The Hallowed Hunt (Curse of Chalion) Read online

  If not at a gallop, the great horses moved them briskly and steadily through a countryside growing kinder, with wider roads mostly in better repair. Narrow pastures surrounded by vast precipitous forests gave way to tracts of merely hilly woodlands surrounded by broad fields. The eye might see more than one hamlet on the horizon at a time. They began to pass other traffic—not just farm wagons, but well-clad riders and petty merchants with pack mules—all of whom hastened to give way. An exception was a drove of lean black pigs encountered in an oak woods. The swineherd and his boy, not expecting to encounter such a royal procession on their road, lost control of their half-wild beasts, and Ingrey’s and Boleso’s men, variously amused and annoyed, had to assist in clearing the path, hooting, swearing, and swinging the flats of their sheathed swords.

  Ingrey checked himself; this squealing prey did not seem to attract or excite him unduly, which was as well. He sat his horse in grim silence till the pigs had been driven again into the tangled verge. Lady Ijada, he noted, also sat her horse quietly, waiting, although with a curious inward expression on her face.

  He did not attempt speech with her on the ride. His guards, by his order, kept close to her while she was mounted, and the servant woman dutifully dogged her steps during the stops to rest the horses. But his eye returned to her constantly. All too often he crossed her grave glance at him: not a frown of fear, more a look of concern. As though he were her charge. It was most irritating, as though they were tied to each other by a tugging leash, like a pair of coupled hounds. Not looking at or speaking with her seemed to consume all his energy and attention, and left him exhausted.

  It had been a long and wearisome day when they rumbled at last into the royal free town of Red Dike. The town’s proud status left it subject neither to local earl nor Temple lord-divine, but ruled by its own town council under a king’s charter. Alas, this did not result in any diminution of ceremony, and Ingrey was trapped for some time as his hosts carried Boleso’s coffin into the temple—stone-built in the Darthacan style, its five lobes rounded and domed—for the night.

  The town’s superior size, however, meant it had not merely a larger inn, but three of them, and Ingrey had mustered the wit that morning to instruct his advance scout to bespeak rooms. The middle hostelry had also proved the cleanest. Ingrey himself escorted Lady Ijada and her warden up to its second floor, and the bedchamber and private parlor his man had secured. He inspected the portals. The windows overlooked the street, were small, and could not be readily accessed from the ground. The door bars were sound solid oak. Good.

  He dug the rooms’ keys from his belt pouch and handed them to Lady Ijada. The woman warden frowned curiously at him, but did not dare demur.

  “Keep your doors locked at all times, tonight,” Ingrey told Lady Ijada. “And barred.”

  Her brows rose a little, and she glanced around the peaceful chamber. “Is there anything special to fear, here?”

  Nothing but what we brought with us. “I walked in my sleep last night,” he admitted with reluctance. “I was outside your door before anyone woke me.”

  She gave him a slow nod, and another of those looks. He unset his teeth, and said, “I will be staying at one of the other inns. I know you gave me your word, but I want you to stay close in here, out of sight. You’ll wish to eat privately. I’ll have your dinner brought up.”

  She said only, “Thank you, Lord Ingrey.”

  With a short return nod, he took himself out.

  Ingrey went down to the taproom, lying off a short passage, to give orders for his prisoner’s meal. A couple of Boleso’s retainers and one of Ingrey’s men were already there, raising tankards.

  Ingrey glanced at the retainers. “You’re housed here?”

  “We’re housed everywhere, my lord,” said the man. “We’ve filled the other inns.”

  “Better than bedrolls on the temple floor,” said Ingrey’s man.

  “Oh, aye,” said the first, and took a long swallow. His burlier comrade grunted something that might have been agreement.

  A commotion and a small shriek outside drew Ingrey to the taproom’s curtained window, which looked out into the street. An open wagon pulled by a pair of stubby, sweaty horses had drawn up outside in the dusk, and one of its front wheels had just parted company with its axle and fallen onto the cobbles, leaving the wagon tilted at a drunken angle. Its lanterns swayed on their front posts, casting wavering shadows. A woman’s brisk voice said, “Never mind, love, Bernan will fix it. That’s why I—”

  “Had me bring my toolbox, yes,” finished a weary male voice from the back of the wagon. “I’ll get to it. Next.”

  The manservant hopped out and set some wooden steps beside the now-sloping driver’s box, and he and a woman servant helped a stout, short, cloaked figure to descend.

  Ingrey turned away, thinking only that the late-arriving party might find rooms hard to come by in Red Dike tonight. The burly retainer drained his tankard, belched, and asked the tapster for directions to the privy. He lurched out of the taproom ahead of Ingrey and turned into the passageway.

  The bulky cloaked woman had arrived therein; her maidservant was bent to the floor behind her, muttering imprecations and blocking the way. The voluminous cloak was grubby and tattered, and had clearly seen better days.

  The burly retainer vented a curse, and growled, “Out of my way, you fat sow.”

  An indignant “Huh!” sounded from the recesses of the cloak, and the woman threw back her hood and glared up at the man. She was neither young nor old, but matronly; her curling sand-colored hair escaped from falling braids to create a faint ferocious aureole around her breathless face, pink from either the insult, the evening’s chill, or both. Ingrey, looking around the retainer’s shoulder, came alert; Boleso’s men were not the sort whom lesser folk dared casually defy. But the foolish woman seemed oblivious to the man’s sword and mail. And size and dubious sobriety, for that matter.

  The woman unhooked the clasp at her throat and let the cloak fall away; she was dressed in robes of Mother’s green, and was not fat, but very pregnant. If some midwife-dedicat, she would shortly be in need of her own services, Ingrey thought bemusedly. The woman reached over her jutting belly to tap her left shoulder, and cleared her throat portentously. “See this, young man? Or are you too drunk to focus your eyes?”

  “See what?” said the burly retainer, unimpressed by a midwife, still less if she were some gravid poor woman.

  She followed his gaze to her frayed green-clad shoulder, and pursed her lips in annoyance. “Oh, dratsab. Hergi”—she twisted around to her maid, now rising to her feet—“they’ve fallen off again. I hope I haven’t lost them on the road—”

  “I have them right here, my lady,” wheezed the harried maid. “Here, I’ll pin them back. Again.”

  She came up from the floor with not one but two sets of Temple school braids clutched in her hands, and, tongue pinched between her teeth, began to affix them in their proper place of honor. The first loop was the dark green, straw-yellow, and metallic gold of a physician-divine of the Mother’s Order. The second was the white, cream, and metallic silver of a sorceress-divine of the Bastard’s Order. The first brought even Boleso’s retainer into an attitude of, if not greater respect, at least less careless contempt; but it was the second that drained his face of blood.

  Ingrey’s lips curled in the first smile he’d had all day. He tapped the man on the shoulder. “Best apologize to the learned lady, I think. And then get out of her way.”

  The retainer scowled. “Those can’t be yours!”

  The blood had drained from his brain, too, evidently. Those who are unwilling to admit error are fated to repeat it? Prudently, Ingrey backed a few paces down the passage; also because it gave him a better view of the proceedings.

  “I do not have time for you,” said the sorceress in aggravation. “If you insist on behaving as though you were in a sty, a pig you shall be, until you learn better manners.” She waved a hand in
the retainer’s general direction, and Ingrey quelled an impulse to duck. He was entirely unsurprised when the man fell to all fours and his yelp turned into a grunt. The sorceress sniffed, gathered up her robes, and stepped daintily around him. Her head-shaking maid, toting a leather case, scooped up the cloak in passing. Ingrey bowed the women politely into the taproom and turned to follow after, ignoring an agonized snuffle from the floor. His other two men edged around the taproom and peered worriedly into the passageway.

  “Apologies, Learned,” said Ingrey smoothly, “but will your most salutary lesson last long? I only inquire because the man must be fit to ride tomorrow.”

  The blond woman turned to frown at him, her floating strands of hair seeming now to be trying to escape in all directions. “Is he yours?”

  “Not precisely. But though I am not responsible for his behavior, I am responsible for his arrival.”

  “Oh. Well. I will doubtless restore him before I leave. Else the delusion will wear off on its own in a few hours. Meanwhile, the encouragement of others and all that. But I am in the greatest haste. There was a grand cortege that arrived in Red Dike tonight, of Prince Boleso who they say was murdered. Have you witnessed it? I seek its commander.”

  Ingrey half bowed again. “You have found him. Ingrey kin Wolf-cliff at your service and your gods’, Learned.”

  She stared at him for a long, disturbing moment. “Indeed you are,” she finally said. “Well. That young woman, Ijada dy Castos. Do you know what has become of her?”

  “She is in my charge.”

  “Is she.” The stare sharpened. “Where?”

  “She has chambers upstairs in this inn.”

  The maidservant huffed in relief; the sorceress cast her a look of cheery triumph. “Third time is the charm,” murmured the sorceress. “Did I not say so?”

  “This town only has three inns,” the maidservant pointed out.

  “Are you,” Ingrey added hopefully, “sent by the Temple to take her into your hands?” And off mine?

  “Not…precisely, no. But I must see her.”

  Ingrey hesitated. “What is she to you?” Or you to her?

  “An old friend, if she remembers me. I’m Learned Hallana. I heard of her plight when the news of the prince came to my seminary in Suttleaf. That is, we heard of Boleso’s murder, and who had supposedly done the deed, and I presumed it for a plight.” Her stare at Ingrey did not grow less disconcerting. “We were sure the cortege must come by this road, but I feared I would have to chase after it.”

  The seminary of the Mother’s Order at Suttleaf, a town some twenty-five miles to the south of Red Dike, was well-known in the region for its training of physicians and other healing artisans—the dedicat who had stitched Ingrey’s head last night had likely learned her craft there. Ingrey might have searched the surrounding three earldoms for a Temple sorcerer and never thought of looking at Suttleaf. Instead, she had found him…

  Could she sense his wolf? A Temple sorcerer had inflicted it upon him; later, a Temple divine had helped him learn to bind it. Might this woman have been sent—by whom or what, Ingrey did not wish to guess—to help bind Ijada’s leopard? Incomprehensible as the sorceress’s presence here was, it seemed not to be a coincidence. The notion raised all the hackles of his neck and spine. On the whole, Ingrey thought he would prefer coincidence.

  He drew a long breath. “I think Lady Ijada has few friends at present. She should be glad of you. May I escort you up to her, Learned?”

  The woman favored him with a brief, approving nod. “Yes, please, Lord Ingrey.”

  He preceded the women into the passageway and indicated the stairs to the left. In the opposite direction, the be-pigged retainer was still down on the floor, shoving his head against the door and grunting.

  “My lord, what should we do with him?” asked his unnerved comrade.

  Ingrey turned to observe the scene for a moment. “Watch over him. See he comes to no harm till his lesson passes off.”

  The comrade glanced past Ingrey at the retreating sorceress and swallowed. “Yes, my lord. Um…anything else?”

  “You could feed him some bran mash.”

  The sorceress, making her way up the stairs with hand to the rail and her maid close behind, glanced back at this, her lips twitching. She lumbered on upward, and Ingrey hastened after.

  To his satisfaction, he found the door to Lady Ijada’s parlor locked. He rapped upon it.

  “Who is there?” came her voice.

  “Ingrey.”

  A slight pause. “Are you awake?”

  He grimaced. “Yes. You have a visitor.”

  Puzzled silence for a moment, then the clink of the key in the lock and the scrape of the bar being withdrawn. The warden drew the door wide, blinking in astonishment as the sorceress and her maid swept within. Ingrey followed.

  Lady Ijada, standing across the room, stared a moment in bafflement.

  “Ijada?” said the sorceress, sounding taken aback. “My word, child, how tall you’ve grown!”

  Then Ijada’s face was swept by such joy as Ingrey had never yet seen illuminate it. “Hallana!” she cried, and hurried forward.

  The two women fell into each other’s arms with feminine shrieks of recognition and pleasure. At length, Lady Ijada stood back with her hands upon the shorter woman’s shoulders. “How ever did you come here?”

  “The news of your misadventure came to the Mother’s seminary at Suttleaf. I teach there now, you know. And then there were the dreams, of course.”

  “And how came you there—you must tell me everything that has happened with you since—oh, Lord Ingrey.” Ijada turned to him, her face glowing. “This is my friend I told you of. She was a medical missioner at my father’s fort on the west marches, and a student in the Bastard’s Order as well, pursuing both her callings—learning the fen folk’s wisdom songs, and treating what of their sicknesses she could, to draw them to the fort and our divine’s Quintarian preachings. When she was younger, of course. And me—I was the most gangling awkward child. Hallana, I still don’t know why you let me tail around after you all day long, but I adored you for it.”

  “Well, aside from my not being immune to worship—makes me wonder about the gods, indeed it does—you did make yourself quite useful. You were not afraid of the marsh, or the woods, or the animals, or the fen folk, or of getting thoroughly muddy and scratched or of being scolded for it.”

  Ijada laughed. “I still remember how you and that dreadfully priggish divine used to argue theology over the meal trestles—Learned Oswin would grow so furious, he would positively stamp out afterward. I should have worried for his digestion, if I had been older and less self-absorbed. Poor skinny fellow.”

  The sorceress smirked. “It was good for him. Oswin was the most perfect servant of the Father, always so concerned for figuring out the exact rules and getting himself on the right side of them. Or them on the left side of him. It always stung him when I pointed that out.”

  “Oh, but look at you—here, you must sit down—” Lady Ijada and the maid Hergi joined forces briefly to find the best chair, pad it with cushions, and urge Learned Hallana into it. She sank down gratefully, blowing out her breath with a whoosh, and adjusted her belly in her lap. The maid scurried to prop her mistress’s feet on a stool. Lady Ijada pulled a chair to the table opposite her friend, and Ingrey retreated to the window seat, no great distance away in the tiny room, where he could watch both women. The warden hung back, cautious and respectful.

  “Your double scholarship is a most unusual combination, Learned,” said Ingrey, nodding to the woman’s shoulder braids. Their pin was working loose again, and they hung precariously on their perch.

  “Oh, yes. It came about by accident, if accident it was.” She shrugged, dislodging the braids; her maid sighed and wordlessly retrieved and reinstalled them. “I had started out to be a physician, like my mother and grandmother before me. My apprenticeship was quite complete, and I had begun to practice at the
Temple hospital in Helmharbor. There I was called to attend upon a dying sorcerer.” She paused and glanced shrewdly at Ingrey. “What do you know about how Temple sorcerers are made, Lord Ingrey? Or illicit sorcerers, for that matter?”

  His brows rose. “A person comes into possession of a demon of disorder, which has somehow escaped from the grip of the Bastard into the world of matter. The sorcerer takes it into his soul—or hers,” he added hastily. “And nourishes it there. In return, the demon lends its powers. The acquisition of a demon makes one a sorcerer much as the acquisition of a horse makes one a rider, or so I was taught.”

  “Very correct.” Hallana nodded approval. “It does not, of course, necessarily make one a good rider. That must be learned. Well. What is less well known, is that Temple sorcerers sometimes bequeath their demons to their Order, to be passed along to the next generation, with all that they have learned. Since, when a sorcerer dies, if she—or he—does not bear the demon back to the gods, it will jump away to the next living thing nearby that may sustain it in the world of matter. It is not a good thing to lose a powerful demon into a stray dog. Don’t smile, it has happened. But done properly, a trained demon may be directed into one’s chosen successor without ripping one’s soul to pieces in the process.”

  Ijada leaned forward to listen, her hands clasped in fascination. “You know, I never thought to ask you how you came to be what you were. I just took you for granted.”

  “You were ten. All the world is an equal mystery then.” She shifted in her chair, not without difficulty, evidently seeking a more comfortable position. “The Bastard’s Order in Helmharbor had groomed this divine, a very scholarly young fellow, to receive his mentor’s powers. All seemed to go as planned. The old sorcerer—my word, but he was a frail thing by then—breathed his last quite peacefully, all things considered. His successor held his hand and prayed. And the stupid demon jumped right over him and into me. No one was expecting it, least of all that lofty young divine. He was livid. I was distraught. How could I practice the healing arts when plagued with a demon of disorder itself? I tried for some time to be rid of it—even made pilgrimage to a saint reputed to have the Bastard’s own power over His strayed elementals.”