Bloodhound

by Tamora Pierce

  "And you don't want to get in trouble, so back inside with you. I'll write," I told them. I gave them each a kiss on the cheek and watched them go. I waited until my eyes dried before I turned to Goodwin. "They're more respectable than I am," I explained.

  "They do you credit," she said as we walked through the gate. "Why the secret farewells?"

  As we ambled onto Palace Way and downhill, I explained about my lady not liking me. Goodwin shook her head. "After twenty-three years of marriage she still thinks she'll make some prancing courtier out of Lord Gershom. She can't, or won't, see that he loves this. Some wives are like that. Some husbands are like that. They drive off the Dogs they marry, not seeing the Dogs love the work, and that any who want to live with them must make room for the work, too. I got lucky with Tomlan. He doesn't understand it, but he took it when he took me. Pray the Goddess you get one of those, Cooper. It's that or take a Rat, like Ersken has, and hope you never have to choose between the Rat and the work."

  We parted at Jane Street. Goodwin insisted no one would attack her, since they didn't know what was in her pack. "Just be careful," she warned me. "Meet me at Seven Dock at ten in the morning. We'll catch the Green Mist from there."

  I was watchful, but no one lay in wait for me, wanting to settle a score. Instead Kora and Aniki were home. They dragged Achoo and me off to the Unicorn Tavern, to enjoy my last night in town. We had to begin our enjoyment all over when Ersken, Birch, Jewel, Yoav, Ahuda, and my other friends on the Evening Watch arrived. We danced, we sang, we went out and serenaded Tunstall and Lady Sabine, and we ate. Then we danced some more. Achoo did tricks, Rosto came and played his pipes, and Kora did a few bits of magic. Phelan brought one of his curs, who also did some tricks. After that, Phelan had me show everyone how nicely Achoo did the things I told her to do.

  Then I came home to write all this down. I will catch a few hours' sleep before I need to take myself, my luggage, and Achoo to the docks. No one need know how much I miss Pounce, or uneasy I am over going on a boat, which I have never done, and trying to do Dog work in a city I do not know. In the time since I helped to capture the Shadow Snake and stop the Opal Murders, I have mostly forgotten my greatest failing, except in Sir Tullus's court. I am so curst shy I can barely speak when it comes on me.

  Friday, September 14, 247

  Two of the afternoon.

  The remainder of this journal I will write in Dog cipher, to ensure the privacy of my notes and also so I may shorten how much writing I need to do. Being in a new city, on a hunt, with a scent hound, there will be so much more detail to note down against my final report to my Lord Provost. I will need all the help I may get to keep my writing hand from falling off. I hope I will be able to read this later. The boat rises and falls sommat as I write, so that my reed's point is less than steady on the page. I'm told it's worse on the sea, so I shouldn't complain. Rather, I pray that I will never go to sea. Then I brace myself, and continue to write of my day so far.

  I was able to hire a cove to carry my trunk to the river. I walked along beside him, dressed like a citymot in a blue dress and veil, with Achoo on her leash at my side. Most citymots didn't wear a leather pack on their shoulders, but I wasn't about to let that pack go into my trunk. It held all that was important, but for my fire opal. That was in my free hand, its edges digging into my palm.

  As ever, the docks were crowded and noisy. My trunk bearer followed Achoo and me around carts, mules, and men loaded down with anything money might buy. We dodged swinging cranes and overseers with whips until we came to Seven Dock, where the Green Mist was waiting. I saw Tomlan Goodwin right away, standing beside a pile of bundles and a big trunk. He waved cheerfully when he saw me.

  I had my cove drop my trunk beside Goodwin's things and paid him off. Then I turned to Master Tomlan. He was down on one knee, rubbing Achoo's belly while my hound wriggled on her back. That's Master Tomlan Goodwin for you. Even I relax around him. He's got a broad countryman's face, with brown hair edged with white around the ears. His eyes are a bright, bright blue, filled with humor, and there is always a smile on his mouth. He's solid built, due to being a master carpenter, but the years have put a small paunch on him. This morning he wore a fine blue wool tunic with yellow and red embroideries, red leggings, and sturdy leather shoes.

  "All ready to travel, then, Beka?" he asked me. "My Clary's off giving the captain your passage tickets. I packed yez both a basket, so you'll not starve on the way. These cargo boats take their own time."

  I smiled at him. You have to smile at Master Tomlan, he's that friendly. Mayhap that's why he and Goodwin have been together these many years. It would take an easygoing man to bear her and her tongue. I near worship Goodwin, but she's not easy to share time with.

  "She tells me you're nicely healed after those lice jumped you," Master Tomlan went on. "I've no pity for them getting their heads knocked in, none at all!"

  I looked at him, startled. "But it was murder, Master Tomlan."

  "Some folk need murdering," he said coolly.

  "Tom, that's enough. Cooper's a good servant of the law." Goodwin had returned. For a moment I could do little but gape. She was handsome in a dark cherry dress with long, close sleeves. The dress was cut to her ankles and girded about her waist. She wore a round cape for river travel. It was made of dark brown wool matched both to her dress and to the strong breeze down on the water, and held at her shoulder with a brass clasp made like a chain. Even in cityfolk dress she couldn't get away from being a Dog.

  Her short black hair was tucked under a white veil and round red cap. The cap was stitched over with yellow and black embroideries in the shapes of eclipse moons, warning folk she was a magistrate in the Goddess's courts.

  "Cooper, you'll freeze in just a dress," she greeted me. "Haven't you got one of these curst bothersome capes?"

  "In my trunk," I said. "I'm not cold."

  "I hope you can carry that trunk if we can't find a carter when we get there," Goodwin said.

  "Love, there'll be plenty of stout lads willing to carry your things," Tomlan said, wrapping an arm like a leg of beef around her shoulders and kissing her cheek. "She's always cross on the road," he told me.

  To my startlement Goodwin threw her arms around his waist. "What will I do without you, Tom?" she asked, her voice gone all funny.

  I turned away. I didn't want to see her like this, or him, for that matter. I understood it in Tunstall and Lady Sabine. They'd met little more than a year ago and still had some kick in their gallops. But surely Goodwin and Master Tomlan were well past this sort of thing by now.

  Three river dodgers of a more respectable sort than I was used to came striding down the docks toward us. "Are these your goods, then, mistress?" the one in the lead asked. "Pick what you'll need on board and we'll stow the rest. We need to shove off soon."

  Since they'd come from the Green Mist, I stepped forward. I didn't want them seeing Goodwin acting, well, odd. "I'm with her," I said, taking the basket from the pile. I also kept her leather pack. The weight told me our coin was in it. "The rest can go, with my trunk, too."

  The talker looked at Achoo. "Tell me the hound is stayin' on land where she belongs."

  "She goes with us." That sounded like the Clary Goodwin I knew. "She'll stick to our skirts, too. You never mind about the hound. Beka, what have you got? My pack – good. And that basket."

  "Don't waste my cooking, woman," Master Tomlan said. He kissed me on the cheek. "Keep an eye on my lass, will you, Beka? Keep her from harm."

  I actually heard myself giggle, which is what happens to a person when she wears skirts, I swear. The idea of me saving Clara Goodwin was too rich to stop me from some kind of laughter. "We'll do fine, Master Tomlan," I told him.

  "Travel safe and travel well, both of yez," he said, one hand on Goodwin's shoulder, one hand on mine. "Mithros shield you, Goddess heal you." He squeezed my shoulder and hers and left us.

  The river dodgers had carried our things aboard the Green
Mist during our goodbyes. Goodwin and I hoisted our packs on our shoulders, while I carried the basket and Achoo's leash.

  Like any child of the Lower City, I'd spent plenty of my days down here, listening to the river dodgers talk about their work. I knew this ship, and others of its construction, was a shallow-bottomed craft, with sails angled to catch any bit of breeze. I know the prevailing winds come out of the west here, so the voyage to the port is slow. Those who can afford to do so ride or go by cart over land. Them with time to spare don't mind taking the boats, and them with large cargoes prefer it. From the talk of the crew I learned Mist was well loaded with crates, sacks, and bales in the hull, and more on the deck.

  Already some of our fellow passengers had got up a dice game and a card game, using bales of tanned hides for table and seats. Goodwin and I chose a place upwind of the hides, on some crates destined for a bookseller's shop in Blue Harbor.

  Barely had I gotten myself situated on my crate when a bird came hurtling down from the sky. It attacked, slapping my head, my face, my hands when I put them up to defend myself! Finally the crackbrained beast plopped onto my lap and relieved itself of a walnut-sized dollop of dung.

  Goodwin laughed so hard that she wept.

  Slapper stood on my knee, bracing his clubbed foot. He glared up at me with crazed yellow eyes.

  "You fen-sucked, puny claybrain, what in the gods' names are you doing?" I cried, seizing the bird and lifting him. "I ought to kill you!"

  He got a wing free and hit me across the bridge of my nose so hard my eyes watered. I shook him.

  "That's no way to treat the god's messenger," Goodwin said between gasps.

  Achoo, wagging her tail, barked. It sounded like she was agreeing with my partner.

  "God's messenger be blowed," I muttered. "I'll message him clean back to the Peaceful Realms!"

  Goodwin scooped the dollop of pigeon dung from my knee with a handkerchief. Then she poured cold water from her flask over the spot. I squeaked.

  "You don't want the stain to set," she told me with a straight face. "I think he's upset that you were going to leave him behind." She began to chuckle again.

  "You go nowhere if I wring your stinking neck," I told Slapper. "I haven't a bite of food for you. I'll have to buy it in Port Caynn!" I threw the curst annoying bird into the air.

  Goodwin picked up the cloth tucked over the top of the basket, revealing fresh-baked rolls. She handed me one. "I'd start tearing it up, if I were you, Cooper."

  Once Slapper's belly was full, Goodwin looked around. We were on the far side of the river, having passed crossways over most of its two hundred yards' width. Now the crew spread more sail. We were in the deeper channel on the north side, near the western edge of the city. Here flowed the large boats headed for the coast. The ones bound inland had the center deep channel, while smaller boats ran on either side.

  Ahead on both sides of the river lay the forested edges of the hills. Nobles hunted up there, and kept fancy lodges. The kingdom's great roads passed among those trees. I could see the one that ran along the northern edge of the Olorun, heavy with traffic at this time of day. Within a mile it disappeared into the forest. The southern road lay in the open for ten miles or so, passing through a good-sized village before it wound up through the trees and the hills. That was the way I had traveled with my lord on my two earlier trips to the port.

  The folk here painted their sails bright colors, so I felt surrounded by butterflies. Some of the small boats were actually floating shops, carrying fruit, vegetables, cooked meat, cloth, trinkets, even magic charms and potions. They slowed to offer food and goods for sale to them on other craft. A few were fishing boats, going for what catches they could bring to the city's tables. Others were couriers flying merchant, bank, or royal flags. The larger ships had their own banners, from distant lands or Tortall itself. Though they had them, the slave ships needed no banners. Their stink made all of us draw back, our hands over our noses.

  Goodwin soon tired of the parade of vessels. "Watch our things," she ordered. She wandered over to the dice game like any bored citywoman. The boat's slight rocking was enough to make my gut uneasy, so I was happy to stay where I was. Achoo sprawled beside Goodwin's pack, her feet twitching in a dream. Her sores were almost entirely healed. Slapper had taken himself up the arm on a mast and was grooming himself.

  One of the river dodgers came over and hunkered on the deck beside me. "That was a sight, when yon bird came after you," he told me, pointing up at Slapper. "What was that about?" He was a short, stocky cove, two inches less than my height, of maybe twenty or twenty-one year, with nice eyes.

  I looked down, glad the veil slid forward to hide my face a little. "He's a pet," I said, cursing my uneasiness at talking to strangers when I am out of uniform. "I've no idea how he found me."

  "Oh, they're clever birds, pigeons," he said in a friendly way. "My father bred 'em for messenger birds. Feed 'em from your hand twice or thrice, and they'll look to you ever after, 'less you're cruel to 'em. They can be trained t' remember places two hundred mile apart." He looked up at Slapper, who hacked at a dodger who needed to crawl out on the same cross-mast where he sat. "I don't suppose you can call 'im away? My mate'll knock 'im bum over beak off that yardarm."

  "Is that what it's called?" I asked, curious. "Yardarm?" I raised my voice. "Slapper! I'll wring your scrawny neck if you don't get off there!"

  Slapper always preferred the enemy he knew. He took off and dove at me. I raised my hands to protect my face. Achoo looked at Slapper and barked. The crazed bird threw up his wings, stooped, and landed on a crate beside Achoo. There he strutted, limping on his bad foot and cooing angrily until he settled and returned to his grooming.

  My new friend grinned. "Slapper, is it? Good name." He chuckled softly.

  "Marco! Marco, there's work to be done, and not the kind you do with pretty mots!" roared the captain.

  Marco, it seems, was my companion. He winked at me and trotted off to see what the captain needed, while I tried to sink into the crate and everyone around us laughed. I hate it when folk say I'm pretty. Pretty means no one takes a mot Dog serious.

  We moved into what the river dodgers call the Little Lake, a broad open basin between Corus and Port Caynn. Hills covered with trees ringed it. There were still plenty of boats, but now they had more room to move. Ours slid to the right, keeping close to the side channels. The dice game went on. Others had gotten out backgammon boards and cards. They drew folk who wagered on their games. I would have liked to play backgammon, having learned from my lord, but it was more important to watch our things. It would be a poor start to our hunt if a riverboat foist got his fambles on our papers and our coin.

  Instead I called Achoo to me and gave her a proper grooming, head to toe. Her sores were now only pink, tender flesh, as were her welts. I worked around them carefully, not wanting to hurt the new-healed injuries. Achoo loved the brush and comb. She lay splayed on her back when I asked her to turn over, all four paws in the air, pointing different ways, her tongue lolling from her mouth. I'd never seen a creature so happy as she was.

  "It takes so little to please you, silly thing," I said, brushing her belly. She'd had at least one litter of pups, mayhap two, but the sign of the closed womb was etched deep into her collar. Some previous handler had not wanted Achoo to have more.

  "We'll talk about pups down the road," I whispered as I fluffed her chest fur with my fingers. "When I swap leather insignia for bronze and can afford bigger lodgings, mayhap."

  Up by Goodwin's dice game, one of the players stood and stretched, then fumbled in his belt purse. "You've the better of me, mistress," he told Goodwin, handing her some coins. "A poor farm lad like me had best watch himself!"

  Someone came up behind me on the deck. I could sense him there, though he'd made no sound. Now the cove leaned against the crate just behind my shoulder. Achoo stirred. I put my hand on her to keep her calm.

  "Your companion had best watch out," a b
oyish voice said close to my ear. "That noisy fellow is no farm lad."

  I looked around, shielding my eyes from the sun, to no avail. The new cove's face was in shadow. He wore a gold hoop earring and he had good shoulders, though they weren't heavy.

  "Sorry," he told me, and jumped to the deck so he could face me proper. Now I could see him clear. It was Dale Rowan, the light-haired cove who'd helped us in the Bread Riot. I noticed now that his eyes were gray and large, with a deal of humor in them. He had brown hair streaked with blond, a small brown beard in the shape of a crescent, and brown lashes longer than mine. His clothes were good, yet simple enough for a river voyage on a crude boat – a tunic of autumn brown with hem embroideries of pears and grapevines, yellow leggings, and leather shoes that laced up over his ankles.

  He frowned. "Don't I know you, Mistress – ?"

  "Depends on what you mean by 'know,'" I said. "Where's your friend Hanse? Or Steen, for that matter?"

  He looked harder at me. "They went back to Port Caynn yesterday, and how would a nice young maid like you know – Goddess tears and Crooked God's teeth, you're Cooper, the Dog." He put out his hand, grinning at me. "If it hadn't been for those ghost eyes of yours, I might still be guessing. Hello, hello! I was going to call on you at Jane Street when I came back the next time! I see you're none the worse for wear. How's Guardsman Tunstall?"

  "Laid up," I said. "Off duty for at least another couple of weeks, and grumpy with it."

  Dale was nodding. "That's the problem with old Dogs – the good ones, anyway. You can only get so many healings before it's just not as complete as the first. What about Guards-woman Goodwin?"

  I smiled at him. "You were looking at her."

  His brows shot into sharp peaks over his eyes. "Wait – that's Goodwin?"

  "She looks different in cityfolk garb, doesn't she?" I asked slyly.

  Dale turned back to me. "So do you. Pretty, but different."

  I waved the compliment off. "What makes you say that cove she's gaming with is no poor farm lad?"