I tried to look innocent. "Why are you interested?"
"It's not me who should worry you, sweetheart. It's Pearl."
I watched Dale cross the room to answer a question of Flory's. "I am curst tired of Pearl," I said, keeping my voice low. "Surely even that daughter of a scummer trull won't wink at child stealers."
"You wager your life on that," Nestor said. "Now listen close. I've news for you and Goodwin." He put two of the little pasties into my trencher. "Sir Lionel won't go after the guild banks for hiding their knowledge of coles in the city. He says 'twill only start a panic."
I stared at him. When I spoke, I kept my own voice soft. "But they risk the safety of the realm!" I checked to be sure that Dale was not close enough to hear. Now he was joking with Hanse. "They can't hide that they know there's a big operation going on!"
"The banks and Sir Lionel alike are panicking," Nestor whispered. "We must get word to my lord Gershom as soon as may be. I was told this afternoon that I'm forbidden to use the Crown courier service to Corus anymore."
Okha leaned around Nestor's back. "The head of the Silversmith's Bank took ship for the Copper Isles this afternoon," he murmured, passing me a dish of small tarts. "His family and servants left with him."
Nestor looked at him. "When were you going to tell me this?" he asked.
Okha gave him a very pretty smile. "Right now."
Dale was coming my way. I pointed to the tarts with my knife. "Onion, or spinach and egg?" I asked.
"Both, please," Dale said, taking his seat. "You and Nestor look very serious, so I thought I'd delay my return." He set my fire opal beside my plate after I'd given him the tarts.
I handed the dish back to Nestor, who traded me for the dish of pasties. As I did so, the gems on my bracelet glittered at me. Now it was my turn to rise and go over to the stronger light. The dancing colors in the gems were as captivating as the ones in my fire opal. I have never gotten so wonderful a gift. Did he mean to try to buy me with it?
When I returned to him, he was talking with Nestor about his card game. "There are all manner of variations," Dale was saying. "In my favorite, the Trickster can be any card the player says it is. If the player has four Ladies and the Trickster, and his opponent has four Kings, the first player can just say he has five Ladies, and he wins." He looked up at me. "Do you like your present, sweet?"
"You know I do," I told him, sitting next to him. "It's still too costly."
Nestor picked up my wrist and inspected the bracelet. "Not as a thank-you for – several won games?" he asked Dale, who nodded. Nestor looked at me. "It's a fair gift."
Something tight in my chest loosened. I didn't have to feel obligated to Dale, then.
Okha pulled his seat back so he could see us better. "Dale's one of the cleverest coves you'll ever meet, Beka," he said. "He's worked out variations on chess, backgammon... He reworked part of the banking laws while he worked for the Goldsmith's Guild as a clerk – "
Dale chewed and swallowed a bite of onion tart. "Until I got cursed bored, among those dusty books and papers all day!" he said merrily. "Never going anywhere, never seeing anything, staggering into my rooms at midnight – and such rooms! My mice lived better than I did!" As Nestor grinned and Okha chuckled, Dale said earnestly, "In truth, they did! I looked into their hole one night, and they were supping on sausage, ale, and cheese, when I had bread and cider! I tried to invite myself in, but they said I had no right to charge them rent and food!" I was starting to grin by then.
Flory's voice rose. "Don't you tell me what I must and mustn't say, Hanse Remy! Seems to me if folk stopped tippytoein' about the subject of coles and came right out and said the word, we'd all fare better!"
She had everyone's attention. Hanse threw up his hands. "Now look what you've done, you forward wench! Why not screech it louder, so the whole place can hear you! All this natterin', when the world knows coles slide through this town like scummer in the street!"
"One true coin in three, you beef-witted shave pate?" she demanded. "My girls takin' in one true silver in three? I've not seen that afore!"
"Mayhap folk are givin' 'em to you an' yer mots a-purpose," jested Amda Threadgill. She was one of Hanse's caravan guards. She also sat a good distance from Flory "Fer bein' so vexin' with yer dead flowers an' rotten oranges, pretendin' to sell when ye're nobbut doxies. That's what ye get fer lookin' down yer noses at mots that earn wiv honest work and don't pretend t' be better'n what they are."
Flory rounded on Amda. "Leastways my mots ain't half guard, half robber," she said, her voice as silky as Pounce's. "At least my mots give fair value for business."
Hanse glared at Flory. "Them's my caravaners ye're talkin' about, woman."
Flory glared back. "I bring up a true worry to us here in the city and you let your fawnin' baggage foul-mouth my folk?"
Lucky for us the chickens in broth arrived, together with white herbs, and rice with lobster and shrimp. As the maidservants dished out the food, everyone calmed down. Like Goodwin, I'd gone sharp, listening, watching people's faces. A touch on my leg made me jerk. I was about to jump out of my chair when I realized that it was Dale's hand, warm above my knee.
He took it away. "I forgot," he whispered. "Forgive me. Are you always so jumpy?"
"I was a Puppy for a year. I've been a street Dog since April," I told him. "It sharpens you some."
"Your muscles were as hard as the table," he said, carving some chicken and placing it in my trencher. "Does your scent hound do that when she catches the scent? Does she go all tight and stiff?"
I smiled. "Actually, she sneezes."
Nestor and Dale both looked at me. "Sneezes?" Dale asked.
"It's why she's named Achoo," I said. "A really good scent, she sneezes more than once."
"But Beka's not here to pick up scents," Nestor told Dale. "That's what she promised Pearl."
"Goodwin promised," I said, stabbing a bit of chicken with my knife. "I just nodded, to be neighborly. I can't promise what Achoo might get up to."
"I hope she is ready to take the blame for you, then," I heard Okha say. Warned by his tone, I looked to the door. So did everyone else. Two guards entered in advance of Pearl. With her came Jurji the Bazhir on her right, close to Goodwin's seat. Torcall Jupp, stern and dangerous-looking even without his longsword, stood on her left, close to Dale and me. I put my hands on my lap and stuck my right hand into my sleeve, touching the hilt of my closest knife. Dale slid his hand over mine and clasped my fingers, but gently. He squeezed them. I drew my hand away from my blade.
Why did I trust him? Still, it would be better to wait. Four more of Pearl's guards took positions outside our room, barring the exit.
Dale got to his feet and bowed. "Evening, Majesty," he said. "Have you come to join us?"
"Dale." The low growl came from Nestor. "You know we don't get on."
Pearl actually threw back her head and laughed. It was a Player's move. Instantly we all saw why she'd done it. She'd had several more teeth turned into pearls since only yesterday. Was she made of gold, that she could afford such folly? It makes me sick to think of the waste.
"Dale Rowan, had some of my lads your sack, I'd rule this entire city." She looked straight at Nestor as she said it.
Hanse, Steen, Flory, and most of the folk who had to do business with the Rogue got to their feet then, to show their respect, I suppose. Flory was the last to do it. That left Goodwin, Nestor, and me seated yet. Dale lifted my hand and kissed it, then looked at Pearl and raised his brows.
This time Pearl gave out with a true laugh. "Oh, aye, sack enough for twelve men, doesn't he, Hanse?"
Hanse grinned. "I wouldn't know. I just let him travel with me from time to time." He raised his cup. "Will you have a cup with us, then, Majesty?" he asked. "You can drink to his sack. Even I will say it's considerable."
Pearl shook her head. "No, I'll not drink with you, Hanse. You know my rule. I only drink in my own court, from my own glass, and my own kegs.
No, I'm here to pick bones with these two bi – " She started to say it as she pointed to Goodwin and me, enough that both of us stiffened. Then she smiled big, showing off those new teeth of hers, and went on, "Guards-women." She looked from Goodwin to me. "After my warning, you two went Doggin' today."
"We weren't Dogging," Goodwin said, looking relaxed. "We were searching for a lost child." Like me, her hands were in her lap, out of view. "The mother was half mad with fright. The district Dogs turned her off when she didn't have a silver noble for a bribe."
Pearl smirked. "A silver noble, was it? The price has gone high. Too high, mayhap."
"Too high for this poor mot," Goodwin said. Her face hadn't changed, but I knew she'd noted Pearl's taunt about silver nobles. "She was seeking any who would help, and she found Cooper and me. Cooper has a scent hound, you may remember. Mayhap you could have told that poor mother no, but me and Cooper, we're made of weaker stuff." She lifted a hand to drink from her tankard, then set the hand in her lap again. "Would you kill us for taking a child to her mother?"
"I run no child stealers," Pearl told us. "Them Rats was none of mine. Still, I'd've thought you'd be more cautious, after my warnin'."
"I lost my head," I said, not wanting Goodwin to draw all of Pearl's wrath, if any was to come. "I never had a hound afore. This was the first time I got to try her on a real scent."
Pearl looked at me. "Guards as don't think afore they act don't live long. Ain't that right, Nestor?" She looked over at him and had the gall to wink.
Nestor shifted on his seat. Okha slung an arm around his neck, weighing him down. I wrenched my hand from Dale's and grabbed one of Nestor's heavy wrists with both sets of fingers, digging into his flesh with my nails.
Pearl smiled. "You've got friends, Nestor. You want to keep them, don't you?" She ambled out of the room, her guards falling into step around her.
Okha let Nestor go. I waited a moment, to see what he might do. When he turned and buried his face in Okha's shoulder, I let him go.
"I wonder if the fireworks will be this exciting?" asked one of Hanse's people. The laugh that came was shaky, but it was a laugh. The servants arrived with a pitcher of spiced wine from the owners, with their compliments. Compliments for what, they never said, but I suspected it was for not starting any fights.
The meal continued with no more such excitement. More food was brought and carried away. At last the sweets course came. Servants began to shove parts of the wooden walls aside, revealing the balcony with its view of the park and ridge where the fireworks were to be held. We could walk straight outside to watch, or stay where we were.
I went to find the privies outside the eating house. They were hid from the view of customers by stands of flowering bushes and trees. And a place so grand as this didn't keep just one or two privies. The women alone had a stone building with seven stalls inside, each stall curtained off, with a place to wash up after.
Waiting in the line that wound through the trees, I thought I could as well have been among a flock of pigeons, so many scraps of gossip did I hear. I hadn't expected that, not ever being at a place like this, so crowded, in all my days. At festival season I keep well to the edges of the gathering so I might bolt for home when I get uncomfortable, as I often do. I never go to large eating houses. How was I to know that even women who are strangers chatter as they wait?
" – told her, prices are creeping higher, but does she listen?"
" – poor thing had twins – "
" – couldn't believe it! Silver coles! As false as the governor's smile. You take my word – "
" – can't be had for love nor money. The merchant told me the grape crop this year was the worst – "
"Did you see that hussy! Walkin' in here, bold as brass, wiv pearl teeth bought with honest folk's blood!"
I agreed with that, but I was trying to hear the mot who'd complained of coles.
" – can't deal only in coppers! I'd need a servant to carry my master's coin for the shopping!"
The mot in front of me said, "The problem's not that bad, surely?"
The woman who stood two places ahead in the line turned to face her. It must have been her who spoke of coles and of her master. "Are you deaf – or blind? How much of your silver have you cut?"
"You'll frighten folk, talking wild-like of such things," the mot in front of me replied. "I'm a businesswoman. I can't afford such talk, not with prices on the climb."
The mot who kept house for a rich man propped her hands on her hips. "Do you check your coins, mistress? Do you?"
A woman coming out of the privy tapped her on the shoulder. "Stop jawin' and go about yer business," she said. "The line gets longer whilst you whistle up a fuss."
"Aye," called another mot. A second yelled from farther back, "We'll miss the magic!"
They nearabout shoved the mot who'd talked her alarm into the privy. Things were just settling when three more mots came out. I could enter at last. Sitting in my own stall, I could hear my neighbors' whispers still.
" – bad for business!"
"And silver coles aren't?"
"There's always coles."
"Take 'em to the silver bank or the gold, pay your fee, and get true coin. You'll also get writ down in the book, so it's recorded you've turned in coles, not tried to pass 'em off."
I dared raise my voice, since none of them would know who spoke. "What about goin' to yer kennel, then?" I tried to speak halfway between the Lower City and Provost's House, like these tradesfolk would talk. "Lettin' yer Dogs know?"
There was a space of quiet. I wondered if I'd startled them into flight, like a flock of pigeons.
"Ye're new, is it?" someone asked.
"Or cracked in the nob," another mot said. "As if they listen to the likes of us, unless we come with gold in our hands."
I tried again. "All right, then. What about your Rogue?" I heard naught. Finally I added, "Come on! The Court o' the Rogue lives on coin like the rest of us. They're just as hurt by silver coles as anyone!"
Someone gave a laugh like broken glass. It echoed in the stone privy.
Another mot said, "No one wise will rouse the Rogue, whatever the cause. She'll skin you."
"Who's to say this Rogue don't have her hand in it?" a new mot asked. "And if she does – "
"Cork it!" someone whispered. "We don't know from the Rogue's business, and we mean to keep it that way!"
The air filled with the whispers of women saying, "So mote it be."
I finished my business quickly. At the back of the stall was a gap between stone wall and roof, more than big enough for a skinny mot to crawl through. Before any of them thought to look for the one with all the questions, I kilted my skirt in my belt, hoisted myself to the top of the wall, and dropped down the other side. There I perched on the edge of the privy's stone floor where it stuck out beyond the wall. Below were the openings to the privy pits, where the muck handlers could reach in and dump out the barrels. Breathing through my mouth because of the stink, I walked carefully down the floor's edge until I reached the bushes. There I untucked my skirt and shook it out. All proper again, I could sneak away, hid by the greenery.
I eyed those still waiting in line as I went. No one seemed to be watching the privy door or the mots who came out of it. With a prayer to Mithros that I'd been careful enough, I found a different entrance to the eating house from the one I had used to come outside, and walked in that way.
The door I chose was tucked behind a long, carved screen that also hid the covered passage to the kitchens. It was only dimly lit. The servers could then see if anyone stood in their way before they came out into the eating house with their trays. At the same time no one would be able to see anyone behind the screen. I stayed there and watched the small group tucked under the rise of the stair inside. Pearl stood sideways to me, arms crossed over her gold and scarlet silk dress. Jupp stood with her, and Jurji. Hanse and Steen finished their little group. What were they doing hiding out with her? They watc
hed the kitchen entry and the screen, their eyes darting over everyone who passed as Hanse talked softly to Pearl.
" – tell you, you're costin' me money, aye, and a good client on this! They never hire twice if you drop a job once!"
Curse it, I couldn't hear Pearl.
Hanse listened to her, then scratched his head. "Right. I fergot," he said. "We'll go. But don't you think – "
He stopped himself as Pearl thrust a ringed finger in his face and shook it under his nose. I could nearabout hear she was telling him, "I do the thinkin'," but it isn't my job to make up what Rats say.
Hanse and Steen made their bows to Pearl and went around to take the stairs up to the second floor again. I stepped back, deeper into the shadows. Pearl and her guards turned, looking to see if anyone had come near enough to spy. Servers emerged from the kitchen passage in a clump, laden with platters of food. I went back outside and walked around to the rear entrance, just in case.
Where is Hanse going for Pearl? It's a long enough trip, or it requires enough guards, that he has to cancel a job for one of his regular employers. I can't just decide it's got to do with cole-mongering, either. I'm sure the Rogue has her finger in all manner of puddings, just as Rosto has back home.
I returned to Dale, who sat at our table, finishing a cup of wine. Everyone else had gone to the balcony. He looked at me and frowned. "I thought you'd run off."
I sat beside him. "Delicate errands take time. And I was ducking Pearl. She was all over the downstairs."
"Pearl can swive herself." Dale slipped an arm around me and pulled me closer. I looked quickly around. No one was nearby to see us. Dale went on, "I need to give you reason to come straight back to me." He kissed so sweetly, his arms just strong enough as he drew me tight to his chest. His tongue slid gentle into my mouth as I wrapped my hands around the back of his head, feeling his silky hair against my fingers.
When we stopped to breathe, I managed to say, "As reasons go, that's well enough."
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