Mastiff (50 page)

I tasted it, using the spoon I kept in a side pocket of my shoulder pack, and sighed happily. This batch had gone well.

Sabine passed me a chunk of heavy, moist bread and the butter pot. “The choice was cold ham, bordel stew, or wait two hours before the beef they’d just put on to roast was done,” she explained. “The innkeeper told me they almost never ran out of mains before in all the days his family’s run this place for the Crown.”

I nodded and dipped a serious mouthful out with my spoon. “Achoo and Pounce?” I asked before I ate it.

We have been fed
, Pounce told me sleepily.
I told Achoo it was all right to do so
. He was curled up on the bed where the men sat, snug against Farmer’s heavy thigh. I yanked my eyes away from the discovery that Farmer’s legs were very well muscled.
Achoo is under the bed with a bone. She fears someone will take it, though none of us have ever done so
.

Now that Pounce mentioned it, I could hear the sound of Achoo crunching a bone eagerly. Sabine was grinning.

“She pays us the compliment of thinking we are like her, grumpy one,” Sabine told Pounce.

It is not a compliment to
me, replied Pounce.

I looked at Tunstall, who ate without speaking. It should have occurred to me that his bones would be aching, given the weather.

“Do you need a rub?” I asked.

From the way she sagged against the wall, her face strained, Sabine was too weary to have thought of it. “Donkey puke,” she whispered. “Mattes?”

“I do not want nursemaids,” Tunstall snapped. “A man pays no heed to pain of any kind, not traitors and their weapons, and not bones. The only pain he should heed is what he serves up for his enemies.”

I rolled my eyes and caught Sabine doing the same. The pain must be bad for Tunstall to talk like a hillman.

I glanced at Farmer to see if he could help Tunstall, but he was trying to dig a thread of meat from between his teeth, using his bone pick. Seemingly he was not about to say anything. Before I could swat him for being annoying, he put the pick away.

Farmer, the things you mean to use make my nose itch
, Pounce complained.

“I’ll need
you
to take your breeches off,” Farmer told Tunstall lazily. “And I am sorry, Master Constellation, but my medicines are the easiest solution just now.”

Sabine and I looked at each other. “I’ll check the animals,” I offered just as Sabine said, “I should take a last look at my horses.”

“Cowards,” Farmer told us as Tunstall glared at him. “Ask the house to send up a small pot of hot water, if you will.”

“Hurt me and you’re a dead cove, mage,” Tunstall announced.

Farmer glared at Tunstall. Now there were sparks in his blue eyes. Tunstall had finally gotten under his skin. “Enough carping, curse it all! I have a headache!” he snapped at Tunstall. “
You
haven’t been holding off four or more harmful spells a day along with everything else, you rock-skulled hillman. We’ve been under constant assault. If Gershom hadn’t been lucky enough to have me at Blue Harbor, you’d be dead by now, do you understand that?”

“Ho, the great mage!” Tunstall cried, rising from his seat on the bed. “So you’ve halted the rebellion all by yourself, have you? Just you, a stink-assed pig’s knuckle from the midlands!”

I began to wonder if they hadn’t had enough cold water that day and if I ought to fetch a bucket of it to throw on both of them.

“Chaos take us all, have you a brain that you actually use?” Farmer demanded. “Of course not! But I am keeping some enemy mages busy, folk I imagine they thought they’d be putting to better use than keeping one four-Dog Hunt under watch!”

“It’s more than the four of us!” Tunstall snapped. “You poxy cityman, what do you know of the way a Hunt’s done? There’s the Dogs we’ve requested from Frasrlund—”

“Are there?” Farmer asked. “Are there? How would you know? We’re cut off from everyone, remember?”

“And the teams in Corus!” Tunstall shouted. “They’ve met and combined notes and read our reports by now, and they’re on the Hunt, too, hobbling these Rats in their dens!”

“Wonderful!” Farmer shouted back. “I’ll just go and let one of
those
teams snap at my tail awhile, so
you
may have some rest!” He clenched his fists, took a breath, and looked at Sabine and me. “Now, if I’m to heal this oaf, I need hot water.” He glared at Tunstall. “Unless you
like
to suffer?”

Sabine and I hurried out. On our way downstairs, I told her, “There was this fortuneteller we saw once, at a fair in Kleo.”

Sabine nodded. “The Bazhir trade there.”

“Yes,” I replied. “The fortuneteller said to Tunstall that his was a sunny nature that would bind friends to him.” Sabine’s mouth twitched. I added, just between us mots, “I always wondered what she’d been drinking, and if I should try it.”

Sabine burst into laughter.

I didn’t hear our door open or close, but a moment later Pounce and Achoo caught up with us. “Did you know about the spell attacks?” Sabine asked Pounce loudly. The sound of the taproom was drowning out any noise on the stair.

Pounce answered with his mind.
I did. He didn’t want you to know you’ve all been under spell-siege. I thought you were clever enough to have thought of it, given the bad luck that’s befallen this Hunt. There’s only so much one mage can do, as good as this one is
.

Sabine cajoled the pot of hot water from one of the cooks. “I’ll take it back to the lads,” she told me when she had the pot in hand. “I trust you to look after the horses.” She winked at me. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

The cook gave me a gift of berry turnovers before I went back out into the wet. As I made my way back to the barn, I wrestled with envy. The best thing about Holborn was our time in bed. I missed the bedding, though not the man, and I deeply envied Sabine and Tunstall that night.

Outside I discovered that the rain continued to beat down as hard as before. At least there was a covered wood path from the inn to all three parts of the stables. I stayed mostly dry but for a few wind-driven spits of water. The central building turned out to be a station and residence for the stablemen. They were gathered in their watch room with an after-supper drink. They waved to me as I passed through on my way into our stable building. There were a few lamps for light, the horses being well asleep, so I found my way easily to the section where we’d been placed. Over the box stall where Farmer and I had set up for the night, I saw the hostlers had hung a good lamp. Achoo and Pounce were curled up in the straw already.

I went back into the shadows where Saucebox dreamed whatever horses dreamed. I slipped her a treat when she roused. Then I hurriedly took off my muddy, damp clothes and put on dry things, keeping to the rear of the enclosure in case anyone came by. The feel of dry cloth was wonderful. I left the wet clothes there to dry, hung on hooks like tack, and returned to my cat and hound. Once seated in the fragrant straw with my back against the wooden wall, I had a turnover and gave a happy sigh.

I was just nodding off in spite of myself when I heard approaching footsteps. I grabbed my baton, which lay within reach, then relaxed as Farmer came into view. He carried a steaming mug in one hand. “Do you want some?” he asked me. “It’s herb tea—mint.”

“No, thank you,” I replied. “It might make me sleepier, and I want the first watch.” We said nothing as he put out his bedding and his embroidery work. It was only after he’d settled, his back against the wall, and began to stitch on a length of ribbon that I spoke again. “I thought you didn’t have much power left to you.”

He smiled at me and winced as he stuck a fingertip. “I have more. And I’m gathering some now.”

I squinted at him, but saw no threads of Gift. “I don’t understand.”

Farmer shrugged. “There’s magic lying around everywhere here—scraps of it that have gone unused for decades. I’m just collecting it.” He shook his head. “Mages are wasteful folk, Cooper.”

I smiled at that. He sounded like a priest when the collection of coin is not what he hoped for. “I never asked before—I thought mages couldn’t use other mages’ Gifts.”

“They can’t,” he replied. “But when it’s sent out into the world to be worked,
then
those with a talent for it can gather it up for their own use.”

“But that’s not common.” I said it rather than asked, because I was near certain of the answer.

“No, my dear, it’s not, any more than talking to the dead as they ride pigeon-back is common. I’d only heard once or twice of such mages, and I
never
heard of mages who could talk with dust spinners.”

That made me uncomfortable. “It’s not like either one is very useful to any but a Dog.”

“And I happen to think that is important enough. I’d like to write about it, one day, if you’ll permit me. It might help teachers locate others like you,” he explained.

I put my head down, because I could feel myself blushing. “Let’s survive this Hunt first.”

“So mote it be,” he murmured. We were silent again for a little while, until Farmer cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about what happened, back there. I’ll apologize to Tunstall in the morning.”

I smiled at the way his words mimicked Tunstall’s. “Don’t talk of sorries to me. You’ve been under the hammer. It stands to reason you’d need to clear your head.”

“I wasn’t bragging.” He looked up at me then, his eyes intense. “About the other attacks. I wasn’t making it up.”

I took off my arm guards and fetched a sharp-stone and cloth out of my shoulder pack. “I never thought you were. I wish you’d said sommat earlier, though—we’d have tried to make other things easier for you.”

But Farmer was shaking his head. “I don’t like special attention.”

Now he had me interested. “You learned to hide your spell-working to hide for other reasons, right? It’s not just for them that try to sell your folk as special slaves. You were hiding that others attacked you, too. Why? A mage’s work is partly to defend against spell-casting.”

“It’s all of a piece,” he explained. “We Dogs have the right way of looking at things. What a person
does
is worthy of respect. Not the social gain that can be had, because there isn’t any. Not the power over great lords and governments, because there isn’t any. So many strong mages want kings and lords to dance to their tunes, to ask their advice and pay them richly, even seek them for marriages to have their power in the family lines.”

“But you can’t be bothered with any of that.” It wasn’t a question on my part. I knew him better.

“It’s boring. It’s so curst boring. Out here, in the world, there’s always something new,” he told me. “When I’m at the kennel or on a Hunt, I’m doing work that means a great deal. It sets the balance between order and chaos right, in that one area, anyway. Maybe you think I’m being foolish.… ”

I smiled at him. “I don’t think you’re foolish. I don’t know about order and chaos, but doing good for them that have no one to speak for them, that’s important. The rich have plenty of folk to aid them if trouble comes. They can
hire
all manner of help. But where Tunstall and me work, the people can’t do that.” I grimaced, feeling like a fool. “I didn’t mean to make a speech of it.”

Farmer was looking at me very seriously. “You
do
know.”

I shrugged, turning my attention to caring for the blades in my arm guards.

“There’s so much to
learn
, Beka. So much I haven’t seen or tried.” I glanced at him as I drew the first of my blades along the sharp-stone. His face was bright and eager, that of a lad who’s found a gixie who likes him. Farmer stared off into the shadows as he went on. “There’s a tribe in southern Carthak where they work their Gifts with music. I’d love to learn what I can from them. And my master believes there’s a kind of magic that isn’t worked with spells and charms like the Gift. It comes from living things—animals, or sprites. I think it’s in Sabine’s family.”

Pounce opened his eyes.
Oh, indeed?

Farmer nodded. “They call it wild magic, my master and those who speak or write of it. It’s not taught, though. There are tests for the Gift and for spells, but who can test magic that only works through certain people for specific things? Take the Macayhill line. They’ve
always
been known for their fine horses. Always, from Kellyne, the first Lady Macayhill. Particular individuals have stood out for the horses they’ve bred and trained, but the whole family is good at it. And it’s known in particular circles that if you have the coin and the correct approach, Lord Norow, his son Martinin, or his youngest daughter Sabine will teach your warhorses special techniques.”

“So my lady’s a mage?” I asked, keeping my eyes on my work. I wasn’t sure about this. Magic no one had heard of?

“Not as the teachers in the City of the Gods or those at the Carthaki university see it,” Farmer replied, stretching his long body out with a great sigh. I stole a glance at that body. It was as pleasing to look at as his voice was to hear. “They think that if magic can’t be tested or taught, it’s not worth the bother. They haven’t even found ways to see it. At the City of the Gods they just told Mistress Cassine that the Council of Mages has no interest in the doings of those with a lesser degree of ability. So I’ve been digging around, to see what I can learn.” He locked his hands behind his head. “Most folk with wild magic don’t even know what they have. I’ve been thinking what
you
have is wild magic, more than the Gift.”

I shrugged. “Anything’s possible, I suppose,” I replied. Survival was even starting to look like a possibility. Achoo and Pounce were yet with us, and we four humans remained healthy and on the trail. Help was on the way from Frasrlund and mayhap closer. I had forgotten those other Dog teams back in Corus. If Nyler Jewel and his partner was put on this Hunt, that would be as good as having an army. As soon as we had regular communication again, I’d see if Farmer could learn who else was out there.

I looked up to tell him so, but he’d fallen asleep with his needlework on his lap. I set my things aside quietly and went to pull a blanket up over him. I was just settling the coarse wool over his shoulders when his eyes popped open and he gripped my arms. I waited for him to recognize me. I’d done more than seize them when folk touched me as I slept.