Bloodhound

by Tamora Pierce

  Rosto got to his feet and stretched. "Had them branded, we did," he said lazily, as if it were a courtesy he'd done the colemongers. "A coin with an X through it, on their right hands. So every time they shake a dice box or pick up a card, folk will know. And here you thought we'd killed them, Cooper. Not very trusting, are you?"

  He sauntered out of my rooms, clearly pleased with himself. I struggled not to throw something at his head.

  "He did it for you." Aniki gave Achoo a second pasty. "I was worried folk would think him weak if he let them live, but he wanted to leave you a trail to follow. It's too bad they all ran for Port Caynn on the first morning boats."

  I rubbed my head. It ached, along with the rest of me. "I'll let them know, when the search goes to Port Caynn," I said, feeling tired all over again. "The Dogs there can look for gamblers with brands on their fambles. We'll be busy enough nabbing them that lose their coles here in the city."

  Aniki and Kora began to clean up. "It's not so bad if it's just gambling, surely," Aniki said. "Rosto bears down on the dens, folk grumble – "

  "Or they'll find a reason to get rid of him," Kora interrupted, lifting Pounce to her shoulders. "Gambling's one of those things folk have to do. They're always saying they'll win enough to buy a snug house, or a new mule, or training and a proper job for one of their children. Work is for every day, but they gamble for the future."

  "And they lose," Aniki said bitterly.

  "However it may be, folk won't stand for it if Rosto interferes," Kora told her. "If the danger's in silver coles, they'll gamble in coppers."

  "It's not poor folk gambling that sweats me," I told them as I checked my supplies of pigeon food. I knew I ought to write up my official report to keep Ahuda from nattering at me, but I'd yet to feed the birds that day. "Poor folk don't win that much silver. But if it gets into the hands of the nobles – if they start gambling coles like they gamble silver – "

  "We're cooked," Aniki said. "The treasuries will be rotten with the stuff."

  "We'll stop them," Kora said firmly, like there was no question of the outcome. "The Rogue and the Dogs, you'll see. Stop fussing, Beka. What do you have to do before muster?"

  I smiled at her. Member of the Court of the Rogue or no, Koramin Ingensra is a good friend. "I want to get Ahuda's report writ up so she won't be pestering me for it all night."

  "All right. Me and Aniki will walk Achoo and bring her back after I've seen to her sores. You get to writing, and whatever else you must do." Kora finished packing up the leftovers and leashed Achoo.

  I will go with Kora and Aniki, Pounce said. They understood, because they nodded. You are not fit to be around when you must write long reports.

  At least I had the details of the night before in my mind from writing it up in my journal, and reports for Ahuda were much more direct. I spread out my paper and ink and went to work. I left spaces where I would need to add those things done by Goodwin and Tunstall that I had not seen. I'd collect that information later.

  I was nearabout done when Kora brought Achoo and Pounce back. Achoo danced over and gave my hand a small lick. I rubbed her ears gently, touched by her greeting. "The army's everywhere," Kora told me. "You should have a quiet night. Everyone's scared to budge." She nibbled her lip for a moment, then said, "With the army here to keep the peace, all the Lower City bakeries have raised prices. By the time the army goes, folk will be used to the change."

  It was no more than I'd expected. "By how much?"

  "The same as Two for One, mostly. Day-old bread at a copper before now costs two. Fresh bread is three coppers, not two. But worry about that later," she added, striving for cheer. "Look who I found." She opened the door wider to show me Phelan.

  Achoo barked at him and wagged her tail, but she did not go to him.

  He smiled. "I heard you'd been promoted to scent-hound handler."

  Since Achoo was then trying to climb into my lap, I glared at him. "I'm not sure it's a promotion." I looked at the hound. "Since when are you so fond of me?"

  "Tell her dukduk," Phelan said. Achoo went stiff and looked at him.

  It sounded like dook-dook. "What in the Mother's name is that?" I asked. "You frightened her." Achoo looked up at me and whined a little.

  Phelan leaned against the frame of my door. "I didn't frighten her. I just gave one of the commands she's been trained to, but I'm not her handler anymore, so she's confused. Right now, she's decided that person is you, but it's not firm. When we're done teaching you the commands, she'll know you're her handler, though I warn you, she will test you, now and then."

  I looked into Achoo's face. Her hind legs were sliding off my lap. "How splendid for us both." There was something in the way she looked at me, some manner of trust, that made me want never to disappoint her. There is such a clean soul behind this hound's eyes. "Doubtless you'll come to regret it."

  "Dukduk," Kora said thoughtfully. "It sounds foreign – almost like Kyprish." Achoo glanced at her, then whined at me. Seemingly she didn't approve of others using the words that I was supposed to say.

  "It's supposed to be foreign," Phelan told us. "Our trainer, the one who taught Achoo and me when Achoo was a pup, said it's best if we use commands in another language, so the hounds won't hear them all the time. It's better still if we don't say them right. That way even a native speaker won't give the commands the way the hound knows them. You see how she twitches just hearing us say it." Phelan grinned. "My old nursemaid was a raka from the Copper Isles. She said I had no ear for her language at all. If I ever needed to use it, I should just write what I needed to say. Achoo's commands are all in my manner of Kyprish."

  Dukduk. I set it in my memory, then told Achoo, "Dukduk."

  She slid from my lap and sat on the floor, her eyes on me the whole time. It was like magic.

  "Turun – tooroon – is for 'down,' as in, lay down flat," Phelan told me. Achoo looked at him. "You see?" Phelan asked. "She hears me, but she won't obey. She will never obey me again. She's all yours, Beka."

  I rubbed my head. It seems like so much responsibility. Don't I have enough, with my pigeons and my dust spinners? But there sat Achoo, gazing at me with those curst brown eyes. When she saw I looked at her, she wagged her tail, just a little.

  "Turun," I told her. Instantly she lay flat, her paws neatly before her.

  "Shall we go downstairs and work with her a little?" Phelan asked. He pulled a folded square of paper from his pocket and brought it over to me. "I wrote the words and how they're pronounced here. But it would go better if we could go through them once. We'll need things for her to smell. Dirty clothes are best."

  Kora went through my laundry basket as I looked the paper over. "Achoo, kulit," I said, reading the word for "leash" as Phelan had spelled the pronunciation. Achoo trotted to the door and stood on her hind feet to take the lead down from the peg where Kora had hung it. She brought it to me, tail a-wag.

  "She remembers what she's been taught," Phelan said. "She likes to chase butterflies and leaves blowing in the streets, but that doesn't mean she hasn't always known her work." He came over to us and knelt to pet Achoo. "I didn't do well when I left you, did I, girl?" he asked her softly. "But you belonged to the Provost's Guard, not to me."

  Achoo licked Phelan's hands.

  "Right," Phelan said, getting to his feet. "Let's go outside."

  Down the stairs we trooped, our steps loud enough that Rosto shouted for quiet from inside his rooms. Achoo barked at him in reply. I checked my paper for the right command.

  "Diamlah!" I said. That was "quiet."

  "Deeahmlah," Phelan corrected me.

  I glared at him and said it as he'd told me to. Then I added, "Do I need to say 'good girl' in Kyprish?"

  "If you do, someone will think you're gargling bones," Kora murmured. When we looked at her, she gave us her sweetest smile. "I speak Kyprish."

  "Whatever for?" Phelan asked.

  "I just like it," Kora said, and shrugged.

 
Mages are strange.

  We walked around the house to the kitchen garden. "I told you I was bad at it," Phelan told Kora. "Too bad for a mot with such nice taste that mine is the dialect Achoo knows."

  "Dukduk," I told Achoo, and she sat. I tried to remember if anyone had ever done what I told them to do right off. I couldn't think of who it had been if they had.

  "Fix the leash to her collar," Phelan told me. He, Kora, and Pounce sat on my landlady's bench as I did so. Once I'd secured leash to collar around Achoo's throat, Phelan told me, "When the two of you are on duty, most of the time you will need her to walk on the side that doesn't wield the baton. Wrap the rest of the leash around that hand until you have just enough for her to be comfortable walking right behind your elbow on that side – your left, is it?"

  I did as Phelan said and ended with a considerable length of leash about my hand.

  "As you walk forward, give Achoo the command tumit," Phelan told me. "That's 'heel.' She's to walk just behind you, off your leg. She would walk there with a leash or without it if you give that command, but you're both new to this, so you should keep her on the leash to start."

  "Tumit," I said, and walked toward the entry to the garden. Achoo stayed with me as we went out onto the street and returned. We stopped in front of Phelan, Pounce, and Kora. "Dukduk," I said, feeling like a fool who uttered nonsense. But Achoo sat, nonsense words or no.

  We tried "greet" and "friend" on Kora, then "stay" and "wait." Next came "smell," using one of my soiled shirts. I took it out of the yard and hid it in the front hall of the lodging house. Achoo looked at me anxiously when I returned. Seemingly she did not like me leaving her.

  Kora passed me another of my soiled shirts. I held it under Achoo's nose and spoke the order to smell it: "Bau." She gave it a thorough going-over as I gathered her leash in my hand. Then she sneezed. That was how she'd gotten her name – she sneezed when she had a scent. "Achoo, mencari," I told her. "Seek."

  "Put that shirt in your belt," Phelan ordered. "If she loses the scent on the trail, you'll need to use it to give her the scent again." I did as he'd bid me.

  Achoo raised her nose in the air, her nostrils flaring. She looked back and forth, testing each breeze. She came to me and sniffed me from toe to waist.

  "Tell her no," Phelan said. "You want her to find that scent, but not on you."

  "Tak," I told Achoo, fumbling with the page of written commands. "Menean, Achoo."

  She turned, then trotted toward the gate to the street, yanking me after her.

  "You want 'slow' – pelan," called Phelan, laughter in his voice.

  I tugged on the leash. "Pelan, Achoo, all right? Pelan!"

  She stopped on the doorstep of our lodging house. From the look in her eye, she plainly wondered why I couldn't keep up when I only had two legs to manage, not four. In we went. She found my shirt almost instantly. Dragging it from its hiding place, she gave it a terrier's shake, one eye on me as if to see what I would do if she kept shaking it.

  I can't spare any shirts for Achoo toys. I had to make her let go, but I couldn't take it from her. She was trained not to give it up without the right command. I squinted at the paper and cursed the dark hallway. Achoo shook my shirt again and pawed at it.

  "Stop that!" I ordered. "Pox, he doesn't have 'stop' on here. Give! Achoo, memberi!" I held out my hand. "Memberi."

  Achoo hesitated, eyeing me. She shook it again.

  "I said, memberi" I told her. "Don't diddle me, wench."

  She thought it over a moment more, then trotted forward and dropped the shirt at my feet, her tail wagging.

  I looked around. No one was there to see me. I knelt and scratched behind both of her ears, mindful of her sores. "Good girl," I told her softly. "Good hound. Just, no mauling my clothes about, all right?"

  Achoo licked my face.

  "Silly thing," I whispered, touched. Pounce isn't much for animal affection. "Don't do that. Folk will say we aren't tough."

  She licked my face again.

  Back to Phelan, Kora, and Pounce we went. Phelan apologized for forgetting to put the word "stop" on his list. It was berhenti. I had a chance to use it almost immediately when the flock of pigeons descended on us from above. Achoo thought they had come for her. She raced at them, jumping and biting, yanking her leash from my hand. I'd been stupid enough to let my hold on it go loose. That's a bad idea with a hound who likes to chase things.

  "Achoo! Berhenti!" I cried, lunging after her. "Tak, Mithros take you! Berhenti! They're friends – kawan, curse it all, kawan!"

  She halted in mid-leap to stare at me. I suppose in her world no one had ever claimed pigeons as friends before.

  I turned to Pounce. "Will you explain it to her, please?"

  He jumped down from Kora's lap and stretched. Very well. I doubt she will understand about the pigeons if I don't.

  "I'll get the bird food." Kora jumped up and ran into the house.

  "Achoo will be quicker to obey as she gets used to you," Phelan told me. "I see some of her handlers let her get bad habits. She's never had a female to work her, either, that may have sommat to do with it. She has to get accustomed to your voice."

  "I've seen handlers give their hounds treats when they do tricks or work well," I mentioned, watching Pounce talk to Achoo. I couldn't hear anything, so he must have spoken to her in her mind.

  "Ah – thank you for the reminder!" Phelan said. He took a packet from his tunic and opened it for me. It was full of strips of dried meat, each about two inches long. I sniffed them. Unless I was mistaken, they were goat and mutton. "You want to keep plenty of these with you," Phelan told me. "Hounds love to be praised, and they love to be petted and scratched, but a hound loves you best of all if you look after her belly. Reward her with jerked meat – not too much, but then, you're a sensible mot, Beka – and she'll love her work with you. Oh, aye, you know I've brought the treats out, don't you, girl?"

  For a moment I thought he meant me. Then I saw that he spoke to Achoo, who was watching us, her tail wagging. She had seen, or smelled, the meat.

  "Kemari," I said. When she came, I gave her one of the strips. "Good girl," I told her as she gobbled it.

  "Don't give her meat for everything," Phelan warned me. "It's good to start with, but you want to keep it for harder or unusual work."

  I looked at him and sighed. "I'm not a dolt, Phelan Rapp."

  We spent a couple of hours in the garden with Kora, Achoo, and Pounce. Kora had thought to bring my journal with the bird food, so she tended Achoo's sores while I fed pigeons, taking notes from the ghosts who rode them. Then, when we ran out of bread crumbs and corn, Phelan, Achoo, and I went back to work. Phelan explained how the usual hunt went as Achoo and I practiced commands and Kora hid things at greater distances for us to find. Pounce took a seat atop Mistress Trout's chicken coop and napped.

  Phelan also taught me hand signals to show Achoo for when it was too dangerous for us to talk. They were the same as the ones Dogs used for those times, but I had to hold my hand where Achoo could see it to make the open palm for "stop," two flicks of the hand for "guard," and so on. We practiced those several times until I knew them well.

  We halted when it was time for me to get ready to go on duty. I thanked Phelan and even kissed his cheek. "Just remember, she will test you by refusing orders sometimes," he told me before he left. "Don't get angry and shout. Repeat the order in a firm tone. Make certain that she knows you are the head hound in her pack. They have to test their handlers now and then, just to make certain that you are in charge." He rubbed her ears, saluted Kora and me, and ambled off with his hands in his pockets.

  "He misses her, doesn't he?" I asked Kora as we went inside. "Being a handler, and having Achoo."

  "He's got some curs at his rooms, mongrels that he's taken in," Kora said. "But the handlers get attached to their hounds, it's said. The good ones do. They prefer the hounds to any human partner."

  "Well, I doubt I can be as good as Phelan," I t
old Achoo once we were inside my rooms with Pounce. "But doubtless I'll be better than Hempstead."

  When we were about to set out for watch, Pounce refused to climb down from my bed. I must watch the skies tonight, he said. Try to manage without me.

  I put my hands on my hips. "Are you sulking because I have Achoo? I didn't ask for her, you know. And she's hardly the same as a constellation cat."

  I am not sulking because Achoo has joined us, Pounce said. There was enough amusement in his voice that I had to believe him. I do have other concerns that do not revolve around you, Beka. Now, will you argue with me and be late for training?

  I winced. Sergeant Ahuda does not like it when we miss the physical training before our watches begin. "Achoo, tumit," I said. Off we went on our first night as a hound-and-handler pair.

  It did not begin well. I couldn't move as fast as I'd like, with all my bruises and twisted muscles. Worse yet, Achoo decided she was in love with a seller of cooked meat. She nearly dragged me onto his grill. Underweight she might be, but she was strong. The cove laughed himself to tears at the sight of me tangled in her leash. Then he'd added insult to injury by feeding the hound scraps until I untangled myself and got her under control again.

  "I'm the one holding the leash," I told her as I dragged her off. "Not you. We'd best get that straight right now. Tumit!" With no more fuss Achoo trotted beside me as if she hadn't nearly tugged me onto the brazier among the sausages. My arms were one big ache.

  Ahuda sniffed as we entered the training yard. "We'll be lucky if you can walk patrol tonight without falling over," she said, taking in the riot bruises on my face and my all-around stiffness. "So this is the hound, is it?"

  "Achoo, dukduk," I ordered. Achoo sat. "Turun." Achoo lay down in the dust as if she had taken my orders all her life.

  "Hmf." Ahuda stripped off a glove, turned, and threw it across the training ring. Puppies and Dogs scattered to get out of the way. They must have thought that the glove alone might carry some of Ahuda's power to hit.