Ingrey dismounted and passed his and Ijada's horses to Gesca's care.
“Tell my lord Hetwar I will report to him as soon as I see the prisoner secured. Send me my manservant Tesko, if you find him sober, with what things I am likely to need for the next few days. Clean clothes, for one.” Ingrey grimaced, stretching his aching back; his leathers reeked of horse and the grime of the road, and the stitches in his scalp were itching again, maddeningly. Ijada, stripping off her riding gloves and craning her neck, managed somehow to appear nearly as trim and cool as she had that morning.
The house's porter saw them inside; the woman warden-servant, guided by a housemaid, marshaled Ijada at once up the stairs, her leather-strapped case hoisted after by the porter's boy. Ingrey set down his saddlebags and stared around the narrow hall.
Ingrey grunted, and said, “No hurry. If this place is to be my charge, I had best look it over.” He prowled off through the nearest doorway.
The house seemed simple enough. The cellar and the ground floor were devoted to storage, a kitchen with antechamber and pallets for cook and scullion, an eating hall, a parlor, and a cubby under the stairs where the porter lurked. Ingrey poked his head out the only other outer door, which led to a back court with a covered well. The second floor included what might have been meant for a study, as well as two bedrooms. Passing the door of similar chambers on the next floor up, Ingrey heard the murmur of women's voices, Ijada and her warden. The top floor was divided up into smaller rooms for the servants.
He descended again to find the porter's boy lugging his saddlebags into one of the bedrooms on the second floor. The furnishings were sparse-narrow bed, washstand, a single chair, a battered wardrobe-and Ingrey wondered if the place had been tenanted or not before Horseriver's couriers had arrived last night demanding its possession. Light, distinctive footsteps and the creaking of, perhaps, a bed overhead marked Ijada's location. The proximity was both reassuring and unsettling. When he heard her steps on the stairs, he turned for the hall.
She had her hand raised to knock on his door as he opened it. In the other, she held Learned Hallana's letter, a little crumpled now. Her warden-or was that, Wencel's warden?-hovered behind her, peering suspiciously.
“Lord Ingrey,” she said, reverting to formality. “Learned Hallana charged you to deliver this. Will you do so?” Her level eyes seemed to bore into his, silently reminding him of the rest of the sorceress's words: to its destination, and no other.
He took it, glancing at the scrawled direction. “Do you know who this”-he peered more closely-“Learned Lewko may be?”
What does that prove? Hallana trusted me. And a Temple-man neither foolish nor untrue might yet be no friend to the defiled.
Still, Ingrey remained deathly curious as to what Hallana had reported of him, and of the strange events at Red Dike. The only way he might find out short of opening the letter himself was to be there when it was opened. And if he delivered it on his way to Hetwar's palace, he would be relieved of any possible need to conceal it or lie about it to his master. Hetwar could not demand it of him then. If chided, Ingrey could feign its faithful delivery was just the sort of virtuous act Hetwar might properly expect of his henchman.
“Yes. I will undertake the charge.”
Ijada nodded intently, and he wondered if she read his corkscrew thoughts in his eyes, or not: or if she judged him as blithely as Hallana had.
He added, “Stay in; stay safe. Lock your inner doors as well. I presume whatever comforts this house may offer are yours for the asking.” He let his eye fall on the servant-warden, and she made a circumspect curtsey of acknowledgment. “I don't know what else Lord Hetwar may want of me tonight, so eat when you will. I'll be back as soon as I can.”
He tucked the letter in his jerkin, bowed her a polite farewell, and made his way down the stairs. He wanted a bath, clean clothes, and a meal, in that order, but all such niceties would have to wait.
Leaving instructions with the porter for his servant, should Tesko arrive before he returned, Ingrey walked out into the town.
Familiar smells and sights subtly reassured him. He wound his way through the cobbled streets of Kingstown and across the half-buried creek, then climbed the steep steps up the near cliff of the temple side. Two switchbacks and a breathless ten minutes brought him to the stair-gate, winding crookedly under a tower and two houses, into the upper town. In the dark corner where the passage turned, a little shrine for the safety of the city stood, a few candles flickering in the dim drafts flanked by wilted garlands; reflexively, Ingrey made the fivefold sign in passing. He came out again into the early-evening light and turned right.
The central court was open to the air, and in its middle the holy fire burned quietly on its plinth. Through an archway into one of the five great stone domes surrounding it, Ingrey could see a ceremony beginning-a funeral, he realized, for he could glimpse a bier, surrounded by shuffling mourners, being set down before the Father's altar. In a few days, Prince Boleso's body, too, would pass through these rites here.
On the other side of the court, the acolyte-grooms were marshaling their sacred animals for the little miracle of the choosing. Each creature, led by its handler dressed in the color of his or her order, would be presented before the bier, and the divine would interpret by its actions which god had taken up the soul of the recent dead. This not only guided the prayers of the mourners, but also their more material offerings, to the altar and the order of the proper god. Ingrey would be more cynical about this, but that he had more than once seen results clearly unexpected to all parties involved.
A woman in Mother's greens had a large green bird, which cawed nervously, perched upon her shoulder. A maiden in Daughter's blue held a young hen with purple-blue feathers tightly under her arm. An immensely fluffy gray dog cowered close to the gray robes of an elderly groom of the Father's Order. A young man in the reds and browns of the Son led a skittish chestnut colt, its coat brushed to a shimmering copper and its eyes rolling whitely. The animal snorted and sidled, yanking its groom almost off his feet, and in a moment, Ingrey saw why.
The man was nearly as arresting as the bear. He was broad-shouldered to match his height, with hair in a dense red horsetail down his back. Thick silver clamps held it in place, and thick silver bracelets clanked on his arms. Bright blue eyes held an expression of amiable bemusement which Ingrey was not sure whether to take as acuity or vacuity. His clothes-tunic, trousers, a swinging coat-were simple enough in cut, but colorfully dyed and decorated with elaborate embroidery. Big boots were stamped with silver designs, and the hilt of his long sword glittered with crudely cut gems. In the belt sheath at his back rested not a knife, but an ax, also elaborately inlaid, its blade gleaming razor-honed.
A brown-haired man in similar but less gaudy dress, a good head shorter than his fellow yet still tall, leaned against a pillar with his arms folded, watching the proceedings with a most dubious expression. Some of the grooms shot him looks of supplication, which he steadfastly ignored.
Ingrey tore his attention from this peculiar drama as he saw an older woman in the white-and-cream robes of the Bastard, the loops of a divine's braid bouncing on her shoulder and her arms laden with folded cloth, scurry through the court, evidently intent upon some shortcut. Ingrey barely caught her sleeve as she sped past. She jerked to a halt and eyed him unfavorably.