Bloodhound

by Tamora Pierce

  I was grateful that I was assigned to take notes. Otherwise I never would have been admitted to a meeting like this one, and despite being nervous, I was glad to be in attendance. I do love knowing secrets.

  The talk went on for over an hour as these experienced folk spoke of what had to be done to halt the spread of coles. I will not write out here every word of what I put down then. They made plans to alert the treasury, and both the Gold- and Silversmith's banks. Next they worked out a plan for the districts, whereby each commander would choose a squad of Dogs who had proved themselves absolutely trustworthy, able to keep their gobs shut. That squad would be in charge of investigating the gambling dens and rumors of false coin in their districts, bringing the Rats they hobbled to a central lockup created by my lord's personal Dogs.

  The main thing everyone at the table returned to was the need for silence and secrecy.

  "Now we can get to my request," Nestor said at the end of it all, while I was rubbing the cramps from my hand. "I would like someone to come to Port Caynn and look around. I have the sense, and I think most of you do as well, that the coles are coming upriver from Port Caynn. Outsiders might see the problem with sharper eyes. I'm up to my eyeballs in work these days, as are my people. I would appreciate the help." He looked away at the window again, and I frowned. "Sir Lionel doesn't agree that the problem could be a serious one, but he was good enough to let me come to learn what Lord Gershom made of it."

  "Very well," my lord said as I rushed to write. "We need to choose someone to follow the scent to Port Caynn and stay on it. That Dog, or those Dogs, must know enough about the problem here to discuss it with the Deputy Provost, Sir Lionel of Trebond. I'll want them to stay on the chase in Port Caynn and beyond, and to call for help in numbers if it's needed."

  "That choice seems clear to me," Ahuda said. "Sir Acton can't spare Jewel and Yoav." She gave a nod of courtesy to Sir Acton, who returned it. I kept my head down so none of them would see me smile. Everyone knew Ahuda ran Evening Watch, and Sir Acton agreed to her choices. "After Jewel and Yoav, Goodwin, Tunstall, and Cooper are the Dogs who know the most about all of this. Tunstall's off the streets for a while now. Why not send Goodwin and Cooper? Goodwin's one of our best, and she's worked in Port Caynn before. Cooper can use the experience in a strange town and with investigation. She's already shown a talent for that."

  I wasn't smiling anymore. Leave Corus? I'd been to Port Caynn twice in my life, when my lord was kind enough to take me, for half days only. I no more knew its streets than I knew the palace. I'd never dealt with its Dogs. I don't know their names or their families.

  Goodwin was the next to speak. "I – " she began to say. Then she stopped and ran her hands over the table's edge. When she looked up, she nodded. "No, that's true. Cooper and I are the best ones to send. We've talked to plenty of folk about this already. I have ties in Port Caynn to a silversmithing family that may be useful, and I have ties to the Goddess temples, as my lord Gershom knows. Cooper's Birdies will be in Port Caynn as well as here. Ahuda's right, she's got a knack at investigation, and she'll have no partner at all if I'm away."

  "And you can put it about that you're shepherding Lord Gershom's pet," Nestor said.

  I glared at him. I never play upon my lord being my patron, never so much as speak his name when I'm with the Dogs!

  Nestor smiled at me. "Don't glare so, Cooper. It's to your advantage. If I say that Goodwin's stuck with taking my lord's ewe lamb about Port Caynn, like you're playing at studying how Dog work is being done there, no one will think you are there for any manner of serious work. They'll expect you to visit the markets and the taverns, not to report to anyone for duty. You'll be able to go where you like."

  Even if I could have brought myself to speak before them all, I would not have done so. All of them were nodding, even Goodwin. Nestor had given Goodwin and me a fine tale to hide behind, and it would be my duty to swallow and live it.

  Goodwin made it worse when she announced, "That's all well enough, but I'll say it right out – we'll need fat purses. We'll need to spend, and maybe gamble ourselves."

  I almost said, "Oh, not me. I'm a dreadful gambler." But I couldn't. Everyone there was senior to me, except mayhap Achoo. I bit my cheek and kept silent.

  "You must lose more than you win," Sir Acton said. "You want the gamblers to welcome you."

  "I will see to the purses," my lord said. "Check your city-folk clothes. If you have no dresses for the more elegant gambling houses, you will need to purchase them. How long will you both need to wind up your affairs in the city?"

  Goodwin took a deep breath. She is very fond of her husband, for all she complains of Tomlan's snoring and the way he leaves his clothes on the floor. "Friday morning, my lord. Right, Cooper?"

  She nudged my calf with her boot, in case I thought to argue. I looked up long enough to say, "Of course, my lord."

  "I'll go ahead of you and set up an appointment with the Deputy Provost," said Nestor. "If you take a ten of the clock boat for Port Caynn, I'll have someone meet you at the river docks when you get in. He'll bring you straight to Guards House. That way I can make sure you're assigned to report to me again." He winked at me. "We'll have it all arranged, smooth as a cat's whisker."

  Mind what you say, Pounce said from Goodwin's lap. Seeing only Nestor grin, I could tell Pounce had made certain Nestor and I alone heard his remark. Nestor did not so much as twitch. He was used to Pounce's ways.

  "Then both of you, Goodwin and Cooper, report to me at Provost's House tomorrow night at six of the clock," my lord said. "I'll have your papers and your funds at that time. Dismissed."

  I stood when Goodwin did, bowed, and left with her, Pounce, and Achoo.

  Goodwin did not believe in dawdling. "We need to see Tunstall," she said over her shoulder as she rattled down the stairs. "He'll have a tantrum to throw. It's best he do it where no one important will hear."

  I followed her out of the kennel at the trot. "Because we're going away?" I asked.

  "And he's not, even though he'd have to do it in a sedan chair," Goodwin replied, her voice hard as we strode up Minch Way. "Between us, Cooper, I'd as soon it was the two of you jauntering off to the port. I get stupid and mopey away from home, and I've a feeling things are going to get worse here. We'll be needed. Instead we'll be off in Port Caynn, gaming away good money and acting like we're up to our teats in muck. How in all the gods' creations we'll get you to play a curst loose Dog I have no idea."

  "Can you do it?" I asked.

  To my shock, she laughed. I think it was a laugh.

  "I was loose once, Cooper."

  I was so flummoxed I stopped dead in the street, staring at her back like a country looby seeing the palace for the first time. She'd turned onto Honor Lane before she realized I wasn't at her elbow.

  "Don't stand there, Cooper, come on!" she called. When I ran to catch up, she said, "You never heard?"

  I shook my head.

  "Ah, well. I gave it up." She said it as carelessly as if she had given up wine or mead. Again she caught me gawping at her. She shrugged. "I was given a silver kiss to stand watch as coin and a shipment changed hands. I never asked what the shipment was. I was paid to guard, not to question. That time things went skewed. I ended in the gutter, buried under two corpses and not sure I wouldn't be the third by dawn. I promised the Goddess I would change my ways if I lived." We'd reached Tunstall's lodgings. She began to climb the outer stair to his door. "You can guess the rest for yourself."

  So that is how Goodwin came to the service of the Goddess. But Goodwin, loose. My head hurt just to consider it. She can't have been much older than me, because I've been hearing stories of her hardness with the law for years.

  I followed her up and waited while she banged on Tunstall's door. His place has changed much since Lady Sabine began to spend her time there. He'd always had plants on the railings and in the boxes around his windows. Tunstall is the best gardener I know in the Lower City, for a man
with only window and porch boxes. He grows tiny, beautiful flowers, breeding them like some breed horses and chickens, until he has roses no bigger than my thumbnail.

  The new changes were fresh paint on the doors and shutters, and fresh boards on the stairs and railings. Tunstall owns the building. He'd redone it when he and my lady had been seeing each other nearly a month. He'd tired, he said, of renting rooms in dreadful places, so he wanted to bring her back to a decent one. There were shops on the ground floor, closed at night, and the folk on the third and fourth stories knew better than to pry into the landlord's business. They liked the new paint and stairs, too.

  Lady Sabine opened the door. For a moment we only stared at her. Over her shirt and breeches she wore a long, sleeved garment like a loose coat. It was made of rich blue silk and reached to her calves. Heavy bands of silver braid encircled the edges from collar to hem, even the cuffs. A pair of blue silk roses looped around with a thin silver braid held it lightly closed across her chest. It looked like the most comfortable thing in creation. I want one. I wonder if my sister Lorine might sew me one, though not in silk.

  My lady stared at us, too, but not for the excellence of our dress. "Clary? What's wrong? Why aren't you on duty? And Beka? Are you supposed to be out of the infirmary? Come in – oh, there's a hound? And Pounce?"

  "Cooper handles a scent hound now, my lady," Goodwin said as she went inside. "Achoo knows how to behave."

  My lady offered her hand. "Vengaritar, Achoo," I said. Achoo sniffed my lady's hand. "Kawan," I told her. "Remember kawan" Achoo, allowed to be herself now, wagged her tail and gave Lady Sabine's fingers a lick. My lady crouched to give Achoo's ears a good scratch. She spared a hand for Pounce as well.

  The rooms smelled of juniper, rosemary, and cinnamon. There was a fire on the hearth, and a brazier burned near Tunstall's bed to ward off the chill.

  "Why aren't you on patrol, Clary?" Tunstall growled. "Cooper, get your bum over here."

  "He's foul-tempered with pain and inaction," Lady Sabine murmured.

  I didn't blame him in the least.

  They'd put up a bed in his sitting room, with mounds of pillows so he could prop himself up. Both his legs were stretched out and covered with a blanket, but I could see the shapes of the splints on them. He was dressed in a wool tunic of his favorite pale yellow. He was clean-shaven. It was plain my lady would not allow him to let himself go.

  "So you let two Rats get the jump on you at your own door?" Tunstall growled at me. "Over here." He pointed to a spot right next to the side of his bed.

  I went. I'm here to testify that whatever was the matter with his legs, his arms were fine. He smacked me a buffet on the shoulder so fast I didn't see it coming.

  "Was that necessary?" Lady Sabine demanded of him, her hands on her hips. "She's probably shamed to death already, if I'm any judge. She is also just healed!"

  "I didn't hit her that hard," growled Tunstall. "Just hard enough she'll remember to act like there are Rats everywhere, so she'd best be on watch everywhere"

  My shoulder ached fiercely, more fiercely than my new-healed skull. I know he's right. Hadn't I been kicking myself already?

  "Cooper is safe from those two tarses, at least," Goodwin said. "They ended up mysteriously dead last night." She sat in Tunstall's favorite chair and put her feet up.

  "Dead?" asked Lady Sabine, raising her eyebrows.

  "Mysteriously," Goodwin repeated, twiddling her thumbs. "No one saw aught, heard aught, knows aught."

  I squirmed, feeling very uncomfortable. "It wasn't because I asked him to do it." I spoke without thinking, because I couldn't keep it in. "I can defend myself!"

  Lady Sabine took one of my hands in both of hers. I felt her sword calluses against my fingers. "My dear, no one who knows you believes you had anything to do with this," she said, her deep voice kind. "Rosto did it because it was necessary."

  "He told me something of the kind," I said. "About the king having to go after any that attacked a member of his household in his own house."

  "He's cleverer than most Rats, I'll give him that," Goodwin said. "Rumor is that Rosto's family was nobility in Scanra."

  Tunstall snorted. "Merchant, mayhap. The nobility wouldn't let one of their own sink so low."

  Lady Sabine only pursed her mouth and said naught.

  "The Pell brothers are old business – " Goodwin said.

  Tunstall looked at me. "Kevan Pell's brothers?"

  I nodded.

  "Now will you remember you make enemies with every hobbling?" he demanded.

  "Yes, sir," I said, and rubbed my forehead. "I'm not likely to forget."

  "Tunstall, enough," Goodwin told him, to my startlement. As if she hadn't chewed my head when I first came to after my beating! "If you'd seen her laid up, you'd know her lesson will stick," Goodwin went on. "And we've come with better meat for our stew. Cooper, sit down. That is, if my lady permits?"

  Lady Sabine had eased into her chair, next to Tunstall's bed. "Cooper, go on, sit," she urged me. "You look pale."

  Not as pale as she was yesterday, Pounce commented. He waited until I was seated, then jumped into my lap. Achoo settled over my feet.

  "Have an apple," Lady Sabine told us, pointing to a bowl on a low table next to Goodwin.

  "My lady, thanks for the apples you sent," I told her. "Vivianos are my favorite." I looked at the one I'd plucked from the bowl after Goodwin chose her apple. This too was a Viviano.

  "My father has a turn for raising apples, and the Vivianos are his pride," Lady Sabine told me. "I will be sure to tell him that they eased a good Dog's sick leave."

  Such a compliment from my lady made me sweat. I took a bite from my apple so I wouldn't have to say anything in reply.

  "Zia," my lady called. She looked at Goodwin and me. "We have fresh-made cider, barley water – Clary, are you on duty, or will you have something stronger? Beka?"

  Tunstall stirred as a small girl of twelve or thirteen came out of the rooms in back. "Zia, I will have the bitter brown – " he began.

  "You will have the tea the healer prescribed," my lady said firmly. "And nothing stronger. It interferes with the spells. Doesn't my big strong Dog want to be on his feet breaking heads sooner before later?"

  "Tyrant," he said. He relaxed against his pillows with a scowl.

  Lady Sabine kissed his forehead. "Sheer self-interest, my love. The longer you are in bed, the more tempted I will be to kill you. I am much too fond of you to enjoy a world without you." She looked at us and raised her brows.

  "I am off duty, and I will have ale," Goodwin said, grinning.

  I'd finished my bite of apple. "Cider, please," I said quietly. The sight of a serving girl in Tunstall's rooms was interesting. She must be in Lady Sabine's employ, which made sense. I know my lady does not cook, and she does not keep slaves.

  The girl Zia curtsied. "Tea for the master, ale and cider for the mistresses," she said. "My lady wishes... ?"

  "I will have the rose hip tea, Zia, and thank you." Lady Sabine watched her vanish into the back rooms again. "I couldn't manage my barbarian without her," she said when she looked at Goodwin and me again. "She has all those delightful, feminine skills I lack."

  Tunstall took her hand in his. "But she can't whack a Rat with a longsword like you," he said, and kissed my lady's fingertips.

  It's delightful and lonely to watch them together. They are so different, but they fit so well. I've known married folk who've been together twenty year and had ten children who don't fit as they do.

  "So what's the news, and why aren't you on duty?" Tunstall asked Goodwin. "It must be good to bring you roaring at my door."

  "It is, trust me," Goodwin said, her mouth full of apple. "It will fill you with joy. My lord Gershom presented our collected report to Sir Vannic and Sir Acton." She told them all of it, checking the details with me. She left the surprise for the end. "Cooper and I are off to Port Caynn the day after tomorrow to sniff about there for a while. Nestor Hary
se is going in advance to prepare the way."

  "Scummer, pox, and wound rot!" roared Tunstall, slamming his fist down on the bed. "Gods curse the pig-tarsed mammering craven currish beef-witted bum-licking gut-griping louts that did this to me! May every flea, leech, and hookworm in all creation find and feast on them!" And then he spun off into a round of curses in Hurdik that made Lady Sabine laugh. Finally he ran out of breath and glared at us, his brown eyes bulging in his head. "You know what this means?" he asked us. "Do you know? Ahuda's been hinting she wants to shake up the cage Dogs, put a real Dog among them to smarten them up! Once I'm on my feet, with you and Cooper gone, that Dog will be me! Rank and mewling paperwork instead of the street, and those lily-fingered grubs babbling in my ear all the cursed day! I won't have it! And Cooper's too young for a hunt!"

  "She's done better Dog work than most third years, and she'll be with me," Goodwin told him. "You know she's got a knack for investigation. Stop whining, you great jabbernob."

  "Take one of your maps," Tunstall advised me. "Remember what you did with the Shadow Snake? Mark where you find coles. Mayhap the places where they turn up will ring about the forge, if it's in Port Caynn."

  "Do you think it will be that simple?" Lady Sabine asked us.

  Goodwin shrugged. "We may get lucky. I don't believe in luck, myself – "

  "Nor I," Tunstall admitted.

  "Me neither," I said.

  "But the one time we don't look for luck might be the time we get some," Goodwin said.

  "I'll remember the map," I told them, fixing it in my memory.

  "Go armed even when you sleep," Tunstall said. "You're taking Pounce and Achoo?" He yawned.

  "We can't leave them," Goodwin said. "Pounce would follow, and the hound is glued to Beka. Tunstall, you're worn out."

  "I'd see you out, but they tell me my shins will break like cheap pottery," Tunstall said wearily.

  "Two weeks and you'll be back to your work," my lady told him. She walked us outside. "He's glad to see you up and about, Beka. We both are." She went inside and closed the door behind her. I'm glad she didn't wait for me to answer. I was too confused and awkward to know what to say.