A new pigeon came. It looked as if it had been sprinkled in ashes and its tail dipped in them. “Th’ wagon was covered, an’ it were night.” It spoke to me, or its ghost did! I found more corn and laid it down close to me so Ashes would come near. It waddled over to eat. “They put scarves on our glims so we mayn’t see where they took us. We was led downstairs, t’ the cellar. They took the scarves off. Our orders was, dig against the wall, down an’ down. We thought ‘twas a well, but ‘twas too big. We was diggin’ pick an’ shovel through the pinky rock.”
“The pinky city rock.” White Spice’s ghost whispered it as the bird glided down to sit with Ashes.
“Pinky city rock,” Mumper’s ghost said, landing on the dirt.
Slapper finished the corn. He jumped up, smacking me in the face with his wings, then landed beside his friends. “Ungrateful filcher,” I mumbled.
“I was hired to dig a well,” Slapper’s ghost told me. “We was all hired to dig a well. There was a real well partway dug, but no water.”
“They never let us out,” said the ghost that rode a fresh arrival. That was the pigeon I’d named Fog. “Never once. They brung us food and drink and clothes, but we never left the cellar.”
“The mage drove off the water in the well. The rusher with the bullwhip said so.” White Spice’s ghost didn’t seem to mind that the bird preened while she talked. “It was dry, the hole where we dug. No water, but there was pieces that glittered in the torchlight.”
“It sparkles, the rock, like nowheres else.” The bird I’d named Pinky landed on my knee and left a large, warm present there. I swore, but I dared not shoo him off. I had no idea why they were talking so sensible, unless they’d reached some magical number (six of the same group of murdered folk) that let them speak more clear to me. “They have parts like glass as big as your thumbnail, bigger, that glow like fire with all manner of color. Beautiful.”
“Beauty in th’ Cesspool, what a joke.” Mayhap the magical number was seven. Here was a seventh bird, spangled in blue, green, and violet on white. Spangle’s ghost was a woman who sounded as tough as any of the river dodgers I’d faced. “But when we’d spilled some of our water on the rocks – Mithros!”
“Mithros,” the other birds said. The ghosts sighed. Two more arrived to sit with them. One was dark gray about the head and tail and pale gray in body, the commonest coloring of all the city’s pigeons. The other had a purplish gray head, a white bib, and purplish gray shoulders on a gray body. So there were nine in all.
Pinky bit my hand and jumped down to be with the others. Now they were cooing, pecking the dirt, looking for food. I grabbed the basket and started crumbling the bread for them.
“Where are you?” I asked. I was certain now that these were the ghosts of them who had dug Crookshank’s fire opals for him. He’d had them killed to keep the stones’ location a secret. I’d wager the cellar where they’d dug was in a house of his, but which? We’d need the army to search them all. And every mot, cove, and child in them would be doing their best to put a stop to it, for sheer contrariness. “You’d think you’d want your grave found!”
Well, I’d offended them then. Off they flew, leaving me to try to get pigeon scummer off my dress. Then other pigeons came, the flock that lives here and any pigeons who’d been drawn to them or to me. I forgot my clothes and crumbled bread fast. I put the diggers from my thoughts and listened to what all these birds had to say. There was always something going on, something I could piece together for my lord or the kennels.
When I’d finished with the pile of bread ends Mya gave me, I propped my chin on my hands and watched the birds. They’d quieted, but few had left, despite the food being nearly gone. They eyed me. I think they knew I liked them even if I didn’t hear their ghosts. They were beautiful, when they weren’t dirty. And whose dirt was it but the human folk of the city’s?
They have such silly faces, pigeons.
I held out my hand. One of them landed on it. When I put up the fingers of my free hand, the cracked bird tried to eat the tips.
“I don’t suppose any of you are here because the Shadow Snake doused you?” I asked, keeping my voice quiet. “Kidnapped you and killed you?”
The bird on my hand took off. More of the flock left – most of it. Nearly three dozen remained, all staring at me. One that was white but for drips of black on the ends of his wings and tail came toward me. “Mama? I’m lost, Mama.”
I leaned forward. “Rolond?” I asked. “You know me. I’ve held you sometimes, lad. Your mama is my friend Tansy.” My eyes were stinging, but I kept my voice calm. Spirits are all emotion. I get upset and they take off. “Your papa is Herun Lofts. And I know your grandmama, too, Annis.”
I didn’t know if he understood me, but I had to try. Mayhap today was a day of miracles.
Mayhap it wasn’t. “Mama, it’s dark and I’m lost,” he said, deaf to my words. “They took me away. Where are you?”
“Mama?” That was a little gixie’s voice. “The mot said yez wouldn’t give the Shadow Snake what the Snake wanted. Yer lily necklace was more important – tha’s what the mot said.”
“Da, the Shadow Snake said ye wouldna give o’er what ye won at the gamblin’, so he took me….”
“It was just a poxy book you can’t e’en read, you stupid puttock!” That girl was older and furious.
“I don’t understand. Why does someun called a Snake want yer brass box, Ma? Ye said it only had writin’ from some noble ye danced fer oncet.”
I finally put my face in my hands. Mama had always said there’d be a day I’d be sorry I asked so many questions. This was that day.
When I couldn’t bear it no more, I jumped to my feet and threw up my arms. They all took off in a cloud of feathers and a clap of wings.
Goddess, let me make something good of so much that is bad. Let me take from these birds some piece of knowledge. Something that will help me seek the Rats that killed those diggers, or the Shadow Snake. The feeling I’d had that day I led my lord to the Bold Brass gang would be naught compared to hobbling them. Knowing that two killers ran free in the Lower City was an itch I couldn’t scratch.
I rubbed my hands on my thighs and felt a lump in the pocket of my underdress. I had the fire opal still. I fetched it out and turned it over. It was so lovely as it was, I had to wonder what it looked like all polished and clean. Probably the nobles and the rich would want it more so, with no hint that it had come from the rock of the Lower City. I grinned. I liked the pinkish stone that cropped up everywhere, in our walls and walkways and little gardens.
Berryman had called them “fascinators.” Folk with gold in their purses would be fascinated with those bits of cherry and blue fire, the blaze of green…. I turned the stone now and then, shifting to new bits of color, and let the moments of the last week drift in my head. I let my questions come to the surface of my thoughts, bubbles in a well. Who would notice nine healthy mots and coves all gone missing together? Who would notice the vanishment of one child here, one child there, gone seemingly by magic from bed or street or plain daylight?
I had all manner of thoughts while I sat there. One of them was something Tunstall had said to Mistress Noll on my very first night of duty – “You sharp old folk are everywhere, aren’t you? You’re everywhere, and you see and hear everything.”
I came alert with the sun in my eyes. I know old folk. Mistress Noll herself, for one. Granny Fern, for another. And there were others throughout the Lower City, beggar women who sat their corners like my dust spinner friends, laundresses who used the same fountain squares, doxies who spent all their working nights in the same part of Corus. Folk talked in front of them like they was sculptures.
“I knew I’d find you here.”
I scrambled to my feet. So lost in thought was I that I hadn’t heard Lord Gershom’s steps in the grass. I bobbed my curtsy too fast and almost fell, which would have earned me my lady’s iciest gaze. My lord only chuckled and seized my elbow to ste
ady me. “Beka, I hope the other fellows look far worse.” He waved his free hand to show he meant my eye and cheekbone.
I looked down and stammered, “I – I wish I could s-say as much, milord. I g-got the worst of it.”
“But I hear you did well. You and your Dogs were outnumbered nearly seven to one even after Lady Sabine stepped in, yet here you are.” He was dressed for a day at home, his steel-colored hair combed back in a horse tail, his clothes an embroidered short tunic (my lady’s work) over loose leggings tied around his calves. “I wish I’d seen it. You did well – a brawl in a place like that would have been the death of most trainees. So tell me, what happened that first night?” He sat on the bench and drew me down next to him. “How’d you miss the lookout? I know I taught you better, and I’m sure Ahuda did.”
I hung my head. “My lord, I got excited.”
“Ah,” he said, crossing his legs at the ankle and leaning back. “It’s to be expected, when you’re starting out. I warned you it would take time to season. All the talent in the world doesn’t take the place of good, solid experience, Beka.”
I nodded. It just seems to take so long to get experience when I need it now.
“You know what happened to Tunstall, even after he was voted a Dog by his kennel?”
I shook my head, but my ears perked up.
“He fell off a roof. He was chasing a Rat who’d gone and killed a man over in Prettybone, where they have houses built next to each other, except there was one that was two stories higher, with a steeper roof. Tunstall made the climb and had the cove by the ankle when the cove scraped his hand in the chimney and threw soot in Tunstall’s face. Off the roof Tunstall went. Straight into a pile of dung, three stories down.”
“Ouch,” I whispered.
“Other Dogs have made mistakes, Beka. It’s what you learn.” He patted me on the shoulder. “So what do you make of our Rogue?”
I told him everything. I knew I could trust him with the information about the fire opals, how Goodwin and Tunstall were looking into them, and about the Shadow Snake. I knew he would leave those things to my Dogs and not interfere himself unless he felt there was a need. He was famous for that.
When it was noon and the bell was ringing for the house’s big meal of the day, I also knew that I felt better. In telling him how I had fallen in fish, sought Orva in the Cesspool, fought to keep my feet among river dodgers, and faced Sir Tullus and the Magistrate’s Court, I saw my days for what they were, my first week. I had not shackled the worst foist in the Nightmarket nor caught Kayfer Deerborn himself with the crown’s jewels in his pocket, it was true. I had not rescued the Queen from a pack of robbing coves or caught the slavers trying to pass off some Sirajit princess as a kitchen slave. But I was alive, and hungry.
My lord got to his feet and I scrambled to mine. As we walked toward the house, he said, “There is one thing in which you did not obey the letter of my instructions, Beka.”
“My lord?” I asked, dazed. Whenever did I not follow his rules and orders as he gave them?
“I said to outfit yourself properly from our gear room,” he told me as we stopped near the kitchen door. The servants streamed by, bowing and murmuring greetings. I looked into his face. His brows were drawn down over his nose, but there was no vexation in his eyes, only a bit of fun. He knew me proper, did my lord Gershom. “Whether you didn’t do as you were bid from pride or from a desire to go easy on my purse, you were in error. You left us without enough gear. Before you go back to your lodgings, I want you to draw three more items. And I want you to think about the week you’ve had as you do it. Now, you mind me, Beka Cooper.”
I bowed my head. He was right, about everything. “Yes, my lord.”
He clasped my hands in his. “Mithros and the Crone watch over you.”
I curtsied as he went inside. “Gods all bless and keep you, my lord,” I whispered. He is the best man I know. I felt that way when I was eight and he had chosen to listen to me in the street. My feelings now only go deeper, not different.
I wondered if I should stop first in the gear room, but then my belly growled. Wonderful smells drifted my way. Mya’s cooking was calling to me.
Noon dinner is the big meal of the house. Everyone eats together, even the servers, once the food is set out. My lord and lady sit with their children and guests on the dais. They had noble friends with them today, four of the haMinch family, that has more branches than most trees, and a mage in the royal service. The mage and my lord had their heads together: business, then.
My friends among the dairymaids and laundresses made a place for me. That put me across the room from the stable hands. Most of them grinned or gave me a tiny wave. I didn’t see my brother Will. He might have been off riding errands. I thought my younger brother, Nilo, might bounce clean from his seat, he was so glad to see me. He put a finger to his eye and mouthed, “What happened?” I frowned at him, not that it managed to cow him any. When we were dismissed for our noon rest, at least he waited until we were outside and beyond my lady’s view before he seized me around the waist and spun me sunwise.
“Beka, lookit you! Black eye, who done it! And your whole cheek gone green! Did you kill anyone? Did you hobble anyone? Did you miss me? I learned to drive a pair, well, around the courtyard, anyways!” Nilo is the picture of Mama, with her brown curls and snapping brown eyes, and her dimples. He is only ten, but his head clears my shoulder. “Will was sent clean on up to the palace with a message, he said not to let you go back ‘thout he saw you. Do you like being a Dog?”
The only way to silence him was to put him in a headlock. “Listen to you, you’d think you was brought up in a chicken coop,” I scolded. “Let a person talk! I’m not a Dog, I’m a trainee, a Puppy, you empty-headed looby! I don’t know who blacked my eye. There was too many of ‘em. Of course I missed you.” And I threw him over my hip into the courtyard dust.
He went with a whoop, little mumper that he is. Him and three other stable folk – two lads and a gixie – begged me to teach them the headlock and the throw. Of course they were thinking about training as Dogs one day. I’d thought maybe Nilo might follow me to Puppy training, until I saw how much he loves to work with horses. I hadn’t even time to daydream about Will. He’d taken to hanging about the stable as soon as he was big enough and rides like he was born on horseback. There’s naught magical about it. The stable master is a fine teacher, and my brothers love horses as my mother loved other animals.
Once the youngsters were covered in dust and exhausted from my quick lesson, they scattered. Nilo and me went to the stable to wait for Will. We had no private place of our own to sit. My sisters slept with my lady’s maids. The boys went to the stable quarters. Mya gave me a place with the cookmaids and stable girls until I went to live in the Puppy training barracks.
Now, listening to Nilo chatter about all that had gone on since I had taken lodgings in the Lower City, I was glad to have my own home. I can move about without waking someone, and no one objects to Pounce. I tried to bring him today, but he flat-out refused. He crawled back under my blankets after I made my bed. Nilo grumbled over my cat staying away, so I made him laugh over tales of Pounce on duty in the Lower City.
“Nilo, Nilo, guess who I met!” Will came in, leading a sweating horse. He and the mount were covered with road dust, but Will grinned ear to ear. He showed us a silver noble. “The King gave me this! King Roger himself! I took a message from my lord to the Lord High Magistrate. Then my Lord Magistrate has me take a message behind the palace to King Roger himself, because the King has taken the Queen riding! The King gave me this, and the Queen smiled at me.” Will was giddy. “Beka, you look like you’ve been in a war.” He kissed me, sprinkling dust on my dress. “She’s so beautiful, the Queen, so much younger than His Majesty, with hair like dark clouds….”
“Bleah,” Nilo said, rolling his eyes.
“What do you know?” Will shoved him. “Let me care for Ladslove, and then I can sit. Nilo, will you
beg something for me from Mya? His Majesty and the Magistrate had me go back and forth twice.” He wandered off, the horse following him patiently.
I looked at Nilo, who pretended to puke. “I’d get him some food. I think he’s addled,” I said.
“I’m going. ‘The Queen’s sooo beautiful,’” Nilo said with mockery, twirling around. “‘She has teeth like stars and hair like sheep fuzz, the Queen is sooo beautiful!’” Half singing it, he went to get food for Will. I tried not to laugh.
The boys and I were playing mumblety-peg with our belt knives when my sisters found us. They came through the stable door like great ladies and frowned at the three of us on our knees in the dirt.
I gazed at them and felt strange. When we were young, the little ones, including these two gixies in their neat dresses, wore patched shirts only and no shoes. I had but one thin dress. I went barefoot like them, trying to mind all four when Mama was busy. There was always a baby or two in hand, a basket of mending, rag toys, and the streets when we annoyed Mama’s herb customers or her latest man. Our noses ran and our bottoms, too, when the meat was bad, if we had meat.
Now we wore clothes with mends not even showing, though Nilo’s and Will’s breeches had been let down three times apiece. The boys had good, sturdy tunics that would take horse dirt and wash up without going to pieces. Our feet were shod against all but the deepest street mud.
Our sisters were dressed a world away in respectable wool dresses with embroidery for decoration. They wore round caps on their heads with more embroidery still. Unlike the lads and me, they were so clean they shone, their skin fair and soft-looking.
The silence between us got uncomfortable, but I didn’t know how to break it. The boys scowled and sheathed their knives, our game of mumblety-peg plainly done. I picked up my knife. Feeling that if I sheathed it right off, it would look as if I’d been ashamed of our game, I spun it on my fingertip. Sadly, I fumbled the catch when I popped the knife in the air. I dropped the blade before it cut me.