“What is it?” she asked, too tired to be as concerned as she should be.
“Look at the ground,” Gin growled, his nose against the grass. “See anything odd?”
Miranda looked at the ground. It looked like field grass to her, with a few stones scattered about. Fortunately, Gin answered his own question before she had to admit her ignorance.
“The grass is wet here,” Gin said, pawing at the ground on the non-Gaol side of the border, “but dry here.” He jumped the little gully that marked the beginning of the duchy and nosed at the bright green, but bone-dry, Gaol grass. “It’s like that all through here,” he snorted, raising his head. “Like it didn’t rain on Gaol at all. What kind of weather acts like that?”
Miranda frowned and squinted upward, but the sky was the same rainwashed clear blue as far as she could see on both sides of the border. She looked back at the ground, and her frown deepened. What kind of weather indeed?
“We are here to investigate strange happenings,” she said. “This would certainly count, but it can’t just be that the rain is acting odd. I don’t think the West Wind would need us for something like that. Let’s go farther in. Maybe we’ll find more oddities.”
Gin nodded and they trotted up the hill into Gaol itself. They kept the road in sight but stayed to the ridges and trees, Gin slinking lower and lower as the farms grew denser. Still, everything they saw looked perfectly normal. Idyllic even, so much so that Miranda began to wonder why they’d been sent here at all.
“I never knew Gaol was so pretty,” she said delightedly as they crossed a stone bridge over a clear, babbling brook. “Why in the world does Hern spend so much time scheming in Zarin when he’s got this to come home to?”
“Well, I don’t like it one bit,” Gin said. “It’s too open and too neat. Even the grass growing in the fields is lined up in a grid. It’s unnatural.”
“Better get used to it,” Miranda said, signaling him to stop at a picturesque stand of shaggy fir trees. “Because you’re going to be waiting here while I go change this money and gather information. I saw a sign for an inn and trade house a little ways back. It’ll be a start, if nothing else.”
Gin snorted. “I’m not going to wait here while you wander off.”
“We’re trying to keep a low profile, remember?” Miranda said, jumping down. “Ghosthounds aren’t exactly inconspicuous.”
Gin rolled his eyes at that, but he sat down, which meant he was going to go along. Miranda smiled and checked her pockets one last time. The mix of coins and paper ruffled pleasantly under her fingers. Satisfied, she ran her hands through her windblown, salt-stiff hair and bound it back in a stiff braid. When she was as presentable as she could hope for, she left the trees and made her way down the hill to the large, charming lodge at the bottom, whose bright painted sign advertised lodging, baths, and all manner of trade and services for travelers.
Miranda swerved west and came up to the inn on the road as though she’d been walking on it the whole time. The main building was set back from the road itself, behind a large yard for caravans to turn around in. However, the turnaround was empty this morning. So were the stables, Miranda noted as she climbed up the wooden steps and opened the door to the inn. The building was just as charming inside as it was outside, with large wooden beams across the ceiling, warm lamps hanging on the walls, and a large stone hearth surrounded by benches. Feeling decidedly out of place in her dirty clothes, Miranda put on her most competent face and walked over to the dry-goods counter, where an old man was sorting through a large accounts book below a neatly lettered sign advertising money changing.
“We don’t trade any council standards,” he said as she approached. “Local currency only.”
“I wasn’t going to—” Miranda started, then dropped it, fishing her money out of her pockets instead. “Local is fine. Can you change these?”
The man stared at the strange collection of currencies as though Miranda had just emptied a fishing net on his desk and gave her a look sour enough to curdle cheese. “This ain’t the Zarin exchange, lady.”
“Just change what you can,” Miranda said. “Please.”
The man sneered at the pile, and then, with a long-suffering sigh, began to sort the notes and change into stacks.
“So,” Miranda said, leaning forward just a little. “Quiet day?”
“Quiet?” The man snorted. “Try dead. The duke’s called conscription and suspended all travel, or didn’t you notice the empty road?”