Mastiff: The Legend of Beka Cooper #3, page 28
“Though technically scent hounds, at least this one, are not hounds of degree,” the countess said coolly, “since the ones who work with the Provost are chosen on the basis of aptitude. They do not come from a recognized breeder of hounds for the hunt.”
If her rump were any stiffer, she’d break it every time she rides, I thought to Pounce.
If she fell on the steps, they would never be able to put her together again, he replied.
Fortunately, I have long practice at keeping my face calm when Pounce makes me laugh inside.
Countess Aeldra raised her voice. “Lady Baylisa, have proper clothes been produced for this person?”
Lady Baylisa nodded to a slave who’d tucked herself behind a cluster of noblewomen. She came forward with three tunics laid over her arms. Two were pink and one was pale yellow. I could see the stitching where one side seam had been repaired. They wouldn’t be giving their best to help me to pass muster in the great hall.
“Hold that first gown against you,” the countess ordered me. I took a breath. I had been thinking this over since the men had told me that I would be required to wear a dress for supper. I knew curst well they would ask no such thing of Tunstall. This was more of the Gentle Mother business, stripping fighting women of the symbols of their battles.
“Begging my lady’s pardon,” I said, looking at the ground in order to appear as meek as I could, “but I must wear my uniform at all times.”
The room went dead quiet. Even the little dogs seemed to know sommat was up.
“You will do no such thing,” the countess replied.
“Forgive me, Your Ladyship, but I must,” I repeated. “I am not here on my own. I am on a Hunt. In that respect I am here as a Provost’s Guard, which means I am on duty. I cannot go without my uniform.” I glanced at Lady Sabine, who gave me the tiniest of nods. “I have cleaner uniforms, wherever my bags ended up.”
“Ridiculous!” the countess said. “There is no need for your … work here! You are our guest, and as our guest, you will abide by the rules of this house!” When I glanced up, she had turned to my lady. “Lady Sabine, you are in charge of your party. Tell her to obey me at once!”
My lady started to scratch her head and stopped, remembering that was a rude, common gesture, I think. She had gotten it from Tunstall. “In fact, Countess Aeldra, I am not in charge,” she said. “I am employed in the service of the Lord Provost. It is Senior Corporal Matthias Tunstall who is in command of our group. You will easily recognize him at supper. He will be wearing the same uniform as Guardswoman Cooper.”
The countess pressed her hands together palm to palm and touched her fingertips under her chin. I was not sure if she was trying to pray or if she was calling on the household gods by imitating the coat of arms of Queensgrace. “It is a meal, with Prince Baird, the Baron of Aspen Vale, and his brother, who is a powerful mage, as our guests. You cannot possibly have reason to wear your uniform then or at any other time while you are in women’s quarters!” She was beginning to sport a bit of a flush on her cheekbones.
I glanced at Sabine. It seemed Master Niccols had not told his countess why we were here. My lady gave me a little nod to say she was ready to help me.
“My lady countess, I have every reason to wear my uniform here,” I told her quietly. “We search for a noble’s kidnapped child. My hound found the child’s scent in this very room when we entered it. We are working in this castle.”
The countess gripped my right wrist. I found a bruise there later. “I will have no more of your nonsense,” she began.
Sabine rested her own hand on the countess’s shoulder. “Cousin, release Cooper immediately. She tells the truth. I informed your steward when we arrived why we were here.”
“He said nothing about evidence. I would have known of a kidnapped child,” the lady began.
“He is disguised as a slave,” I informed her. “He has been working here with other slaves. Would you have seen him, my lady?”
We heard a soft growl from below and looked down. Achoo had come over. She looked at Countess Aeldra, her lips peeled back just enough to show her front teeth. I could have told my hound to stop, but I wasn’t minded to just then.
“My sitting room, right now,” the countess said. “Baylisa, ask my lord if he will grant me the honor of his company as soon as may be!” She released me and led us to the back of the room, where a door stood open.
As Achoo, Pounce, Sabine, and I followed, I murmured to my lady, “So much for Gentle Mothers.”
Sabine shook her head. “I fear Aeldra needs to work harder on her peace of heart,” she replied just as quietly.
If she tries to handle Beka so roughly again, I will help myself to a piece of her skin, Pounce said.
Once we were inside the room, I closed the door behind us. It was more an office than a sitting room, though a crescent of chairs and chests with cushioned tops was placed near parchment windows. Three more chairs were set before the desk. The countess sat behind it and gestured for Sabine to have a seat, but she offered me no such courtesy. She glared at Achoo and Pounce. “These animals belong out of doors.”
“They remain as long as Guardswoman Cooper and I do, Cousin,” replied Sabine. “They are both important parts of our investigation.”
“A cat!” the countess said. There could not have been more scorn in her voice if she had been drinking it. “Are there Provost’s Guard cats now?”
Sabine leaned forward, her face white and intent. “We need not explain ourselves here.” She reached into her sleeve and drew out a folded paper with a seal on it. “We are under the Provost’s orders. You will note he has used the seal of the Great Charter, which all noble houses are required to obey.” She placed the paper on the desk.
The countess opened it with her fingertips, as if she thought something in the orders might soil her skin. For a long moment she glared at the writing before she lifted the document to the light of the candles, turning it this way and that to examine it. Then she took a pinch of powder from a dish on the desk and sprinkled it on the seal. There was a flash of light and the scent of burning rope.
“Cousin, you teeter on the edge of insulting me,” Lady Sabine told her. She was straight as a baton on her chair. “Were I not a patient woman, you would have fallen over that edge just now. Those documents are not forgeries. By my blood and by my birth, my word as a knight of this realm should be good enough!”
Sommat in her eyes must have shaken the countess. The mot placed Lady Sabine’s paper on the desk and tried to smile. “I meant no disrespect to any oaths you have sworn, my dear. But this is an accusation of great weight, come from one common born.” Her gaze was frosty as she looked at me.
I burned, but I kept my gob shut.
“It is no accusation, Cousin,” my lady said, her voice and face still furious. “It is a fact. Someone brought that child into this house, into your ladies’ very solar.” She turned to me. “Where else, Guardswoman Cooper?”
Sabine I would gladly answer. “The great hall, the woodpiles that serve the hearth in the great hall and the kitchen, the henhouse, the kitchen, the hall where the noble guests are staying, the woodpile which serves that hall, and the ladies’ solar.” I glanced at the countess, who had folded her hands in her lap. “Achoo and I have not yet finished. We have not yet found where he is now.” I would give Linnet’s information, that a cart and several slaves, including Prince Gareth, had left the castle a day ago, to Sabine later.
“We do not harbor criminals!” the countess snapped.
She was not clever, saying things that were complete nonsense. “Most barrel trappers don’t walk the day with their coat of arms flying on a stick, my lady,” I said. “Plenty of them don’t even look that common.”
“Cooper,” Sabine murmured as the countess turned purple. “Apologize for being so forward.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, not trying very hard to sound that way. I even gave it a bit of a wait before I added, “My lady.”
Sabine half turned her head to look at me. I saw the corner of her mouth twitch in part of a smile before she looked at the countess again. “A barrel trapper is a kidnapper,” she explained. “A legendary kidnapper is said to have kept his captives in barrels until they were ransomed.”
The countess glared at me yet again. “Do you see what happens, Cousin?” she asked, her voice crisp. “They grub after these evil creatures so long they begin to look and sound like them.”
Someone rapped on the door and opened it. I expected the count, and so did the countess and Sabine. We got Tunstall and Farmer instead. It was as they were bowing and introducing themselves, Farmer showing the countess yet another copy of our orders, that the count arrived and with him Prince Baird.
Then came us kneeling, and being given permission to stand. The prince stepped on Achoo’s foot, making her yelp. He tried to apologize to her, offering her a strip of dried meat, but she hid behind me.
The prince looked at me with appeal in his eye. “Are you her handler, guardswoman?” he asked. “Please allow me to make it up with her! I would no more harm her than I would one of my own good hounds.”
I dared not say no to the king’s brother. “Makan, Achoo,” I told her quietly. “Pengantar.” With permission, she ventured out from behind me and accepted the prince’s treat, doubtless one of those he kept for his own hounds.
“Did you call her Achoo?” he asked merrily as he ruffled her ears.
Yet again did I explain how she got the scent. I could see the king in Prince Baird’s neatly arched brows, brown eyes, slender nose, and long mouth, but the prince was heavier in the jowls. He wore a short-clipped beard and combed his hair back into a gleaming horsetail. Plenty of hours in the sun had put gold streaks in that brown hair. He was more muscular than the king, too, which was to be expected. When the prince wasn’t fighting with our armies, he was hunting bandits or deer. His voice crackled as did those of folk who’d spent much time shouting.
Once he’d given Achoo a last treat, he accepted a glass of the wine the count had poured out for the nobles. Then he took a seat arranged in the half circle. When he beckoned, the count and countess sat on either side of him. Tunstall and I stood at review rest, hands clasped behind our backs, legs planted a foot apart. Farmer stood easily, his hands in the pockets of his breeches. That bought him a raised eyebrow from the prince, but no more. Provost’s mages were not exactly expected to conduct themselves in the same way as the rest of us. They were often considered cracked by outsiders and most Dogs.
“Your Highness, my lord, pray allow me to introduce the members of our company,” Lady Sabine said. When permission was given, she named each of us and we bowed. Farmer took his hands from his pockets for that, at least. Lady Sabine was very exact in telling these nobles that Tunstall was in command. When she finished, the count beckoned for her to sit by the countess. Only when Tunstall nodded his approval did Sabine take the chair.
Tunstall produced our orders. “Your Highness? My lord? If I may?”
The count extended his hand and Tunstall gave the papers to him. Normally we’d have shown our papers to the prince, since he was highest in rank, but as the lord of the castle and fief, the count had precedence. I only know scummer like this because I had to learn it for other Hunts. Nobles are a pain in the bum.
The count read the orders over, then passed them to Prince Baird. He read them, then looked at the count with raised brows as he gave the orders back to Tunstall. The count glared at us. “Do you claim one of us is the subject of your inquiries, Corporal?”
“Is our quarry here now, my lord?” Tunstall asked, his face all innocence.
“You dare!” bellowed the count.
Tunstall shrugged. “If he has not been here, and you were unaware of the plot to kidnap him, then our business is not with you.”
“Actually, he was,” I said. “Achoo tracked his scent all over the castle. I’ve heard that he may be a part of a group of slaves that left here a day or two ago.”
“By Mithros!” The count lunged to his feet. “You searched my home without so much as a by-your-leave? I’ll have you whipped for that!”
Tunstall leaned forward, the orders still in his hand, pointing to the seal and the signature of the Lord Provost. Only the Lord High Magistrate could interfere with Dogs on a Hunt under those orders. Still, I wasn’t betting my skin on the count’s willingness to obey the law. I knelt by Achoo and hugged her. As always when I hugged too tight, Achoo fought my grip.
“Forgive me, Your Lordship, sir, but you don’t know what these hounds are like, once they’ve got the scent in their sniffers!” I explained, being as Lower City as I could. “I took her to do her business because the carpets and the wood was so nice, and off she went, with me yellin’ the proper commands and all, but she was on the track. She knew just where she was goin’, did the little circle every time he musta stopped, and every time I tried to grab her she was off again. Not that I’m the bravest about catchin’ her, savin’ your presence, my lord count, not after that time I tried to grab her when she was excited and she bit me so hard!” I showed him the great double-crescent scar on the back of my hand where Rush the Snapper bit me, the time I caught him with a purse full of coles. “So mayhap I’m not the quickest to hold her, and I could only follow as she led, pleading Your Lordship’s understanding. It weren’t me, I swear, it were the hound.”
“It’d be that.” Farmer nodded as he scratched his head. “She seems sweet enough right now, the hound, but when she gets excited, she goes mad.”
“Not mad,” Tunstall said with a glare at Farmer. “She is hard to restrain.” He bowed to the prince and the count. “Her … circumstances … are such that she only responds, when she does, to Cooper. She is a fine scent hound, my lords, my lady.”
“I have told you time and again that the hound is a menace,” Lady Sabine said at her noblest. “It is poor handling that has ruined whatever training the creature was given.”
Snarl, I heard Pounce say in my mind. Achoo began a volley of barks and snarls that made her sound like the vicious animal we had named her. I calmed her down, seemingly, and we waited for the count to rule for me to be whipped or no.
“How is it, then, that she did not savage anyone in the solar?” the countess asked. I wanted to kick the old croaking corbie. “Lady Lewyth called her the friendliest thing.”
“Oh, that,” I said, half bowing since I knelt on the floor. “It’s the little animals, my lady. They calm her right down. Amazing, it is. That’s why we travel with my cat. Pounce keeps her steady. Seeing all them pretty little dogs and cats, she gentled enough that I could get a grip on her.” I looked anxiously at the count. “Please, Your Highness, I can’t help it that the finest scent hound in the Lower City is a little touchy. She’d’ve been dog meat if they hadn’t saw she’d work with me.”
“No, girl, curse it, the prince is ‘Your Highness.’ I am properly addressed as ‘my lord,’ ” the count fussed, with one look at the prince to make sure he didn’t take offense at my seeming misstep. “Obviously proper manners is not a thing taught in what training you people receive.”
The prince waved it away. “I am sure I can grant slack to those who enforce the law, Dewin,” he said.
Over our heads a great bell began to chime. The countess half rose, as if it summoned her, then took her seat again, but she was suddenly restless.
“My lady, is there a problem?” Lady Sabine asked.
“Oh, no, not precisely,” Lady Aeldra replied. “Only that is the half-hour bell for the closing of the gates. Supper is in an hour. There are things to be seen to, and we have yet to sort out a sleeping place for you and your …” She took a breath, plainly searching for a word.
“Colleagues,” Lady Sabine told her.
“People,” the count said flatly. “My dear, this can be handled after supper. Sabine, you and the wench must dress. It is the rule of my house.”
I felt sick to my gut, but I stood and faced the old canker blossom. “Your Highness, my lord, my lady, I may not,” I told them, trying not to sound rude. I knew I was courting that whipping the count had spoken of. “I am a Provost’s Guard on a Hunt. I eat, I sleep, I do all manner of things, but until I bring down my prey, I am on duty. I wear my uniform.”
By the time I was done speaking, Tunstall had moved to stand beside me. Sabine was on her feet at my right, and Farmer was at my back. Achoo sat before me, quiet, acting not at all like the half-broken creature I had painted her.
The other nobles looked at us without a word. It was hard to read their faces. I think it’s something they’re taught when they’re young. Finally the count said, “Enough. We have guests we neglect, and no one is going anywhere tonight. If your kidnapped boy is here we shall find him tomorrow as easily as today. I will give orders to the guard to let no one with a lad or lass of that age leave without my permission. In the morning we shall investigate at a proper count’s court, not this rude sniffing at corners.”
“My lord, it’s the slave dealers—” Tunstall began.
“Tomorrow,” Count Dewin said angrily. “My patience has been tried to its limit. Your woman is permitted to wear her uniform at supper, but she is to stay away from our gentle young ladies, lest her violence corrupt them. Lady Sabine, I hope you will respect our beliefs and let no taint of the dark world you live in shadow their protected lives. My lady will provide for your sleeping arrangements and for those of the … hound.” He looked at Tunstall and Farmer.
Tunstall bowed. “The prince’s men-at-arms have invited us to camp with them.”
The count grunted. He and the prince left as we bowed. They left the door open so we could see Lady Baylisa and Lady Lewyth were outside, looking anxious. Lewyth held some tunics on one arm.
“She will remain in uniform for supper,” the countess snapped. She looked at me. “Have you a clean one, at least?”
“In my packs, my lady, but I—” I began.
