Beka Cooper 1 - Terrier Read online

  The door to the kitchen wing was open. Only in the coldest winter is it closed, along with the door on the end of the hall that opens onto the kitchen proper. I walked in. A boy scrubbed tableware from the household's breakfast. Cookmaids sat at the chopping table, preparing vegetables. Cook stood with her back to me, tasting several different cheeses. She saw the boy grin at me and turned.

  "Oh, my dear, what happened to your face?" she asked in her soft, kind way. She opened her arms, and I stepped into her warm hold. Mya had looked after our family from the moment our cart rolled through the servants' gate. She made soups that Mama kept down despite the cough that so often made her bring up other food. When Mama found the Black God's peace at last, it was Mya who held me. She was a tiny dumpling of a mot, rounded and sweet, her eyes up-tipped at the corners. So, too, was her nose tipped at the end. Kindness was what she gave as easily as she breathed, but she ruled the kitchen, and the children of the house, firmly. No one fooled her.

  I put my hand to my healing eye and shrugged. "Doing work on Rovers Street, Mya."

  She cocked her head to one side. "I thought your job was to duck," she said.

  I giggled, because of course she was right. "I'll do better another time," I promised.

  She sat me down and fed me. I couldn't escape that, no more did I want to. My belly had started growling on Gold Street.

  "Now," Mya said once she'd put some food before me, "my lord says Kebibi Ahuda got you assigned to Goodwin and Tunstall. Is it true? If Clary Goodwin is giving you a bad time, tell her I will be coming to have a word with her."

  The thought of my kind friend scolding Goodwin made me grin.

  Mya saw it. "You may think me a silly little cook, but Clary and I attend the same temple. We have been friends for twenty years. She is good at what she does, but she does not know how to handle young folk."

  I swallowed my bite of cheese tart and said, "We do well enough. She's my training Dog, not my friend."

  Mya sighed. "I'm sure you're right. You can't be in better hands. Mattes Tunstall is a feckless, overgrown lad, but no one argues that he's one of the best Dogs in the city."

  Feckless? I thought, putting sliced ham on my plate. And how would she know that? Then a dreadful idea dawned and I stared at Mya. "Auntie." I swallowed, the pictures in my head making my belly lurch. "You – you and Tunstall."

  She suddenly smoothed her apron over her lap. "I was once accounted a very pretty girl. We had so much fun together – but I wanted marriage and babies, and Mattes just wanted fun." She smiled at me. "Ulfrec has made me happy these fifteen years."

  "My lady says Rebakah may visit her now." All unknown to us, my lady's personal maid had walked into the kitchen. The maids hurriedly began to chop again. The boy splashed as he scrubbed like a madman. I half tripped over my bench as I tried to jump to my feet and brush the front of my dress at the same time.

  The walk through the house felt strange. I'd made it only three weeks ago on my last visit, and yet the place seemed different. Smaller. No less elegant or well kept, but not the same.

  I understood the difference as we passed through the door to my lady's part of the house. It was less important. Provost's House had not changed, but I had.

  As if she'd heard my thinking and meant to say that I did not matter, the maid pointed to the workroom. "Wait in there," she ordered.

  I walked inside. My sisters were there with the other mots of the house who did sewing. Diona had an embroidery frame set up before her. Lorine worked on a silk underdress so fine it was almost sheer. Both of them looked like tidy strangers to me.

  Everyone looked up when I came in. The room went very quiet.

  My sisters stiffened. I did not mistake it. I knew them like I knew myself.

  "Goddess bless us, Beka, were you drinking? Or brawling with your Dog friends?" asked one of the older maids. She was favored by my lady for her embroidery. It meant that she gave herself airs. She made a game of saying something cruel to me, then claiming it was a joke when Lorine took her to task for it. "You might have covered those with face paint, you know." Most of the other maids giggled. Diona went red.

  I let my gaze fall to the worn floorboards, then stiffened. Why did I let her speak so to me? What would this empty-headed mot have done on Rovers Street?

  "I might have been mistaken for a doxie, too," I told the floor. The gigglers went silent. Then I looked up and held her eyes. Everyone else says that my gaze makes folk nervous. They tell me it's like being touched with ice. Let me see if I scare her, I thought.

  She tried to stare me down. I made myself think of old Slapper and his crazed glare. She held firm a moment, then blinked and looked away. I waited. When she looked up again, I was still there, still staring. She got up. "Some females have gutter mouths!" she mumbled, and skittered out of the room.

  I looked at each of them to see if anyone else wished to sharpen her wits on me. None would meet my eyes, not even my sisters. I went to kiss them on the cheek. Diona pulled away rather than let me actually touch her. Lorine held rock still. They spoke no word to me. I stepped back, not sure what to say.

  "My lady will see you now." The maid had returned for me. It was the only time I was glad to be on my way to Lady Teodorie. I could think of nothing more to do with so many looking on.

  Of course my lady's lips went tight when she set eyes on me. I'd known as much that morning when I'd looked in my bit of mirror and seen my bruises were still plain on my face.

  I made my curtsy to her.

  "And so you have begun work as a Guardswoman, Rebakah. Plainly you have found it invigorating."

  I didn't reply. She didn't expect me to answer. Unlike Goodwin, neither did she expect me to look her in the eyes.

  "Dare I hope that you have come to your senses? Your mother wished for you to better yourself." She took up the needlework that lay in her lap. She always had some about her. She had taught my sisters their first stitches, sewing and embroidery alike.

  I never know what Lady Teodorie wants from me. My sisters and brothers are bettering themselves. Why does it matter to her if I am not what she thinks a girl should be?

  She pursed her lips. "Tongue-tied as usual. Your performance yesterday before the Magistrate did my lord and me no credit."

  I felt my shoulders twitch. So word of that had come here already. Splendid.

  "Have you anything to say for yourself?"

  I knew my duty. "Forgive me for disappointing you, my lady," I said.

  "Your seeming meekness would serve you so much better as a maidservant than as an enforcer of the King's law," she remarked. "When you recover from your folly in your choice of livelihood, of course I will do my best for you. I promised your poor mother I would do my best for all of her children. You are dismissed."

  I curtsied again. Why does she take it so personal that of all five of us, I am the only one who don't want the life she picked out for me? I can't understand why she hates the world of the Provost's Guard, either, but that's my lady. My lord has lived with it these many years. Maybe that's why my being a Dog is so vexing for her – of all the lads and gixies of this house who have gone into the Provost's Guard, I'm the only one who my lord shares it with, who he's raised to it. Who loves it as he loves it.

  Feeling small and dirty, I returned to the kitchen. I certainly didn't want to see Lorine and Diona. The other maids would have been talking at them about me all this time, how low I'd seemed. Mayhap when we met in the afternoon, with none but our brothers there, my sisters wouldn't find me so common.

  The kitchen was busy. Vendors awaited Mya's attention. There were geese to be put on the spit. The undercooks made plenty of noise as they put together other dishes for the noon meal. Mya, tending a weeping stable girl, thrust a basket full of bread odds and ends at me. I took it with thanks and fled.

  This time of year the orchard is quiet. The trees are in bloom. They're pretty, but they're of use only to bees. They stand behind the hay barn, which is also left t
o itself so early in the year. No one sat on the bench behind the barn. I settled there, put my basket on the ground, and enjoyed the warm sun for a moment.

  A thought: Did I know, when I lived here, how often I dodged folk I might offend with what I said? Or did I just not notice because mostly I didn't talk?

  Breakfasts these days will be the ruin of me. First I start talking to Kora, Aniki, Ersken, and the rest. Who knows where it will end? A party? A feast? Chattering with strangers?

  Tansy might like breakfast with us sometime. If I can pry her out so early in the day, she might like to meet my friends. Mayhap Annis will help.

  But I was writing of my visit and of sitting behind the barn. I ended my sunbath when a shadow passed over my face. I opened my eyes. Of course it was Slapper. It was here that I'd met him two years back. Since then he's carried at least ten ghosts that I know of. A busy bird.

  For the moment he was actually alone, no other birds at hand. Was this a pigeon miracle, a bird without a flock? He landed on my shoulder and pecked my temple hard.

  "Pox and murrain!" I cried, and grabbed him. In my lap, he glared at me with poison-yellow eyes, fighting to free his wings. Pigeons are stronger than they look, even one whose back is twisted like Slapper's. I held him gentle, second and third finger around his right wing, first finger along his neck, thumb around his left wing. With my free hand I dug out some of the cracked corn in my belt purse. I showed it to Slapper, and he went quiet. I settled him with a care to his clubfoot (I always fear it aches) and let him go. Instead of flying off, he began to eat the corn.

  "Now listen," I told his ghost, "you got to give me more than you done. My Dogs need sommat real, not gossip pulled from the air." I spoke like Lower City folk so the soul he carried just now might trust me. "I been listenin' to you lot, but it ain't enough. Can't you name the street? Is there a stream nearby, or a drinkin' den? Sommat I can seek and find?" I didn't say that I'd never been able to get a pigeon and its ghost to lead me anywhere. Maybe these dead would be different, they wanted to be found so bad.

  A new pigeon came. It looked as if it had been sprinkled in ashes and its tail dipped in them. "Th' wagon was covered, an' it were night." It spoke to me, or its ghost did! I found more corn and laid it down close to me so Ashes would come near. It waddled over to eat. "They put scarves on our glims so we mayn't see where they took us. We was led downstairs, t' the cellar. They took the scarves off. Our orders was, dig against the wall, down an' down. We thought 'twas a well, but 'twas too big. We was diggin' pick an' shovel through the pinky rock."

  "The pinky city rock." White Spice's ghost whispered it as the bird glided down to sit with Ashes.

  "Pinky city rock," Mumper's ghost said, landing on the dirt.

  Slapper finished the corn. He jumped up, smacking me in the face with his wings, then landed beside his friends. "Ungrateful filcher," I mumbled.

  "I was hired to dig a well," Slapper's ghost told me. "We was all hired to dig a well. There was a real well partway dug, but no water."

  "They never let us out," said the ghost that rode a fresh arrival. That was the pigeon I'd named Fog. "Never once. They brung us food and drink and clothes, but we never left the cellar."

  "The mage drove off the water in the well. The rusher with the bullwhip said so." White Spice's ghost didn't seem to mind that the bird preened while she talked. "It was dry, the hole where we dug. No water, but there was pieces that glittered in the torchlight."

  "It sparkles, the rock, like nowheres else." The bird I'd named Pinky landed on my knee and left a large, warm present there. I swore, but I dared not shoo him off. I had no idea why they were talking so sensible, unless they'd reached some magical number (six of the same group of murdered folk) that let them speak more clear to me. "They have parts like glass as big as your thumbnail, bigger, that glow like fire with all manner of color. Beautiful."

  "Beauty in th' Cesspool, what a joke." Mayhap the magical number was seven. Here was a seventh bird, spangled in blue, green, and violet on white. Spangle's ghost was a woman who sounded as tough as any of the river dodgers I'd faced. "But when we'd spilled some of our water on the rocks – Mithros!"

  "Mithros," the other birds said. The ghosts sighed. Two more arrived to sit with them. One was dark gray about the head and tail and pale gray in body, the commonest coloring of all the city's pigeons. The other had a purplish gray head, a white bib, and purplish gray shoulders on a gray body. So there were nine in all.

  Pinky bit my hand and jumped down to be with the others. Now they were cooing, pecking the dirt, looking for food. I grabbed the basket and started crumbling the bread for them.

  "Where are you?" I asked. I was certain now that these were the ghosts of them who had dug Crookshank's fire opals for him. He'd had them killed to keep the stones' location a secret. I'd wager the cellar where they'd dug was in a house of his, but which? We'd need the army to search them all. And every mot, cove, and child in them would be doing their best to put a stop to it, for sheer contrariness. "You'd think you'd want your grave found!"

  Well, I'd offended them then. Off they flew, leaving me to try to get pigeon scummer off my dress. Then other pigeons came, the flock that lives here and any pigeons who'd been drawn to them or to me. I forgot my clothes and crumbled bread fast. I put the diggers from my thoughts and listened to what all these birds had to say. There was always something going on, something I could piece together for my lord or the kennels.

  When I'd finished with the pile of bread ends Mya gave me, I propped my chin on my hands and watched the birds. They'd quieted, but few had left, despite the food being nearly gone. They eyed me. I think they knew I liked them even if I didn't hear their ghosts. They were beautiful, when they weren't dirty. And whose dirt was it but the human folk of the city's?

  They have such silly faces, pigeons.

  I held out my hand. One of them landed on it. When I put up the fingers of my free hand, the cracked bird tried to eat the tips.

  "I don't suppose any of you are here because the Shadow Snake doused you?" I asked, keeping my voice quiet. "Kidnapped you and killed you?"

  The bird on my hand took off. More of the flock left – most of it. Nearly three dozen remained, all staring at me. One that was white but for drips of black on the ends of his wings and tail came toward me. "Mama? I'm lost, Mama."

  I leaned forward. "Rolond?" I asked. "You know me. I've held you sometimes, lad. Your mama is my friend Tansy." My eyes were stinging, but I kept my voice calm. Spirits are all emotion. I get upset and they take off. "Your papa is Herun Lofts. And I know your grandmama, too, Annis."

  I didn't know if he understood me, but I had to try. Mayhap today was a day of miracles.

  Mayhap it wasn't. "Mama, it's dark and I'm lost," he said, deaf to my words. "They took me away. Where are you?"

  "Mama?" That was a little gixie's voice. "The mot said yez wouldn't give the Shadow Snake what the Snake wanted. Yer lily necklace was more important – tha's what the mot said."

  "Da, the Shadow Snake said ye wouldna give o'er what ye won at the gamblin', so he took me...."

  "It was just a poxy book you can't e'en read, you stupid puttock!" That girl was older and furious.

  "I don't understand. Why does someun called a Snake want yer brass box, Ma? Ye said it only had writin' from some noble ye danced fer oncet."

  I finally put my face in my hands. Mama had always said there'd be a day I'd be sorry I asked so many questions. This was that day.

  When I couldn't bear it no more, I jumped to my feet and threw up my arms. They all took off in a cloud of feathers and a clap of wings.

  Goddess, let me make something good of so much that is bad. Let me take from these birds some piece of knowledge. Something that will help me seek the Rats that killed those diggers, or the Shadow Snake. The feeling I'd had that day I led my lord to the Bold Brass gang would be naught compared to hobbling them. Knowing that two killers ran free in the Lower City was an itch I couldn't scratch.<
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  I rubbed my hands on my thighs and felt a lump in the pocket of my underdress. I had the fire opal still. I fetched it out and turned it over. It was so lovely as it was, I had to wonder what it looked like all polished and clean. Probably the nobles and the rich would want it more so, with no hint that it had come from the rock of the Lower City. I grinned. I liked the pinkish stone that cropped up everywhere, in our walls and walkways and little gardens.

  Berryman had called them "fascinators." Folk with gold in their purses would be fascinated with those bits of cherry and blue fire, the blaze of green.... I turned the stone now and then, shifting to new bits of color, and let the moments of the last week drift in my head. I let my questions come to the surface of my thoughts, bubbles in a well. Who would notice nine healthy mots and coves all gone missing together? Who would notice the vanishment of one child here, one child there, gone seemingly by magic from bed or street or plain daylight?

  I had all manner of thoughts while I sat there. One of them was something Tunstall had said to Mistress Noll on my very first night of duty – "You sharp old folk are everywhere, aren't you? You're everywhere, and you see and hear everything."

  I came alert with the sun in my eyes. I know old folk. Mistress Noll herself, for one. Granny Fern, for another. And there were others throughout the Lower City, beggar women who sat their corners like my dust spinner friends, laundresses who used the same fountain squares, doxies who spent all their working nights in the same part of Corus. Folk talked in front of them like they was sculptures.

  "I knew I'd find you here."

  I scrambled to my feet. So lost in thought was I that I hadn't heard Lord Gershom's steps in the grass. I bobbed my curtsy too fast and almost fell, which would have earned me my lady's iciest gaze. My lord only chuckled and seized my elbow to steady me. "Beka, I hope the other fellows look far worse." He waved his free hand to show he meant my eye and cheekbone.