“That’s mad,” I said. “Two ships, crew, and captives? Why go to all this trouble, only to destroy the profits? It must have taken a lot of power to attack the palace, then flat-out sink the ships so fast that none could escape. That’s seriously big magic, right? Surely the realm doesn’t have that many great mages that could do this.”
“She’s the thinker,” Tunstall said. “I’m the beauty.”
Master Farmer smiled at him, then looked at me. “There are plenty of powerful mages in the realm these days, and lots of them are angry. You know about the licenses and the taxes on mages, don’t you?”
“Only a fool Dog doesn’t attend to what’s going on,” Tunstall said irritably.
Master Farmer shrugged. “I meant no offense. The Dogs I work with concern themselves with keeping the peace, not politics. I tend to stay to myself, but even I’ve heard other mages say the realm has no business interfering in what we do. Some of the loudest protest comes from the great mages—some of the quietest whispers, too, I wager. It would only take one or two great mages to do something like this.”
“All that effort and power just to drown the prince?” Tunstall asked. “That doesn’t play out. And we see no signs of any other group but the one that attacked the palace.”
“Nor a second enemy that came just in time to sink them,” I added. “We’re missing a piece.”
Hearing the sound of folk approaching, I looked back at the steps to the palace. Mistress Orielle and Master Ironwood were coming to join us. For company they had two of the King’s Own as torchbearers and a pair of servants. One carried a flask and two cups while the other had what looked to be cloaks over one arm.
“I reached through my mirror to let them know what I’d found,” I heard Master Farmer say. “They might help. And it will be interesting if they refuse, or if any help they give goes awry and destroys what we’ve found.”
I turned to gaze at him, impressed. Tunstall also had an expression of approval on his face. There was more to Master Farmer than the plain package that he came in.
The great mages halted near the water’s edge and stared at Master Farmer’s creations. Master Ironwood sniffed. “Very pretty,” he said. “You summoned us to show pictures?”
Master Farmer looked at him with dull cow eyes. “Naw,” he drawled. “I’m showin’ you where two ships are sunk along with crew and slaves.”
“Sunk?” Mistress Orielle repeated. “These ships are on the bottom of the cove?”
“If you’d looked down here, you mighta seen ’em yourself,” Master Farmer replied. “But you’ve both been that busy, I know.”
“Doubtless those vessels have been down for years,” Master Ironwood snapped.
Mistress Orielle stretched out a hand, letting her Gift roll down into the sea. After a moment, she said, “No. They are almost whole. The trash that rises from them is fresh. They’ve been here a day, perhaps less.”
Master Farmer nodded. His light ships were coming closer to the beach. “I learned this spell from a teacher that worked in fishin’ villages all the time. When my images are close enough, we’ll see anything about them that’s touched with magic.” He’d dropped his yokel’s accent some. He’d been mocking the royal mages, I realized. I shook my head. What manner of looby tried to pull a bear’s tail? In truth, I’d sooner meddle with that bear than a mage, for mages are far more touchy. Then I saw Master Farmer scratch his head. He wasn’t done tweaking these two high-and-mighty folk. He said, “A course, we’d see even the non-magicked stuff if we could raise the ships from the bottom, but I can’t do that.”
“Of course you cannot,” Master Ironwood said. If he had noticed Master Farmer’s nonsense, it did not show. Even Mistress Orielle did not seem to suspect. “What manner of Provost’s mage studies with fishing mages?” he asked.
“One that studies with any mage that will take him,” Master Farmer replied. “I wasn’t good enough for the City of the Gods or Carthak, nor had I the coin for it. And Master Seabreeze was good for other things. He could call winds, seek out schools of fish, make dyes from sea urchins—”
“Quiet!” Ironwood said. “I am sorry I asked. Mistress Orielle and I can do work that is far more useful than your gleanings from the ocean bottom.”
“I have a grip on one,” Mistress Orielle told him coolly. “Will you take the other?” She smiled at Master Farmer. “You may help, if we have need. We have stores of power at hand, should we require any, but you might also learn a new trick or two.”
Master Farmer nodded, grinning. His bright ships began to fade. “That’s an honor for me,” he said eagerly.
“Excuse me for asking, but are you not supposed to guard Their Majesties?” Tunstall wanted to know. “Meaning no offense.”
“We placed them in their chambers under layers of protection spells so they might sleep,” Master Ironwood replied, his eyes already fixed on the cove. “They are exhausted and will not wake for hours.” Yellow fire flowed from him like a river to mingle with the waves.
I frowned. It did not seem proper for Ironwood and Orielle to lock their charges in their rooms, but that was not supposed to be my concern. Finding the prince was. Mayhap these sunken ships would give us more clues, but we could do nothing about that until the ships were above the water. In the meantime, I needed sommat to keep me busy.
Tunstall beckoned me over to the pile of things he had found on the southern half of the beach. Seemingly that area was more popular with the palace folk than the northern half. We inspected all of it. Nothing seemed important: a wooden comb, a straw basket, a leather ball, a pale blue blanket, and a small fan made of feathers, together with my toy dog and scarf. The brass dangle was too small to be left there, where it might be lost. I kept that safe in my pocket. Tunstall and I looked at our collection with my spelled mirror, but these things showed no magic whatsoever.
“We’re wasting time here, standing about with our thumbs up our asses,” Tunstall said at last. “I’ve a mind to take Achoo up to the woods and cast about to see if any other strangers have been near. We don’t have to wait for day, now we’ve got these lamps. Someone sank those ships. I doubt he went down with them. Like as not he sailed off on his own, but just in case he didn’t …”
I showed him the bronze piece. “I found it up there,” I said, and pointed. “Right next to another path to the heights.”
Tunstall looked it over. “I don’t know the insignia. Might’ve been there for who knows how long, though it’s not scratched up.” He flipped it in the air, caught it, and handed it back to me. “Could be something, could be naught. Let’s have a stroll, Cooper.”
I looked at the mages. Mistress Orielle stood straight, her small shoulders square. Ironwood swayed a little. Masts were poking out of the rolling water, masts and a figurehead in the shape of a vulture. The first ship, drawn by Mistress Orielle, was coming in. Master Farmer was still seated, but his hands were busy. I looked closer. To my startlement, he was stitching on a length of broad ribbon. He was embroidering, and doing so without looking at the ribbon! He got stranger every moment I was in his company.
There was no point to interrupting, so Tunstall and I set off down the beach without farewells. Achoo found a stick and brought it to Tunstall, who threw it for her.
Good Hunting, Pounce called as we passed him on his rock.
At the end of the beach I let Achoo sniff the brass medallion and its leather strap, but they gave her nothing. She circled and circled, sniffing, going to the path, then down the beach. Finally I felt sorry for her and said, “Berhenti, Achoo.” Mayhap the owner’s scent had worn off by now, and this dangle had naught to do with the raiders. I gave Achoo a bit of dried meat, because she had tried so hard.
“Up we go, then,” Tunstall said cheerfully, squinting at the half-magicked path. He found his way onto it by feeling ahead with his feet, hands, and baton. Once we were on it, we could see perfectly well using our stone lamps. It was getting past the first spells that was tricky.
As we climbed, Tunstall said, “I tell you, Cooper, this Hunt is shaping to be a true pile of scummer and snakes. Us lowly folk better mind how we go, else we’ll be crushed. We’ve no business dealing with nobles and great mages.” He made the Sign against evil and spat to the side of the trail. “Even lesser mages. Did you see what that Farmer was doing? He was sewing!”
“Embroidering, actually,” I replied. “Mayhap he does trims with magical signs and sells them for pocket money. It’s not like he gets a share of the weekly Happy Bag, if he’s a kennel mage. They only get coin from the Bag where they’ve helped to hobble the Rats. And the pay is no royal sum.”
“Embroidery,” Tunstall said, and spat again. “Sewing and doing your mending, that’s manly enough. But fancy work? And playing with string while those other mages were pulling up whole ships, if they weren’t belching braggarts.”
Tunstall’s view of what men could and couldn’t do was sometimes odd. Our old partner Goodwin and I agreed that there was no manly or unwomanly, only what you chose to do. But I didn’t argue with Tunstall about it as we often did, when we were unsettled and wanted to think of sommat else. We had reached the top of the bluff.
We stepped onto the road that wound around the Summer Palace, where we’d been that afternoon, on the turn just before we saw the garden full of the dead. Without another word Tunstall and I raised our shining rocks so they cast their light around us for about four feet. We spread just six feet apart. Achoo, knowing her role, went about four feet to my left, a little ahead. Then we began walking forward at a sharp angle through that very clean woodland at a slow pace, inspecting the ground before us. Tunstall would signal, and we’d move ahead in the reverse direction, walking a letter Z among the trees.
“I see it!” Tunstall said when we’d gone about a quarter of a mile. “They groom even the woods like the garden. They get rid of all the brush and little trees and vines so everyone can trot their horses through without getting tangled.”
Looking at the neat forest around me, I sighed. Tunstall was right. It meant that there were precious few places for animals to hide. There were no vines to trip me up, and the trees were neatly trimmed well above my head. It also made the woodland seem false, somehow. It was not the way the Goddess made the forests.
“Cheer up, Cooper,” Tunstall said. He could read me like a proclamation. “I’ll wager the forest where they hunt is messier by far. This is for the ladies. See here.” He pointed to his right. I came closer to look and winced. A perfect mossy bank led to a stream. Willows grew there, and flowers. It was so tidy it could have been painted.
Then Achoo charged down to the water and slurped loudly as she drank from the stream, a commoner hound with leaves in her curls and sand in her paws. Tunstall and I chuckled and returned to our inspection of the ground.
We kept close to the cliffs, straying no more than a hundred yards east of them, moving back and forth in our narrow Z, always headed north. It wasn’t the best of search patterns, but it was the best that two Dogs and a lone hound could manage. At least we remained in hearing of the little stream, so we could all drink as we got dry. Palace streams, we agreed, should be safe to drink from.
I will say this of Master Farmer’s glowing rocks. They did not go out. By their light we covered about three miles of ground, dismaying all manner of bats, owls, and small burrowing creatures that had escaped the humans that had groomed all the interest from the woods. I was about to say we should turn back when Achoo raced to the cliff’s edge and began to circle, huffing to herself.
Tunstall and I froze. Here the wood opened on a clearing some five hundred yards or so across, a place where folk might have games and contests. That was not Achoo’s concern, though. She looked up at me and whined. She had the prince’s scent again!
I went to her. Tunstall followed in my footsteps. After two year of working with Achoo, we knew to keep our own scents to as thin a path as we could, that we might not interfere with what had caught her attention. There, in the bare earth where yet another half-magicked trail faded in and out of sight over the edge of the land, we found the footprints of horses.
Tunstall walked along the cliff another hundred feet and came back as Achoo followed her drift of scent thirty feet inland. “Someone waited with mounts back there,” Tunstall said when he reached me. His voice was tense, but he spoke calmly. Achoo did better if she didn’t think we were worked up. “On the grass. Hard to tell how many riders and how many horses without mounts there. Is it worthwhile to look down by the water?”
Achoo was moving in circles. She sniffed the air and glanced at us, as she did when she was on the track. I ground my teeth. We dared not let that trail get colder, but we needed all the evidence we could get, too.
“I think we’d better keep on the land trail,” I told him. “We know they took to the sea back at the palace. Now we know they came ashore and met someone here, then rode east. We’ll have to send someone to look at that beach—there’s only two of us now, and if they have a crew and we’re caught, we might never get word to the others that the prince is alive.”
“Right, then,” Tunstall replied. Hurriedly he set up a trail sign to let other searchers find the landing point below.
I produced one of the prince’s loincloths and let Achoo smell. She gave me a look as if to say, “Do you really think I need a reminder in such a short time?” She gave it the barest of sniffs, looked scornfully at me again, then trotted off across the grass. We followed, crossing the clearing to enter the trees. This was the forest that was left natural for hunters and game. Now there was brush and tree branches to dodge, and vines to flay us like whips. I went flat on my face twice, once on dry ground, once as I crossed the stream that was a play area for ladies further south. Half of me got soaked as the other half struck the bank on the far side. Tunstall called softly, “Cooper? This is no time for a bath.”
I told him what he might do with himself and his bath. The sorry old guttersnake’s by-blow only laughed at me and offered me one of his large handkerchiefs. As quietly as I could I escaped the stream and wiped the mud off. Tunstall offered me the small bottle of mead he always carries in case someone needs warming up, but I shook my head. I don’t like to drink at all when I’m on duty, even when it might warm me. Tunstall put the bottle away as I told Achoo to move on.
It was the trotting to keep up with her that warmed my poor sodden legs and helped to dry my breeches out some. We were two miles past the stream when we came to the wall that enclosed the grounds for the Summer Palace. We halted to stare, Tunstall whistling low with admiration. We raised both of our stone lamps to view it.
The hole the enemy’s mage had blown through it was about five horses wide. Seemingly the kidnappers didn’t worry about anyone catching them by then.
Achoo didn’t want to wait even for the scant time we would have taken to survey the broken wall. The prince’s scent must have been stronger than ever. She dashed across the road north and into the woods on its far side. Tunstall and I followed, spotting horse tracks that cut across the beaten earth of the main road in the same direction. We halted briefly inside the trees to get our bearings.
I knew his thinking. One lamp would be enough to see the trail while two might draw attention if the enemy was near. I also saw him grimace and rub his knees. They were hurting him, then. He looked tired, though I knew he’d deny it if I asked. I pretended not to see as he took a drink from the flask. The mead would ease any pain in bones that had been broken and healed too often for healing to really work anymore. “How far to the river?” Tunstall asked as he tucked his stone lamp away.
I can never tell if he is testing me or if he doesn’t know. If he is testing me, I wish he would stop. I have not been a Puppy, nor he my training Dog, for four years. I called the map to my memory. I knew it because Achoo and I had been Hunting a gem thief between Blue Harbor and Arenaver last winter. “A mile and a half to the Ware,” I said.
We covered the next mil
e in silence. We didn’t talk, but even without consulting about it, we slowed to a walk at the same time, while I whistled Achoo back to me. Then I wrapped all but a thumb’s length of my stone lamp in the hem of my tunic. The three of us approached the river as quietly as we could manage. We had no idea of how far behind the enemy we were. If they were on the riverbank, awaiting a boat or ferry, we wanted our arrival to be a surprise. If they outnumbered us, it would be even better if they didn’t see us split up, one to watch and the other to go for help.
At last we came out of the trees. We stood near the Ware River on an open slope cleared by Crown foresters so bandits couldn’t hide close to the water. We looked up and down our side of the river. No one, riders or ferries, was visible in the half-moon’s light. We heard only the river’s constant rush as it flowed down to the Tellerun. As far as we could tell, there were no humans but us about.
Still, we made our way down to the water slowly. The glimmer of light from my shrouded lamp revealed only a couple of feet ahead of us. Suddenly Achoo whined and butted in between Tunstall and me, her way of telling us something bad was near. Then the smell hit my nose, bringing me up short. It was a tripe-wringing mix of burned meat, scorched leather, and hot metal.