Bloodhound

by Tamora Pierce

  Long after watch, near dawn.

  Pox rot this cursed watch. I am so weary I can scarce hold my pen, yet what must I do the moment I unlock my door? Achoo greeted me, whining and dancing. She trotted to the edge of the stair and back, her tail between her legs.

  She couldn't have been plainer if she'd spoken in Common. She also was plain about expecting me to hit her because she had to go on an errand that came from sitting indoors all through my watch. I closed and locked my door and went downstairs with her. My head was spinning, I was so weary.

  Achoo raced down the steps and out the door. She must have been full to bursting. I found her in the street, not even the courtyard, doing her business over the gutter. I had to admire the person who'd trained her to go through doors and gateways to find a gutter. Even my lord Gershom's or my lady Teodorie's hunting hounds, trained though they are, forget themselves indoors sometimes.

  "Good Achoo," I said, reaching to scratch her ears. She cringed away from me. I turned my hands over and crouched slowly. It was hard to do it and not fall over. I let her come to me. She sniffed my hands. I scratched her chin a little, then gently did her ears. I never let her suspect that I was in a killing rage at her last handlers.

  When she leaned her head back, showing just the tips of her teeth in a hound's grin, I lurched to my feet. She stepped back from me. "Time to go inside," I told her, keeping my voice gentle. "Elsewise I'll fall asleep right here."

  She followed me back up to the room, her feet thumping on the steps.

  I've managed to write this much, but the letters are dancing on the pg page. I told the easy parrte part about coming hom here home here. I will write more of this nyt night after I sleep. I ache in my every bo

  Sunday, September 9, 247

  Ten of the clock on Sunday morning.

  being yet a record of the events of the Evening Watch of Saturday, September 8th

  It is too hot to sleep more this morning, and no matter which way I turned, something hurt. I woke to Achoo panting in my face, making me hotter still. "I am surprised you held your water so long," I grumbled as I pulled on my breeches. All my body ached.

  Achoo went out with Kora at breakfast time, Pounce told me. She has a charm that slides the bolts on the door.

  I was too weary to be angry. Instead, as Achoo took care of her necessities, I drew a bucket from my landlady's well and dumped it over my head. Lifting it hurt my arms dreadfully, but it was worth it to feel cool all over. I led Achoo back upstairs. She was in fine fettle this morning, her tail waving like a banner. I gave her and Pounce cold meat pasties for their breakfast and settled down to finish my accounting of yesterday's watch, the Evening Watch of Saturday, September 8.

  First I had to check with Mistress Trout that I would be allowed to leave Achoo tied in the backyard this evening. Five coppers bought her agreement. I left Pounce to bear Achoo company. I set them both up in the kitchen garden behind our lodging with a bowl of water and their supper. Achoo I tied to a long rope attached to a post, in case she got the urge to wander. Then I reported to training.

  When I got there, Ahuda was waiting for me. Her arms were crossed over her chest.

  "I'm informed you consider yourself a scent-hound handler now," she told me.

  I winced as I handed her the notes on what I had gathered from the pigeons and the spinners. I should have figured Hempstead would rush to bleat his tale in Ahuda's ear. "Sergeant, I never tried to take Achoo from him. He was the one who thrust her on me."

  "Never mind, Cooper. I'd have taken the poor thing myself, except I'm no street Dog. We don't have any more handlers." She rubbed her nose. "It's not what I would have chosen, but it may serve. It won't hurt you to have a handler's skills. Stop by my desk after your watch musters off duty, and I'll give you the allowance for the hound's food and care. You still see Phelan, don't you?"

  Phelan had been Achoo's handler before he'd left the Dogs. "Yes, Sergeant, I do."

  "Have him teach you the commands until I can get you regular training. It's just as well you're between partners, wouldn't you say? Now get in that yard and warm up."

  Word raced ahead of me, as always. By the time we walked into muster from training, Goodwin greeted me with, "You're turning us into a menagerie, Cooper, is that it? First a cat, now a hound – what's next, winged horses?"

  "Always wanted to see those," Tunstall remarked with a sigh. There was a light in his eyes as he added, "Always wanted to ride one."

  "Didn't that barbarian nursemaid tell you winged horsies are stories, man?" Yoav teased. "You go ridin' stories, you're due for a long fall!"

  "Hempstead made me take Achoo," I told Goodwin. "Besides, you should see her. Skin and bones and open sores."

  Tunstall went to spit on the floor. He stopped, seeing Ahuda's eye on him. "It's a tiny soul that'll beat an animal, even one as silly as that Achoo," he said, his voice a soft growl.

  "Muster up!" Ahuda bellowed. We took our places in the ranks. Ahuda gave us our orders for the night and called up the Senior Dogs for anything special.

  When Ahuda dismissed us to duty, we walked out into the courtyard, where the heat smothered us. It clung wetly, filling our noses and lungs. We all grumbled, each in our own fashion. Saturday is a big market day. Plenty of folk come out when their jobs are done. On a night like this, with the heat so bad, tempers would be short.

  The free-roaming Senior Dogs and Corporals bunched up near the gate to choose their routes. Goodwin picked the Market of Sorrows for the three of us. The lordlings and rich merchants who came to look over the slave merchandise after dark would be short with the beggars and street folk. Things would go smoother if we were there to stop trouble before it began.

  "Any word?" Jewel asked me. "Ahuda said you had sommat troublin' on the rye crop."

  I told him what I'd learned while the others listened, frowning.

  "That's bad," Yoav said. "If it gets out, it could start a panic."

  "I gave it to Ahuda," I told them. "She's always careful with the delicate things."

  Tunstall growled. "I'd like to get my hands on the kind of snake that would sell folk rotten grain."

  We all growled our answer. Everyone would be looking at any seller of rye now, alert for anything that didn't look or smell as it should. The Senior Dogs and us lucky enough to be partnered with them lingered a little while longer, talking about the harvest in general. None of us were eager to rush out into the heat and the business of the watch. Despite the shadows granted to us by the city walls and the coast hills, the air felt just as hot and sticky as it had during full daylight. At last our knot of Dogs undid itself, Jewel and Yoav going one way, Goodwin, Tunstall, and me another.

  We'd just ambled a couple of blocks down Jane Street when Tunstall halted and put a hand to his ear. I'd heard something, too. We all waited, listening. Then we heard it clear. Somewhere from the direction of the Nightmarket, Dogs were blowing the General Alarm signal on their whistles.

  We turned down Sophy Street at the trot, bound for the Nightmarket's eastern edge at Feasting Street. We knew this was bad. Five regular pairs and two roving ones had the Night-market on Saturday. If the ones who sounded the whistle continued to do so, it meant that fourteen Dogs were in trouble there.

  Goodwin halted us a block short of the Nightmarket. The whistles had continued to blow. "Weapons check," she said. "Mother, watch over us."

  "So mote it be," Tunstall and I whispered. The Great Mother Goddess was not who either of us prayed to first, but we would take all the help we could get. I checked my knives swiftly, though I'd done so before leaving the kennel, and made certain my arm guards were tightly laced. I mourned the absence of my armor, which lay snug at home, because I'd decided it was too hot to carry. Then I drew my baton and gave Goodwin the nod. She and Tunstall had gone through the same checks that I had, though perhaps they had not hated themselves for leaving their armor at home. They were wearing their gorgets, which made me kick myself again. They had thought it was
worth at least wearing their neckpieces. Mine wouldn't have made me sweat that much more.

  "Keep breathing, keep learning," Ahuda says.

  Goodwin held up her whistle, which hung on a thong from her gorget. Tunstall produced his, hanging around his neck. I showed her mine. "Very good, Cooper," Goodwin said. "Let's go."

  We emerged onto Feasting, the eastern edge of the market, batons in hand. Our view was blocked by the rows of stalls in front of us. The trouble was doubtless in the heart of the market, where there was more open ground. We swung down to the Rovers Street border of the market and trotted along until we found the edges of the crowd. The open heart of the market was filling up with the kind of cracknob who always came to see what the fuss was about.

  Using our batons and elbows gently, ordering these loobies to go about their business or go home, we muscled our way to King Gareth's Fountain. It stood at the heart of the central square, four shallow bowls of lesser and lesser size along the length of a carved stone pillar thirty feet in height. It gave a determined climber a good view of the square between Stuvek Street and Rovers Street. A handful of lads and gixies had already climbed it to take in the events at the south side of the market.

  "Up you go, Cooper," Goodwin said. "You're the lightest."

  "Not to mention the most junior of the team," Tunstall added.

  I undid my weapons belt, and gave it and my baton into Goodwin's care. They would only hinder me as I went up.

  I clambered up the sides and over the three lowest bowls, shifting the lads and gixies who didn't want to make way. Lucky for us all they let me pass once they saw my uniform. Standing in the last bowl, hanging on to the crown-tipped point, I could see where the problem was.

  The crowd had turned into a boiling mass of hornets at the front, all its attention centered on a line of Dogs – eight at the center with one a step back on each side, whistles to their lips. That was all but two of the pairs assigned to the market. The line of Dogs stood at guard, their batons horizontal in their grips, before the Two for One bakery. In front of Two for One hung its famous slate sign, Day-old loaves, 2 for 1 copper. Only someone had crossed out the 2 and chalked the number 1 in its place.

  "Bread!" them in the crowd were shouting. "We need bread!" Mostly those in the lead were women armed with naught but market baskets. Behind them were others, coves and mots alike, better prepared for a brawl with bottles, stones, sticks, and jars.

  It was unthinkable. Two for One had sold day-old loaves of bread two loaves for one copper ever since I could remember. They bought up much of the city's fresh bread at the end of the day and sold it here the next day at that rate. In the Lower City, even one copper made a difference.

  "Move on!" shouted the burliest of the Dogs. It was Greengage, one of our Corporals. "Be about your business. I'll have no trouble tonight!"

  "Easy for you to say!" I heard a mot cry. "You're paid a decent wage! One copper, two, it's no skin from your cheek!"

  The two Dogs at the ends of the line of guarding Dogs took a deep breath and blew the summons to all Dogs in the area. They were right. Ten Dogs, or even fourteen when the two other pairs arrived, weren't enough for this crowd, and the folk in it weren't calming down.

  "Bread," folk in the rear of the crowd began to call. "Bread, bread, bread."

  "Eat this, cur!" I heard someone yell. "Here's fare ordinary folk can buy!"

  I looked back at Two for One in time to see a rotted cabbage head hit Greengage straight in the chest. It splatted brown-gray sludge over him and the Dogs on both his sides.

  Down the fountain I went, ordering the others who climbed it, "Get home afore you get your bones broke!" On the ground again, I told Goodwin and Tunstall what I'd seen. Goodwin returned my belt to me and watched as I buckled it on, making certain everything was settled where I could reach it. Then she handed me my baton.

  We all gave each other a last swift going-over by eye to see that all buckles were done up and all laces were tied. Then Goodwin nodded to the left. That would be our direction around the fountain, toward Two for One. She and Tunstall moved first into the crowd, then I stepped in behind them, as we had done at other crowd fights, so I could guard their backs.

  Folk around us surged forward, punching their neighbors and shrieking, "Bread!" as sweat poured down their faces. The heat alone might drop a third of them soon enough. Our job was simple. We ordered the brawlers home. If they disobeyed, they got a taste of the baton. Rushers with clubs or blades in their hands got the baton to the head, hard enough to drop them. We didn't need anyone up and about who'd come with a mind to draw blood. Our job was to clear these folk out. And we had to get them that weren't fighting out of the way. It was hard, fast work and left me no time to think about how frightened I was. I'd never been at the heart of a riot, only its edges. I felt beat at by the noise alone.

  Goodwin was tangling with a tattooed cove and Tunstall with two drunken Rats when a mot grabbed my braid and yelped in pain. She had found the spiked strap woven in it. I gave her the baton to the belly and let her stumble away, gasping for breath. A cove to my right was keeping a fainting mot on her feet. At the same time he reached for a child who screamed in the grip of a grinning rusher, a child stealer like as not. I lunged for the little gixie, slamming the child stealer's elbow with my baton. He squealed and took one hand off the girl. I wrapped an arm around her waist, then rammed the cove's cod with my baton. He went down under the feet of the mob, wailing. Quick as I could, I thrust the girl into the man's free hand. "Papa!" she cried, reaching for him.

  I grabbed the fainting mot and got her arm over my shoulders. "There!" I ordered the cove, pointing to a stall where other cityfolk huddled, wanting no part of the violence. I shoved the three of them under the scant protection of the stall's awning and looked about me for my partners. I could see naught of them in that lump of heaving flesh.

  Again I threw myself into it. My ears rang with screams and the never-ending chant of, "Bread! Bread!" More than once the crowd's force picked me off my feet and bore me along, held up by the bodies of them that were packed in around me. That was the worst, when I had no control over where I went. I was in the power of this beast of sweaty arms and faces and dozens of screaming heads. When it let my feet touch the ground, I fought to keep them there.

  Over and over I banged the unlawful on knees and shoulders, then dragged folk clear of the mob – women, mostly, and little ones. I had to switch baton hands twice as my arms began to ache. Part of me knew I would hate the next day, when I woke up to feel all those places where the brawlers landed their own blows on me. I didn't feel them now, that was all that mattered. That and the knowing that other Dogs were here, same as me, bringing order to this mess. I could hear their whistles high over the beast's roar, letting me know they were nearby.

  It wasn't all clean-cut battle. I was running out of places to get the helpless who couldn't run out of harm's way. Folk that might have ducked a common market brawl came to this one to tell the shopkeepers what would happen if any more prices went up. Word of a bad harvest on top of so many hot days made the Lower City folk lose what sense they had.

  The stall that had sheltered the first people I got out of the fight didn't exist anymore. The mob had torn it to pieces for clubs. I went looking for those who'd hidden there. They were in the next row of stalls, tucked inside one. I dragged two of the women, who clutched as many little ones as each could manage, down the row, trusting that the others would follow. I wanted to get them clear of the market. I hoped that the sight of a street with no mob on it would give rise to some sheep-like instinct to run home, or to Jane Street kennel.

  Then the mob crashed into the row ahead of us, smashing through the walls of two stalls on either side. Both places sold drink. I saw mots and coves handing around jacks, tankards, and bottles. I turned my people back, toward the main square.

  "Here." A light-haired cove, slender and muscled like an acrobat, appeared in front of us like something from a dream. "Thi
s way." He gathered up two children and set off, sure we would follow. When a river dodger rose in his path, ready to club him down, he leaned to the side and kicked high, catching him in the breastbone. I shoved the mot I'd been towing after the fair-haired cove and turned to make sure the others followed. Then I wiped my sweating forehead on my arm and moved alongside our little group, bashing any that threatened us.

  The cove led us to the Jack and Pasty, the oldest of the square's places for food and drink. Mother's mercy, it was built of stone and roofed in slate. The windows were shut and barred. Only a door in the front was open. It was guarded by a big, slope-shouldered cove armed with a staff as thick as my wrist.

  "Not dead?" he asked our leader with good cheer, his voice loud enough to cut through the roar. "Curse it, Dale, I had a bet on that you wouldn't make it." He passed each of us a flask of barley water. I drained mine and thanked him.

  The light-haired cove – Dale – grinned at the big one as he ushered our group into the shelter of the Jack. "You always lose when you bet against me, Hanse, admit it." He looked at me. "If you find more, Guardswoman, we've started a collection in here." And he winked.

  I nodded and headed back along the edges of the crowd. I needed to find Goodwin and Tunstall, so I got out my whistle and blew our private signal. I'd not gone far when I heard an answer nearby. I swallowed my fear of getting back into the thick of it and plunged in. Now that I wasn't spending all my wits on getting those cityfolk to safety, I listened harder to the whistle calls. I heard seven different sets, not counting my own partners'. That meant every pair assigned to the Nightmarket was engaged and calling for help. Ahuda must have the word by now. She would be sending every pair that could be spared from their own duty here in the Lower City. We dared not use everyone. The Rats would take advantage of our absence and go after those we'd left unprotected.

  Finally I saw Tunstall's head over the dense wall of blind, furious bodies. I brained a huge cove who wouldn't drop when I struck his knee, then dashed sweat from my eyes. I didn't know if the salty drops came from the heat or my own fear anymore. Every second I stumbled, shoved by half-mad folk. I was scared I wouldn't live to reach Tunstall.