Beka Cooper 1 - Terrier Page 17

  I looked down and stammered, "I – I wish I could s-say as much, milord. I g-got the worst of it."

  "But I hear you did well. You and your Dogs were outnumbered nearly seven to one even after Lady Sabine stepped in, yet here you are." He was dressed for a day at home, his steel-colored hair combed back in a horse tail, his clothes an embroidered short tunic (my lady's work) over loose leggings tied around his calves. "I wish I'd seen it. You did well – a brawl in a place like that would have been the death of most trainees. So tell me, what happened that first night?" He sat on the bench and drew me down next to him. "How'd you miss the lookout? I know I taught you better, and I'm sure Ahuda did."

  I hung my head. "My lord, I got excited."

  "Ah," he said, crossing his legs at the ankle and leaning back. "It's to be expected, when you're starting out. I warned you it would take time to season. All the talent in the world doesn't take the place of good, solid experience, Beka."

  I nodded. It just seems to take so long to get experience when I need it now.

  "You know what happened to Tunstall, even after he was voted a Dog by his kennel?"

  I shook my head, but my ears perked up.

  "He fell off a roof. He was chasing a Rat who'd gone and killed a man over in Prettybone, where they have houses built next to each other, except there was one that was two stories higher, with a steeper roof. Tunstall made the climb and had the cove by the ankle when the cove scraped his hand in the chimney and threw soot in Tunstall's face. Off the roof Tunstall went. Straight into a pile of dung, three stories down."

  "Ouch," I whispered.

  "Other Dogs have made mistakes, Beka. It's what you learn." He patted me on the shoulder. "So what do you make of our Rogue?"

  I told him everything. I knew I could trust him with the information about the fire opals, how Goodwin and Tunstall were looking into them, and about the Shadow Snake. I knew he would leave those things to my Dogs and not interfere himself unless he felt there was a need. He was famous for that.

  When it was noon and the bell was ringing for the house's big meal of the day, I also knew that I felt better. In telling him how I had fallen in fish, sought Orva in the Cesspool, fought to keep my feet among river dodgers, and faced Sir Tullus and the Magistrate's Court, I saw my days for what they were, my first week. I had not shackled the worst foist in the Nightmarket nor caught Kayfer Deerborn himself with the crown's jewels in his pocket, it was true. I had not rescued the Queen from a pack of robbing coves or caught the slavers trying to pass off some Sirajit princess as a kitchen slave. But I was alive, and hungry.

  My lord got to his feet and I scrambled to mine. As we walked toward the house, he said, "There is one thing in which you did not obey the letter of my instructions, Beka."

  "My lord?" I asked, dazed. Whenever did I not follow his rules and orders as he gave them?

  "I said to outfit yourself properly from our gear room," he told me as we stopped near the kitchen door. The servants streamed by, bowing and murmuring greetings. I looked into his face. His brows were drawn down over his nose, but there was no vexation in his eyes, only a bit of fun. He knew me proper, did my lord Gershom. "Whether you didn't do as you were bid from pride or from a desire to go easy on my purse, you were in error. You left us without enough gear. Before you go back to your lodgings, I want you to draw three more items. And I want you to think about the week you've had as you do it. Now, you mind me, Beka Cooper."

  I bowed my head. He was right, about everything. "Yes, my lord."

  He clasped my hands in his. "Mithros and the Crone watch over you."

  I curtsied as he went inside. "Gods all bless and keep you, my lord," I whispered. He is the best man I know. I felt that way when I was eight and he had chosen to listen to me in the street. My feelings now only go deeper, not different.

  I wondered if I should stop first in the gear room, but then my belly growled. Wonderful smells drifted my way. Mya's cooking was calling to me.

  Noon dinner is the big meal of the house. Everyone eats together, even the servers, once the food is set out. My lord and lady sit with their children and guests on the dais. They had noble friends with them today, four of the haMinch family, that has more branches than most trees, and a mage in the royal service. The mage and my lord had their heads together: business, then.

  My friends among the dairymaids and laundresses made a place for me. That put me across the room from the stable hands. Most of them grinned or gave me a tiny wave. I didn't see my brother Will. He might have been off riding errands. I thought my younger brother, Nilo, might bounce clean from his seat, he was so glad to see me. He put a finger to his eye and mouthed, "What happened?" I frowned at him, not that it managed to cow him any. When we were dismissed for our noon rest, at least he waited until we were outside and beyond my lady's view before he seized me around the waist and spun me sunwise.

  "Beka, lookit you! Black eye, who done it! And your whole cheek gone green! Did you kill anyone? Did you hobble anyone? Did you miss me? I learned to drive a pair, well, around the courtyard, anyways!" Nilo is the picture of Mama, with her brown curls and snapping brown eyes, and her dimples. He is only ten, but his head clears my shoulder. "Will was sent clean on up to the palace with a message, he said not to let you go back 'thout he saw you. Do you like being a Dog?"

  The only way to silence him was to put him in a headlock. "Listen to you, you'd think you was brought up in a chicken coop," I scolded. "Let a person talk! I'm not a Dog, I'm a trainee, a Puppy, you empty-headed looby! I don't know who blacked my eye. There was too many of 'em. Of course I missed you." And I threw him over my hip into the courtyard dust.

  He went with a whoop, little mumper that he is. Him and three other stable folk – two lads and a gixie – begged me to teach them the headlock and the throw. Of course they were thinking about training as Dogs one day. I'd thought maybe Nilo might follow me to Puppy training, until I saw how much he loves to work with horses. I hadn't even time to daydream about Will. He'd taken to hanging about the stable as soon as he was big enough and rides like he was born on horseback. There's naught magical about it. The stable master is a fine teacher, and my brothers love horses as my mother loved other animals.

  Once the youngsters were covered in dust and exhausted from my quick lesson, they scattered. Nilo and me went to the stable to wait for Will. We had no private place of our own to sit. My sisters slept with my lady's maids. The boys went to the stable quarters. Mya gave me a place with the cookmaids and stable girls until I went to live in the Puppy training barracks.

  Now, listening to Nilo chatter about all that had gone on since I had taken lodgings in the Lower City, I was glad to have my own home. I can move about without waking someone, and no one objects to Pounce. I tried to bring him today, but he flat-out refused. He crawled back under my blankets after I made my bed. Nilo grumbled over my cat staying away, so I made him laugh over tales of Pounce on duty in the Lower City.

  "Nilo, Nilo, guess who I met!" Will came in, leading a sweating horse. He and the mount were covered with road dust, but Will grinned ear to ear. He showed us a silver noble. "The King gave me this! King Roger himself! I took a message from my lord to the Lord High Magistrate. Then my Lord Magistrate has me take a message behind the palace to King Roger himself, because the King has taken the Queen riding! The King gave me this, and the Queen smiled at me." Will was giddy. "Beka, you look like you've been in a war." He kissed me, sprinkling dust on my dress. "She's so beautiful, the Queen, so much younger than His Majesty, with hair like dark clouds...."

  "Bleah," Nilo said, rolling his eyes.

  "What do you know?" Will shoved him. "Let me care for Ladslove, and then I can sit. Nilo, will you beg something for me from Mya? His Majesty and the Magistrate had me go back and forth twice." He wandered off, the horse following him patiently.

  I looked at Nilo, who pretended to puke. "I'd get him some food. I think he's addled," I said.

  "I'm going. 'The Queen's s
ooo beautiful,'" Nilo said with mockery, twirling around. "'She has teeth like stars and hair like sheep fuzz, the Queen is sooo beautiful!'" Half singing it, he went to get food for Will. I tried not to laugh.

  The boys and I were playing mumblety-peg with our belt knives when my sisters found us. They came through the stable door like great ladies and frowned at the three of us on our knees in the dirt.

  I gazed at them and felt strange. When we were young, the little ones, including these two gixies in their neat dresses, wore patched shirts only and no shoes. I had but one thin dress. I went barefoot like them, trying to mind all four when Mama was busy. There was always a baby or two in hand, a basket of mending, rag toys, and the streets when we annoyed Mama's herb customers or her latest man. Our noses ran and our bottoms, too, when the meat was bad, if we had meat.

  Now we wore clothes with mends not even showing, though Nilo's and Will's breeches had been let down three times apiece. The boys had good, sturdy tunics that would take horse dirt and wash up without going to pieces. Our feet were shod against all but the deepest street mud.

  Our sisters were dressed a world away in respectable wool dresses with embroidery for decoration. They wore round caps on their heads with more embroidery still. Unlike the lads and me, they were so clean they shone, their skin fair and soft-looking.

  The silence between us got uncomfortable, but I didn't know how to break it. The boys scowled and sheathed their knives, our game of mumblety-peg plainly done. I picked up my knife. Feeling that if I sheathed it right off, it would look as if I'd been ashamed of our game, I spun it on my fingertip. Sadly, I fumbled the catch when I popped the knife in the air. I dropped the blade before it cut me.

  Lorine made a face. "Now you are dirty as well as bruised."

  I looked at my dress. It was streaked with grime. Good, I thought, it will cover the pigeon mess. I looked at Lorine. "I did the pretty for my lord and my lady," I said, deliberately talking Lower City to their Patten District. "I had dinner in the hall and didna slurp my soup. I won't be stayin' t' supper, so it's pigeon feed to a starvin' bull what my dress looks like."

  "You like doing this, don't you?" asked Diona. Her cheeks were turning red. "Shaming us before our friends. Turning Will and Nilo into street urchins when they know how to behave themselves, like young men moving up in the world!"

  Will got to his feet. "Lucky for me royal messengers can act like real folk when they're not before the nobility," he said, his green eyes flashing. He takes after his papa in looks. One day the gixies will all dance to his tune. "They're not silly enough to pretend the nobility rubs off on them – "

  Diona went to slap him. I realized that after I'd moved, coming off the ground to grab her wrist as I rose. I held on to her as I stood between them. "You're not my lady," I told her, keeping my voice down so no one else might hear if they were close by. "You don't go slapping people's faces. Shame on you!"

  "She don't mean nothin', Beka, don't hurt her." Nilo sounded like he might cry in a moment.

  I let Diona go and hugged him. "I didn't hurt her. I remember who I'm dealing with, even if she don't."

  Lorine sighed. "Diona, Beka's right. Don't think I haven't seen you push Nilo when no one's about. You get above yourself, girl."

  Diona rubbed her wrist. I hadn't even grabbed it hard enough to make it red. "My lady's maid is right! You're trash, Beka! Look at us! We've been fine ever since you left. You're not back half a day and the boys are filthy and ill-mannered and you've turned them and Lorine against me." Anger made her pretty face ugly. "My lady gives us a chance for a decent life and you throw it back in her face – "

  "Who keeps your decent life decent?" I asked, losing my temper. "Who makes sure you hardworking folk stay safe, Diona? Not a lot of maids and footmen. River dodgers would kill the lot of you for a pair of weighted dice! Who puts murderers in cages and keeps your necklaces on your necks, eh? Who – "

  "Enough!" The head hostler had heard us and was standing in the open door, a carriage whip in his hands. "You'd think it was noon in Rivermarket and the fish startin' t' go off! Where did the lot o' you learn to make such a noise in a lord's house?"

  My brothers and sisters looked at each other. And then they all did a sad thing, even Nilo. They edged just the tiniest bit from me. Of course, mayhap it was on account of me being the one to get caught. Or mayhap it was me being so ill-kempt, with the dirt and the pigeon stain and all. But they were of a set, four servants-in-training. I was the one what didn't match.

  I curtsied and mumbled apologies as they did. After a last frown, the hostler left us. Diona and Lorine followed him, their hems and veils fluttering. To give them their due, they probably thought they'd see me later, at supper. The boys hesitated, shifting on their feet.

  "I must visit the gear room and then go home," I told them. "You'll be working till supper, so we won't have time to talk. And I must return to my lodgings before then. It'll be drawing down dark in the Lower City. I shouldn't walk the streets alone with no weaponry."

  "But it isn't dark when it's suppertime!" said Will, confused.

  "You're up on the hill below Palace Ridge," I explained. "The Lower City's at the bottom of the rise. The wall's higher than anything down there. It shuts out the sun early."

  "Oh," Nilo said. "When will we see you next?"

  "I'll try for my next day off. Now go clean up. I'll say farewell here." They hesitated again, and I took the burden from them. "No hugging. You don't want those nice shirts wrinkled more than they are. Just a kiss on the cheek, one each." I gave and got them. "I love you both. I even love our sisters."

  Like boys, they grumbled and walked away. I went over to the stable wall and rested my face against its rough boards, having a care for splinters. I have a bit of sense, so I didn't think it was my family that changed so much in the three weeks since I'd moved to Nipcopper Close. Was it?

  I took a breath of stable smell: horse dung, hay, dirt, leather, polish, the oils needed to keep the leather smooth and limber. It smelled clean. Empty clean. So, too, did the big house smell, with its added scents of flowers and soap and cooking, though without horse dung or horse. No rotting vegetables or animal carcasses, no frying turnovers and heaps of fresh-cut flowers. No herds being driven to market or crates of birds and rabbits. No slop pots emptied into the gutter and flowing into the soup of mud that is the Lower City.

  The clean, tidy folk who live and work at Provost's House don't smell so good to me as the dark streets where I live now. I put my thumb on what I'd felt all day. It was distance. I'd been glad to see Mya and my lord. I am hurt by my sisters and some by Will. Nilo is still a little boy. Besides, I remember that greeting he gave me. But I'm no part of their household. I am a Puppy, one who belongs in the Lower City. It was time to go home.

  I chose my three extra items of gear, then set out. Of course, I didn't go back the way I had come. I never do. It's boring. I also remembered that tomorrow morning comes and breakfast with it. For once I might supply more than coppers for our gathering. It was too early for the Nightmarket, but the Daymarket was open. Mistress Noll's shop there would be a good place to buy some breakfast bread.

  I walked down broad Palace Way, with its flat white cobbles. My clogs clattered like the hooves of the horses that rode by. Like my brothers, I could admire a good-looking animal. Some of these were bound for the palace rising behind me, atop the ridge. Others paced like I did, down north toward the river.

  Despite the goldsmiths' banks and expensive shops between Provost's House and the Daymarket, no one blinked at my wrinkled dress. I walked with servants, message runners, soldiers, and merchants and their families. Mithran priests in their orange or yellow robes passed Daughters of the Goddess in white, brown, or black. Now and then I'd see Wave Walker priests in blue robes or the Smith's servants, their leather aprons stamped with holy signs. Bazhir in their burnooses walked with hands on weapon hilts. The folk of Carthak, Galla, Tusaine, and the Copper Isles simply tried to pretend they
were not staring.

  This was more of the Corus I love, prettily dressed. A mix of high and low folk came this way to do business or to see the King and his new Queen. They'll hold the first festival for the young prince next year. Then neighboring kingdoms will send their finest to greet the babe, and to get plucked in the Lower City. We all look forward to having the world salute our young heir.

  One thing I didn't see today was the usual number of mumpers. The Palace Way Dogs, who answer to the Patten and Flash District kennels, must have cleared them out. Fine ladies sometimes complain if there are too many cripples to ruin the view on the main road to the palace. By my guess, the clearing out happened around noon. One mumper had already come back to take a place on the edge of the street near Provost's House. She was fearfully thin, with a babe at her empty breast. The child was crying.

  I walked by. She'll seek help at one of the Goddess's temples if she is serious about feeding the babe, I told myself. Despite my common sense, I added and re-added my budget of coin for the week to see if I could spare aught. Behind me I heard a passing rider tell her she'd earn more on her back than by putting her hand out.

  I halted, angry, and took a copper in my hand. Then I saw a newly come beggar grab a richly dressed nobleman's jeweled horse by its tack. The old mot gabbled at the man, offering to tell his fortune. He kicked her away.

  I ran forward, cursing him in Cesspool talk as I tossed my copper to the skinny beggar with the child. She grabbed it and fled. I forgot her and spat at the rich man, who rode off, ignoring me. "Pig scummer," I muttered, grabbing the old mumper to help her up. She was annoying, but kicking a granny was the act of a beast.

  To my surprise, she fought me. She was strong for one that was just skin over bone. There was no bruise on her face from the noble's kick, she had no bloody nose. She'd dodged him.

  She also had three of the gems that had been sewn onto the horse's trappings in one hand, and a sharp-looking blade in the other. I snatched the blade and stuck it into the sheath behind my own belt knife. It wedged tight there. Even she would need a moment or two to winkle it loose.