The Hallowed Hunt c-3

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  But suddenly a most peculiar memory surfaced, of chewing with wolf-puppy teeth upon a piece of boiled leather armor, a cuirass almost bigger than he was. The chastisement when he’d been caught at it did not diminish the satisfaction to his sore mouth. The armor had been quite new, dragged to a corner of some dim and smoky hall. The design was distinctive, the breast decoration more so, a silhouette of a wolf’s head with gaping jaws burned into the leather with hot iron. My wolf is as old as the Old Weald, and then some.

  As old as Wencel’s horse? Older, surely, in a sense, for his wolf had been abroad, repeatedly reincarnated, for four hundred extra years before being so bloodily harvested. Part of that time had been spent high up in the Cantons, judging by the pictures of cold peaks that lingered in his mind. A long happy period, several domesticated wolf-lives, in some tiny hamlet in a forgotten vale where seasons and generations turned in a slow wheel… The attrition of mischance might have cut short the accumulation of wolf souls, yet had not. Which suggested in turn that Someone with a long, long attention span might have been manipulating those chances. Must have been, his mirthless reason corrected this.

  If he ever saw the god again, he could ask, Ingrey supposed. I could ask now. I could pray. He had no desire to; praying held all the appeal of thrusting his hand into the holy fire on the temple plinth and holding it there. Talking to the gods had been a much more comfortable proposition when there had seemed no danger of Their talking back.

  He lay back and sought within himself for that millrace-current sense of Ijada. The quiet song of it calmed him instantly. She was not, at this moment, in pain, nor unduly fatigued, except for a tense piling-up of boredom. It did not follow that she was safe; the banal comfort of the narrow house was deceptive, that way. Horseriver had named this link the unintended relict of his murderous geas, and it might be so. Was not some good salvaged from evil, from time to time? He must contrive some way to see her again, secretly and soon. And to communicate. Could this subtle perception be made more explicit? One yank for yes, two yanks for no. Well, perhaps not that, but there must be something.

  His brooding was interrupted by a page rapping on his door, bidding him to attend upon the earl. Ingrey armed himself, grabbed up his long court cloak, and descended to the entry hall, where he found Horseriver, who could only have come in a short time ago, preparing to go out again.

  With some low-voiced instructions, the earl finished dispatching an anxious groom, then granted Ingrey a civil nod.

  “Where away, my lord?”

  “The hallow king’s hall.”

  “Didn’t you just come from there?”

  Wencel nodded. “It is nearly time. I think the king will not last the night. There is a particular waxy look to the skin”—Wencel passed a hand over his face—”that is a very distinctive herald to these sorts of deaths.”

  And Horseriver ought to know. From both sides, Ingrey realized. They were briefly alone in the hall, the servants having been sent to hurry Fara; Ingrey lowered his voice. “Ought I to suspect you of some uncanny assassination?”

  Wencel shook his head, apparently not the least offended by the suggestion. “His death comes quite without need of any man’s assistance. At one time—long ago—I might have sought to speed it. Or, more vainly, to retard it. Now I just wait. A flicker of days, and it is done.” He vented a long, quiet sigh.

  Death, an old familiar, did not disturb Wencel, and yet his languid weariness seemed a mask, to Ingrey. He was tense with some hidden anticipation, revealed, barely, only when his eyes repeatedly checked the staircase for some sign of Fara. At length the princess appeared: pale, chill, cloaked in black.

  Ingrey, bearing a lantern, led the way through the darkening streets of Kingstown; the sole retainer, he noted, called to this duty. The evening air was chill and damp—the cobbles would be slippery with dew by midnight—but overhead the first stars shone down from a rainless sky. Wencel escorted his wife on his arm with the unfailing cold courtesy that was his studied habit. Ingrey extended his senses—all of his senses—yet found no new threat looming in the shadows. Indeed, no. We are the threats, Wencel and I.

  Torches in brackets lit the entrance to the hallow king’s hall in a flickering glow. Only the name recalled the old forest architectures of timber and thatch, for it was as much a stone palace as any other Easthome noble pile built during the latter days of Darthacan glory. Guardsmen hurried to swing wide the wrought-iron gates and bow apprehensively to the princess and her husband. The sentries seemed faintly mortified by how useless all their pikes and blades were to protect their lord from what stalked him tonight. As distant as they still were from the king’s bedchamber, the servants’ voices were hushed and tremulous as they escorted the party along the dim and musty halls.

  Ahead, lamplight spilled into the corridor and reflected off the polished floorboards. Ingrey took a steeling breath and turned to follow the earl and the princess within.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The hallow king’s bedchamber was less crowded than Ingrey had imagined it. One green-robed physician and his acolyte sat near the head of the canopied bed with an air of depressed quietude that acknowledged all their medical efforts now vain. A divine in the gray garb of the Father’s Order waited also, in an inverse mood of stretched readiness not yet called upon. In a room beyond an antechamber, out of sight and, thankfully, muffled by the intervening walls, a five-voice chorus of Temple singers started a hymn. The quintet sounded hoarse and tired; perhaps they would take a rest soon.

  Ingrey studied the king in the bed. He was not weighted by such dark intrusions as Ingrey’s or Wencel’s, not shaman, nor sorcerer, nor saint; he was but a man, if a riveting one even in this last hour. He was a long way now from the Stagthorne scion Hetwar nostalgically spoke of from his childhood, who had taken the prince-marshal’s banner from his own father’s kingly hand to earn early victory and reputation in a now half-forgotten border clash with Darthaca. When Ingrey had first returned to the Weald in Hetwar’s train, the king had been hale and vigorous despite his graying head and all the sorrows of his life. The past months of creeping illness had aged him speedily, as if to make up for lost time.

  Now his final sleep was upon him. Ingrey hoped Fara had exchanged whatever last words she wanted with her father earlier, for there would be no more tonight. The thin, spotted skin, an ugly yellow shade, indeed bore that waxy sheen Horseriver had named the harbinger of finality. More: the king’s breathing was harsh and hesitant, each breath drawn in and released, followed by a pause that drew all eyes, until the chest heaved again, and the gazes dropped away.

  Fara’s face was ashy but composed; she signed the Five, placed a formal kiss on the king’s slick brow, and stood back. The Father’s divine dared to place a consoling hand upon her shoulder, and murmur, “He had a good life, my lady. Be not afraid.”

  The glance Fara cast him was equally devoid of both fear and consolation, or indeed, much expression at all. Ingrey was impressed that she did not snarl in return; if offered such a platitude in such a moment, he would have been tempted to draw steel and run the divine through. She merely murmured, “Where is my brother Biast? He should be here. And the archdivine.”

  “He was here earlier, my lady, for a good long time, and will return shortly. I expect the archdivine and my lord Hetwar will be accompanying him.”

  She nodded once and shrugged away from him. His hand hesitated in air, as if to offer another consolatory pawing, but fortunately he thought better of it, stepping away to leave the princess in her stolid sorrow.

  Horseriver stood watching all this with his feet braced a little apart, the picture of a supporting spouse and lord. His face seemed no more stern than the occasion demanded. It was only to Ingrey’s eye that he seemed crouched like a cat at a mousehole. What more was about to happen in this room than the long-expected death of an aged man, even if aged king? Horseriver had been hovering in Easthome for weeks. What did he await, besides the end of this vigil? And
if his presence here was so vital to his schemes, how much had it maddened him to have to break away and tend to the untimely intrusion of Boleso’s funeral?

  There are two hallow kings in this room. How can there be two?

  The question Ingrey had asked in Hetwar’s chambers, to which he’d received no satisfactory reply, came back to him now. What made the hallow kingship hallowed? Ingrey could barely guess. Horseriver, he suspected, knew.

  He became abruptly aware that Horseriver’s spirit horse was no longer stopped down to a tight knot, but seemed flooded throughout his body, riding the river of his blood. It was quiescent—no—poised. Both Horseriver’s tension and his patience seemed quite literally superhuman, in this moment.

  Ingrey felt his own blood pulsing through his veins. He would have thought the piling up of his wolf’s wolf-lives, and of Horseriver’s stallion’s horse-lives, would have made each more quintessentially wolf or horse, but it seemed not; it was as though all such wisdom-creatures converged on some common center, the denser and deeper they grew. They are both a lot like each other, Ijada had said. Indeed.

  The hymn singers came to the end of their piece, and stopped; a faint shuffling suggested a recess. The Mother’s acolyte had been dispatched down the corridor to watch out for Prince-marshal Biast. The divine had walked to the other side of the chamber and was helping himself to a glass of water. From the bed came a labored breath that was not followed by another.

  Fara’s face went stiffer, her eyes glassy with moisture that did not fall. Horseriver stepped briefly forward only to hand her a lace handkerchief, which she clutched with a spasm of her hand, then stepped back. The earl did not say anything foolish. He did not say anything at all.

  He did shift back a pace, then rose almost on his toes, stretching his arms out like a falconer calling his bird to him.

  Ingrey boiled up to full alertness, craning his neck and straining his senses. Ingrey could not see souls, as saints were reputed to do. He discerned the departing essence only because something unwound from it in its passing, spooling off like some heady perfume spiraling through the air. Gods, he had more than felt before; only by that experience could he identify the vast Presence that raised his hackles like a breath in the dark. But this One was not to his address, and was gone with its prize before his pupils could widen in a futile effort to take it in.

  The mysterious scent remained behind, cool and complex like a forest in spring: water, pine, musk, wet earth, sunlight—was laughter an odor? It roused and aroused him both, setting him all on edge, and his head lifted to it, eyes and nostrils widening in vain. He inhaled in utter bewilderment. What was he supposed to do? Knock Fara aside? Tackle Horseriver? He could not take his sword to the scent of a forest, carving the air like a madman. There seemed no evil in it: danger, yes, power, yes. Glory. Yes.

  Ingrey caught the moment when Horseriver’s head jerked back and breathed the kingship in. The earl staggered a little, as though a great eagle had landed upon those outstretched falconer’s arms. His eyes squeezed shut, he folded his arms around himself, and he breathed out in a satisfied huff. When his eyes snapped open again, they blazed.

  Holy fire, thought Ingrey. And, So fast! What just happened? Surely Horseriver had not—no, he had not waylaid the hallow king’s departing soul and taken it in like another spirit animal atop the dark, distorted hoard he held already. And his spell for deathlessness captured body and soul both, leaving his own corpse behind like an emptied husk. Ingrey whispered in mystification to Wencel, “Have you stolen a blessing from the gods…?”

  Horseriver’s faint mirth nearly melted his heart. “This”—the earl gestured down himself, barely breathing the words—”was never the gods’. We made it ourselves. It belongs here. It was wrenched from me two and a half centuries ago. Now it returns. For a little time.”

  The Father’s divine, oblivious to all this, had hurried to the hallow king’s bedside, where the physician was bent over making his final examination. They murmured together in grave consultation. The divine signed the corpse and himself, and began intoning a short prayer.

  So. Wencel was revealed in another lie, or half-truth; Ingrey could not summon the least surprise anymore. There had not been two hallow kings in this room; there had been two partial kings, mutually crippled, each holding hostage the other’s fulfillment. Now there was one, whole again. Ingrey shivered under the terrible weight of his sovereign smile.

  “First things first,” breathed Wencel, licked his thumb, and touched it to Ingrey’s forehead. Ingrey jerked back, too late. He felt the snap of his connection with Ijada part like a physical thing, and he almost cried out in loss and outrage. Before he finished inhaling, the connection seated itself again, and instead of Ijada, he found himself mortally conscious of Horseriver. The kingly will mounted Ingrey’s rising panic like an expert rider atop a green colt. The sensation nearly overwhelmed him, darkening his sight, unlocking his knees. Horseriver, brows pinching in, searched his face then nodded in satisfaction. “Yes… “ The word floated out on a sigh. “That will do.”

  Fara turned to glance at her husband: her eyes widened and her breath drew in. If she saw one-tenth the towering glamour with her ordinary eyes that Ingrey sensed with his shaman’s sight, he could not wonder at her sudden awe. Horseriver licked his thumb again and touched her brow, then moved to embrace her, leaning their foreheads together in a gesture one might mistake for comfort or blessing. Fara’s eyes, when he drew back, were glazed and staring. Ingrey wondered if his own eyes looked just like that.

  His arm around his wife’s waist as if to support her, the earl turned to the Father’s divine. “Tell my brother-in-law, when he arrives, that I have taken the princess home to lie down. All of this has brought on one of her debilitating headaches, I’m afraid.”

  The divine, suddenly very attentive to the earl, nodded eager understanding. “Of course, my lord. I am so sorry for your loss, my lady. But your father’s soul is born now into a better world.”

  Horseriver’s lips twisted. “Indeed, all men are born pregnant with their own deaths. The experienced eye can watch it quicken within them day by day.”

  The divine flinched at this disturbing metaphor, but plowed on sturdily. “I’m not sure that—”

  Horseriver held up a restraining hand, and the man fell silent at once. “Peace. Tell the prince-marshal that we will meet with him in the morning. Late morning, probably. He may begin the arrangements as he wills.”

  “Yes, my lord.” The divine bobbed a bow; on the other side of the bed, so did the physician.

  “Ingrey… “ Horseriver turned to his retainer, and his lips drew back on the most disquieting smile yet. His voice dropped to an eerie low register that vibrated through Ingrey’s bones. “Heel.”

  Furious, fascinated, and frantic, Ingrey bowed and followed his master out.

  Horseriver hustled his wife and Ingrey swiftly and alone through the darkened corridors of the hallow king’s hall. Another murmur of Peace had the gate guards saluting them through without hindrance or question. They turned into the night streets, the air growing misty in the gathering chill. As they rounded the first corner, Ingrey looked back over his shoulder and saw a procession of swinging lanterns. Voices carried through the fog: Biast and a noble company hurrying back to his father’s deathbed. Too late. Ingrey’s ear picked out Hetwar’s voice, replying to the prince-marshal. He wondered if Hetwar carried the hallow king’s seal that was his charge in its oak box, together with the silver hammer to break it at the bedside.

  Horseriver’s party was lightless, black-cloaked, stepping softly; Ingrey doubted anyone from the prince-marshal’s retinue saw them at all. They started down the hill. A few streets farther on, they did not turn aside to Horseriver’s mansion as Ingrey expected, but continued till the stable mews loomed out of the darkness. The doors were open wide, and a few lanterns, hung from the rafters, burned softly within the redolent space.

  A groom scrambled up from the bench by t
he outer wall and bowed fearfully as the earl approached. “All is ready, my lord. The clothes are in the tack room.”

  “Good. Stay a moment.”

  Horseriver ushered Fara and Ingrey ahead of him. Ingrey saw in the passing shadows of the box stalls on his left that Horseriver’s big chestnut and the dappled gray named Wolf were saddled and bridled, with saddlebags tied on behind. A bay mare in a straight stall across from them was similarly accoutered. As they passed the box with the stag, it snorted and shook its antlers, sharp hooves thumping nervously in the thick straw.

  Horseriver pointed to a lantern, which Ingrey reached up and retrieved, then led them through the open door of the tack room. Harness glowed on the wall pegs, with leather burnished and brightwork shining. Across some empty saddle racks, three piles of garments waited. Ingrey recognized his own riding leathers, together with his boots standing below. Another was a woman’s riding habit in some wine-dark fabric picked out with gold thread. Horseriver gestured to the piles. “Clothe yourselves,” he addressed Fara and Ingrey equally, “and make ready to ride.”

  Stone-faced, Fara dropped her voluminous cloak, which whispered to the wooden floor. “I must have help with the buttons, my lord,” she said levelly.

  “Ah, yes.” Horseriver grimaced, and with practiced fingers undid the row of tiny pearl buttons down her back from their velvet loops. Ingrey stripped off court cloak, town shoes, and silver-stitched jerkin and had his leathers hiked up and fastened before Fara’s dress and petticoats fell in a pool at her feet. He did not think either of them was prey to embarrassment at this unexpected intimacy. Exaltation, bewilderment, and terror left no room for lesser emotions. He slipped his boots on and straightened, then cinched up his belt for knife and scabbard. His unholy liege lord was still absorbed in the intricacies of his wife’s garb.