lois Bujold - The Hallowed Hunt

“I wouldn't dream of it.” Lewko rubbed the grin from his mouth and continued, “Biast thrust everything in Easthome onto Hetwar's shoulders, which I think are sturdy enough to hold them. We were on the river road pelting north not four hours after you three had left Easthome. After that it was all commandeering Temple courier horses and royal mail station remounts, and taking turns resting in the wagon, all the way to Badgerbridge.”

“You took the main road straight there?” said Ingrey, considering a mental map. “That would have saved some time. We took a lesser track when we turned west, for secrecy I think.”

“Yes. There appeared never to be any doubt about where we were going. Such a deluge of dreams! I did not see why, until…well. I have now seen why. We traded the wagon for fresh mounts and outraced the prince-marshal's escort out of Badgerbridge; they may yet catch us up, if they have not lost themselves in Ijada's forest, here.” Ijada nodded thoughtfully, as she considered this possibility. “The forester is with them; they will find their way eventually, maybe by another pass.” She glanced out over the valley. “The smoke must draw them, if nothing else.”

He unclutched the blanket from around his neck and sat on it, his arms wound about his knees, and stared into the graying gulf of mist and smoke. The earlier hot bright yellow that had seared the dark was dying down to a sullen red ring, black in the growing middle. The bloody light reflected off the undersides of the charcoal-colored clouds; far off, Ingrey heard a faint rumble of thunder reverberate through the serried hills, and the heavy scent of the coming rain mixed in his nostrils with the stink of smoke. He wondered if the morning after the original massacre had looked and smelled like this, and if Audar himself had also paused upon this spot to reflect on what clashing kings had wrought.

Biast strolled over to stand beside him, his arms crossed, staring out likewise, as if sociably. The prince-marshal was a little too drawn to bring off the illusion, but Ingrey spread his hand in invitation nonetheless, and Biast sank down next to him. Biast's tired sigh was not feigned.

“What will you do now?” Biast inquired of him.

“Sleep, I hope. Before we must ride.”

“I meant more generally.”

I know you did. Ingrey sighed, then a small smile turned his mouth. “After that, I shall pursue a courtier's supreme ambition-”

He made the slightest of pauses, to give Biast time to tense.

“-and marry a rich heiress, and retire to a life of ease on her country estates.” He waved about at the enclosing hills.

“Well, she may find a task or two to which to turn my hand.”

“She may,” said Biast, surprised into a chuckle.

“If she is not hanged.”

Biast grimaced and waved away this concern. “That will not happen. Not after this. If you do not trust in me and Hetwar, well, I do think Oswin and Lewko will have a thing or two to say about it. Among such a fellowship, some sensible path to justice must be found. And”-his voice grew hesitant not in doubt, but in a kind of shyness-“mercy.”

“Good,” Ingrey sighed.

“Thank you for saving Fara's life. More than once, if she tells me true. Making you her guard wolf was one of my luckier decisions, if luck it was.”

Ingrey shrugged. “I did no more than my duty to you, nor less than any man's duty to his conscience.”

“Any man could not have done what I saw you do last night.” Biast stared at his feet, not meeting Ingrey's eyes. “If you chose to be more now-to reach for my father's seat-I do not know who could stand against you. Wolf king.” Not I, his bowed shoulders seemed to add.

Now he comes to it. Ingrey pointed outward. “My kingdom measured two miles by four, its population included not one breathing soul, and my whole reign ran from one dusk to one dawn. The dead did but lend my kingship to me, and in the end I handed it back. As any king must do; your father, for one.” Although not Horseriver: one root of the problem had lain in that, to be sure. “You, too, prince, come your turn.”

Upon consideration, Ingrey's geography lacked a dimension, he decided. Eight square miles by four centuries-or more, for all of the history of the Old Weald had surely concentrated itself upon this patch of ground that fatal night, to be so thoroughly dislocated thereafter. Like the abyss beneath the deceptive surface of a lake that this valley floor resembled, time went down unimaginably far beneath this ground- all the way down. My domain is larger than it looks. He decided not to trouble Biast with these reflections, but said only, “If any kingship lingers on me, this little realm will content it.”

“Tell me true, Lord Ingrey,” said Biast suddenly. He turned to look Ingrey full in the face for almost the first time. “What makes the hallow kingship hallowed?”

Ingrey hesitated so long in answering, Biast began to turn away again in disappointment, when Ingrey blurted, “Faith.” And at the puzzled pinch of Biast's brows, clarified: “Keeping it.”

Biast's lips made an unvoiced O, as though something sharp had pierced him through the heart. He sank back wordlessly. He said nothing for a rather long time. They sat together in more companionable silence as the glimmering fires crept across the ground below, in the last deconsecration of Holytree and Bloodfield's belated pyre.

I NGREY LEFT IJADA'S FOREST THAT AFTERNOON CLINGING dizzily to his saddle, his horse towed by one of Biast's late-arriving guardsmen. He spent most of the following week flat on his back in Ijada's stepparents' house in Badgerbridge. But as soon as he could stand up without blacking out, he and Ijada were married-or married again-in the house's parlor, and then he had her fair company by night as well as day in his convalescent chamber. Some things one didn't need to get out of bed to accomplish. Prince Biast and his retinue had hurried back to Easthome and the prince's duties there; news of his election as hallow king arrived the day after the wedding. Prince Jokol and Ottovin lingered just long enough to enliven the wedding party, and to amaze the town of Badgerbridge, then took horse on the southern road to return to their ship.

Fara settled swiftly into a very private widowhood, under her brother's protection. If her spirit horse rendered her less a prize for some new political marriage, she seemed more grimly pleased than regretful. Her sick headaches did not recur.

Just exactly how Lewko and Oswin between them produced a divine for Prince Jokol, Ingrey never found out, but he and Ijada did come down to the docks to bid the island prince and his comrades farewell. The young divine looked nervous and clung to the ship's rail as though he expected to get seasick going downriver, but seemed very brave and determined. Fafa the ice bear, in a move of swift wit on someone's part, was gifted to King Biast as an ordination present, and took up residence on a nearby farm, with his own pond to swim in.

Withal, snow was flying by the time Ingrey and Ijada rode out of Easthome free, on the southeastern road toward the Lure Valley, with Learned Lewko's expert company. Ingrey spurred them all onward despite the cold. That he was too late about this business was all too probable-but that he might be just too late seemed unendurable. They came to the confluence of the Lure and the Birchbeck on the winter solstice, the Father's Day, an accident of timing that gave Ingrey's heart hope despite his reason and the learned saint's advice.

“Of course,” said Ingrey, with a polite nod. Islin returned the courtesy and took himself out of the great hall.

Ingrey glanced around. A couple of good beeswax candles in silvered sconces cast a warm honeyed flicker over the chamber; a fire burning low in the stone fireplace drove back some of the chill. Beyond the window slits, only midnight darkness lurked, though the gurgle of the fast-flowing Birchbeck, not yet frozen over though its banks were rimed with ice, came up faintly through them. The room was much the same as on the fateful day he and his father had received their wolf sacrifices here, and yet…not. It is smaller and more rustic than I remembered. How can a stone-walled room grow smaller?