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to the older man of the King’s Own. “Once this was discovered, how many people have ridden this track before us?” he asked.

    Achoo jumped to the ground. She ran over to my horse, her tail between her legs. She was nearabout spooked out of her fur.

    The cove began to reply, cleared his throat, and spoke. “Our party, that was away in Blue Harbor, rode this way to come home after midnight. Guards and couriers have come and gone on this road since. And it is not this for which you are called. Come.”

    “Not this?” Lord Gershom demanded, but he set his horse in motion. The mage and I followed. Tunstall fell in with me as we passed. We heard my lord mutter, “What in Mithros’s name can be worse?”

    That same question worried Tunstall and me, for certain. I could not read Master Farmer’s face yet.

    “Is this what you meant?” I asked Pounce in a whisper.

    It’s the beginning
, he replied.

    Master Farmer looked at me. “So your cat talks,” he remarked, as easy as if he rode by dead folk every day. “Doesn’t it unsettle you?”

    Easy, Beka
, Pounce said in my mind, when I would have given the mage a tart answer.
He’s frightened, too, for all he doesn’t act it
.

    “He’s talked to me for years,” I said. “I’m used to it.”

    “Oh, good,” Master Farmer replied, turning to face forward on his mount. “I wouldn’t want you to put a good face on it for me.”

    We rode past sight of the flower gardens, but the landscape of the dead continued. They had fought in the trees here. Tunstall pointed to the far side of our road. There were footprints on a wide path that led down toward the sea. I nodded. Had the enemy come from there, or had people tried to escape taking that path? If Tunstall, Achoo, and I were supposed to make sense of this raid, we were sadly overmatched. I’d put at least five pairs on sommat as big as this, and more than one mage.

    Thinking of mages, I wondered, shouldn’t that seaward path be magicked to the hilt? Wouldn’t that wall down below be magicked just the same? Royalty came here for the summer. Surely those who kept them safe wouldn’t leave their protection to a couple of walls and some guards.

    We halted in a wide circle where Their Majesties’ guests left their chairs, horses, or wagons. This had been cleared of the dead. That there
had
been dead was plain from the blood splashes on the ground. Men of the King’s Own silently took our horses. I called Achoo to heel—she was sniffing the blood—and followed Tunstall, Master Farmer, and my lord inside.

    Our guides did not come with us. Possibly they did not want to face the soot-streaked, blood-splashed entry hall. We were met by a fleshy, white-haired cove. Mayhap he’d been very well satisfied with his life a few days ago. Now I had to wonder if he would live out the month, for all that he wore rich silks and hose and a great gray pearl earring.

    “Your people may wait in there, Gershom.” He pointed to a side room well fitted with chairs and small tables. “
You
will come with me.”

    My lord gave us the nod and we did as we were told. The room had escaped both fire and murder. There were pretty mosaics bordering the walls at top and bottom, as well as inlaid at the window ledges. The shutters were well-carved cedar, open to the air outside. I made note because my friends would surely want to know what the inside of a palace, even a summer one, was like. There were silk cushions with tassels everywhere. Pounce went over to one and idly batted a tassel. Achoo showed no interest in the furnishings. She went to the open door and whined.

    “
Kemari
, Achoo,” I told her.
“Dukduk.”
She looked at me and hesitated. I pointed to a spot next to the chair I meant to take and repeated my commands.

    “What language is that?” Master Farmer asked. “It sounds like Kyprish, but it’s mangled. Doesn’t she respond to commands in Common?”

    I’d placed his accent by the time he was done.