Mastiff (15 page)

“Not as much as we hoped,” Tunstall replied. “Protection spells kept us from searching the cargo or the bodies. Most of the goods were washed out of the holes in the keels of the ships, along with anyone who was belowdecks. Those who were chained down in the
Lash
are still there, along with the deck crew.”

“The mage or mages used the ship to trap the ones on deck,” I said. “The sails were woven together. Then they wove themselves through the holes made for the oars, to make a flat cover over most of the deck. The wood—the oars, the wheel, the rail—grew up over the hands of those who touched it. They couldn’t have freed themselves.”

My lord and Master Farmer made the Sign.

Tunstall reported, “The
Lash
is a slave ship. I believe once the six bodies are taken from the bunks on the
Lash
, you’ll have six of the missing folk from this palace. The other ship is a cargo vessel built for speed. Most of the warriors would have come on that.”

“They disguised themselves as slave transports to get past Blue Harbor and Port Caynn, perhaps,” Master Farmer said.

“To pass unnoticed by nearly anyone,” my lord said. “Who would pay attention to slave traders moving up and down the coast at this time of year? Everyone’s taking cargoes north and south.”

“We’ll learn more if we can search the bodies and the cargoes,” Tunstall said. “Where they came from, if they are branded slaves—”

“That’s as may be, but you and Cooper won’t be the ones to do the search,” my lord replied, sitting up straight. “Master Farmer can do it. Are the protection spells yours?” he asked the mage.

Master Farmer shook his head. “Ironwood and Orielle took care of that, to keep what was on the ships from rotting faster. I can ask them to undo the spell work.”

“What’s his Dog experience?” Tunstall protested. “What does he know of searches?”

“I’ve done private Hunts for Lord Gershom in past years,” Master Farmer said, his eyes half lidded. “And I’ve served three years at the Kraken Street kennel in Blue Harbor. I’ve lost count of the searches I’ve done there. I don’t know what the Jane Street kennel has in the way of mages, but I work on handling of the victims of crimes, inspection of evidence, handling mages, and the detection of poisons and spells. That’s in addition to five country Hunts out of Blue Harbor as well as street Hunts. None as big as this, but have you done so great a Hunt yourselves?”

“Enough,” Lord Gershom snapped. “Tunstall, I’ve worked with Farmer off and on for four years and he’s a good man. I hope that is enough for you.”

My lord is a strict judge of coves and mots. If he says they are worthwhile, then it is so. When my lord glanced at me, to see if I would argue, I busied myself with picking Achoo fluff from my tunic.

“Tunstall and Cooper are to take the ship that is now at the palace dock on the Ware River,” my lord announced. “They are to carry a packet of messages that I have spent most of the night writing.” He shoved the packet, wrapped in oiled cloth over leather, at us. Tunstall carefully picked it up and handed it to me. “Here are your orders.” He gave us one document each. “Show that to any who question you. Cooper, is there any chance that Achoo can pick up the boy’s scent if you were to go up and down the river?”

I shook my head. “After this kind of rain all last night and all today? None, my lord. Had your ship come earlier this morning, mayhap, but …” I thought it over, remembering the powerful stream that had sent me thumping and bumping down to the foot of the cliffs. “No. It was too heavy even then, and it rains still.”

“Very well, then,” Lord Gershom said with a nod. “Tunstall, you and Cooper will take that packet to Sir Tullus at Port Caynn and hand it to him
only
, then wait in the city for his orders. Tell no one else what you have seen here. Part of his instructions will be to set you on the greater Hunt, so don’t worry about being cut out. Farmer will bring you whatever he learns from the ships. Cooper, one thing—write up the investigation so far, but do your best to keep Farmer’s name, Tunstall’s name, your name, and Achoo’s name out of it. I want all of the information, but in a pinch, I want no one to know which Dogs, and which hound, were on this Hunt, do you understand?”

I wanted to scratch my head like the men did when they were confused, but Lord Gershom’s lady had beaten the habit out of me when I was small. “I don’t know if I can do it, my lord, but I’ll try.”

“That’s good enough for me, Cooper,” he said. I felt my insides warm up, like they always did when he praised me. Until they did, I didn’t know how cold they were.

My lord looked at Tunstall. “Questions?”

“Which boat do we take to Port Caynn, my lord?” Tunstall asked.

“She’s called the
Malia
. She’s one of the few ships permitted to wait at the royal dock on the Ware River. All of the peregrine ships are in use, so it’s a slower trip than our last one. Anything else?” my lord asked, raising his brows.

I had a question—“why can’t we pick up the Hunt from here?”—but I also knew the signal of those raised brows. He might
ask
, but truth to tell, he
wanted
no more questions. Instead I pulled the brass medallion with its strange insignia from my pocket. “My lord, this goes with the evidence to be examined. I found it on the northern end of the beach last night, along with other things we left in a pile there. This was too small to leave.”

“I’ll take it,” Master Farmer said, holding out his hand. My lord gave me the nod. I passed the medallion over to the mage. He took out the lens he used for seeing magic. “There’s no magic in it,” Master Farmer said, turning the medallion over in his fingers. “And I don’t recognize the insignia.”

“We’ll have someone render it on paper and send it around,” Lord Gershom replied. Looking at Tunstall and me, he said, “Very well, then. Get your things and go. Master Farmer, stay with me.” He wet his pen with ink again and began to scribble. Tunstall and I left the room.

Pounce awaited me in my chamber, along with my pack. It was dry, gods be thanked. “You missed all the falling down and getting bruised and talking about it with my lord,” I told him as I stuffed everything into my pack.

No, I didn’t
, Pounce replied, stretching out to his full length with a yawn.
I heard everything
.

I glared at him. “You couldn’t have helped when I was tumbling down the cliffside?”

The toughening up will do you good
, he said, the dreadful moralizing beast.
Achoo was there to look after you
.

“I nearly landed on Achoo!” I snapped, checking to see I had forgotten nothing.

You will feel better when you’ve had a hot bath and a belly full of proper hot food
, Pounce said wisely.
You’re always scratchy when you’re uncomfortable
.

I walked out of the room. I can never argue with him. I don’t know why I try.

Achoo sat before my door, thumping it with her tail in her eagerness to get moving. Tunstall met us at the center corridor. Mistress Orielle stood with him. “I’ll show you out,” she said, matter-of-fact. She wore pale blue today, and pearls in her ears. She had also thrust a handkerchief in her sleeve, as if she expected to cry some more. “No one can object if you use the front entry when I am with you. Besides, I bear a message from Her Majesty.” She guided us back down the open hall where we’d first encountered her, past the sitting room where we’d met the king and queen. A soldier in the King’s Own opened the front door for her and retreated down the hall when she waved her fingers at him.

When the soldier had turned his back to us, Mistress Orielle reached into a hidden pocket inside her overdress and drew out two small purses. She gave one to Tunstall and one to me. “For expenses,” she told us quietly. “Her Majesty does not want you to find yourselves coin-pinched while you seek her baby. She has every faith in you both.”

“That faith could be misplaced,” Tunstall replied, keeping his voice down. “His Highness may be beyond our ability to find.”

“She only asks you to do your best,” Mistress Orielle told us firmly. “And I wish you luck, as much as it is in my poor power to bestow.”

We thanked her. In saying farewell, Tunstall asked her to give the queen our promises to try everything we knew and sent our message of hope for success to the queen.

Outside, two men of the King’s Own waited for us with the horses we had ridden here. Everyone looked surly in the rain, except my chestnut mare. She touched noses with Pounce and Achoo, then watched as Pounce leaped to my shoulder. I mounted, careful not to dislodge my friend.

As we rode I did some thinking while I watched Achoo get covered in mud all over again. Normally I wouldn’t have minded the chance to see Sir Tullus of King’s Reach. I’ve missed him at the Magistrate’s Court ever since he took up the post of Deputy Provost of Port Caynn two years back. The new magistrate we have is well enough, but once I recovered from being scared of Sir Tullus, I thought he was a bit funny. The new magistrate is too humorless for me. The only thing about him that I like is the fact that he would rather Tunstall give evidence of our hobblings, even if I was the Dog that did the work. He has no patience for my stutterings in front of a crowd. If he can avoid calling on me, he will do so, every time.

It was knowing that Tullus would see us in uniforms we had worn through weather and muck that disheartened me. I liked to look my best going before him. Just now I felt like an unmade bed, while the sky continued to piss on me.

The boat landing lay some eight miles on the other side of the main road, across from the palace gate. That was why we hadn’t seen it the night before. We’d been at least four miles upriver.

At the dock rode a tidy craft, a normal ship, with a crew that wore the blue tunics and white breeches of our navy. Seeing our approach, they ran out a gangplank. A mot with the silver sleeve and hem embroideries of a naval mage stood at the foot of the gangplank. Only when she had traded passwords with our guides and checked our orders did she allow Tunstall and me to board. We left the horses behind.

Tunstall, the animals, and I napped for part of the journey. We shared bread and cheese with the crew for lunch. Afterward I worked on my reports while Tunstall played cards with the sailors. It was a quiet and welcome time until we reached the docks at Port Caynn. I enjoyed it as long as I forced myself to concentrate on my report and not on taking the road to Hunt for Rats.

The ship entered the ocean harbor at Port Caynn around mid-afternoon. I found it strange to come at the city this way. Every other time I had seen the place, it had been from the land, from the high ridges or from the rooftops. It was a pretty town, if you didn’t look too close at the streets, and you didn’t venture into the wrong districts. The Ridge Gardens were plain beautiful, and I’d never had better food at so many eating houses.

But we weren’t there to eat. As soon as we docked, Tunstall, Achoo, Pounce, and I were on our way uphill to Guards House. Sir Tullus had sent an escort and horses for our packs. At first my battered legs complained, but the pace uphill soon warmed them up. We stopped for broiled lamb on skewers and fresh cherry juice, the lamb being for Achoo and Pounce as well as us humans. Between the food and a proper walk, my spirits improved despite the rain.

“Folk here must have good legs,” Tunstall remarked as we neared the top of the ridge. “Going up and down all day.”

I grinned at him. Certainly my legs had improved in the short time that Goodwin and I had Hunted colemongers in Port Caynn. It had prepared me for my future with Achoo. “The locals need them, to work off all the seafood they eat,” I said.

Tunstall made the most horrendous face. I had known he would. “Seagoing bugs and snails,” he said. “Give me a man’s food.” Tunstall had not tasted seafood until he’d been a Dog five years. From what I’d heard, he’d gotten angry at having to pay for something he insisted was a joke, not food. He would eat fish, though he preferred freshwater, just as he preferred freshwater eels. Anyone who put seafood on his plate risked a drubbing.

Guards House loomed above us, safe behind its gray stone wall. Our escort took our packs inside while Tunstall showed our orders to the guard at the gate. He sniffed at our soaked, crumpled uniforms and the animals who bore us company. I let Tunstall go ahead of me into the courtyard, then asked the guard who hadn’t sniffed, “Is Sergeant Axman on duty?”

“He is, and he’ll be none too happy about the condition of yon hound,” the guard told me, just as stiff-rumped as his friend. “Why didn’t you clean up afore you came in?”

“Because our orders said we weren’t to loiter about like a pair of fat-assed gate-sitters,” Tunstall said. He’d turned to see why I was gabbing with the guards. “We don’t have time to make ourselves pretty for the riffraff. Cooper, there’s work to do.”

Pounce leaped to the ground as we crossed the courtyard. Without me telling her, Achoo fell in step one foot off my left heel. Following our packs, we climbed the steps and passed into Guards House.

The guard had told us the truth. Sergeant Axman, who had saved my skin three years ago, was indeed on duty. He raised his eyebrows at both of us as Tunstall showed him the packet with the Provost’s seal and asked for a meeting with Sir Tullus.

“Welcome back, all of you,” Axman said, hopping down from his tall chair. Achoo was flailing Tunstall and me with her tail. “How long has it been since our last meetin’? Five months since a Hunt brought you my way?” He clasped arms with Tunstall.

“Indeed—we were on the trail of boat thieves,” Tunstall replied.

“I need not ask if you found them,” Axman said with a smile. “You always do with this fine lass.” He did not speak of me, but of Achoo, who was sniffing Axman’s pockets already. The sergeant was a hound breeder and there were always treats to be found on his person. He was one of Achoo’s greatest admirers. I never had to remind her that he was her friend.

“Achoo,” I said in complaint. “I taught you better manners.”

“But she knows there are exceptions for old friends, doesn’t she?” The sergeant lowered himself to one knee to pet my girl.