The gixie looked over her shoulder at me as she turned the spitted chickens. “What are ye doin’? Ye should not be here, like as no.” She was from the Lower City.
“Act the same as you always do, and no one will say a thing,” I told her. “This corner is dark, and so’s my uniform. Do your work, and we’ll be fine.” There was a fast exchange of snarls and a whirl of fur. Then the hound who’d tried to steal some of the meat ran yelping from Achoo. The others backed up enough that a cook and a maid noticed they were there, and beat the hounds out of the kitchen with their dishcloths.
The gixie took a quick mouthful of cheese. She ate with it clutched tight to her chest, her head bowed over it, as if she expected someone to steal it. Someone probably might if they weren’t all so busy here. “Is he yours?”
Another young slave lurched by us with a load of sticks for the oven where bread was baking. He didn’t even glance our way.
“Achoo is a she, and yes, she’s mine.” Sitting there only barely hidden from view, I had no time to explain about the Dogs and their scent hounds. Besides, she might well lock up tight if she knew I was an official. “Do you always turn the spits?”
“Only since this mornin’,” she told me. “No-Skin did it afore me, but he’s gone now.”
“No-Skin?” I asked, wondering if she joked with me. I’d never known a slave who joked, at least not with someone who wasn’t a slave.
“That’s what they called him, so everyone ’ud remember not t’ beat him so it showed on his skin. They was to use only straps over his clothes, or open hands or fists, and not so nothin’ gets broke,” the girl explained. “One o’ th’ gixies punched his face so’s she cut his cheek, and there! The Viper, the mage, she did the gixie just like that! And her ma started screamin’ ’cos her babe’d just died and now they’d killed her little one, and snap! Dead ma into the dirt with the babe and the gixie. The captain that ran things told the Viper she’d wasted a bearing slave, and the Viper said she had her orders and he had his.”
“Viper, you say?” I asked, stitching quickly.
“One of the two mots that rode along with the slave train,” the gixie said. Looking around to be certain no one had an eye on us, she whispered, “They’s both mages, them two.”
I was in the middle of biting off my thread when she said that, making me freeze for a moment. Farmer had worked it out right. “What happened to No-Skin?” I asked when I knew I could speak calmly. It’s important, with folk who frighten as quick as slaves, to keep steady. The minute you get shaky, they will bolt. I put the first padded grip across my knee and started to sew a second one.
“We come here, and the captain offered us for work. He told the high-ups here that the trainin’ would be good for us,” the gixie said. “Me and No-Skin was teamed up on cleanin’ the hearth and fetchin’ eggs and turnin’ the spits, ’cos I done all them things before my last master went toes up and we was sold.”
“Was he any use to you, No-Skin?” I asked, glancing around the kitchen. A few maids had looked our way, but I was tucked well into the shadows, and the gixie kept her eyes on her work, turning first one spit, then another. She struggled with the pig. I longed to help her, but that would bring me into view of the rest of the staff. I would be sent away when we were discovered, and no doubt she would be beaten for chattering, if she did not get worse for talking with a Dog.
The gixie snorted at my question. “His hands was as soft as a babe’s!” she told me with scorn. “He got splinters in every finger, and he was scared gormless by the hens. They gave me a beating for not doin’ that work meself, and five strokes to the cook that sent us to the hens, and her a freewoman! They wrapped his hands in linen to turn spits till they took him away from that.” She shook her head. “But he was plucky enough. He tried to do his share, even when it hurt him.” Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what he’ll do without me to look after him. I’ve not seen him since they took him from here.”
“Who took him?” I asked as I finished stitching longer cloth strips to the second pad.
“One of the drovers came for him and told the cooks to give me his work,” she replied. “Then he just scooped No-Skin up under his arm and carried him off.” She looked at me. “What if they done for him like they done for the one that punched him?”
I shook my head. “He’s too valuable,” I said. “They’ll not so much as take him over Breakbone Falls, believe me.”
She looked at me as if I’d started to pop golden eggs from my mouth. “He’s valuable.” The way she said it, as if she were years older than six, told me she believed me not a whit.
I smiled a little. “Let’s just say them that sold him to your master stole him from the wrong folk. Now see here.” I showed her how to place the thick rag pad I’d sewn together against her palm, how to wrap the straps twice to hold it in place, and how to tie the cloth on her wrist one-handed so the knot wouldn’t interfere with her grip. I handed the other pad to her, its straps wrapped neatly around it. “For when the other wears out.”
She returned my glove to me, unable to speak. I didn’t think folk gave her things very often. I was getting to my feet when she looked up at me. “Travel safe, travel well,” she whispered.
The blessing is an old, honored one. Not many use it anymore. I gave the traditional answer, “May those who have gone before be always with you.” And then, because something urged me to it, I asked, “What’s your name?”
She scratched her head. “Linnet Beck, at least till the next master gets a big tarse boil and decides he don’t like my name.”
“Keep yourself alive, Linnet Beck,” I told her quietly. “Don’t ever talk about No-Skin again. If you need help and you can manage it, get word to the nearest Provost’s Guard that you want Beka Cooper, from Corus Lower City. You have that?”
Linnet didn’t seem too convinced of the message’s worth, but she repeated, “Beka Cooper, Corus Lower City. The Dogs.”
I gave her a smile. “That’s it. I can’t promise, but if you send for me, I’ll do my best to come, or one of my friends will. Achoo, mencari.”
Achoo, who’d been crouched in the shadows behind me, got to her feet and followed her scent, down the dark hall at Linnet’s back. That took us to the servants’ privy yard, the place behind it where huge barrels of garbage awaited the carters who would dispose of them, and back into the kitchen. Achoo’s nose led us into the pantry and out as the maid who’d been working there screeched at both of us. Down another back hallway we went and then up a servants’ stair. The climb was steep and dark, beyond the tall level that houses the great hall and into a newer portion of the keep. I could tell it was so by the lighter-colored stone and the lighter-colored mortar that held it in place. Achoo halted on the third story of this newer structure and scratched at the door on the landing, dancing with impatience. I opened the door onto a long hallway.
Achoo sniffed her way down the hall to one locked door. When she looked at me and whimpered, I glanced around. The place was dead quiet. I drew the Sign on my chest and removed my shoulder pack so I could get my lock picks out. All the time I worked on that lock, I was sweating. The moment I had the door open, Achoo and I slipped inside.
I was thinking a string of prayers to every god I could remember as I closed the door behind us. I called to my favorite ones twice. As soon as I looked around that large chamber I knew I was in dreadful trouble. A tall rack supported a suit of armor. A shield leaned against it, showing the bright silver sword-in-crown with the upended crescent. Our lad, Prince Gareth, had been in his uncle’s room.
Achoo showed me he’d been all over those rooms, the main chamber, the bedchamber, and the small chamber for the prince’s personal attendants. We were triply lucky that afternoon. No one was inside.
My hound traced the scent to the chairs by the hearth, to the tub that stood in the bedchamber, and back into the main room. As she did, I stood by the door, keeping it open a crack, listening for approaching steps and thi
nking. They had brought Gareth here, almost certainly to Prince Baird. This was bad news, the worst, and it lay on me like a weight. On feast days we had all seen the young prince with his big uncle. King Roger was wiry and lean, his younger brother of the same height, but heavier with muscle and good living. Prince Baird would raise his laughing nephew high in the air and the crowds would cheer them both.
Achoo gave a small yip from the bedchamber. I quickly glanced outside. Still no one had shown himself. I shut the door, locked it from the inside with my picks, and went to see what Achoo had found.
A red string bracelet, the kind a nursemaid would make for her charge, lay on a bedside table among a heap of jewels worn for dress occasions. Achoo nudged the bracelet with her nose and sneezed.
I unsheathed my dagger and turned the bracelet over with the point of it. The string was done up in nine knots for the Goddess, guardian of children, and the ends were braided for Mithros, whose laws bind the realm. Somewhere the maker had found tiny beads to thread onto it, one each of brown agate for protection, pink quartz for love, and onyx also for protection.
If only it had worked.
Achoo had gone on sniffing, her work taking her back to the front door of the rooms. I left the bracelet as I’d found it and followed her. When I opened the door a crack, I flinched. Pounce was waiting for us.
The count and Prince Baird just rode into the outer courtyard, he told us. They’re back from hunting. Get out of here at once!
“Achoo, kemari cepat!” I ordered. Once she dashed through the open door I hurried to lock it, struggling to control my shaky fingers. As the three of us ran for the stair I muttered, “Bum-swived yattering misborn tarses.” I tried to think of a lie for when they caught us, and failed. Instead I whistled for Achoo and Pounce to follow me up the steps rather than down.
No need to go up, Pounce told us. The servants use this stair. The nobles have a wider one paved in green marble for their use. What were you doing, anyway?
I signaled Achoo to follow us down. She did, sniffing, still on the track. Walking as if we belonged on that staircase, I explained to Pounce (silently) what we’d done in our time away from our companions.
I have been idling around the slave train, he told me. The slaves are kept near the goat pens while they supply the extra labor during the prince’s visit. They are guarded, so it will be difficult to talk with them unseen.
“Is it them who are in a trap, or us?” I muttered. Pounce didn’t answer. Instead he led us along another turn past the servants’ privies and along the large addition to the great hall. It was then that Achoo protested. The scent took her in another direction. I ordered her to heel. We needed to get clear of the newly arrived nobles. I did not want to face them without Tunstall at my side. For now, the Hunt must wait. I got Achoo to follow Pounce and me at last, but I could see she was going to complain of me to the other scent hounds at home.
Behind the new addition, where the original wall had been widened to include it, we found Tunstall, joking with men-at-arms who had pitched camp there. These coves wore royal blue tunics and gray trousers, with the crescent-on-its-back design, meaning the second son, on their chests.
“Well, look at this—my partner, Cooper,” Tunstall greeted me, beckoning for me to join them. “Taking the hound for a walk?”
He wished me to be casual. I knew that from his greeting and the wave of his hand. I didn’t know how relaxed I could be after those tense moments in the prince’s bedroom. Worse, any of these coves in blue and gray could put me in chains for the impertinence of having been there without leave. I stuck my hands in my pockets and whispered to Achoo, “Gampang.”
She whined at me. She didn’t want to meet anyone. She wanted to go back to the Hunt.
“Gampang.” I repeated as we drew close to the men. “Don’t argue!” I walked up to Tunstall and gave a nod to the coves who sat around him, on kegs, camp stools, or upended buckets, tending equipment and weapons as they relaxed. “Good evenin’, sirs,” I said in my Lower City accent. I looked up at Tunstall, who was lounging against one of their wagons. “Any word on where we sleep tonight, Tunstall? Here, or are we off on the road?” I would have loved to know what news he’d gathered, if anything, but there was no way to ask him here. I couldn’t even inquire if Farmer had gone nosing about. We all had parts to play, and we wanted to give these strangers no idea whatever that we were Hunting when we’d been ordered not to.
“You don’t want to be sleeping in that great hall,” one of the men-at-arms, a thin, muscled redhead, told me. “There’s fleas in the pallets. The count’s too cheap to pay a mage to get them out.”
“He’s not sleeping on them, is he?” asked another cove with the look of a Scanran. “Nor that mage from Aspen Vale. You won’t catch him doin’ flea-bane spells.”
Yet Farmer took care of the swamp bugs without a mutter, I thought. He insisted on it.
“We didn’t even stay the first night,” the redhead went on. “Came out and pitched our tents here, after a dunk in the river to rid us of the cursed fleas.”
“Farmer and me have been invited to pitch a tent with these good fellows,” Tunstall explained. “If you see Farmer, tell him?” He bent his head, scratching his neck and refusing to meet my eyes. “You and … the lady …,” he mumbled.
I propped my hands on my hips, put one leg forward, and began to tap my toe, as Kora so often did. It worked better in skirts, but it was still a good way to tell a cove, any cove, that you lose patience. It also makes coves think you’re a certain kind of mot, the kind they feel comfortable with.
“Best tell her before she sharpens you up with a broom about your shoulders!” one of the coves shouted.
“I bet she sets the Corus Rats to kissing the mules’ arses,” another called. “Stricter than their old mams!”
Tunstall pointed to the entry to the castle that was nearby. “You’ll find her up one set of stairs, in the ladies’ rooms,” he said, giving me the guiltiest of looks. “You’re to sleep in whatever room they grant her. And you’ll have to get a dress there, for supper.”
Dress? I mouthed at him. My back was to the men-at-arms so they could not see.
Tunstall shrugged helplessly. “It’s how they do things here, Cooper,” he said. The other coves laughed at that.
“Our women refused even to enter castle grounds,” the Scanran told me, a looking of understanding in his eyes. A few of the other men-at-arms were nodding. “Mithros be thanked, our captain and His Highness are upright men who won’t let good soldiers be humiliated.”
I wouldn’t speak up for myself, but they couldn’t go on thinking bad of my partner. “There’s naught Tunstall can say about it,” I told them. “Everyone thinks they rank Dogs, unless they’re dealing with my lord Gershom.”
“Everyone does rank a Dog,” said the redhead with a grin.
Tunstall laid a big, friendly hand on the redhead’s shoulder. “Not for long, though, eh, laddybuck?” he asked.
The redhead leaned to that side, doing his best not to grimace or complain about the strength of Tunstall’s hold.
I shook my head and walked to the castle door, Achoo and Pounce beside me. The coves didn’t need me to play their games.
The wing where the ladies were housed was much different from that of the men. I had to pass two armed guards to enter. One of them told me that if the ladies complained of my hound or my cat, out they would go, but they let me pass.
Once upstairs, I wasn’t sure which of the open doors I was to enter. I was looking from one to another when a tiny creature made of flying silk burst through one that was slightly open and raced down the hall. Achoo forgot herself and went tearing after, covering in three bounds what the little thing had done in twenty. Achoo trapped the small animal in the corner and was sniffing it in the crudest way when I heard a mot call, “Snowflake! Snowflake! You stole my ivory ribbons!”
A mot came out of the room where Snowflake, if that was the silky creature’s name, ha
d been. She was nearly as pretty as the animal, dressed in an ankle-length tunic of cream-colored linen and a round cap of the same color. Her blond hair hung in two braids to her knees. When she saw her pet’s situation, she ran down the hall, crying, “You brute! Get away from Snowflake!”
“Achoo,” I said, but then the young mot halted. The bit of fluff was dancing under Achoo, running through her legs, and making it very clear that Achoo was her new best friend. Achoo was doing her best to lick the little thing, wagging her tail to show the affection was given back in full. Instead of screaming for the guards, the lady halted where she was and offered her hands, palms up, for Achoo to smell.