Mastiff (56 page)

About a quarter mile along the cliff to our left sat Halleburn Castle. Built on a spur of rock that thrust out of the cliff, it looked a spear pointed at the lake. The inner curtain wall stood higher than the outer one, while towers crowned the spur’s peak. I’d heard that Halleburn had never been taken. Now I could see why.

The road went over a great causeway up the far side of the spur of rock on which the castle sat. On the ridge behind the castle, the ground had been cleared of trees for a mile. At no point were we ever out of view of the towers.

I still was calculating. The rock face on which the place rested was rugged enough for a good climber. A good climber with a four-year-old on her back, or his back? We might have to learn. Then it was a mile, nearly two, to the lake. As a path of escape, the lake gave me no confidence. It was thinner than it was long, with the far shore always in view of anyone on the near shore, from what I could see. Had it been bigger, it might have been possible to lose pursuit, but they could give chase on both sides easy, and have us trapped unless we had Farmer with us.

There was also the small problem of getting out of Halleburn. As we rode through the gates, I saw the thickness of the walls and felt the weight of its age. Far too many men and women-at-arms stood about idle, sharpening weapons and watching us go by. Those who weren’t armed were slaves, marked by their plain clothes and an occasional shoulder brand.

“Unfriendly place, isn’t it?” a familiar male voice asked. They’d let Farmer draw up beside me. Seemingly, they’d also let the spell on him drop. I tried to keep from grinning at him like a looby who’d just been offered sweets. “I’ll bet they hardly get any visitors for the Midwinter holidays. You see that point in the outer curtain wall? Fifteen Halleburns have jumped to their deaths from there.” He tried to count them all on his fingers, but like mine, his hands were hobbled at the wrists and bound to his waist.

A guard smacked him on the back with the butt of his crossbow. “None o’ yer magickin’, you!” he snapped.

I kept myself from reaching for Farmer. I couldn’t let these creatures know how I felt about him. They’d use it against me, like they’d have used Pounce or Achoo if they could have caught them.

“If you’d listened to your masters, you would have heard they are keeping me under a magical lock,” Farmer told the cove patiently. “I’ve got no more Gift than you do. Less, if you have one. And wouldn’t your poor old mother be ashamed at your lack of courtesy to a guest?”

The guard spat. Without looking at him, I asked Farmer, “Will you please not needle them? They’re nasty enough as it is.”

“Most likely they’re worried about getting paid.
I
would be. Thanen of Halleburn is as tightfisted as a clam.” He saw the guard look at him suspiciously and said, all innocence, “It’s true. He’d as soon kill someone as pay him. Sooner.”

Elyot came riding down the line. “Farmer, what are you up to?” To the soldier he barked, “Get them down. My lord wants to see them right away.” He grinned at us both. “You’re in for a treat. Lord Thanen doesn’t like folk who give him as much trouble as you four have.”

“We’d have given him no trouble at all if he hadn’t kid—” Elyot went to slap me again, but this time I was ready. I kicked my horse forward, straight into his own mount. Off-balance with his slap, he struggled to stay in the saddle until I hooked my leg, stirrup and all, around his, and shoved myself toward him with all of my strength. He was a bad rider. His horse, scared by sommat—I have my suspicions about who scared him—shook his head and reared a little. Onto the ground went Elyot. As he slid, I spat on him. I’d often had the chance to observe that when mages were confused, they did not always think to employ their Gifts.

The guards, frozen still until that moment, hurried forward. They cut me free of my ropes and yanked me from my mount. Once I stumbled to the ground, I dropped and curled myself up, tucking my head and wrapping my hands around the back of my neck. It was the best I could do before the guards began to beat me. So much fuss over one dumped mage!

“Stop,” Dolsa called. “I don’t care if she hurt Master Elyot’s feelings, my lord wants to see these four meddlers as soon as may be.
All
four.”

The blows stopped and I went to straighten, knowing I was going to pay for tweaking the bull’s tail. There was a razor’s pain in my right side that meant a broken rib. The rest was bad, but bruises at most. The guards might be dressed as rough woodsmen, but they were well-trained professionals.

I looked at Master Elyot. He was shaking off the hands of those who would help him as he stood. The glare he gave me promised nothing that would make me smile. I wondered when he’d last been handled so rudely and was glad I’d chosen to do so, even knowing I’d take a beating. He certainly acted like he’d never had to take a good punch in his life, let alone a deliberate shove from his mount.

A hand wrapped around my shoulder. Almost immediately I felt warmth spill into my body. Muscles and bone eased along with their pain. I breathed a little better, though Farmer couldn’t do a true healing in full view of the enemy.

“I’ll take charge of these captives, Dolsa.” The new speaker was a mot all in brightly polished armor. She was five feet and ten inches, with long, slanting brown eyes and blond hair coiled and pinned at the back of her head. The armor did not hide her generous figure. For all the armor shone as if she never wore it, the sword at her waist had a plain leather grip and sheath, both of which were well battered. So too were her sheathed dagger and the boots on her feet. She might be wearing dress armor, but she was a fighter. “My father wants them before him now.”

“I will take them, Nomalla, since I captured them,” Dolsa replied pertly.

The knight looked down her long, straight nose at the mage. “It’s your method of keeping things in order that makes me question whether all of them will reach my father alive, Dolsa,” she said dryly. “Come with me, then, if you’re so anxious to receive all the credit. And don’t chatter at me.” She walked toward Sabine and Tunstall, giving Sabine a nod. “Sabine. As usual, you are in low company.”

Sabine looked Nomalla in the eyes. “This time it’s
you
who are in low company, Nomalla of Halleburn. Your father is a traitor. All of you who serve him are conspirators. I’d rather break bread with pickpockets.”

“And have,” Lady Nomalla replied, but her cheeks were red. “My father knows what the realm needs.”

“A traitor,” Sabine replied agreeably.

Nomalla rested her hand on the hilt of her sword. “Get moving, you and your lover both.”

“Dolsa did
not
capture them on her own!” Elyot snapped breathlessly from behind us. “She will not cheat me of the credit for taking them!” He stalked past us, in a hurry to catch up with them. I would have thought all of them had forgotten Farmer and me, except both Elyot and Dolsa shoved a veil of Gift back our way. It turned into a muddy-colored sparkling scarf that wrapped around Farmer, making my skin tingle where his arm lay on my shoulders. He moved his arm away. I wanted to seize it and pull it back into place, but that would give the enemy more information than they needed. They already knew, I supposed, that he’d healed the worst of my beating. Let them think he’d tried and failed to fool them as to what he was doing by putting his arm around me.

I heard Farmer whisper, “From what I’ve heard of Lady Nomalla, this is not the sort of thing she would do.” His lips hadn’t moved.

“Can’t they hear you?” I replied in a good Dog’s whisper, my mouth almost unmoving.

Inside the sparkles he smiled. “Perhaps this spell is without flaw when just one mage works it, but with two mages it is full of holes,” he explained. “Neither of them wants the other mage to get a grip on their power and use it. I can use a baby spell called threading the needle to sneak my voice through one of those holes. Beka, I’m so sorry. I should have been looking for more varieties of illusion. She’s too cursed good at them.”

“Better than you?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied frankly as we were ushered into the keep. “There are ways to trip her up, but my mind was on other things and she jumped me like I was a novice.”

We went through one set of doors, then another. Tunstall and Farmer were taken into a chamber on the left by Elyot, ten guards, and a couple of other coves who wore mage-like robes. Lady Nomalla, Dolsa, and two of the female guards went into a similar room on the right with Sabine and me. The room was stone with no hearth or braziers. Standing screens were placed along the rear wall, blurry metal mirrors hung here and there, and the room was furnished with a scattering of chairs and hassocks. It seemed to be a chamber where folk could wait and check their looks before they entered the presence of the lord of Halleburn. My cheeks burned at the impudence of this nobleman, no matter how old his bloodlines, holding court like the king.

“Everything on the floor,” Dolsa ordered, stripping off her gloves. “Packs, belts, weapons, boots, clothes, underthings. Take those spikes from your hair, Cooper, and you too if you have them, Sabine.”

“I am not disrobing before the likes of you, mage,” Sabine replied. “Nor these traitors.”

“Sabine, we have never fought one another,” Nomalla said, her eyes steady as she spoke. “And we will not here. I will have this mage and these guards drag you down and strip you. Or you can go behind that screen and disrobe with dignity. So may—Cooper, is it?—Cooper, here.”

Sabine stared at the lady knight, her brown eyes burning. At last she said, “I never would have imagined you as a traitor, Nomalla. Not here and not in any of the realms.”

“I am no traitor,” the other knight said calmly. Her cheeks were as crimson as mine felt. “Family comes before all, as does a child’s duty to her father. Strip here or use the screen, my lady.”

Sabine clenched her hands. Then she turned to me and nodded. We left our packs, boots, leather, and what armor remained to us there with them. She jerked her head toward the carved screens when we were down to our clothes. I found the linked wooden panels were set up to make small alcoves, giving us a little privacy. As I took off my garments and set them down, I heard the women pick apart the contents of our packs. Dolsa found every magicked thing we had, and made certain to tell Nomalla what it was and how pathetic she found it. I wanted so badly to kick her bum straight up between her ears.

Finally, as I stood there naked and a woman soldier inspected my garments, Nomalla sent Dolsa to inform Lord Halleburn that we were nearly ready for questioning. Then she dismissed the guards and told Sabine and me we could dress. I guessed that someone must have inspected Sabine’s clothes at the same time that a mot did mine.

When we came out from behind the screens, both of us red-faced and looking for a fight, only Nomalla remained in the room. Sabine strode up to her and slapped her across the face. Nomalla let her do it, to my shock.

“We are caught up in things that are bigger than we are,” she told Sabine. “Fate turns. We ride with her or are left behind.”

“And what of honor?” demanded Sabine hotly, keeping her voice low. “What of the vows made to king and country? You are a
lady knight
, not some back alley Corus strumpet!” She glanced at me. “Apologies, Beka.” She knew lots of my friends went by those names.

I shrugged. “I’ve seen plenty of great house strumpets,” I replied.

“I am my father’s daughter and a knight of generations of Halleburn knights,” Nomalla replied steadily. “If your family took more of an interest in the realm’s politics instead of raising horses, my lady of Macayhill, you would know what I mean.”

“If this is what that interest means, I’d as soon be an honest horse breeder,” Sabine told her.

The door opened and a man said from outside, “He bids you bring the prisoners, my lady.”

Nomalla beckoned for us to leave the room. “I wish you hadn’t crossed my father’s path, Sabine. I really wish you hadn’t.”

Following behind her, I told Sabine, “To me, that noble honor is a wonderful thing. I see folk put it on and take it off all the time, and no one ever notices how wrinkled it gets.”

Nomalla clenched her hands into fists. Sabine only smiled down at me. “It might seem so to you, Beka.” Her mouth curled down bitterly. “In your boots, it would to me as well. But for some of us, it is a garment that is the same as our own skin, impossible to take off and live.”

We joined the men as they stood before a fresh pair of closed doors. Tunstall was down to his uniform like me, no belt, no boots. Apparently the folk that had searched us knew of our habit of wearing buckle knives, using the leather of our belts as stranglers’ nooses, and of tucking knives or spikes in our boots. The castle flagstones were cold under our feet. Sabine and Farmer were in the same case as we were, bootless and beltless. It was enough to make me think these Halleburn folk didn’t trust us.

Elyot was gone, as was Dolsa. Guards in Halleburn tunics of hideous orange and pink thrust the door open and Nomalla led us into the great hall beyond. We had a way to go. They had left a nice, large space for us to cross before we reached a stopping spot in front of an overblown dais. There, in the seat of honor, sat Prince Baird. I supposed he had overcome his qualms about betraying his family. On his right sat an older man of sixty-two with Nomalla’s long nose. Unlike her, he had bright blue eyes, deep-set, a mouth with lips so thin they seemed well-nigh invisible, and well-groomed white hair around the sides and back of his bald pate. Unlike His Highness, who fidgeted uneasily in the higher chair, Thanen of Halleburn sat upright and comfortable. Nothing seemed to miss his gaze, unless it was the black cat that had chosen to sit in the shadows between his chair and that of the prince.

My companions tensed around me. Then they forced themselves to relax, just as I did. They had to be asking themselves, as I did, what Pounce could be allowed to do to help us. They would remember that Pounce had said the gods had done nothing when he intervened before because Achoo was an animal, not a human being. My companions might even know, as I did, that minor gods and immortal creatures like dragons had been brought low before by mages, and gods had been hurt by them.