Terrier

by Tamora Pierce

  “Sir Knight, she struck Guardswoman Goodwin,” I said, wondering if I should talk slow, like a person did with the simple and the young. “With a knife. Not the sharp end, but it might’ve been. Orva couldn’t be let get away with it, sir.”

  “And why not?” he asked, prodding again.

  I wished I could scratch my head or sew or whittle to help myself think. Trying to explain with my hands hanging useless was like being schooled by the law masters in training or my teachers in Lord Gershom’s home. Surely any Dog in this room could explain this to him better than me.

  “Sir Knight, striking a Dog with a knife – it’s a serious thing. A Dog is the face – we’re the face of…” My thoughts scattered. I found them again. “The Dogs are the face of the law. We’re so few. Nobody wants the work. So the realm says, We value Dogs. We set the price high for them as turn a blade on a Dog.” I’d had about enough explaining. I looked at the floor again. “If the realm values us enough to make the law and the penalties like we have, I must value us Dogs enough to catch them as breaks the law. Mustn’t I, Sir Knight?”

  No one said anything, or laughed, or hooted. I think they were trying to work out what I’d said and if it made sense. I wasn’t even certain of the sense of what I’d said.

  At last Sir Tullus told me, “Guardswoman Cooper, Corporal Guardswoman Goodwin is a true hero in the Provost’s Guard. She has recovered large amounts of property, brought hundreds to justice, and saved countless lives. You are right. Her life and work are valuable to this court. You may be seated.”

  As I gratefully planted my bum on the bench, I heard Goodwin mutter, “Don’t even think this makes me sweet on you, Cooper.”

  Hiding behind my bangs, I grinned.

  “Orva Ashmiller, have you an advocate to speak for you?” asked the Magistrate.

  “She does not,” said the Provost’s Advocate. “Her husband, Jack Ashmiller, begs the mercy of this court. He asks that his wife be granted a fine or work and imprisonment within the city. I have also gathered the complaints of Mistress Ashmiller’s neighbors. They state that she has repeatedly given her husband and children bleeding injuries, bruises, and broken bones. They ask for the peace of their homes that Mistress Ashmiller receive a sentence to prison or to exile from the city of Corus.” He walked up to the Magistrate and presented him with a paper.

  Sir Tullus read the paper over. He looked at Orva. Did I see disgust on his face? I disliked anyone who mauled children so, but most folk thought that children grew up unruly, even wrong, without some touch of the strap or the slap. As for Jack Ashmiller, why had he not fought her when she got to breaking things on his head? Usually Lower City men gave as good as they got, or worse.

  “Your neighbors should have come to this court long ago, Mistress Ashmiller,” Sir Tullus said. Orva started to fight the cage Dogs’ grip on her arms again. She knew she would not like what came next. Sir Tullus continued, “Orva Ashmiller, it is the judgment of this court that you go to the royal work farm in the town of Whitethorn. You will labor there for five years for disturbing your neighbors’ peace, for violence to your family, and for the crime of wielding a blade against a representative of the King’s peace. Should you try to escape the farm and return to Corus, you will be branded and sold into slavery.”

  He struck the bronze sun disk on his desk with his polished granite ball, the sign that judgment had been made. The Dogs carried Orva off to the cages to wait for transport. She had a long journey ahead.

  I thought I would feel better about it. More victorious. Instead I just felt sad.

  “Next case,” Sir Tullus told the herald.

  They’d lit the court’s lamps well before all of those hobbled that week on the Evening Watch came before the Magistrate. Despite the food all the Dogs had known to bring, things like sausage rolls that they shared with the Puppies, my belly was growling like a four-footed dog by the end of it. I could hear everyone else’s belly making the same complaints. Finally Sir Tullus struck the sun disk on the day’s last judgment.

  And thus went my first Court Day.

  I think I am going to puke.

  Tuesday, April 7, 246

  At day’s end.

  I think even if I’d come home late last night, I’d have been up with the dawn, but I’d been to bed at a good hour. Today was my free day. I was going to see my family at Provost’s House. I took my blue dress from my clothespress yesterday and let it air out, along with my underdress and a veil for my hair. Lord Gershom would only laugh if I wore lads’ garb as I did most days, but Lady Teodorie would smile in that thin, ice on the puddles at dawn way. I would give her no extra cause to level that smile at me. The bruises that had gone purple-green on my face would be more than enough problem in that regard.

  Each time I walk up Gold Street to Provost’s House, I remember coming this way with Mama that first time. She rode in the cart with our few things, trying not to cough. I remember the roses bloomed on her cheeks. My lord’s healer said later those were a cruel joke of the sickness. The sun struck red lights in Mama’s brown curls, too, making them shine. She was so happy. “Had I prayed the Goddess, I would never have dreamed such a chance for us, Beka.” She knew I was angry that my lord had tracked me home and waited until I was out to persuade Mama. “You cannot spit on the lady’s gift, you mule-headed gixie! This is not only for you, but your sisters and brothers. You’ll never grow old in the Cesspool – you’re meant for better things!”

  The servants’ gate was open and Jakorn was on duty today, as he was then. There had been more black in his long hair then, which was almost all gray now. This morning he grinned, showing the gaps where he’d lost teeth over the years. “Beka. Not wearin’ yer uniform?” Jakorn came from the north. When he was angry, his burr was so thick it was that hard to understand his speech at all.

  “I don’t want to wear the same thing every day,” I said, and kissed his cheek.

  From the glint in Jakorn’s eye, he knew very well I’d worn a dress to stay on my lady’s good side. “And yer face, mistress?”

  I hung my head before my first teacher in fighting. “You was a street Dog once, Jakorn.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “Di’n’t I tell ye, th’ idea be, yer foe walks away lookin’ mauled?” he asked, but it was all teasing. “Run on in t’ Cook. She’s been worritin’ about ye leavin’ yer insides in some privy from the dreadful food down in th’ Lower City.”

  I grinned at him and passed on through the gate. The servants were already at their work, of course. They smiled and called greetings but did no more. They had their duties, and my lady expected those to come before all else. My sisters, Diona and Lorine, just about worship my lady, and I dare say no word against her before them. I feel sometimes like my lady means more to Diona than I do. My sisters are turning into proper young mots, neat in their appearance and correct in their speaking. The days when we giggled together over Pounce’s kitten antics seem to fade with every month since Mama’s death.

  I want them to do well in life. My lady is seeing to that. She is training Diona as a lady’s maid, which had been the dream of Mama’s heart. She has promised to find Diona a very good place when she thinks Diona is ready, and my lady keeps her promises. Lorine, though only twelve, bids fair to be an excellent seamstress one day. Already she does much of my lady’s fine sewing, which suits my lady’s personal seamstress well. She’s getting old, and her eyes are not what they once were. She looks on Lorine as a daughter and teaches her those tricks of good stitchery my lady does not know.

  Two of the dairymaids passed me in giggles. I wished just once that I could say, “You don’t snicker when the lads come home for their day off!” Plenty of servants’ sons have gone to be Dogs. It was only the girls who are given the raised brow.

  The door to the kitchen wing was open. Only in the coldest winter is it closed, along with the door on the end of the hall that opens onto the kitchen proper. I walked in. A boy scrubbed tableware from the household’s
breakfast. Cookmaids sat at the chopping table, preparing vegetables. Cook stood with her back to me, tasting several different cheeses. She saw the boy grin at me and turned.

  “Oh, my dear, what happened to your face?” she asked in her soft, kind way. She opened her arms, and I stepped into her warm hold. Mya had looked after our family from the moment our cart rolled through the servants’ gate. She made soups that Mama kept down despite the cough that so often made her bring up other food. When Mama found the Black God’s peace at last, it was Mya who held me. She was a tiny dumpling of a mot, rounded and sweet, her eyes up-tipped at the corners. So, too, was her nose tipped at the end. Kindness was what she gave as easily as she breathed, but she ruled the kitchen, and the children of the house, firmly. No one fooled her.

  I put my hand to my healing eye and shrugged. “Doing work on Rovers Street, Mya.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “I thought your job was to duck,” she said.

  I giggled, because of course she was right. “I’ll do better another time,” I promised.

  She sat me down and fed me. I couldn’t escape that, no more did I want to. My belly had started growling on Gold Street.

  “Now,” Mya said once she’d put some food before me, “my lord says Kebibi Ahuda got you assigned to Goodwin and Tunstall. Is it true? If Clary Goodwin is giving you a bad time, tell her I will be coming to have a word with her.”

  The thought of my kind friend scolding Goodwin made me grin.

  Mya saw it. “You may think me a silly little cook, but Clary and I attend the same temple. We have been friends for twenty years. She is good at what she does, but she does not know how to handle young folk.”

  I swallowed my bite of cheese tart and said, “We do well enough. She’s my training Dog, not my friend.”

  Mya sighed. “I’m sure you’re right. You can’t be in better hands. Mattes Tunstall is a feckless, overgrown lad, but no one argues that he’s one of the best Dogs in the city.”

  Feckless? I thought, putting sliced ham on my plate. And how would she know that? Then a dreadful idea dawned and I stared at Mya. “Auntie.” I swallowed, the pictures in my head making my belly lurch. “You – you and Tunstall.”

  She suddenly smoothed her apron over her lap. “I was once accounted a very pretty girl. We had so much fun together – but I wanted marriage and babies, and Mattes just wanted fun.” She smiled at me. “Ulfrec has made me happy these fifteen years.”

  “My lady says Rebakah may visit her now.” All unknown to us, my lady’s personal maid had walked into the kitchen. The maids hurriedly began to chop again. The boy splashed as he scrubbed like a madman. I half tripped over my bench as I tried to jump to my feet and brush the front of my dress at the same time.

  The walk through the house felt strange. I’d made it only three weeks ago on my last visit, and yet the place seemed different. Smaller. No less elegant or well kept, but not the same.

  I understood the difference as we passed through the door to my lady’s part of the house. It was less important. Provost’s House had not changed, but I had.

  As if she’d heard my thinking and meant to say that I did not matter, the maid pointed to the workroom. “Wait in there,” she ordered.

  I walked inside. My sisters were there with the other mots of the house who did sewing. Diona had an embroidery frame set up before her. Lorine worked on a silk underdress so fine it was almost sheer. Both of them looked like tidy strangers to me.

  Everyone looked up when I came in. The room went very quiet.

  My sisters stiffened. I did not mistake it. I knew them like I knew myself.

  “Goddess bless us, Beka, were you drinking? Or brawling with your Dog friends?” asked one of the older maids. She was favored by my lady for her embroidery. It meant that she gave herself airs. She made a game of saying something cruel to me, then claiming it was a joke when Lorine took her to task for it. “You might have covered those with face paint, you know.” Most of the other maids giggled. Diona went red.

  I let my gaze fall to the worn floorboards, then stiffened. Why did I let her speak so to me? What would this empty-headed mot have done on Rovers Street?

  “I might have been mistaken for a doxie, too,” I told the floor. The gigglers went silent. Then I looked up and held her eyes. Everyone else says that my gaze makes folk nervous. They tell me it’s like being touched with ice. Let me see if I scare her, I thought.

  She tried to stare me down. I made myself think of old Slapper and his crazed glare. She held firm a moment, then blinked and looked away. I waited. When she looked up again, I was still there, still staring. She got up. “Some females have gutter mouths!” she mumbled, and skittered out of the room.

  I looked at each of them to see if anyone else wished to sharpen her wits on me. None would meet my eyes, not even my sisters. I went to kiss them on the cheek. Diona pulled away rather than let me actually touch her. Lorine held rock still. They spoke no word to me. I stepped back, not sure what to say.

  “My lady will see you now.” The maid had returned for me. It was the only time I was glad to be on my way to Lady Teodorie. I could think of nothing more to do with so many looking on.

  Of course my lady’s lips went tight when she set eyes on me. I’d known as much that morning when I’d looked in my bit of mirror and seen my bruises were still plain on my face.

  I made my curtsy to her.

  “And so you have begun work as a Guardswoman, Rebakah. Plainly you have found it invigorating.”

  I didn’t reply. She didn’t expect me to answer. Unlike Goodwin, neither did she expect me to look her in the eyes.

  “Dare I hope that you have come to your senses? Your mother wished for you to better yourself.” She took up the needlework that lay in her lap. She always had some about her. She had taught my sisters their first stitches, sewing and embroidery alike.

  I never know what Lady Teodorie wants from me. My sisters and brothers are bettering themselves. Why does it matter to her if I am not what she thinks a girl should be?

  She pursed her lips. “Tongue-tied as usual. Your performance yesterday before the Magistrate did my lord and me no credit.”

  I felt my shoulders twitch. So word of that had come here already. Splendid.

  “Have you anything to say for yourself?”

  I knew my duty. “Forgive me for disappointing you, my lady,” I said.

  “Your seeming meekness would serve you so much better as a maidservant than as an enforcer of the King’s law,” she remarked. “When you recover from your folly in your choice of livelihood, of course I will do my best for you. I promised your poor mother I would do my best for all of her children. You are dismissed.”

  I curtsied again. Why does she take it so personal that of all five of us, I am the only one who don’t want the life she picked out for me? I can’t understand why she hates the world of the Provost’s Guard, either, but that’s my lady. My lord has lived with it these many years. Maybe that’s why my being a Dog is so vexing for her – of all the lads and gixies of this house who have gone into the Provost’s Guard, I’m the only one who my lord shares it with, who he’s raised to it. Who loves it as he loves it.

  Feeling small and dirty, I returned to the kitchen. I certainly didn’t want to see Lorine and Diona. The other maids would have been talking at them about me all this time, how low I’d seemed. Mayhap when we met in the afternoon, with none but our brothers there, my sisters wouldn’t find me so common.

  The kitchen was busy. Vendors awaited Mya’s attention. There were geese to be put on the spit. The undercooks made plenty of noise as they put together other dishes for the noon meal. Mya, tending a weeping stable girl, thrust a basket full of bread odds and ends at me. I took it with thanks and fled.

  This time of year the orchard is quiet. The trees are in bloom. They’re pretty, but they’re of use only to bees. They stand behind the hay barn, which is also left to itself so early in the year. No one sat on the bench be
hind the barn. I settled there, put my basket on the ground, and enjoyed the warm sun for a moment.

  A thought: Did I know, when I lived here, how often I dodged folk I might offend with what I said? Or did I just not notice because mostly I didn’t talk?

  Breakfasts these days will be the ruin of me. First I start talking to Kora, Aniki, Ersken, and the rest. Who knows where it will end? A party? A feast? Chattering with strangers?

  Tansy might like breakfast with us sometime. If I can pry her out so early in the day, she might like to meet my friends. Mayhap Annis will help.

  But I was writing of my visit and of sitting behind the barn. I ended my sunbath when a shadow passed over my face. I opened my eyes. Of course it was Slapper. It was here that I’d met him two years back. Since then he’s carried at least ten ghosts that I know of. A busy bird.

  For the moment he was actually alone, no other birds at hand. Was this a pigeon miracle, a bird without a flock? He landed on my shoulder and pecked my temple hard.

  “Pox and murrain!” I cried, and grabbed him. In my lap, he glared at me with poison-yellow eyes, fighting to free his wings. Pigeons are stronger than they look, even one whose back is twisted like Slapper’s. I held him gentle, second and third finger around his right wing, first finger along his neck, thumb around his left wing. With my free hand I dug out some of the cracked corn in my belt purse. I showed it to Slapper, and he went quiet. I settled him with a care to his clubfoot (I always fear it aches) and let him go. Instead of flying off, he began to eat the corn.

  “Now listen,” I told his ghost, “you got to give me more than you done. My Dogs need sommat real, not gossip pulled from the air.” I spoke like Lower City folk so the soul he carried just now might trust me. “I been listenin’ to you lot, but it ain’t enough. Can’t you name the street? Is there a stream nearby, or a drinkin’ den? Sommat I can seek and find?” I didn’t say that I’d never been able to get a pigeon and its ghost to lead me anywhere. Maybe these dead would be different, they wanted to be found so bad.