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“Jewel is, at any road,” I made myself remark. It was better to speak than to listen to them talk about me. To Sir Tullus I said, “I thank you for your condolences, but truly, I am easier at work. I will not say that I am the best Provost’s Guard for this, but Tunstall is, and Achoo is. Even Nyler Jewel does not come with my hound.”
Achoo, hearing her name, sat up and whuffed softly. She seldom talks loudly if she doesn’t have to. She is the quietest hound in all Corus, as far as I have been able to tell. Sir Tullus got up and came around his desk to greet her. As I told her to treat him as a friend, he saw Pounce in his patch of sunlight. Pounce blinked at him.
“Master Pounce, good day to you,” he said gravely, scratching Achoo behind the ears. “I apologize for not greeting you earlier, but you did not go to any effort to make yourself seen.”
You had other things on your mind, Sir Tullus, Pounce replied. We have all been thrown into a storm of fate. We can forgive old friends if the amenities are let slip.
“A storm of fate?” Tullus asked with a crooked smile. “I would have called it an unholy mess. Though it’s been coming, with all the loose talk that’s been going around. I just never expected the attack to take this form, the craven swine! To threaten a child for their ends—Mithros’s spear, that takes gems the size of the palace.”
“You’ll get no arguments here, Sir Knight,” Tunstall replied.
“Pardon, Sir Tullus,” I said, rubbing my temples. My head was beginning to ache. “You expected this?” I felt as if everyone had done so except me.
There was a tap on the door. It opened and the runner entered, a big tray laden with food and a pitcher in her hands. Sir Tullus lifted away pitcher and cup and poured, handing the cup to me. As his runner placed the tray on a table, he frowned. “Chopped meat?”
“Sergeant Axman sent it for the creatures,” the runner said, placing the plates on the floor. “Beef and egg for the hound, and chicken and egg for the cat. And we apologize for those not being ready earlier, the cook not understanding that Sergeant Axman meant Cook was to make them up right off.” She grinned at Sir Tullus, picked up the tray with the empty plates, and left the room.
Sir Tullus sat by the table instead of behind the desk. I gulped down the raspberry twilsey, a boon to my parched throat, and poured myself another cup while Sir Tullus selected a couple of fritters and Tunstall a cheese pasty.
“Anyone with eyes and ears on the Council of Lords has expected some trouble for the last two years, Cooper,” Sir Tullus said, once he’d chewed and swallowed his first mouthful. “Mages, particularly great ones, are a haughty crew, the nobles are feeling ill-treated, and His Majesty is no longer prepared to let things pass. He has grown up and the treasury is very low.” He noted our alarmed faces and smiled. “I have this place spelled against eavesdropping once a week. That was yesterday. My young friend there can’t hear me bellow with the door open.”
I whistled in spite of being a bit uncomfortable around him still. I’d been in his courtroom when he bellowed. That was a very good sound-stopping spell.
“I wouldn’t work in here without such magic,” Sir Tullus said. “That was part of my predecessor’s difficulty. People who did not have his best interests at heart spied on him.”
I swallowed a snort. That was the mildest way of putting the last Deputy Provost’s troubles.
“I don’t see how His Majesty can be growing up at the age of forty-three,” Tunstall remarked. “Isn’t it a bit late?”
“It gives the rest of us old fools hope,” Sir Tullus replied. “It’s been going on since his marriage to Queen Jessamine. That mother of hers raised her to take an interest in the running of the realm. Once Jessamine and Roger were married, she began to ask questions. Well, no man likes to look a fool to an adoring young woman. He asked his ministers to tell him what they’ve been up to. He started reading his reports to her. They talk about the kingdom’s affairs.”
“I begin to see the problem,” Tunstall said quietly, polishing off a third pasty. I was picking at one, having eaten enough for a time with the first plate. I think Tunstall’s legs are hollow.
“You do indeed. For years Prince Baird and the rest of the Council of Lords handled the realm as they liked.” Sir Tullus dunked a fritter in his wine and ate it. “Then His Majesty wanted to know what they did. Next he started to change things. Some of the nobles don’t like that. Remember the winter of 247—the Bread Riots in Corus until Midwinter. His Majesty overruled his councillors and opened the royal smokehouses and granaries. He even let commoners hunt in parts of the Crown forest lands.”
“Why was that a problem?” I asked. Living in the city, I have little experience of life on noble estates.
Sir Tullus rubbed his chin. “Nobles are a proud lot, Cooper. They feel that if the king grants permission to hunt the Crown lands, it must be to nobles only.”
“And in years gone by, the king allowed only nobles to buy from the royal granaries and smokehouses in hard times. The nobles sell the goods to their people for much more than they paid,” Tunstall added. “Or they trade for a promise of labor on the nobles’ lands, or for someone’s children as slaves. You know what folk will do when they are hungry.”
I do know.
“You heard of none of this about the council uproar in ’47, Cooper?” Sir Tullus asked.
“That winter wasn’t a time for us to sit and collect the gossip, Sir Knight,” Tunstall explained. “We were busier than fleas on a hot griddle, with folk rioting and stealing food. Mithros bless the king, he made certain the Dogs were fed in the kennels, that we might keep working.”
And Rosto shared what the Court of the Rogue had with his friends, I thought.
Sir Tullus, done with the fritters, stood and went back to his desk. He wiped his fingers on a cloth that lay there, and began to look at the other sealed documents that had been in the packet. “Well, with luck there will be no hard winter this year,” he said, almost to himself. “The seers are predicting a good harvest, if the trouble they see in our future does not interfere with it. I’d wager the attack and kidnapping is the trouble they’ve been seeing.” He looked at us. “I need to get to work on this. Why don’t you two—you four,” he said with a nod to Pounce and Achoo, “go on to Ladyshearth Lodgings and settle in. I doubt I’ll have anything to tell you at least until tomorrow noon.”
We stood and bowed, then left him. His runner bowed to us, then entered his office while we headed on down the hall. In the main waiting room, Sergeant Axman was seated behind his desk once more, perched on his tall chair. He pointed to a pair of bulging packs that lay on a bench.
“I guessed at your sizes, but I’ve a good eye for such things,” he said. “I’d a feeling those packs of yours don’t have extra uniforms, stockin’s, and the like. There’s combs and other useful things, too.”
Tunstall grinned and offered Axman his arm to clasp. “Mithros loves a good sergeant, Lord Gershom always says. My thanks, Sergeant Axman.”
I smiled up at him. “Thanks,” I said. “I know I’ll feel like a new mot in a fresh uniform.”
“I’ve had my night calls, too,” Axman replied. “And not from a bordel, either! Get on with the two of you. I sent word ahead to Serenity. She’ll have your rooms and supper waitin’.”
He was as good as his word. Not only did Serenity have rooms prepared for us, but there were tubs of hot water inside them. She even had food bowls waiting outside her kitchen door for Pounce and Achoo. They couldn’t say they ever starved, working with me.
When Tunstall and I were clean and dressed in fresh uniforms, we found a good supper put on the dining room table. We spoke little, mostly because five other Dogs who were staying at the house at the same time had come off watch and were there to eat with us. They were closemouthed, too, doubtless being weary after their day’s work. I thought back on all I had learned about the current mess and how it might have led to a royal kidnapping.
“I said, Cooper, mayhap you shou
ld go to bed.” I looked up. Tunstall was leaning over the table to stare at my face. None of the other diners remained with us. Even their dishes had been cleared away. Only Tunstall and Serenity were left.
Achoo was curled up at my feet, Pounce on the chair beside me. He’s right, Pounce said. Only this morning you slid down a cliff and burned yourself trying to search magicked ships. He looked at Tunstall. Sleep wouldn’t hurt you either.
I got to my feet. “I think you’re both right,” I admitted. “We should get rest while we can.” I knew that once we had our own orders, chances for a good night’s sleep might come rarely.
In my room, I tried to work on my journal more, but I am tired. I’ll catch up in the morning. Who knows how long we will be here, after all?
Sunday, June 10, 249
Ladyshearth Lodgings
Coates Lane
Port Caynn
One of the afternoon.
being an account of the events of Saturday, June 9,
beginning at dawn on that day
Achoo woke me at dawn yesterday, of course. We went out, nodding to the busy cook and cook maid, and returned, to go to bed once more. I roused again as the city’s clocks struck nine and cleaned myself up, then visited the kitchen to beg breakfast for my two friends. The crosspatch maid who had been here during my last Port Caynn visit was having her morning meal in the kitchen. She remembered us.
“Don’t you go feedin’ them nasty pigeons on your windowsill, like you done last time!” she said, pointing a finger at me. “This is a decent house, and why Serenity lets you in with all your livestock—”
“Enough,” the cook snapped. “You cross old mud turtle, leave the Dog alone. These two creatures are as neat and well trained as them that live here. Neater than some I could name. So just stop yer gob.” She grinned down at Pounce, who was bumping against her shins. “Some folk just don’t appreciate a gentleman like you, Master Pounce.” She looked at me. “Now, Guardswoman Cooper, what will you have for your breakfast?”
My belly happily full, I returned to my room. There I opened my shutters to a bright, sunny day and a soft breeze. It was a pleasure to set my soggy laundry outside for the maids to wash. I hoped the crosspatch maid got the task. Then I sat down to my table and this journal. First I recorded what had taken place beginning on Thursday the seventh. I finished that and began the other report that Lord Gershom had requested, the one which did not mention Tunstall, Achoo, or me, all in official Dog cipher. I was just finishing when Tunstall hammered on my door at the end of the noon hour.
“Cooper, it’s a beautiful day, and I’m cursed if I’ll waste much more of it!” he bellowed. “Come out of there!”
I opened my door, rubbing my cramped writing hand. “You’re a cracked lad with the manners of a Cesspool bum-washer, you know that?” I asked him.
Tunstall leaned on the doorframe, taking no offense at all. He never did. Goodwin once told me I might bash him with an oaken club, to see if that might make a dent, but it seemed to be hardly worth the trouble.
“Is the report done?” Tunstall asked. When I nodded, he said, “Then you’ve no excuse. Pounce and me are bored.” He wasn’t storying me. Pounce sat at his feet, yawning at us. “Send it to Tullus and let’s amble,” Tunstall ordered. “You know I can’t stay put, not while awaiting orders. Mistress Serenity says she can use her Gift to find us if aught happens—that’s why they keep folk like us here.”
He had a point. Neither of us waits well. I wasn’t sure what would occupy his restless mind until I bethought myself of his flowers. He has a name for himself in Corus for the miniature blooms he grows. Doubtless he’d like to see the flowers in Port Caynn, if I could learn where fine ones were.
Serenity was in the dining room, going over her accounts. “That’s easy,” she said when I asked her. “You’ve been there, Cooper, though it was in the fall. Ridge Gardens. The lower levels on the north side, they’ve got the best flowers.” She looked at me, raising a brow. “Strange. I never took you for the flower sort.”
“Oh, that would be me,” Tunstall said. “I grow them at home.”
Serenity dropped her pen. “You’re that Tunstall! But nobody ever said you were a man! Or a Dog! You’re not pulling my skirts, are you? The same Tunstall that grows the Goddess Glory, the rose that’s no bigger than my thumbnail?”
Tunstall bobbed his head, rubbing his hair nervously.
“Maiden save me, you here and me having no notion!” Serenity looked at me. I was leaning on one of her chairs, waiting for her to finish flower talk with Tunstall. “We can talk more tonight. Enjoy the sun and the garden,” she said, picking up her pen again.
I held out my sealed report and a coin. “Do you have a runner to take this to Sir Tullus as soon as may be?” I asked her. “He’s waiting for it.”
Serenity took the paper and drew a sign on it in fire that was almost blood-colored. Immediately she looked to be holding a basket of flowers. “I’ll take care of it right away,” she replied. “Ginmaree!” she called. Instantly a gixie in boys’ trousers raced in from the kitchen.
With the report matter settled, Pounce and Achoo bounded out of the door ahead of us. We caught up with the animals in Coates Lane and wove through the traffic, taking the streets pretty much northeast.
We walked in silence for a time before Tunstall remarked, “I hope we’re kept on this Hunt. That ghost-eyed glare of yours is as good a weapon as Achoo, especially with Rats who know they’ve crossed the gods by taking the heir. The way your eyes go all pale and burning like winter ice, they see the Crone in you. They always give up more than they want to when they catch your eye.”
I shook my head. I’d have called him a superstitious hillman, but I’d seen it happen often enough that I had to believe it. Even Holborn stepped back when we fought. He’d said it was my eyes, too. I think they are simply a pale gray or blue, but I’ve never seen my face when I’m angry. “You spook me when you talk that way,” I told Tunstall.
“I’m not spooked,” my partner told me. “What with your eyes, your pigeons, your dust-demons, and Achoo, you’re the most valuable partner in the Lower City, mayhap all Corus. On a Hunt like this, I think we have the best chance to find our boy with what the two of us can do together.”
I halted to stare at him as a blush crept over my face. Tunstall’s compliments were rare. I knew I would treasure this one. I was too shy to say as much, so I just gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder.
The Ridge Gardens were slightly crowded, but not badly so. Children played on the wide areas of grass, watched by nursemaids and parents. Nobles walked along, eyeing each other’s fashions and gossiping. The governor’s guard marched along in pairs, dressed in their maroon and black uniforms, carrying spears and batons. They were trained to pay no attention to deliberate distractions, like the little group of lads who trooped behind them, making faces.
Tunstall and I walked toward the north end of the gardens where the wealthy showed off their summer clothes. Tunstall was so fascinated by the flowerbeds there that at length Pounce, Achoo, and I found a bench in the sun where we could laze. For a time I watched my partner as he inspected one flower after another as he might eye a piece of evidence.
I was leaning back with my eyes closed, imagining Tunstall questioning a flower for its crimes, when I heard the familiar whir of pigeon wings. I did not bother to open my eyes to see if I was right. I have known that sound since I was a child.
Several landed on the ground before me. I always carry pigeon and dust spinner food, so I scattered a handful of cracked corn among the birds. They went after it as the voices of ghosts rose in the air.
“—tell her it wasn’t me,” an old mot’s voice said.
“I am saying, my lord is up to something. Or didn’t you notice he’s buying weapons?” That was a young cove talking.
“What is your lord’s name?” I asked the spirit.
“No!” he replied, panicked. “He’ll kill me if I tell you!”
>
“Lad,” I said gently, “he already has.”
At that, the spirit sighed. “He did,” he said. “I remember now.” And he was gone.
“You know I’ll love you forever. I would never betray you!” A young mot this time, terrified.
“No, halt!” another, older cove said. “That thing will fall right over!”
I tossed out more corn. One of the pigeons hopped up onto the bench and looked me over. This was the most ordinary of pigeons, blue-black all over, with white rings around its eyes. Its back feathers were ruffled and it trembled as if it were weary to the bone.
I murmured a blessing to them, wishing them peace from their lives’ fears and safe passage to the Peaceful Realms. That was enough for most of them. I could feel the spirits leave their birds, the ghosts having said what they needed to say. The black one on the bench stayed where it was.
