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She did not hear my thoughts, so instead she finished what she was saying. “Does Farmer’s master still give him gifts of power?”
My skin crept. “What are you talking about?”
“Everyone knows,” she said and giggled like a gixie telling secrets with her friends. “It’s said Cassine tucked power all around him. He can draw magic out of things, at least he’s not inept there. That’s why it was so important to burn his packs, so he couldn’t use his emergency stores.”
“How could you know about that if you were with the cart?” I asked, thinking, No, no, no. I won’t believe her.
She rolled her eyes. “That was the plan. Farmer is the biggest threat, so we sent a man in to set the fire. I know because I was in touch with the others through my scrying crystal. Without his little bag of tricks, he’s nothing.” She glanced back at him. “I had the boys take that shoulder pack and his belt, boots, and necklaces off as soon as we dropped the four of you.”
All those dead. Linnet on the garbage barrel, the bandits, the poor mumpers forced to travel with the Viper, the sleepers at the inn. “Is it worth it, what you’ve done?” I asked her. “Do you know how many you’ve killed just to ‘drop’ us four?”
“Is it worth it?” She acted as if she hadn’t heard the second question. “You silly thing, don’t you know? Your precious king has put taxes on mage work. He’s taxing items we need badly if we’re to create anything of real meaning. Now he’s demanding that we be licensed—licensed!—and in exchange for this precious license, we have to guarantee so many days a year in work for the Crown.” There was a blush of rage on her cheeks. “We are mages, not piddling jewelers or sellers of greens! We won’t submit! We must be free to work as we please!”
“Why don’t you go to some other realm?” I asked. Had I seen a bit of cream-colored fur off in the trees?
“Because all the best places in all the realms that matter are held, or there are fifty competitors for them at least. Because this is my home.” Her hands trembled as she arranged them prettily on her reins. “Because if Randy Roger gets away with this, the other kings will do the same. Because no one tells a great mage what to do. Not ever.”
I heard the jingle of reins behind our group and twisted to see who was coming out of the group at the rear of the train. When he passed Farmer, I recognized him. Farmer gave no sign that he even saw the man, though he rode right before Farmer’s eyes.
It was Master Elyot, dressed in a cream-colored tunic and brown breeches and looking too poxy cheerful. The fire opal on his chest blazed as it caught the sun. “Dolsa, my dear, I don’t believe you’ve stopped talking to this poor captive since she came around. Whatever do you have to say to her?”
Dolsa treated him to her simper for a change as he brought his horse up on my opposite side. What a delightful trio are we, I thought, sick with what Dolsa had said about Farmer and her reasons for rebellion. All this because the mages didn’t care for work?
“We’ve been talking of every manner of things,” Dolsa told Elyot. “I don’t think she knew Cassine used to feed Farmer extra magic.”
Elyot frowned at Dolsa. “I didn’t see that in him.”
Dolsa laughed. “You didn’t look at his packs, silly. They half blinded me! Where else could it have come from if not Cassine? Certainly not from him.”
“I don’t know,” Elyot said. “He struck me as well enough. Not on our level, but how many mages are?” He looked at me. “I’m glad to have the chance to take a closer look at you, Gershom’s pet. I’ve met Lady Teodorie a few times at court. I’m surprised she actually let you live in her house.” He chuckled. “I’m surprised she let you live. She never struck me as the sort to let her man keep his child mistress under her roof.”
I spat on him. Sadly, it stopped partway to him, halted by his scummer magic, and dropped to the road.
He slapped me hard, rocking my head back on my neck. I growled and threw myself at him, forgetting I was tied in the saddle. One of the guards seized the bridle and Dolsa the back of my tunic as an invisible mask slid over my face, cutting off my air. I fought it as long as I could. Finally, as my sight went black, the mask vanished.
A cruel hand gripped the hair at the back of my head and Dolsa said in my ear, “Mind your manners or we’ll drag you the rest of the way to Halleburn. And I have to warn you, Lord Thanen is not as good about keeping his roads as he should be.”
I took some deep breaths, then nodded. She pulled me straight in the saddle with one arm, gave my hair an extra twist with the other hand just for meanness, and released me. Too bad she hadn’t grabbed me by the braid, but like as not she’d seen the spikes sticking from the strands.
I took inventory of my condition. My scalp ached. I ignored it. My left cheek was swelling, including the side of the eye. A slap from a gem-decorated glove is no joke. I’d wrenched my arms fiercely, trying to yank free of the rope bindings. One of my wrists ached in a dull way I did not like.
To take my mind off the pain, I kept my head down and looked at Elyot under my lashes. “When did you get here?” I demanded. “We left ahead of you.”
This time he grabbed my ear and twisted it hard. Again, I bit the inside of my cheek till it bled rather than cry out for this nuncle’s tarse. “I don’t care who you were in Gershom’s house, any more than I care that you’re a Provost’s Guard,” the mage said, breathing garlic into my face. “Gershom is dead when we succeed. And I wouldn’t give a cracked kernel for the lives of you and your Hunting party, do you hear? So mind your manners, or I’ll kill you in such fashion as they never find your bones.” He let go of my ear. “We were only a day behind you, stupid bitch, riding hard. We passed you by night and took the other route to Halleburn. How did your creature track the boy?”
“Elyot, why are you abusing my poor Beka so?” Sabine called from her place in our train of riders. “She’s wonderful with hounds and she knows the rules of the Guard, but she doesn’t have two thoughts to rub together. Come and tell me why you’re mauling her about. This is the forest road to Halleburn, isn’t it?” To hear her, we were just on a tour of the estate.
Elyot looked at her, then at me. He glanced at Farmer and raised an eyebrow at Dolsa, who shrugged. Then he spat on me and rode up to Sabine.
His spit landed. There was naught I could do but watch it soak into my tunic.
“Elyot’s furious because none of the traps he planned for you worked and mine did. He feels it reflects badly on him. I think you’re going to die in very unpleasant ways.” Dolsa shrugged. “Maybe if you promise to give me your blood freely, I can talk him into letting me kill you. I’ll do it nicely.”
I stared at her. “You truly think I would do that?” I asked, not sure that I’d heard her right.
Dolsa rested a gentle hand on my shoulder. Her glove was scented with some kind of perfume. “If you knew the ways Elyot kills people, you would,” she assured me. “Oh, look, there’s a rabbit!” She pointed gleefully at the animal, which ran for its life, dashing to and fro as if it knew it was hunted. Something gray and glittery darted from her pointing finger to chase the rabbit, missing just as it made the shelter of the woods.
“See, that’s the difference between Elyot and me,” Dolsa explained. “I know sometimes you lose. And if you study your losses enough, you get a big, fat, victory.” She kicked her pretty mare into a trot, turning to ride with the group in the back.
I looked at Farmer. Never more had I wanted him awake and aware. I could face anything if Farmer rode beside me, talking away. If I hadn’t known what was happening to my feelings about him before then, that was the point at which I realized it whole. To keep from thinking about the bad things ahead, I tried to work it out in my mind, how he was different from other men I’d known.
He liked me to help him when he did things. He explained what I didn’t know, warned me when to stand aside, never told me to get out of his way because he could do it faster, and thanked me for helping. There were moments when he
needed me to rescue him, and he never blamed me for it, or got angry about it.
He took nothing seriously, not even—particularly—himself. He was kind to animals. He kept his temper, for the most part. So do I, for the most part. He is not afraid to admit to what he cannot do. He is not afraid to admit when he is weak, even though he hates it.
I wish he would not pinch so at Tunstall, but Tunstall pinches first and back. They’re like my brothers in that way. I sometimes think a good fistfight would solve things between Tunstall and Farmer. I wish they would get it over with.
As to Farmer’s magic all being given to him by Cassine? Mayhap Dolsa thought that. That claim above all told me she did not know Farmer, but one of the faces that Farmer liked to put on.
My thinking served to keep my mind off our future as we rode along a series of hills, each taller than the last. At the top of the third, I nearly gave myself away when I spotted the black cat standing on a boulder near the crest. I forced myself to remain still and to pretend I saw nothing unusual. He flicked his tail at me and vanished. I sighed with gratitude. Pounce was still with us. I knew he would be, but it was one thing to know, and another to see.
Over the crest, I almost gasped at the view. The road down switched back and forth to allow traffic to climb without overworking the humans or animals that used it. The hill was part of a long ridge of solid rock. Forming the valley’s northwestern edge, the ridge overlooked all that lay between it and the lake.
About a quarter mile along the cliff to our left sat Halleburn Castle. Built on a spur of rock that thrust out of the cliff, it looked a spear pointed at the lake. The inner curtain wall stood higher than the outer one, while towers crowned the spur’s peak. I’d heard that Halleburn had never been taken. Now I could see why.
The road went over a great causeway up the far side of the spur of rock on which the castle sat. On the ridge behind the castle, the ground had been cleared of trees for a mile. At no point were we ever out of view of the towers.
I still was calculating. The rock face on which the place rested was rugged enough for a good climber. A good climber with a four-year-old on her back, or his back? We might have to learn. Then it was a mile, nearly two, to the lake. As a path of escape, the lake gave me no confidence. It was thinner than it was long, with the far shore always in view of anyone on the near shore, from what I could see. Had it been bigger, it might have been possible to lose pursuit, but they could give chase on both sides easy, and have us trapped unless we had Farmer with us.
There was also the small problem of getting out of Halleburn. As we rode through the gates, I saw the thickness of the walls and felt the weight of its age. Far too many men and women-at-arms stood about idle, sharpening weapons and watching us go by. Those who weren’t armed were slaves, marked by their plain clothes and an occasional shoulder brand.
“Unfriendly place, isn’t it?” a familiar male voice asked. They’d let Farmer draw up beside me. Seemingly, they’d also let the spell on him drop. I tried to keep from grinning at him like a looby who’d just been offered sweets. “I’ll bet they hardly get any visitors for the Midwinter holidays. You see that point in the outer curtain wall? Fifteen Halleburns have jumped to their deaths from there.” He tried to count them all on his fingers, but like mine, his hands were hobbled at the wrists and bound to his waist.
A guard smacked him on the back with the butt of his crossbow. “None o’ yer magickin’, you!” he snapped.
I kept myself from reaching for Farmer. I couldn’t let these creatures know how I felt about him. They’d use it against me, like they’d have used Pounce or Achoo if they could have caught them.
“If you’d listened to your masters, you would have heard they are keeping me under a magical lock,” Farmer told the cove patiently. “I’ve got no more Gift than you do. Less, if you have one. And wouldn’t your poor old mother be ashamed at your lack of courtesy to a guest?”
The guard spat. Without looking at him, I asked Farmer, “Will you please not needle them? They’re nasty enough as it is.”
“Most likely they’re worried about getting paid. I would be. Thanen of Halleburn is as tightfisted as a clam.” He saw the guard look at him suspiciously and said, all innocence, “It’s true. He’d as soon kill someone as pay him. Sooner.”
Elyot came riding down the line. “Farmer, what are you up to?” To the soldier he barked, “Get them down. My lord wants to see them right away.” He grinned at us both. “You’re in for a treat. Lord Thanen doesn’t like folk who give him as much trouble as you four have.”
“We’d have given him no trouble at all if he hadn’t kid—” Elyot went to slap me again, but this time I was ready. I kicked my horse forward, straight into his own mount. Off-balance with his slap, he struggled to stay in the saddle until I hooked my leg, stirrup and all, around his, and shoved myself toward him with all of my strength. He was a bad rider. His horse, scared by sommat—I have my suspicions about who scared him—shook his head and reared a little. Onto the ground went Elyot. As he slid, I spat on him. I’d often had the chance to observe that when mages were confused, they did not always think to employ their Gifts.
The guards, frozen still until that moment, hurried forward. They cut me free of my ropes and yanked me from my mount. Once I stumbled to the ground, I dropped and curled myself up, tucking my head and wrapping my hands around the back of my neck. It was the best I could do before the guards began to beat me. So much fuss over one dumped mage!
“Stop,” Dolsa called. “I don’t care if she hurt Master Elyot’s feelings, my lord wants to see these four meddlers as soon as may be. All four.”
The blows stopped and I went to straighten, knowing I was going to pay for tweaking the bull’s tail. There was a razor’s pain in my right side that meant a broken rib. The rest was bad, but bruises at most. The guards might be dressed as rough woodsmen, but they were well-trained professionals.
I looked at Master Elyot. He was shaking off the hands of those who would help him as he stood. The glare he gave me promised nothing that would make me smile. I wondered when he’d last been handled so rudely and was glad I’d chosen to do so, even knowing I’d take a beating. He certainly acted like he’d never had to take a good punch in his life, let alone a deliberate shove from his mount.
A hand wrapped around my shoulder. Almost immediately I felt warmth spill into my body. Muscles and bone eased along with their pain. I breathed a little better, though Farmer couldn’t do a true healing in full view of the enemy.
“I’ll take charge of these captives, Dolsa.” The new speaker was a mot all in brightly polished armor. She was five feet and ten inches, with long, slanting brown eyes and blond hair coiled and pinned at the back of her head. The armor did not hide her generous figure. For all the armor shone as if she never wore it, the sword at her waist had a plain leather grip and sheath, both of which were well battered. So too were her sheathed dagger and the boots on her feet. She might be wearing dress armor, but she was a fighter. “My father wants them before him now.”
“I will take them, Nomalla, since I captured them,” Dolsa replied pertly.
The knight looked down her long, straight nose at the mage. “It’s your method of keeping things in order that makes me question whether all of them will reach my father alive, Dolsa,” she said dryly. “Come with me, then, if you’re so anxious to receive all the credit. And don’t chatter at me.” She walked toward Sabine and Tunstall, giving Sabine a nod. “Sabine. As usual, you are in low company.”
Sabine looked Nomalla in the eyes. “This time it’s you who are in low company, Nomalla of Halleburn. Your father is a traitor. All of you who serve him are conspirators. I’d rather break bread with pickpockets.”
“And have,” Lady Nomalla replied, but her cheeks were red. “My father knows what the realm needs.”
“A traitor,” Sabine replied agreeably.
Nomalla rested her hand on the hilt of her sword. “Get moving, you and your lov
er both.”
“Dolsa did not capture them on her own!” Elyot snapped breathlessly from behind us. “She will not cheat me of the credit for taking them!” He stalked past us, in a hurry to catch up with them. I would have thought all of them had forgotten Farmer and me, except both Elyot and Dolsa shoved a veil of Gift back our way. It turned into a muddy-colored sparkling scarf that wrapped around Farmer, making my skin tingle where his arm lay on my shoulders. He moved his arm away. I wanted to seize it and pull it back into place, but that would give the enemy more information than they needed. They already knew, I supposed, that he’d healed the worst of my beating. Let them think he’d tried and failed to fool them as to what he was doing by putting his arm around me.
I heard Farmer whisper, “From what I’ve heard of Lady Nomalla, this is not the sort of thing she would do.” His lips hadn’t moved.
“Can’t they hear you?” I replied in a good Dog’s whisper, my mouth almost unmoving.
Inside the sparkles he smiled. “Perhaps this spell is without flaw when just one mage works it, but with two mages it is full of holes,” he explained. “Neither of them wants the other mage to get a grip on their power and use it. I can use a baby spell called threading the needle to sneak my voice through one of those holes. Beka, I’m so sorry. I should have been looking for more varieties of illusion. She’s too cursed good at them.”
