"Bujold, Lois McMaster - Chalion 3 - The Hallowed Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bujold Lois McMaster)

He remounted his horse more blank-faced than ever. Wencel, he had to admit, had thrown his mind into chaos. The earlТs twisting conversation gave Ingrey a sharp sense that the pair of them were fencing in the dark, blades stabbing at hidden targets. Both concealing and confiding dangerous secrets to each other, feint and parryЕequally? I think Wencel conceals more. To be fair, Wencel had also seemed to reveal more.
Ingrey had thought his anxiety over the strange geas to be his most pressing problem. The notion that WencelТs lore might contain clues to the matter was doubly exciting. It suggested Ingrey might have an ally to hand. It equally suggested that Ingrey might have found his unknown enemy. Or, how was it that Wencel seemed to regard illicit sorcerers as minor inconveniences, to be so readily handled? He glanced toward the head of the cortege where Wencel now rode, beyond earshot once more, interrogating one of BolesoТs men. The guardsman was a big fellow, yet his shoulders were bowed as though trying to make himself smaller.
Wencel had dragged a number of lures across IngreyТs trail, yet it was not the new mystery but the old one that most arrested him, caught and held him suspended between fascination and fear. What does Wencel know about my father and his mother that I do not?
а
OXMEADE WAS LARGER THAN RED DIKE, BUT BOLESOТS CORTEGE was received at its big stone temple that afternoon with only moderate ceremony, mostly, it seemed, because the town was a madhouse of preparation for greater events tomorrow. Ingrey was hugely relieved finally to hand off responsibility for the corpse and its outriders to Wencel, who handed them in turn to his sober seneschal, a gaggle of Easthome Temple divines, and a formidable array of retainers and clerks. Princess Fara and her own household, Ingrey was glad to learn, had not followed on, but awaited them all in the capital. It was not yet twilight when Ingrey and his guard mounted up again with their prisoner and followed Wencel through the winding streets.
Passing along the edge of a crowded square, Wencel pulled up his horse, and Ingrey stopped beside him. A street market was open late, presumably to serve the needs of the courtiers and their households already starting to arrive for the last leg of BolesoТs funeral procession. Ingrey was not sure at first what had caught WencelТs attention, but he followed the earlТs gaze past the busy booths to a corner where a fiddler played, his hat invitingly laid upside down at his feet. The musician was better than the usual sort, certainly, and his mellow instrument cast a strange, plaintive song into the golden evening air.
After a moment Wencel remarked, УThat is a very old tune. I wonder if he knows how old? He plays itЕalmost rightly.Ф
Wencel kept his face averted until the song ended. When he looked forward his profile was strange. Tense, but not with anger or fear; more like a man about to weep for some inconsolable, incalculable loss. Wencel grimaced the tension away and clucked his horse onward without looking back, nor sending anyone to throw a coin in the hat, though the fiddler looked after the rich party with thwarted hope.
They came at length to the large house Wencel had rented, or commandeered, one of several in a row in this wealthy merchantsТ quarter. Bright brass bosses in sunburst patterns studded the heavy planks of its front door. Ingrey handed off his horse to Gesca, shouldered his saddlebags, and oversaw Lady Ijada and her young warden taken upstairs by a maid. By their strained greetings, this was a servant who had known Ijada before. The Horseriver household, it seemed, found the justice of IjadaТs case as disturbingly ambiguous as did their master.
Before Wencel went off to deal with the sheaf of messages that had arrived in his absence, he murmured to Ingrey, УWe shall eat in an hour, you and Ijada and I. It may be our last chance for private speech for a while.Ф
Ingrey nodded.
He was guided to a tiny chamber on the top floor, where a basin and a can of hot water were already waiting for him. It was clearly a servantТs room, of whatever wealthy family the earl had dislodged, but its solitude was most welcome to him. HorseriverТs own servants were likely crowded into some lesser dormitory or stable loft in this crisis, and Gesca and his men would fare little better. Ingrey trusted HorseriverТs cook would console them.
Ingrey washed efficiently. His wardrobe was too limited to take much time over; he had brought clothing for hard riding, not for courtly dining. Done and dressed, he considered the temptations of the cot, but feared if once he lay down, he would be unable to force himself up again. He wended down the narrow staircase instead, planning to explore the house and the street around it, and perhaps check on Gesca, if the stable proved to be nearby. He paused on the next landing, hearing WencelТs voice in the hallway. He turned that way instead.
Wencel was speaking to IjadaТs warden, who was listening with a wide-eyed, daunted expression. He wheeled at the sound of IngreyТs step, and grimaced. УYou may go,Ф he said to the warden, who bobbed a curtsey and withdrew into what was presumably IjadaТs chamber. Wencel joined Ingrey at the staircase, motioning him ahead, but excused himself when they reached the ground floor to go off and confer with his clerk.
Ingrey stepped outside in the dusk and made his circuit of the environs of the house. Arriving again at the front door, he was passed from the porter to another servant and into a chamber at the back of the second floor. It was not the grand dining room, almost suitable to an earlТs estate, but a small breakfast parlor, overlooking a kitchen garden and the mews. Its single door was heavy, and would muffle sound well, Ingrey judged. A little round table was set for three.
Ijada arrived escorted by a maidservant, who curtseyed to Ingrey and left her. She wore an overdress of wheatstraw-colored wool upon clean linen high to her neck. The effect was modest and maidenly, though Ingrey supposed the lace collar was mostly to hide the greening bruises on her throat. Wencel came in almost on her heels, glittering in the abundant candlelight, having also changed into richer garb than what heТd ridden in. And cleaner. Ingrey briefly wished his own saddlebags had held a better choice than least smelly.
At WencelТs gesture Ingrey brushed off his court manners and helped Lady Ijada to her chair, and Wencel to his, before seating himself. All equally distant from each other, tripod-tense. Servants, obviously instructed, bustled in around them, leaving covered dishes and withdrawing discreetly. The food, at least, proved good, if countrified: dumplings, beans, baked apples, a brace of stuffed woodcocks, sauces and savories, carafes of three sorts of wines.
УAh,Ф murmured Wencel, lifting a silver cover and revealing a ham. УDare I ask you to carve, Lord Ingrey?Ф
Ijada blinked warily. Ingrey returned Wencel an equally tight smile and haggled off slices. He slipped his hands below the table, after, to pull his cuffs down again over the bandages on his wrists. He waited to see how Wencel would bend the talk next, which resulted in a silence for a space, as all applied themselves to the meal.
At length Wencel remarked, УI had nothing but secondhand reports about the dire events at Birchgrove that left your father dead and youЕwell. They were quite jumbled and wild. And certainly incomplete. Would you tell me the full tale?Ф
Ingrey, braced for more questions about Hallana, hesitated in confusion, then mustered his memories once more. He had held them for years in silence, yet now recounted them aloud for the third time in a week. His story seemed to grow smoother with repetition, as though the account were slowly coming to replace the event, even in his own mind. Wencel chewed and listened, frowning.
УYour wolf was different than your fatherТs,Ф he said, as Ingrey wound down after describing, as best he could, the wolfish turmoil in his mind that had blended into his weeks of delirium.
УWell, yes. For one thing, it was not diseased. Or at leastЕnot in the same way. It made me wonder if animals could get the falling sickness, or some like disease of the mind.Ф
УHow did your fatherТs huntsman come by it?Ф
УI do not know. He was dead before I recovered enough to ask anything.Ф
УHuh. For I had heardФЧa slight emphasis on that last word, a significant pauseЧУthat it was not the wolf originally intended for you. That the rabid wolf had killed its pack mate, a day before the rite was to be held. And that the new wolf was found that night, sitting outside the sick wolfТs cage.Ф
УThen you have heard more than I was told. It could be, I suppose.Ф
Wencel tapped his spoon beside his plate in a faint, nervous tattoo, seemed to catch himself, and set it down.
Ingrey added, УDid your mother say anything to you about your stallion? That morning when you awoke changed.Ф
УNo. That was the morning she died.Ф
УNot of rabies!Ф
УNo. And yet I have wondered, since. She died in a fall from a horse.Ф
Ingrey pursed his lips. IjadaТs eyes widened.
УIt died in the accident, too,Ф Wencel added. УBroke its leg. The groom cut its throatЧit was said. By the time I came to wonder about itЧsome time afterwardЧshe was long buried, and the horse butchered and gone. I have meditated by her grave, but there is no lingering aura to be sensed there. No ghosts, no answers. Her death was wrenching to me, so soon, just four months after my fatherТs. I was not insensible to the parallels with your case, Ingrey, but if Wolfcliff brother and sister had some plan concocted, some intent, no one confided it to me.Ф
УOr some conflict,Ф Ijada suggested thoughtfully, looking back and forth between the pair of them. УLike two rival castles, one on each side of the Lure, building their battlements higher.Ф
Wencel opened a hand in acknowledgment of the possible point, though his frown suggested that the idea did not sit easily with him.
УIn all this time, you must have developed theories, Wencel,Ф said Ingrey.
Wencel shrugged. УGuesses, conjectures, fantasies, more like. My nights grew full of them, till I was wearied beyond measure with the wondering.Ф
Ingrey chased his last bite of dumpling across his plate, and said in a lower tone, УWhy did you never approach me before, then?Ф
УYou were gone to Darthaca. Permanent exile, for all I knew. Then your family lost all trace of you. You might have been dead, as far as anyone had heard to the contrary.Ф
УYes, but what about after? When I returned?Ф
УYou seemed to have reached a place of safety, under HetwarТs protection. Safer with your dispensation than I was with my secrets, certainly. I envied you that. Would you have thanked me for throwing your life back into doubt and disarray?Ф
УPerhaps not,Ф Ingrey conceded reluctantly.
A crisp double knock sounded at the roomТs thick door. Ijada started, but Wencel merely called, УCome!Ф
WencelТs clerk poked his head around the door and murmured apologetically, УThe message you were awaiting has arrived, my lord.Ф
УAh, good. Thank you.Ф Wencel pushed back from the table, and to his feet. УExcuse me. I shall return in a few moments. Pray continue.Ф He gestured at the serving dishes.
As soon as Wencel exited, a pair of servants bustled in to clear used plates, lay new courses, renew the wine and water, and retreat again with equally wordless bows. Ingrey and Ijada were left looking at each other. Some tentative exploration under the dish covers revealed dainties, fruits, and sweets, and Ijada brightened. They helped one another to the most interesting tidbits.
Ingrey glanced at the closed door. УDo you think Princess Fara knows of WencelТs beast?Ф he asked her.
She studied a piece of honeyed marzipan and ate it before replying. Her frown was not, Ingrey thought, for the food. УIt would fit some things that I didnТt understand about them. Their relationship seemed strange to me, although I didnТt necessarily expect such a high marriage to be like my motherТs. Either of hers. For all that he is not handsome, I think Fara wanted Wencel to be in love with her. In some more courtly fashion than he displayed.Ф
УWas he not courtly?Ф