Not Hetwar, for he frowned and veered off. “So it seems. The girl will be dealt with in due course. A more urgent accusation has come to our ears. What do you say of Cumril’s charge that Wencel kin Horseriver also now bears a spirit animal?”

Ingrey drew a long breath. “That such a grave charge is surely a matter for a proper Temple inquiry.”

“And what would that inquiry find?”

How great were Wencel’s powers of concealment? Better than Ingrey’s own, that was certain. “I imagine that would depend upon their competence, sir.”

“Ingrey.” Hetwar’s warning tone, the special one pushed through his teeth, made both Gesca and Biast flinch, this time. Ingrey stood fast. “The man is an earl-ordainer, and we are on the verge of an election. I thought he was a staunch advocate of the rightful heir.”

He nodded to Biast, who nodded back gratefully. Fritine blinked, and said nothing.

Hetwar continued, “If this is not the case, I need to know! I cannot afford to lose his support in some untimely arrest.”

“Well,” said Ingrey blandly, “then your solution is simple. Wait until after you have extracted his vote to turn and attack him.”

Biast looked as though he’d bitten into a worm. Hetwar seemed, for a moment, as if he was actually considering this. Fritine looked blank indeed, and Ingrey wondered anew where his ordaining vote was promised.

Had Cumril’s chances of kissing the Stork just gone up? Do I care? Ingrey sighed. Probably. Ingrey came to the glum realization that there was not a man in this room that he would fully trust with his newest revelations about Horseriver. I want Ijada.

Ingrey clenched his hands behind his back. My turn. “Archdivine. You are both theologian and ordainer. You must know if anyone does. Can you tell me—what is the precise theological difference between the hallow kingship of the Old Weald and its renewed form under Quintarian orthodoxy?”

Hetwar stared at him, a look of Where in five gods’ names did that question come from, Ingrey? writ plain on his face. But he eased back in his seat and gestured Fritine to answer, clearly just as curious to see where the answer would take them.

Fritine drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “The old hallow king was elected by the heads of the thirteen strongest kin tribes. The new, by eight great kin houses and five Temple ordainers. The rights of blood and primogeniture are given greater precedence”—he glanced at Biast—”after the Darthacan manner. Since the election of the hallow king more often than not used to be a pretext for tribal warfare, this more peaceful transfer of powers between generations itself seems the mark of godly blessings.” His further nod to Biast gave impulsion to the hint, And let us keep it that way.

“A political answer was not what I asked for,” said Ingrey. “Was the old hallow king always a spirit warrior, or… or a shaman?” And how unsafe was it going to prove, to release that particular term into the conversation?

Lewko sat up with a look of growing interest. “I have heard something of the sort. The old hallow king was supposed to be the hub of many intertribal rites; perhaps more mage than holy, in truth.”

Ingrey tried to imagine any hallow king in the recent past as magical, and failed. Nor holy either, in truth. “So that—uncanny power—is all gone from the kingship?”

“Yes?” said Lewko.

Ingrey wasn’t sure if that rising inflection was meant as assent or encouragement. “So—what’s left? What makes the hallow kingship hallowed now?”

The archdivine’s eyebrows went up. “The blessings of the five gods.”

“Your pardon, Learned, but I get blessed by the five gods every Quarterday Service. It does not make me holy.”

“Truly,” muttered Hetwar, almost inaudibly.

Ingrey ignored him and forged on. “Is there any more to this kingly blessing than pious good wishes?”

The archdivine said sonorously, “There is prayer. The five archdivine-ordainers pray for guidance in their vote; all invite their gods for a sign.”

Ingrey rather thought he had delivered a couple of those signs himself, in clinking bags. It had not made him feel like a messenger of the gods. “What else? What other changes? There must be something more.” The slight strain in his voice betrayed too much urgency, and he swallowed to bring it back under close control. Five old kin groups were now missing from the mix, true, three of them extinct, two diminished. Five Temple-men replaced them smoothly enough, and who could say they were any less true representatives of their people? Yet the election had created Horseriver a mage-king once, created him something extraordinary. Aye, and he never stopped being it, did he? Was the present kingship empty in part because Horseriver held on to something in his deathlessness that he should have yielded back?

Biast, who had been jittering in his chair during this, interrupted. “If the accusation against Wencel is true, I am deeply concerned for the safety of my sister.”

Ingrey bore no love for Fara, after what she had done to Ijada, but considering his suspicions of the fate of Horseriver’s last wife-mother, he had to allow the point. “Your concern seems valid to me, my lord.”

Hetwar sat up at that admission.

Ingrey added, “I am reminded, Sealmaster. Earl Horseriver has lately hinted to me that he desires my service. I beg you, if he asks, to say you will not release me. I fear to refuse him to his face. I don’t wish to invoke his enmity.”

Hetwar’s brows drew down in furious thought. The archdivine stared, and said, “Two spirit-defiled men to be in the same house? Why does he desire this?”

“You assume your conclusion, Archdivine,” Ingrey pointed out. “The earl is accused, not yet convicted.”

Fritine turned in his seat. “Lewko…?”

Lewko spread his hands. “I would need a closer look at him. And the aid of the god, which I cannot force.”

Fritine turned back to Ingrey, frowning. “I would have you speak more plainly, Lord Ingrey.”

Ingrey shrugged. “Consider what you demand, Archdivine. If you wish my testimony of the unseen and the uncanny, you cannot pick and choose. You must take all, or none. And I doubt you are ready to accept me as some sort of courier from the gods, bearing orders for you.”

While Fritine was digesting the implications of that remark, Ingrey continued, “As for Wencel, he claims to be reminded of our cousinship. Belatedly enough.” Well, that too was true in a sense.

Biast said indignantly, “You would leave my sister unprotected in a house where you fear to go yourself?” His brow wrinkled, and he added more slowly, “You are loyal to my lord Hetwar, are you not?”

He has never betrayed me. Yet. Ingrey gave a little ambiguous bow.

Biast continued, “But if the accusation is true… who better to protect the princess from, from any uncanny act her husband might take, or to rescue her from that place if the need arises? And you might observe, inform, report… “

“Spy?” said Fritine, in an interested tone. “Could he do that, do you think, Hetwar?”

Ingrey raised a brow. “Now you would have me take a lying oath of service, my lords?” he inquired sweetly.

“Ingrey, stop that, “ snapped Hetwar. “Your graveyard notions of humor have no place in this council.”

“That was humor?” muttered Biast.

“As close as he ever comes to it.”

“I wonder that you endure it.”

“His trying style has proved to have its uses. From time to time. He wanders his own twisted path, and brings back prizes no logical man would have even suspected were there. I’ve never been sure if it was a talent or a curse.” Hetwar sat back and regarded Ingrey acutely. “Could you do this?”

Ingrey hesitated. It would make official what he had been doing half-awarely all along; playing both ends against the middle while desperately collecting fragments that he hoped would fall into some pattern. And keeping his own counsel betimes.