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bit of this, Your Majesty,” I said, putting the flask to her lips. “You must catch hold, you know. You’ve got to tell us the tale if we’re to go about finding His Highness.”

    Tunstall got down on his knees beside her chair, too. “Cooper’s right, Your Majesty,” he said, his deep voice soft. “It’s hard to Hunt when we don’t know what happened.”

    “I understand,” she said, and took a swallow. “Have—have you worked with Master Farmer long?”

    Tunstall and I looked at each other. “We just met,” I said. “Lord Gershom chose him. I’ve known my lord a long time, and I think he would have brought a mage he knew well for this.”

    The queen took another swallow from the flask. “If Lord Gershom vouches for him, then I will trust in his skill,” she said quietly. “After all, neither Ironwood, that’s His Majesty’s mage, nor Orielle claim the skills to hunt raiders. Orielle is my own mage,” she explained. “Perhaps they do not teach tracking skills to mages in the University of Carthak or the City of the Gods. I know their oath of duty calls for Orielle and Ironwood never to stray a hundred yards from my lord king or me, but surely this is different?”

    “I wouldn’t know,” Tunstall said. “We have no understanding of the skills learned by such important folk.” I waited for him to say, “And our mages are scummer,” but he did not. Perhaps he didn’t want the queen to know most Provost’s mages weren’t very good. I doubted very much that my lord chose a scummer mage for a royally ordered Hunt.

    To change the subject, I asked, “Your Majesty, have you a picture of His Highness?”

    The queen’s lips quivered. She took a deep breath, blinked several times, and picked up the oval locket that swung at the end of her pearl belt. “Here. We just had it done a month ago for his fourth birthday.”

    Tunstall and I leaned closer. The portrait was of a solemn-eyed boy with reddish-brown hair and skin as pale as the queen’s. He had his mother’s eyes and mouth, and the king’s hair and beaky nose.

    The door opened. In came Master Farmer with a flagon and some cups. “Here we go,” he said cheerfully, placing them on a table at Her Majesty’s elbow. “It’s lemon water, which I thought might do Your Majesty more good than wine just now.” He poured her a cup and handed it to her. Then he poured cups for the rest of us and passed them around. I sipped the contents carefully. I’d had lemon water only once before. Holborn had insisted on buying some for me last summer.

    The memory bit me deep in the belly. I thrust it out of my mind and savored the drink. Master Farmer took a chair as Her Majesty and I set our cups aside. I gave her a fresh handkerchief and nodded to see if she would pick up the thread of her tale.

    “We knew there was trouble when we found no one at the gate on the main road. Captain Elfed wanted to leave us there, but His Majesty said that our mages might be needed. The mages refused to leave us—I told you, they are forbidden to do so. In the end, we all came. We saw the fire soon after that. The mages put it out, but Captain Elfed says everyone must have been dead before the fire started. I went straight to the nursery. I promised Gareth …” She took a drink of her lemon water, then made herself go on. “It’s where the fire started. The mages say Lunedda is not there—his nurse. If she is gone, I won’t believe anything’s happened to him. But his mage—Mistress Fea was
melted
.” The queen’s lips trembled. “I only knew her by her—her hair, and the seeing glass she wore around her neck, and her rings. The rest was … ooze.”

    “Forgive me, but was everyone melted?” Master Farmer asked while Tunstall and I drew the Sign against evil on our chests.

    The queen shook her head. “Only Fea and the head cook. He was a mage, too. The rest were blasted, or killed with ordinary weapons, or burned in the fire, even the