Mastiff (55 page)

The warriors beside and behind Farmer also bore crossbows. Another row of archers rode farther out, their bows pointed at Farmer as well. Far behind Farmer’s guard rode a small group of men, but the light was too bright for me to make out their faces. Either I was not regarded as a threat or no one wished to risk shooting my riding companion, because we only had a cove to lead my horse. Nowhere did I see Pounce or Achoo. I closed my eyes and sent a brief prayer of thanks to the gods. Then I looked at the delightful creature beside me again.

“Who are you, what have you done to Farmer, and where are we going?” I demanded. All those archers told me how they kept Sabine and Tunstall under control. I just couldn’t see a mere clutch of archers slowing Farmer, even a double ring of them. I’d had a sense he held more of his power back than he was letting on. Why wasn’t he putting it to use?

She simpered. “I am Dolsa Silkweb. Farmer is fine, such as he is. Really, is he the best you people could get?”

Part of my mind said, He’s better than
you
, while another part said, He certainly isn’t as good as you! I didn’t know which was real, not entirely. I settled for blandness. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I know all about your little Hunt,” Dolsa told me. “We tried and tried to stop you, but it never pays to use hirelings. My lord said to cut our losses and bring you four straight to him. For days I rode in that stinky little cart with your brat of a prince and that bossy woman! My lord had best remember my sacrifices for this.” Her gray eyes slanted sidelong with a glitter like ice. “Or I’ll help him remember.”

So she
had
been aiding the Viper.

“What have you done to Farmer?” I insisted on asking. It seemed she would only talk at length about herself.

“Oh, he still thinks he’s riding along the road after you. He’s terrible at illusions, I’m sad to say. Why don’t you call in that hound?” She asked it quickly, without warning, her charm gripping me so tight that my mouth instantly opened to call Achoo. I remembered Achoo lying on the ground, the killing wound open in her side, Farmer with his hand on her, and shut my mouth. For good measure, I ground my teeth together.

Dolsa looked at me for a long moment, her slender brows knit. I could feel the need to please her press on me, wrap around me, even seek ways into me through my nose, ears, and eyes. I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled to fight her Gift, forcing myself to see Achoo beg me for scraps, curl up with Pounce, and chase her toy in the park with Tunstall.

At last Dolsa sighed. “I suppose you have some charm or other on you, to fight my spells. Or you’re like most common dullards, not imaginative enough for my Gift. We’ll have any protective magic off you before nightfall, you know.” She tugged her gloves until they sat her hands more neatly. “Truly, the hound isn’t necessary. I just thought you’d be more pliable, if we had your animal to work on. Still, the woods aren’t kind hereabouts. Something will get her, eventually. Maybe even one of our own hunters.”

“Where do you come from, Lady Silkweb?” I asked, letting her spell squeeze the
lady
out of me. “Who do you serve?”

She laughed. It was a musical sound that made a number of the guards turn to smile at her. She snapped her fingers imperiously. Every one of them yelped and flinched, as if that dull snap of the fingers—it didn’t work in gloves—had the power to hurt them. I had the feeling it had done just that. “Idiots!” she cried. She’d made her voice louder somehow, so everyone could hear. “
Keep your eyes on your prisoner!
Next time it won’t be a bite on the ear!” She looked at me. “That’s the punishment,” she told me, her voice at its normal loudness for only me to hear. “I took the pain from the time a horse bit me and tucked it into a little spell. I touched each guard on the shoulder as we readied to go, and …” She shrugged one shoulder, very pleased with herself.

“Like brats pulling wings off flies,” I said, meeting her eyes.

She gave that sparkling, musical laugh again. “You’re very brave, aren’t you, Dog?” Silkweb asked when she stopped laughing. “You think you and your friends have a chance? Lady Sabine will be lucky to live, since she’s so entrenched on the king’s side. You Dogs? Trash. Farmer? I can dance rings around your Dogs’ mage, and I’m not the only one here who can. Tell me, brave
Dog—
”

If she said
Dog
that way again, charm spell or no, I was going to do my best to bite her like that horse she’d mentioned.

She did not hear my thoughts, so instead she finished what she was saying. “Does Farmer’s master still give him gifts of power?”

My skin crept. “What are you talking about?”

“Everyone knows,” she said and giggled like a gixie telling secrets with her friends. “It’s said Cassine tucked power all around him. He
can
draw magic out of things, at least he’s not inept
there
. That’s why it was so important to burn his packs, so he couldn’t use his emergency stores.”

“How could you know about that if you were with the cart?” I asked, thinking, No, no, no. I won’t believe her.

She rolled her eyes. “That was the plan. Farmer is the biggest threat, so we sent a man in to set the fire. I know because I was in touch with the others through my scrying crystal. Without his little bag of tricks, he’s nothing.” She glanced back at him. “I had the boys take that shoulder pack and his belt, boots, and necklaces off as soon as we dropped the four of you.”

All those dead. Linnet on the garbage barrel, the bandits, the poor mumpers forced to travel with the Viper, the sleepers at the inn. “Is it worth it, what you’ve done?” I asked her. “Do you know how many you’ve killed just to ‘drop’ us four?”

“Is it worth it?” She acted as if she hadn’t heard the second question. “You silly thing, don’t you know? Your precious king has put
taxes
on mage work. He’s taxing items we need badly if we’re to create anything of real
meaning
. Now he’s demanding that we be licensed—
licensed!
—and in exchange for this precious license, we have to guarantee so many days a year in work for the Crown.” There was a blush of rage on her cheeks. “We are
mages
, not piddling jewelers or sellers of greens! We won’t submit! We must be free to work as we please!”

“Why don’t you go to some other realm?” I asked. Had I seen a bit of cream-colored fur off in the trees?

“Because all the best places in all the realms that matter are held, or there are fifty competitors for them at least. Because this is my home.” Her hands trembled as she arranged them prettily on her reins. “Because if Randy Roger gets away with this, the other kings will do the same. Because no one tells a great mage what to do. Not
ever
.”

I heard the jingle of reins behind our group and twisted to see who was coming out of the group at the rear of the train. When he passed Farmer, I recognized him. Farmer gave no sign that he even saw the man, though he rode right before Farmer’s eyes.

It was Master Elyot, dressed in a cream-colored tunic and brown breeches and looking too poxy cheerful. The fire opal on his chest blazed as it caught the sun. “Dolsa, my dear, I don’t believe you’ve stopped talking to this poor captive since she came around. Whatever do you have to say to her?”

Dolsa treated him to her simper for a change as he brought his horse up on my opposite side. What a delightful trio are we, I thought, sick with what Dolsa had said about Farmer and her reasons for rebellion. All this because the mages didn’t care for work?

“We’ve been talking of every manner of things,” Dolsa told Elyot. “I don’t think she knew Cassine used to feed Farmer extra magic.”

Elyot frowned at Dolsa. “I didn’t see that in him.”

Dolsa laughed. “You didn’t look at his packs, silly. They half blinded me! Where else could it have come from if not Cassine? Certainly not from
him.
”

“I don’t know,” Elyot said. “He struck me as well enough. Not on
our
level, but how many mages are?” He looked at me. “I’m glad to have the chance to take a closer look at you, Gershom’s pet. I’ve met Lady Teodorie a few times at court. I’m surprised she actually let you live in her house.” He chuckled. “I’m surprised she let you
live
. She never struck me as the sort to let her man keep his child mistress under her roof.”

I spat on him. Sadly, it stopped partway to him, halted by his scummer magic, and dropped to the road.

He slapped me hard, rocking my head back on my neck. I growled and threw myself at him, forgetting I was tied in the saddle. One of the guards seized the bridle and Dolsa the back of my tunic as an invisible mask slid over my face, cutting off my air. I fought it as long as I could. Finally, as my sight went black, the mask vanished.

A cruel hand gripped the hair at the back of my head and Dolsa said in my ear, “Mind your manners or we’ll drag you the rest of the way to Halleburn. And I have to warn you, Lord Thanen is not as good about keeping his roads as he should be.”

I took some deep breaths, then nodded. She pulled me straight in the saddle with one arm, gave my hair an extra twist with the other hand just for meanness, and released me. Too bad she hadn’t grabbed me by the braid, but like as not she’d seen the spikes sticking from the strands.

I took inventory of my condition. My scalp ached. I ignored it. My left cheek was swelling, including the side of the eye. A slap from a gem-decorated glove is no joke. I’d wrenched my arms fiercely, trying to yank free of the rope bindings. One of my wrists ached in a dull way I did not like.

To take my mind off the pain, I kept my head down and looked at Elyot under my lashes. “When did you get here?” I demanded. “We left ahead of you.”

This time he grabbed my ear and twisted it hard. Again, I bit the inside of my cheek till it bled rather than cry out for this nuncle’s tarse. “I don’t care who you were in Gershom’s house, any more than I care that you’re a Provost’s Guard,” the mage said, breathing garlic into my face. “Gershom is dead when we succeed. And I wouldn’t give a cracked kernel for the lives of you and your Hunting party, do you hear? So mind your manners, or I’ll kill you in such fashion as they never find your bones.” He let go of my ear. “We were only a day behind you, stupid bitch, riding hard. We passed you by night and took the other route to Halleburn. How did your creature track the boy?”

“Elyot, why are you abusing my poor Beka so?” Sabine called from her place in our train of riders. “She’s wonderful with hounds and she knows the rules of the Guard, but she doesn’t have two thoughts to rub together. Come and tell me why you’re mauling her about. This
is
the forest road to Halleburn, isn’t it?” To hear her, we were just on a tour of the estate.

Elyot looked at her, then at me. He glanced at Farmer and raised an eyebrow at Dolsa, who shrugged. Then he spat on me and rode up to Sabine.

His spit landed. There was naught I could do but watch it soak into my tunic.

“Elyot’s furious because none of the traps he planned for you worked and mine did. He feels it reflects badly on him. I think you’re going to die in very unpleasant ways.” Dolsa shrugged. “Maybe if you promise to give
me
your blood freely, I can talk him into letting me kill you. I’ll do it nicely.”

I stared at her. “You truly think I would do that?” I asked, not sure that I’d heard her right.

Dolsa rested a gentle hand on my shoulder. Her glove was scented with some kind of perfume. “If you knew the ways Elyot kills people, you would,” she assured me. “Oh, look, there’s a rabbit!” She pointed gleefully at the animal, which ran for its life, dashing to and fro as if it knew it was hunted. Something gray and glittery darted from her pointing finger to chase the rabbit, missing just as it made the shelter of the woods.

“See, that’s the difference between Elyot and me,” Dolsa explained. “I know sometimes you lose. And if you study your losses enough, you get a big, fat,
victory.
” She kicked her pretty mare into a trot, turning to ride with the group in the back.

I looked at Farmer. Never more had I wanted him awake and aware. I could face anything if Farmer rode beside me, talking away. If I hadn’t known what was happening to my feelings about him before then, that was the point at which I realized it whole. To keep from thinking about the bad things ahead, I tried to work it out in my mind, how he was different from other men I’d known.

He liked me to help him when he did things. He explained what I didn’t know, warned me when to stand aside,
never
told me to get out of his way because he could do it faster, and thanked me for helping. There were moments when he needed me to rescue him, and he never blamed me for it, or got angry about it.

He took nothing seriously, not even—particularly—himself. He was kind to animals. He kept his temper, for the most part. So do I, for the most part. He is not afraid to admit to what he cannot do. He is not afraid to admit when he is weak, even though he hates it.

I wish he would not pinch so at Tunstall, but Tunstall pinches first and back. They’re like my brothers in that way. I sometimes think a good fistfight would solve things between Tunstall and Farmer. I wish they would get it over with.

As to Farmer’s magic all being given to him by Cassine? Mayhap Dolsa thought that. That claim above all told me she did not know Farmer, but one of the faces that Farmer liked to put on.

My thinking served to keep my mind off our future as we rode along a series of hills, each taller than the last. At the top of the third, I nearly gave myself away when I spotted the black cat standing on a boulder near the crest. I forced myself to remain still and to pretend I saw nothing unusual. He flicked his tail at me and vanished. I sighed with gratitude. Pounce was still with us. I knew he would be, but it was one thing to know, and another to
see
.

Over the crest, I almost gasped at the view. The road down switched back and forth to allow traffic to climb without overworking the humans or animals that used it. The hill was part of a long ridge of solid rock. Forming the valley’s northwestern edge, the ridge overlooked all that lay between it and the lake.