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  “Perfectly obvious,” he repeated. I was looking up by then. Lord Gershom was staring at the mage. His Majesty had an arm around the queen’s shoulders. Both he and the queen gazed at the mage with no expression at all. “It was a raiding party from the north, or the Copper Isles. We must get word to our brethren at the palace—”

  “That the raiders may have the heir to the throne in their hands?” Lord Gershom asked, his voice harsh. “Are you a born hoddy-dod, or was it your learning that brought you to a crawl?”

  “I will not trust the palace mages!” snapped the king. “With the row they’ve put up over the new mage laws and taxes, you’d think I’d attacked them! They will be happy to gain power over our Gareth!”

  Tunstall cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him. “Since we lose daylight as we talk, I propose that the three of us begin our Hunt,” he said. “That is why you brought us here?”

  My lord Gershom hurriedly introduced us to the king. Then Master Farmer, Tunstall, and I, bowing a great deal, got ourselves out of that room. Pounce and Achoo raced away around our feet, beating us into the hall.

  “That was a splendid escape,” Master Farmer said when the door closed behind us. “Do you know where we should start?”

  “Are you the investigators Lord Gershom brought to us?” A lady approached us. She was exactly my height, with white skin and blond hair that she had pinned back under a white veil. Her eyes were wide-spaced and blue, attentive, set over a short nose and broad, thin-lipped mouth. Like the queen she wore a very light under tunic and over tunic, but her over tunic was plain gray cotton, with small, sober blue embroideries at the cuffs. I saw no magical designs there. She wore a plain gold chain for a necklace, a black stone on one index finger, and a piece of blue lapis lazuli on the other. There were plain gold hoops in her earlobes. Like the queen’s, her eyes were red and swollen with weeping. “Is Queen Jessamine in there?” she asked.

  I glared at Tunstall. I was curst if he would saddle me with talking to every mot we encountered.

  He smiled at the lady. “She is there, with the king, and a white-haired cove who has vexed my lord Gershom.”

  The lady smiled a little. “He’s Ironwood of Sinthya, His Majesty’s personal mage. He vexes everyone, sooner or later. Actually, sooner. If you want a guide—I couldn’t help but hear what you were saying—I’ll take you to whatever you need to see. Her Majesty has no need of me if she’s with the king.”

  Master Farmer offered his hand. “I’m Farmer Cape, handling magecraft for the Hunt. I serve the Provost’s office in Blue Harbor.”

  The lady raised her eyebrows. “I expected one of the mage chancellor’s people. Someone educated in the City of the Gods, as I was, and Ironwood was.”

  Master Farmer shrugged. “Doubtless someone like that is on the way. I’m just here to get the Hunt started.” He said it evenly, as a simple fact.

  The lady must have thought he’d taken offense. She sighed and shook her head. “Forgive me. I meant no insult. I’m sure you’re good at what you do, or Lord Gershom would not have brought you here. And I’m not always so unmannerly. I’m Her Majesty’s personal mage, Orielle Clavynger. Is this a scent hound?” She offered her fingers for Achoo to smell. “She doesn’t look like those we Hunt with.”

  “Her name’s Achoo,” I said. “She is a scent hound. I’m hoping to put her to work.”

  When Mistress Orielle looked up at me, I saw iron in those mild blue eyes. She might seem to be sweet and approachable, but she belonged to the court, and expected things to be done in a certain way. Reminded to improve my manners, I introduced us properly. “I’m Rebakah Cooper, guardswoman and handler for Achoo. This is my partner, Senior Guardsman Matthias Tunstall. And you have met Master Farmer.”

  “The day is trickling away,” Tunstall said politely. “We would like to get to work, lady mage.”

  “Oh, of course,” Mistress Orielle replied. “Where would you like to start?”

  “The nursery,” Tunstall and Master Farmer said at the same time. Tunstall glared at the mage, but Master Farmer only gave Tunstall a bland, dozy smile. Mistress Orielle tucked her arm through Master Farmer’s and pulled him along, explaining that there would be little to see. The fire had started in the nursery from what her spells had told her.

  I wanted to tell Tunstall to back off of Master Farmer, but I was distracted by looking for Pounce. He’d vanished somewhere before I could introduce him to Mistress Orielle. I knew he would be all right. A cat who roamed the stars would hardly lose me here. Still, he sometimes chose to get into mischief that I had to handle later. I liked to have him under my eye.

  The damage from the fire got worse as we climbed the stairs and entered what Mistress Orielle said was the north wing. The roof there was burned away, as were parts of the inner and outer walls and chunks of the floors. Finally we had to stop. All that lay before us was a gaping hole from roof to cellar where the north wing had collapsed. I took out my mirror. Magic like cobwebs glowed in the shadows. It was this that held what remained of the floors and the walls. I put the mirror away. It was almost more frightening to see how scant the protective magic was than to know the wing itself was close to coming down.

  “Her Majesty said the body of the prince’s mage was found in the nursery,” Tunstall remarked, staring down into the mass of charred beams and flagstones. “Is it still there?”

  Mistress Orielle fluttered. “Well, no,” she explained in reply to Tunstall’s question. “All of the bodies, including Fea’s, were brought out right away. Fea of Seabeth,” she added, as if that helped us any.

  “So there are no dead actually here,” Tunstall said.

  “We could hardly leave them in the cellar. We were searching for His Highness,” Mistress Orielle said, lips trembling.

  It was my turn to move in. “Tunstall, she’s been through a bad time,” I scolded, keeping my voice soft. Tunstall and I worked this manner of questioning all of the time. I took her by the arm and gently turned her away from the men. Achoo did her part by looking sad as she nudged Mistress Orielle’s elbow in a comforting way. “Do any of his belongings remain down there, Mistress Orielle?” I asked, trying to speak as if we’d been educated at the same school. “Could you tell if they were taken, or destroyed in the fire?”

  “Oh, no, they were burned as far as I could tell,” she said. “The gold rattle from Prince Baird, the crystal orb from my lady of Cavall—or was it my lady of Coa’s Wood?—all of the expensive things were taken, but his clothespresses burned, and his everyday toys.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t understand how this could happen,” she said as she took out a better handkerchief than I could offer. “This place has been magicked and remagicked against all kinds of disaster. The Chancellor of Mages renewed the spells before Her Majesty brought Prince Gareth here at the beginning of May!”

  Master Farmer had taken a lens that hung on a chain around his neck and was using it to view the ruins. “I hope you didn’t pay him good coin,” he said. “Or even bad coin.”

  “What do you mean?” Mistress Orielle asked sharply.

  Master Farmer tucked the lens inside the front of his tunic. Gone was his foolery when he spoke. “The spells all around us are shredded, Mistress Clavynger—apply your own spell if you doubt me. If the Lord Chancellor did anything while he was here, it was damage, not strengthening. If the attackers came up from the seacoast, it was because he destroyed the concealment spells on the cliffs, the paths, and the gates.”

  She stared at him, jaw agape. Was she vexed because he had dared to criticize a mage of much higher rank? Or did she see, as I had, that he’d just accused the realm’s chief mage of the worst kind of treason? Master Farmer shrugged. “It stands to reason you have secret paths down to the beaches,” he said. “Why have a seaside palace if you never go down to bathe?”

  “Blessed mother defend us, the king must be told!” Mistress Orielle turned and raced down the hall.

  “Since you’ve put the c
at in with the pigeons, you’d best go explain to Their Majesties how it got there,” Tunstall told Master Farmer. “We’re not speaking for you. We didn’t say that their big mage left them open to murder. For all you know, she’s going to say that you’re a fool and don’t belong in this Hunt.”

  “Mayhap that fancy education in Carthak and the City of the Gods needs some additions. A class for not killing folk, and another on holding to your vows.” Master Farmer shook his head and followed Mistress Orielle.

  It takes a real sack to accuse a great lord and mage before another great mage, don’t you think? I heard Pounce ask. He walked toward us over the gap, balancing easily on a charred beam.

  “If he did, hestaka,” Tunstall replied, “why didn’t he also say Ironwood and Orielle should have seen the damage themselves? It’s one thing to accuse a cove who’s far off, and another to rightly say the mages nearby were too smug or too lazy to do their proper work.”

  Tunstall was in his crotchety mood when it came to the new mage. I knew it would do no good to remain and let him continue to find fault. He would come to like or simply to work with the new mage when he felt like it. “Well, I’m off to find the laundry, if it isn’t under all that,” I said to him, pointing to the two-story hole. My heart was pounding. I feared that somewhere in all this charred wood and ashy cloth there was a dead four-year-old lad with reddish-brown curls, and Achoo and I might find him, once we had sommat to give Achoo the scent. Then I would have to tell that beautiful girl that her baby was gone, and my king that he was childless again. When I thought of all the prayers that had gone up from the entire realm, begging for an heir of our king and queen, it made me want to weep. Everyone liked the king’s brother and former heir, Prince Baird, well enough, but he was childless himself, and cared little for government.

  “Then let’s find the laundry,” Tunstall said. “Mayhap after, we’ll eye the dead and see if the raiders took off with anyone. I wouldn’t mind a look at the bodies of any raiders, myself.”

  We walked back into the more solid section of the palace, checking each room we passed for someone who could tell us where we might find the laundry. At last we nearabout ran into a maid with both arms full of sheets. She gave me instructions while Tunstall took her sheets so he could carry them for her.

  “I don’t suppose a sharp mot like you would know where they’ve been laying out the dead?” he asked her as they wandered down the hall. He turned his head and gave me a nod. He’d catch up with me.

  I nodded and told Achoo, “Tumit.” Split up, Tunstall and I could learn more after we’d dallied so long with folk who didn’t seem to know that time was the main point in matters like these. The longer we spent bowing or listening to royalty or the likes of an Orielle, the colder the trail got. I tried to do my figuring as Achoo and I ran down a narrow servant’s stair in part of the building that had escaped the fire. Her Majesty said the king’s party had left Blue Harbor at about midnight. Even if they’d kept a good pace, and the absence of the guards at the main gate had spurred them on, they would have reached here after one—call it two of the clock. How far the raiders would get depended on whether they had fled by ship or by land. I don’t know what His Majesty or my lord thought we could do if they’d taken ship. The Rats could be on their way to Carthak.

  And why the secrecy? I wondered as we reached the basement level. I turned right, as the maid had directed me, following the lingering scent of soapy steam. Why had the king not summoned the navy right off, and the army? Why were all the fine mages of the chancellery not having their own little peregrine voyages right now, ready to put their fancy training and tools into the search? I knew there’d been a lot of angry mages when the king proposed that they be licensed and taxed like ordinary folk, but surely all of the palace mages weren’t rotten.

  The laundry was far bigger even than the one at Provost’s House. It was a downhearted place, with no maids at work, beating shirts and tunics, dying new batches of clothes, telling jokes and gossiping above the noise of it all. Achoo and I walked in, looking at indoor lines hung with drying clothes and the baskets of dry stuff, waiting for hot irons. The fires were out, their fuel all burned to ashes. When I dipped my hand into the water tubs, I found them all cold. Several times I had to walk around puddles of blood. Either the raiders had killed anyone here and dragged them out, or those collecting the dead had taken them away.

  “Black God take you gentle,” I whispered, in case their ghosts were lingering. “Find the Peaceful Realms and rest.” The more death I know, the more I feel like I must say something, working for the Black God as I do. I wondered if there were pigeons outside who might be carrying any ghosts. If there were, the ghosts might tell me of how the attack had unfolded.

  My steps and Achoo’s claws echoed on the stone floors. I looked at the baskets, wondering where I could start, when I saw the second laundry room, connected to the big one. The baskets in there held clothes that were finer than these by far.

  This other room was smaller, but better equipped. The flatirons were polished smooth to leave no marks on fine linen, lace, or silk. The starches were the finest ground possible, for a queen’s delicate skin, and the soap was filled with expensive scent.

  I saw a pair of good-sized baskets. One held small pressed tunics neatly folded and ready for transport upstairs. The other held tunics streaked with berry traces, hose stained with mud, and loincloths marked by a child who was still learning to master the chamber pot. That touched me. I remember one time when my brother Nilo got lost at Provost’s House, just after we’d moved there. He’d cried himself into hiccups in one of the cellars, thinking he’d never see any of us again. The poor little prince must be so frightened, out there with strangers. He’d been surrounded by them that loved him all his life.

  When I knelt by the basket of dirty laundry, Achoo plunged her nose into it. She began to sneeze right away, having gotten the prince’s scent full on. I moved the basket away before she could sneeze into it. If things got ugly, other scent hounds might need these dirty clothes.

  A basket was too unwieldy. I looked around and spotted a laundry bag. I slid it over one end of the basket and tilted it so the clothes fell inside. I kept two dirty loincloths, sliding them in a leather outer pocket on my shoulder pack. Then I tied off the top of the bag. Now the scent-rich clothes would be protected from my smell. If we did not find His Highness dead somewhere close, more scent hound teams, the veteran teams, would be placed on this Hunt. They would need these garments.

  I looked around this smaller laundry room. Pounce had returned. He sat on the edge of one of the tubs, staring back at me. Achoo was at my feet, whining because I had taken the strong smells away.

  “Where have you been?” I asked Pounce, though this wasn’t the idea that was chief of those in my brain.

  Pounce answered my spoken question anyway. Out and about.

  I barely attended to that. Instead I spoke the thing that had been itching at my brain for some time. The itch had gotten almost unbearable since Master Farmer said what he had about the protection spells.

  “It was an inside job, wasn’t it?” I asked Pounce. “It’s not just a matter of the magic being shredded to bits, like Master Farmer said. That hill below the gardens is steep. Then we have two outer walls and cliffs down to the sea, as well as those dead soldiers we saw in the garden. For raiders to get by all that, someone helped the kidnappers. Someone opened gates and told them where to find the hidden trails and the prince.”

  Is that what you think? he asked. Pounce hardly ever tells me things, even when he knows them. He says he doesn’t want me to depend on him. Since the last time I expected him to warn me of danger and I got my head cracked instead, I don’t argue.

  “What I think is that if someone got the jump on our little prince last night, they might well try again, on Their Majesties. It’s not enough to take the heir. Her Majesty’s young, and it’s plain they’re still in love. Mayhap she’s not gotten pregnant again yet
because she wanted to spend time with the prince. The first thing they ought to do is get about the business of more heirs, unless their enemies stop them.”

  Pounce looked up at the ceiling. Let someone else protect them. You’re needed to Hunt for the prince, he said. We’re needed.

  I lifted the bag in my arms and walked out through the bigger laundry room. “At least with this stuff Achoo and I have sommat to start with. It’s a grand life we have, when excitement comes from dirty loincloths,” I told Pounce.

  As we climbed the stairs to the main floor, I heard shouting in the distance. I couldn’t be sure, but the loudest voice sounded like the king’s. When we rounded the turn and came in view of the top stair, there sat Mistress Orielle, weeping into her hands. Tunstall perched beside her, one arm around her shoulders. Master Farmer leaned against the wall behind them, his hands in his breeches pockets.

  His face brightened when he saw me. “Is it washing day?” he asked. Tunstall shot him a glare, but Master Farmer didn’t seem to even notice it.