Chapter 194 Chance Earns His Keep

 How did a thing like that manage to happen? Lora lost no time having Lilac fetch two chicken legs, and traded the dogs out of their boots. Under the lamp, studied close, the boot Belle had newly brought did carry — sure enough — two drops of blood. No hanging about it. Lora took both boots down and found Leon. On the road, Chance had refused under any persuasion to drop that short boot — had carried it right up into the carriage with him, and the train being in a hurry, they had let him keep it. At the station, Norton had dismounted and set the dogs down — and no sooner down than Chance picked the boot up again, off to find Lora and trade it for something to eat. And at that hour, Belle had yet to fetch anything. "It's a common-soled boot — we can't swear it belongs to the killers. But there's blood on it, and that's not a thing to let pass. Too many eyes here, and exits in every direction — a quiet search won't hold it. Linn, Lyle — send men now, bring Morn and the rest back. Show the colors, and seal Tarnfield station." It went back to that day: the King, in his false warmth, had handed his brother a Frost Ravens command that had never existed — and with it, following the establishments of a prince's household, had appointed the brother's guards Linn and Lyle Commandant and Vice-Commandant of the Frost Ravens. A hollow title with nothing in it. At the time the two of them had not one soldier under their hands — even the ten inner guards under Greene answered to no such office. The one good of it: their grain came from the crown's own sack, and Leon was spared the feeding of them. And though a baron's house could not raise troops, Linn had gone more than once round the hiring fairs, buying men under the name of house servants and drilling them — guards fit for use now numbered seventy or eighty. This trip, not to catch the eye, only ten had come. The rest must wait word whether the lord would be staying in Augustburg — their next move hung on that. When Morn's men had reached the station, and seen the lady and the young lady settled, they had carried the dead Grey Wolf guards off to find burial ground — and were not yet back. Guards went out two by two to watch the station's four gates. Norton took the short boot and tried to have Belle lead them back to where she'd picked it up. But Belle was deep in her chicken leg: pitch the boot out, and she would not fetch it; reach for the chicken, and she showed her teeth and growled. The leg before the master, every time. Morn came back with his men before long. Eighty of them had come out with the young lady this trip. The three hundred Grey Wolf guards had been split four ways: a few dozen with Corin, a few dozen to the gold mine, a few dozen to Little Penn Village, a few dozen left at the Odenheim house in Lohenheim. At the sight of the blood-marked boot, the banked anger in the Grey Wolf lads came up in flame. They sealed the exits first; Morn went with Linn to find the station master. With soldiers on the gates, commotion ran through the station. The station master, in a flurry to go ask the Baron of Charnwood what this might be, found Linn already come to him: "Station master. I am Commandant of the Frost Ravens. You are commanded to notify the county justice of Tarnfield at once: men here are wanted in the attempted assassination of the Baron of Charnwood — capital charges against them. This station is now sealed. Without the Baron of Charnwood's own order, no one passes in or out." "As-assassination? Y-yes, yes — this humble officer will report to the county at once..." The station master's own post was not so much as grade-rated — a "county clerk," nothing more. But of the twenty-seven stations between the two capitals, the station masters' berths were fat ones, gotten by connections as a rule. And he was no fool. Killers in a capital case touching the royal house, turned up in his station — was that a thing that could be hushed down? Lyle's men split into squads and searched the rooms; Linn went over the station register. The post-boys lit every lantern and torch to hand, and in a moment the station, just gone quiet with nightfall, was one roar again. Before long they hauled out a peddler returning from Augustburg to Lohenheim — barefoot; not only shoeless, but sockless: "Wronged, sirs, wronged! I was abed and asleep! Not till you hauled me up did I know my shoes were gone — I can't tell how it happened!" "The sun's barely under, and you're asleep? Where were you today? What did you do? The whole of it, and the truth." The great hall still had its doubtful characters under question when, in the little courtyard, Chance finished his chicken leg at last. He sat, licked his forepaws, and gave his face a wash. "One thing strikes me as odd. Our assassins putting up at the same station we do — that's delivering their heads to our door." Leon had been turning it over since first he saw the boot — though with blood on it, a search could do no harm. He went on: "The station keeps a physician. What if the man's wounded?" "Norton — bring the boot Belle had. Let Chance take the scent." Belle had never been trained; she only aped whatever Chance did. But Chance had been Norton's from a pup, and had been schooled to the work besides, back at the tower chamber. Chance took one sniff of the boot, dropped his head, and worked his way out along the ground, nose down; Lora and Norton followed. They came to a row of guest rooms. Morn was searching them one by one, the lodgers standing against the wall, shaking. Lora marked that the first room's furnishing sat differently from the rest — a row of pigeonhole cabinets stacked with medicines. She remembered Leon's words: what if the man's wounded. "My lady — these are the station's physician, its horse-leech, and its master of horse. Nothing doubtful among them." Morn came up to report, seeing the young lady. Lora put a finger to her lips, eyes only on Chance, who was working down the line of men, giving each one's feet their sniff. The station kept dogs of its own; but a strange dog of Chance's size going down the row frightened most of them, and the wall-standers drew their feet in a little tighter. Chance sniffed with a will. Soon he stopped at the feet of a tall man in the middle of the line — a man not in short boots, but in a pair of new shoes. Chance's nose pressed against his ankle, snorting. "Wh-whose dog?" The man had a nervous note in him now. "Mine. Why?" Lora stepped up, smiling: "My dog found a boot. He's come to bring it back to its owner." The man's face was past hiding it. Beside him an old man stood board-stiff, his face worse than the tall man's. Lora had her answer. Chance snorted a while longer, then began pawing at the sock showing above the man's ankle. The man dodged the paw and cursed: "Get off! Mangy dog — get!" Lora was already in front of him. Her fist drove hard into a spot on his chest that stood a little proud of the rest — and the man cried out. That was the bandage under his clothes: with the styptic powder packed on, the wound stood out a touch above the flesh around it. He lunged mad to get his hands on her throat; Morn and Norton had his arms before he moved a hand's-breadth; and Chance, all excitement, had his teeth in the man's leg. The man standing at the old one's other side broke and bolted for the porch — and Weldon was out there, wheeling Leon's chair; there was no road past him. With the two taken, the old man fell to bowing, one courtesy after another: "These two came to me seeking treatment! I never set eyes on them before — the tall one held a knife at my back, else I'd never have held my tongue! I pray the officers will weigh it!" "Weigh it? The whole lot of you stood by and never said a word. If the dog hadn't sniffed him out — were you minded to harbor a killer, and let him walk?" Leon came into the lantern light, and his voice was cold: "Askar Morn. Five lashes a man — and not one lash short."

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