Terrier

by Tamora Pierce

  By the time our watch was done, my knees felt like jelly, I was so weary. My baton seemed to be triple its weight. My arm throbbed. Pounce, who’d left us after the tavern fight, appeared out of nowhere. He near-about tripped me as we entered the courtyard of the kennel. I was too tired even to scold.

  “Where have you been?” Goodwin asked Pounce. Even spent, she still noticed a black cat in the shadows. “Wooing yet another lady cat for Beltane? Blessing the world with your kittens?”

  We walked into the kennel to find that things were not right. Ahuda sat at her tall desk, her head in her hands. Most of our watch had come in already. Some of the mots were weeping. Coves looked at the floor or leaned their foreheads against the wall so none could see their faces. Others sat in small knots on the benches, talking softly. Phelan got up from one such group and walked into the chapel, to my confusion. Did he forget we weren’t mustered out yet?

  No one who was not a Dog was in sight. No Rats, no visitors for the Rats. No onlookers, no beggars. Of my fellow Puppies, Hilyard leaned with his face to the wall. Another sat on the floor, her head bowed on her knees. The rest huddled near the healers’ room on two benches. Ersken had an arm around two girls. He looked at me with eyes that were red and puffy.

  Verene’s Dog Otelia stood by the healers’ door. There was blood dotting her cheek. Her tunic sleeve was ripped. Her arms hung down limp before her. I saw no sign of her baton and remember being as shocked as if she was naked.

  Inside the healers’ open door, two people lay on the beds. Their faces – their whole bodies – were covered by sheets. I saw bloodstains there, too.

  Otelia looked up and saw us. “They blindsided us, Clary,” she said. “Verene got in the way of the biggest one. Rollo thought – Mattes, you know he always thought he was quicker than he was. Poor Verene never had a chance. Rollo died coming here.” Otelia slid to the floor, tears rolling down her face.

  My hands went numb, then my arms, and my belly, and the rest of me. I didn’t believe I heard aright. Then I looked at Ersken. I knew I’d heard proper enough. Otelia had told us Verene was dead. Verene, and Verene’s male Dog, Rollo, were both dead. On Beltane.

  I looked up at Tunstall. “We had breakfast this morning.” I told Goodwin, “Just this morning.”

  Pounce stood on his hind feet and put his forepaws on my thigh. Obedient, I picked him up. He stood in the circle of my arms and purred in my ear, as if trying to make this easier, as he did the day Mama died. My friend Verene lay in that room with an old cloth over her. I’d split the last piece of cheese with her just today.

  And Rollo. He was a veteran. He’d lived on the streets for seven years. He was just as dead.

  I carried Pounce over to the benches and sat with the other Puppies. The girl between Ersken and me left the shelter of his arm so I could slide in next to him. I kept one arm around my cat and put the other around my friend.

  I hope I have written the worst of this. It is strange to say, when I fought the writing lessons so hard, but it soothes me some, to put this on paper. It makes me weep, too, but it means I won’t make less of this night in my mind now. If it fades in my memory, I can see it afresh on this paper. I can value my friend’s death and not let it vanish from my remembering.

  Friday, May 1, 246

  After the buryings.

  Ersken didn’t want to face his family last night, so I told him he could stay at my place. Kora wasn’t in – she’d gone to Prettybone, for fun, she’d told us over breakfast yesterday. We all knew it was to watch Rosto’s back. She still hadn’t returned when we arrived. I made up a pallet for Ersken in my room. It took me forever to get to sleep, even after writing in my journal. I don’t know about him. I kept thinking, It could have been me. That night at the Barrel’s Bottom, it could have been me brought back to lie in the healers’ room under a bloody sheet. It could have been me tonight if I hadn’t gotten my baton up between that rusher’s sword and my skin. It could be me any night of the week.

  I don’t remember when I slept. I remember my dreams. They were all of pigeons and their ghosts.

  Ersken and me woke empty-eyed. We cleaned up in silence. What would we do with ourselves on such a day? Then Kora knocked on the door. So she had to be told, then Aniki and Rosto.

  The five of us were feeding bread to my pigeons when Phelan walked in. He looked like he hadn’t slept. He hadn’t shaved. Nor did he seem like he knew where he was.

  We mots fussed over him. It helped us as much as Phelan. I made him drink some raspberry twilsey to clear his head. Aniki ordered him to eat two chicken-raisin turnovers when he said he couldn’t remember his last meal. Kora opened a tiny vial under his nose. He sniffed, shuddered, and came around a bit. Ersken inspected Phelan’s dagger and sharpened it before he slid it gently into its sheath. Pounce ran the pigeons out of the room, then leaned against Phelan as he ate.

  Rosto said nothing, only looked on. At last Phelan got to his feet. “I’m sorry – I can’t stay. I don’t know what to do now, but I can’t seem to keep still.”

  Rosto stirred. “Come on, lad,” he told Phelan. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Don’t you think he’s done enough walking?” Ersken wanted to know. “He’s got the shakes.”

  I thought Rosto would be impatient, but he was only cool. “It’s not sitting that will cure his shakes. Come on, Phelan. We’ll go look at trees or sommat.”

  The rest of us cleaned up the breakfast leavings, then went to the Jane Street baths. We had to look proper for the funerals that afternoon.

  Rollo was buried at noon. My lord came there to speak. He did that for every Dog who was buried. Other Dogs had a word for Rollo, too. My lord told me once that folk got friendlier with a Dog for each year that Dog lived in the King’s service. It stood to reason that a six-year Dog had plenty of folk to talk about their memories and how much he’d be missed.

  After Rollo’s burying came Verene’s. Making the arrangements last night, we Evening Watch Puppies had voted for Ersken to do our talking at her burial after my lord and her family spoke. They drew off, leaving us time alone with her plain coffin.

  “We’ll miss you at Beka’s breakfast,” Ersken said to it. “Well, not just you. Your coin, too. I guess we’ll have less sausages, or eggs.” Aniki, Kora, and I giggled. We couldn’t help it. Even some of the others, who knew of our mornings, smiled. “But it’s not just the coin, really, Verene,” Ersken went on. “It’s the bad jokes, and your telling us about your night’s patrol. It’s training with you. It’s the times you helped us with the memorizing studies. You were always good with the ones that needed such help. And we remember your singing. We think you should sing for the Black God, who makes a peaceful place for us all to come to. Everyone in the Peaceful Realms is safe from Rats. I know the kind God of Death has to treasure the ones like you, Verene, that fell while making the mortal realm a safer place.”

  He bowed his head. A tear dripped from his cheek to the ground.

  I went over to wrap my arm around Ersken’s shoulders. I pressed my face to his. “Good Dog,” I said softly.

  “Don’t say that!” someone whispered.

  “‘Good Dog’? Cut your tongue! Bein’ a good Dog’s what got Verene killed!” The jackass bray came from Hilyard. I’d scarce been able to look at him. He came to our graveyard in a cityman’s tunic and leggings. He pointed at Ersken with a shaking hand. “Good Dog, yes, to say nice things about dying in this stupid work! Good cur! Good – “

  I couldn’t bear it. I grabbed Hilyard’s ears, forcing him to meet my eyes. He scrabbled at my wrists with his nails. I wouldn’t let go. I wouldn’t let him look away. I held him with my eyes.

  “Enough, scummernob,” I said, quiet. Aniki told me later my eyes and my voice were as cold as smoking ice. I know I felt numb. “Think shame to you, disrespectin’ Verene so. Comin’ here dressed common when she died in uniform. Think shame to you, disrespectin’ the words of Ersken’s heart, and my Lord Provost’s presence. Now s
hut your sarden gob, or get out.” I let him go with a shove. He staggered away from me.

  I walked back to my friends before I could give way to anger and kick his bum clean out the gate. Mother’s mercy on me, for a moment I’d wanted to kill him.

  “I’m out!” he yelled at more of a distance. I turned. He was walking backward, toward the gate. Whatever madness seized him, he’d forgot my lord Gershom stood right there. “You ought to get out, too, the rest of you, if you’re not as cracked as she is. Look around – those’re the graves of Puppies. Look who’s standing with you. Not real folk – Rats.” Rosto, Aniki, and Kora looked at us and shrugged. Hilyard kept on shouting. “Dogs’ friends aren’t cityfolk, they’re Rats. Rats are the only ones who understand the way Dogs talk! Ulp!”

  My lord had grabbed Hilyard from behind. “I’m glad you’re leavin’,” he said in his slow way. “If there’s one thing Dogs must know, it’s how to act when we lose one of our own. Gods forgive you for speakin’ so before Verene’s blood family. It’s plain to me you never would have been one of us.” He turned. The group of Dogs – my two and Ahuda among them – opened up. My lord tossed Hilyard hard and far, out of our burying ground.

  Dusting his hands, my lord nodded to the training Dogs, them who had been our teachers. The parent Dogs always sing to show the Dogs’ road to the Peaceful Realms to a Puppy who didn’t survive.

  As Mother Dog, Ahuda sang the first line of the song. She had a warm voice, sweet. I never thought mean little Ahuda had such beauty in her. As she gave voice to the rising first line of “The Puppy’s Lullaby,” my knees felt weak. The other female Dogs chimed in at the second line, the male ones at the third. I realized that the regular trainers would have sung this song many times. Two of every ten Puppies die. The work is that cruel. How can they bear it? I can hardly stand it, and this was my first Puppy burial. Trainers must teach for a year, doing their best to make certain their Puppies stay alive. How can they bear singing them into the Black God’s care like this?

  As they began the second verse, pigeons flew down to light on the graves. Only two of them settled on Verene’s. One had a dark pink ruff – the kind that shone in the sun – dark pink bands on its wings, and a pale pink body. Its head was a pinkish gray. The other pigeon was mostly blue with a mottling of white on its wings and gleaming purple feathers on its neck. I knew both, or their twins. They tended to be the sort of birds who carried spirits only for a short time.

  “Farewell,” I heard Verene whisper. “Until we meet in the Peaceful Realms, farewell.”

  “Gods all bless,” said Rollo’s ghost.

  Pounce walked over to those two pigeons. The trainers kept on singing, but all eyes were on my cat. He sat before the birds like a king, his paws placed neatly before him.

  They bowed. Later, folk said that pigeons bow all the time. A moment after these two did it, the other pigeons bowed, too, their beaks almost touching the ground. Then the whole flock took off, heading up into the sunlight. We watched until we couldn’t see them anymore. By then the song was done.

  The Dogs filed out of the graveyard. We Puppies said our last goodbyes, then followed our Dogs. It was time for the Evening Watch.

  Ersken put his arm around my neck and kissed my cheek. “I like being called ‘good Dog,’” he whispered.

  After the end of my watch.

  When we mustered for Evening Watch, Ahuda told the rest of it. The five Rats that had killed Rollo and Verene and roughed up Otelia were a mixed bag, a pair of Barzun sailors and three of Flash District’s rushers.

  “Flash District’s chief can’t disown them fast enough,” Ahuda said. Her face was like stone. “He says they were up to something with no orders from him. Night Watch caught them in Unicorn District, trying to sneak up over Palace Ridge. They were still full to their eyeballs of hotblood wine. They’ve been handed over to the Palace Guard until their trial. There will be no…accidents.” Some of the Dogs growled. “I mean what I say. They’ll pay for what they did, under the law.”

  Tunstall stopped her before she could send us onto the streets. Once he’d whispered to her, Ahuda called up another Dog pair and announced a change in patrols. Goodwin, Tunstall and me were supposed to be on Nightmarket duty tonight. Instead Tunstall got us switched off with a Cesspool pair, one that didn’t have a Puppy. He and Goodwin knew I couldn’t face the cheer of the open market or even the noise around Rovers Street. The Cesspool was better. Nastier. There was more to distract me. More that wouldn’t give the lie to the numb, dark feelings that had settled in my heart.

  First we went to get the week’s Happy Bag from the Rogue, since we’d had Beltane duty the night before. Strange it was, all those Court rushers and their like telling us how sorry they were about Verene and Rollo. Even the chief of Flash District came over to say how bad he felt that three of his own people had killed Dogs.

  My lord Gershom and Lady Sabine found us eating at the Mantel and Pullet. “We were havin’ supper at Naxen’s Fancy when a Magistrate’s runner brought this to my attention,” my lord said, putting a paper in front of Goodwin. He beckoned to Nyler Jewel and Yoav, who ate at the next table. We all had a look.

  The paper was an official announcement of a slave sale on Skip Lane, complete with seals. My lord pointed to the seals. “The year reads one forty six, not two forty six,” he said. “The wax is solid red. The Ministry of Slave Sales uses ebony shavings in their wax to mark genuine seals. The ribbon’s cotton, not silk, and the king on this seal is named Roger the Third.”

  Goodwin sighed. “And scribes at the Ministry put an extra curl on their capital S‘s, to make it easier to spot forgeries.”

  I looked. The S‘s on this document were plain.

  We got up from our table without another word. Together with my lord’s personal bodyguards, we headed for Skip Lane. The “auction house” was an abandoned stable there, set up to look like a proper slave market. I watched from outside the open front doors as the others entered. Lady Sabine had begged my lord like a little one wanting a treat, so he let her greet the auctioneers. I watched her sweep up to the sellers’ table and place the announcement before them. She pointed to the seal. Then she drew her sword.

  The sellers were loobies. The ones in back of the sellers’ table tried to hustle the slaves, all gixies, out the back. The ones at the table grabbed their coin.

  Lady Sabine dashed for the door at the rear. The mob of buyers clogged a side door. My lord, his bodyguards, Jewel, and Yoav blocked that door and two more. Goodwin and Tunstall took charge of the sellers with the money.

  I ran around to the back, my usual post. I’d seen an old cove in the rear gather up a ledger and a box the moment he saw Lady Sabine. He’d gone out the door even before the others had thought to escape, but he wasn’t exactly quick on his feet. When I grabbed him, he offered me ten gold nobles to let him go.

  It was more than I’d make in my Puppy year and my first year as a Dog. I took it. Then I set aside his money chest and account books to hobble him, tying the rawhide with a care to his old limbs. No rule said I had to do as he’d paid me to, and I hadn’t liked that line of scared gixies, waiting to be sold to a room of greedy-eyed buyers. Still, it wouldn’t be wise to take a bribe and not give value for it too often.

  “Better luck next time,” I said. “If you get one.” We waited there, him cursing me dreadfully, to see if anyone might join us.

  We took a bag of five Rats at the auction. Once our Rats were on their way to the collection cages and I’d signed book and money box in for evidence and the Happy Bag, we continued on our rounds. Lady Sabine wandered off. My lord came with us, talking to Goodwin and Tunstall. I remember guessing how many weeks he would spend in a guest room for this. When a Dog was killed, he made it a point to walk a while with each team on that Dog’s watch. Each day he spent out with the Dogs was another week that my lady’s bedchamber was locked to him. She was terrified that one day he would not come home from such walks.

  I said n
aught to him, nor he to me. When he left, he fell back for a moment and clasped my shoulder. The warmth of his big hand came through my numbness for a moment. Then he was off to let another Dog team know they weren’t just servants to him.

  “He makes me proud to be a Dog,” Goodwin said. Then she turned to me. “Did the bookkeeper try to bribe you? Cough up.”

  I paid over her and Tunstall’s half of my bribe. That’s when they told me about the Happy Bag tax, one-third of my bribes if they were over a silver noble. Since that went for Dogs’ medicines, healers, and burials, I didn’t complain. Tunstall made the change for me. Goodwin ordered me to get a belt with inner compartments to hold big coins like gold pieces.

  “Not that you see takings like that more than once a year,” Tunstall said. “But it’s good to be prepared.”

  Saturday, May 2, 246

  After my watch.

  This morning I was feeding pigeons, trying to listen to their ghosts, when I heard a knock on my door. I let Aniki, Kora, and Ersken in. It wasn’t our usual happy group, to say the least.

  Pounce made them welcome as they set out the cloth and our meal. I kept feeding birds. It was just the ones who carried the diggers’ ghosts, as if I needed to feel more downhearted. They repeated their complaints to me. However many times I tell them I’m still looking for their graves and even their names, they never seem to hear. They want to be found right off, as if I’m a god who can see who they are, who their families are, and where their poor bodies have been hid.

  I wish that the dead were more patient, but them that are waiting for justice aren’t. Verene’s murderers were taken up right off. I figure that was why she and Rollo only stayed long enough to say goodbye at the burying, because the one big debt the living owed to them was paid. The diggers are still waiting, just like the Shadow Snake’s victims. Mayhap I wouldn’t feel so helpless about their whingeing if I knew we were getting somewhere.