Bloodhound

by Tamora Pierce

  "Tinggal," I ordered. "And no more mucking about!"

  With a sigh and a look that told me I was a brute to happy-natured hounds, she lay down.

  "Cooper!" Goodwin bellowed. I ran into the house.

  The kitchen was large and well lit, more than enough to serve a house of this size. It should have been easy to move about, but the women of the house had to work around a tiny old man at a table next to the largest hearth fire. Here he shaped silver wire as fine as thread, winding and curling the wire on tiny pegs. The finished creations were designs like lace, made all of silver wire. I couldn't help but stare. The old cove's knuckles were knobby with age, but his fingers were as precise as a fly's feet in handling his tools.

  "Cooper, you gawp like a countrywoman who just saw the King," I heard Goodwin say. She stood next to a mot of her own age who just plain grinned at me. "For your information, that is Master Isanz Finer. This is his daughter, Wenna."

  "Daughter and busybody!" snapped Master Finer without looking up. "Pestilence and scold!"

  "And how would this house run, Da, if I were none of those things?" Wenna asked, seemingly unbothered by his insults. She turned to talk with Goodwin. I stepped out of the way of a manservant carrying a joint of mutton, which brought me closer to the snapping turtle by the hearth.

  "Never seen a real craftsman work in that city of yours, eh, wench?" he asked, still not looking up from his work. He never fumbled or hesitated. Delicate twists and curls formed under his fingers. "A crew of layabouts, charging too much for shoddy work, those Corus smiths! Forget true craft! Make it glitter with some mage potion. They don't care that the work looks drab when the magic wears off. Then they undersell honest craftsmen!"

  I hardly knew what to say. I didn't dare try to defend Corus silversmiths to him. He might bite my nose off.

  "Luckily, Isanz, we aren't here to invite you to Corus," Goodwin said over my shoulder. "Just as well. You'd put our smiths out of business. My partner Cooper and I are on more serious business. May we speak privately?"

  Now he looked at us with eyes that were an amazing shade of green. "Craft is deadly serious to me, you fribbety female! Look at you, back again after you toyed with my poor lad's heart – "

  "Your poor lad is married these ten years and has five children to show for it," Goodwin told him coolly. "He hasn't stopped thanking the Goddess I chose to stay with my husband and keep bashing folk for fun."

  "Da just misses you. None of us argue with him the way you did," Wenna told us. "I've had cakes and drink sent to the little sitting room. Da, I even set out a tankard of Goldenlake ale."

  Isanz put his tools aside and got to his feet. "Why didn't you say so?" He grabbed a knotted walking stick and led the way. Goodwin and I followed him down a short hall to a small room set up with cushioned chairs. There was a table laid with tankards and plates of cakes, and a small brazier to keep the chill off. Isanz and Goodwin had ale, while there was barley water for me. Goodwin must have told Wenna my preference.

  Once the door was closed and Goodwin had taken the first sip from her tankard, Isanz put his down. "You're too senior to have a temporary place here," he told Goodwin, his eyes sharp. "They know of the coles in the capital, don't they? Did the report come from here?"

  Goodwin looked into the tankard as if her answer was a casual one. "The other way around. The Lower City Dogs brought word to the Deputy Provost from Corus. What do you know of coles, Isanz?"

  He cursed. "I sent two of my boys and two of my students to talk to the Watch Commander here in Tradesmen's District. They went representing the lesser silversmiths of Tradesmen's. About a month ago we reported a sharp rise in the coles coming over our counters, and the Watch Commander said he'd take care of it. Then we reported it to the Silversmith's Guild. We've not heard a word from Dogs nor guild since."

  "Which watch?" Goodwin asked.

  "Day, of course. Evening Watch is as crooked as the coastline." Isanz took a swallow of his ale.

  "How long ago?" Goodwin put her tankard down.

  "Ten days. Ten days, and we've taken in more coles. Kept 'em, too, waiting for guild orders to hand them over." Isanz looked at Goodwin, then at me. "If you didn't come about our report, why are you here?"

  Goodwin nodded to me. I placed the cole Goodwin had taken in change from the bank on the table between us and Isanz. "Isanz," Goodwin said, "you know more about the whys and the wherefores of silver than any cove I've ever met. We need to know where the colemongers get their silver."

  The old man's eyes brightened. He picked up the cole.

  "I think it's coming from somewhere that isn't under Crown supervision," Goodwin said. "But where? Are foreigners behind this, destroying our coin to soften us up for invasion? Normal colemongers would keep stores of coin and dole out their coles little by little. They want to get rich, not flood us with false silver and drive the value down. Or do they get silver from inside the country somehow? Either way, we must plug up that end of the operation. You're the cove that can tell us where to look."

  Isanz leaned back in his chair. "Well," he remarked, his voice quiet. He looked from Goodwin to me. "The two of you are on the hunt."

  "We're one part of it," Goodwin said. "But few know Cooper and I are involved, and we want to keep it that way. I doubt they'd think to come to you. But I know you. I think you'll get farther, using your powders and glasses on whatever silver you can melt off this coin, and the ones you've kept, than all the King's mages."

  "Mages! Fah!" Isanz spat on the floor. His daughter would not be happy about that. "You leave it to me. Mages look for influences, and stirrings in power. I look for what is always there."

  "Alone?" I wanted to keep the word to myself, but decided to speak it anyway. This venture was too risky for me to keep quiet. "Will you do this alone, Master Finer?"

  He hesitated. I think he wanted to lie, mayhap from vanity. At last he shook his head. "No. I have a granddaughter and a great-granddaughter I have been training in just this work."

  Now Goodwin looked troubled. "Isanz, I doubt that it's a good idea to bring in more folk than we must. There are too many lives at stake already."

  The old cove sighed. "My eyes are not what they were, Clary." How he could say that, doing the fine silver work I had seen in the kitchen, I do not know. "I am not as sharp with the colors and the fine distinctions."

  "The what?" I asked.

  He glared at me. "Never you mind, mistress! This is my family's secret, mine! I will not be surrendering my craft to one who is not my own blood!"

  Oh, forgive me, Master Snapping Turtle, I thought angrily. I did glare back, even if I was polite and held my tongue.

  "I'll swear my girls to silence, Clary, a second time, since I already swore them to keep my secrets. We will be careful," Isanz told Goodwin after a final glare in my direction. "You ought to get her teaching in curses." He pointed his bony finger at me. "She's got the eyes for it. Now, begone. If I'm to do this, there's preparations I need to make."

  "How long?" Goodwin asked, not moving from her chair. "How long will the work take?"

  "Some days, I think. It's not magic, to be done with a whisk of hands and a poof of smoke!" Now he stood, and we did, too. "I'll send for you – where?"

  Goodwin gave him our direction and kissed his cheek. Then we said our goodbyes to the lady of the house and went into the rear yard to retrieve Achoo. She was actually where I'd left her. I gave her a strip of dried meat for a reward. "Good girl," I whispered to her as she wagged up a small breeze. "Very good girl!"

  Wenna followed us out. "You've done him some good, Clary, I have to say! He's got color in his cheeks, and he's stepping along as if he was sixty again," she told Goodwin as she walked us to the gate. "You'll come back?"

  "Of course," Goodwin said. "But thank Cooper for his improved spirits. Once he'd insulted her a few times, he was in the pink."

  Wenna laughed heartily at this and waved goodbye to us as we passed down the path to the street. Only I coul
d see the worried look on Goodwin's face.

  "Do you think he can keep it quiet?" I asked her softly.

  "I believe so. He used to be as silent as the Black God. The secrets of what he does have come down in his family through generations." She shook her head. "I flinch at gnats, Cooper, that's all. He's surrounded by family, and they are watchful." She rubbed the back of her neck. "To tell the truth, I don't like what I'm seeing here. This town seems like there's rotten money in its veins. I can tell you're thinking the same. How could Sir Lionel keep telling Lord Gershom all is well here?"

  "My lord says Nestor's true to the bone," I told her. "Whatever's going on, it's not under Nestor's nose."

  Goodwin nodded. We were headed toward Deep Water, down the long strip of Tradesmen's District. "So Nestor keeps an eye on South Hills and much of the docks, possibly. But a sergeant's reach only goes so far."

  "Where do we go now?" I asked.

  "The main gaming district. It's called Flowerbed. We might as well get to know it, particularly the alleyways. It's off toward the Deep Harbor District." Goodwin pointed to the part of town opposite, that climbed up toward the city wall at the base of Queen's Heights.

  I figured now was the time to tell her. "Goodwin, we've had company."

  She nodded. "He picked us up near our lodgings. I haven't gotten a good look at his face yet, have you?"

  I shook my head. "A lad, twelve or so, dark brown hair, quick on his feet."

  Goodwin shrugged. "Whoever he watches us for, what can he say? We visited the bank, met with old friends, and now we're walking through the parts of town with shops. In a bit we'll take our noon meal and go back to our lodgings on a different path. I hope he gets blisters."

  "I'd like to know who paid him to watch us," I muttered, stopping to look at a shopkeeper's tray of brooches. A glance to the side showed me no watcher.

  "Whoever it is will be dead bored by the time his day's report is done. Sometimes you want to be followed, Cooper," Goodwin told me. At the next stall she picked up a length of bright yellow cloth and held it up to her cheek. "What do you think?"

  I winced and kept walking.

  We were four blocks past Gerjuoy again when two coves and a mot stepped out in front of us. They wore leather jerkins and were armed with long knives and a trove of hidden daggers. I knew the blades were there by the print the hilts showed against their clothes. Stupid tarses. I sew stones in the hems of my tunics so they hang away from my hidden weapons, and I use flat hilts.

  Goodwin and I both stopped, hands on our batons.

  "Here's a sight to make me eyes go all watery. Two Dogs, as fair as the May, out o' their patch and bein' all careless-like." The talker was the shorter cove, a rusher built like a barrel. "Like they was thinkin' we'd let 'em go any old place."

  "But they're Dogs." The mot had a voice as rough as a corbie's and the black eyes to match. She wore her black hair cropped so short it showed the scars on her head. She might be a former soldier, since many wore their hair cut so. I hope she was ashamed, going from the King's service to being a Rat. "They allus go wherever they want." She sneered as she said it.

  "Stow yer wind, you two," ordered the third of them, a bony cove like a skeleton. He had cold, dead gray eyes that gave me the shudders. If my eyes are like that, no wonder folk don't like them. "You Dogs. Come along wiv us."

  Goodwin eased her feet apart, balancing herself. Behind me I heard the low rumble of Achoo's growl. I was already balanced, my baton gripped in both hands. If these Rats were here to harm us, doing it in Tradesmen's District as the day drew on to noon seemed like idiot work.

  "I don't like the tone of your invitation," Goodwin replied. "And my old mother told me never to go along with strangers."

  Achoo turned. Her growl got louder. I risked a look around. Three more rushers, all coves, came up from behind. I swung to face them, setting my back to Goodwin's. Achoo stood just off my left hand, head down and hackles up. For a dog of middling size, she looked dangerous.

  "Guardswomen, please, let's not have this fuss and bother." A doxie past her prime came forward. Her face was painted white. Her eyes were lined with black paint and shaded with blue. Her dress was a shrieking shade of green, her hair a dyed red that nearabout blazed. "I beg pardon for my rough friends. I got a rock in my shoe and they came ahead of me. They never thought I might be wanting to use my silken gloves, and not the leather ones." She patted the arm of the rusher who stood in front of me. "Never you mind their rudeness. The truth is, I come from Her Majesty Pearl Skinner." She looked at us and cocked her head to one side in a way that was mayhap winning, ten or twenty years ago. "Pearl Skinner? The Rogue of Port Caynn?"

  Goodwin shifted slightly so she might keep an eye on the mot's face. "And why should this make us any more eager to go along with you?" she asked.

  The doxie smiled. "Because you want to know what our Rogue might have to say to a pair of visiting Dogs. She gives you her word, in the name of the Great Mother Goddess, that you will be safe."

  Goodwin looked at me. I looked at her. We shrugged at the same time and put our batons away. We could have fought. Sooner or later the local Dogs would have come and put a stop to it. These rushers might have gone to the cages for a short while before the Rogue got them out again. We'd go about our business, until we got trapped in an alley or picked off one by one, to get beaten or killed quietly someplace with no witnesses.

  "Achoo, tumit," I said.

  "Lovely creature," the doxie said. She meant it not at all. "Follow me."

  I glanced back as they led us down an alley off the main street. I saw the flick of a brown tunic as our watcher twitched out of sight. He was still on our track, then, and he didn't belong to the Rogue of Port Caynn.

  We turned down a smaller street, then into another alley. Halfway along, once the rushers made sure no one was close enough to see, we took a set of steps down into the cellar of what looked like an abandoned house. Achoo whimpered.

  "Hush," I told her. Achoo looked at me with sorrow, as if to say, "You like entering strange, dark places?"

  "Here's the tricky part for you, but you've still got Her Majesty's word," the doxie told Goodwin and me. Two of the rushers were taking torches from a pile inside the cellar door. "You have to take the blindfold."

  I clenched my fists.

  "Do it. How often do you get to meet the Rogue of Port Caynn?" Goodwin asked. She let them slip a dark scarf over her eyes. "Don't touch the hound, you lot. She'll have your throat out."

  "Achoo, gampang" I said, bending to grip Achoo's collar. I kept my eyes down, not wanting to see Rats hood Goodwin like the nobles do their hawks. That's how I saw the movement of her hand as she gripped her belt. I'd forgotten the blade she kept there, disguised as part of the buckle.

  I ground my teeth as they blindfolded me. In my trunk at Serenity's are my arm guards, which are reinforced on the outside with thin strips of metal. Those strips are in truth knives. I'd not worn my arm guards today, thinking we were out on easy errands. The problem with forgetting my training lessons is that one of these days the penalty will be fatal. As it was, all I had now were my back of neck and back of belt knives and my boot knives, all tricky to reach without drawing attention.

  A rusher led me by one arm. I heard Achoo trotting at my other side. From the sounds, I could tell we'd entered a tunnel. Then we passed into a second tunnel, and into a huge, echoing chamber filled with the sound of rushing water. It stank like a sewer, though not as bad as some. This one must have gotten flushed out regular by the sea. I could smell salt water as well as scummer.

  Then we climbed a set of stairs, crossed a small room, and climbed yet more stairs. At the top of that second stair, our blindfolds were stripped from us. As we blinked in the torchlight, the doxie put her hand on the door latch. "I'll announce you," she said. "Mind that hound. Her Majesty likes well-behaved creatures." She went into the next room.

  "And I like Rats to leave me be," Goodwin said, pulling away from th
e cove and the mot who gripped her wrists.

  The skinny cove, the shivery one, raised his hand. "Shut yer gob and mind yer manners, hedgecreeper," he told her.

  In a flash she had her knife at his eyes. She had her other hand dug firm into his gems. His knees buckled. His face turned red in the dim light. I swung in behind her, my baton out. I thrust it into the gullet of the mot who was about to seize Goodwin. Pressing down on her windpipe, I backed the mot up to the wall and held her there.

  "Achoo, lindengi," I said. My hound was already on Goodwin's other side, hackles up, lips skinned back. The other four rushers looked at us and held their hands up, palms out. It's amazing how scared folk are of a hound when she shows her teeth.

  "I'll mind what manners I choose to mind, toad scummer, and you'll tell me 'please' and 'thank you' for them," Goodwin said to the bony cove. "What kind of Dogs do you kennel here, that you pieces of nose sweet think you can drag me and my partner all over the streets?"

  "Rogue's orders, Guardswoman," the barrel-built rusher said, his voice very soft. "You know how life is. Bring 'em fast, she told us."

  One of the others added, "'A course, some of us allus got to add a bit o' sauce t' the job." He nodded to the skinny rusher who was still in Goodwin's grip.

  The doxie opened the door again. She went still when she saw how things had changed since she'd left. At last she said, "Getting to know each other? It's lovely, but I'm sure Her Majesty don't mean to keep you here that long. If you'll come with me, she will see you."

  Goodwin lingered, still looking at the bony cove. She sheathed her knife first, then released his gems. She wiped her fingers on her hip. "Come at me again, laddybuck, and I'll leave a hole big enough you can wear a bangle in them, understand me?"

  I holstered my baton. "Achoo, good girl. Tumit." Following the doxie, Goodwin and I left the room. The rushers who were close to the door stood aside.

  The room inside might have been part of a countinghouse or a warehouse once. It had been made nice, with benches, chairs, and tables. There was a bar against the far wall. Folk there waited in line for the tapster to fill their tankards. The place was lamp lit. I saw no windows. The door to what might be a kitchen was beside the bar. A second door, likely to lead to the privies, was in the same wall. Folk kept walking in through it adjusting their belts. A third door to my left was guarded by a couple of good-sized rushers. Next was the door we'd come through, and then a door was next to the hearth in that same wall. Two staircases led upward. There were plenty of holes these Rats could use to escape.