Hunting Page 16

  Howling, the skarl slammed into the gate that had fallen behind her. A flash of light threw her violently backwards, but this only enraged the creature and she threw herself at the barrier again and again. Watching the scene scarce feet below her, Ash wondered if the cry of "mad dog" had not been correct after all. But then, quite abruptly, the shapeshifter ended her frantic attempts to escape, and turned to study her prison with burning eyes, circling the cage once then pacing into the middle of the enclosure and stopping, facing Verel.

  As the creature transformed, a murmur ran through the gathered audience – from the panting Huntsmen on the rooftops to the emerging collection of Guard and Watch. 'Vomiting'. Ash could not help but bring Sho's description to mind as thick fur regurgitated pale flesh and faded cloth.

  The bruised, crop-haired woman which took the animal's place, with her odd, many-pocketed gown and her cloth-bound feet, seemed to have no relation to the animal she had been. Nothing but those burning, red-rimmed eyes.

  "Why?"

  Ash had meant to keep quiet. Her voice seemed to echo, though she had barely raised it above a whisper.

  The woman turned to stare up at Ash. They searched each other's faces, Ash seeking reasons or reasoning, the shapeshifter looking for Astenar knew what.

  Something grabbed Ash's shirt from behind, yanking her backwards just as the woman's arm blurred upwards. The staff Ash had been holding clattered noisily to the ground as she landed on her back, eyes wide open when the flash of steel passed overhead.

  There was shouting from below, and chanting. Hastily Ash sat up, gripping Melar's arm tightly as the shapeshifter tore away at the barrier, a stream of incomprehensible words accompanying her movements as she tried to combat the spell and climb at the same time. Almost, it seemed that she would escape, because the faint limning of blue light flickered out of existence, but then it returned in a skull-piercing flash and the killer was thrown backwards, as far as the opposite side of the enclosure, falling into a twisted heap of wrong angles.

  "Oh, damn," Melar whispered.

  Ash, though momentarily paralysed by a variety of pure fury she rarely experienced, was able to release his arm, aware that he would have bruises where her fingers had sunk into his flesh. She took a deep breath.

  "You saved my life, Melar," she said, evenly. "Thank you."

  He was still staring down at the body.

  "And that 'mad dog' thing was quick thinking," Ash continued. "You probably saved that man's life as well."

  Melar looked at her then. "But it's all wasted!" he blurted, his usual calm lost to the night's failure. "She's dead! We'll never find out who hired her now!"

  Ash shook her head, watching as Verel disbanded her spell and the Guard efficiently began to dismantle the physical cage. The death touched her less than she had expected. For all she had driven the woman into this trap, it had been the assassin who had chosen to fight rather than be captured.

  "Wasted? Genevieve's killer has died as she should – surrounded by her enemies, scrabbling for her freedom. As for her employer...well, perhaps we will discover something of that one when we track back to wherever in The Pile she was sleeping."

  "Never give up, hey, Ash Cat?" Larkin asked, coming up behind them.

  She looked up at him and watched him react to her expression. Then she shrugged and rose to her feet, became all business again, sending her Huntsmen on their way, all but Larkin and Melar, who were less easily ordered and who knew the heart of the Shambles best. The three of them dropped lightly to the ground, where Thornaster and Verel waited. The Aremian handed her her staff, his eyes flicking over her in a quick, precise search for injury. Then he nodded.

  "Formidable," he said, the words both congratulation and comment.

  "Anything useful on the body?" she asked.

  The Investigator shook her head. "Food. Weapons. Trinkets. Nothing."

  "You want to track back to her nest tonight, or wait till daylight?"

  "How long before the scavengers move in?"

  Ash shrugged. "It would have to be a brave scrabbler."

  Thornaster and Verel exchanged a look. "Tonight," Verel said, decisively. "Tracking is very limited, and best not delayed. Can you lead us to the point you first sighted her? I'll cast from there."

  After a pause, while Verel removed one of the bindings from the dead shapeshifter's foot, presumably to be used in her casting, Ash and her friends resumed the skyways and returned to the start of their hunt at a much slower pace, guiding Thornaster, Verel and two of the more hulking Guards.

  The trail led directly to the narrow entrance of The Pile, and Thornaster had to remain behind with Larkin and the guards, while Ash and Melar crawled with Verel to the place the shapeshifter had spent her days. There, among the mouldering blankets and scraps of a life lived rough, they found buried three purses heavy with gold. Nothing else.

  It was not until Ash and Thornaster had returned with Verel to her office in the palace that they thought to empty the purses, and found two signet rings. Thornaster scooped them up, studying them with disbelieving eyes. In response to the Investigator's anxious question, he displayed one next to the ring he wore on the smallest finger of his right hand.

  The other was Hawkmarten's.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "Hello, Heran."

  "Ash. You came."

  "Why wouldn't I?" The window was once again curtained and shuttered, and Ash busied herself in opening it, then sat down on the sill. "Still bedridden? I would have thought you'd have recovered enough to get around by now."

  "Master Tsimon says I have to stay here for another week."

  "Whatever for? Come over here," she ordered. "I like your view."

  She smiled vaguely into the distance while Heran decided to do as she said. He came to a stop by the sill and looked resolutely out.

  "You're doing this deliberately, aren't you Lenthard?"

  "You'd find being afraid of heights terribly inconvenient, Heran. Don't convince yourself that you are." She dangled her legs out the window, drumming the heels of her boots against weathered stone.

  "Brilliant advice. How do you suppose I go about it?"

  "Sit down." Ash gestured at the remainder of the sill.

  Heran looked at it, then at Ash, then gingerly lowered himself to sit legs inside, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the stone. Leaning against the folded shutter, he closed his eyes, and then cracked the lids enough to see her and her alone.

  "The way Arun was acting last night, I know your Visel Thornaster was out doing something interesting. What was it?"

  "Ha, so that's the reason for your invitation. Doesn't that fall under the heading of gossip about my Luinsel?"

  "I don't give a damn if it's gossip or not."

  She cocked an eyebrow at him, not surprised by the frustration. And then, after glancing at the nearest windows to reassure herself that they were firmly closed, she told him, not quite everything, but more than enough.

  "Thornaster and Verel's faces were a picture when they found those rings. Total shock from him, and Verel like a shutter had slammed down. Then they lined up the possibilities, all neat together. That Thornaster and Hawkmarten were behind the murders. That someone intended to make it seem that way. That either Hawkmarten or Thornaster had hired the assassin with the intention of implicating his fellow. That both of them were the assassin's next targets, after she'd run out of herbalists. That last is the one Thornaster wants it to be. I haven't seen much of Hawkmarten outside these trigle games, but Thornaster considers him a friend, and he really didn't like when Investigator Verel pointed out the man could be preparing the ground for Nyreem to invade."

  Heran scrubbed his hands through his golden curls. "Why doesn't Arun tell me these things? I knew there were murders, and the rumours about poisoning. But for Father to ask Aremal for help! For – for Karaelsur to somehow be a threat?"

  "You'd certainly be left floundering if someone does succeed in killing Rhoi Arun. Do you think
he doesn't trust you?"

  "No." The dismissal was immediate, total. "It's just I'm his baby brother, always getting chills, not ready for responsibility. Prone to falling off cliffs."

  "And busy suspecting Thornaster of everything under the sun, because the Rhoi hasn't told you why he's here. Does knowing more about what's going on help you at all guessing who shot you?"

  Heran shook his head, staring out the window. "None of them seem like killers to me. Lirindar? Vendarri? Marriston? Frog? I'm so glad Lauren was ahead of me – no matter how well he behaves, always there's this expectation he'll follow his father's path."

  Hiding a wince, because she was guilty of that herself, Ash said: "Don't forget Gibrace."

  "Gibrace is too well-mannered to shoot me," Heran protested. "Frog too much a joker. Marriston would gain nothing from it. None of them would benefit. If both Arun and I were dead, Decsel Enderhay is by far the most likely to be put forward as candidate for Rhoi, and I can't imagine Astenar rejecting him – or any of the seruilisi being so attached to him they'd be willing to kill. And his sons aren't even old enough to be in the Mern yet."

  "Have any of the seruilisi been behaving strangely, lately? Differently?"

  "Different from what? Most of the differences started because of you. Marriston's been acting right in character there, I assure you. Vendarri's annoyed about having to teach you archery. Lirindar's been given a couple of demerits for lateness, but everyone thinks that's because he's in the middle of a love affair. It's all just–" He lifted his hands.

  "A mystery. Problem is, I'm not sure we're clearing the thing up, or making it murkier."

  Ash left him sitting on the windowsill, lost in thought. And, she barely resisted pointing out, entirely unconcerned about the drop.

  ooOoo

  An afternoon in the Mern learning a tactical game called skarrance brought Ash no closer to answers, try as she might to guess the thoughts of those around her. Frog invested the pieces he moved around the map with names and characters. Pelandis blossomed, abandoning jitters for an absorbed progress to victory. Lirindar was subdued, and Marriston annoyed with him. Vendarri kept frowning at Carlyon – perhaps in concern, because the first seruilis barely seemed to pay attention to those around him, his eyes shadowed.

  Gibrace had been given the task of explaining the game to Ash, and she made quiet progress toward being able to chat with him, all the while trying to see behind the surface. Mild, observant and intelligent, he rarely offered his own opinions, but listened keenly as the other boys discussed the lack of support for the Rhoi's new law regarding smallholdings, which had yet to be passed by the Landsmeet. The Rhoi's laws could be overturned if two-thirds of the Rhoimarch's Luinsel objected, and the senior seruilisi were totting up numbers.

  "I don't really understand the objections to it," Ash confessed to Gibrace as the seruilisi, with a great amount of clatter, packed away the dozens of intricately carved skarrance pieces. "Maybe there will be a tiny number of people who don't pass, but they'd have to be truly failing to maintain the Balance to do so. Where's the harm?"

  "Administration costs and favours," Gibrace said with a shrug. "There's a significant expense in not only arranging for every smallholder to be judged, but also to maintain that process into the future. And unbound smallholdings are a useful place to drop problems you want cleared out of your own lands." He gave Ash a hint of a smile. "Of course, there's also the matter of making Montmoth over in Aremal's image. You won't find many who support that."

  A word from Carlyon sent the seruilisi clattering out the door, a process that involved a few too many elbows for Ash's tastes. She ducked her head, slipping out of the crowd, then paused on the threshold. Something had been out of place.

  Stepping mentally back through the tangle of movement, from the elbow to the skull, to the shoulder banging against hers, there had been the tiniest tug.

  Sliding hands into trouser pockets, she brought out the day's accumulation. A fresh kerchief. One of Larkin's notes. Two walnuts. And a General. Creamy, gold-shot quartz carved in the shape of a bearded man, and mounted on a silver base.

  Her breath hissing out between her teeth, Ash turned on her heels, marched over to Carlyon, and dropped the skarrance piece into his hand. Then she stalked off to her swordcraft lesson, cursing annoying pests and the necessity of spending any longer in their company.

  But with the assassin dead, there was little choice. Investigator Verel was attempting to track the mage, the money, and the origin of the two signet rings – and no doubt thoroughly looking into the backgrounds of Setsel Hawkmarten, and Visel Thornaster. Ash wondered whether Thornaster had fed Verel the same half-truth about his mother being a cousin of the Aremish Rhoi, and if the woman would find any other connections between the two foreign Luinsels and the spate of deaths.

  Ash refused to rule it out. Like the man as she might, partiality was not the same as real certainty that Thornaster was innocent of involvement. She could not trust her instincts on someone who amused her, and so would continue to afford him the limited trust common sense prescribed, while keeping an eye out for developments.

  Her activities in the Mern followed the same approach. Some of the seruilisi were starting to warm to her, and she was slowly gaining a better sense of their personalities, but showing off and chat would not get her inside their heads. Instead she watched them for suspicious activity, hoped to overhear careless conversation, and held herself ready to follow any lead that came her way.

  While not being so thick-witted as to have one of them set her up as a thief.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Heran made his official return appearance at the Rhoi's Spring Celebration, which was a garden party held in the last month of spring each year. It was, the boy said, a perfect opportunity for everyone to gawk at the 'poor little injured Veirhoiling', and his expression of endurance was clearly mistaken for suppressed pain by the Landsmeet host wandering through the extensive palace gardens.

  "We're here as seruilisi," Heran said, following Ash behind the spiral of topiaried greenery she'd sought for respite. "They're supposed to treat us like furniture while we're in uniform, not make conversation."

  "Furniture? As in sit on us, or put their little plates of cakes on our heads?"

  "Statues, then."

  "That would involve them standing around discussing what we looked like. Though I admit that would be better than having the same conversation over and over and over. Describing what it was like to rescue you and talking about how wonderfully heroic I am was only fun the first dozen times."

  "What do you say when people ask you what it was like to rescue me?"

  "That depends on who's asking. I told Lark and Cassia it was cold and boring. Anybody important, I say that I was very relieved to find that you were alive. And all the rest I just say 'nerve-wracking' and they seem to like that as an answer."

  "Lark is one of your Huntsmen, yes? Is Cassia as well? You have girls who run around on roofs?"

  "Lark is more or less the leader of the Huntsmen, and we include two girls among our number. Cassia's one of the palace laundry maids, though, oh Veirhoi of the ivory tower. She's about the only person of my acquaintance who hasn't asked me what it was like to rescue you as if it were all a great adventure."

  "You're romancing a laundry maid? Be careful, or you'll find yourself tripping over the Mern's code of conduct."

  "She's just a friend – she keeps me up to date on the gossip." Though Ash suspected Cassia had begun to consider a flirtation with the gutter seruilis. Romance was a complication that Ash had had to learn to sidestep the last couple of years, and it always left her feeling guilty for the deception which bought her so much freedom.

  Through the gaps in the topiary spiral, she spotted Carlyon against the hedge opposite. With his upright stance and blank expression he appeared entirely oblivious to the mix of admiring glances and speculative whispers directed his way. The shadow of Eward Carlyon made it unlikely any Carlyon
would be a contender for the Rhoi's position, but that had not prevented Lauren Carlyon from becoming a prime suspect in the attempt on Heran's life – for all that the official position was that no such attempt had occurred. Rumour had triumphed over all their precautions.

  Frog strolled into view and took up a position at Carlyon's side, clearly trying to tease him into a smile. But then his broad grin faded, his attention fixing on something in the centre of the square of hedges. Curious as to the cause of his almost reverential expression, Ash stepped out from behind the topiaried tree to see the Rhoi, nodding polite greeting to...Kiri Arpesial.

  Tall, elegant, her early promise of beauty fulfilled and surpassed. Masses of soft black hair reached her waist, bound loosely by a long rope of beads and framing skin of cream and roses, with no flaw or blemish to distract from feathery lashes, clear grey eyes and a high brow. The curves Ash lacked were set off wonderfully by a dress of muted simplicity, the lack of ornamentation somehow making every other female seem garish or fussy.

  Most of all, she was 'wearing her reserve'.

  Kiri had been practicing her reserve for as long as Ash had known her, ever since they were neighbours in stiff little dresses, allowed to visit each other so long as they were on their best behaviour. Ash had taught Kiri how to climb from her bedroom window into the Arpesial's attic, where they played dress up among Kiri's great-grandmother's expensive gowns. In return Kiri had tried to teach Ash her reserve. The ability to be attentive and remote, lips never quite curving to a smile, but with no air of hauteur – as if she existed on a slightly different plane, untouchable – was something Ash had never really needed or mastered. For Kiri it was the core of her daily defence.

  "Don't go falling for The Incomparable." Heran peered around the edge of the tree. "Not that there's usually any choice about it, I admit. But look at Frog."

  Glancing back at the two seruilisi, she found Carlyon practicing his own reserve, and Frog stilled. Without his usual animation he seemed older, and there was deep pain in his stance, a weary ache lacking all hope of ease. As she watched, his eyes widened, and a complicated tangle of emotion made him briefly ugly. Ash found her own face stiffening, and the breath she took was a cold knife, her entire body tensing around sudden, unexpected hurt.