Bloodhound

  I frowned at her, or I tried to. "I've noticed that people who give first prayers to the Goddess are uncommon interested in personal things," I said.

  Serenity looked at her accounts with a smile. "So, did you have fun?"

  Blushing, I ran up to my room to dry off and change into my uniform. I needed to write down the things I learned at Dale's. He told me that he and Hanse met in the army, when Dale was a paymaster's clerk. He'd been there when Hanse was dismissed. Seemingly everyone hated the officer Hanse had struck. That was why Hanse got a light sentence and discharge, rather than branding and time in the quarries. It was also why nearly twenty soldiers left when he did, including Dale. They felt the officer should never have been allowed to whip and bully his men to the point where one man would end his career to give a little of it back.

  I found no signs of colemongering in Dale's rooms – I searched them as he went for breakfast. The silver coins in his hidden money box were all cut to prove they were true silver.

  I'd drifted off, thinking of other things I had learned in Dale's rooms, when I heard loud voices downstairs.

  I must go.

  Wednesday, September 19, 247

  Okha's dressing room, Waterlily gambling house

  One hour past midnight.

  I've had days that drank donkey drippings before, but yesterday beat them all, Black God strike me if it don't. And it started so fine, too, as fine as a day could start, with me and Dale all warm and rosy in his bed.

  It started when Serenity interrupted my daydreaming yesterday. "Cooper, you'd best come quick," she called through my door. "There's a girl here from Isanz Finer's house. She's nigh hysterical."

  I opened my door and ran downstairs after Serenity, Achoo following. The gixie who stood in the hall was fourteen or so, dressed in a fine but rain-sodden tunic. Her braided hair was unveiled and mussed. Mud was splashed all over her slippers and hem. Her eyes and nose were red with weeping.

  "Cooper? You're Cooper?" she asked, staring at me. "How can you help?"

  "Why don't you tell me the problem?" I asked, steering her into the dining room. "I can't say how I must help until I know what the trouble is." Serenity had vanished into the house.

  The gixie wouldn't sit when I pulled a chair out for her. "But you're barely more than a girl! The way Grandfather talked – I thought you'd be a real Dog!"

  I held her shoulders and made her sit. "I am a real Dog. A junior one, but real nonetheless. And if you want a Dog, why aren't you at your own kennel?"

  "Because they're the ones who took him, you ass!" she cried. She shook all over. "Grandfather, my uncles, my aunts – all of them! They're charged with colemongering!" She began to cry. Achoo looked at me with reproach. Seemingly she did not care for my rough treatment of my visitor. Whining her sympathy, Achoo began to lick the gixie's hand.

  Serenity came with a cup. "Drink this," she said. "It will calm you. You need to be calm if you're to help your people." She put the cup to the gixie's lips and held it steady for her. I took my fire opal from my pocket and turned it over in my hand to keep myself steady. Finer's arrest was very, very bad news.

  "You're certain they said colemongering?" I asked when the gixie had quieted.

  "The legal charge is nailed to the door of every house and shop we own. They even cried it from the corners of our street!" Though she was steadier, the tears still rolled down the gixie's cheeks. "And they found coles when they searched our house. Of course they did! Grandfather ordered us to put any we came across in the money box in his study, for when the guild chose to do something about it. But the guards found the box and said it was proof!"

  "What about the guild?" I asked her. "He reported the coles to them. He said other silversmiths talked to the guild when he did. Did Master Finer tell the Dogs the guild knows about the coles? The guild will say he didn't make them."

  "Of course he told the Dogs! One great brute hit him and blacked his eye. He said no talking from prisoners!" The gixie blew her nose.

  "Did you go to the guild, then?" I asked. "They can help better than a lone Dog."

  "It was the first thing I did, you stupid trull!" she cried. "The clerk I spoke to said they knew nothing about it, and if I was wise, I'd surrender myself to the Crown's mercy!"

  I let the insult pass me by. I must seem like a complete lump, asking such basic questions, but I had to know what ground had been covered and what answers the gixie had been given.

  The Finers were Goodwin's friends. With her gone, she would want me to do all in my power to help them. This was more true because I feared they would not be in such a mess had we not asked Isanz Finer to learn of the origin of the silver in the coles.

  I used my training tricks to remember everything I'd learned of the Finers. "I have more stupid questions for you, mistress," I told the gixie. "I'd prefer it if you'd wait until I am done to scold me." I turned to Serenity. "May we have a number of sheets of paper – ten at least. Ink and a pen, also?" When she had left us, I asked the girl, "What is your name?"

  She glared at me. "You waste time!" Achoo pawed her lap, as if she asked the gixie to give me a chance. Absently the girl scratched Achoo's neck.

  "No," I replied quietly. "It will not do you, your family, or me any good for me to rush about with but half a plan in mind. I cannot be forever calling you mistress if we are to work together. And I did ask that you wait to scold me until we are finished." I smiled at her then, as if she was one of my sisters. She was Lorine's age, when all was said and done.

  She sat up a little straighter and wiped her eyes. "I see. I'm Meraud. Meraud Finer. My papa is Grandfather's grandson. I'm really Grandfather's great-granddaughter, but he gets impatient with the greats."

  "Meraud," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder, "if you know the names of those who went to the guild with Master Finer, remember them whilst I run up to my room. That's Achoo, by the way. She particularly likes a scratch on the rump. Achoo, tinggal. Kawan." I raced upstairs.

  First I opened my shutters and hung my spare tunic over the windowsill so that Haden, watching from somewhere behind the house, would know that I needed him. I took the maps that Okha had given me from under the mattress and set them in the hidden pocket of my pack.

  My nerves were prickling, telling me to gear up. I obey my nerves at such times. I undid my braid and rebraided it with the spiked strap woven in. I thrust my sap into my pocket. I slid my arm guards on, checking to make sure that each slender knife was in its sleeve on the forearm parts before I did up the laces. All of my hidden knives went into their sheaths. My round iron cap I would put in my pack. Last of all, I checked the chain on which I wore my insignia before I put it over my head. There was my badge, marking me as a true Dog, if but a junior one. I gave the leather a polish on my knee. Then I took the round glassy circle of my Dog tag from my pouch and strung it on the chain as well. I took my supplies of coin and the letters of credit that Goodwin had entrusted to me, tucking them into the pack.

  When I returned to the dining room, Meraud stared at me. "You look different." Achoo leaned against her leg, panting. The paper and ink I had requested lay near Meraud's cup.

  "I just put the rest of my uniform on," I said as I set my pack on the table. I took out my journal, wet the pen Serenity had brought in with the ink, then sat cat-corner from Meraud. "Did you remember who went to the guild with Master Finer?"

  She pulled herself up. "I'm not a ninny," she began. "Ouch!" Achoo had pawed her bare wrist, leaving white scratches. Meraud gave me a shamefaced look. "She doesn't like strife, your hound. He wanted me to take his share of the business, one day, Grandfather did. I went everywhere with him, and wrote it up for him. His memory isn't as good as it was." A tear rolled down her cheek.

  "Are you the great-granddaughter he mentioned that might help him learn where the false silver comes from?" I asked. I opened to a fresh page in my journal so I could write down my notes.

  She nodded and dashed her tear away. "I don't normally c
ry so much," she said, and glared at me. "Now, it was Grandfather that went to the guild, and my uncle Uthno – "

  "Was Uthno taken up this morning?" I interrupted.

  Meraud nodded.

  "He's no use, then," I told her. "We need them that aren't in the cages."

  "Well, there's Jelbert Moorecoombe, Honna Bray, Oriel Barber, and Rauf Makepeace. They came with us," said Meraud.

  I wrote the names down. "Who spoke to you at the guild?" I asked.

  "Senior Guildsman Tobeis Hawkwood and Senior Guilds-woman Donnet Newmarch," Meraud replied. She sat straighter in her chair.

  "You must write notes to them all," I told her as I scribbled the names down. "I have a message runner who will be here soon. He and his friends will carry them for us. In each note you must say that Master Isanz Finer and his family have been taken to the Tradesmen's kennel for colemongering. Say this regards those coles they spoke about when they met with the Silversmith's Guild, only give the names and titles of them your folk spoke to. Say that their aid is needed now. They must speak to the Finers' innocence before the Tradesmen's District magistrate. Do you need me to repeat that?"

  Meraud shook her head. The moment I began to speak, she had begun to write on one of Serenity's sheets of paper. I was interested to see that she used a cipher I hadn't seen before.

  "It must go to the silversmiths and to Hawkwood and Newmarch, this same note. Have you a way to mark that copies have gone to others?" I asked.

  Meraud nodded.

  "Be certain to put that on it," I said.

  Meraud looked at me.

  "Folk are sometimes more eager to help if they think others are watching," I explained.

  Meraud gave me the tiniest of smiles.

  I thought of something. "Don't sign your name, or give this address," I told her. "Some of them will give you up. They'll fear the Dogs are coming for them next. Some may think to hand you over to them to buy favor."

  Meraud set her pen down. Her hands were shaking.

  "As soon as you're done here, go to the nearest temple of the Goddess and sit at the statue's feet," I said. "They will have to prove you guilty to the Goddess's court before they can take you from the temple." There are advantages to having a partner who's a magistrate in the Mother's temple. Thinking of magistrates, I remembered something useful from my own days spent seated in a courtroom. "Does your family ever work with an advocate?"

  "Master Rollo Liddicoat," Meraud said.

  "Write to him first. Tell him what's happened and send him to Tradesmen's kennel with a sackful of gold. He can buy your family comfort if anyone may." I hoped this Master Liddicoat knew enough of how cage Dogs worked that he would buy Master Finer out of early questioning. "Be sure you tell him to take gold, understand?" I chewed my lip, trying to think. How long would it be until all the city heard that a family of silversmiths had been taken up for colemongering?

  Who in Mithros's name had written those bills of arrest? Didn't he, or she, know that this was the worst possible move? A panic would start if folk stopped trusting any silver or worse, started to take their good silver out of the banks. Were all the Dogs in charge of things loobies at best?

  I couldn't waste my time on Watch Commanders, that was plain. I had to get to Sir Lionel. He was the only one with the authority to order the Watch Commanders to lock the city down, if need be. He was also the only one who could release the Finers before they were tortured. I only hoped that he would take my word. I was not about to tell him that Goodwin was off gathering troops. Somehow I didn't think he would like knowing that we had judged him too fearful of Pearl to do what had to be done.

  I went to the kitchen to find Serenity. She was talking with the cook. When she saw me, she beckoned me into the pantry. "What trouble have you brought to my doorstep, Beka?" she asked.

  "I don't see where blaming me for things that began months ago will be useful," I replied. I was in too much of a hurry to be polite. "Will you give that poor gixie in there up to the Dogs?"

  Serenity drew back. "Of course not!"

  "Then don't go scolding me," I said. "She's writing up some notes that my friend Haden will take away when they're done. I'm off to Guards House for a word. When Mistress Finer is done, she'll need to go to the temple for safety. Will you see to it that she gets there?"

  Serenity gave me the strangest look then.

  "Now what?" I asked. I admit, I was feeling testy.

  She smoothed her skirts. "You are very different when you have work to do," she said, as if she remarked upon the weather. "Of course I will get Mistress Finer to safety. What of Achoo?"

  I shook my head. "We're a team, she and I. We'll stay together." I slung my pack onto my shoulders.

  "What should I say to Nestor?" Serenity asked me.

  "Doubtless I'll see him before you will," I replied. I looked to the back door, which stood open. Haden waited for me in the yard, near the chicken coop. "Excuse me," I said, bowing to Serenity. I went to Haden.

  "I saw the signal," he said, his brown eyes all a-sparkle. "Have ye business for me?"

  I gave him twenty coppers. "There's a gixie in the dining room writing up some notes," I explained. "I need you and your friends to deliver them, fast. The one to the advocate goes fastest of all, understand?"

  Haden nodded.

  I held my finger up to make sure I had all of his attention. "Here's another thing. Hand those messages over to servants, say the thing is urgent, and get out of there. Don't linger. Don't wait for a tip. Don't answer any questions at all, understand?"

  Haden's eyes widened. "Dangerous, it be."

  "Mayhap even a cage matter, Master Haden. Be sure your friends take it serious," I warned. "Nestor will never forgive me if I get you in trouble."

  Haden grinned at me. He'd lost an eyetooth in some scrap or other. "It'll get done and we'll vanish," he promised me. "We're old hands, never you fear."

  I pointed him to the hall that led to the dining room. "Mistress Meraud's in there. Where are your friends?"

  "I'll whistle 'em up once I've the papers and I'm away," he told me. "Better like that." He trotted down the hall. I relaxed a little.

  I said farewell to Serenity and Meraud, settled my pack, then left with Achoo. Half a block away I stopped by a railing for horses and bent as if to check my boot. I looked to the side. There was the flick of a much-washed red skirt.

  Achoo could have run her off easy, but there was no danger to the gixie following me to Guards House. She'd never get in, so she would have no way to know who I spoke with there. I took off my pack and found another of the Viviano apples I'd filched from the kitchen and tucked away. I left it on the rail atop two copper nobles, then slung the pack on my shoulders again. That gixie had to keep Pearl happy. That's enough trouble for anyone to have in her life. I won't add to it. Achoo and I continued on up the street.

  My mind kept me busy as we trudged up the steep hillside streets to Guards House. If Pearl had set the Finers up to be hobbled, why? Did her watchers see Isanz when he called on me? Did someone remember the old man's skill at naming the sources of silver?

  It didn't even have to be that. If any of her people worked in one of the family's houses, they could have heard something. Mayhap the old man misspoke and told his family that he'd found the source of the silver in the coles. Mayhap a spy found his notes, if he kept them.

  Pox! Isanz said a daughter and a granddaughter worked on the silver with him nowadays. I should have asked Meraud who the daughter was, and the granddaughter, if it wasn't Meraud herself. Was the daughter taken by the Dogs along with the old man?

  I couldn't think that way. Goodwin will return with reinforcements. It might take a few days, but if I can keep the Finers alive that long, they'll be saved. I was sure Sir Lionel would intervene, once I'd explained everything. He knew why me and Goodwin were in Port Caynn, after all. Better still, I'd be offering him a way to get free of Pearl Skinner at last. He could restore the balance between proper authority and t
he Court of the Rogue.

  Sergeant Axman was on duty when I entered Guards House. I waited until he'd dealt with the Dogs already at his tall desk, then stepped up.

  "Sergeant, Guardswoman Rebakah Cooper, on detached duty from Corus," I told him. "I need to speak to my lord the Deputy Provost on an urgent matter." I slid the gold noble I'd held in my hand since I'd left my lodgings across the top of his desk.

  Sergeant Axman looked at the coin, at me, and at the coin again. Then he shoved the coin at me. "I'll take your word for it," he said, his voice gruff. "Nestor told us that're friends about you. Put that thing away."

  I did as I was told. The sergeant whistled for a runner and spoke to her in a soft voice. I don't know what orders he gave her, but she took off. Then the sergeant looked at me again. "You'll need to leave your pack here, as well as the hound," he said.

  I hesitated, but there was naught else I could do. The set of the sergeant's face told me I wasn't going to see Sir Lionel with my pack. I set it next to his desk. I pointed to the floor beside it and told Achoo, "Dukduk. Jaga."

  "The weapons belt, too," Sergeant Axman told me. He looked a bit shamefaced. "My lord's list of them that wear the belt in his presence is a short one."

  I stared up at him, shocked. No Watch Commander in Corus had ever made his or her Dogs leave a weapons belt behind. What sort of milk-gutted custard spine was Sir Lionel? I looked at the floor, getting a grip on my temper. If I feared Pearl Skinner, and if I knew my Dogs were flea-bitten with Pearl's spies, mayhap I'd be wary of who carried weapons near me, too. If Sir Lionel did know many of us wore hidden weapons, he didn't think to ask us to drop them with Sergeant Axman.

  "Has he always made his own Dogs surrender their gear?" I asked, quiet-like.

  The sergeant nodded. He looked around, but the waiting room was empty. "Ever since his family was threatened," he whispered. "Me he lets come around armed, and Nestor, and a handful of other old-time Dogs. You didn't have to drop your gear last time because you and Goodwin were in cityfolk clothes. My lord hardly trusts his household guard."