Beka Cooper 1 - Terrier Page 20

I stumbled against Tansy. We both fell against Mistress Noll's booth.

  "The man said there was a parrot, but he lied – "

  Tansy let out a shriek that made my ear stop working. "Rolond! Rolond, Goddess preserve me, sweeting, where are you?"

  Dear Goddess. She heard him. She was pressed against me, and she could hear her dead son's ghost.

  "Mama, I'm sorry I was bad!" Rolond was weeping when I got my hands on the pigeon. It was a young bird, not even feathered all the way up to the plate that formed around its nose holes. "Mama, the cove put me in a bad place, and then it was dark. I don't like it in the dark!"

  Tansy hit me. She punched my face and my shoulders. "Where is he, Beka! Take me to him, pox rot your womb! I want my child! He's alive! You know where my babe is!"

  Now the pigeon, still tangled in her hair, flew at me, hitting me, too. "Don't you make my mama cry!" Rolond yelled. "You're bad! Mama said the folk in black help and you don't, so you're bad!"

  Tunstall pulled Tansy off of me. I shifted to untangle the bird's feet. Tansy wrenched around to attack Tunstall. Once I had the pigeon free and his wings pinned, I looked up at my partner. He made Tansy face me, though he kept her in his grip. She kept struggling. "Let me go!" Tansy cried. "I want my son!"

  "Stop it, Tansy," I said coldly. "Stop it right now. You act like a Mutt Piddle trull."

  That caught her attention. She quieted, her eyes streaming tears, her chest heaving.

  "Look at me," I said quietly. I held her eyes with mine until I was certain I had her attention. Then I showed her the young bird in my hands. Somehow he'd kept clean. His white feathers shone in the torchlight. His black ones really did look like ink. "They carry unhappy spirits. Understand? This poor creature carries Rolond until Rolond decides to go to the Peaceful Realms. But Rolond doesn't know what's happened, Tansy." My mouth was dry. I licked my lips and told my oldest friend, "You have to tell him he's dead."

  I cradled the pigeon against my chest so I could keep his wings pinned with one hand. Then I grabbed her with the other. "Tell him. Elsewise he'll wander in that dark he keeps talking about."

  "Tell a pigeon he's dead?" Tansy asked.

  Someone nearby tittered.

  "Mama, why would you tell a bird it's dead?" Rolond asked her. "Birds don't have ghosts, do they? Are there birds in the Black God's land?"

  Tansy sobbed. Her knees gave way. I hauled her up. I knew that if I let go, she couldn't hear him anymore or he hear her. "Tansy, do it!"

  "Lambkin – sweetheart, of course the Black God has birds," Tansy whispered, straightening. "Beautiful ones. But you won't see them if you stay where it's dark. You have to go to the Peaceful Realms."

  "But I don't want to go, Mama," Rolond complained. "I want to come home with you."

  "Oh, Rolond, you can't." Tansy reached out her free hand. It shook as she stroked the pigeon I held. "Rolond, you died. The man – the man killed you. That's why you're lost."

  "No," he whispered. "No. I'm just in a dark place. When they stole me, I was in a dark place." His voice broke. "There was cloth on my head, and then the girl who was with me took it off. And then the man came back and put it on again. He carried me away."

  "And he killed you," I said, since Tansy couldn't. "There's no hood now, Rolond. You need to say goodbye to your mama and go see the Black God."

  "I'll come to you," Tansy whispered. "One day, in the Peaceful Realms, I'll come to you there."

  His voice was fading. He believed her. "Promise, Mama?"

  "Promise, my baby. I love you."

  But he was gone.

  All around us the market was silent. Tansy made no sound. I think we all forgot where we were until the city's clocks began to chime seven. That broke the spell on the crowd that had gathered. Tunstall helped Tansy to her feet.

  "You need to get Mistress Lofts home," Goodwin told the maid. "Now." The maid glared at her. Goodwin stopped and looked the mot over, memorizing every inch of her. "What's your name, wench?"

  The maid bridled. "Vrinday Kayu."

  "Kayu. Copper Isles name, Carthaki tattoos. I don't like you. I'm going to remember your face. All three of us are." Goodwin's jerk of the head took in Tunstall and me. "You'd best keep your fingers clean when you venture out of Crookshank's house. Now be on about your work."

  I thought for a moment Kayu might hiss and scratch Goodwin. I saw shimmering around her hands. Then she put an arm around Tansy and led her back to Crookshank's house. She didn't glance at us again, but from the too-careful way she handled my friend, I'd say she knew we were watching.

  "Maid, my left nostril," Tunstall murmured. "Mage. You saw that bit of magic?"

  "Later." Goodwin said it very quiet-like. She looked around at me. "Can you loose your little pigeon friend now, or will he attack Master Pounce?" She glared at my cat, who sat at her feet. "And where were you when the bird was going mad on that poor girl's head?" she asked Pounce.

  Pounce stared up at her, then said, "Manh!"

  Whatever that meant.

  I already looked a cracknob and a half to the crowd that had seen our performance. It couldn't matter what I said or did anymore. I lifted up my head and called, "Slapper! You need to teach this one how to keep control!" I held up the young pigeon in my hand. I didn't even know if it would work. I'd never gotten the birds to take orders, but no ghost had ever grabbed hold of his bird, either.

  I hadn't noticed the pigeons overhead had been silent for some time. I did now, because I could hear only one bird flapping toward us. Slapper landed on the dirt of the row. He began the growling coo that was the pigeon anger noise.

  "None of that," I said. "He's just a youngling. It's not his fault."

  Tunstall crouched before Slapper. "Who's this one?" he asked. "Slapper, you called him?" He was breaking up another bun. He put the pieces down in front of the pigeon.

  "They should be smaller," I said. I couldn't help correcting him, even if he was my training Dog. I worried about the silly feathered nuisances, and so few folk seemed to care about them. "If pieces are big – if they can't break them up, the loobies try to swallow them whole. Often they can get stuck in the pigeon's throat."

  "Mithros's teeth," Goodwin muttered.

  Tunstall crumbled the roll into pigeon-sized bites. Slapper was already shaking a big one, breaking off a smaller bite for himself. Tunstall hurried to crumble the rest. Gently I placed Inky down in front of Slapper. The young bird went after the bread, eagerly pecking. Slapper instantly smacked him with a wing, then began to limp and dance around him, talking in pigeon.

  "Slapper, eh?" Tunstall asked again as he straightened. He was grinning. "He looks cracked, with those yellow eyes."

  "Unless you're going to put some coppers in a hat, our play is over," Goodwin told the crowd. "Move along. There's naught to gawp at."

  "The pigeons could fight," someone called. "My money's on the black one."

  Other birds came down to eat. The crowd was still arguing if, as young as Inky was, he couldn't take crippled old Slapper when the birds finished the last crumbs and flew off into the dark. Then the people really did move on.

  "Let's go," Tunstall said. "We'll talk about pigeons and ghosts over supper. Can folk always hear them when you touch them, Cooper?"

  We said goodbye to Mistress Noll and walked on down the row. "No, sir," I replied to Tunstall. "No, because my brothers and sisters would lean against me when I fed 'em, and they never heard nothing. Maybe it's the ghost wanting to be heard so bad, or it being a ghost related by blood...."

  "We really do need to pay mind to our work," Goodwin said. She sounded apologetic, which was a strange thing in itself. "Much as I want to hear this, attention unpaid – "

  " – is a grave that's made." I knew the saying. "Sorry, Goodwin."

  "No," Tunstall said. "We should have gotten you to tell us more about the pigeons afore now."

  Goodwin halted to stare at a sutler who lingered over a table of spices. The mot glanced at us and moved on. Go
odwin spoke as we kept walking. "And the dust spinner thing. Though truthfully, Cooper, that one makes my skin prickle. At least pigeons are birds. They're part of creation. Stands to reason they'd be the servants of the gods. But spinners are just sticks and dust and air."

  Tunstall reached out to grab a gixie's wrist. She was moving into the row, having spotted a fine lady on a man's arm coming her way. Behind them was a foist about my age. The little gixie was the decoy, the doll she held her lure. The game was played when she dropped the doll right before the lady and her cove. The child would scramble to get the toy. Whilst they were distracted, the girl's partner would foist at least the lady's coin, if not the man's, too.

  My own eye was caught by a man asking a vendor to change three silver nobles for coppers. Something about it struck me odd. It was too early in the night for the gambling to have started. That was when coves dressed like this one was might need coppers or have silver to change. He'd bought sticks of cinnamon from the vendor for his trouble, but from the vendor's scowl, he'd not purchased enough. Or mayhap it was the sweat on the cove's brow when he put his silver coins on the counter.

  I took out my baton and went to stand next to him. "Greetings to you, Master Spicer," I told the spice seller as he placed copper after copper on the counter. I picked up the silver noble. "Good evening, Master – "

  He didn't answer but turned to run just as I saw the King's profile pointed to the left, not to the right. The cove might have escaped had I not already set my baton right behind his knee. He stumbled, enough for Goodwin to cut in and twist his arm behind him. I took out my dagger and drew it across the face of the coin. The thin silver curled up to show lead beneath. I held it up for Goodwin's inspection.

  She thrust the captive against the plank counter. "Cooper, empty his purse. You coves are lower than maggots, you know that?" she asked him. "Enough of these false coins get out there and instead of regular folk paying a few coppers for a meal, we must pay a handful of silvers, and whole families get sold as slaves so one or two might eat."

  The spice vendor spat on the ground. "I hope they sell yours to south Carthak," he said to the cove with real hate. "Leave 'em with the snakes an' the fevers an' the great farms where they work to death." He swept his coppers away.

  Tunstall searched the Rat whilst Goodwin tied his hands. "Let's hope you have the names of whoever gave you these, my friend," he advised in his pleasant way. "Elsewise you have a nasty death on Execution Hill to look forward to."

  The Nightmarket kept us busy until suppertime. At the Mantel and Pullet, Tunstall ordered a bountiful meal to repay us for all that work. I thought I might drool when the smells met my nose: spiced pork pie with anise, herbs in beef broth, a raston, and a Tyran custard. To make my happiness complete, the barmaid came over with our jacks, ale for the Dogs and barley water for me.

  We ate in silence while the house roared with talk around us. Then, as I was beginning to think I would not die of starvation, Goodwin put her hand on my wrist and bore it down to the table. I met her eyes and swallowed my mouthful.

  "Explain the comedy with the pigeon and Mistress Tansy now. I think I've been patient. Mistress Noll said it, that first night, it was magic in your father's line. Well and good. You have it. You speak to dust spinners, too. I don't understand that, but I'm prepared to exist with it. We live in a world of magics, after all. But that at Mistress Deirdry's stall – those things don't happen, Cooper." She speared a bit of pork with her knife and put it in her mouth.

  I took my chunk of fire opal from my pocket and turned it in my fingers. I didn't look at it, but just feeling its roughness against my skin helped me to order my thoughts. "Truth to tell, I was as scared as Tansy."

  Tunstall grunted. "You hid it well. Good for you."

  I heard a thud under the table. He yelped. She had kicked him. "You spoil her," she said.

  I waited until they were watching me. Then I went on, "It never happened before. Not to me. But...see, I don't think most folk should know pigeons are the Black God's messengers, or that they carry the ghosts of them that's uneasy and dead. They wouldn't leave the poor birds alone. But I've known that Rolond Lofts was still about, riding a Lower City bird, since the day after I started my training with you. I just couldn't find out which bird at first. He was still with a big flock."

  "Why not ask your friend Slapper?" Tunstall asked. He grinned at Goodwin. "I like Slapper. Now there's a pigeon a Dog can relate to."

  She kicked him again.

  He glared at her. "Are you and your man fighting? Is that your problem?"

  "No, you great lummox. I want to hear Cooper," she said, her voice flat. "Go on, girl."

  "Slapper and I don't talk," I explained. I was trying not to smile. "At least, we never did before tonight. He's popular with the ghosts, but see, the ghosts don't control the birds, and the birds don't control the ghosts. They just...fly around."

  Goodwin scowled. "That's not very efficient, you ask me."

  "They're dead. I don't think time means the same. Only tonight, tonight I think Rolond wanted his mama so bad, he – broke through, somehow, and made his pigeon go to her. The bird was young. And...I'd like to see the Shadow Snake drawn and quartered." There were drops falling on my plate. I was crying, curse it. "He was only three." They knew I didn't mean the Shadow Snake. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. "I talked to the birds whilst I was home yesterday." I wasn't going to speak of what had happened tonight if it made me act like a looby. "They understood me then, too. I talked with the ghosts who were killed, the ones murdered all together that the spinners told me about." I glanced at them through my bangs. Tunstall was steadily eating. I don't think an earthquake would stop Tunstall working his way through a plate of food. He was on his third helping of the pie. Goodwin was drinking her ale and watching me. "There are nine of them. They were hired to dig a well and taken there blindfolded. Whoever had them there kept them captive in some building. They just dug in the pink city rock and found the gems. They didn't know the rightful name for fire opals. That's what they told me yesterday."

  For a long while, seemingly forever when there was sweat crawling down my sides, my Dogs said nothing. I thought they would decide to lock me up with the truly mad, them as scream and talk nonsense with themselves. Then Goodwin looked at Tunstall.

  "They were digging for Crookshank. He's the one with the fire opals."

  Tunstall ran his fingers through his hair. "If Crookshank meant to kill them all along, he wouldn't let anyone that could be connected to him do the hiring. He's too canny a bird. Whoever hired them, could be it's someone we haven't connected with Crookshank's businesses."

  Goodwin looked at me. "They never left that building?"

  She asked it like my ghosts were real human Birdies, singing the songs Dogs liked to hear. "They said they never did. I think they're buried there."

  Goodwin wrinkled her nose. "Nasty smell for whoever might want to dig on that spot again. So he's done at that location – "

  "Crookshank won't stop at one building. Not when the pink rock passes all under the Lower City." Tunstall signaled the barmaid to refill our jacks.

  Goodwin grinned. My skin began to prickle with excitement. She said, "He'll be hiring more workers. Maybe his folk will tell the new diggers not to say they've got work, but these days? With jobs trickling out of Corus like water from a busted bucket?"

  "They'll talk." Tunstall nodded. "Someone will tell a sweetheart, a rival, the one they owe money to."

  "He won't hire a lot of diggers," I said. "He won't want folk noticing. And they dig in cellars. Not so much room in those."

  "But he'll be hiring," Goodwin explained. "Too many other businesses hereabouts have been letting folk go. It's a ripple, Cooper. You learn to feel for ripples." She climbed onto her bench. Taking her whistle, she blew a sharp blast on it. Heads turned everywhere inside the room. "Harken, you Dogs!" she cried, her voice cutting through the last noise as the room went quiet. "Me'n Tunstall and Cooper have a scen
t. We'd like you to get it in your noses. Someone hired nine diggers, telling each one they were being hired to dig a well. Each one alone, not all nine, understand? Hired for a one-digger job, but it was nine all told. They're all missing, probably dead. Now the Rats that did it either hired more in the last week or they're hiring right now. A sniff, the tiniest sniff, and you bring it to one of us. Whatever's in it at the end, you'll share. If there's naught in it, we'll remember what we owe."

  Tunstall didn't stand on the bench, but he did rise. "Some Rat went and doused nine folk. Now he means to do it twice, under our very sniffers. We can't allow such goings-on, not on our watch."

  Them that were Dogs answered him with growls. I could see Ersken and Verene. I think their eyes were as wide as mine. I'd heard of a Growl, when Dogs took up a challenge. It meant ill for the Rats that made them voice it. But it was one thing to hear of it, another to sit in the Mantel and Pullet and hear that rumbling snarl come from dozens of throats. The army folk and off-duty Palace Guards shifted where they sat. The maids and the barkeep had retreated to the kitchen when Goodwin stood on the bench. Seemingly they knew what was coming.

  I had what I wanted for the nine dead whose cries the spinners had first picked up. The Dogs would seek them. I'd never even thought that it might be easier to find whoever it was that hired them. But Goodwin was right. These days plenty of folk were out of work. No matter how they were sworn to say nothing of someone looking to hire, word would leak out. Soon enough, a Dog would hear.

  Goodwin stood down, but she did not sit. Instead she checked her belt, making sure her weapons and purse were placed as she needed them. It was time to go back to the street. Tunstall emptied his tankard and counted out the coins for our barmaid. When he finished, he looked at Goodwin. I was already up, still trembling from the Growl. I wanted to find a Rat and shake him till he was senseless.

  "Well?" Tunstall asked. "Have you a plan? Because I do."

  She actually raised her hand and beckoned to him with those two fingers.

  "Let's visit Dawull," Tunstall said, and put a toothpick in his mouth. "Let's ask him if he's been dancing for Crookshank. Maybe Dawull's folk don't know Crookshank is killing folk just for digging for him."