Steampunk Hearts

by Jordan Reece

  The tracker shifted in the cage. “Then he tracked at my side, over and over again, and saw what he had not seen before. It was lonely, tiring, dangerous work. Sometimes it was very aggravating, especially when we were trying to herd animals back to their pens. Sometimes it was very sad, because we did not reach people in time to save them. Then we had to drag their bodies back. Sometimes it was very joyous, like the time we found the leatherman’s little boy and girl who had played a game in the woods and gotten lost. Not that game.” He rolled his eyes about Dieter’s drunken handsies.

  Then he resumed his story. “Farther and farther away they had wandered in trying to find their way home. They’d survived a night of inhospitable weather and would not have survived another had Humber and I not reached them. We carried them back, poor things, cold and shivering and weak. And there was such a party when we emerged from the woods with the children alive in our arms! The leatherman ran to me and seized his daughter, covered both of us in kisses and demanded the best food and drink be brought to me. The leatherman’s wife ran to Humber and seized her son, covered both of them in kisses and demanded the best food and drink be brought to him. This was what had made Humber jealous before, when I alone received these accolades. But now he had his wisdom. We were crushed with fatigue from the journey and wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep. Yet we could not walk away from such a display of gratitude. The entire pearl was there to feast and dance and praise us, to present us with the finest of meats and wine and tokens. Am I boring you, Arden? Would you rather . . .” The tracker drummed on his belly and head.

  “No,” Arden said. In truth, he was very interested in this story, and it gave him an excuse to look into those pretty eyes.

  “All this Humber told me while on his knees. By then he had had his wisdom for long, and I asked why he continued to track with me when he had nothing left to learn. He said that he continued because he did not like to think of me doing this alone. To go after a herd of stubborn animals was not a task for one man. Even two could barely handle it. To drag back a body on mountain slopes was not a task for one man either. The grief of it was better shared, as was the difficulty of pulling the sled uphill. To chase down the living without having to carry a heavy pack of supplies . . . to have Humber there made everything easier. It was his duty as my brother to help me, he said, and his pleasure.”

  “Still the right way, tracker?” Master Maraudi shouted back.

  “Yes,” the tracker called tersely. Then he again spoke to Arden. “You will call me Volos. I did not spring from the womb to a mother who named me Tracker, or big brothers who called for Little Trackie to wash his hands of mud and come to the table. Tracker is my role. Volos is my name. Do people call you Arden or Shuffle Shoveler?”

  “Very well, Volos,” Arden said.

  “I wonder what Humber would do to you, were he given the chance to strike out at the man who holds his little brother hostage. Humber has fists the size of dinner platters and his head bumps the lintel if he does not duck. He makes dwarves out of me and our other brothers. Strong and quiet and faithful, a gentle giant except when his family is outraged. And you have outraged us, Arden. I would not want to stand in your shoes if my family were to come and mete justice. Once Humber was through with you, my mother would have a very strong opinion with a switch upon your bruised and battered form. That is too bad, Arden. That is a shame. My mother would never stand to see an orphan boy, had you been born a child of the Cascades. She would have made another son out of you, should you not have chosen to be our enemy. And she loves her sons. Your favorite dishes would have been on the table every Sevenday, and your cheeks stained red from kisses should you have brought her something to read.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?” Arden asked.

  “So that you might know me; so that you might stop seeing a beast within these bars. A man should understand the extent of the crime that he is committing upon another. He should feel his victim’s pain as his own, and the pain of his family. You should feel all of us in your heart. This will be hard for you. You’ve seen nothing beautiful in your life. People who do not know beauty, who do not long for it if they do not have it, cannot be good people. They fight and yell and destroy because all there is in their minds is the ugliness with which they have lived all their lives. You have tasted so much bitterness to be this way, and for that I am sorry.”

  “It has not been so bad for me,” Arden replied.

  “But it has not been beautiful. To not see beauty makes your heart wither. This, this around us is nothing like the pearls.” His eyes went to the fields along the road. The grass was yellow and brittle, clipped from cows, and the sky above was a dirty purple. “Yes, all of this explains the four of you to me. You would not be this way as a man from the Cascades, Arden.”

  “I know nothing of the Cascades and thus cannot argue.”

  “Even on a splintered table where rest four cracked bowls of dust porridge, in the meanest of scrabbles homes, you would find a vase of flowers. Never an orphan, were you one of us, but gathered into another family as a son of the heart, and on the day of Salomas, this family would have tended the graves of your kin with you. Because now your dead are their dead, your grief their grief, your duties their duties. I bet the man in your life is just as bitter and curdled.”

  “How do you know of what I favor, Volos?” Arden asked.

  “I am in a cage, not blind. Stupid Dieter has eyes that follow the women to pass us; yours alight on the men.” Volos stared at him. “No, I do not think you even have a man to call your own. You are alone in this world.”

  Arden looked away. It ate at him in the quiet of the night, when he woke in his cold bed and silent hut. It did not seem such a great thing to ask of the world, to have a family. Everyone else appeared to acquire them with ease. Perhaps that was another reason he was so reluctant to scream in Leefa’s face. She was like him. Utterly and totally alone, and he pitied her the way he pitied himself.

  “Do you have a man or woman in the Cascades?” Arden asked.

  “I did, but he passed where I could not track from that horrible illness to come from the seafolk,” Volos said. “Yes, they brought it to our fishers, yes, our fishers brought it to the lowest pearls, yes, the lowest pearls brought it to the highest. And over the mountains it went, some people even fleeing to the caves to wait it out. Lith lasted only three days.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “But not sorry that you keep me in here.” His head turned sharply as they came to a crossroads. “Stop.”

  “Stop!” Arden called ahead since Master Maraudi and Dieter had not heard. The tracker breathed in consideration as the soldier turned his horse around and rode back to the cage.

  “What is it?” Master Maraudi asked.

  “Her scent is coming to me from two directions at this point. I believe she turned left upon this road and then returned to it, but by some other route.”

  “She could have spent the night over there,” Dieter called, shielding his eyes from the sun and looking over the road the princess had taken. “I see a town.”

  They detoured to it, Master Maraudi wanting to retrace her steps as closely as possible. The road did not ferry them to a town but to a row of farms, corn growing tall and green in neat lines behind the fences. The tracker moved from one side of his cage to the other, taking in the scent and finally pointing them to a blue farmhouse down a long stone path.

  Master Maraudi dismounted. “Squire, penchant, stay with him while Keth and I go-”

  “Ho then!” A farmer appeared from the corn, which was growing over his head, and came to the fence. “Looking for town, then, you’ve stopped just short of the road to carry you there.” He took in the tracker and cage in bemusement.

  “Actually, we have been hired to locate a thief,” Master Maraudi said. “We know that she came through this area just a few days ago.”

  The farmer had nothing between his lips or in his mouth, but he chewed thought
fully. “Precious few come through here. A thief, you say? We haven’t had any thieving around here, just the Tradams’ horse, but that was two winters ago.” He eyed Dieter’s horse. “Looked a little like yours.”

  “She’s a jewel thief, she is,” Dieter said.

  “She’s young,” Keth said. “We can’t give you a physical description since she is a master of disguise, but she’s a young woman.”

  Jaw working, the farmer said, “The only ones passing through here in the last few days was a couple. The man’s horse had thrown a shoe. Didn’t want to wait for the farrier to come, did they? No, they wouldn’t wait even a day. They paid me twice what my good gray Standard was worth, left the man’s horse here for me to have, and rode away after a nice meal. In a hurry, yes, but those weren’t jewel thieves. My wife had an emerald ring before they came and she still has it now. Pleasant folk, if rushed. Polite and educated. I came off fine in that deal, didn’t I? Nothing wrong with his horse besides the missing shoe.”

  “Did they happen to say where they were going?” Keth asked.

  “Can’t see how it matters. They were quality people, just a young man and woman going on about their business and none of it funny.”

  Opening his leather pouch, Master Maraudi offered several gold coins. “It could be that we are wrong, but we must be thorough. Tell us everything you remember about them.”

  The farmer’s eyes widened and he pocketed the coins. “Just another lucky day for me, isn’t that so? But you’ve wasted your money.”

  “Who was the man?” Keth asked.

  “What was his name? Adan, I think it was. Tall, dark hair, callused hands from riding but a soft, society look to him. He had no airs, though. Asked me about how the season was going, hoping it was better than that year with the drought he remembered from seasons back. Beautiful hilt on his sword, carved with tiny flying dragons and they had jewels for eyes. Not stolen,” the farmer added firmly. “They were fastened in there tight. And she was Ducilla, pale as a dewdrop and honey hair in a braid thick as my fist. She helped my wife dish out the food as Adan and I discussed the purchase of my Standard, and I can’t see a jewel thief offering to do that. She said that they were tutors going from the college in Lighmoon to the one in Grable, and they were behind a day in their travels.”

  “Tutors with enough money to pay you double the worth of a horse?” Master Maraudi said. “Tutors with a sword like that?”

  “An heirloom kept close even as the family fortune bled away,” the farmer retorted. “That’s what he said, and there was nothing suspicious about that. I’d get a pretty piece of coin for my wife’s emerald, but that’s been passed down in my family for five generations. Coin is soon spent; nothing replaces the history on her finger.” He didn’t address the matter of the outrageous money the couple had paid for his horse.

  Master Maraudi and Keth asked to see the horse that this man named Adan had left behind. The farmer ordered them to remove their weapons before they entered his property. Dieter took possession of their swords and then the threesome walked to the barn. Arden turned at an annoyed exclamation from the squire: his horse had sidled up near the cage and the tracker was helping himself to food from the pack.

  “Leave it!” Arden cried when Dieter tried to reclaim the cheese and candy. “We’re all hungry. Let’s have something.”

  “He has his own food! That’s ours!” Dieter said angrily.

  “Then keep your horse at a distance,” Arden chided. “You can hardly blame a man who has been starved to resist food that wanders right under his nose.” The tracker stuffed candy into his mouth happily and stuck out a purple tongue at Dieter, who grumbled and pulled his horse away.

  It wasn’t long before their search party had reformed and was riding away from the blue farmhouse. The tracker directed them onward. The princess and her companion had taken a thin path through a cornfield to return to the main road. There were still impressions of horse hooves in the soft dirt. The horse in the barn had just been a regular Standard, and branded with a small L to indicate it was Lighmoon-born.

  The identity of the companion was turned over and over through the next hours, Master Maraudi consulting Volos as to the identity of a twin scent traveling alongside that of their jewel thief. Volos was of no help, although it was for once unintentional. More than one man was traveling along this route and he had no way to know which scent belonged to the fellow in question. Even if he could tell, what was there to be gleaned by the smell but the type of soap the man used or lack thereof?

  The road was wide and sparsely traveled, so the four of them rode together. Of their party, the most intimately acquainted with their target was Keth, but she had hardly any more clue than the rest of them as to the mystery man. She and Master Maraudi spoke in hisses about it, Arden only catching a little even though he was right at Keth’s side. None of the male retinue of the palace had gone missing at the time of her disappearance, nor had she ever appeared to be developing a special fondness for some lord of the land. She was not pleased with her betrothal, yet within Keth’s hearing, she had never spurned her future husband for some other man. It was not for lack of opportunity. Many courtiers had favored her. She just never appeared to favor them in return.

  Nor did Lady Brogid Timmonsie have a brother or close male relative to provide an escort to Minkakel. It could have been a hired man all the same, but the sword! No hired man would possess a sword that fine. The fact that it bore dragons shed little light on whose hand carried it, as dragons were a common ornamentation in Odri, Loria, Havanath, and even Isle Zayre.

  They spent the night in a field near the road. The tracker in his cage was parked at a distance so they could speak in normal voices and wrangle over the mystery beyond his hearing. Dieter dished out their meals as Master Maraudi said, “There appears to be something about this princess that the snakes overlooked. That surprises me. Her oldest sister was the one for clandestine notes and flirtations-”

  “For the love of Dagad, this is not a princess who courts scandal!” Keth said. “She is not anything whatsoever like her sister. She is content in her artwork and studies.”

  “But still, most young women can fall for the charms of a handsome man . . .”

  Keth disagreed strenuously. “To be fawned over by men is an aggravation to her at parties, as I’ve seen time and time again. She wishes to speak of politics with them and not be serenaded on bended knee with love songs. Indeed, that is a reason she so despises the men of Isle Zayre. They treat their women as ornaments and she is insulted to be so reduced in their company. Her mind is keen. She wants to have it acknowledged and respected. Isle Zayre women do not exist outside of their men; they do not vote or attend college or qualify for employment-”

  “What do they do then?” Dieter asked.

  “In the upper classes, essentially nothing. They recline on chaises, gossip and plot to out-dress one another at parties, drink and eat sweets . . . If they can read, they do not admit it; if they have opinions on affairs of state, they clutch them close to the breast. It is very, very different from Odri. To a scholar and an independent soul like Princess Briala, a life spent on a chaise pretending that she cannot read and has nothing of importance to say is detestable. She cannot bear to be in the presence of her brother’s Isle Zayre wife, and the wife cannot bear her in return. But it would look poorly that Odri takes in an Isle Zayre princess for its prince yet refuses to send one of its own princesses in return to an Isle Zayre prince.”

  “There must have been some little lord-ling she played with as a child who stole her heart as a man. An Odri lord-ling,” Master Maraudi said.

  “Then this she kept exceptionally well hidden,” Keth said. “I have accompanied her as a guard for years and cannot cite a single instance in which she thrilled to see any specific lord or lord-ling approach. The only ones permitted to enter her private study in the library were her teachers. I can vouch for this as I and several others stood outside it.”

  �
�This man doesn’t have to be significant, does he?” Dieter queried, sitting down with his meal and ignoring Volos as he yelled for a plate of his own. “She hired him in Lighmoon then, had him get those horses, and is paying him to accompany her to wherever she’s going. Smart to have protection.”

  “But the sword,” Master Maraudi protested.

  “Couldn’t that be the effect of another holographie crystal? The Master-at-Arms said that it could change clothes as well as bodily features. Maybe this man is carrying a regular old sword, nothing special at all, but the crystal is changing it to something grand. It’s just a trick of the spell.”

  Master Maraudi stared at him in amazement. Then he slapped Dieter hard on the back. “Smart lad! That could be what this is, a regular street-scuff given a holographie crystal. Could she have a second in her possession, Keth?”

  “I cannot say. They were gifts given to the royal children years ago. Each received one. Unusual things, but like all toys, they were soon forgotten. It wouldn’t have been hard for her to acquire her brother’s, or one of her sisters could have left a crystal behind. But the money that this man is throwing around! She took so little from the palace. No one was missing coin or valuables.”

  “Hello?” Volos shouted. “I’m the one doing all the work here; I’d think you could damn well spare a fifth plate!”

  “You had your meal and then some, didn’t you?” Dieter yelled. “Straight out of my pack!”

  “Give him a little and shut him up, I want to think on this situation more and not be bothered,” Master Maraudi said. Dieter sighed but began to get up, and Arden motioned him to regain his seat. Filling his hand with the tracker’s food, which was a supply of unappetizing, rock-hard biscuits and equally hard cheese, Arden poured a cup of water and left them to their discussion of the princess.