Mastiff (52 page)

“All well?” Tunstall asked. “Burns?”

“Little ones,” I croaked. Of course I began to cough. This one was bad enough that I bent over, bracing myself on my knees to make it easier on my chest.

A big hand settled under my chin and pressed up. As I rose, Farmer put a slender bottle to my lips. At my next gasp he let a trickle of liquid into my mouth. I held my breath so I would not choke on it and swallowed. It tasted like the weariest wine ever pressed from a grape. Even the way it rolled down my throat felt tired. I coughed, then stopped.

“A small sip,” Farmer said, putting the bottle to my lips again.

I obeyed. I drank it and straightened all the way.

Had I wanted to bounce up and down, I would have picked a tree branch
, Pounce complained. Somehow he had remained on my back.
This is what happens when I spoil you by welcoming you—Uh-oh
.

He leaped away. I had no time to ask him what was wrong when the worst series of coughs struck me, scouring my chest like pieces of glass. A wad of stuff worked its way up my throat. Horrified, I hacked it onto the handkerchief that Farmer held in front of my mouth. I would have accused him of knowing this would happen, but another billow of coughs rammed up my throat, and another. Both carried more black phlegm out of my chest.

When I was finally granted the ease of standing still to catch my breath, Tunstall squeezed my shoulder. “Nasty, isn’t it?”

I looked at Farmer. He passed a water flask to me. I used it to rinse my mouth and spit yet more black into the grass. “Thank you,” I squeaked as I handed it back to him. I was thinking, Well, there’s the end of that. No cove’s going to look at a mot with dreams in his eyes when he’s seen her covered in mud and soot and hacking up black nasties. Then Farmer placed a warm hand on the back of my neck and gave it a gentle squeeze. He smiled, and I knew he still cared for me, snot and all.

“You need sleep,” Tunstall said. “All of us do.” He looked at Pounce and Achoo. “Would you take guard detail for the rest of the night? There isn’t much of it left.”

Pounce flipped his tail to and fro.
Why not? I can sleep as we ride in the morning. Achoo can sleep now. She will wake if she hears anything
.

Tunstall bowed to him. “Thank you,
hestaka.
”

We were walking toward the stable, our mounts’ reins in hand, when the chief hostler came out to meet us.

“A word, if I may?” he asked, looking us over.

Tunstall grumbled deep in his throat, but we all moved out of the way of remaining guests who were taking their horses inside. “I’ve found it’s never good news when countryfolk want to talk private after a disaster,” Tunstall told the hostler quietly. “I’ll remind you that my lady and I were near roasted ourselves, and we’ve all lost most of our belongings.”

“My brother, as runs this place, and I won’t ever forget it,” the chief hostler said. “Nor will we forget the lives you’ve saved and the healing your mage friend did. But there’s nearabout eighty folk as will be sore unhappy and wantin’ answers in the mornin’. We’ve sent to Babet for the Provost’s Guard and healers. It won’t take them much past dawn to get here. We’d like you four to be gone before that.”

“Before that!” protested Sabine. “On next to no sleep? Listen, fellow, we’ve done you a good job of work. We deserve better treatment than this.”

“Another time I’d give it, my lady,” the cove replied. “But they’ll find out you four was on a Hunt, and they’ll blame the fire on trouble you brung down on the inn. They’ll say ’twas
your
enemies that did this. We’ll have a bad enough time keepin’ them here till a proper questioner arrives. If they think ’twas all your fault, they’ll demand we let them go. They might even do more than demand. We don’t have enough of our own folk to hold ’em.”

“And doubtless it will be someone of your folk who lets them know we are here,” Tunstall pointed out. “Folk in general lose control of their tongues when they are frightened.”

“True enough,” the chief hostler said with a grim smile. “But you’re Provost’s Guards, aren’t you, and under Crown orders to boot. We’re a Crown wayhouse, with permanent orders to assist you on your task in any way. Do you want to be stuck here whilst your Dog brothers from Babet ask their questions? Write up what you want the local Provost’s Guards to know. Dawn comes early, this time o’ year.”

Sabine, Farmer, the chief hostler, and I settled the horses. Using Dog cipher, Tunstall set out our group’s description of what happened. He ended by telling the locals that if the investigators had a problem with our departure, they must take it up with Lord Gershom.

As Tunstall wrote, I asked the hostler, “Has anyone said yet if the fire happened natural, or if it was set?”

He snorted. “In all my days we’ve not had a fire that got more than two rooms,” he told me. “A’ course
I
think ’twas set. And I’ll be plumb sorry your lot stopped here if ’twas your enemies that set it.” I think we all cringed at that.

Once Tunstall had finished his note and sealed it, he had a turn at speaking with the chief hostler, taking him out into the stable aisle. Once we four were alone again, with Achoo and Pounce on watch, Tunstall said, “We’ll take only our riding mounts and spares. These people will return the other horses to the Provost’s Guard. There’s no point in bringing them to carry supplies we no longer have.”

“None?” I asked, feeling the skin creep over my spine.

“Sabine and I had no chance to bring aught but our shoulder packs when we escaped our room, and we were busy after,” Tunstall said tightly. “It all burned—our big packs, yours, and Farmer’s. We heard that whole end of the floor burned.”

I nodded. “I saw it.”

“It will be curst hard to forget,” Sabine added.

With that, we all tried to obey Tunstall’s order to grab as much sleep as we could. I lay down and closed my eyes, but I could not relax. For the first time I thought of my large pack, with my changes of uniform, my gorget, my jerkin, my cuirass. That armor was curst expensive, and now I’d be nearabout naked in the woods, with Rats shooting at me! I began to choose curses for them that had started the fire, unpleasant curses that might not go where I sent them, but made me feel better to think of them. If it was Prince Baird who led this plot, I wanted to grab him by the throat and shake him like the terrier folk back home called me. All this and the torture of a little boy for a bloody chair and the ability to tell others what to do! Who among the sane would want such a life? Who would want the burden of so many lives and decisions?

With such angry thoughts and the screams of those killed in the fire rattling in my head, I lay awake. At last I carefully rose and went into the aisle to stand watch with Pounce and Achoo. Only when Pounce demanded that I sit so he might curl up on my lap did I even settle, leaning against my pack. With Pounce in my lap and Achoo at my side, I glared into the shadows. The cat began to purr, demanding that I stroke him. Somewhere between one movement of my hand and the next, I slept after all.

The Frasrlund Road

written much later, from the memory palace

Short of the crack of dawn it was, mostly dark, and us awake thanks to Pounce. I rose and dressed in the foulest of moods. I hoped the local Dogs would find the leeching piss-pots who had set the fire. It would brighten my year if they could leave those Rats hanging from the wall that guarded the wayhouse. We’d almost met the God last night, each one of us. I wanted vengeance for that and for all those who’d burned.

Fire-starters. Canker-licking sewer swine.

While the others took the horses to the gate, a servant was directed to take Pounce, Achoo, and me to the shed where those who’d died lay under sheets on hastily built tables. I asked what he wanted with me and Tunstall had said, “Just go with the lad, Cooper.”

In the shed the servant remained by the door, watching us with suspicion on his face. Achoo and Pounce sat facing him, making it as plain as they could that they were not letting him any closer to me.

I looked around. The place had been cleared of all else to make it into a holding room for the night’s dead. Only prayer lamps and incense sat on the empty shelves, sending the lighter’s wishes to the Black God for those who had entered his care. The room was not completely empty of life, though. Two wood pigeons roosted above inside, heads tucked under their wings.

“Have you aught to say to me?” I called softly to the pigeons, my back to the servant. “I’m sorry to wake you, but they’re kicking us out.” I found the small bag of feed in my pack and drew a line on the dirt floor with the grain. The birds fluttered down to eat. Food was food, whatever the hour.

“It started in th’ corner of th’ attic,” the ghost of a mot whispered to me. “It was that cove as bought us all wine downstairs. Merchanty-lookin’, he was. Waited till most of the regular custom was in bed or gone home and bought us wine, us in service, for havin’ so much work and so little thanks.”

“
I
thought it suspicious,” a second ghost, a cove, said. “Who buys drink for servants?”

“It never stopped you from havin’ your cup or five,” the mot replied tartly.

I had an ear straining for the innkeeper, thinking he might come to toss me out at any moment. “ ‘Merchanty-looking,’ you said,” I interrupted. “Meaning what?”

“Dark wool tunic,” said the cove’s ghost. “No leggings. Leather shoes with triple-leather soles. Chin beard and combed-back hair with sandalwood-scented oil.”

“I heard you sneezin’,” the mot’s ghost said. “Shoulda known sandalwood was in the house.”

“Sneezing’s what woke me up,” the dead cove said. “He was in the corner of the room where I was … sleeping with a guest. I only glimpsed his knife afore he cut me.”

“Did you see what he was doing in the corner?” I asked, setting another handful of grain before the pigeons.

“Same as he done in mine in the attic, I’ll wager,” the mot’s ghost said bitterly. “He kilt me before he went to work, pourin’ oil over a pile of rags he’d set there. Then he poured it on me, on my bed, since I wasn’t goin’ t’ squeak.”

“I didn’t wait to watch after he killed the guest I was with,” the ghost cove admitted. “I was terrified I’d burn, not knowing I was already gone. I jumped from the window and he acted like he didn’t even see. This bird who carries me now, it flew to me, and I landed on its back.”

“He opened the shutters in the attic,” the mot said. “Then he went down the center, dumpin’ oil after him and on the pallets. Lots of us hadn’t bothered to come upstairs, gods be thanked. The others was work-sleepin’. He could have rode an ox through there and they’d never stop snorin’.”

I watched the birds eat, thinking hard for a moment. “What caravan was he with?” I asked them.

“Well, there’s the funny thing,” the mot told me. “I don’t recall, Canart, do you?”

“I thought they must have come in while I was bringing up a keg,” the dead man—Canart—answered. “He didn’t seem to drink with anyone. Kept to hisself. But I saw him talking with the caravan folk.”

“I never saw him come with a caravan, neither,” the mot replied.

“He was tall as me—well, a hand taller than you, young Guard,” the cove said. “Thin, but strong and fast. I hope you catch him.”

“But don’t expect me to do it,” the mot said. “I’ve a yearnin’ to move on, now that I’ve talked with you.”

“And I feel the same,” the cove added. “I’ve never liked this place much.”

With that, they were gone. I spoke my blessing to the air they had left, just to let them know I was grateful. I glanced at the servant. He’d turned pale and was muttering his own silent prayers. I had a feeling he would have fled if he weren’t under orders from the innkeeper. I wasn’t certain he’d heard the ghosts. It seemed to vary. From experience I knew he was shaking in his boots either way. I shrugged at him, the best apology I could manage, then turned to the other corpses. My partners could wait for my news for a moment.

I stood with the dead, offering up my prayer and hope that the Black God would take them gently into his home. Then I looked for two in particular. The attic servants were set on one side of the shed, those guests from the third floor on the other. Carefully, keeping my back to my watcher, I examined the few burned bodies from the third floor. The throat cuts were visible even on such charred remains. They belonged to a tall cove and a small one. Canart and his guest? Silently I promised them both that the sandalwood-scented killer would pay for what he’d done. To keep my books even, I found the mot with the cut throat among the attic dead, and promised her the same.

The servant detailed to watch me cleared his throat. He flinched when I glared at him, but it was all for show. I was finished. I went outside to find my companions. Who should I tell? The keeper of the wayhouse? He already knew the fire had been set. Surely the Dogs who came to investigate must be informed, in case this throat cutter was known to them. I stripped a sheet from my journal and wrote the sandalwood-scented man’s description in it, saying I had it from one of those burned who died as we bore him out. There was no one who could give me the lie, since I’d carried plenty of victims last night. I closed it with a complicated set of folds since I had no seal with me, and addressed it to the Provost’s Guard investigators. The servant and I walked outside.

I stuffed the note in the front of my tunic, one corner scratching the underside of my chin as Pounce and I mounted Saucebox. Achoo, eager to be moving again, danced beside us. The servant left, making the Sign on his chest, as soon as I nudged Saucebox.

Sabine and Farmer were on horseback, holding Tunstall’s mount and the spares, near the open gate. The innkeeper and the chief hostler stood with them, their faces angry in the light of the torch held by the lady. Tunstall knelt just beside the gate, holding a lantern high and moving it over the ground.

Sabine rode to me after passing the torch she held to the chief hostler. “The gate was ajar,” she said, her voice low. “Since the mud is drying around the open position, it’s plain whoever opened it did so last night, while everything was still wet.” She nodded toward the brothers. “They are furious, and I can’t blame them. There are three horses missing. They can’t tell yet who has gone.”