“Take this lord to him now.” He handed off the dedicat to a bemused Jokol. “Tell him Lord Ingrey sends a complication for his collection.”
“Will this Lewko help me to see the archdivine?” asked Jokol hopefully.
“Either that, or he'll go over Fritine's head. Threaten to give him Fafa; that will stimulate him on your behalf.” Ingrey grinned; for the god of vile jokes, this practically constituted a prayer, he decided. “He is a power in the Temple?”
Jokol pursed his lips, then nodded, brightening. “Very good! I thank you, Ingorry!” He trudged off after the boy, trailed by the dubious Ottovin.
Ingrey thought he heard someone laughing in his ear, but it wasn't Symark, who stood looking on somewhat blankly. A trick of the court's acoustics, perhaps. Ingrey shook his head to clear it, then pulled himself to an attitude of grave attention as Biast returned with the ladies.
Biast, after a glance around the court, gave Ingrey a peculiar stare, uncertain and searching. It occurred to Ingrey that the last time all of this party had been present in this place was two days ago, for Boleso's funeral. Was Biast wondering whether to believe in Ingrey's claimed shaman-miracle of cleansing his late brother's soul? Or-almost more disturbing-belief accepted, was he wondering what further consequences must flow from it?
In any case, the gray-robed acolyte led them around the temple into the maze of buildings housing clerks and works of the various holy orders. Some structures were new and purpose-built, but most were old and reassigned. They passed between two noisy and busy, if slightly dilapidated, former kin mansions, one now a foundling hospital run by the Bastard's Order, the other the Mother's infirmary, its colonnades echoing with the steps of physicians and green-clad acolytes, its tranquil gardens sheltering recovering patients and their attendants.
In the next street over they came to a large edifice, three stories high and built of the same yellow stone as Hetwar's palace, dedicated to the libraries and council rooms of the Father's Order. A winding staircase circled a spacious hall and brought them at length to a hushed, wood-paneled chamber.
The inquiries were already under way, it seemed, for a pair of retainers Ingrey thought he recognized from Boar's Head were just shouldering back out the door, looking daunted but relieved. They recognized the prince-marshal and princess and hastened to get out of their way, signing sketchy gestures of respect. Biast managed a return nod of polite acknowledgment, although Fara's neck stayed stiff, pride starched with mortification. Fara caught her breath in a little snort like a startled mare when the first person they encountered on the other side of the door was Boleso's housemaster, Rider Ulkra. Ulkra bowed, looking at least equally queasy.
The judges all rose and made obeisance to the prince-marshal and courtesies to the princess; a couple of dedicat-servants were sent scurrying to secure padded chairs for the Stagthorne haunches. While this was going on, Ingrey circled in on Ulkra, who swallowed nervously but returned his greeting.
“Have you been questioned yet?” Ingrey inquired politely.
“I was to be next.”
Ingrey lowered his voice. “And do you plan to tell the truth, or lie?”
Ulkra licked his lips. “What would Lord Hetwar desire of me, do you suppose?”
Did he still think Ingrey was Hetwar's man? So was Ulkra exceptionally shrewd, or just behindhand on capital gossip? “If I were you, I should be more worried about what Hetwar's future master desires.” He nodded toward Prince Biast, and Ulkra followed his glance, warily. “He is young now, but he won't stay that way for long.”
“Would one?” said Ingrey vaguely. “Let's find out.” He beckoned to Biast, who trod over curiously.
“Yes, Ingrey?”
“My lord. Rider Ulkra here cannot decide if you would wish him to tell the exact truth, or shade it to spare your sister chagrin. What that says about your reputation, I must leave you to decide.”
“Sh, Ingrey!” whispered Ulkra in furious embarrassment, with a fearful glance over his shoulder at the table down the room.
Biast looked taken aback. He said cautiously, “I promised Fara that none would shame her here, but certainly no man should violate his oath of truthsaying before the judges and the gods.”
“You set the path for your future court starting even now, prince. If you discourage men from speaking unpalatable truths in front of you, I trust you will develop your skill for sifting through pretty lies, for you will spend the rest of your reign, however short, wading in them.” Ingrey let his mild tone suggest that it was a matter of utter indifference to him which Biast chose; Ingrey would manage just the same.
Biast's lips twisted. “What was it Hetwar said of you? That you defy whom you choose?”
“Whom I please. I please Hetwar best so. But then, Hetwar is no man's fool.”
“Verily.” Biast's eyes narrowed; then he surprised and gratified Ingrey altogether by turning to Ulkra, and saying shortly, “Tell the exact truth.” He inhaled, and added on a sigh, “I'll deal with Fara as I must.”
Ulkra, eyes wide, bowed and backed away, presumably before Ingrey could wind him into further coils. The chairs arrived; Ingrey gave Biast a slight, sincere bow, rather ironically returned, and took his place on the rear bench where he could watch the whole room, and the door.
After a short, whispered consultation among the judges, Ulkra was called up to take his oath and answer the inquirers. Ulkra stood before them with his hands clenched behind his stout back, feet apart, taking some refuge in the soldierlike pose. The questions were to the point; the panel had already, it appeared, acquired some grasp of the outline of events at Boar's Head.
As nearly as Ingrey could discern, Ulkra did tell the exact truth of the chain of deeds that had led to Boleso's death, insofar as he was eyewitness. He did not leave out the leopard, nor his suspicions about Boleso's earlier “dabblings,” though he managed to cloak his own complicity of silence under protestations of the loyalty and discretion due from a senior servant. No, he had not suspected that Boleso's body servant was the illicit sorcerer Cumril. (So, the judges had heard of Cumril's existence-from Lewko?) At one point, the scholarly divine on the side bench silently passed a note across to one of the judges, who read it and followed up with a couple of especially penetrating and shrewd questions of the housemaster.
The unsubtle ugliness of Ijada's sacrifice at Boleso's bedroom door came through clearly enough to Ingrey's ear, despite Ulkra's self-serving phrasing of it. By the stiffening of Fara's features, this was the first fully objective account she had heard of the consequences at Boar's Head after she had abandoned her maiden-in-waiting there. She did not weep in whatever shame she swallowed, but her face might have been carved in wood. Good.
When Ulkra was dismissed, to flee from the chamber as swiftly as he decently could, Fara was called up. Ingrey, playing the courtier, made of helping her from her chair the chance to breathe in her ear, “I will know if you lie.” Her eyes shifted to him, coldly. “Should I care?” she murmured back.
She hesitated. “No.”
“Good. You begin to think like a princess.”
Her gaze grew startled as he squeezed her arm in encouragement before letting her go. And then, for a moment, thoughtful, as though a new road had opened up before her not previously perceived.
The judges kept their questions to her brief and courteous, as befit equally law and prudence. The truth she spoke was, like Ulkra's, softened in her own excuse, and the motivation of her jealousy largely left out, which Ingrey thought all to the good. But the most critical elements in his view-that the demand had come from Boleso, been accepted without consultation by Fara, and that Ijada was no seductress nor cheerful volunteer-seemed plain enough, between the lines. Fara was released with diplomatic thanks by the panel; her eyes squeezed shut in bleak relief as she turned away.