Mastiff (49 page)

Both of you managed without a pet mage for three years, I scolded myself. You split up all the time and it worked out very well. It’s just having Sabine and Farmer and all these animals along that makes you wish for baby minders.

It was easier to see along the road with the rain easing. Sabine and I walked along the place where we’d been attacked. Now we saw two black-clad corpses in the middle of it. They must have been hidden by the downpour when Sabine and Tunstall collected the horses.

“Stormwings,” Sabine whispered. “They distracted us to steal the packs.”

“I doubt they had a proper chance,” I replied, the image of the medallion on Farmer’s pack clear in my mind’s eye. “I think your horses put paid to that.”

Sure enough, when we got close, we saw the marks of heavy steel shoes in the bodies. They’d been sorely trampled.

“I’m thinking that when we give Lord Gershom the accounts for this Hunt, we ought to add Drummer and Steady to the pay roster,” I told Sabine as we searched the corpses. “They’re as good as two more Dogs, and they’re always sober.”

She grinned. “You should see them drunk.”

My raw one wore only a Mithran emblem at his neck, which I took. His pockets were empty. I stood with a sigh and Sabine too got to her feet. She showed me an earring, a plain amber drop. “These might tell Farmer something, when he has the strength for it.”

She tucked the drop in a pocket, bent, and gripped her corpse by the boots. I did the same. Neither of us wanted to touch the soggy mass around their heads and chests again. Together we dragged these two coves to the side of the road.

“I can’t help noticing,” I said as I tugged, “that Drummer and Steady appear to go out of their way to kick a foe in the head.” Looking at the remains of both raw ones with a gulp, I added, “They are truly enthusiastic when it comes to the head, in fact.”

“Ah, that,” Sabine replied. She dragged her corpse into line with those I had set by the road before. She helped me settle mine. Then she stood for a moment, looking at them in the mud side by side. Finally she said, “Being one of the sisterhood—the lady knights—it isn’t always easy. Plenty of men are happy to try to do to one of us what they’d never do to a male knight. Sadly, some of those happy men
are
our fellow knights. It happened to me but once. After that I not only trained Drummer and Steady to fight as all warhorses fight, I trained them to go for a man’s face. Once my fellow knights saw it, or talked to someone who had seen it, they left me alone.”

“
Good
plan,” I whispered in awe.

“I know a number of fine men,” Sabine told me. “Your partner is one of them.” She sighed. “If only he would give up this notion that he is not good enough for me.”

“I tell him you know your own mind when he mentions it,” I assured her. “That you’re a grown mot who knows what she needs and has.”

She gripped my shoulder. “So he says. I thank you. He respects your opinion.”

As we returned to the bandit camp, I wondered if he would respect it if I said we might have a traitor among us. But who? Farmer? He was the most likely, being the one we knew the least, but I could not fit my mind around it. Was I a fool to think there was no evil in that broad face, or those placid blue eyes?

I was not a sheltered young thing who could believe no wrong of a cove I liked. Nor was I terrified to face the idea of a turncoat. If we had one and he, or she, went uncaught, then we were as good as dead.

Those two dead men were the professionals, the ragamuffin bandits there simply to distract us. It was the professionals who’d set the bronze tag on Farmer’s pack before Drummer and Steady caught them. The count’s people had surely had plenty of time to learn what bags belonged to each of us. The threat came from outside our group. The trick would be to escape them without losing our quarry.

Farmer, Tunstall, Achoo, Pounce, and the horses were gathered under the spreading arms of an ancient oak, out of the rain, when we returned to them. “I searched down the other trail,” Tunstall said when we were within hearing. He pointed to the path opposite the direction of the road. “No camp. Someone halted within view of us and ran back to others on horses. They all rode south, but I could follow only a little before the storm washed out their tracks.”

“Two dead men in the road, attired the same as our attackers from Queensgrace,” Sabine replied. “Beka has an amulet from one—”

“Two,” I said. “The second is from a bandit. He had some coin as well.”

“And I have an amber earring,” Sabine continued. “Farmer?”

He was holding a silk bag against his forehead. I thought I’d seen it in his pack, wrapped about something square. “Not yet.” He opened the bag and held it out to us. “Put them in here. I’ll get to the earring and coins when I’ve got myself back up to strength. You know I can’t manage amulets. The rest—that won’t be today. I’ll try to get my Gift restored, but it won’t be enough for anything big.”

Thunder rolled in the distance. The storm was returning. Sabine grimaced. Tunstall ran his fingers through his hair. “Sore-biting lice on this Hunt,” he grumbled. “If I’m remembering the last road sign, there’s a wayhouse three miles along. Let’s stay there tonight. We can leave word of our dead bandits for the army patrols while we’re at it.”

We collected ourselves and I put my cuirass back on before we returned to the highway. Achoo was the only one in good humor, rolling gleefully in the mud. She did it twice more when she discovered I was too weary and lost in my thoughts to stop her. Sabine rode my Saucebox, giving Drummer and Steady a rest, though Pounce rode Drummer. Pounce gets surly when he’s wet, and he never wants to talk with anyone. At least he didn’t rub it in by vanishing to the Divine Realms.

I followed Achoo at a trot mixed with a walk. The scent she had was strong yet, thanks to the prince’s piss-markers. Another day or two of these hard rains and the scent would be overwhelmed. Only prayer could change that. I finally had to take off my boots and stockings and run barefoot as the mud got slippery under my hobnailed soles. Luckily for us the local folk kept the dirt of the road packed down hard, or we’d have been deep in mud.

The rain continued, growing harder as the storm got worse. I almost overran the wayhouse before I realized the black shape by the road was its wall.

The place was huge, walled all about, four stories tall from ground to attic. It was as big as Provost’s House, built to give cover to several caravans at a time as well as anyone that might come alone.

The wayhouse keeper would have put us in a dormitory with twenty or so other travelers, had he not spotted Lady Sabine’s shield and the haughty look she gave him as we waited on a long porch out of the downpour. He had but one room left, he told us, and it with two beds. He apologized over and over for the lack, saying his people would dry out our bedrolls in time for the extra two to sleep warm in the stables and we could eat for free, though not drink.

I did not miss the looks of regret Tunstall and Sabine exchanged. “One moment,” I told the man. “If you would set your folk to getting the room ready?” Once he had left us alone, I said to the others, “Someone ought to stay with the horses and Achoo, just in case. I’m volunteering. I prefer straw and animal smell to stale inn pallets and too many merchants.”

“That’s a good idea,” Farmer said. “Beka and I can trade off watches in the stable. You two can guard the packs in the room.”

“Who would bother the beasts?” Tunstall wanted to know. “Places like this—Sabine!”

She had delivered a hard elbow to his ribs. “Don’t be a hoddy-dod,” she said with a smile for Farmer and me. “They’re giving us a night alone. Let’s take the packs to the room. Say thank you while you’re about it.”

Tunstall blushed a fiery red. He muttered sommat that might have been a thank-you and hoisted some packs on both shoulders. I took charge of the other horses as Sabine brought Drummer and Steady along. The big horses would do naught unless she gave them the special signs and words to obey. I can’t help but think that it is like having two more Achoos, both the size of bears. If only they could be taught the craft of scent hounds, they would be the perfect creatures for Dogs.

The stable was bigger than Jane Street kennel. It was oddly built, with two long buildings that housed four rows of horses in each. The buildings were connected by a smaller one at the center. Hostlers raced out of that one to take control of our other mounts, showing Sabine where Drummer and Steady could be lodged. While she saw to them, I chanced a look out of a back door. From there I could see white-painted railings like fences, but regularly broken, about twenty yards behind the stable. Rows of them stood there between building and wall. I was confused, but then, we’d never had cause to stop in a really big wayhouse before this. Normally Tunstall and I preferred to sleep wild on a Hunt.

The hostlers were a cheery group. They were good enough to arrange an area where all of our animals could be near each other. When I explained to the chief hostler that Farmer and I would spend the night with our horses, he fetched out blankets and safe lanterns and kept an open box stall for us to bed down in. He took my coin and my thanks and bowed to Sabine, who had groomed Drummer and Steady as we settled the other horses. When Farmer arrived with his shoulder pack, he helped to groom our remaining animals with me, waving the stable lads and gixies off to their supper with a grin. For a time we all busied ourselves in quiet, looking after our pack animals and riding mounts alike, seeing to it that they got a decent supper when we were done. They had earned it.

I felt better there than I had all day, wrapped in the scent of horses, straw, and the old stone of which the stables were built. It was good simply to work there with Sabine and Farmer at their most silent, comfortable with the tasks of horse care. A couple of stable hounds came to sniff at Achoo as I cleaned her up, wagging their tails and acting like gentlemen. They were friendly folk, ranging in all sizes, down to one curly little thing who could rival the Butterfly Puppies. She and Achoo had quite a talk, nose to nose, before the little pup ran off into the shadows.

At last Sabine climbed the ladder to check the loft for anyone who might be lingering. Farmer and I, understanding what she did, inspected the rest of the place. Once we were certain we were alone, we joined Sabine at the stalls where Drummer and Steady were settled.

“I should have done this before,” Sabine told us. “It’s needful that you two be able to handle my lads here without trouble, just in case.” She took Farmer’s hand first and drew him over until he held his hand out, palm up, under Drummer’s nose. “Friend, Drummer,” she told the big gelding softly. “This is Farmer, and he’s a friend. Friend.” She pressed a lump of sommat she’d been holding onto Farmer’s hand. “Feed it to him, and say
friend
several times,” she told the mage. She did the same with me and Steady, then had us switch horses so that we were formally introduced to both. Inside me I had a little shiver. What if I was wrong, and Sabine was introducing her splendid warriors to a traitor? “You’ve done this with Tunstall?” I asked.

“Of course,” the lady replied. “Otherwise Drummer might have killed him the first time he saw us embrace!” She grinned. “Drummer can be
most
protective.”

“Remind me to stay on his good side,” Farmer said, giving Steady a nervous pat. “I take it what’s in these balls isn’t just sugar or fruit?”

“You take it rightly,” Sabine replied. “It’s my own special mixture. They’re trained to take ordinary food from stable folk, but any who try to feed them by hand will get an unpleasant surprise. Honest people know better than to get in close with a knight’s horses.”

“What about mashes?” I asked. “Food in buckets?”

“They know the common poisons by smell,” Sabine replied, stroking Drummer’s big nose. “If they detect even the tiniest hint, they refuse the meal. They’re my good, clever lads.”

While Farmer and Sabine talked about horse training, I ordered Achoo to stay with them. Then I went to cleanse myself of the mud that was splattered all over me. As I rinsed off the mud on the kitchen porch I listened to the help’s talk. Mostly it was about sweethearts, hard work, and the busy night ahead with so many travelers in the house. One thing in particular caught my ear. It seemed the local lordling had raised the tax on his people without even waiting to see if the harvest would be good or bad. If it was bad, a great many starving folk would be on the roads this autumn, looking for work and a place to live.

Once I was clean, I went to the taproom. There a serving mot told me where to find the room given to our party. Looking about me as I crossed to the stairs, I saw eaters and drinkers pleased to be out of the rain. None wore only black. They were a mixed lot, farmers on their way to a wedding, merchants and their guards bound south and complaining loudly of the fees lords were charging on the side roads, a knight and his sister, accompanied by their guards and servants. I gathered all this as I crossed to the stairs that would take me to my partners’ room.

“Be careful as you travel,” the innkeeper advised everyone from his place by the taps. “Bandits and slave takers on the road of late. And the lords are that irritable nowadays. Troublesome times …” He shook his head.

I did not like hearing that, either, but none of this bad news was my problem. Wearily I climbed two flights of stairs to reach the room. I could recognize it by the familiar pairs of boots set beside the door to dry.

Somehow Farmer and Sabine had beat me there. Perhaps they had not been eavesdropping downstairs. They and Tunstall were on the thin beds, bowls of soup in their hands and cups of ale on the floor by their feet. I picked up the bowl on the floor next to Sabine. She and I sat directly across from the lads.

“No bread?” I asked, staring into the bowl. It held meat stripped from the bone, turnips, onions, noodles, fresh peas, chunks of this and that, garlic, thyme, and who knew what else. It was a basic bordel stew, left to simmer at the back of the stove and changing as the cook dumped each day’s scraps into the pot. The results went one of two ways.