warrior like you, not just shaman like me. He’s more. Lost out of time, terrible in his power and pain. He thinks he is—he claims to be—hallow king.”

  “But old Lord Stagthorne is king, has been since before I was born—how can there be two?”

  “I think that is some problem, some mystery, that I have not yet come to the core of. I went to Wencel planning to beat the truth out of him if I had to. Instead, he beat it into me…”

  He guided her into a chair and sat next to her, their hands still gripping each other across the tabletop. Haltingly, Ingrey described his terrifying interview with the earl. Ijada seemed to have shared only the mystic visions, not their context; Ingrey thought she must have spent the last hours wild with bewilderment, for even now her eyes were dilated and her body shivering.

  “Wencel claims I am his soul’s heir, my body to be seized by his spell whether he or I will it or not. How long this has been so, I do not know. There might once have been some other cousin between us, who died more lately, but…but it may even go back to the death of my father. Which raises yet more questions without answers about what my father intended with his wolf rite.”

  “My other dream,” she breathed. “Of the burning horseman, the leashed wolf racing through the ash. It was you! It was both of you.”

  “Do you think? Perhaps…”

  “Ingrey, I recognized Holytree, I recognized my men. I am bound to them as certainly as I am bound to you, though I do not know how. And if Wencel spoke true, he is bound to them as well, and they to him.”

  “Wencel’s tale was full of gaps, but he did not lie about that,” said Ingrey certainly. “That binding is at the very heart of all this.”

  “Then the circle is complete. You are bound to me, me to my ghosts, they to Wencel, and Wencel, it seems, to you. Is Wencel trying to work some great magic with all of us here?”

  “I’m not sure. This is not all Wencel’s doing, exactly. For one thing, the choice of his mystical heir is not his own, or he would surely have picked someone other than me. Which makes a sort of sense; the spell must have been made to work in the chaos and heat of battle, when both king and next heir might fall in the same hour—as happened at Bloodfield, more or less. The transfer must take place without attention or will on the part of the hallowed ones. So that part of the spell must be bound up with the dead spirit warriors in the Wounded Woods. It’s as if the whole of the Old Weald, or what remains of its kin powers, chooses its heir through Wencel.” There seemed to Ingrey to be an enigmatic, daunting validation in the notion.

  Ijada’s eyes narrowed. “Are we all three supposed to go to Bloodfield, then? And if so, what are we supposed to do when we get there?”

  “And who—or Who—presses us to that end?” Ingrey muttered. He sat back, frowning. “The spell was locked tighter, heretofore. Just the Horserivers and the dead warriors, around and around for sixteen generations. You—you broke into it from the outside. The spell broke out to claim me. Its boundaries are not what they were. Boundaries between death and life, spirit and matter. Bloodline and bloodline. The Weald and an outer land. Changes—for the first time in centuries, changes are breaking in.”

  Ijada rubbed her wrinkled brow. “What am I, in this? Half-in, half-out—do I even belong? I am alive, they are dead; I am a woman, they are men—mostly—I think…My leopard is not even a proper Wealding beast! I did nothing for Boleso’s soul this morning; I just stood there stupidly gaping. It’s you that’s wanted, Ingrey, you who might free the ghosts from their old creatures!” Her gaze upon him was devouring in its conviction.

  “A door in a wall is at once both inside and outside,” said Ingrey slowly. “Half and half, as you are in your very blood, by your father’s grace. And you were wanted, too, though not, I think, by Wencel. Did your ghosts not choose you? Of all who slept and dreamed in the Woods that night?”

  She hesitated, straightened a little. “Yes.”

  “So, then.” Then what? Ingrey’s exhausted brain did not supply an answer. “More matters arose, after the visions. Wencel wants very much to keep me closer, I think. He coaxed me with an offer of a post in his household. More than coaxed. Coerced.”

  She frowned in new worry.

  “Hetwar,” Ingrey continued, “instead of protecting me, wants me to take up the station so as to spy for him. Cumril raised the suspicion that Wencel bears a spirit animal, though the Temple and Hetwar do not yet know how much else he claims to be. I did not tell them. I’m not sure what consequences will spin from that, nor how quickly Wencel’s darker secrets will unravel. Nor how I will be caught up in the tangle. Worse, Biast has taken a fear of his brother-in-law and wants to set me to guard Fara.” Ingrey grimaced.

  “Biast may not be not so far abroad as all that,” said Ijada slowly. “I surely do not want my disasters to be the death of any more Stagthornes.”

  “You don’t see. If I am drawn off to Horseriver, they will take you from my charge, give you over to some other jailer. Maybe shut you up in some other prison, less easy of access. Or of escape.”

  Tension tightened her face. “I must not be…must not be constrained, when it is finished. When it is time to go.”

  “When what is finished?”

  Her hand grasped air in a gesture of frustration. “This. Whatever this is. When the god’s hunt closes in upon what He seeks. Do you not feel it, Ingrey?”

  “Feel, yes, I am feverish with the strain, but I do not see it. Not clear.”

  “What is Wencel about?”

  Ingrey shook his head. “I am less certain all the time that he is about anything, besides defending his old secrets. His mind is so full, he actually seems to have trouble paying attention at moments. Not that this makes him less dangerous. What does he really fear? He cannot, after all, be slain, it would seem.” Execution would not stop the earl. Imprisonment, were Wencel desperate enough, he might escape the same hard way, no matter how deep the dungeon or heavy the guard. It came to Ingrey that he really didn’t want to risk Wencel being imprisoned.

  Ijada’s lips twisted in new puzzlement. “And how has the earl been getting through his funerals, all these centuries, if his soul never goes to the gods?”

  Ingrey paused, considering the lack of rumor, then made a little gesture of negation. “Occupying the body of his own heir, he would usually be in close charge of his own rites. I’m sure he became expert in arranging them to display what he willed. And if he missed a few, well, some men are sundered.”

  The strangeness of it disturbed Ingrey’s imagination anew. What must it have been like for Horseriver to watch his own body being buried, over and over? In a bereavement twisted back on itself, knowing that it was not the father but the son being lost in that hour?

  Ijada nodded, some similar reflection sobering her face. She tapped the tabletop. “If the Temple were brought to attend upon his spell, what might they do?”

  “I’m not sure. Nothing, I think, except by sorcery or miracle.”

  “The gods are already hip deep in this. With very little reference to the Temple.”

  “So it would seem.” Ingrey sighed.

  “So what are we to do?’

  Ingrey rubbed the back of his neck, which ached. “Wait, I think. Still. I will go to Horseriver’s household. And spy, but not only for Hetwar. Maybe I will find something there to make sense of this, some piece yet lacking.”

  “At what danger to yourself?” s
he fretted.

  Ingrey shrugged.

  She looked dissatisfied. “Something feels horribly unbalanced in this pause.”

  “What pause?” Ingrey snorted. “This unmerciful day has battered me half to bits.”

  Her hands waved in renewed exasperation. “While I have been mewed up in this house!”

  He leaned forward, hesitated for a fraction of fear, and kissed her. She did not retreat. There was no sudden shock this time, no change in his sense of her, but that was only because her steady presence had never faded from their first kiss. He could feel it, a current like a millrace flowing between them. The arousal of his body was muted now in exhaustion, the pleasure of her lips drowned in a desperate uneasiness. She clutched him back not in lust or love, it seemed, but starveling trust: not in his dubious abilities, but in him whole. Wolf and all. His heart heated in wonder. He trembled.

  She drew back and smoothed his hair from his brow, half-smiling, half-worried. “Have you eaten?” she asked practically.

  “Not lately.”

  “You look so tired. Perhaps you should.”

  “Hetwar said the same.”

  “Then it is so.” She rose. “I will order the kitchen to bestir itself for you.”

  He pressed the back of her hand to his throbbing forehead, before reluctantly releasing her.

  Halfway to the door, she looked over her shoulder, and said, “Ingrey…”

  “Hm?” He lifted his head from where it had sunk down upon his arms crossed on the table.

  “If Wencel is truly some mystical hallow king, and you are truly his heir…what does that make you?”

  Terrified, mostly. “Nothing good.”

  “Huh.” She shook her head and went out.

  INGREY SLEPT LATER THAN HE’D INTENDED THE NEXT MORNING, and his new orders arrived earlier than he’d expected, by the hand of Gesca.

  Still adjusting the jerkin and knife belt he’d just donned, Ingrey descended the staircase to meet his erstwhile lieutenant in the entry hall. Gesca lowered his voice to Ingrey’s ear as the porter shuffled out the door to the kitchen, calling for his boy.

  “You are to report to Earl Horseriver.”

  “Already? That was fast. What of my prisoner?”

  “I am to take your place as house warden.”

  Ingrey stiffened. “In whose name? Hetwar’s or Horseriver’s?”

  “Hetwar’s, and the archdivine’s.”

  “Do they plan to move her elsewhere?”

  “No one has told me yet.”

  Ingrey’s eyes narrowed, studying the nervous lieutenant. “And whom did you report to after Hetwar’s meeting, last night?”

  “Why should I have reported to anyone?”

  With a casual step that fooled no one, Ingrey backed the man to the wall, leaning on his braced arm and turning to trap Gesca’s gaze. “You may as well admit you went to Horseriver. If Wencel means me to serve him as I served Hetwar, I will be deep in his councils before long.”

  Gesca’s lips parted, but he only shook his head.

  “No good, Gesca. I knew of your letters to him.” It was another shot in the almost-dark, but by the lieutenant’s jerk, it hit the target.

  “How did you—I thought there was no harm in it! He was Lord Hetwar’s own ally! I just thought I was doing a favor for m’lord’s friend.”

  “Suitably recompensed, one feels certain.”

  “Well…I am not a rich man. And the earl is not a nip-purse.” Gesca’s brows drew down in new wariness. “How did you know? I’d swear you never saw.”

  “By Wencel’s so-timely arrival at Middletown. Among other things.”

  “Oh.” Gesca’s shoulders slumped, and he grimaced.

  So was Gesca unhappy to have been lured into disloyalty to Hetwar, or merely unhappy to have been caught at it? “Slipping down the slope, are you? It makes a man as vulnerable to give favors as to take them. I seldom do either, therefore.” Ingrey smiled his most wolfish, the better to uphold the illusion of his invulnerability in Gesca’s mind.

  Gesca’s voice went small. “Are you going to turn me in?”

  “Have I accused you yet?”

  “That’s not an answer. Not from you.”

  “True.” Ingrey sighed. “If you were to confess yourself to Hetwar, instead of waiting for an accusation, you’d be more likely to earn a reprimand than a dismissal. Hetwar cares less for perfect honesty from his men, than that he understands precisely the limits of their guile. It’s a comforting certainty of a kind, I suppose.”

  “And what of your limits, then? What comfort does he find in them?”

  “We keep each other alert.” Ingrey looked Gesca over. “Well, there could be worse wardens.”

  “Aye, and worse-looking wards.”

  Ingrey dropped his tone of edgy banter in favor of a much purer menace. “You will treat Lady Ijada with the strictest courtesy while she is in your charge, Gesca. Or the wrath of Hetwar, the Temple, Horseriver, and the gods combined will be the least of your worries.”

  Gesca flinched under his glower. “Give over, Ingrey. I am no monster!”

  “But I am,” Ingrey breathed. “Clear?”

  Gesca scarcely dared inhale. “Very.”

  “Good.” Ingrey stepped away, and though he had in fact not touched him, Gesca slumped like a man released from a throttling grip, patting his throat as if to probe for bruises. Or tooth marks.

  Ingrey scuffed back upstairs to roust Tesko to pack his meager belongings again for transfer to Horseriver’s mansion. He reviewed his last night’s meeting with Hetwar and its probable effect, as filtered through Gesca’s memory and wits, on Horseriver. As long as Ingrey was not so stupid as to pretend to conceal it from the earl, he doubted Horseriver would be much disturbed by the assignment to spy on him. And the earl would surely have gleaned from Gesca the fact that Ingrey had kept the darkest of his secrets. On the whole, Gesca’s little betrayal of trust might prove more useful than not, Ingrey decided.

  As Tesko tottered off down the stairs under a load of his master’s gear, Ingrey mounted the next flight and rapped on Ijada’s door. He was pleased to hear the bolt scrape back before the door opened to reveal the woman warden’s suspicious eye.

  “Lady Ijada, if you please.”

  Ijada shouldered past the woman into the little upstairs hall, her expression grave and questioning.

  Ingrey ducked his head at her. “I am called away to Earl Horseriver’s already. Gesca will be taking my place as your keeper, for a time.”

  She brightened at the familiar name. “That’s not so bad, then.”

  “Perhaps. I’ll try to come back and speak with you if I find, um, better understandings of things.”

  She nodded. Her expression was more thoughtful than panicked, though what she was thinking, Ingrey could scarcely guess. She possessed no more answers than he did, but he admired her talent for finding very uncomfortable questions. He suspected he would be in want of it shortly.

  He clasped her hands, in lieu of the good-bye kiss they could not make under watchful eyes. The strange current that seemed to flow between them still lingered, in that grip. “I will know if they move you.”

  She nodded again, releasing him. “I’ll be listening for you, too.”

  He managed a ghost of a bow and tore himself away.

  INGREY REPEATED HIS UPHILL WALK OF YESTERDAY THROUGH Kingstown, trailed this time by a puffing Tesko burdened with his belongings. Horseriver’s porter was plainly expecting them, for they were shown at once to Ingrey’s new room. It was no narrow servant’s stall under the eaves, but a gracious chamber on the third floor appointed for highborn guests, with an alcove for Tesko. Leaving his servant to arrange his scant wardrobe, Ingrey left to explore the mansion. He wondered if Horseriver would expect him to clear the rest of his possessions from Hetwar’s palace, and what the earl would construe if he did not.

  Passing a sitting room on the second floor, its moldings gracefully carved in birch wood, Ingrey gla
nced in to see Fara and one of her ladies. The matronly lady sat bent over some sewing; Fara stood with her hand upon the drape, staring pensively out the window, strained features silvered by the morning light. Her rather rectangular face was pale, her body short and solid in her drab dress; she would be stout in old age, Ingrey thought. Her head turned at some creak or clink from Ingrey, and her dark eyes widened in recognition.

  “Lord Ingrey—is it?”

  “Princess.” Ingrey essayed a sketchy salute, his hand to his heart recalling, but not quite completing, a sign of the Five.

  She looked him over, frowning. “Biast told me last night you were to enter my husband’s service.”

  “And, ah…yours?”

  “Yes. He told me that.” She glanced at her attendant. “Leave us. Leave open the door.” The woman rose, curtseyed, and slipped out past Ingrey; Fara beckoned him within.

  She looked up at him in wary speculation as he came to the window. Her voice was low. “My brother said you would protect me.”

  Keeping his tone neutral and equally quiet, Ingrey said, “Do you feel in need of protection?”

  She made an uncertain gesture. “Biast said a dire suspicion has fallen upon Wencel. What do you think of it?”

  “Can you not tell if it is so, lady?”

  She shook her head, not exactly in negation, and raised her long chin. “Can not you?”

  “The presence of a blood-companion such as mine is not what defiles a man; it is what he does with it. Or so I must believe. My dispensation tacitly concedes the same. Have you suspected nothing uncanny of your husband, in all this time?”

  Her thick black brows drew down in deeper unhappiness over this not-quite-answer. “No…yes. I don’t know. He was strange from the start, but I thought him merely moody. I tried to lighten his spirit, and sometimes, sometimes it seemed to work, but always he fell back into his blackness again. I prayed to the Mother for guidance, and, and more—I tried to be a good wife, as the Temple teaches us.” Her voice quavered, but did not break. Her frown darkened. “Then he brought that girl in.”