Bloodhound

  "You've not answered my question," I reminded her. Her hands were shaking.

  "It's forbidden to discuss guild policy, Guardswoman," she said. Her voice and her mouth were tight now. She did not look at me. "You may be assured this has been reported to your superiors, and they are taking care of the matter. This is hardly a concern for street Dogs." She thrust the receipt at me. "Good day to you."

  She had given me a gold bit more than she should have done. "Is this a mistake?" I asked. "Did you forget the guild's fee for changing my gold?"

  She did not look at me. "I forgot nothing. Surely even a young Dog knows what that coin is for."

  I pocketed the gold bit separate from my other coins. The gold equal of two silver and ten copper nobles was a heavy bribe. I scooped up my receipt and left the hall, thinking hard. If the moneychanger had thought our talk was worth a gold bit, then I'd wager the Goldsmith's Bank had not reported the coles they had received to the Deputy Provost. Surely Sir Lionel would have told us if they had, instead of bragging about his peaceful city. Moreover, the bankers must have known for at least a few days, to pull together the mages and potions they'd needed to test their silver coin.

  I could point to all manner of reasons the bank would not want word to get out that they suspected the silver. A panic was the most obvious. The Silversmith's Guild would lose, but so too would the gold- and coppersmiths as folk scrambled to get other coin and prices went mad. I don't know exactly what will happen, but riots and high prices in other years have taught me what I will have to face. I don't want a panic. But the bank is breaking the law, not to notify the Provost's office. And if things are unsteady here, Sir Lionel must be told.

  I was out in the street, off to meet Goodwin, when movement at the corner of my eye grabbed my attention. A merchantish-looking cove was talking with a friend, two arms' lengths away from me. A young pickpocket brushed his side.

  "Achoo, tinggal" I ordered. I lunged for the gixie. She swerved away from me, deeper into the crowd in the street. I lunged again and seized her by the sleeve.

  "Hand it over," I ordered. "And come along with me." Then I realized, what would I do – take her to the Tradesmen's District kennel? I'm not sure if I'm allowed to nab anyone here. At home I'd not even bother to nab her. She was too small a Rat to worry about. Do the Port Caynn Dogs care about mice? I needed to think.

  She was crying already. They all cried the minute a Dog had them in hand, the little ones, to make us pity them. "Please, Guardswoman, we was hungered at home," she told me. She fumbled in the side slit of her tunic where she'd stuffed her prize.

  Behind me I could hear the witless coney had finally noticed his coin had been lifted. He started to shout, "Thief! Thief!"

  The gixie handed me a fat red purse. I took it in my free hand, not loosening my grip on her. Now would be the time she'd try to kick me or hit me to make me let go. I was surprised she'd not done so before now.

  Instead she wiped her eyes. "I give it back," she said. "Why don't ya let me go? I'm no golden filch, baggin' twenny purses a day."

  Achoo barked a warning, but I never saw whoever rammed me from behind, knocking me facedown in the muck of the street. Achoo snarled. There was a thump, and she yelped.

  "Achoo!" I cried. I jumped to my feet and went to my hound, who'd been knocked flying, no doubt by the same mammering canker blossom that had bowled me over. I looked around quickly, but the gixie and her rescuer were gone. Then I went over Achoo with my hands to make certain naught was broken, while Achoo whimpered and licked my face. "Don't go grabbin' folk like that, you silly creature," I whispered to her, hugging her for a moment. "You're a scent hound, not a pit bull nor a man hunter. You might've gotten your fool nob cracked." Achoo wagged her whole self and made a kind of happy groaning noise, as if I wasn't insulting her.

  Sure that Achoo wasn't hurt, I took stock. All I had for my trouble was a bad scare for my hound, the coney's red purse, and a lot of laughing cityfolk who enjoyed a Dog's humiliation.

  "See if I save your purses for you," I grumbled. I wiped my face on my sleeve. "Achoo, tumit." She fell in step at my heel as if that tarse had never hit her. We went back to the coney, who was still bellowing.

  I thrust the purse in his face. "Here," I told him. "Keep your hand on it from now on."

  "But that's not my – " he said as he took it and looked inside. He closed his mouth, then opened it. "My – my thanks, Guardswoman." He bit his lip, then gave me a silver noble. "My thanks to the gods that you were here!"

  I took the coin. It was a generous bribe, but now I was suspicious about that purse. "You were saying this isn't yours," I told him.

  "No, no, I was wrong. The excitement, and... I thought I took the brown purse today, but I just remembered it was the red-stained, to go with my tunic." He waved a hand at his tunic, which was red.

  I looked at the coney-cove again. "You lie," I told him. "The gods will punish you if you've claimed coin to which you have no right."

  "'Tis his purse, you impudent Dog!" said the coney's friend, who'd been silent until now. "He paid for our morning meal with it!"

  I could do nothing when they both swore to it. They turned and walked off in a huff, the picture of two righteous coves whose honor had been insulted.

  I drew my dagger and scraped it across the front of the silver noble the coney had given me, before we'd got so unfriendly. The metal curled away. At the bottom of the cut was the gleam of brass.

  Achoo and I made for the banker's door. My mind was busy with what I'd just witnessed. What if that whole purse was full of coles? Had I gotten in the middle of a trickster's game? The gixie nudged the coney a-purpose while she lifted his purse, for all he didn't notice right off. She wanted him to cry, "Thief!" She'd let someone catch her so she could hand over a purse bulging with silver coles. The rusher that knocked me down was in the crowd in case she couldn't escape anyone who caught her. Then either the coney got the false purse in return and said not a word, thinking himself richer, or the one who caught her kept the purse. So would more coles get into the moneystream. The gixie would keep the good money, having exchanged it for false.

  What was the purpose of that? Who gained?

  Something made me glance back. A small body, sized about the height of a ten- or twelve-year-old, shifted from my sight behind larger folk.

  "Did you see that, Achoo?" I asked her softly. "Our spy got careless. I don't suppose you could fetch him."

  Achoo looked up at me and gave her soft whuff.

  "No, I suppose you can't." Without her able to answer as Pounce did, I had to make up her replies. For a moment I missed Pounce so fiercely that my heart felt squeezed. "You'd need sommat of his to sniff, same as if you were seeking him. That's my part of the job, and I haven't done it."

  I looked forward at the bank, sifting my memory of the morning. Had that been the watcher in drab brown clothes, on the way to the docks, or to Moneychangers' Street earlier? My memory caught on glimpses, but they could have been glimpses of anyone of that size, dressed so plainly. Wasn't that the whole point of a tracker?

  If we had one on our trail, we'd seen him again soon, or her. I was reaching for the door to the bank's offices when Goodwin opened it. "Cooper, you're a mess. Did a wagon roll over you? No, explain later. Come inside and give me my half of the coin. It'll be safer."

  I followed her. There was a waiting room for the bank officers, with a clerk to take names and a guard to keep order. Several coves and mots in merchants' dress sat on the benches, giving us the fish eye. Goodwin moved so none of them could see what we did.

  As I handed over her half of the gold bits and copper nobles, I told her what I had seen in the moneychanger's stall. Then I waited to see if she would say I was full of chicken dung.

  "Hunh," she said as she stowed her coin in her pockets and tunic. She gave me a round brass token with a hole punched through the top. It had the Goldsmith's Guild scales on one side and a number on the other. "Keep that close," she order
ed. "If you need funds or the letter of credit, show that to these people and they'll provide. I have one of my own. Now, let's see about the silver."

  Back we went to the moneychanger's side of the building. Achoo and I stayed outside, so as not to give the moneychanger a whiff that sommat was off. Goodwin went in, a gold coin in her fist.

  I kept watch for the pickpocket gixie, in case she returned. This was a good place to try her trick again. The crowds were thick enough, and plenty of folk had purses at hand, coming and going from the banks at opposite corners of the crossing. I did not spot her, though I did see a pair of Dogs take up position across the street from me. They eyed me, memorizing me, and I gave them the Dogs' two-fingered salute in greeting. I figured Nestor would have told the Day Watch throughout the harbor area what me and Goodwin looked like. I looked around anew for our tracker lad, but saw naught. He'd vanished again.

  "Dale told me, and here's the proof," I heard a man say. I turned and faced Hanse, the big, slope-shouldered cove who had carried Tunstall out of the riot. He gave me a huge, well-pleased grin. By the light of day I could see his hair, cropped very close, was brown, his eyes bright blue in his tan face. He looked just as cheerful, and as ready for trouble, as he'd done the night of the riot. His brown wool tunic had a simple green braid trim at hems and collar. He wore green leggings and shoes that laced up his calves, sturdy for trudging through the street muck. A short sword and a dagger hung from his belt, both well used and well kept.

  "I run into him last night, and he told me you and Goodwin were in town. I thought he was pullin' my leg, but here you are," Hanse said. He reached out his hand. We clasped forearms, like soldiers might do. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd been in the army once. "Me and the crew just got in two days ago. We had a short jog upriver and back, guarding some goods. What brings you so far off your turf, Cooper? And how's Tunstall?"

  "Grumpy," I replied. "Healing, but grumpy. He's down for the month. They sent Goodwin and me to study Port Caynn Dog work. Tunstall gets paperwork when he's out of the splints."

  "Oh, that's hard," Hanse said, making a face. "I had paperwork once. Got myself thrown in jail to get out of it. Had to punch an officer to do it, too. It was worth a flogging to get clear of the pens and the ink. Now who's this?" He crouched and offered his hand to Achoo.

  She looked up at me.

  "Achoo, pengantar," I told her.

  Hanse chuckled. "What's that foreign gobble? Can't the poor thing speak like a proper Tortall hound?"

  "It's the way she was trained," I told him as Achoo wagged her tail and sniffed Hanse's fingers. I felt more comfortable talking with Hanse than most chance-met strangers. After all, we'd been in a riot together.

  He gave my hound's ears a scratch and glanced at me. "Achoo?" he asked.

  "When she's got the scent, she's been known to sneeze," I explained.

  Hanse straightened. "And here's the lovely Goodwin," he said. "Would you be rememberin' me, Guardswoman? Hanse Remy."

  Goodwin came to us, tucking sommat into her pocket. She offered her hand to Hanse and returned his clasp. "From the Nightmarket. It's good to see you – Master Remy, is it?"

  "Only Hanse," he said. "Caravan guards aren't masters of much, for certain."

  They talked about Tunstall and our visit here, but I wasn't listening. Hearing both of his names together, I realized they were familiar as a pair. "Hanse" is a common enough name, but where had I heard "Hanse Remy"? Had Dale said it?

  "Cooper, are you daydreaming?" Goodwin asked. "Hanse would like to take us to supper tonight at the Merman's Cave. Steen will be there, and maybe Dale."

  I blushed and mumbled my thanks. I'd have to wait till later to pry that name from my memory. Goodwin and Hanse settled it, and Hanse was on his way.

  "That's a lucky break," Goodwin said when we could no longer see him. "The Merman's Cave isn't a place two mots ought to go alone, but if there is anyplace that will have gambling and loose talk, that will be it. Let's walk this way." We turned up Moneychangers' Street. We put two silent blocks between us and the Goldsmith's Bank before Goodwin took a silver noble from her pocket and handed it to me. "I changed a gold noble in there for silver," she told me. "I wanted to check your findings, and you're right."

  I glanced back for our tracker. This time I caught a glimpse as he turned to look in a window. I smiled to myself. He'd be cursing for letting me get that much of a look at him. Facing forward, I inspected the coin as Goodwin and I walked on. The metal had been well wiped, but there were traces of oil in the lines of the stamp.

  "They're either very dirty in the bank vaults, or they're testing these coins," Goodwin told me. "We need to alert Sir Lionel. 'Peaceful,' he says. Peaceful doesn't mean good, not at this guild bank. It's rotten with coles, if your visit and mine are proper measures. Otherwise, why would they test all of their silver? This gives me the crawls, I don't mind telling you."

  "There's more," I told her. "Mayhap not so big a thing, but neither is it good." As Goodwin steered us northeast, away from the bay and toward Guards House, I explained my encounter with the gixie pickpocket and her return of the false purse.

  "What a curst odd game," said Goodwin, frowning. "Return false coin for good, and let your coney spread them about the town. Who benefits? We heard no report of such a thing in Corus. Could they be moving the coles this way? The colesmith sends them out with filchers, who trade with coneys, only the coneys are carriers. The carriers take the coles somewhere else... ? Or spend or gamble them away?"

  "It seems too complicated to work," I said. "It leaves too many folk to turn into Birdies the minute the cage Dogs heat up the irons or show them the rack."

  Goodwin sighed. "It does. Two games, then, but surely only one colemonger gang. There are still far too many good coles, good copies, for it to be even a whole fistful of small cole-mongers. Ratpox, I wish we knew more!"

  "Coneys wouldn't be willing to tell us anything no matter what," I said. "Either they've got a windfall, or they know they've got a purse full of coles and they're liable to be nabbed. They'd spend the coles or get rid of them any way they can." I looked around us. We were on Mouse Lane, a street for small shops and homes. "Where do we go now?"

  "Remember I'd mentioned silversmith friends?" Goodwin asked. "Isanz Finer, the old man, isn't in the business anymore, but at one time he could make silver talk as clear as Pounce."

  "But what can he say that we need to know?" I asked, confused. And why would someone want to flood the money-stream with silver coles? I wondered. Wasn't the whole idea of making false coin the fact that you spent them like real ones? You don't give them away.

  "Isanz can find out where the silver comes from, Cooper," Goodwin said. "He could tell you if he worked Copper Isles silver, Yamani silver, hill silver, Barzunni silver. I'll bet a week's wages he can point us to where this stuff began."

  "Surely my lord has royal mages tracking the silver by now. They'll tell us where it's coming from," I said.

  "Everyone knows mages can track royal coin. That's because they've spelled Crown silver," Goodwin told me. "I'll wager you buttons for badgers these colemongers are getting silver from someplace else. Silver that's not carrying a Crown spell."

  That shocked me. "But the mages could work out where the silver's coming from. Can't they?"

  Goodwin was shaking her head. "Cooper, I've been on cole hunts before. Mages like you to think they can do near everything, but that's not always so. Throw dirt from someplace far away into a melt, and even though it sinks to the bottom, it sets a mage to chasing his tail. And you needn't even do that with silver. You know how they use silver charms to purify wounds and curses and bad thoughts?"

  "It never purified my bad thoughts," I told her without thinking, like she was Kora or Aniki.

  Goodwin thumped my head lightly, but she was smiling. "Silver purifies, is the thing. That's its power by nature. And once it's been melted down, there isn't a mage who can tell where it came from. It throws off all the magic
that was in it, even the magic of the place where it was born. That's where my friend Isanz comes in." She pointed. "Turn here. I was working Port Caynn once for a few months, when Tom and I were in difficulties. Isanz's son took me dancing. I learned a great deal from the old man." She halted. "Here we are."

  We'd come up before a small cluster of silver businesses. There were three forges, two on one side of the street and one on the other, and a good-sized shop next to the lone forge. A big house stood beside the shop.

  "All these belong to Finers," Goodwin told me. She pointed to the forge beside the shop. "Isanz's oldest son's." She pointed to one of the shops across the street. "His oldest daughter's. And his youngest son-in-law's. Two of his other sons and one of his other daughters work in the forge, and one of his sons and one daughter-in-law run the shop. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren are apprenticed out to silversmiths all over the city."

  "Then why does he live up here?" I asked. "Shouldn't he live with the other master smiths, in one of the better parts of town?"

  Goodwin shrugged. "He likes being close to Tradesmen's District."

  Turning to look about as we did had given me another chance to check for our watcher. He was nowhere in view, but there were plenty of doors and alleys he could have popped into. What I wouldn't give for a scrap of his clothes to give to Achoo! She'd find him for me in the flirt of a goat's tail!

  "Cooper, this is no time to daydream!" Goodwin stood beside the path that led around the side of the big house. Achoo and I trotted to catch up as she led the way back to the kitchen. There she knocked on the open door.

  "I think you'd best stay," I told Achoo. Seeing her eye the geese and chickens in the yard, I pointed to a spot by the fence around the vegetable garden and ordered, "I mean it. Tinggal."

  Achoo sniffed the air and leaned toward the fowl.

  "Achoo," I said, glaring at her. "Shall I get the leash?"

  Achoo leaped at a butterfly passing overhead.

  I unslung my pack. "I'm getting the leash."

  Achoo flattened her ears and went to the spot by the fence. She stood there, looking back at me.