Hunting (16 page)

Pulled up into a world of light and
people and the mouth-watering smell of venison roasting, she was a
little inclined to go weak at the knees, but resisted the
impulse.

"Remind me to take something with me to
eat next time I decide to show off."

"If you'd given me a chance to plan
your activities," the Visel replied, with a lamentable attempt at
sounding stern, "I doubt you would have been allowed to indulge in
your craving to be the centre of attention."

"Oh well," she began, pleased, and was
nearly sent back over the cliff when Hawkmarten came up and gave
her a congratulatory buffet.

"Well done, boy. A rare display
throughout. If you ever grow tired of Thorn here, there'll always
be a place for you at Tye's Haven."

"Thank you, Ser Setsel," she managed,
trying to get her breath back. Then she was surrounded by people
congratulating her, until these stepped back for the Rhoi.

"Young man," he said, beaming. "I owe
you a great debt. Name your reward."

Now why did he have to ask her in front
of an audience? She sorted rapidly through her options, contriving
to present a little modest confusion to interested eyes.

"Bigger quarters would be nice, Ser
Rhoi," she said, and gave Thornaster an apologetic glance. "I
really don't much like sleeping on the floor. If it's not too much
trouble, Ser Rhoi."

Rhoi Arun shook his head. "None at all!
I've been trying to get Thorn to move out of that cupboard since
autumn. Now he can't refuse. But that's hardly enough. Something
for yourself, boy. Is there not something you particularly desire,
something you would be pleased to own?"

Would he insist she put a value on
Heran's life? "If..." She paused, looked doubtful. "If you would
allow me, Ser Rhoi, I would like to read the books in the Rhoi's
Library. Or, at least, the interesting ones."

"Only the interesting ones? Well, that
shouldn't take you more than a decade." The Rhoi embraced her
formally, much to Ash's discomfort. "With my blessing, Ash
Lenthard. You will always have use of the Rhoi's Library." He
looked over at Thornaster as he released her. "Take care of this
one, Thorn. I predict he'll make you proud."

Thornaster took Ash by the elbow,
leading her across to the fire and providing her with some steaming
cuts from the remains of a haunch that had been roasted there.

"I predict you'll make me burst a blood
vessel with that so-innocent expression of yours," he told her
cordially.

She grinned greasily, looking around.
"Where's Cloud Cat?"

"Not far away. Don't worry yourself; I
haven't let her walk off a cliff while you were admiring the
waterfall. Did it occur to you that you could have asked Arun to
give you that mare?"

"Yes. But she's not his to give is she?
And you're not the one sleeping on the floor, so don't complain
about my priorities."

Thornaster made a strangled noise, and
then lifted his hands. "Well, I inflicted you on myself. I suppose
I shouldn't protest while you change my living arrangements. Is
there anything else you'd like, while we're on the subject? Your
own suite? A carpet of rose petals scattered before you whenever
you make your progress?"

"A booking for one of the private
bathing rooms? I'm a little too betwixt and between to use the
group ones without someone telling me I'm in the wrong place." Her
attention was on the arrangements for carrying the Veirhoi home.
"He said he thought a snake had bitten his horse. He didn't know
who was near him at the time, only that he was trying to catch up
to the first seruilis." She gratefully accepted the skin of watered
wine Thornaster handed her. "I told him about the arrow wound
because it wasn't fair not to. He'll need to know why he's got more
security. I think I'm going to tell him more about what's really
going on – it's stupid that his brother's keeping it from him."

"You must have been a most horrific
infant."

"I climbed up my bedroom chimney when I
was four," she said, reminiscently. "My parents only realised when
the fires were lit and I started howling."

Thornaster shook his head. "Most
definitely a creature of nightmare. Cloud Cat and Arth are just
beyond that whitebark. I'll catch you up."

Ash went quietly. She was tired, happy
to lean against Arth's warm flank and play with Cloud Cat's
whiskers until Thornaster came back. And her abandoned tabard cut
the night chill just a fraction. Why had she taken it off?

When the Visel returned she climbed
into the saddle and didn't say a word for the entire, dreamlike
ride back.

Chapter Sixteen

A hand, shaking her. "Wake up."

Ash sighed gustily, and blinked at the
shadowy outline of Thornaster. "What's wrong?" If he wanted her to
fetch things for him, she swore she'd hit him. She hadn't had
enough sleep for a sense of humour.

"There's been another murder."

"Oh." She sat up. "Who?"

"A woman by name of Prentice. Ran a
store on Broad Street."

"Arianne." Ash shut her eyes.

"You don't have to come if you can't
face it, stripling."

"Just give me a moment to get dressed,"
she said, shaking off the comforting hand.

Thornaster withdrew, letting the
curtain fall back over her alcove, and Ash bit into her own hand in
frustration, wanting to hurt someone. Arianne, who sold as many
vegetables as herbs? Ash had barely considered her a probable
target. And Sonia? She ached to get hold of the killer, all her
fury over Genevieve returning triple-fold.

Running her fingers through her hair,
Ash found Thornaster scraping his face clean, and left their rooms
to make her own morning toilet. Investigator Verel was waiting for
them at the stables, and led them grimly through the early-morning
bustle of the city to the southern sprawl of the Commons: Soward.
Ash chewed her lip until she saw the little storefront Arianne had
put such effort into making bright and friendly. A Watchman was
standing before it, big and bluff and out of place. He looked like
he'd rather be anywhere else.

"Who found her?" the Investigator asked
tersely, cutting through the Guardsman's awkward attempt at
greeting them.

"Holder opposite," the man said,
nodding to a chandler's store. "Friends of a sort. When the lass
didn't answer a morning call, Holder had her husband to break the
door down. They've been keeping an eye on her ever since the
killing started up. We made sure t'herblist was past help and sent
right for you. Haven't touched a thing."

"Gerint, who was it set to watch this
one?" the Investigator asked, turning to one of her men.

"Vaisy, Sera Verel."

"Find out where he is."

"Yes, Sera." The Guardsman hurried
away.

"Captain, make sure that crowd doesn't
get any closer."

Having divested herself of the
Watchman, Verel led the way into the tiny store, took a brief look
around, and then went on through to the even smaller room beyond.
Arianne had not been wealthy. Her entire world was crammed into the
storefront and one other room, plus the garden out back. Her body
lay in a tangle of blood-spattered bedclothes. Like Genevieve,
death had come to her during sleep.

Ash bit her lip, searching the room for
the other body, seeing only the frugal possessions that Arianne had
gathered through hard work and determination. A bed, a table and
single chair, a brazier and cooking utensils. The tools and wares
of a herbalist. A small, discarded shoe.

Shivering just a little, Ash slipped
past the other occupants of the room, and stared down at Arianne's
pale face, a strand of black hair draggling across the brow. She
dropped to one knee and looked under the bed, then, finding
nothing, twitched back the covers a little from the body, just to
be sure.

"Boy! You're not to touch anything!"
Annoyance and admonition in the Investigator's voice, but Ash
ignored it, turning wide, distressed eyes on her.

"Where's Sonia?" she asked, then
thought of the garden and twisted past them to unlock the back door
and step out into row upon row of carefully-tended plants. But
then, if the door was locked, Sonia couldn't have come out there.
Trying to control herself, she turned back to the Investigator.
"Arianne had a three year-old daughter. She's not here."

The Investigator exchanged a startled
glance with her Guardsman, then gestured him to the front of the
building. "Go get that Captain."

The shutter above Arianne's bed was
resting closed, but wasn't fastened. Gingerly, Ash tried to look
out of it, but found only an alleyway beyond. She was prevented
from going out to inspect the alleyway by Thornaster, who took her
by the arm and made her go into the garden and sit down on an
overturned bucket until she could control some of her horror and
fury. She tolerated this because she noticed she was shaking.

"I'm sorry," she said, eventually,
watching through the open back door as the Guard moved about the
house. "It's just that I was there when Sonia was born. She's
so..."

"There's no need to explain, Ash,"
Thornaster said. "I quite understand." He stood, dusting damp
leaves and dirt from his knees as the Investigator came out the
back door.

"Not in the house, not with the
neighbours," Verel said, in her brief way. "Not a trace. The
chandler woman confirms that she was with the mother yesterday, so
she hasn't been sent off to relatives."

"Arianne doesn't have any relatives
who'll acknowledge her existence," Ash said, unhappily. "They threw
her out when she got pregnant."

The Investigator nodded. "Vaisy, the
man I had stationed on the neighbouring roof, is dead. Throat slit
in the usual way, no sign of struggle. We'll just go up to see if
she's left any traces here."

There was more of the grey dust. Ash
watched in silence while the Investigator sat with closed eyes in a
ring of chalked symbols.

"I'd say the woman's a hired
professional," Verel said, eventually. "There's no sense of any
personal involvement, no anger or strong ambition. Light-colour
hair. Probably foreign, since we don't get much in the way of
assassin-mages here. Imported for the job."

Verel and Thornaster talked about mage
craft for a little while, and the possibilities of checking any
border movements of known assassins. Thornaster was apparently able
to get information on any who might have departed Aremal in recent
months, though it would take weeks for the answer to come. Ash
watched a body being removed from the roof of the building next
door – only a short hop away across a narrow alley. If she'd posted
the Huntsmen to watch Genevieve's roof, would one of them be dead
now, as well? Should she come out at night, and cover one of the
last few remaining roofs herself?

"Is there anywhere you know of where
this child might go?" the Investigator asked her, breaking into her
reverie. "Friends? Favoured places?"

Ash shook her head. "She clung to her
mother's side like a limpet, and Arianne rarely went out. A
stick-thin rag doll of a child who looks too small to even be
walking. Huge black eyes. Hardly ever talks. The killer couldn't
have taken her, could she? This spell she uses, would it let her
take Sonia to the roof?"

"No. And she definitely used the return
capability. So we've got a terrified three year-old running the
streets who might be the only person to have seen our assassin and
survived. I'll have her name added to the missing children's list
and the Watch can come hard on the places runaways usually end up
in, though she's young for that line. She can't have gone far. Do
you require anything else, Visel Thornaster?"

He shook his head and they headed back
to their horses.

"Can I have the rest of the morning?"
Ash asked, as soon as they were out of the street. Seruilisi had an
afternoon free from the demands of the Mern once a week, but that
had been taken up by the hunt yesterday and what they did with the
time depended on their masters anyway.

Thornaster gave her a Look. "Do you
know of a place this child might have gone?"

"No, I want to set more people to
looking for her."

"Indeed. I think I shall need to ask
you about your street gang, some day soon. No, I hadn't forgotten
Captain Garton mentioning them. Yes, you may have the rest of the
morning free. And I suppose the afternoon will be devoted to
transferring to a different part of the palace, so I will send your
apologies to the Mern."

Ash nodded and turned the mare away
without another word, heading deeper into the Commons, running
through strategies until the twining stalks of the Three Vines
Bakery's sign came into sight.

She looped Cloud Cat's reins around a
post, positioning her so that she would be able to see the mare
even within the shop. Heading inside, she had to struggle with the
odour of fresh baking, which combined very badly with her empty,
sick stomach.

"Ash!" Lark's mother, Tanar Rogadney,
folded her into a floury embrace. "You look dreadful! What have you
been doing? Is it true, you saved the Veirhoi's life? Have you had
breakfast? Here, sit down. Lincy! Lincy! Go out front and take care
of Ash's horse. Mind you don't get yourself stood on."

"Ash!" Larkin appeared, dusting his
hands. "Have you stopped being a seruilis already? Ma, you'll let
Ash stay if he's nowhere to go, won't you?"

"If that's what's needed," Landhold
Rogadney said. "Here, child, drink this while I spread some butter
on a roll for you. I swear you've lost weight. Doesn't he look like
he hasn't eaten for days, Larkin? You'd think in a great huge
palace like that they'd manage to feed growing boys properly. What
can Mirramar be thinking?"

"I'm still a seruilis, Lark," Ash said,
being used to Landhold Rogadney's verbal barrage. She took a sip of
sweet, thick Firuvari chocolate, savouring the rare treat. "I need
to talk to you for a measure or so. Can you come?"