Mastiff (22 page)

“It will take them time to toughen him up,” Tunstall said. “His hands and feet will be soft, his skin white.”

“There are stains for his skin,” Lady Sabine replied with a grimace. “Walnut juice, properly applied, takes
months
to fade. I know.”

“Are they clever enough to avoid using magic on him?” Master Farmer wondered aloud. “That will be the first thing I look for. A child who’s magicked will stand out in any group.” He was digging in his shoulder pack.

“They’ve been evil clever so far,” Tunstall said. “I don’t see them getting cracknob pox so late in the game.”

“Does Gershom mention a ransom note, or a threat?” Lady Sabine asked. “Surely these people want something from Their Majesties. They must have sent their terms by now.”

Tunstall riffled through the rest of the papers. “Letter of credit—copies of our orders for each of us—no other notes, my dear.”

“Lazamon didn’t mention ransom,” I reminded them. “He wants Their Majesties to die. My lady, did you hear of my conversation with him?”

Lady Sabine nodded. “Tunstall has told me all of the information you have.” She began to do up her straps, but Master Farmer raised his hand.

“One more quick matter of business,” he said. He was holding something. “On your feet, please.” Tunstall and my lady stood. I joined them as Master Farmer gave us each a round piece of smooth obsidian secured at one edge with a silver clasp. I recognized them as the magic devices called Dog tags. Goodwin and I had used them in Port Caynn three years ago. These looked the same: one side plain, the other with a compass cross cut into its surface and painted white. An
S
was engraved at the end opposite the clasp, to indicate south.

“Each of us must take the stone in our right hands and pile our fists together,” Master Farmer instructed. He extended his own right hand turned up, the obsidian gleaming between his fingers. Lady Sabine laid her hand atop his, palm down. He did not correct her, so Tunstall set his right hand palm down atop the lady’s, and I completed the stack.

“Now,” Master Farmer said, “each of us must choose a color—bright, to stand against the stone.”

“Crimson,” said my lady.

“Green,” Tunstall announced.

“White,” I said, thinking of the greatest contrast to the obsidian.

“And bright blue for me,” Master Farmer said. “Close your eyes. Think of each of us, carefully, one after another, as we know each other, even if it’s just been for a short time. Be sure to consider all four of us, so the tag will show us together.”

I had done this imagining with Goodwin. Tunstall was quickest in my thoughts, my big old owl of a partner, who loved flowers, and went mad in a fight, throwing furniture to take down two and three Rats at a time.

Lady Sabine I’d seen too in fights, back to back with Tunstall, control to his fury, her brown eyes intent as she dealt out punishment. But she was elegant in private. Dressed for home, or for one of her family’s many obligations, she took my breath away. She had cool humor and a kind heart for the street children who waited for her behind Tunstall’s lodgings, feeding them leftovers from meals, letting them into the cellar on cold winter nights where they’d find blankets, a fire, and hot soup.

Master Farmer for me was all questions, grim attention, or folly. It was interesting that he kept his power hidden from his fellows. I wondered if he was like me, not wanting too much attention from those who were stupid, arrogant, or simply bad. He seemed very strong for someone who had not studied at the great schools. Master Farmer was so casual with the little magics. And he was quick with humor.

“There,” he said, and I opened my eyes. We all checked our tags. Each had four glowing dots at the center of the cross. I quickly unclasped the chain on which I wore my Dog’s insignia—leather only for one more year!—and threaded the tag onto it, then hung both around my neck. The others did the same, Lady Sabine with the chain upon which she wore amulets for Mithros and the Maiden as warriors, and Master Farmer with the chain on which he wore his lens.

Overhead we heard footsteps approach. As I fetched the bag with the bracelets charmed against seasickness from its hook, someone banged on the cabin door.

“Open up!” Iceblade shouted. “Open—” The door swung wide. He flailed and caught himself before he went face-first into the floor. Tunstall snorted. Lady Sabine, always well bred, turned away to hide a grin. I picked leather bracelets from the bag and gave them to my companions.

“That wasn’t funny!” Iceblade snapped, glaring at all of us equally. “Who’s working magic down here? We’re going to place
our
spells at half of the hour!”

Lady Sabine drew herself up like a queen. “Master Mage, have you a reason for interrupting us? Or do you interfere strictly to make a nuisance of yourself? We are engaged upon
serious
matters.”

Iceblade’s skin paled under its tan. He even seemed to shrink a little under my lady’s imperious stare. “I came to say
all
spellworkings must end. The horn marks the beginning of our speed
and
of the sleep spell!”

My lady raised her chin. “So you have informed us. You may go.”

Dismissed, he had no choice but to walk out in a hurry. He didn’t bother to close the door. Slowly, as if mocking his hasty exit, the door closed itself. The bolt slid into its socket, shining with blue fire. More such magic collected in the corners of the room and stayed there, glimmering. We all looked at our mage.

Master Farmer shrugged when I glanced at him. “I would hate it if any of the crew went through our packs while we slept,” he explained. When my lady and Tunstall raised their eyebrows at him, he added, “I’m not saying they would. I just don’t want to invite them to an occasion of bad behavior.”

“We all need to be more watchful than we’ve ever been before,” Tunstall said as I donned my bracelet. He buckled himself into his bunk. “Assume as of now that we cannot trust anyone but ourselves with our business.” He grinned at Lady Sabine as I got onto my bunk and did up my own straps. “What brought on your wrath with Master Iceblade, my lady?”

“He is the kind of bully who gets the serving girls in corners and roughs them up,” she replied as she buckled in. “I don’t want to be asleep with someone like that able to enter my room.” She smiled at Master Farmer. “Thank you very much, Master Cape.”

Without the straps, I would have jumped high enough to smack the ceiling of the cabin when that curst great horn bellowed loud enough to deafen us all. Achoo fought her bindings. Her shrieking bark told me that she was frightened half to death. “Achoo!” I shouted.
“Diamlah!”
I tried to undo my straps so I could go to her. “
Diam
—” The poxy horn blasted again. I dropped, half hanging out of the bunk.

I have Achoo
. I could not tell if Pounce’s voice was in my head or in the cabin, as my ears still rang. My hound settled, wriggling down into the fleece. Pounce lay against her shoulders, one forepaw around her neck, his chin on her head.

I pulled myself back into the bunk and hurried to do up the straps. It was near impossible—the sleep spells had begun. My hands felt little better than sausages, so clumsy they were. Then I saw dark blue fire. My head cleared. I finished the straps and looked at Master Farmer. “Though I don’t like being magicked, I’ll forgive you for it this once,” I said. “Thank you.”

He smiled drowsily at me and closed his eyes. A moment later, I did the same.

Arenaver and points east

When the sleep dropped from us, I pulled a back muscle fighting to escape the straps, the bunk, and the cabin to reach the ship’s rail to puke. If Master Farmer had not woken and raised his spell that kept the door locked and the bolt frozen, there’s no telling what sort of mess I might have made in there. Of a certainty my belly threw every meal I’d had in some days out into the Tellerun’s waters, and mayhap even my hopes for future meals. At last I could heave no more. By then my cabinmates were being sick in their turn over other parts of the rail.

“Here yez go.” It was the dark-haired ship’s lad, the one who’d said not a word before. He stood at my elbow, offering me a thick mug. I was almost afraid to touch it, in case my heaves might begin again, but the scent that came from it was one of gentle herbs, a tea that meant well by my poor tripes. One sip, and I felt my belly settle.

“I don’t understand,” I said once I’d drunk a bit more. “This didn’t happen the last time we took a peregrine ship. Those leather bands are supposed to keep this from happening!”

“Oh, they stop ye from pukin’ in yer sleep,” he told me. “Didja eat afore ye came aboard last time?”

“No,” I said, thinking that it would be a dreadful thing if Pounce and Achoo were vomiting in their fleece. “I came to that ship in the middle of the night.” I turned to go back, but here they came, Achoo dancing with pleasure at being outside.

I let us out
, Pounce said.
Since you were busy
.

“Well, that’s the explanation,” the lad said, plainly not hearing the cat. “Ye had a full belly, and ye was under the sleep and the ship at full speed for nigh twelve hours. Anyone pukes with that.”

I stared at him. “And the rich folk
like
to travel this way?” I asked.

He gave me a cheeky grin. “Ye think they go like ye done? Four hours under the sleep, and we wake ’em, let ’em walk the decks a bit, then back to the cabin they go. Four more hours, we put in, rouse ’em, rub they feet, bow and scrape, then back to sleep they go. And when they get where they’re goin’, they say how wearied they are.”

I finished the tea and returned the mug to him. “You’re a saucebox, laddybuck,” I told him.

He laughed and ran back down into the hold with the mug. He left me smiling. My brother Willes is much like him, so I have a soft spot for cheeky lads.

He returned with the other boy to offer the tea to my friends while I gave Pounce and Achoo a good petting. I judged my human companions were not ready for talk. The ship was being towed stern forward to dock by two smaller craft, now that it was too close to land for the mages to thrust it against the Tellerun’s current. I leaned against the rail, Pounce on my shoulder. My duties had never called me to Arenaver before. I looked at the city that rose on the point above the joining of the Tellerun and the Halseander Rivers.

Arenaver is not so big as even Blue Harbor, let alone Port Caynn or Corus. It’s a port for lumber and mining, so there were plenty of barges tied up at the docks on both sides of the point as we passed it on the right. The dying sunlight gilded them and the old gray stone walls of the city on the height. The docks lay outside the walls’ protection. The locals did not trust their trading partners to visit peacefully from the river, it seemed.

Great forests grew on either side of the rivers, rising on the slopes of tall hills. Despite the season, they kept the air cool and comfortable. The sun was already halfway below the horizon, and the voices of tiny frogs and big ones filled the air under the noise of the docks.

Hammering footsteps came up from below. Iceblade stepped onto the deck, his hair uncombed and his clothes rumpled. “Master Farmer!” he snapped. “Farmer Cape! You are going to tell me how in Mithros’s name you managed to put a blocking spell like that on your cabin—a spell none of us could budge!”

I watched him approach Master Farmer, who was finishing off his tea. Did all the mages who worked these ships concern themselves with what took place in their passengers’ cabins? Might they be Ferrets, or might there be Ferrets among the crew?

Iceblade seized Master Farmer by the shoulder. “Answer me, clodhopper! How did you do it, a dolt like you?”

Pounce leaped down from my shoulder and trotted over to Iceblade. Now what? I wondered, but I said naught.

As slow as a tortoise in autumn, Master Farmer looked at the hand on his shoulder, then along Iceblade’s arm, and up to his face. At last he gave Iceblade a large, silly grin. “I practiced,” he said.

“Practiced?” the mage snapped, his face crimson. “You could no more do work like that with
practice—
”

Pounce rose on his hindquarters, forepaws up. Gently he laid them on Iceblade’s thigh and began to knead, digging his claws into the mage’s silk robe. Iceblade yelled and spun, striking out at Pounce. The cat leaped straight up and hooked himself into Iceblade’s chest with all four paws. When Iceblade seized him and yanked him away, Pounce left four holes in the gold embroidery there.

“I’ll
strangle
you,” Iceblade threatened the cat. That was when Pounce vanished clean out of the mage’s grip.

Master Farmer made it back into the passengers’ cabin, but the whole ship heard his bellows of laughter. Lady Sabine, who’d been cleaning her face with a cloth fetched for her by the redheaded ship’s lad, used it to hide her grin. Tunstall didn’t bother to conceal his. Iceblade glared at everyone, even the laughing sailors and his amused fellow mages, and returned to wherever he’d stayed below.

“The count’s castle is north of his walled city, where the peninsula narrows.” Master Farmer had left the cabin again. He pointed over my shoulder, past the walls. “Count
and
governor of the district. He’s fair, but strict. His lady’s one of those iron-spined sorts. The heir’s a nasty bit of work. When he inherits, I mean to stay out of the area.”

I glanced up at him. He was ready to go, his packs hanging from his arms. From the way they drooped, they were heavy, but he gave no sign that their weight distressed him. “You seem to know him well.”

“I got some work here when I was studying with twin mages in the city,” he explained. “I worked for the count and his lady for two months.” Master Farmer shook his head. “Rabbits in the gardens, mold in the grain, damp in the linens. Small things that make people irritable in winter or during a siege. I got it sorted out—I have a knack for house and garden magic. My lady made sure I had warm clothes and boots that fit, for a while.” He smiled at me. “I was growing again.”