Mastiff

  I dozed off, I believe, as I was trying to fix the god’s ever-changing self into a shrine separate from all else, where I might see him again. There was comfort in remembering the beautiful melting colors of his robe and the power of his voice. I knew I was sleeping when I half woke to find a long, thin black body stretched out on mine, giving off warmth like a fire. I hadn’t known until then that I’d been shivering.

  “What?” I asked.

  Hush, Pounce replied. The guards won’t see me, so don’t talk aloud to me in front of them. Unless you want them to think you mad, of course.

  “What of Achoo?” I asked fearfully. “Is she dead?”

  You underestimate her, Pounce said. She played at it once she woke from that mage-trap. Once no humans were about, she went into the trees and tracked your captors until I made her stop, before she went on the causeway. She is well and in a better position than you.

  I was too worn out from the scant rest I’d had in the last few days on the road to give him a pert answer. I muttered my thanks for the knowledge and went back to sleep. When I woke again, it was because the guards were rattling the cell door, opening it.

  They took me out of there twice. They did not tell me what day it was or how much time had passed, any more than they told me the fate of my Hunting pack. The only things they said when they took me to that other dungeon room were questions and orders. I will not tell of that, not in this journal, not in the official report. I started silent like any tough Rat and ended in such a mixed pottage of whatever lies would please my questioners that I cannot remember what I said. They gave me the Drink, far worse than my training experience of it, but mostly they used their fists. Even I could tell they weren’t that interested, or they would have used instruments on me. They showed them to me to frighten me more, as cell Dogs would, but it was only for show. They used none of them, drawing none of my nails, breaking none of my fingers, not even strapping me to the rack. After the second time, they didn’t return to my cell.

  Pounce told me they were bringing the brown, sloppy stew and the jug of water once a day. He would purr me to sleep and make a pretense of washing my hair that miraculously left it clean and properly braided. It was all he could do for me with the eyes of the Great Gods now fixed on this place and this time. It’s funny how much it comforted me, though, to feel my hair clean and neat when the rest of me got filthier by the day. He also told me tales of the Great Gods and heroes of the past to entertain me. I did what exercises I could. That helped, too. Planning my testimony before the Lord High Magistrate, so I would not stammer as I might if I gave it cold, helped as well.

  Tuesday, June 26, 249

  Halleburn Castle

  Still as I record it in memory

  On the third day by Pounce’s reckoning, we had company. I had waited to see if they would plant someone else with me, in case a spy could get any information from me, so I wasn’t surprised by the new arrival.

  “I wouldn’t be in yer shoes if ye had ’em,” one guard said as they heaved a big cove in an undyed linen tunic and breeches into the cell. “Them mages upstairs is all beggin’ my lord for yer blood. Seemingly they can do all manner of wicked things wiv it! Still, a last night with your lass—enjoy while ye can!”

  “At least till they start bleedin’ yez,” his partner said.

  The shape raised his head. It was Farmer, tangled hair, black eye, bloody nose, bruised face, and all. He was a surprise, and a glad one. And they were utter dolts if they thought we would say anything of interest to them.

  But how did common jailors know that I cared for Farmer beyond the bonds of a Hunting team?

  “Doesn’t it matter to you that they want to use those ‘manner of wicked things’ to kill the king and queen?” Farmer asked the guards.

  There was a crack of crude laughter as the guards slammed and locked the door. “If’n it’ll get my lord out of the castle and livin’ in Corus, they might kill every king and queen wiv our blessin’!” cried the one who’d spoken first. “Anything to take my lord’s attention off us!” The other one hushed him and they went chuckling down the hall.

  Unwise to beard those creatures, Pounce said from his seat in the cell window. You’re lucky this time they laughed.

  “Luck has nothing to do with it, Pounce,” Farmer replied calmly. “They’re under orders not to beat me. Their masters believe they have other ways to get at any information I might have.”

  I believed him, of course, but I still waited until they were out of hearing before I got up from my bench to help Farmer to his feet. I’d meant to get him to the other bench, but his ideas were different from mine. He wrapped both arms around me, but let go swiftly when I yelped. “What have they done to you?” he asked, turning my face this way and that in the light of the cell window.

  “Not nearly what they should have done, if they were cell Dogs at Jane Street,” I replied, inspecting his face and mauled hands. His fingers weren’t broken, but it looked as if they’d had a try at his nails, and lost. “I’ve been wondering why they haven’t done that to me. Not that I’m ungrateful,” I added hastily.

  Farmer made a face. “I’m not as hurt as I look,” he whispered. “I feel bad, but not as bad as I could. If they really try to hurt us with the rack, the ugly parts of the thumbscrews, or the boot, our minds crack first. We lose our hold on our power. Then our brains are useless, so our answers can’t be trusted. Magical torture works a little longer, but their powerful mages seem to be very busy. The great mages did strip what Gift of mine they could before they left me to a lesser mage. That one got nothing from me.”

  “Gods be thanked,” I murmured.

  “I’d hold my thanks, were I you, sweetheart,” he said, pulling me against his chest. “I believe they’ve put us together so when they try me next, they’ll give you what they’d like to give me. That’s why they’re giving us a night together, to make it worse.” He kissed the top of my head. “If they torture you, I doubt I’d even be able to stand the first turn of the rack or the screw. And I’ve a feeling they’ll have a mage with strong truth spells, which ruins any plan to lie I could make.”

  I tried to laugh. “That sounds unpleasant, I have to say.”

  “We’ll think of something.” This time he held me carefully while kissing me in a most satisfying way. I returned the kiss with as much strength as I dared out of consideration for both of our lumps.

  When I looked at him again there were tears in his eyes. “I thought they’d taken you off to kill you,” he said when we stopped for a breath.

  “It’s all right,” I whispered. “We’re alive now. That’s what matters.”

  He rested a finger on my lips. “Beka, dear one, hush. I can’t stand it. You are so brave, you’re strong—”

  “Stop that,” I interrupted him, partly because I wondered how it would feel if I gave his lower lip a little nip. I’d managed some of my torture by thinking of the parts of him I wanted to kiss, and now that I had the chance, he wanted to talk!

  “And you hate to hear good things about yourself, it drives me mad.” He gave me another good, long kiss, and then he said, “I’ve kept quiet because it’s been such a short time, though it seems far, far longer.”

  “It does,” I said, wrapping my legs around him and trying to hoist myself so they were wrapped around his waist. That was too painful for both of us, so he sat on a bench and pulled me onto his lap. Then, with most of him around me, and me around a good bit of him, I was content to hold him. I rested my head on his shoulder and listened to his voice rumble in his chest.

  “I know you just buried your betrothed,” he began, but I shook my head.

  “I should have ended it months ago, when it got ugly,” I told him. “You don’t shout or hit or throw things, do you?”

  “No. None of those. Well, I shout sometimes, but not at lovers. I walk my anger off. Beka, I do love you.”

  I thought my heart was going to hammer itself clean out of my chest. “You’re sure,
you’re certain?”

  He kissed me. “I have never been more sure of anything but my Gift. Do you love me?”

  I kissed his ear. “I love you,” I said to his shoulder. “Though you’re enough to drive a mot mad.”

  He turned my face up to his with a gentle hand. I looked into his eyes. “But you’re like no one I’ve driven mad before,” he said with a smile that made my belly go all warm and liquid. “Either you scold me and it’s over, or you roll your eyes. Have you thought that when this is done you’ll have nothing more to do with me?”

  I had thought so many things, but never that. “Why?” I asked. “I’m feared you’ll go back to Blue Harbor and that will be the end of it, but nothing more to do with you? When you make me laugh with your silliness?”

  “You hardly ever laugh,” he said truthfully.

  She has her own way of doing it, inside, Pounce told him. She laughs with you all the time. Not at you. With you. You have to catch her by surprise to get her to laugh out loud.

  “As you would know better than anyone,” Farmer told the cat.

  “It’s not just the laughing,” I explained. “You’re kind even to the lowest folk. You cook supper and shoo away bugs when plenty of mages turn their noses up at such humble stuff. I would hate to leave Corus, but if you ask it, I would.” Let’s plan for the future, I thought. Right now we still have one.

  Farmer kissed me so very softly. “Don’t worry. I am not so attached to Blue Harbor. I will come with you.” To Pounce he said, “You are a welcome sight, my friend.”

  I can’t spirit any of you out of here, Pounce warned him. Don’t even ask. This place, this time, is the crux. Perhaps you cannot hear all Chaos howling around us, but I can.

  “I don’t want to be spirited out, and I’ll wager neither does Beka,” Farmer said. “We have work yet to do.”

  “Marry me,” I said, his words running like fire in my blood. “If we get out of this, marry me. What you just said, who you are—if we weren’t meant to wed, I don’t know who is. Marry me.”

  He kissed me hard and long. “You only needed to ask once,” he whispered when he was done. “I was getting tired of waiting to ask myself.”

  Well, that’s done, Pounce said with satisfaction. I made a rude gesture at him.

  Farmer grinned. “And no one is going to torture my dear girl again,” he said in my ear. “We are going to show them what happens when you defy the law and the gods alike.”

  I went weak in my knees to hear so bold a statement from my man, but my practical nature had something to say. “You haven’t any magic,” I protested. “You said they took it when they gave you the Question. Even before that the mages wrapped their spells around you so you couldn’t get at any more.”

  He gave me the warmest, sweetest smile I had ever seen on a man’s face, and stood, though we both winced and groaned when he set me back on the cold bench alone. Then he said, “Sweetheart, never listen to what my enemies say. They’re very confused people. I know they are because I’ve spent years making them that way.” He undid the closing on his breeches. “One thing niggles at me. Who knew we were getting close, you and I? Close enough that the enemy thought they could torture you to break me?”

  “Shh!” I ordered. “We are not canoodling right now, not when the guards can hear!”

  He chuckled. “No, no. There is a silencing spell here—not mine.”

  Mine, Pounce said. A cat’s spell the gods won’t even notice. It’s little enough, but it’s something.

  “My thanks,” Farmer told him with a bow. To me Farmer said, “The gods know I want to love you, but when we do, it’ll be someplace curst better than this.” He glanced at Pounce. “And more private, even with favors given.” Pounce washed a paw. “No, Beka,” Farmer went on, “I need to retrieve something.” He pointed to the piss bucket. “If you want to use that, you’d best do so now. I may take a while.” He stripped himself of his breeches.

  I’m no gently raised maiden, but the thought of sharing a room while he emptied his bowels nearabout made me cringe. I reminded myself that we’d shared forests when both of us had the same errand. Surely this was not—much—different. I used the bucket while Farmer turned away, then did my own staring at the ceiling when he passed me clad only in his tunic. Even from the corner of my eye I could see huge red and purple bruises on his well-muscled thighs. They looked so bad I couldn’t even enjoy the glimpse of his legs.

  Had he sommat inside him? “Didn’t they look up your bum?” They hadn’t done mine, the lazy loobies.

  I heard the thump as he settled himself on the bucket. “Nope,” he said.

  “What about when they gave you the Question? What did you do then?” I asked. It was a matter of professional curiosity now. “You’ve got sommat tucked away, haven’t you?”

  “I left it in my cell, on the ceiling. Wrapped it in cobweb like a nursery spider—well, a big one. Folk never look at the ceiling anyway. Did they look in your bum, or in your coyne?” I shook my head. “Sloppy, these conspirators,” he said. “You could have a weapon in either place. A strangling cord at the very least.”

  I flinched at the thought. I had tried it. “They tickle. And it’s hard to run long distances with things in your soft spots.”

  Farmer laughed. “And you’re dangerous enough on your own. But truly, Beka, how do these people plan to rule a country when they can’t even do a rightful search?” There was a wince in his voice. What did he have in there? “It’s enough to make a cove go off and live in the wilderness like Mistress Cassine.”

  “If that cove is thinking of being a Dog’s lover, he might want to reconsider either the lover or the wilderness,” I said.

  He grunted and said, “Too many bears and mountain lions out in the wild. Trees rustle all of the time. And you have to walk miles for decent bread or cheese. I can’t make—ahh!”

  “Farmer?” I asked, alarmed yet afraid to turn around.

  “It didn’t feel so big before!” he cried. “Ha! Finally!”

  I will clean that for you, Pounce said. I heard the sounds of a tiny rainstorm.

  “Isn’t that still more meddling?” I asked.

  Hardly, Pounce replied. Cats are forever washing things. I have just done a little more than most.

  I heard a happy sigh. Farmer said, “It’s fine now, Pounce.”

  I trust so. For someone who has been known to run through sewers, Beka can be squeamish, Pounce said.

  “Rats take to the sewers to escape the Dogs,” I snapped, “so that’s where we must go to catch them. I don’t have to like it!”

  Farmer walked around me, a white thing in his hand. It looked like a wax turd. Just the thought of retrieving such an item from my arse made my tripes knot. “How long have you—” I asked, waving my hand at it.

  “Every day since the raiders attacked our campsite,” he told me. “I took it out at night. Always kept it on me, though, until we came here.” He set it on a bench and donned his breeches. Once he was clothed, he picked the thing up and patted a spot beside him. “So what’s this about sewers?”

  I told him about the Hunt that earned me the nickname Bloodhound in Port Caynn and, later, Corus. As I spoke, Farmer began to peel the white wax away from whatever lay inside it. It was backed with muslin strips, so once Farmer had worried a strip away, he could grip the muslin and begin to unwrap the contents of the thing.

  Pounce sat in front of us, watching. He was blinking constantly as Farmer revealed something in blue silk.

  Blue? the cat asked, leaning forward in interest. Not red, or orange?

  “For maturity, and stability,” Farmer replied. “Beka, go on. This Dale fellow, do you see him anymore?”

  I smiled at him. “Only once in a while, and only as friends. Pounce, what is wrong with your eyes?”

  You don’t see the power in what he has, Pounce said, blinking hard. It’s very strong.

  “You let us believe you had naught!” I said, cross with Farmer.


  “Wasn’t it better that I did?” he asked, his eyes worried. “We were followed, Beka, at least from Queensgrace. Given that cozy deal Sabine made for her and Tunstall, you have to wonder if one of them left a trail.”

  I had been wondering, and sick at heart over such thoughts. Back and forth I had gone since they had put me down here. Tunstall? Never! But … Sabine? I would have sworn before the Goddess that the lady had no turncoat blood in her veins until she accepted Thanen’s invitation. Both of them together? Impossible, and yet … Here I was, and here was Farmer. Of course, it was not unknown for captors to place a traitor with a captive to winkle information from her, but a turd made of wax and silk? Surely that was going a little far to get information from a common Dog.

  Farmer went on, “The traitor could have made the deal at Queensgrace. That’s where our troubles got relentless. They knew to tag my pack. Not the pack with my spare clothes, the pack with my magical resources.”