Jame scanned it, noting dozens of spelling errors but not commenting on them. “This looks good.”
The big Southron relaxed marginally.
“So what are your plans for the day, Brier?”
“I’ve more paperwork to do. Let the children play.”
“Hey!” Rue protested. “I’m no child.”
“Close enough.” Jame could see that her servant was fretting to get away. “What mischief are you up to, Rue?”
The towhead grinned. “We’ve set a guard on the strategy instructor’s quarters—you know, the one who always throws his wooden hand at us to keep our attention. If he comes out, let’s see how he likes being on the receiving end.”
“Don’t hurt him,” said Jame sharply.
“Of course not. That wouldn’t be playing the game right. What we’ve gathered to throw is a lot softer than his hand but less sweet smelling.”
“I thought you had a whiff of the stable about you.”
She was about to send Rue on her way when the door burst open. Timmon plunged through and slammed it after him in the face of an Ardeth hunting party.
“They’ve got a list of chores as long as your arm,” he gasped, leaning against the door. “All the household duties I’ve avoided since last summer. They’ve actually been keeping score! Can you believe it?”
“Easily,” muttered Rue as Jame, laughing softly, pulled on her boots.
“Given that,” she said, rising to stomp them home, “why are you here?”
He flopped onto her bed. “I was on my way down to breakfast, half asleep on my feet, and clean forgot what day it was. Before I knew it, they’d cut me off from my quarters. Eek!”
Addy had emerged and was crawling across his hand.
“Will it bite me?”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Just hold still. Rue, go and have fun. Brier, if you don’t want to play, at least take the day off. Don’t worry about me.”
Rue grinned and slipped outside where she could be heard indignantly driving Timmon’s pursuers out of the Knorth barracks. With a stiff nod to Jame, Brier followed her.
Meanwhile, the snake had achieved Timmon’s lap and was poking around there, curiously, to the Ardeth’s rigid discomfort. Jame scooped Addy up and draped her around her neck.
“You can stay here if you want.”
“Will you stay with me?” he asked hopefully.
“Sorry, no. I have something to do.”
First, she went in search of Jorin and found him curled up on the chest on Greshan’s quarters that contained the hibernating wyrm. The ounce seemed to be spending more and more time there, as if on watch. The last time Jame had opened the box to check, she had seen movement inside an increasingly transparent chrysalis. Soon it would hatch . . . into what? No one knew anything about the life cycle of a darkling crawler. Not for the first time, she questioned the wisdom of keeping such a thing around, but then in its caterpillar phase it had played with Jorin and purred. “Darkling,” as she well knew, was a relative term.
Leaving the cat on sleepy guard, she went out the window and climbed to New Tentir’s roof.
Even though crusts of snow still lingered under some of the denser evergreens, it was a fine, crisp day with spring in the air like the warm hint of wild clover. Early flowers freckled the training fields. Wispy clouds floated overhead, chasing their shadows northward up the Riverland’s valley floor.
Noise below caught her attention.
In the square, a squad of sargents was being drilled and getting thoroughly mixed up as they tried to follow the contradictory orders shouted at them by gleeful cadets.
Meanwhile, one of the more unpopular ten-commanders thundered around the arcade in a punishment run.
And off to one side, a solitary randon officer wobbled as if drunk through a game of hopscotch, surrounded by a crowd of jeering cadets. One of them was Damson, from Jame’s own ten-command. She remembered now that this particular randon had often made fun of Damson’s weight and stocky build, just as Vant had done. That in turn reminded her of how Vant was said to have stumbled into the fire pit as if pushed. Glancing up, Damson caught her eye, flinched, and slid back into the crowd. Sometime soon, Jame thought, she needed to have a word with that cadet.
First, though, she had to find Shade.
Sliding a hand under the serpent’s head, she looked at her eye to eye. “Where is your mistress?” The black tongue flicked the tip of her nose, but she got no other response.
Jame wasn’t sure how smart the adder was—enough to find her, but not enough to lead her back to Shade? That was odd. Then again, while Jorin had alerted her barracks that she was in trouble when the Randir had kidnapped her and thrust her into Bear’s den, the cat hadn’t been able to convey anything but his distress. Of course, no one of the Falconer’s class had been present, which might or might not have made a difference. Perhaps a dog would do better. That in turn reminded her of Gorbel’s pook Twizzle. From here, she could see the tall, semiblind Caineron barracks. Well, why not ask?
Gorbel looked around as she swung in through his bedroom window. “Don’t you ever use the door?”
“You know how I would be greeted below. Fash has a score to settle with me.”
“Huh. Since the Council meeting, yes, not that he didn’t deserve what he got.”
The Caineron Lordan was setting his boar spears in order, his armor with its cuirass and skirt of braided leather nearby ready to be donned.
“I’m not about to waste a good hunting day playing silly buggers with a bunch of retarded brats,” he said, seeing her glance at his gear. “Twizzle stays here, though. For one thing, it’s too dangerous. For another, he makes tracking almost too easy.”
“I was just about to ask if I could borrow him.”
She explained.
Gorbel grunted. “So that’s why you’re wearing the Randir’s snake like a damned torque. What, no note tied to her neck, or should that be to her tail?”
“I’m serious, Gorbel. Something is wrong.”
“There always is, when you’re around. All right. Take Twizzle. He can’t follow a normal trail worth scat, but if you fix your mind on what you want, he should take you to it sooner or later.”
He dumped the pook into her arms. She reversed him. Dog and snake regarded each other with what seemed like wary recognition.
On the way down, Jame made the mistake of taking the stairs. On the landing, she met Higbert.
“Just the person Fash wants to see,” he said and made a grab for her scarf, only to recoil as Addy reared back to hiss at him.
“All right, all right, go! We’ll catch up with you soon enough and that precious Brier of yours, too.”
Jame wondered, on the way down, what the Caineron had in mind for her five-commander. Few escaped Caldane’s clutches, but Brier had, to take service with her brother. Gorbel might not mind; clearly others did. However, Brier was also a seasoned warrior who had come up through the ranks. Surely she could take care of herself.
On the arcade, she was almost knocked over by the master-ten compelled to the punishment run and saw that it was Reef of the Randir.
“Run, run, RUN!” shouted her cadets.
Not popular, huh? thought Jame, watching her go. Surprise, surprise.
Two more approaching cadets made her hesitate, but they were only Gari of the Coman and Mouse of the Edirr, both students in the Falconer’s class.
“We aren’t after you,” they assured her, “just out to see the fun. What are you doing with Addy? Where’s Shade?”
“I don’t know. In trouble somewhere. I’ve got to find her.”
The two exchanged looks. “Then we’ll round up the rest of the Falconeers to help.”
“Here.” Mouse detached one of the twin albino mice from her hair and handed it to Jame. “If you find Shade first, tell Mick and Mack will tell me. If we find her before you do, Mick will start squeaking. Just follow the direction in which he’s loudest.”