Mastiff (19 page)

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.

Okha hugged me, his perfume filling the air. Both of them kissed me on the cheek and murmured their consolations about Holborn’s death. The reminder shoved a spear of guilt into my heart. Truth to tell, I
enjoy
forgetting about Holborn. I enjoy being
able
to forget about him. That had to be wrong, with him barely cold in the ground. But this is my own book and I can freely say, I feel light enough to float without the worry of the last few months, about watching each word from my mouth for fear I will upset him in some way or that it will get back to him. That he will learn I was out and about with Tunstall and my friends or he’d seen me making merry with them, when he always said I never did with him.

I thanked Nestor and Okha. Their wishes came from a care for me, like those of my friends in Corus. My guilt was my own, no one else’s.

Nestor had heard we were in town, of course, through the Dogs’ grapevine of gossip, but he knew naught of our business. He accepted that we were bound to silence, though his raised brows and Okha’s told me they were deeply curious. Gods bless them, they did not pry.

Instead they drew out Master Farmer over a splendid supper that they insisted on paying for. We traded gossip of the doings of friends in the city. Okha got Master Farmer to talk about Mistress Cassine, since Okha had heard of her. Master Farmer was an engaging cove at this sort of gathering. He was no ordinary cityman, ignorant of Dog slang or business. He even knew some Port Caynn Dogs, having worked there on loan from Blue Harbor several times. He got Nestor and Okha to laughing and they talked with Master Farmer about folk whose names I’d only heard.

I did as well as I could, since all of me itched for an end to waiting. I want the real Hunt to start. I was glad to be here with good folk like Okha and Nestor, but I
hate
waiting. Somewhere that poor prince had been pitchforked into a monstrous world, the likes of which he’d never dreamed.

After supper, we went to the gambling house where Okha sings. I was glad to hear him and to see him all done up as a lady. Master Farmer didn’t as much as blink to see his supper companion transformed this way for the performance. When Okha finished his song in that deep, sorrowing mot’s voice of his, Master Farmer was the first on his feet, applauding.

We set off toward Serenity’s with Nestor only for company. Okha had hours yet before he would finish for the night. The coves were talking about how Okha and Nestor met and I was idling behind, listening. I was the first to hear Dog whistles off to the north, and then the brass clang of fire bells. I touched Nestor’s back and stepped away in case he forgot where he was, and swung on me. He turned fast, but his fist was only half raised. (He has more control than I do, but I’m only a four-year Guard, and he’s a sergeant.) He heard the noise then. We saw the source at the same time. Three blocks away a building had caught fire.

Nestor sighed. “They’ll need me. I’m sorry. It was a pleasure, if I don’t see you again.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said, wanting
something
to do.

He pointed at me. “Not you, not Master Farmer. I know your orders came in under Crown seal. With that, and your not talking about them—your first duty is the Hunt.” He thought for a moment and then looked at Master Farmer. “Unless … Master Farmer, the fire. Might you—?”

Master Farmer’s shoulders slouched the moment Nestor said
unless
. The look that Achoo gives me when she’s messed on the floor was in his eyes. “I wish to Mithros I could, Nestor, but I can’t touch a fire. Start one, yes. Put it out, no.”

Nestor looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then rested his hand on Master Farmer’s shoulder. “Sorry to press a soft spot. And we don’t need healers,” he said as Master Farmer took a breath. “There’s plenty of them in that part of town. Gods go with you both, and Tunstall.” He strode off down the street toward the fire, catching up to a pair of Dogs who’d turned into the street from an alley.

Master Farmer and I walked on in silence. It was Master Farmer who broke it. “Gershom knows I’m bad with fire.”

“That’s not what I was thinking,” I replied.

He looked sideways at me, one eyebrow raised. “Oh? What
were
you thinking, then?”

“You can start them, but you can’t put them out,” I explained.

“Candle, campfire, brazier fire. It’s as if once the fire gets strong enough, it doesn’t
want
to be put out. Its power opposes something in my own power,” he told me. “Most of the people I studied with could at least pull the strength from a fire, enough that it was easily doused with water. I can’t even do that.”