Terrier

by Tamora Pierce

In the end I bought her two meat pasties. She gave me six more pins for the map.

  I was so maddened once I added Mother Cantwell’s Snake attacks to my map that I did not wish to write tonight up at all. This journal keeping is harder than I expected. Mastering my thoughts demands time. There is always mending or cleaning to be done. I feel like my walls grow mold with all the pigeon scummer that collects around my window. And the mice will move in if I do not sweep up all the corn and bread crumbs and breakfast leavings every day.

  Pounce will not lower himself to catch mice. He calls them “little brothers” and says he will not take other creatures’ lives when he is so well fed. I threaten to starve him. I tell him this is why his mother cat threw him from her litter when he was but a kitten, because she knew he was unnatural.

  All he has to do is walk forward with his whiskers pointed to me and jump on my shoulders and purr like thunder in my ear. I forgive him and find a treat for him.

  Enough. I came home to put Mother Cantwell’s six on my map, though I broke one of the pins when I struck it too hard out of fury. Two children returned to their families alive. One was in her teens, the oldest so far, but her mama had a gold brooch and no other children to take. The gixie had been hooded the whole time and never saw the Snake or his helpers.

  “So it’s that he takes the easiest, or the most lovable, or one so young the slave sellers won’t buy ‘em so the family wants to keep them for a time at least.” I said it to Pounce and to the pigeons and their moaning ghosts on my sill, since no one else was about. Despite the dark I had my shutters open to air the smell of strong soap from my rooms. “Mayhap the Snake prefers children because he knows folk are likely to still care about their little ones. Even if they just mean to sell them later, they’ll care about any coin they might bring in.”

  Sensible, Pounce said. Not at all pleasant, but most sensible.

  “I don’t think the Snake can even spell the word ‘pleasant,’” I said.

  Two children were returned alive, then, because their families believed the Snake’s notes. Three children of Mother’s reported six were found dead. As near as I could tell, they were taken in that first year when no one believed the Snake was real. And one child was still missing.

  I drew up a list of what I had on a precious sheet of paper. I can’t show my journal to Tunstall and Goodwin tomorrow. They will want a written account of the names of them that was taken, the prices asked and paid for them, the home they came from, and where the child was found, if ever. I’ve added green wax to the pins that mark what turned out to be false reports. I made certain I wrote them down, too.

  Once that was done, I settled to sewing. Aniki and Kora aren’t very good at it. I’m not Diona or Lorine, but no girl raised by my lady Teodorie is bad with a needle. To thank my new friends for helping me when I was sick, I’ve taken over their mending. I’d begun work on my third of Aniki’s shirts – does she gnaw the shoulder seams with her teeth? – when Ersken and Verene ran up my stairs.

  “Dormice have a better time than you!” I heard Verene cry from below. “It’s our lone day f’r fun, you’re not sick, and the fan makers are havin’ a dance! They love it when Dogs come!”

  Ersken banged on my door. “Let’s go, Beka,” he called. “All the off-duty Puppies from our class will be there. You can hide behind us and still get a look at the new summer fans.”

  I hadn’t seen most of our class since the day we ended training. We’d all promised to stay friends and talk often, but I’ll wager that they’re near as tired as we are when their watches are done. I wanted to see them and hear what their first two weeks were like.

  Besides, maybe they’d heard of the Snake.

  “Let me put on a dress,” I yelled.

  When I got to my feet, Pounce curled up on the mending and went to sleep.

  Wednesday, April 15, 246

  At day’s end.

  When I told my Dogs about Snake seeking, after muster, and showed them my list, they demanded to see the map on my wall. Goodwin stared at it for the longest time, while Tunstall read the list. I had made some changes to it after breakfast this morning. Phelan gave me three more additions, Rosto two. It’s getting so my belly knots with each new pin.

  I opened my shutters to let in as much of what remained of the sun as possible, as well as lit my lamps. Of course the pigeons came to see if I had aught for them. I swear they keep a watch on my place. I laid out bread for them but kept an eye on my Dogs.

  “What’s this scratched out?” Tunstall asked, pointing to the list.

  “Kora found out last night the lad was taken, but it was his father’s people,” I said. “He and his papa are with the Bazhir. Seemingly they want none of their blood raised outside their tents. So I crossed him off.”

  “Ah.” Tunstall passed the paper to Goodwin.

  She asked, “What are these red spirals on the map?”

  “Dust spinners,” I said. My hands were damp with sweat. “I thought I should mark them down.”

  Goodwin stood aside to let Tunstall look closer at the map. She read my list. Behind me a pigeon cried of her wedding day being near. She didn’t see how she could have gone walking home one night and never got there. My guess was that whoever killed her caught her from behind.

  Go away, I thought to her as I watched my Dogs. I can only think of one or two things at a time. Crookshank’s people are out there to hire more diggers, if they’re not hired already. That’s one thing. The Shadow Snake is two.

  When I dreamed of being a Dog, I never believed this would be my fate. I never believed there might just be too many hurt by bad folk for me to seek.

  “One at a time, Beka,” my lord told me once. “We hobble them one at a time, like all mortals do.”

  “My lord does it this way for cases that reach across the realm,” Tunstall said, poking the map with his thumb. “We’ve seen these maps in his study, right, Clary? And we told Ahuda we could use maps like this. We’re all taught the memory tricks, to keep news straight in our own minds.” He was thinking aloud. “But for something as twisty as the Snake case, going back three years with no one keeping track…This could show a pattern. Mayhap use pins to mark where the payment is left. He likes shrines. Plenty of folk coming in and out, priests serving from the temples, not living there. He knows the shrines well, the Snake.”

  I can get white wax to mark the shrines. I never realized the places where the Snake collected the payment might be important. I’ve just been looking at who gets taken and where they’re taken from.

  “Cooper, did you ever think this might offend us?” Goodwin asked. “That we’d think you are trying to teach us our jobs?”

  My tripes turned to water. It was one of those gooseflesh moments. I’d feared only that they might laugh at my map. I never meant to anger them!

  I stammered a lot of things. I think I mentioned seeing maps at my lord’s house. Mayhap I said my friends go everywhere. I’m sure I said I never meant it to look like I thought I knew better than the likes of Goodwin and Tunstall.

  Goodwin sighed. “Cooper, you’re eager, and you’re quick-witted. You did this because my lord does it. We’ve been in his house, so we know that. And it’s as well for you that you told us about this. But it’s one thing to know aught in your head, and another to know it from the street. There’s Dogs with clouds for brains that can sniff out a robber because they learned to on the street. And they’re the ones as will bite your arm off if you go poking around – as they would see it – behind their backs.”

  “But it’s a fine idea,” Tunstall said. “And you do have Birdies, feathered and human. Most Puppies don’t. Most Puppies don’t live with three young folk on the rise in the Court of the Rogue, either.”

  “Do us paper sketches of the map,” Goodwin said. “With the markings.” She gave me a silver noble. “That should pay for paper for a while. Let me know when you run out. Report to us each day. For your day off we’ll give you our maps so you can mark them
current. And remember, you’re a Puppy. Gather word only. All information comes to us.”

  I was so relieved I could but nod. The hardest part of Dog work for me – apart from not getting my head kicked in – is knowing how folk will bounce. I wish I could see or hear what people think. Mayhap then I’d never step wrong. This time I’d got lucky, thank the Goddess. Next time, maybe not.

  “Now, these dust spinners of yours. Tunstall saw you talk to one,” Goodwin said. “I want to see it, too. Is there anything that prevents you from taking us to one now?”

  Of course there wasn’t. I rushed to close the shutters and to collect some of the street dirt I brought to my spinners as presents.

  “But we’re on Nightmarket, Clary,” Tunstall said.

  “Nightmarket can wait for an hour,” she told him.

  I blessed Granny Fern. I’d stepped on the edge of thin ice. Gods alone knew how deep I might’ve sunk if I’d put off telling my Dogs what I was doing for much longer. It really would have looked like I meant to go behind their backs if I’d done so in a couple of weeks or a month.

  Off we went to visit Hasfush. Without the burden of nine dead people screaming within him, he had shrunk to just five feet tall. As the sun faded, there was barely enough light to show him up. My Dogs didn’t see him until I pointed out the small, upside-down cone of stirred air that was his foot at the corner of Stormwing and Charry Orchard.

  I stepped inside his circle and released the gift of dirt I’d brought for him. Instantly Hasfush filled my ears with several days’ worth of gabble. I apologized in whispers for not coming around sooner. It’s hard to explain work to a creature that just exists without needing coin to live on or aught to do with himself.

  When he’d forgiven me, he let go of all he’d picked up. I heard songs, fights, whingeing, laughter, baby wails and giggles, whispers. Somehow bird and dog noises and the clop of horses’ hooves never stick to spinners. Nature’s sounds just fall away from their winds. I hear every bit of human cackle, though. I sorted it as I always had, ignoring what was too blurred or nonsensical to work through. There was nothing about the Shadow Snake there, nothing. And nothing about fresh diggers hired for wells in the Lower City.

  There was something of importance, though. I walked out of Hasfush to say, “A dancer was murdered just a bit ago on Emerald Street, over in Flash District. Him as did it still has got her blood on him and her bells in his pocket. From what he told his friends in the Daymarket, he’s coming this way. He’s bound for the Court of the Rogue.”

  Tunstall and Goodwin hesitated, looking at each other.

  Pounce, on patrol with us as ever, scolded, You either believe her or you don’t. Decide!

  I don’t know if they understood him. But Tunstall put his whistle to his lips. He blew the call for two more pairs of Dogs and one of the four-legged kind. Phelan and his partner were the soonest to arrive, with their scent hound Achoo. They’d named her for her habit of sneezing when she got a scent. Achoo was a pert, medium height mongrel with tight-curled fur, amber in color. It was said that button-eyed Achoo’s nose was so keen she could track a mouse in a flooded sewer.

  Achoo backed up when she saw Pounce. My cat just blinked at her, waiting. Bit by bit Achoo crept up until they touched noses. Then she sneezed, twice. Her tail began to wag. Pounce jumped back when his new friend tried to wash him.

  “I’ve never seen the like,” Phelan’s partner muttered. “She ran from the last five cats she met. Since that ragged-ear tom clawed her on the nose…”

  Phelan shrugged. “Pounce isn’t every other cat,” he said, hands dug in his breeches pockets.

  “We’re not even sure he’s a cat,” Tunstall muttered to Goodwin. “I say he’s a god, shape-changed.”

  Pounce meowed, Do I look as stupid as a god to you?

  Tunstall turned his head to give Pounce an owl-like blink. For a moment I feared Tunstall had understood my dreadful cat.

  “This is sweet, but Springbrook and Evermore had best arrive soon,” Goodwin said, her voice cold. “If they’re canoodling on watch again, Ahuda’s going to hear about it. They should have come before Achoo, shouldn’t they, girl? Since you and your handlers came from farther off?”

  Achoo, knowing Goodwin liked her, wagged her tail and barked.

  The two remaining Dogs arrived at the trot, looking winded. “Delivering Rats to the collector,” Evermore said, panting. Springbrook shared her flask with him. “Sorry.” He gulped from the flask, spilling water over his chin.

  “Come on, Achoo,” Phelan said. He let out the lead so the scent dog could put her nose to the ground. “What have you got? She’ll scent the worst thing,” he said, looking at me. “If your Birdie was right and someone tracked blood through here, she’ll – ah!”

  Achoo sneezed over and over, then growled. She had something she didn’t like. Off she went, straight into an alley. She took us up through the very gates of the Court of the Rogue. Goodwin and Tunstall didn’t hesitate, even though the tradition was that Dogs shouldn’t hobble Rats inside the Court. They just followed Achoo and Phelan through the gate. The rest of us went in after them, our batons ready.

  The guards stood aside. They would not interfere with Dogs on a hunt, even here. They would not risk blood with us.

  We followed Achoo straight into Kayfer’s throne room. There he sat with his chiefs and his foot kissers. A cove knelt before Kayfer, sobbing. Achoo raced straight up to him and barked furiously.

  Tunstall hauled the weeping cove to his feet. We all could see the blood on his tunic. “I didn’t mean to kill Esseny,” the killer cried, his nose running. “I didn’t mean it!”

  “Esseny the Lily?” Goodwin asked. “That’s who you murdered?”

  “You know her, then. You know how beautiful she is.” The cove fumbled at Goodwin’s shoulders. “But she didn’t love me anymore,” he said. “She told me she would love me forever, but – she didn’t.”

  “She was fifteen, you scummer,” Goodwin told him, grabbing one of his wrists. She twisted it up behind him, using the leverage to force him to his knees. “Forever is eight months long when you’re fifteen.”

  Tunstall looked at Kayfer on his barrel and crate throne. “Will you interfere?” he asked the Rogue. The other four Dogs and I formed a half circle facing the court, our batons at the ready. Goodwin had the killer in one hand, her baton in the other. “Is this mumper worth a fight?”

  With my back to the throne, I couldn’t see the Rogue. I heard the chill in his voice when he spoke at last. “He’s not one of my sworn people. An eighth off this week’s Happy Bag and I’ll even have my rushers help you cart him out.”

  The killer wailed.

  “We’ll cart him,” I heard Tunstall reply. “You’ve got your eighth off, but we’ll do the calculations. Your people can watch.”

  I heard steps and the spitting that meant they’d struck the bargain. Then there were more steps and the scraping sound of boots on the floor. While I listened to that, I kept my eyes on Dawull’s table.

  Dawull spun a dagger on his fingertip. He didn’t seem to care that the Rogue had just turned a cove over to the Dogs. I saw other folk of the Rogue stir, but no one would speak against Kayfer, not for someone who didn’t belong to the Court.

  Just so had Kayfer ignored the pleas of the folk who’d lost children to the Shadow Snake when they came to him for help. Aniki glanced at me. Then she turned to whisper to the cove who’d drawn his sword on us at the Fog Lantern the week before. That fellow sat with his fists clenched on the table, a look of plain disgust on his face. Because we were there? Or because Kayfer had surrendered a man who’d asked his help and Dawull had said nothing?

  I spat on the floor on the way out. It didn’t take the bad taste from my mouth. I’m glad we took the murdering scut without a fight, but did Kayfer care about nothing but coin? The Rogue is supposed to look after the folk of his Court at the very least.

  You’re counting the price of a free meal, I keep telling
myself. Be sensible!

  Off we all went, back to the Lower City. The other Dogs took our killer in to a collection cage, and we went on to the Nightmarket.

  Now that I am home, I have swollen feet and a sore back from chasing after minnows and forcing them to hand over their thievings. Tomorrow I must start work on copies of the maps for Goodwin and Tunstall.

  Friday, April 17, 246

  Maps are harder than they look. I wasted three pieces of paper before I figured out I should try first on a slate. That is what I have done yesterday and today, apart from my watches. My fingers cramp when I so much as grasp a pen.

  Sunday, April 19, 246

  After my watch.

  Now I have the trick of drawing so I can get the whole map in the right amount of space. It took a lot of chalk and erasing. I am still working on the maps. It is why I have not written in my journal. I believe tomorrow I can risk working on paper again. I have spent more coin on colored inks.

  This afternoon a mot came into the kennel as we arrived for training. I lagged behind because I’d seen her yesterday morning. She’d talked to Kora on Glassman Square over the laundry tubs. I might never have noticed them, except I passed them on my way to visit my Cesspool dust spinners. She and Kora had been sitting there, heads together like sisters.

  Mayhap I was jealous. Me and Kora have been going out a lot of late, talking to folk that have been bit by the Shadow Snake. So I remembered this mot. Her walking into the kennel, her eyes glassy, was a shock.

  She went straight up to the Day Watch Sergeant’s desk. “I done it,” she said, her voice loud. “I had a man in my eye, a new fellow, fine and handsome, only he never wanted no children, and I had me a little lad. I tried to get my man to move in, sent the lad out to play when he’d visit me, but he wouldn’t allow for it. Said he wasn’t meant to live with little ones. So one night I took the blanket and I put it over my boy’s face until he stopped breathin’. Then I snuck ‘im to the river in a basket and slid ‘im in for the god Olorun to take to the sea for the Wave Walker’s mercy. I told the neighbors the Shadow Snake had ‘im. I wept and wept and wept because I knowed I done a terrible thing, but my man is livin’ with me now.”