Beka Cooper 1 - Terrier Read online

  "Her cat?" Goodwin looked at Pounce's collar. "And with those eyes, he's not magic?" My soon to be sold for dumpling-meat cat reached out and patted Goodwin's nose. "Stop that, you." But she smiled when she said it, and she scratched him behind the ears. Pounce rubbed his head against her hand like she was the one who spent precious coppers on meat that she chopped for him herself. "You brought your cat? Speak up, trainee."

  I tried. I did. And I remembered her warning to look her in the eye. So I managed that, but the speech just wouldn't come out of my throat.

  Goodwin lifted Pounce from Tunstall's hold. "Did you bring him to the kennel?"

  That was easy. I shook my head and got out, "N-no, Guardswoman." I didn't think I could call her "Dog" without permission, or even "Goodwin."

  "He followed you here." Goodwin's fingers were brisk but affectionate behind Pounce's ears. The little traitor wrapped his forelegs around her neck.

  "Yes, Guardswoman." I would have given anything not to have to meet her clear brown eyes.

  "Clever cat," said Tunstall.

  Goodwin put him down. "You, scat. She has work to do. Hard work, staying out of my hair."

  I glared at Pounce – Wait till I get you home, you ungrateful furball! – and pointed in the direction of our lodgings. He trotted across the street. I couldn't watch him further, because Tunstall and Goodwin were on their way.

  People greeted them from doorways and stalls, wanting to know who the Puppy was. I hung my head as they laughed and shouted their offers to buy me or play with me. And for the hundredth time I cursed my shyness that made it so hard to talk to my Dog partners, even when I was bidden to, or to answer the street folk back, the way Tunstall did. "But she's our Puppy, Inknose. If we let her fetch you, she'd just hurt you." "Leave the lass alone, Wildberry, you saucy wench. She'll never be as beautiful as you and your sisters." "Shut up, Paistoi. You ain't paid the Dogs for the last batch of Puppies you sold in Siraj."

  In between his remarks to them, Tunstall explained things to me. "Since we're a senior pair, Cooper, we have no fixed route. Three nights a week, starting tonight, we roam the Nightmarket and the Lower City between Rovers Street and Koskynen, Northgate and Stormwing. That's Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. We go where there's likely to be trouble. Thursday and Saturday we're in the Cesspool, Stormwing Street to Mulberry and Charry Orchard. We do our own seekings unless assigned one by Ahuda, we get papers when we need help on a seeking, and we have our flocks of Birdies who give us what we need in order to seek. And if we have aught that's good, we wander off our wanderings. Clary? Aught to add?"

  She looked at him. "I'm bored."

  Tunstall scratched the back of her head. "And you say I'm a barbarian. At least I know how to train a new warrior. Halt right there, Cooper. Look about you. What do you see?"

  It was too easy. Not ten feet away, a pickpocket moved in on a pickle woman. I put my hand on my baton, but Tunstall slid over like ink in water. He laid his baton gentle-like on the boy's hand just as the lad touched the mot's purse. Tunstall shook his head. The pickle woman started to shriek at the thief. Tunstall gave her a smile and a copper. "How about one of your pickles, sweetheart?" Like anyone in the Lower City, she got distracted by business. When she started to fish for a pickle in the barrel, Tunstall raised his baton from the lad's hand. The pickpocket ran.

  Tunstall traded copper for pickle with a bow and took a big bite of his snack.

  "Oh, get on. No wonder they call you lads Dogs, thinkin' you can charm an old hag like me with a wag of your tail!" The pickle seller bridled and blushed, then tucked her coin away and headed on down the street. There was a twitch to her hips. I'd wager she'd give her husband an extra-warm night, thinking of the tall Dog who had flirted with her.

  "If her husband comes looking for you, I won't be your second, not after the last time." Goodwin nudged him with her elbow. "I stood there like an idiot while you made the cove laugh so hard at your jokes he ended up buying all of us breakfast. Some duel that was."

  "Well, I didn't kill him, and he didn't want to kill me. Everyone was satisfied, except maybe for the seconds." Tunstall looked at me and beckoned for me to come up level with him. "Now, Puppy, you saw him. That's good. You'd've made a fuss – maybe not so good. What grade pickpocket was he?"

  Great Mithros, a training question. My brain scrambled. Then I remembered and met Tunstall's eyes. "He'd no knife, so he was a true pickpocket. Slow as he is, he prob'ly won't live to be a master pickpocket."

  Tunstall prodded me. "And what's the street word for 'master pickpocket'?"

  "'Foist,' sir," I replied.

  "So she knows the words," Goodwin muttered. "So what?"

  Tunstall patted her shoulder, then turned to me. "Well, we don't go around raising a fuss for minnows, Puppy. I don't like standing before the Magistrate any more than I must. It's less time spent out here looking for truly dangerous folk."

  That made sense. I nodded and saw that Pounce had returned to sit at my feet. I tried to nudge him away with my boot.

  "Come on," said Goodwin. "The evening's young, and I was thinking we might pay Crookshank a visit. I'd like a word with him about that load of pink pearls that went missing off of Gemstone Mews. If he's half as cracked by grief as they say, mayhap he'll get careless in his talk."

  I did look up then. She was grinning, with all her teeth on show. They were strong and white, like the wolves' in the royal menagerie.

  "Now, Clary, that's not nice," Tunstall told her. "He's in deep mourning for little Rolond." Quick as a snake, he looked back at me. "Puppy, who's Crookshank?"

  He startled me, so that I answered without thinking. "Biggest of the Nightmarket scales. Owns a piece of most of what's lifted, half of the luxury goods, minimum. A quarter of the loaner trade. He's got about twenty buildings in the Cesspool. Twenty more in the greater Lower City." I swallowed and remembered where I was and who I spoke to. "Sir."

  "What do you expect, Mattes?" demanded Goodwin. "She's lived in my lord Gershom's pocket for eight years. She had to pick up something if she wasn't completely stupid. Knowing isn't the same as doing." She walked out into the crossing of Gibbet Corner and Feasting Street, where stalls filled the huge square before us. We had come to the Nightmarket.

  I nearly fell over my like-new boots with surprise. She knew who I was! I was fair certain it wasn't covered in what the Commander said when I was assigned to them. She'd known of me before.

  Does she know I'm friends with Crookshank's granddaughter-in-law Tansy, and my mama with his daughter-in-law Annis? I wondered sudden-like. How? No one from their old Cesspool district was ever allowed at the house. So I should tell the Dogs....

  Trotting to catch up with them, I changed my mind. It wasn't needful. Tansy wouldn't come out to say hello to visitors, if Dogs could rightly be called visitors. She hadn't left the house since Rolond was found dead. If Annis came to see us, she'd never give me away. She was a hard one, as fit a woman who made herself her father-in-law's right hand. I could tell Goodwin and Tunstall I had friends in the household later, when we were off the street.

  The Nightmarket was stirring up for business. The torches were just lit, the sun being behind the wall in the Lower City. Plenty of folk were still at their daily work. This was quiet time. Buyers and sellers were talking among the stalls, collecting gossip, beginning to cook, adjusting weapons. It's my favorite time in the Nightmarket.

  We walked along. Stall vendors and market regulars called greetings to Goodwin and Tunstall. Two other pairs of Dogs worked the Nightmarket, but we didn't see them.

  I was trying to wave Pounce off again when Tunstall halted. I could see that big beak of his twitching. "I smell apple-raisin patties," he announced.

  Goodwin turned to him and rolled her eyes. "Glutton," she said, her smile a mocking hook at one corner.

  Tunstall led us down the bakers' and spicers' row of the market until he stopped at the stall that spread those good smells. I don't know anyone who won't swear before al
l the gods that Mistress Deirdry Noll is the best baker in all Corus. And Tunstall's luck was in, because Mistress Noll herself was minding the trays of baked goods. "Mattes, I should have known that you would sniff out my patties!" she said with a laugh. She even reached up and tweaked his nose. "Give me your handkerchief, you great lummox. Mistress Clary, how do you fare this good evening?"

  "As ever, Mistress Deirdry," Goodwin said. "None of your daughters could take the stall tonight?"

  "Not tonight." Mistress Noll placed six fat patties, heavy with cinnamon, on Tunstall's handkerchief. She looked as she always had to me: plump, her gray hair braided, pinned, and coiled at the back of her head, brown eyes, a small nose and straight mouth. She wore a brown cloth gown under her white cook's apron. Seeing her like a Dog must, I guessed her age to be about fifty now.

  She tied Tunstall's handkerchief to make a bundle of patties and handed them over. He reached for his purse. She put fists on hips and drew herself up as tall as she could go, which was no more than my shoulder.

  "As if any Dog in the Lower City paid me for something to get him through to his supper!" she said, all huffy. "I'd smack your face if I could, Mattes Tunstall!" She looked at Goodwin. "Men! No notion of what's a gift!" She flicked out a slip of cloth that had been washed so often it was almost sheer and settled three patties on it. "That's for you, Clary, since I know you're nicer about your handkerchief than he is, the big barbarian."

  Tunstall mumbled something through hot filling and crumbs.

  Goodwin leaned in and kissed Mistress Noll's cheek. "Thank you," Goodwin said, her deep voice amused. "Don't mind him. He wasn't housebroke when I bought him."

  Mistress Noll looked down. "Pounce, you little beggar, what are you doing here? Don't tell me you've run away from Beka. The two of you are melted together."

  My friend cried, Look in front of you! in cat talk. It amazes me that he can decide who will understand him and who will not. He's done so since he bade me to find him four years ago, when he was a noisy kitten.

  This time I was the only one who understood. Mistress Noll only chuckled and offered him some fish paste she'd been using for dumplings she fried at the brazier in the stall. When she straightened, she saw me. "Goddess bless me, it is Beka! All grown up and – partnered with you two?" She looked at Goodwin and Tunstall.

  "She's a trainee, not a partner." Goodwin smiled, barely. "How'd you get to know her, Mistress Deirdry?"

  Out came another worn bit of clean cloth. Mistress Noll popped three apple fritters onto it – she knew well they were my favorites.

  "Hey," said Tunstall, "hers are bigger."

  I grinned at him. Then I ducked my head.

  "Well, you'd best take care of her. I've known her all my life, and you couldn't ask for a better-hearted gixie," said Mistress Noll. "I told her she ought to have let me make dumplings of you years ago," she told Pounce, scratching his ears.

  Pounce mewed sad enough to pull her heartstrings. He might have been thanking her for the scratch with his last, starving breath. I glared at him, telling him with my eyes, You're disgusting. Tell me you didn't have a beef supper before I left. He licked his chops as Mistress Noll gave him an even bigger ball of fish paste.

  Goodwin asked, "Mistress Deirdry, did you hear about old Crookshank's great-grandson?"

  Mistress Noll looked at Goodwin sidelong. She knew she was being played for information. Tunstall gave her a big shrug, as if to say, She's my partner. What can I do?

  Mistress Noll busied herself with pressing dough on a small table by the cook pot. "As if anyone didn't know, poor little mite. It's a disgrace, it is, taking a quarrel with the old man into his family. Barbaric. Mayhap they carry on so in Scanra, or Barzun, but not here. Whoever did it won't last long, breaking the Rogue's law like that."

  Tunstall grimaced. Goodwin sniffed. The Rogue is old and should make way for someone young and strong who could keep order among the city's thieves. Instead he's fixed the Court of the Rogue to keep himself alive. He doesn't look out for the people of the Lower City anymore, only his chiefs and the folk who add to his treasure chests.

  Pigeons started landing on the stall's canopy. "Scat, you nasty things!" cried Mistress Noll, grabbing a broom and jabbing at the canvas. "Don't you go leaving your mess on my goods! Beka, stand somewhere else!"

  "Mistress Deirdry, she's our trainee, she must stand with us," Tunstall reminded her. "And what's she got to do with pigeons?"

  I swallowed and thanked the Goddess I hadn't done just as Mistress Noll had bid me. I'd have been in trouble if I'd moved at someone else's order. Above us I heard the whispers of voices as the birds whirled and spun over the thumping canopy. Bits of human talk were coming through pigeon calls, as always. "Rest at..." "Spend it..." "Mama!"

  Pounce's loud and imperious meow cut through the noise. As if he'd given them an order, the pigeons flew over to Moneychangers' Hall and settled on the carvings that decorated the front of the place.

  "Beka always has some tailing her," Mistress Noll told my partners. "A bit of strange magic, I wouldn't doubt. It's in her father's family." She smiled at me. "Maybe one of the birds got reborn into your cat, girl."

  "You'd think they'd be roosting, this hour of the night." Goodwin brushed her sleeves as if she thought to find droppings on her.

  "There's so much light here they carry on like it's day," Tunstall said. He plunked down a copper noble. "One of your beef pies, Mistress Deirdry, as a grieving gift." He leaned closer and said quietly, "Any little whispers about anyone who might have been around the Crookshank child who shouldn't have been?"

  Mistress Noll carefully settled the pie into a cheap basket. "Mattes Tunstall, you know very well anything useful doesn't come to someone like me. No one shares anything with old folk. We're finished, we just haven't died."

  "But you're not finished," Tunstall told her with a flirty smile. "You sharp old folk are everywhere, aren't you? You're everywhere, and you see and hear everything."

  "And if you did hear something...," Goodwin hinted.

  "It would be a wondrous thing. Still, I'd pass it on to the two of you, respectful as you are. Would that others were like you." Mistress Noll gave Tunstall his change and the basket. "Fare you well. If you return the basket, you'll get five coppers for it."

  "No problem," Tunstall said with a grin. "I'll just have my Puppy fetch it back to you."

  Crookshank's house was to the rear of the Nightmarket, the biggest house on Stuvek Street. Pounce wandered off into the market whilst a manservant let us in. We waited in a sitting room as he fetched Annis Lofts. I wondered yet again if I ought to tell my Dogs that my mama had been friends with Mistress Annis.

  She came before I could fish the words from where they were stuck in my chest. She wore black for Rolond, a long black tunic over a black underdress. She'd been crying.

  "You can see Father Ammon, for the good it will do you," she said. It took me a moment to know who Mistress Annis meant by "Father Ammon." He'd been Crookshank for so long, I'd forgotten the old scale's real name was Ammon Lofts. "He's done little but sit in the dark. He hates you two enough, mayhap he'll move for you. This way."

  Goodwin looked at me. "Puppy, sit," she ordered as she and Tunstall followed Annis.

  Instead I walked around the room, pricing the little pretty things and hangings. Crookshank had probably bought furniture and all with one day's taking of stolen goods, and he'd've paid them that stole it only a part of its worth. That was what scales did.

  In a moment Mistress Annis returned. "Well, he didn't throw them out." She tried a smile on me, but it didn't work that well. She offered me no embrace, for all her sorrowing. "Look at you, all kitted out like a Dog. Will you start tattling on old friends, then?"

  "All Dogs walk that line," I told her.

  "So you do." Her face shook. "Oh, Beka, I wish your mother was still with us. I miss her so much."

  "I miss her, too." Only two years Mama has been gone. It still hurts. "I know she would c
omfort you if she could."

  She wiped her eyes. "You'd think I'd be done with tears by now. But Rolond was only three! Who would kill a baby only three, who went up to everyone just as friendly as you could ask for?" She blew her nose. "Will you see Tansy? It will do her good."

  I wanted to see her. It's hard nowadays. Crookshank don't like his granddaughter-in-law mingling with old friends from the Cesspool. Old friends from the Cesspool who live in Provost's House are even worse. And with a child and husband, Tansy finds it even harder to get away. "I was ordered to stay here," I said, trying not to whine.

  Annis gave me the oddest smile. "Do you think they'll complain to know you're friends with Tansy? Dogs are always looking for a back door to a house. Up till now, they've never had one here. They'll be delighted."

  I didn't know about "delighted," but I used my wits for a moment. Annis was right. They would be glad I had friends in Crookshank's very own family. I hope they won't be vexed if I don't go bearing tales. From the little I have heard from Tansy, Crookshank is a cruel father-in-law and grandfather. I won't bring his anger down on Tansy and Annis by taking tales to my Dogs if I can help it.

  I nodded.

  "I'll tell your Dogs where you are, if they're done with Father in any hurry," Annis said. "He was growling and snapping when I brought them to him, though. They'll want to see what they can wheedle out of the old coin cutter. Come. See if you can get Tansy to eat sommat." She led me through the house, past servants who nodded at her and gawped at me. I wish I could say it was the uniform that drew respect, but I glimpsed smirks and pointed fingers as they remarked on my Puppy trim. Only my first day of wearing it, and I can't wait to get that part of the uniform off.

  "She's got another babe coming," Annis told me as we climbed a narrow servants' stair. "She can't starve herself like this." Two stories up, we came out of the stair and walked down a hall. Annis showed me into a fine bedchamber.

  There Tansy lay on a large bed, staring at the ceiling. I could see the swell of her belly. She has mayhap four months to go yet. The room wasn't a good place to think of such things, with a bed draped in black muslin. The small mirror was draped in black, too. Tansy wore a black gown and a rumpled head cloth. Annis whispered to her, begging her to sit up and greet me.