He could say no. He could.

“I admit,” he said instead, slowly, “I, too, desire to understand more of Wencel.” He added to Biast, “And why do you suddenly think your sister in danger now, and not anytime these past four years?”

Biast looked a trifle embarrassed. “These past four years, I was scarcely paying attention. We met but once after her wedding, and wrote seldom. I assumed, assumed she was well disposed of by my father, and content withal. I had my own duties. It was not till she spoke with me—well, I taxed her—this past day that she revealed how unhappy she had grown.”

“What did she say to you?” asked Hetwar.

“She’d intended no such harm to fall out of the, um, events at Boar’s Head. She thought Boleso had grown too wild, yes, but hoped that perhaps he and, um, Lady Ijada might grow content with one another, in time. That the girl might calm him. Fara feels her lack of children keenly, though I must say, it is not clear to me that the fault in that is hers. She thought her husband’s eye had fallen on her new handmaiden, for it was he who brought her into Fara’s household.”

That last is new, thought Ingrey. Ijada had thought the offer the work of her Badgerbank aunt, but who had stirred up the aunt to remember her? Could Wencel have been thinking of a new heir, to place between himself and Ingrey? Or were his motives in securing Ijada something altogether else? Altogether else, I now think. He would not so bestir himself without reason, but his reasons are not those of other men.

“Lady Ijada claims the earl offered her no insult,” Ingrey put in. “I grant you she may be naive enough not to have recognized one unless it were gross, and Wencel is not given to grossness. I hold Fara much at fault in this whole chain of events. Though I admit, Boleso was well along on his own dark path, and it was better he was stopped sooner than later.” Reminded by Hetwar’s quick glare of a need for civility, he added to Boleso’s bereaved brother, “I’m sorry it had to be so cruelly.”

The prince-marshal vented an unhappy Mm. It was not a noise of disagreement.

The archdivine cleared his throat. “I would observe, Lord Ingrey, that by your testimony to Learned Lewko—and certain other evidences—it seems your spirit wolf is now unbound. You stand in violation of your dispensation.”

His bland tone concealed not so much menace, or acute fear, as pressure, Ingrey decided. So. He knew how to deal with simple pressure.

“It was not by my will, sir.” A safely uncheckable assertion. “It was an accident that occurred when Learned Hallana took the geas off me. And so, in a sense, the Temple’s own doing.” Yes, blame the absent. “While I can’t say it was the gods’ will, two gods have been quick enough to make use of it.” Was that the barest nervous flinch on Fritine’s part? Ingrey took a breath. “Now you desire to make use of it, too, setting me to guard Princess Fara. This seems to me a grave mandate, for a man you do not trust. Or do you mean to extract the use of me first, then turn on me? I warn you, I can swim.”

Fritine considered this bait for a long moment and shrewdly declined to bite. “Then it behooves you to continue to make yourself useful, don’t you think?”

“I see.” Ingrey favored him with a slightly too-sweeping bow. “It seems I am at your service, Archdivine.”

Hetwar shifted a little uncomfortably at this blatant exchange. It was not that he was above threats, but he had always managed to find smoother ways to move Ingrey to his will, a courtesy Ingrey appreciated aesthetically if nothing else.

“Since you put it so compellingly,” said Ingrey—Hetwar grimaced, he saw out of the corner of his eye—”I will undertake to be your spy. And the princess’s bodyguard.” He gave Biast a polite nod, which Biast, at least, had the mother wit to return.

“This brings up the disposition of the prisoner,” said Hetwar. “If Wencel is suspect, so is his courtesy of housing Lady Ijada. It may be time to move her to more secure quarters.”

Ingrey froze. Was Ijada to be torn from his wardenship? He said carefully, “Would that not prematurely reveal your suspicions to Wencel?”

“By no means,” said the archdivine. “Such a change was inevitable, after the funeral.”

“It seems to me her present lodging is adequate,” protested Ingrey. “She makes no attempt to run, trusting to Temple justice. I did mention she was naive,” he added, by way of a jab at Fritine.

“Yes, but you cannot guard two places at once,” Biast pointed out logically.

Hetwar, finally growing alive to the sudden tension in Ingrey’s stance, held up a restraining hand. “We can discuss this later. I thank you for volunteering in this difficult matter, Lord Ingrey. How soon do you think you might slip into Horseriver’s household?”

“Tonight?” said Biast.

No! I must see Ijada! “It would look odd, I fear, if I were to arrive before he begged me of you, Lord Hetwar. Nor should you let yourself be persuaded too readily. And I am in need of food and sleep.” That last was unblunted truth, at least.

“I would have my sister guarded now,” said Biast.

“Perhaps you might arrange to visit her yourself, then.”

“I have no uncanny powers to set against Wencel!”

You begin to believe you need me unburned, then, do you? Good. “Is there no Temple sorcerer to set in guard, meanwhile?”

“The ones I deem suitable are out on tasks,” said Lewko. “I shall dispatch an urgent recall as soon as I may.” Fritine nodded to this.

“Peace, prince,” said Hetwar to Biast, who was opening his mouth again. “I think we can take no further sensible action tonight.” He pushed up from his writing table with a tired grunt. “Ingrey, step out with me.”

Ingrey excused himself to the seated powers, making sure to direct a special little farewell bow to Gesca just to worry him. If Gesca was Horseriver’s spy, how would Wencel react when this report reached him? Although the earl must have anticipated Cumril’s accusation. At least Gesca might testify that the suspicion hadn’t come from Ingrey. Yes. Let Gesca run, for now. Follow his scent, see if it goes where I think.

Ingrey followed Hetwar down the dim, carpeted corridor, well out of earshot of the closed study door. “My lord?”

Hetwar turned to him and stood close under a sconce. The candlelight edged his troubled features. “It had been my belief before now that Wencel’s keen interest in the upcoming election was on his brother-in-law’s behalf. He has been deep in my councils therefore. Now I’ve cause to wonder if, like Boleso, it is some much closer desire.”

“Has he made new actions aside from his odd interest in Ijada?”

“Say rather, old actions seen in a new light.” Hetwar rubbed his forehead, and squeezed his eyes shut, briefly. “While you are guarding Fara, keep your eyes open for evidences of any, shall I say, unhealthily personal interest on Wencel’s part in the next hallow kingship.”

“I am very sure Wencel is not interested in mere political power,” Ingrey said.

“This statement does not reassure me, Ingrey. Not when a certain wolf-lord has uttered the words kingship and magery in the same breath. I know very well you left things unsaid in there.”

“Wild speculation bears its own hazards.”

“Indeed. I want facts. I do not wish to lose a valuable ally through offensive false accusations, nor conversely to fail to guard against a dangerous enemy.”

“My curiosity in this matter is as great as yours, my lord.”

“Good.” Hetwar clapped him on the shoulder. “Go, then, and see about that food and sleep you mentioned. You look like death on a platter, you know. Are you sure you weren’t really ill, this morning?”

“I should have much preferred it. Did Lewko report my confession?”

“Of your so-called vision? Oh, aye, and a lurid tale it was.” He hesitated. “Though Biast seemed to take some comfort in it.”