The Jaguar Knights

by Dave Duncan

  And ruthless, but no doubt he was hinting that any other investigator might uncover secrets Wolf had known and kept for years. Those would make stale news now, no longer capable of raising the epic scandal they would have stirred up once, yet Athelgar would certainly prefer that his youthful follies remain unmentioned. Spirits knew he had enough others to satisfy anyone. Wolf bowed and murmured gratitude for the royal compliment.

  “You will be granted all the powers you require. Go and see to your brother and then proceed to Quondam.”

  “Your Majesty does me honor.” Wolf wondered if he was being appointed royal scapegoat for something. The King thought of him as a killer, but Vicious knew he did any job as thoroughly as possible, whether it involved killing or not.

  “To expedite matters, Commander,” Lord Sparrow said primly, “pray advance Sir Wolf adequate funds from the Guard’s coffers and apply to Chancery for reimbursement. A representative of the Office of General Inquiry will accompany you, Sir Wolf.”

  “But I will be in charge?” Wolf’s query created an angry pause. It should go without saying that a Blade would not and could not take orders from a Dark Chamber snoop. It also went without saying that the snoop would feel free to ignore, subvert, or misunderstand any orders from a brainless sword twirler like Wolf. Especially Wolf.

  “You will report to the Lord Chancellor,” the King decreed, “and the inquisitor to Grand Inquisitor.”

  “Your Grace is setting up two inquiries?”

  More glares.

  “I do believe, sire,” Sparrow twittered, “that Sir Wolf should be given overall authority.”

  Athelgar nodded grumpily.

  Wolf said, “I will also need the help of a sniffer, my lord.” This business reeked of conjuration.

  “The nearest White Sisters’ priory,” the Chancellor said, “is in Lomouth. Your commission will give you all the authority you need. The Council expects frequent reports, Sir Wolf, but should you conclude that additional assaults are likely, you will issue a general alarm directly to the authorities concerned.”

  “Who keeps the King’s Peace on Whinmoor, my lord?”

  Sparrow pursed lips. “The sheriff is Baron Dupend himself, but you will speak with the King’s voice.”

  “How soon can you leave?” the King barked.

  “The moment I receive my writ and the funds, sire.” Wolf looked to the Gruesome Twosome. “And my assistant?”

  “Inquisitor Hogwood will meet you at the stable, Sir Wolf,” said the one on the left.

  “We will send your commission there also,” said the Chancellor, peering over the clerk’s shoulder at what he was writing. “Momentarily.”

  “By your leave, sire?” Wolf bowed to the King and was dismissed.

  2

  Vicious stepped out to the anteroom with him. Wolf turned, expecting some sort of explanation, but the Commander just snapped, “Move!” and went back in again.

  So Wolf moved. Heads turned as he streaked along the endless marble floors of Nocare, skidding around corners. He paused at the guardroom door long enough to shout, “Modred, pick me out a horse!” and resumed running. He reached his quarters, dressed in two of everything topped off with a heavy fur robe, and was down at the Guard’s stable with a pack on his shoulder before the groom had finished saddling up under Sir Modred’s needle eye. The yard outside was heaped with dirty snow, and the horses’ breath was icing up their stalls.

  The haste was unseemly but necessary if he were to leave before Inquisitor Hogwood appeared, which is what Vicious had meant. Nobody liked the way inquisitors spied, lied, and pried, but the mutual dislike between the snoops and the Blades ran especially deep, and Vicious morbidly detested them. Wolf, moreover, was the Dark Chamber’s least favorite Blade.

  Modred had chosen well, a powerful bay Wolf knew of old, which seemed to know him also, snorting puffs of steam at him and stamping a roughshod hoof on the flags. Young Florian arrived, panting, with a weighty purse from Vicious. A few moments later a mousy clerk minced carefully across the yard to hand Wolf his warrant, signed and sealed. He read it through carefully, disentangling complex prose to establish that he was granted authority to go anywhere, requisition anything, question, detain, or conscript anyone, even suspend civil liberties. It was an astonishing delegation of power, but then he was the government’s first response to an act of war, either foreign or civil. Answering Modred’s frustrated glare with a smile of thanks, he swung into the saddle and adjusted his sword.

  As he rode across the yard, another horse emerged from an adjacent stable and moved alongside, its hooves making muffled thuds instead of the usual clatter. The rider was well wrapped in black fur, with little more than his eyes visible inside the hood of his cloak, but their glassy stare told Wolf his assistant had arrived.

  The snoop said, “Trying to sneak away without me, Sir Wolf?”

  The little of him that was visible suggested he was too young to be much help, even in a fight, but Wolf would prefer an incompetent rookie to an older man deliberately blocking him.

  “I was tired of waiting for you, Inquisitor Hogwood.”

  The boy held out a black glove. “Your commission, please.”

  Unable to think of a reason to refuse, Wolf fished out the scroll and handed it over. Junior unrolled it, rolled it up again, and returned it.

  “I thought you wanted to read it.”

  Fishy stare again. “I did read it. Very curious, isn’t it?”

  That was typical snoop talk, but he sounded even younger than he looked and Wolf clung tight to the remaining shreds of his temper. “Curious in what way, boy?” He put his horse into a saddle-high canyon cut through the drifts to the postern gate.

  “In whom it names and whom it does not. The Privy Council is apprised of massacre, either armed insurrection or foreign invasion, and it reacts by sending a twenty-four-year-old swordsman of meager education and repellent reputation.”

  “It was a birthweek present for me.”

  “Prudence would suggest dispatching several senior Privy Councillors with an entourage of clerks and attorneys.”

  Wolf could sneer too. “In this weather, sonny? The poor dears wouldn’t last a league.” Babyface had made a valid point, though. Wolf would be replaced the moment the roads were passable again.

  “Looking to the Royal Guard for brains is still a questionable innovation.”

  “But I am spiritually bound to absolute loyalty. You are not. Who is not mentioned in the writ who should be?”

  By then they were heading for the northern gatehouse, plodding along an avenue flanked by giant beeches, half a century old and barely adolescent.

  “Lord Roland, of course. He sent the news. He has gone to Quondam to take charge. As Grand Master of the Blades, he holds one of the senior offices in the realm. He must have been sworn in as a member of the Privy Council before you were born, so why not just send a courier with a warrant to confirm his authority? Of course,” young Smartypants added, “Lord Roland is no longer bound and therefore the King may doubt his loyalty. He may see him as being no more trustworthy than an inquisitor.”

  Fretting at being under Blade authority, no doubt, the kid was trying to make Wolf look like a dumb, pig-sticking swordsman. Doing quite well, too. Obviously he had been better briefed than Wolf had.

  “I expect His Majesty wants a second opinion.”

  “A trained observer, more likely.”

  “No eyes are sharper than Blades’. Can you use that thing?” Blades had only contempt for the sort of short sword Hogwood was wearing, a gentleman’s weapon.

  “Not well by your standards, Sir Wolf, but better than most men. I may fare as well as you do against a pack of animals.”

  The Yeomen at the gatehouse noticed Wolf’s cat’s-eye hilt and saluted them through. The Great West Road was only a faint trail in the snow. Flakes swirled in the air.

  “Animals?”

  Hogwood quirked very pretty eyebrows. “The intruders used teeth,
claws, and clubs. No swords, no axes. You were not told this?”

  Athelgar had been certain the attackers had not been Baels. What sort of injuries had Lynx received? “Animals do not use clubs.” Wolf pulled his hood forward. “I hope you can keep up, boy. I won’t wait for you.”

  “You won’t have to, Sir Wolf.”

  “No?” He kicked in his heels and gave the bay its head.

  3

  In summer Wolf could ride to Ironhall in a single day, but he knew he would be lucky to do it in less than two in that snowy winter. Old Flint and Huntley had done very well to do it at all.

  Where there was a visible track, it was rarely wide enough for two horses abreast, so he was spared the need to make conversation. He had time to worry as he rode—worry about Lynx and his injuries, both physical and mental, and worry about the King’s motives. Blades notoriously went mad when their ward died by violence, but Wolf could recall no precedent for a ward being kidnapped while his Blade still lived. And why had Athelgar assigned this extraordinary commission to him, of all people? Lynx and he knew things about Celeste that might still embarrass the King if they came out. Now Celeste had vanished, Lynx was at death’s door, and the King had sent him to investigate the bizarre affair? It made no sense.

  The brief winter day was ending in a blood-red smear when the travelers crossed the Gran at Abshurst. With no one else crazy enough to be on the roads, the post house offered a wide choice of well-rested mounts. By law, a Blade could take his pick of the King’s horses and Hogwood knew enough to select the second-best. The only reason Wolf had not taken that one was the mean look in its eye.

  He would not dare go farther until the moon rose, so he led the way to the dining room, whose stench of bad beer and tallow candles would make a goat gasp. A few locals were drinking in front of the fire, but quickly relinquished that favored space to sword-bearing gentry. Waiters tossed down the usual dirty platters and piled them with winter fare: salted fish, beans, and pickled pigs’ feet. They added fresh loaves, hard cheese, and mugs of small ale.

  Hogwood was now revealed as a skinny youth of about Wolf’s height, looking no more than fourteen. The mystery thickened—why had the Dark Chamber sent a boy to investigate an act of war or rebellion? Did the assignment seem so hopeless or dangerous that no senior snoop would touch it? The King had been very sparing with information. Was this a suicide mission?

  “Well, Inquisitor,” Wolf said. “Tell me about yourself. You look very young to be…you…you’re a girl!”

  “So my friends tell me.” She smirked.

  So much for bragging about the sharp eyes of a Blade! She was tall, but that did not excuse Wolf’s folly. He would not knowingly have spoken to a woman so aggressively, and could not mend his manners now without seeming ridiculous.

  Male or female, she was absurdly young to be assigned a case of such importance. Nubile, though. Wolf fancied his women well bolstered, with a soft double chin to make them seem more feminine, but Hogwood as a girl was even more of a beanpole than Hogwood the boy. Her hair was as black as her robes, worn in a pageboy cut popular then among youths around court, somehow making her face seem small and boyishly bony, despite full lips and lashes like cortege plumes. In firelight, with winter roses blooming on her cheeks, she was childlike. She would be in grave peril if she ever came within groping range of Athelgar the Randy, who notoriously favored nymphets.

  Wolf pulled his wits together. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “We are forbidden to talk about ourselves.”

  “Remember you are my subordinate, Inquisitor. How old are you?”

  She shook her head, chewing and smirking down at her platter.

  “I said, ‘How old are you?’ ”

  She looked up with a sultry glance that would have stopped a knight in a tilting yard. “Old enough for anything you require, Sir Wolf.”

  He was outmatched. Already he could feel old yearnings wakening. Buxom was not essential. “What grade are you, then?”

  She sucked on a bone and waved it in a vague gesture. “Not allowed to tell.”

  “At least I’m entitled to know your abilities. I have worked with snoops often enough to know they come supplied with various tricks and skills. Some are conjuration, some come from long training, others are gadgets in your pockets.”

  “My skills will be at your disposal when needed.”

  Had she been a boy, at that point Wolf would have leaned across the table and belted his ear hard enough to spin his head like a weathercock. “When we set out today you questioned the Privy Council’s wisdom in sending a man of my age and background to investigate an act of war or armed rebellion. Tell me why Grand Inquisitor did not assign a senior agent to support me, instead of a flippant sixteen-year-old female apprentice?” That guess could be out three years either way.

  “Because I was the best-qualified inquisitor available.” The gibe had amused her, which was a warning that the truth might surprise him.

  “Qualified how, other than having shapely eyebrows?”

  “I am not permitted to answer.”

  Wolf hurled a bone into the fire. “This is ridiculous!” He studied her for a moment. “I know this fodder would sicken a sewer rat, but it’s cold out there, so eat. That’s an order. You’re as frightened as the King was. What do you fear, Hogwood?”

  “I am not afraid!” Anger darkened the flush the fire had brought to her cheeks.

  “Yes, you are. I know I have the ugliest face in Chivial and they call me the King’s Killer, but I rarely kill inquisitors, and never women or children, so you need fear nothing from me, girl. What else scares you? The journey?”

  “Nothing!” She glared.

  “You’re lying,” he said and cut a hefty slice of cheese.

  Suddenly his assistant was wearing the blank, glassy mask of an inquisitor. Even the flush faded from her cheeks. “This collaboration is not prospering. Start again. You tell me your background and I’ll tell you mine.”

  It was a peace offering, he supposed. They had time to kill, a meal to eat. A job to do. They couldn’t fight all the time.

  “My history is no secret. I was born Ed Attewell in Westerth.”

  “In Sheese, to be exact.”

  “A totally unimportant mining hamlet.”

  “Is it really?”

  He ignored that dangerous invitation to tattle. “My father died in a rock fall, and my mother found another breadwinner. When she died in childbirth, he found another bed mate. When he fell down a shaft…and so on. I lost count. They got worse. Worse, they got drunk, and often on money I’d earned in the pits.” The last stepfather had given him the start of his face—the smashed nose, crumpled ears, gap teeth. “I had one full brother, Alf. When the current house brute started in on him as well, I decided it was time for us to leave.” Wolf had gone for him with a shovel, leaving himself no safe course except flight.

  Hogwood had switched expressions, to Dark Chamber Sympathetic Face Number One, perhaps. “So what led you to choose Ironhall?”

  He laughed and gulped down some ale. “Crime, of course. Every kid in Ironhall brags of a criminal past. I remember one thirteen-year-old who boasted of being a serial rapist until Prime asked him to explain exactly what a rapist did.”

  Hogwood did not smile. “But he is one now, of course?”

  “He’s a Blade in the Royal Guard!”

  “The difference escapes me.”

  Was this insubordination intended to be some sort of flirtation? Hogwood had a very kinky taste in men if she fancied Sir Wolf.

  “The difference is that Blades seduce,” he said. “If I decided to give you a treat, darling, you would cooperate completely and thank me afterwards.” Incredibly, that was true. The legend would overcome even his gargoyle face and macabre reputation if he set his mind to it. It had happened more than once, although he was not proud of the fact.

  Hogwood glanced around the dining room. “This is rather public. I hope you will rent a bedroo
m for your demonstration, Sir Wolf. And explain to me how this legendary side effect of the Blades’ binding conjuration differs from a love potion, which is highly illegal.”

  “It’s more fun!” he snapped. Blades were notorious womanizers, but he had never heard of one being accused of rape.

  “Then I’m curious to know why you so seldom employ it. But do continue. How did your crimes lead you to Ironhall?” Candlelight danced on the black agates of her eyes.

  “Because we had to steal food to survive. They set dogs on us. Eventually we came galloping across Starkmoor, bareback on a stolen horse with a posse hot behind us.” Looking back, Wolf could see that the pursuers had let their quarry escape to sanctuary rather than see them hanged.

  Two trembling kids were led up the narrow stairs to the stark and forbidding flea room. Sir Parsewood was Grand Master then—stooped and losing his teeth, but well respected. He got the true story out of two waifs easily enough, although he probably did not believe that Alf was thirteen, which is what Ed had told him to say. He talked with them separately, tested their agility by throwing coins for them to catch.

  I have room for one,” he told Wolf. “If I choose you, will you stay?”

  “Not without Alf.”

  “And if I choose him, will he stay without you?”

  “If you’ll let me get away before he finds out.”

  But Parsewood accepted both of them and ordered a skinny boy named Willow to take the horse out to the men waiting on the moor, tell them it had wandered in the gate, and ask if it was theirs. The juniors thought it wonderful to have two Brats to torment instead of one. Wolf they labeled Dog-face, soon shortened to Dog so that Alf could be Cat. Ed took the brunt of the hazing, trying to stand up for Alf as he had at home, but two weeks later another boy was admitted, so Ed and Alf Attewell were promoted to candidates, logically choosing the names of Wolf and Lynx.