We slipped between places and came out at the edge of a forest, the sun high overhead, a dusty road stretching south before me. Far down that road, six little figures trudged along, coming in my direction. I knew them. Oh, yes, I knew them. A noise came from behind me, half a sigh, half the sound of a door closing. I knew without looking that Ganver had gone and suspected I would never see the Eesty again. In that moment I was so joyous to see Murzy and Cat and Bets and Sarah and Margaret and Dodie that I did not take time to care. Later, when I understood the lesson it had tried so hard to teach me, and the reason it had not lived by that lesson itself, I grieved for Ganver’s grief.
8
PETER’S STORY: THE SPY
Himaggery and Barish had decided that our first and most important problem was the one of spies. Huldra and Dedrina had set out from the north with quantities of the amethyst crystals, and we had to expect they would use the vile things. If there were a spy in the kitchen, any meal might contain an unpleasant surprise. If there were a spy in the wine cellar, the shock could be equally unexpected and even more widespread. So, we very methodically set about determining whether those employed in sensitive positions were trustworthy, using me for part of the task and well-trusted Demons for the rest.
“It would be a good deal easier,” Barish fussed, “if we could do the whole thing openly, just line them all up against a wall and have at them, but the way the men are feeling just now, full of suspicion and ill will, it wouldn’t take much to have a rebellion on our hands. No. Better take a little longer and do it quietly.”
So we took longer and did it quietly, with me pushing the idea of cooperation to everyone I encountered, remembering how the Eesty shape had done it. It was hard, tiring work, frustrating because we found nothing. It made no sense! Why put one not-very-clever spy into the Demesne when they could have planted a dozen?
I went down to the dungeons to have a word with Shaggan, the one spy we knew of.
“I don’t know,” he kept babbling in answer to my questions. “I haven’t any idea how I got here. The last thing I knew, I was on the road from Fangel, south to Betand, with a few friends, all of us making for Pfarb Durim for the Harvest Festival, and the next thing I knew I was here.”
“He came shortly before the siege, Lord Peter,” said another of the guards. “I remember it well enough. He came knocking at the gates saying he was out of coin and out of patience and needed something to keep himself for the next season or so. Well, we’d been recruiting right along, so I saw no reason not to take him.”
“No one else presented himself at that same time, or around that time?”
“Nobody. Later on, the Lady Sylbie came, of course, but those who escorted her simply left her at the gates and went on south. And then only a few days after that, here came the besiegers with enough baggage to last them two seasons.”
Shaggan wasn’t lying. He really didn’t know what he’d been supposed to do as a spy, so after a time he returned to duty—or, shall I say, enlisted for duty since he couldn’t remember having been on duty before. I took the time to search his cubby down in the guardsmen’s dormitory, and it had nothing in it but what one would expect. No amethyst crystals lurking in the bottom of his weapons chest or the hems of his tunics.
It occurred to me then he might have been a decoy, someone for us to discover to keep our minds off some other, more important one. Yes. It really did occur to me. And I did little or nothing about it!
Barish shared my suspicion, however, so the Demons kept doggedly at it, and so did I. Several days went by, and the feeling in the place grew noticeably better. Little cliques of men who had spent their time twitting one another a few days before, hands on knives and false smiles on lips, were now sitting side by side at their meals, talking over old battles and more recent conquests, laughing behind their hands. I followed one of the Demons into the bathhouse—I’d known him for several years, a good, reliable man—to ask him if he’d found anything at all, and he merely shrugged. “Nothing except what you’d expect, Peter. Many of them had bets riding on who would come out on top, Himaggery or Barish, but they’re starting to feel sheepish about it.”
I went down to the orchard to roust Mavin out of her tree shape, which she had reassumed immediately after meeting and approving of Bryan. “Take him back now,” she’d said, “and come rouse me if anything significant happens. I’ll want to take the boy to Battlefox the Bright Day when it’s safe to do so, and I’ll wager that girl will be glad to see him go.” I wasn’t so sure of that. Sylbie seemed to dote on Bryan, though she never mentioned his Shifter Talent. It was almost as though if she didn’t admit it existed, it wouldn’t exist.
“Himaggery’s getting ready for some countermove,” I told Mavin. “Don’t get too deep into your bark because I think they’re going to need you.” She promised to come out of tree shape each morning and evening, just to check on what was going on, and then went back to fruiting. These days, when
