Bloodhound

  Jewel and Goodwin halted us at a corner. As we waited, they called up one of the Goddess warriors and two of Nestor's friends. Jewel signaled the rest of us to wait. Then the five of them walked into the next street, as casual as if they were going to market.

  Some Dogs trotted up to the corner and peeked around. One of them looked back at the rest of us and said in a quiet, carrying voice, "Four rushers on guard, dicing, the claybrains." She looked around the corner again and winced.

  We heard a small crash, some grunts, and the clank of metal striking stone. The mot who'd spoken to us waved us on. We rounded the corner to find Jewel, Goodwin, and the others hobbling and gagging four Rats. Ersken gathered the dice, put them in the cup they had used for play, and tucked it inside one bound Rat's shirt.

  "Let that be a lesson to you not to gamble," he told the Rat soberly. "The Trickster asks you to pay for any luck you may have, one way or another."

  "Bless the boy, he's a priest with it," one of the Goddess warriors said with a grin. "After this, laddie, what's say I take you home and rub some of that off yez?"

  Ersken actually winked at her! "Forgive me, gracious warrior, but my woman would turn me into something unnatural if I took you up on your kind offer," he replied, as if he truly regretted it. "She's a mage, and I'd best stay devoted."

  All this was said no louder than a whisper, of course, as the Rats were towed into a nearby doorway. Up came our fellow Dogs who carried the rams. We drew our batons and got ready, me with Achoo at my side. Achoo was quivering, she was so eager. Jewel silently counted off on his fingers, one, two, three.

  Together the Dogs with the rams swung them hard at the doors. Jewel counted off again, and again they smacked the doors with those weights of wood and iron. A third time they struck. The wooden doors burst open, swinging wide. A mage I hadn't even noticed threw a huge puff of fog at the gap. Under its cover we entered the court and spread out.

  I am weary now. I must rest.

  Monday, September 24, 247

  Guards House

  A little past six of the clock.

  being a chronicle of the events of Thursday the 20th,

  beginning around noon of that day

  This court was a large, single room, almost a barn. It didn't boast the upstairs galleries or the side halls of Pearl's other two courts. There were plenty of Rats, though. They attacked, some armed with clubs and swords, others seizing tankards, stools, or whatever they could grab. Achoo and I joined up with Goodwin, who had helped to lead the charge inside. A pair of Rats came at us, screeching curses.

  I did not wait for them, but stepped out to get the one in front of me. He carried a length of firewood gripped in both hands. It would crush my shoulder if it struck, so I darted under his swing and, one-handed, smacked both of his kneecaps with my baton. When he stiffened, his grip on his weapon going loose, I jammed the end of my baton between his thighs and yanked it up. Now he dropped the log and bent double. I smashed him on the back of the neck with my sap. Down he went, fouling the legs of the one who fought Goodwin. She knocked her cove back over my fellow with a smash to the jaw.

  I turned and walked right into a blow to the belly from a club. I forced myself not to collapse, though my mind was white with pain. As I hung on, I heard Achoo snarl. Through the lights that covered my vision, I saw her clamp her jaws on the wrist of the cove who'd hit me. She had him by the club hand and she would not let go. While she hung on, I jammed myself sidelong into his belly, blocking his free arm to shield her, and grabbed myself a big fistful of him. Not of his gems – he was wearing a leather cod. Instead I grabbed a chunk of the inside of his thigh near to his cod and pinched hard with all four fingers and my thumb. He struck my back with his free hand, yelping. A glance showed me there was blood around Achoo's mouth, she was biting his club wrist so deep. The second time the cove brought his fist down, he plunged his arm onto the knife I'd yanked free. He wailed and grabbed my braid with that same hand. He screeched yet again. This time he'd jammed his palm onto the band of spikes in my braid. I stomped one of his feet with my boot heel and felt bones break.

  "Achoo, biarlah," I said. She released the Rat so he could hobble away from us. I looked her over quickly. She seemed to be fine.

  Forward I went, keeping to Goodwin's side. Achoo was expert at ripping a striking arm or a kicking foot. She had a good eye for my own attacks and never got in my way. She saved me from more than one knife. I promised myself, if I lived, that I would get her the meatiest bone I could find, climbing prices or no.

  I'd stopped for a breath when I saw Flory and her mots trapped in a corner, knives out. A few of our folk kept the women there, but I could see by the way they held their bodies that they knew who Flory was and that they were not to hobble her. I waited until Goodwin had put down her Rat of the moment and let her know.

  "Get my lord," she yelled. She began to move toward Flory, smashing any Rats that got in her way.

  Lord Gershom was busy. A rusher with a longsword had decided today was his lucky day, seemingly. He was young and strong, faced with an old man with long gray hair. My lord must have ordered his guards to stay back. Now he smoothed his heavy mustache, a sign he was ready to do as he must.

  "My lord, when you're finished, might I have a word?" I asked.

  "Certainly, Cooper," he replied, his voice as casual as if we'd met in the market.

  "Don't yez pay attention t' her!" bellowed the rusher. "Pay attention t' me!"

  "If you insist," my lord replied. He came in with that hard, fast overhand swing of his. He does it one-handed, keeping a small, round buckler on his other forearm. The rusher barely parried the strike and tried an ox-handed thrust of his own. My lord knocked that aside with the buckler.

  I glanced around. There was a dais, of course. Pearl's bodyguards were up there, holding off Nestor, other Port Caynn Dogs, and some of the Goddess warriors. I did not see Pearl herself. Was she at the heart of the ring of guards, hidden by them and their attackers? I took a step toward the dais, but there was a scream behind me. I turned back to Lord Gershom's fight. The rusher was dead already. My lord set his buckler aside. His guards closed in, making a safe zone around us. A mage gave him a cloth so he might wipe his sword. My lord couldn't do that on his clothes or the dead cove's. Both were well marked with blood.

  "These clothes will have to be burned," he remarked. "My lady will not approve if she sees them."

  If my lord was lucky, Port Caynn was far enough away that Lady Teodorie would never know he'd been fighting again.

  "Cooper?" Lord Gershom asked.

  I pointed to the far corner. "It's Fair Flory, my lord," I said. "The one we spoke to you about."

  My lord sheathed his sword. "Very well. I'll talk with her." He and his guards crossed the room.

  I looked at the overall fight. We had caught them by surprise, that was plain. The area near the tap and kitchen doors was empty of Dogs and Rats. I suspect many had escaped that way. Doubtless my lord had planned it so, given that Okha's maps showed there were exits in that part of the court as well as those we had used. It would have been a fair mess to take every Rat here before a magistrate.

  Achoo scratched her ear and yawned. "Come on," I said, picking up my lord's buckler. "I don't like that mess up on the dais." Once I'd settled the buckler on my arm, I holstered my baton, keeping my sap in my free hand.

  I muscled my way between two Goddess warriors, crouching down, the buckler over my head to shield me from the blows of those fighting there. I didn't have much room to swing my sap, but a little swing is all I need. Then someone screeched. The Dog in front of her yanked her out of the wall of Rats defending that dais. I slammed my sap into the knee of the cove fighting next to her and rammed him sideways. He toppled into the Rat on his left. The Dogs yanked those two down to the floor.

  We had an opening through the wall of Rats. I slid the edge of my buckler up under the raised arm of the Rat in front of me, then stood and shoved it into his armpit. He cou
ldn't get that arm down to strike me. As he grabbed for me with the other arm, Achoo seized his wrist in her teeth and dragged him down to the floor to be trampled.

  I bashed the next Rat in the face with the buckler. There was more room to maneuver now. Rat after Rat was yanked away by the three Dogs who swarmed the dais along with me. And what we saw at the center of the dais, among the overturned chairs and tables and braziers, made me numb with rage.

  "What're you fighting for, you clanking stupid bumwipes!" I yelled at the Rats. No one heard. Of course not, it was too loud and their backs were to us. Then someone – Birch, Ersken's partner – hoisted me up. I stood on his knee, his arms around my legs, and tried again. "You Rats! You blind and mammering loobies, what do you fight for?!" I yelled.

  Something happened in the room. The air felt tight. It was mage work. Birch's arms were trembling. I looked down for a better height where I could stand. On the dais someone had righted a table. No wonder it hadn't gotten destroyed in the fight – it was made of stone.

  "Birch, you do it, please?" I asked. "You've got the bigger voice." As he got up on the table, the great chamber slowly went quiet.

  "She's gone!" he bellowed. Now they all heard. The air felt looser again. I didn't want to know the name of the mage that had done the magic to make them hear the first time. The spell wasn't aimed at me, it was supposed to help. It would be poor thanks for me to punch the mage that cast it, but I hate being magicked, even as part of a crowd. "Your Rogue is gone!" Birch looked down at me. "Anyone else with her, y'think?"

  "Jurji, Torcall Jupp, mayhap Zolaika," I said. "Her closest guards."

  Birch called out the names and added, "You'll give 'em up now if you're wise!" No one answered him, so he got down from the table. "All this up here, 'twas a fakement," he said with disgust. "They was trained long ago, belike, to circle round the dais and make it look like they was protectin' her, whilst she scampered off some other way." He spat on the floor.

  I nodded, full of my own share of disgust.

  My lord Gershom came across the room, bodyguards and mages around him. In the shadows behind him, I could see where Flory and her mots had been cornered. They were gone.

  My lord took the dais as the Dogs around it hauled unconscious Rats away. "Scent hounds, to me," he ordered. To everyone he said, "I will give a purse of ten gold nobles to the one who tells me where Pearl Skinner is. For every day that passes, it will be one gold noble the less. I am not a patient man."

  "Who're you, t' be raidin' our court wiv your tarse-sniffin' Dogs?" a cove demanded.

  Yoav backfisted him so hard that the Rat flipped bum over nob. "He's the Lord Provost of this realm, you slubbering piece of sheep scummer," she told him. "You'll talk respectful or I'll pull your tongue out."

  "Yer Provost best sleep wiv one eye open, when Pearl comes after 'im," someone remarked. We didn't see who that one was.

  "You must think I'm some lily-livered scut," my lord said. "Who stands on this dais now with a blade in his hand, and who's on the run? It's your Pearl Skinner with the price on her head. She won't come back, not to these courts. Why do you protect her? Do you know why we've come for her?"

  Not one of them spoke. They only glared. I fidgeted, looking to see how Pearl could have gotten out. Did her guards only form a ring on the dais to distract us, as it seemed at first? She might have escaped with those who went out the back. Folk would have noticed her then, or if she fled through the kitchen. I drew closer to the dais – I had stepped off of it when my lord had taken over – and nudged a board with the tip of my boot. It was solid.

  "Your Rogue is a colemonger," my lord said. "It's she who's been turning out those false silver coins. We have evidence. Real evidence, not whatever can be tortured out of some poor looby."

  "Lies!" someone yelled. Soon all of them were shouting sommat of the sort. The Port Caynn Dogs walked among them, cuffing them to silence, but they started again as soon as the Dogs passed.

  I inspected the dais, remembering the magicked doors and secret stairs in the Eagle Street court. I even stepped up on it, shifting around the overturned chairs and tables. There was a rug, too, a nice thick one, wadded up.

  "Shut yer gobs!" a mot yelled from the back of the room, near the entrance I'd come through with Goodwin and our Dogs. I glanced up. Fair Flory had returned, a cutlass in one hand, a maul in the other. I blinked. I'd never seen her outfitted for war. Seemingly flower-selling asked for more strength than I thought. "If you weren't such a herd of dozy scuts, you'd know the old cod cutter's tellin' the truth!"

  Rats and Dogs alike gave way before her. Only my lord's bodyguards refused to move from her path when she reached the dais. My lord looked at Goodwin, who signed that Flory was all right. Only then did he give the nod to his guards.

  Flory stepped up on the dais. "You know Pearl Skinner," she told the Rats in the room. "The greediest, cheapest trull in the world. Do ye doubt she's movin' false coin about this city? About this realm? Do ye doubt she's spent the coin that should've bought yez food for the winter? There's not a drop of oil in our storage rooms, nor a seed of grain. She left us t' starve!"

  "Flory," I said. She turned to look at me. "Hanse and his people were bringing silver to her from the north for a new minting. I let the Deputy Provost know they were coming – but Pearl sent Zolaika to murder them all before they could talk under torture. Hanse, Steen, Amda, everyone who went north with him was killed last night."

  "How do you know that?" she demanded.

  "Cooper talks to the dead," Goodwin called.

  Flory – almost all of them watching – made the Sign on their chests.

  Nestor pushed forward. "I've seen where Pearl had the coins made. Mages will confirm it's all her property and that of those in her service." He looked around. "She's the one who shoved up the prices of bread and meat with her false silver. It'll be proved in Magistrate's Court for all to see."

  "I saw 'er run out through the kitchens!" someone called. "Jupp an' that Jurji was with her!"

  "No, she went up th' hidden stair, in th' wall behind the throne," someone else yelled. "There's a panel in th' wall back there. She went when we heard th' crashin' at the doors!"

  I shifted the rug with my baton. A twisted wire loop stuck out of a crack between the boards. "My lord, excuse me," I said.

  He moved aside. I gripped the loop and pulled. The trapdoor set in the floor of the dais rose. It brought with it a wave of cold air and sewer stink.

  "Looks like we have three ways she could have gone," my lord said. "Scent hounds!"

  There were four of us handlers and hounds in all. I knew the three brought in from Corus by sight. They nodded to me, and I nodded back. I was supposed to have gotten more scent hound training with them, before all this had begun. Did they know that I'd had to learn as I went from Phelan and on my own, or did they think I believed I was too good to learn from them?

  My lord frowned. "Sergeant Haryse, have we only Corus scent hounds?"

  Nestor grimaced. "My lord, at present we have but four in the city, and the lords of the district requested them this week for hunting. It is the governor's policy to always grant such requests."

  I heard my lord curse softly. "Pray four's enough. Have we got something for the hounds we do have to use for scent?"

  "I do," I said. I unslung my pack and removed the underclothes that I'd stolen yesterday. "I got these while I was at the Eagle Street court."

  Elmwood, the oldest of the Corus handlers, picked them up, looking them over. "A good thought, Cooper. Though doubtless some of the scent from your pack clings to them now."

  "She has bedrooms at the Eagle Street and Darcy Walk courts," I said. "We can find more there."

  "We can?" Elmwood asked. There was no meanness in his face or voice. "You haven't got the training for a hunt like this, Cooper. Not after tricky prey that's got all manner of ways to go."

  "You'll need fighting teams to back each of you up," my lord said. "Port Caynn and Corus Dog
s mixed, and a mage for each." They moved closer to talk it out, choosing who would go and who might stay. Other Dogs began to move the hobbled Rats together and bind them that were still unconscious. I backed toward the wall, feeling as useful as teats on an ox.

  Achoo danced and whined at my feet. Of course she did. She'd seen me take the pieces of Pearl's clothes out for other hounds to sniff. She'd heard the words scent, hunt, and hounds. She could see the other handlers kneeling to talk to their hounds. Achoo would know what all of that meant. She was ready for action, but I was not allowed to give her any.

  Worse, I knew Elmwood was right. Achoo and I had successfully tracked a child, but we were not an experienced pair. She is a fine scent hound. I am the inexperienced one. It's the same as putting a lone Senior Dog with a Puppy. In looking out for the Pup, the Senior Dog can't be expected to work as well as she normally does.

  "Sorry, Achoo," I whispered. Achoo whined, looking at the other handlers, who were giving their hounds Pearl's clothes to sniff. One already towed her handler to the exit by the kitchen. One dragged his handler to the door hidden in the wall by the dais. Someone had opened it for us. Elmwood's low-slung hound was halfway down the steps in the center of the dais already. I could hear his deep-chested bark exploding from the stone walls below as Elmwood and the Dogs who would back them followed.

  Then I heard a cove yell, "You sarden loobies! Wake up!"

  That was Hanse's voice, which only I could hear. I looked toward it, to the side entrance. A black pigeon attacked two Dogs who were going outside, striking at their heads with his wings. When they flung up their arms to protect their faces, I saw that their tunics fit badly, as if they were twisted, or pulled on over other clothes. Then Jurji stepped into my view just for a moment, his sword raised. He cut the attacking bird in two, then moved out of sight.