Beka Cooper 1 - Terrier Read online

  Tunstall came over. "And I didn't even have to say 'fetch.'"

  "Here we were thinking you were naught but a Fishpuppy, and you turn out to be one stubborn little terrier." Ahuda was shaking her head as she opened the thick arrest book. "Lockup!" she yelled. "Rat coming in!"

  "I want to see my children," Orva whined. "I want my Jack. He'll be tellin' you – "

  "Shut your gob," said Ahuda. I thought I'd seen her at her worst when she dealt with us trainees. I was wrong. "You tell me nothin' in my kennel. Here, I am Queen Bitch, and you will muzzle yourself." She turned to the cage Dogs. "Get her out of my air – she stinks of hotblood wine. And make sure Cooper gets her cords back, uncut. If you have to cut them, give her good replacements." She turned to me now. "Cooper, you don't leave till you get one or the other and sign my supply book to claim which. Cords cost money."

  My knees were frightful wobbly, from work and from talking before all those pairs of eyes. "Yes, Sergeant."

  Ahuda pursed her lips. "Sit, girl, before you fall. Over by the healers. Tunstall, get her a cup of that restorative tea, the one that tastes like hay."

  I sat on one of the benches near the healers' room. Then I had to change positions. Tunstall was pointing me to a seat directly across from Goodwin and the healer who tended her jaw. I took a quick glance as I settled into the new place. A huge bruise went from Goodwin's cheekbone under her chin on that side, but there was no swelling.

  The healer stood back and looked at it. "You'll be sore for some days, and you'll need to eat on the other side, but given you'd a cracked jaw and a knot the size of a walnut, you'd best not complain. You're lucky I do bones so well or you wouldn't talk for a week. What were you hit with, a hammer?"

  "The hilt of a butcher knife," Tunstall said when Goodwin opened her mouth and winced. "I don't suppose you have it, Puppy."

  Given all her whining and foot dragging, I'd needed the hand that didn't hold the baton to keep Orva moving. Thrusting the knife into my belt would have meant the tip pricked my thighs. I reached inside my tunic and fished it out. I'd prayed all the way to the kennel that I wouldn't fall and stab myself.

  "Mithros," whispered Tunstall. "The thing's a pig sticker."

  Goodwin smiled crookedly and beckoned for the knife. I gave it to her, hilt first. It was black, heavy wood at the hilt. The thing had been valuable once, before a thousand sharpenings had made the blade as thin as a lock pick. The healer whistled, looking at it. "The Mother blessed you tonight, Guardswoman. Had this struck you a little harder, your jaw might well have shattered beyond my skill."

  Tunstall got my cup of tea. I looked at it, wishing I had the gumption to ask for food instead.

  "You're starvin', an' so'm I," Goodwin said. "Knock that back, an' we'll get a proper supper."

  "Soft foods for you," the healer warned Goodwin.

  "May I feed our Puppy now?" Goodwin asked with frightful patience. "She d'serves a treat."

  I looked at her, shocked.

  "Don't worry," Tunstall reassured me. "She'll get over it eventually."

  I hoped so. I couldn't have Goodwin changing her nature on me from day to day. I liked to know where I stood with people.

  Most of the usual Dog trade had been and gone by the time we reached the Mantel and Pullet. Now my legs ached. I hoped it wasn't the run. As a message runner I had covered the city at a trot. I'd hate to think I was so out of trim. True, even a run from Unicorn District to the palace was not the same as chasing a half-mad female through the Cesspool, then dragging her back to Jane Street.

  Tunstall beckoned one of the server girls over. "A quiet room," he said. Silver passed from his hand to hers. "No fuss about it," he added.

  The server girl led us into a narrow hall. Along one side were four doors covered with flimsy curtains. She pointed us through the third. We ordered our food. Poor Goodwin requested pease porridge, which made the girl take a step back. Once she'd brought it all, she closed a wooden door behind the flimsy curtains.

  "No magic in these rooms," Tunstall told me as he cut a thick slice of ham into tiny pieces. "The host is paid extra to make sure of it." He looked at Goodwin as she poked the contents of her bowl. "Mayhap you should go home after this, Clary, leave me'n Cooper to finish the night."

  "Curst if I will," she muttered. "We'll go back to th' Cesspool. If I get t' break s'm heads, I'll cheer up."

  "If you bang your jaw, you won't be cheery," Tunstall warned. "Cooper, take more of them parsnips. You need some meat on your bones."

  "Mother hen," Goodwin said.

  "Will you gabble till the giants return, or will you show us what that canny lad Rosto foisted from Crookshank?" Tunstall asked. Then, slowly and with great care, he buttered a fat roll bursting with nuts and raisins and ate it, making sounds of delight.

  Goodwin swiftly took a spoonful of porridge, levered it back with her free hand, and released it like a catapult. The porridge flew to land on Tunstall's forehead.

  I covered my mouth with both hands that I might not giggle. The toughest Dogs in the city still have some play in them!

  Tunstall used an unbuttered piece of roll to wipe his forehead. He popped roll and porridge into his mouth. "You've been practicing," he mumbled with his mouth full.

  Goodwin smirked and dug in her breeches pocket. "Don' torture me wi' what I can't eat, Mattes," she warned. "Not wi' my belly growlin' like menag'rie bears." She fetched out the leather pouch as Tunstall and me shoved plates aside. She spilled out five stones.

  They were like the rock in my breeches pocket. When Tunstall drew the oil lamp closer, they showed brilliant flashes of color. One had a bulge of glasslike stuff. Within the glass were dark orange flecks, some clear patches, and a strip of deep, green blaze. One had a lump of clear stuff the size of my thumb. In the lamplight it flashed lilac, blue, and palest orange. Another threw off green fire in a rippling strip along its spine, a fourth shone with tiny yellow, green, and blue sparkles. A fifth showed spots that looked like deep glass wells, one green, one dark blue.

  "Oh, we got t' get a mage," Goodwin said. "Tunstall, we need you-know-who. First thing tomorrow."

  Tunstall raised his eyebrows. "You're certain?"

  Goodwin nodded. She gently slid each stone back into the pouch. "We've seen plenty a' gems in our day, Mattes. These're diff'rent. Goddess, m'jaw hurts. Crookshank took these t' Kayfer."

  "You think he meant to bribe the Rogue? He went about it strangely." Tunstall offered Goodwin the tiniest bit of ham on the tip of his knife. She took it, chewing carefully.

  "One of the chiefs?" I asked. I didn't look at them for fear they might scowl.

  Then I heard Goodwin say, "Go on."

  "Dawull of Waterfront – he helped the guards take Crookshank away last night." I drew patterns in the gravy on my plate. In my mind's eye I saw the big redheaded Dawull chivvy the rushers along. "Since when does one of the Rogue's own chiefs take out the trash? Were me, I'd worry more that Crookshank might remember me when he got his feet under him again."

  Tunstall rested his chin on his hand. "Good point."

  "Dawull's first 'mong the chiefs. All them waterfront toughs t' call on," Goodwin said. "Strong fellow. When he was movin' cargo in Port Caynn, he'd knock an ox down, f'r bet money. He c'n stand a few challenges if he's Rogue."

  "Crookshank's money, he could buy some of the other chiefs," Tunstall said. "Enough to overset Kayfer, though?"

  "Might Kayfer actually claim to be this Shadow Snake?" I asked. "If he did and he killed Rolond, the chiefs might turn on him. Crookshank could buy them then."

  "You b'lieve that?" Goodwin asked. "No, Crookshank's been at th' bottle, t' yelp of th' Snake. My nursey tol' me that one. Waits at th' crossroads an' swallows bad children. It's a bogey story, Cooper. You never heard it?"

  Of course I'd heard of the Shadow Snake. I'd just never known anyone cracked – or hard – enough to use the name for anything, let alone the murderer of a child.

  "Someone calls himself the Sha
dow Snake, to do business," Tunstall said, thinking out loud. "They use the bogey story, to put the fear into him. To pay Crookshank back for something. The old man's up to his skull in enemies. Now he knows someone's out there who's so full of hate they'll not stop at child murder. So Crookshank pays to buy all kinds of guards."

  "But he doesn't trust the Rogue. He thinks the Rogue is the Shadow Snake," I said. "And he's got enough coin to buy one of the Rogue's chiefs. That's a lot of coin, even for Crookshank – where's it from?"

  "I'm bettin' it's these rocks," Goodwin said as Tunstall picked up the leather bag. "What are they? How'd Crookshank come by 'em? Too many questions. I don' like questions."

  "Dogs don't like questions," I said, the first half of the saying. Tunstall finished it with me as he stuffed the bag inside his tunic. "Dogs like answers."

  Goodwin asked, "What'd Rosto want of you, Cooper? While we were up greasin' Kayfer's vanity?"

  I spat out a mouthful of buttered greens beside my bowl so I wouldn't talk with my mouth full. "He wanted to bribe me to know what was in that leather bag."

  "How much?" Tunstall asked.

  "A silver noble. I told him no," I replied.

  Goodwin slapped the back of my head smartly. I gaped at her. "Don' be a fool, wench! One an' a half, an' you tell 'im!"

  "Then split the takings with us. That's how it works," Tunstall said. "Personal bribes don't go in the Happy Bags. They're for the Dogs who earn them. Sooner or later word of these stones will get out. So we'll control who hears of them. Then we follow the rumors. Maybe learn something. Never turn down a bribe, Cooper. It's bad for business. Bad for you, and bad for us, because we get half of everything you get. We train you, after all."

  "Folk don' trust a Dog what don' get bought," Goodwin told me. "You're too good t' be bought, they start thinkin' maybe you got some other angle – "

  "Or some other master. Then it gets bloody." Tunstall stuffed a sweetmeat into his mouth.

  I ate the vegetables I'd spat out. I never waste food.

  "No sense lettin' you get yourself killed if we're puttin' work into you," Goodwin said, glaring at her bowl. "This Rosto, if he survives, might be a good connection. Aniki and Kora, too."

  "If the Rogue don't kill them for being too good," Tunstall reminded us both. "Eat up, girls. We still have the rest of the Cesspool patrol."

  As I stood, I heard crackling. I'd forgotten about my clothes. They were covered in dried muck. I'd need a bathhouse at the end of my watch again. I'd need to pay a laundress to get these gummy stains from my uniform. My hoard of coins dwindled in my mind's eye. I'd saved plenty, from my allowance at Provost's House and the tips I'd made as a runner, but buying furnishings and taking rooms ate into it. Laundry and baths ate still more.

  I put it from my mind. I had to be alert on the streets, doubly so if Goodwin's pain distracted her. A mage's healing was all very well, but after a point, the Dog's body had to do the rest. That bruise looked like it hurt.

  So on we went as the clocks chimed eleven. Once more I stood by and watched as Goodwin and Tunstall broke up tavern fights. Finally it was time to return to Jane Street. If Goodwin's pain had an effect on her work, I did not see it. My sole bit of excitement was when one looby crashed into me. I tripped him with my baton and smacked his ankle so he'd remember me.

  My legs were filled with nails by the time we mustered off watch. The thought of reaching a bathhouse was as lowering as paying for it.

  Once we'd told Ahuda that we'd finished our evening alive, she dismissed us. I was about to drag myself out the door when Goodwin put a hand on my arm. She gave me a circle of wood with the Provost's mark on one side and her name on the other. "Where's the Dogs' bathhouse, Cooper?"

  I blinked at the piece of wood. "Stormwing Street, right around the corner." I was so weary the marks on the wood smeared in my vision. Goodwin was sore, too. I had to listen hard to understand her because her jaw was so stiff.

  "Good Puppy. Go there. Show 'em this. Tell the 'tendants I said clean you'n your clothes, 'n give you a spare uniform for t'morrow. Yours'll need soakin'." She thrust the piece of wood closer to my face. "Take it, Cooper. They won' let you inna Dogs' bathhouse till you're no Puppy, 'less you've got one of these."

  "But I can't afford – " I reached for my purse. A spare uniform cost money. I'd have to take the coin from my food budget. I couldn't take it from the rent or my pigeon money. Those birds were my informants.

  "Pay me your share of Rosto's bribe, if it makes you feel better," Goodwin snapped. "I don't need a bathhouse. I'm goin' home t' let my man scrub my back. An' you need spare uniforms if you keep gettin' muck on you. Now scat."

  I wanted to argue, but pride is something only folk with money can afford. I scatted. As I moved off, I heard Tunstall ask, "All the bribe money? That's hard."

  "I'm short of coin this month," Goodwin said, her voice tart. "Maybe she'll be wise and make 'im pay 'er two silver nobles, keep th' extra half for 'erself."

  The bathhouse attendant made me leave my clothes in the rinsing room. I wore a robe to the hot pools. Dogs were coming in, looking strange without their uniforms. Two of them started to come toward me. Each time an attendant grabbed their arms and whispered in their ears. Did they tell their friends that I was here with Goodwin's permission or just to let the Fishpuppy swim alone? Once I'd soaped and rinsed my hair, I slumped on my underwater bench until I was hidden up to my lips. If they couldn't recognize me, they wouldn't think about me.

  The next thing I knew, the attendant was shaking my shoulder. The Dogs had gone. She lifted me out. I was pink and wrinkled like a new babe. She'd found a spare uniform and stitched on white trim while I slept. She even helped me dress. I found a couple of coppers for a tip, but she pushed them away.

  I managed the walk to my rooms. Pounce jumped to my shoulder as I let myself in, leaping on and off me as I undressed. He talked like mad in plain cat, attacking my braid as I stripped off my clothes and got into my nightshirt.

  At last I fell into my wonderful bed, curling up under my divine blankets to write in this journal. Somehow I woke up for that, as if I live the day afresh to record it. Now, though, my eyelids are heavy. Pounce is purring in my ear. It's a soothing sound. I will end this, before I sleep and get ink on everything.

  On the whole, a better day...

  Friday, April 3, 246

  When I stood this morning, I nearly fell, my legs hurt so bad. Even the hot soak last night did only so much. I kneaded them like Mistress Noll taught me to knead bread, biting my lip to keep from yowling like Pounce. As I worked on one leg, stretching it out in front of me on the floor, he draped himself over the other. He understood his warmth eased the muscles.

  Once I could move without crying, I unlocked my trunk. Back when I was a runner, Mama made a big jar of ointment for my legs. I think my lord's cook paid a mage to charm it, because it worked the best of all Mama's concoctions. I only used it when I could do nothing better for myself, because it worked and because Mama had made it. This was one of those times.

  "How far did I chase that addled creature?" I asked Pounce as I rubbed the ointment in. As I got dressed, I muttered about getting new work, where I spent my time on my back.

  Today my landlady said naught as I left, though she was there at the window. She nodded, but there was a strange expression on her face. Pounce looked up at me, as if I might know why she was so quiet. I only shrugged at him.

  That was when the rotten vegetables hit me, one turnip square in the shirt, one old onion glancing off my shoulder. I reached for a baton I didn't carry just then and looked for my enemy. Orva's two gixies stood in the street, their bruises highly colored in daylight. As I spotted them, the older girl threw a cabbage. I dodged. It splatted on the front of my lodging house.

  "Y' took our mama!" she cried. "Give 'er back, y' stinkin' puttock!" The other one started to cry. They were bony, ragged, and sad. With rotten onion stink in my nose, I should have been furious.

  M
ama only paddled us when we'd done wrong. She always told us why. She wouldn't let her men knock us about. She sang to us, when she had the breath for it, and went short of food and clothes for us. Yet these little ones loved their mama, too. Like me, they were going to lose her. Never mind it would be for a shorter time than I had lost mine. It didn't matter that last night their mama had threatened to cut off their heads. Mamas were such strong creatures to their children.

  "Your mama did a bad thing when she struck a Dog with a knife," I told the older gixie. "There's no forgiving that under the King's law. You draw a blade on a Dog, the Magistrate sends you to prison. If your mama behaves, she'll come home one day. But she was going to prison the moment she attacked Guardswoman Goodwin with steel."

  "Here, you beggars – you've done enough damage! Scat!" It was Rosto the Piper. Somehow I don't think he'd come along by accident. "Be grateful you're still alive to cry for your ma. Be gratefuller still your da has two eyes in his head yet."

  I wasn't surprised that Rosto knew of their case, either. But I was surprised when he flipped each of the girls a copper. They jumped to catch the coins before they got lost in the street muck. Then they ran off before he could change his mind. He sauntered up to me, more graceful than Pounce, hands in his pockets, the folds of his tunic loose, the dark blue cloth clean. Even his leggings were barely touched by street dirt. I marked the print of six knives against his tunic. The flat blades hidden on the insides of his wrists made me itch to handle them. I do love a good weapon.

  "Here." He took a cord with a wooden disk on it from around his neck. There were magical signs carved deep in the wood. "Kora made it for me, to get stains out of my clothes. She does very good charms, our Kora." He looked behind me at the rows of houses. "Nice neighborhood, this. Handy to the markets and the riverfront."

  I hesitated and looked the street over. My own charm against bad magics didn't warn me by turning warm against the skin of my chest, so I took the thong from his fingers. Slowly I passed the disk over the places where the vegetables had smeared my shirt. The wood glowed for a moment, then went dark. The muck dried and fell from my clothes.