Beka Cooper: The Hunt Records, page 107
“What’s happening to the realm?” he asked softly, though he didn’t seem to expect an answer. After a moment he looked at us. “Farmer has orders for you from Gershom.” He sorted through his papers one-handed until he produced a sealed document. He gave it to Tunstall, who opened it and began to read. Sir Tullus continued to speak. “He wants you, Beka, and Master Farmer to wait here while Tunstall goes on to Corus. Tunstall will carry a letter for one of your friends in which you will tell her what to pack for a long Hunt.” I nodded. We’d done this before. Tullus went on, “Tunstall will go on to Corus with your requirements and orders for Sabine of Macayhill to join you. Gershom wants you here because if word comes of the reappearance of those who attacked the palace, he wants you able to pursue instantly, by peregrine ship if need be. Lady Sabine will be useful in the event—in the probability, particularly considering Lazamon’s statement—that you have to deal with the nobility.”
Tunstall handed me the letter, grinning broadly. Of course he would be happy if Lady Sabine was to be with us.
My lord Gershom also wrote that he’d sent messages to the cities and towns on the great rivers that flowed east of the Summer Palace. The Deputy Provost in each was to report any party that included children or slaves under the age of ten to Lord Gershom by magic or fast courier, even pigeons if they had birds for the Summer Palace. We were to go where such parties were reported and Hunt them down. Sir Tullus was to go to Corus to gather other Hunters.
Sir Tullus cleared a place on his desk and set out a sheet of parchment, a reed, and a bottle of ink. “Write your friend,” he ordered me. “I want Tunstall in Corus before dark.”
I wrote to Kora and Aniki. I needed the cuirass that had been too big to pack last time, my weighted gauntlets and baton, and my personal kit of medicines. I had enough uniforms and stockings now for a long Hunt, thanks to Sergeant Axman, but I added three more breast bands and loincloths each to my list.
Master Farmer returned as Sir Tullus was sealing our letters. “I got word to Gershom.” He poured himself ale from the pitcher and settled into his chair once more. “Beka can guess what he said first.”
I had to laugh at that. I knew well the kind of words my lord would use to greet bleak news like this.
“He says he’ll alert Their Majesties, though he feels telling their mages at this point is a bad idea,” Master Farmer continued.
“Does he think their personal mages might be in the plot?” Sir Tullus asked. “Or would Lazamon distrust them, since they give their service to the Crown directly?”
I’d thought of that, and if I’d thought of it, I knew Tunstall had. Master Farmer grimaced. “Gershom understands the problem. He has approved a plan of mine, which I’ve put in motion. I called to my master.”
“Bringing in a stranger?” Sir Tullus asked with a frown. “What if this master is part of the plot?”
Master Farmer picked up what looked to be a tansy cake and rolled it up. He smiled. “Mistress Catfoot is a recluse. She teaches only rarely, and she chooses her own students. I do not believe a conspiracy conducted at the palace level has touched her.”
“Recluse?” Tunstall asked. “Is she any good?”
“She is very good,” Master Farmer replied. “The imperial university rates her as a black robe, one of twelve now living.” He looked at Sir Tullus. “She cares nothing for money or status. She would never take part in a plot that has led to so much danger for the realm.”
“If she cares nothing for money or status, why would she help Their Majesties?” Sir Tullus inquired.
“She loves children,” Master Farmer said with a shrug. “And she likes me. She says I’m not hopeless, at least. She wouldn’t have come if His Majesty were one of those warlike kings, or if civil war were not a possible outcome of all of this.” He stuck the tansy cake in his mouth and chewed vigorously. When he caught me staring, he pointed at his stomach and said, his mouth full, “ ’Ongry.” Once his mouth was empty, he said, “She can protect Their Majesties, as well as they can be protected against such a spell. Better, she can do it without Ironwood and Clavynger being aware she does it.”
“She can’t ward them completely?” Sir Tullus asked, frowning. My belly clenched.
Master Farmer looked at him and at us with something like pity. He could tell we didn’t want to hear that. “The boy is their blood and bone,” he said gently. “Down to the finest vein and last bit of marrow, in every hair and pore, he is both of them. There are countless doors into their bodies through that little one. No mage can block such a spell completely. Lazamon was very skilled.”
“We’re swived,” Tunstall said gloomily.
“No, we’re not,” I said fiercely. If I let Tunstall get into one of his bleak moods, it would take a dreadful great amount of spirits and a dreadful big, furniture-breaking, wall-smashing fight to cheer him up. “Lord Gershom will get word, and we’ll put Achoo on the prince’s trail, and we’ll find the lad and them that took him. We’ll take a lunch to their execution and give Achoo a whole roast for the work she’s done, my word on it.”
Pounce leaped into Tunstall’s lap and slipped a little. From the scream Tunstall let out, I knew Pounce had used his claws to hang on. That’s better, Pounce said so only Tunstall and I could hear. No sulks. I cannot see what lies ahead very far, but you will get your Hunt. Satisfied?
Tunstall sat up immediately. “If you speak so, hestaka, then I am content.” To Sir Tullus and Master Farmer he explained, “We get our Hunt.”
Sir Tullus grinned. “I don’t suppose you will say where to look?” Pounce washed a paw, and the nobleman sighed. “No, you never do,” he remarked. “Very well. Tunstall, you go to Corus, now. The ship’s being held for you. Hurry back as soon as you can with Lady Sabine and all she will need. They will hold a fast ship at the docks for your return.”
Tullus handed the letters to Tunstall. My partner got to his feet and bowed to the Deputy Provost. He looked at me and hesitated, as if he wanted to say something more, then shook his head and left.
Sir Tullus waited for the door to close behind him before he looked at Master Farmer and me. “Cooper, see Master Farmer to your lodgings. His room should be ready by now—I sent a messenger to tell them. Master Farmer, do you need to send word for additional gear of your own?”
Master Farmer stood, grabbing another couple of tansy cakes. “I thank you, no. My lodging is in Blue Harbor, so I had the opportunity to pack more than did Tunstall and Cooper.”
“I know Cooper, but I don’t know you, Master Farmer,” Sir Tullus said, his black eyes serious. “You mages learn to keep secrets, it’s true, but this is a very big one. Don’t get drunk. Don’t fall in love with one of the women of the town and babble. In fact, you should go to bed nice and early. Virtue is a splendid thing.”
Master Farmer saluted Sir Tullus and gave him that idiot’s grin that tasked Tunstall so. I bowed and towed him out of Tullus’s presence before he said aught to annoy the peppery knight.
While Tunstall and I had walked up from the docks the day before, Master Farmer had been granted the courtesy of a wagon. He, Pounce, Achoo, and I climbed in for the ride to Serenity’s. It was quiet, with only Achoo’s challenges, or greetings, I’ve never learned which they were, to other dogs along the way.
Master Farmer stretched out in the bed of the wagon and finished his cakes. “Is there a place where we can get a good meal tonight?” he asked. “I haven’t been here without being too busy to try the eating houses.”
I frowned at him. “Do you ever think of anything but eating?” I asked, feeling cranky.
“I can stop,” he replied, and gave me that silly grin—upside down, because I sat beside the carter. “After I’ve eaten.” He waved at his long body. “Look how much of me there is to feed. My poor old ma had to sell two of my brothers to manage it.”
“She never,” I told him.
“Oh, right. I didn’t have brothers. But she would have, I was that big of an eater,” Master Farmer assured me.
“Cracknob,” I muttered, turning to face forward again. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the carter grinning.
Quiet was what I needed when we got to Serenity’s. After I introduced Master Farmer to her, I told him I needed to work on my own records and to sleep for a time. He agreed that a rest would do both of us good. Looking at him one last time before Serenity took him upstairs, I realized he was tired. How much magic had he done since I saw him last?
I stepped into the kitchen and released Pounce and Achoo into the rear yard to laze, then went upstairs. I had found a book of maps in Serenity’s sitting room and wanted to study it. That kept me occupied until I took Achoo for a short run. Then we returned for a nap.
I woke when someone rapped on the door. “Who is it?” I called, rubbing my eyes.
“Farmer,” he replied. “We have a supper invitation. They say they’re friends of yours.”
I got up and opened the door. Master Farmer looked better rested than he had earlier. He smiled at me and handed over a slate with writing on it. Reading it, I had to smile. “I know Nestor and Okha from other times I’ve been here,” I explained. “And supper at the Landlubber’s Rest will suit us both.” Then I remembered Tunstall’s dislike of seafood. “Unless you don’t like seafood?”
“I love it,” Master Farmer replied.
“Then we’ll—oh, pox.” I looked up at him. “I didn’t bring … dresses. I’m on a Hunt, I didn’t think I’d need them.”
He’d been standing with a length of blue wool in a deep blue color over his arm. He offered it to me. “Serenity sent it, with a shift. She says she keeps such things for women Dogs stuck in the same situation.” Under the dress were a few sheets of paper. “And my findings from the folk who died on the ships. Tullus forgot to show them to you and Tunstall.”
With the dress and shift over my shoulder, I looked the documents over. “You get anything from the coins?” I was careful not to mention any particulars about where the coins had been or what he looked for. Safe enough to house Dogs who visited Port Caynn Serenity may be, but no one must have any suspicion of what we were doing there, all the same.
He shook his head. “Between the sea and the magic, very little information was left. Most of the holders were mercenaries. Some were slave traders. None of them expected what happened to them.”
“But nothing from the amulets?” I asked, surprised he could learn from one and naught from the other.
Master Farmer shook his head. “Not the amulets. Not any of them. The few times I tried were—bad. My teacher, Cassine Catfoot—she says it’s because I’m so irreverent. I think I’m just not that good with magic that touches gods.”
I saw names he had gathered from the personal items, a few combs, eating sticks, knives. I placed the names in my memory palace, the one I had created in my mind for this Hunt, and went on to read his notes about magic. If there were to be more mages to face, I needed to know all I could about them.
Master Farmer made note of the power he and the royal mages had placed upon the ships. That was to keep the dead from rotting before they could be looked at. The way he wrote it, such spells were like a skin that could be peeled off the body. Then he described the spells and magics that had made the crime possible. All the usual ship magics Master Farmer had thought to see—spells against dry rot and barnacles, charms for fair winds—were missing, as if the power to sink the ship and them on it had scoured those things away. The magic that had forced the ship’s deadwood to grow, he noted, was a muddy color that came about when more than two magics were combined. They blended until it was very hard to separate them. Master Farmer meant to leave that for Their Majesties’ mages and his teacher Cassine.
When I finished I returned the notes to Master Farmer. “Give me a few moments to clean up for supper,” I told him. Pounce and Achoo slipped past me into the hall. “And don’t you think you’re going with us!” I told them.
Absolutely not, Pounce replied. Cook has promised fish for me and chopped meat for Achoo. And you know I cannot abide those loud, busy places you visit with Nestor and Okha. Give them my regards.
“They know he talks?” Master Farmer asked as I began to close the door to my room.
“He’s not shy about telling folk,” I said. “But he does hate eating houses and gambling places.” With a nod, I closed the door.
I had only boots to wear, as so often is the case when I visit Port Caynn. I did have my Sirajit opal necklace with me, which was a bit of pretty. I stared into it for a moment, looking at its many fires, and allowing myself to relax. Then I left the room and joined Master Farmer downstairs.
Outside Serenity’s gate, we turned right on Coates Lane. I watched a string of dark blue fire flow out of Farmer’s chest and vanish. “What did you just do?” I asked Master Farmer. “Won’t other mages know what you’re about?”
“My Gift is now spread too thin for anyone who isn’t looking to notice,” he explained. “I don’t need much to keep people from eavesdropping on us. I weave my power in with all the unused bits of charms and spells around us, and any mages that try to listen hear only street chatter. At the same time I take in all the unused scraps and keep them for myself.”
I stared at him. “Scraps? Scraps of the Gift?”
Master Farmer smiled. “Any settled place is covered with bits of magic from old spells.” He swept his arm before us as if he revealed the street, and he did, in a way. Patches of multicolored light, layered over the cobbles, buildings, carts, animals, and even the people themselves, gleamed like opals, then faded. “They’re a fish-swiving beast to clean up, but if you know how to work with the stuff, there’s plenty you can do with it.”
“Useful,” I said, impressed. “Clever. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Master Farmer shrugged. “I worked it out when I studied with Cassine. Not many people realize how easy it is to collect other mages’ Gifts and the scraps of power that no one ever cleans up. And this way I save most of my own Gift for other things. So tell me about you and Tunstall. How did you become partners?”
As we walked through the city I explained how Goodwin and Tunstall had me to train for my Puppy year and about Goodwin’s decision to leave off being my partner to take up desk duty as our sergeant. Then I set out to learn how he’d become a mage.
“Ma was an embroiderer,” he said after I’d teased him enough about it. “With two girls before me and two more after me. Pa was a riverman, gone for long times, so she sewed for rich folk that could afford really good work. They had the idea that Ma’s designs had a little more to them than the plain embroiderers’ work did. Not enough that she could charge mage prices, but enough that we had meat twice a week. Is that gem you wear an opal?”
“Sirajit. There’s all kinds …” I stopped my tongue, seeing the grin he gave me. “But you’d know that, being a mage.” I took it off and let him look at the stone by torchlight. He examined it as I would, angling so he found the fires that were tucked away in different parts of the stone. “I thought you were a farmer, or you let them think you were a farmer,” I said.
He gave me the chain to put on once again and we continued our walk. “Well, eventually Ma purchased a farm and I worked there sometimes. But you don’t learn magic that way. One day a new customer arrived to the shop. She brought her mage uncle along. I was eleven or so, not long after I’d taught myself some control over light, and I was watching my younger sisters. They were bored at their sewing, so I switched their threads for colored streaks of light. They’d sew like that for an hour at least before they got bored again, and their sewing got better. Then I could do my own embroidery with them occupied. Master Looseknot caught me making the threads for my sisters.”
“What did your mama say about the streaks of light?” I asked him as we skirted a brawl in front of a drinking house.
He shrugged and suddenly I could see him as a lad, already growing big and clumsy with it, his power itching him like fleas. “I never let her catch me. She’d want me to get lessons. We couldn’t really afford them. And I was already in school all morning.”
“Lazy lad,” I said jokingly.
“Ah, you sound like my mother,” he replied, amused. “As if I didn’t chop and haul wood, and mind the cow and the geese and the chicken, and work in the garden, and carry ribbon and trim and thread upstairs and down! And embroider for the shop when I was good enough!”
“I can see you suffered,” I told him gravely. “With meat on the table only twice a week.” We only had meat once or twice a month, if that, when we lived on Mutt Piddle Lane.
“Exactly!” he said, knowing I joked. “At least, I thought I suffered. I didn’t know the meaning of the word. Master Looseknot, the customer’s uncle, caught me that day. He talked Ma into letting me come for afternoon lessons, free of charge. He knew I would repay him.”
“And you have,” I said.
Master Farmer nodded. “He said there was no more he could teach me after four years, and that last year he sent me to mages all around town to trade chores for lessons. I began to travel after that, learning from whoever would teach me. By then I’d earned enough working with weapons charms and grain molds and such that Ma could hire a lad to do my work, and dower my sisters.”
“And where did the farm come from?” I asked. I could see the Landlubber’s Rest up ahead.
“That was when I found thieves who’d stolen temple offerings. They rewarded me well and told Mistress Cassine about me. My reward purchased Ma’s farm.” He sighed. “Please tell me food is in the offing somewhere. Otherwise I’m going back to that butcher’s shop, the one with the whole roasted pig in the window. It was only half an illusion.”
I waved to Nestor and Okha, who stood before the Rest. Nestor grinned broadly, while Okha waved a painted fan. Since the evening was a little chilly, I was certain Okha had only brought the fan to make me envious. He always has the most interesting things.
