lois Bujold - The Hallowed Hunt

“Off to sleep with you, now, my lord,” the dedicat went on, standing on tiptoe to take one last look at her work and recovering her cheer. “With that knock to the head, you should stay in bed for a day or two.”

“My duties will not permit, alas.” He gave her a stiff bow, and went off across the square to fill at least the first half of her prescription.

The divine, finished with praying over Boleso, was waiting up for him. The man wanted to talk of further ceremonies, and after that, hear news from the capital. He was anxious for the hallow king's failing health; Ingrey, himself four days out of touch, elected to be reassuringly vague. Ingrey judged the Reedmere man an unlordly lord-divine, a sincere soul-shepherd, backbone of the rural Temple, but neither learned nor subtle. Not a man in whom to confide Lady Ijada's current spiritual situation. Or my own. Ingrey turned him firmly to the needs of tomorrow's travel, made excusing references to his injuries, and escaped to his bedchamber.

INGREY DREAMED OF WOLVES…

He would have thought black midnight to be the time for the rite, but his father summoned him to the castle hall in the middle of the afternoon. A cool shadowless light penetrated from the window slits that overlooked the gurgling Birchbeck sixty feet below. Good beeswax candles burned in sconces on the walls, their warm honeyed flicker mixing with the grayness.

Lord Ingalef kin Wolfcliff appeared calm, if grave with the strain that had ridden him of late, and he greeted his son with a reassuring nod and a brief, rare smile. Young Ingrey's throat was tight with nervous excitement and fear. The Temple sorcerer, Cumril, made known to Ingrey only the night before, stood at the ready, naked but for a breechcloth, bare skin daubed about with archaic signs. The sorcerer had looked old to Ingrey then, but through his dream-eyes he saw that Cumril had actually been a young man. With the foresight of his nightmare state, Ingrey searched Cumril's face for some intimation or mark-did he plot the betrayal to come? Or was he just in over his head-not in control, unlucky, incompetent? The worry in his shifting eyes could have betokened either-or, indeed, all.

Then young Ingrey's gaze locked upon the animals, the beautiful, dangerous animals, and he could scarcely thereafter look away. The grizzled huntsman who handled them would die of rabies three days before Ingrey's father.

The young wolf, barely more than a pup, scrabbled away from its larger comrade in evident fear, claws scratching on the floorboards. The huntsman took it for cowardly, but later Ingrey would come to believe it had known of the contagion. Otherwise, it was startlingly docile, attentive as a well-trained dog. Its fur was dark and wonderfully dense, its silver-gilt eyes clear, and it responded at once to Ingrey's arrival, straining toward him and sniffing, staring up in evident adoration. Ingrey loved it instantly, his hands aching to run through the pewter-black pelt.

The sorcerer directed Ingrey and his father to strip to the waist and kneel on the cold floor a few paces apart, facing each other. He intoned some phrases in the old tongue of the Weald, pronouncing them carefully with many a side glance at a piece of wrinkled paper plucked from his belt. The language seemed to hover maddeningly just on the edge of Ingrey's understanding.

At Cumril's sign, the huntsman dragged the old wolf to Lord Ingalef's arms. He let go of the young wolf's leash to do so, and the animal scampered to Ingrey's lap. Ingrey held its soft warmth close, and it wriggled around to eagerly lick his face. His hands buried themselves in its fur, petting and stroking; the creature emitted small, happy whines and tried to wash Ingrey's ear. The rough tongue tickled, and Ingrey had to choke down a reflexive, unfitting laugh.

Muttering briefly over the blade, the sorcerer delivered the sacred knife to Lord Ingalef's waiting hand, then stepped back hastily as the disturbed wolf snapped at him. The beast began to struggle as Lord Ingalef's grip tightened. The struggle redoubled as he grasped it by the muzzle and tried to tilt its head back. He lost his hold, the jaw straps slipped loose, and the animal sank its teeth in his left forearm, shaking its head and snarling, worrying the flesh. Muffling a curse, he regained a partial purchase with knees and the weight of his strong body. The blade flashed, sank into fur and flesh. Red blood spurted. The snarls died, the jaws loosed, and the furry bundle subsided limply; then, a moment later, into a more profound stillness.

“Oh,” he said, eyes wide and strange. “It worked. How very…odd that feels…”

Cumril cast him a worried look; the huntsman hastened to bind his savaged arm.

“My lord, should you not…?” Cumril began.

Lord Ingalef shook his head sharply and raised his sound hand in a unsteady Continue! gesture. “It worked! Go on!”

The sorcerer picked up the second blade, gleaming new-forged, from the cushion on which it rested, and trod forward mumbling again. He pressed the knife into Ingrey's hand and stepped back once more.

Ingrey's hand closed unhappily on the hilt, and he looked into the bright eyes of his wolf. I don't want to kill you. You are too beautiful. I want to keep you. The clean jaws opened, showing fine white teeth, and Cumril's breath drew in, but the young wolf only lolled out its pink tongue and licked Ingrey's hand. The cool black nose nudged his knife-clutching fist, and Ingrey blinked back tears. The wolf sat up between Ingrey's knees, raised its head, and twisted around to gaze into its killer's face with perfect trust.

He must not botch this, must not inflict unnecessary torment with repeated strikes. His hands felt the neck, traced the firm muscles and the soft ripple of artery and vein. The room was a silvered blur. The young wolf leaned into him as Ingrey laid the blade close. He drew back, struck, yanked with all his strength. Felt the flesh part, the hot blood spurt over his hands, wetting the fur. Felt the body relax in his arms.

Shouts of alarm: his father's voice, “Something's gone wrong! Curse you, Cumril, catch him!”

“He's gone all shaking-he's bitten his tongue, my lord-”

A shift of time and space, and his wolf was bound-no, he was bound-red-silk cords whispered and muttered around him, writhing, rooting in him like vines. His wolf snapped at them, white teeth closing, tearing, but the cords regrew with frightening speed. They wrapped his head, tightening painfully.

Unfamiliar voices invaded his delirium then, irritatingly. His wolf fled. The memory of his evil dream spattered and ran away like water.

“He can't be asleep; his eyes are half-open, see them gleam?”

“No, don't wake him up! I know what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to lead them back to bed quietly, or, I don't know, they go all wild, or something.”

“Then I'm not touching him with that sword in his hand!”

“Well, how else?”

“Get more light, woman. Oh, five gods be thanked, here's his own man.”

A hesitation; then, “Lord Ingrey? Lord Ingrey!”

Candlelight doubled, doubled again. Ingrey blinked, gasped, surged to wakefulness. His head ached abominably. He was standing up. Shock brought him fully alert.

He was standing once more in the temple infirmary, if the room in back of the apothecary's could be so designated. He wore the divine's nightshirt half-tucked into his trousers, but his feet were bare on the board floor. His right hand gripped his naked sword.

“I'm”-he had to stop, swallow, moisten his lips-“I'm awake.”

What am I doing here? How did I get over here?

He'd been sleepwalking, presumably. He had heard of such things. He'd never done it before. And it had been more than just blundering about in the dark. He'd partly dressed, found his weapon, somehow made his way in unobserved silence down a stairway, through a door-which surely must have been locked, so he must have turned the key-across the cobbled square, and into this other building.