“Like kissing a corpse?”
“Like being the corpse so kissed.”
“She seems not to know this.”
The earl shrugged. “For some notion now discarded-habit-I began this union intending to engender one more son, and for that, the body must be aroused somehow. Fortunately, this one is still young, and simple Wencel would have been quite pleased with his princess, I think.”
Did Horseriver allow that half-digested soul to surface, when feigning to make love to his bride? And how appallingly confusing for Fara, when the eager lost boy of the night gave way to the glacial stranger at breakfast…Could Horseriver call other faces to the fore, when dealing with other tasks? The princess might well spin herself dizzy, trying to follow such a progression of moods in her spouse.
Wencel had fallen into one of his forthcoming humors again, for whatever purpose. Ingrey decided to pursue the opportunity. “Why did you bring Lady Ijada into your household? Considering the consequences, that would seem to have been a mistake.”
Wencel grimaced. “Perhaps. In hindsight.” “Fara thought her intended for your new Horseriver broodmare.”
“If not that, then…for the Wounded Woods? And not merely Ijada's inheritance of the tract.” It went against Ingrey's habits to give away information, but in this case, it might prime the pump. “She told me of her dream of it.”
“Ah, yes,” said Wencel grimly. “So you do know about that, now. I wondered.”
“Did she tell you of it, too?”
“No. But I dreamed it with her, if from another angle of view. Since it was more than dream: it was event. Even acting as the gods' cat's-paw, she could not very well trouble my own waters without the ripples reaching me.” Wencel sighed. “She created me a very great puzzle thereby. I brought her into my household to observe her, but I could discover nothing unusual. If the gods intended her for bait, I declined to bite. She had undoubtedly become bound into the spell during her night camping at Holytree, but she remained as sightless and powerless as any other ignorant girl.”
“Until Boar's Head.”
“Indeed.”
“Did the gods intend all of this? Boleso's death as well?”
Wencel drew a long, thoughtful inhalation. “Resisting the gods somewhat resembles playing a game of castles and riders with an opponent who can always see several moves ahead of you. But even the gods cannot see infinitely far ahead. Our free wills cloud Their vision, even though Their eyes are more piercing than ours. The gods do not plan, so much as take advantage.”
“Why then did you send me to kill her? Mere prudence?” Ingrey kept his tone casual, as if the answer were of only scholarly interest to him. “Hardly mere. Once she had slain Boleso, she was most assuredly bound for the gallows. If there is a more perfect symbolic representation of an Old Weald courier sacrifice than to hang an innocent virgin by a sacred cord from a tree, with divines singing blessings about her, I cannot think of it. Death opens a gate to the gods. Her death in that mode would have opened Holytree wide, barricaded against Them as it has been these four centuries.”
Wencel merely shrugged, and made to slip off his perch and turn away.
“Unless”-Ingrey's mind leapt ahead-“there was more to that geas than murder.”
Wencel turned back. His face bore that deeply ironic look that masked irritation, which Ingrey took as a sign that his digging was striking something worthwhile. “It would have bound her murdered soul to yours in a haunting, until it faded into nothingness. Keeping her, and her link to Holytree, beyond the reach of the gods. It was a variant of an old, old spell, and I spent far too much blood on it; but I was hurried.”
“Charming.” Ingrey failed to keep the snarl out of his voice now. “Murder and sundering both.”
Wencel turned his palms out in a What would you? gesture. “Worse: a redundancy. For her leopard spirit would have done the same. If I had known of it. That move, I must concede to my Opponents. I still do not know if we were counterblocking each other to stalemate, or were all victims of Boleso's idiocy, or if more lies hidden beyond.” He hesitated. “For the haunting to be effected without the murder first was not in my plans. But it happened. Didn't it.” Wencel's eyes were cool upon Ingrey now, and it came to him that he was not the only man digging, here. Wait, was Horseriver saying that the current of awareness between Ingrey and Ijada was his doing?
At Ingrey's sudden silence, he added kindly, “Did you imagine you had fallen in love with her, cousin? Or she with you? Alas that I must shatter that idyllic illusion. Truly, I would have thought you-though perhaps not her-harder-headed.”
Wencel did not look entirely convinced of Ingrey's placidity, in the face of this, but he did not pursue the issue. “In truth, I have scarcely had time to consider the possibilities.”
“Inventing as you go, are you?”
“Yes, I am quite godlike in that way, if no other. Perhaps I shall give you a horse.”
“Hetwar spared me that expense. I rode his nags at need, and he fed them whether they were needed or not.”
“Oh, the beast would be stabled at my expense. It would uphold the distinction of my house to mount you properly.”
Ingrey was put instantly in mind of Horseriver's last wife-mother's death in her so-called riding accident, but he said merely, “Thank you, then, my lord.”
“Be at your leisure this morning. Plan to attend on me when I go out, later.”
“I am at your disposal, cousin.”
Wencel's mouth quirked in mockery. “I trust so.”
Ingrey took this for a sufficient dismissal and retreated from the study.
Nor I. Yet. Ingrey shook his head. He had much to think upon, in the next hours.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BY RELENTLESS PROWLING, INGREY FAMILIARIZED HIMSELF with every corner of the Horseriver mansion that day, to little effect. Wencel had arrived here bare weeks ago to attend on the hallow king in his worsening illness, and Fara had followed shortly despite her fatal diversion to Boar's Head. The city house was but lightly occupied, as though the couple were merely camping in it. There were no old secrets buried here, though five gods knew what Ingrey might find at Castle Horseriver. But the earl's haunt was two hundred miles away on the middle Lure, and Ingrey doubted anyone would be going back there till all this was long over.
As promised-or threatened-Earl Horseriver did conduct Ingrey later that afternoon to his stable mews, a stone building a few streets down the hill. Most of the great kins' livestock was kept outside the walls, in pastures along the Stork above the glassworks and the tanners. Horseriver's household was no exception, but a few beasts were kept nearby for the lord and lady, for grooms to use to collect other mounts at need, and for couriers. As befit the earl's state, the appointments within the mews were very fine: the central corridor paved with colored stone, the stall walls of rubbed oak, the metal bars decorated with twining bronze leaves. Ingrey was bemused to spy Ijada's showy chestnut mare, moving restlessly in a straight stall.
Ingrey refrained from patting its haunches, lest he be kicked. “I know this one-I'd guessed it might be one of yours.”
“Aye,” said Wencel absently. “She was too mettlesome for Fara. I was glad to find someone else to ride her.”
The gelding was undoubtedly a beautiful beast, well muscled, clean-limbed, its dappled coat polished to a shimmer by the earl's grooms. Ingrey suspected the animal concealed an explosive burst of speed. What else it might conceal-deadly geases sprang to mind-Ingrey could not tell. Did Wencel imagine it a bribe? So he might. Well, Ingrey could not look this gift in the mouth while the earl was watching. “Thank you, my lord,” he said, in a tone to match Horseriver's.