Time to earn your keep, O Learned Divine? said Des, amused. As I recall the Saint of Idau once gave us a warning about that.
Mm. Pen sighed, not happily. Any suggestions, Des?
An impression of a shrug. Such manly sports as fox hunts were never ours. Well, Aulia hawked as a girl in Brajar. Litikone set snares, though her most notable weapon was a rusty spear. Rogaska killed more chickens than any fox, but she didn’t need to hunt them farther than her father’s farmyard. Still… She turned Pen’s head. Try over that way.
“Let’s take a cast up there.” Pen pointed, and with a shrug Inglis rose to follow him. They pulled their way upslope from sapling to sapling, then came out onto a stretch of flatter, less obstructed ground. Penric, for a moment, tried to control his busy mind and just let himself drift, or be drawn.
“Oh,” said Inglis, and his stride lengthened. After a few more paces Pen could hear it too, a muffled whine.
Near the base of an oak tree, they found the pit-trap, sprung and occupied. Inglis knelt to clear away the disordered concealing branches, and they both peered down. A smell of dubious fish, elderly pork fat, and the sharp reek of fox wafted out to greet them. The trap’s resident cowered and bared its teeth up at them, growling.
“A fox,” said Pen, “but not our fox.”
“I can sense that. Hm.”
The pit did not seem to be freshly dug, but it had been freshly straightened and, of course, freshly baited. And not, evidently, with poisoned bait.
“Why trap a fox alive?” Pen mused.
“Keeping the pelt intact?”
“Fall or winter is the season for good pelts.”
“Any season will do for farmers warring on vermin,” Inglis noted.
“Then why not use a snare or an iron trap?”
They both stood back and frowned down at this new puzzle.
“Hoy! You there!” a brusque voice yelled.
Pen’s gaze jerked up to find a man in huntsman’s leathers approaching them, his bow drawn. He scowled more fiercely than the fox. But he hesitated as his auditors failed to run away like surprised poachers.
Despite this check, he gathered his resolve and went on, “What are you doing trespassing on Pikepool lands? I’ll see you off!”
Penric, his eyes on the bent bow and trying to make out the fletching on the nocked arrow, scrambled over the blank in his mind and came out with, “Ah, you must be Baron kin Pikepool’s forester! I met Wegae and his willowy wife last night at Princess Llewanna’s dinner. He recommended his woods to my attention. Permit me to introduce myself.” Penric managed a short, polite nod, aristocrat to servant. “Lord Penric kin Jurald.” He elbowed Inglis.
“Inglis kin Wolfcliff,” Inglis came through, though he cast Pen an eyebrow-lift. That high kin name, certainly, would be recognized by any Wealding. Pen let the notion that they were here by some lordly invitation stand implied.
“Aye…” The bow lowered, thankfully, although the suspicious glower remained. Arrows that he could see coming were no threat to a sorcerer, but Pen decided he’d rather not reveal his calling just yet. “I’m the baron’s man.”
“Oh, very good!” said Penric, with a cheer he hoped did not sound too desperate. “Then you can tell us about this trap.”
The man stared at him anew. “It’s a pit trap. As any foo—man can see.”
“I see, well, smell you baited it for foxes. Got one, too, very good.”
“Aye…?”
“Have foxes been a particular problem around here lately?”
“Vermin’s always a problem.” Slowly, the man eased the bowstring, un-nocked his arrow, and returned it to his quiver. “We clear them out from time to time.”
Penric smiled and rubbed his neck. “How many foxes might live in these woods, d’you think, Inglis?”
By his expression, Inglis was not following this start, but he shrugged. “You might find one to three on a square mile, usually, for land like this. More this time of year, when the new pups take to the field.”
“So… anywhere from fifty to a couple of hundred? My word. That’s a lot of foxes,” Pen marveled, trying for an air of city enthusiasm. The bowman winced, though whether at Pen’s tone or his arithmetic was unclear. “I had no idea. You certainly have your work cut out for you, forester! And what would your name be?”
The man gave it up reluctantly: “Treuch.”
Penric backed up from the pit and waved as though inviting the man to partake of a repast. “Well, don’t let us impede your work. Carry on, Treuch!”
On the way, Pen managed a closer look at the fletching bristling from the quiver. Similar to the arrows they’d found yesterday, but not obviously identical. Unhelpful.
Do you make anything of him, Des?
Seems very tense. But he would be, encountering trespassers who outnumber him, and younger men at that.
Treuch might be any age from his mid-thirties to his mid-forties—a forester’s life was no easy one. He seemed about Inglis’s height and weight, if more bowed. But he donned a pair of thick leather gauntlets and lowered himself into the pit with considerable agility, first trapping the animal between his knees and muzzling its bite with a swift wrapping of rawhide cord, then binding its feet and lifting it out. Inglis, unasked, bent to help in this task. The fox, which had snarled at the huntsman, shrank from the wolf-shaman and whimpered.
Treuch managed a gruff, “Thankee,” as he clambered back out. He rebaited the trap with some offal from his pack, then arranged the concealing branches and leaves once more. Slinging the squirming animal over his shoulder, he stood and regarded his unwanted visitors.
“Best you see yourselves out of the woods, and watch your step when you do. I’ve some snares set about as well. But Dorra, the alewife up at Weir village, makes a good brew. If you go out that way, likely you can quench a gentlemanly thirst there speedily enough.”
“Good advice,” said Pen, “on both counts. Shall we wend our way to Dorra, Inglis?”
“If you say so,” said Inglis.
“Good hunting,” Pen called over his shoulder as they tromped off in the opposite direction to the fox-burdened forester.
They kept walking, carefully, only until the man was out of earshot before stopping in mutual accord.
“You want to follow that fellow?” asked Inglis quietly.
“Absolutely.”
They turned and retraced their steps, much more silently.
Treuch made his way through more of the trackless stretch, then turned onto a trail and strode faster. Penric and Inglis kept just out of sight behind him, although they almost came to grief when he turned aside to check a snare. They hunkered down until he returned to the path. After about two miles, he came to an open area. Pen and Inglis stopped at the shaded verge, concealing themselves in an overgrown copse.
An old stone building, half castle, half farmhouse, rose tall and brown on the far side of the wide cleared area. Some thatch-roofed houses of wattle-and-daub in various states of disrepair clustered at its feet, along with a stable set in an L around its own courtyard. Wood fences pastured a pair of oxen and a few horses. A better-mended fence set off a large kitchen garden.
The forester disappeared around the side of the stable, then returned in a few minutes, foxless. He trudged off to the stone house and let himself in through a heavy oak door. The yard fell silent.
The sheer face of the manor house boasted very few eyes, its windows small, deep set, and, as nearly as Pen could tell at this distance, very dirty. “Do you sense anyone else about?”
Inglis nodded toward a chimney in one of the daub houses, venting smoke from a cooking fire. “Likely people in there.”