Beka Cooper 1 - Terrier

by Tamora Pierce

  "Thanks." I gave the disk back. He'd just saved me three coppers' worth of laundering. "Appreciate it. I don't owe you anything, though."

  He waved that aside. "Look, Cooper, I insulted you, offering a noble last night – I see that now. I was naughty."

  I glanced at him sidelong and waited. Pounce wandered over. He stood on his hind legs, stretching until his paws were braced on Rosto's thigh. Then he flexed his claws, hooking them into Rosto's leggings.

  "Look here, you, whoever you are, I am not a scratching post." Rosto crouched, taking care not to startle Pounce into ripping his clothes. Gently he rubbed my cat's ears. Then Rosto looked up at me, his dark eyes wicked. "A noble and a half."

  I nibbled on my lip, then said carefully, "You don't want to know bad enough, I suppose. Pity."

  Rosto made a face like he'd eaten some rotten onion. "Two silver nobles. It had better be worth it."

  I thought about driving the price higher, just to prove I could. Then I decided not to get greedy. After all, we didn't know what the stones were. "Pay up."

  Pounce turned out of Rosto's hold and jumped to my shoulder.

  "Interesting cat, he is." Rosto reached over to scratch Pounce's chin again and let two silver nobles slide into my fingers so no one could see.

  "Rough, sparkling stones, very colorful, tucked in reddish rock like the kind you find all over the Lower City," I told him softly. "My Dogs have never seen any like them. We had another stone like these. Crookshank's grandson gave it to his wife, who's a friend of mine. My Dogs will find a mage to see what they are." I wondered if I should tell him Fulk had tried to steal the first stone. I chose not to. He'd only paid to know what he'd stolen from Crookshank, after all.

  "Stones that two experienced Dogs can't name? That's a curiosity. This Lower City of yours is all tied in knots, you know." Rosto looked down at me. "You take care, Cooper, before you get strangled."

  "I'm not a cove who's a bit too interesting and a bit too fast at Kayfer's Court," I said. But Rosto was on his way already, whistling a jig. I wished I'd thought to ask if he'd sworn to one of the Rogue's chiefs or not.

  I looked at the sun. Perhaps if I rushed, I could still see my pigeons as well as the spinners.... No. It was near eleven o'clock. Dust spinners it was. Pigeons are everyday birds who leave scummer on my clothes and puke on me sometimes when I cut thread from their feet. Dust spinners are magic. They're exciting. Some corners always have a whirlwind of dust, leaves, and bits of this and that. Even on days when there's no breath of air anywhere else, the spinners will be stirring on their cobbles. They won't cool folk off on those hot days, though. Their touch is always dry as bone.

  They don't only pick up solid things. They gather talk that comes their way. With work and thought the information I collect from them is useful. Best of all, I don't have to give them bribe money from my wages. The spinners are happy to give up their burden of talk for nothing. The weight of our joys and sorrows, even in the small bits carried to them by the city breezes, bears them down. They can hand that burden over to me and be free, at least for a time.

  I can't see them all in one day, of course. I try to get to them all once a week. Today I went to those of the Lower City. I started with Shiaa, the dust spinner just a block from me at the corner with Koskynen Street. She's lively, spilling all kinds of talk straight from the slave markets into my ears as she tugs at my tight-braided hair and my well-tucked clothes. I'd brought her grit from Charry Orchard Street so she'd have something new to taste. She liked that. I memorized what she'd given me to go over later, then went to see Aveefa at Messinger and Skip. She usually collected the talk of the Northgate Guards and travelers. For her I had grit from the Jane Street kennel.

  I could see Hasfush as I approached the corner of Charry Orchard and Stormwing. He was eight feet tall, the biggest I'd ever seen him, and solid gray. Something was wrong. The spinners hate to do anything that might make folk think they're more than just bits of wind at corners. My tripes clenched. Pounce yowled.

  "I don't like it, neither," I told him. "But there's only one way to know what's bothering him." I gritted my teeth and stepped into Hasfush.

  My ears filled with cries for mercy. They were cut off with dreadful sounds. I had heard murder done in my visits with the dust spinners, but never so many at once. No wonder Hasfush had picked up all the dirt and litter he could, to stop more sounds from entering his sides. I hadn't seen him in, what, two weeks?

  "I'm sorry, old fellow," I whispered as he dropped the mess he'd picked up to protect himself. "I've been starting a new life." Guilt was pricking me. I hadn't been that far from here last night – but no. I'd been off chasing Orva before I would have come any closer.

  I opened the bit of cloth I'd carried my gift of Rovers Street grit in and let it trickle to the ground, thinking. Sorting out the sounds, I decided there had been seven killings, maybe eight or nine if some sounds covered more than one death at a time. People disappear all the time in the Cesspool, but not like this. Moreover, it must have been very recent. Elsewise the pigeons would have told me. So seven, eight, or mayhap nine had been killed, for what? The killers had been professionals. They'd said nothing at their bloody work. Before Hasfush had blocked out more of what they did, they'd begun to dig. Grave and killing ground were the same. They were upwind of Hasfush.

  How could I tell my Dogs? Was there a way to shake up a few Rats here in the Cesspool? Surely someone had heard of folk gone missing.

  Wake up, Fishpuppy! said a scornful voice in my head. Half the Cesspool could go missing and folk would make it their business not to notice!

  The spinner at the corner of Holderman and Judini held more screams and deaths. These were fainter, being downwind of Hasfush, thank the Goddess. I forced myself to walk up Holderman to the spinner who lived where Holderman crossed Stormwing. That spinner was across from Hasfush, in the same wind. It was dreadful to hear the murders again, almost as strong as Hasfush had heard it, but I was rewarded despite my fear.

  "You three tell a living soul of what you have done, even your fellow guards, and you will join the dead." The voice was silky and female. "When I clasped your hands at the start, when you hired on, I put a mage mark on each of you. Talk of this, and you'll want to lop your own hand off before you die."

  Seven to nine dead folk buried where they fell, I thought as I turned my steps toward home. Add to them three killers with mage marks on their hands, fatal ones. And a woman who's a mage. How can I tell my Dogs about this so they might take it serious? It would help if they already knew folk are missing from the Cesspool, if those missing folk didn't just vanish as so many people do. If those folk have names and families who seek them.

  So deep in thought was I that Pounce had to claw my shoulder (startling me nearly out of my boots) for me to hear someone call loudly, "Cooper."

  I spun around, yelping as Pounce dug in. Tunstall stood behind me, wearing a cityman's dark brown tunic and leggings. Off duty, he wore a sword as well as a dagger. He knew better than to walk out unarmed.

  "Cooper, did you get street muck in your ears? I've been calling you for the last block." He looked me over and raised his brows. "Puppy, what have you been rolling in?"

  I looked at myself while Pounce insulted him. There was grit on my shirt and breeches. Leaves and other trash stuck to my clothes. My hands were smeared with dirt. I felt my hair and pulled away a twig.

  "I'll wait while you change," Tunstall said. "Wake up, Cooper. Our work doesn't end with the watch. Do you want to learn what those sparklers are? We're going to talk to a mage. A good one."

  "I'll hurry," I said, and walked home as fast as my poor legs would take me. The clocks were chiming two. I might well not make it back before it was time to train, so I tucked my Dog's gear in my pack, changed shirts, and brushed off my breeches. I washed my face and hands and combed out my hair. Dirt and clutter fell to the floor. I'd never come away so filthy from the spinners before. Upset as they were, I couldn't be surp
rised.

  Ready to go, I looked at Pounce. He stared at me, purple eyes slits, as if he was thinking, Are you going to tell me I may not come?

  I opened the door and bowed for him to leave before me. He trotted past, tail high like a victory flag. At least I'd spared myself the shame of having him appear when I'd sworn I'd left him behind.

  Tunstall let us walk alongside him for a block or so before he said, "I followed you for a while. You stood inside dust spinners. Everyone else avoids them. Most people think they're bad spirits. But you stood in one, your face turned up as if you were happy to be there."

  I stared at the muck under my feet, my brain scrabbling for something to say. Time stretched, too much for it to seem as if I did anything but refuse to answer a Senior Dog.

  Tunstall put a hand on my shoulder. "Tell me when you invent a good lie, Cooper." His voice was kind. "Or if you respect me, the truth. The truth is better if it's something me and Goodwin ought to know. Elsewise, keep it to yourself. We all have our odd habits. I have a little garden I keep in window boxes in my rooms."

  I gawped at him. Tunstall just doesn't seem like the gardening sort.

  "Oh, yes," he said with a nod. "It's soothing. I grow miniature roses. A Yamani friend taught me. Red ones and yellow ones, the size of your little fingernail. Even a normal fellow like me has a surprise or two." He took out a toothpick and turned it over in his fingers. "You're not limping as bad as I expected."

  "I had an ointment, sir," I mumbled.

  He led us onto Jane Street. It was busy with the carts that supplied the businesses of the Daymarket. We kept to the high stone walkway that lifted us clear of most of the splashings. Even though we didn't wear our uniforms, everyone gave us clear passage. From the way many of them looked at him, I think they knew Tunstall, or there was something about him that said "Provost's Dog."

  He tucked the toothpick into a pocket. "The spinner. Is it like Mistress Noll said, that night we went to Crookshank's? She told us your grandda and da had strange magic with birds, and pigeons follow you. Is it like that? Or does it just feel good?"

  I swallowed. He was my training Dog. "The spinners collect things that folk have spoken, the really hurtful things, the wondrous things, the big things that get caught on breezes."

  Tunstall halted to stare at me. "For true?"

  Three people dodged around us. The third was a big fellow, even bigger than Tunstall. He opened his gob like he was about to say sommat. Tunstall's head snapped up. He stared at the bigger cove with no feeling in his eyes whatever. The big man blinked, then hesitated. Tunstall shifted the tiniest bit.

  The other cove hurried on his way.

  I thought to memorize just how Tunstall had looked and moved so that I could do the same. Then I gave it up. I was no owl of six-odd feet in height. And for all of Tunstall's humor, he had a deadly look.

  "I hear all manner of things in the spinners," I told him, to answer his question. "Mostly nonsense. Not always."

  He drew me against a shop's wall so folk could get by. "Do they listen? Do they know you hear?"

  I shook my head. "They're just happy I carry it away. It's like weight to them. They don't want it."

  I watched him as he went to tap the end of a baton he wasn't carrying. I wondered if I'd do the same after years as a Dog.

  "Did you hear anything of use today, Cooper?"

  I licked my lips. This was a great matter, not passing bits to my lord Gershom, but using them on my own account. "Three spinners heard at least seven folk doused one or two nights back. They're buried secret where they were killed. Mots and coves alike. Them that killed them are mage-marked. If they talk, they die. I heard the mage tell them that – a woman mage."

  Tunstall began walking again, rubbing his chin. I had to step double to keep up. "No names, no faces, just seven folk. We don't know where they're buried. They've just vanished. Cooper, ten times that vanish from the Cesspool any night of the week. Run off, die."

  I nodded. It sounded like a mumper's brag – all noise, no coin. "But those folk go one at a time, not all together." I had to say it, even if I half choked to do it.

  Pounce leaped to Tunstall's shoulder and delivered a good scolding in cat. I was afraid Tunstall might dump him in the street muck. Instead he began to laugh. "Master Pounce, give us names or a place to dig, and we've somewhere to start," he said. "We'll tell Goodwin. We'll talk with our Birdies and ask around. Mayhap someone out there knows more of this story, if your spinners didn't just blend tales together. Magic is a chancy thing, Cooper." He looked at me sidelong. "When you led my Lord Provost to the Bold Brass gang, you may have been only eight, but you knew to track a man, not whispers on the wind. That's what good Dog work is. Rumors and what your Birdies say are useful, but in the end it's the Dog work that matters."

  I nodded as I looked at the ground. He was right, as far as it went. He didn't know the pigeons served the God of the Dead. And mayhap he didn't know it took Dog work to seek out the voices heard by a spinner as well as it did to chase down a scummernob who thought he could smash any woman he liked.

  Tunstall went on, "My lord Gershom didn't place you with Goodwin and me. Ahuda did that, though gods forbid anyone say she's got a soft spot for you. But I wasn't brokenhearted to have you with us. I always wanted a Puppy. It's Clary who needs convincing. She always fusses over what's new. I was startled you picked the Lower City, though. Being my lord's foster daughter, you could have gotten any district you asked for."

  I shrugged. "It's what I understand," I mumbled.

  "With your chances, I'da picked Unicorn District, or Prettybone. Hold up, Puppy. We're here."

  "Here" was the Gem Merchants' Guild Hall in the Daymarket. The windows were barred, with magic symbols writ around them and on the bars themselves. Signs were even carved into the stone walls. The doors were solid oak with iron fittings bespelled in their turn. Tunstall took me to the front entrance.

  "Who's that?" One of the guards swung her ax down to block Pounce's way. Pounce clearly had it in mind to vex the great dolt. He batted at the ax as if it was a toy, then leaped over it as if it was three times as big.

  "It's our cat," Tunstall said. "We've heard you've a terrible mouse problem. Our cat is so excellent he'll do for all your mice and some of your bigger rats, too. Don't bother to thank us." Tunstall scooped up Pounce. Then he smiled. In some strange way all the friendliness in his manner until that moment vanished with his smile. "We're on the King's business, and you know my face. This is Guardswoman Cooper, my partner. We've an appointment with Jungen Berryman."

  He called me "Guardswoman"!

  "Let 'em go," the man on duty told his partner. "I know Tunstall. And Berryman'll just bore them to death." To Tunstall he said, "Try to walk out afore you die of his gabble. I don't want the work of haulin' your carcasses away. Even the cat's."

  I followed Tunstall inside. Pounce draped himself over Tunstall's shoulder, pointing his whiskers at me in his smuggest smile. I wished I could say he'd never been so venturesome before I became a Puppy, but it would have been a lie. Pounce is a venturesome stinker.

  The short hall was marked with frescoes showing folk in the gem business, measuring, inspecting, setting, weighing. Up beautifully carved stairs of fine wood we climbed, passing windows with pieces of colored glass set in to make pictures. I was awed. Surely even the King's palace was not so grand.

  I might have gawped all day, but Tunstall hustled us onto the second floor and down a hallway. At the very last door on the left he stopped and knocked hard, then thrust the door open.

  "I was meditating on a very important spell!" A man was seated at a big desk by an open window – one with no glass, only shutters. His round cap was crooked on his bald head and he fought to sit upright, which made his meditation look more like a nap. He had a weak chin and looked like he rarely saw the sun. When he recognized my partner, he dropped back into his seat. "Tunstall, you wretch! I thought you were some idiot wanting me to check yet another lo
ad of pearls."

  "Then put out a warning sign before you take your nap," Tunstall told him.

  "I but closed my eyes for a moment!" the mage protested, smoothing his well-made tunic. "So would you, if you'd tested three dozen pearls in a week!"

  "Pearl fakery's become a problem to the guild?" Tunstall asked. "Cooper, bar the door. Put that card on the string on the latch outside first so we're not interrupted."

  I did as I was told. When I turned around, the mage Jungen Berryman was squinting at me. "What's happened to Goodwin?" he asked worriedly. "I hadn't heard – "

  "Goodwin's fine. Cooper is our Puppy. Rebakah Cooper, Master Jungen Berryman."

  He flapped a white hand at me. I gave him enough of a bow for a guild mage. I could have bowed deeper, I suppose, but he wasn't my lord, and he was nothing in the Provost's ministry.

  "Pull up a chair and tell me what you want, Tunstall. And if you've got any good stories, I'll even feed you and your Puppy – whoa!"

  The "whoa" was Pounce's fault. He leaped on to Berryman's desk and batted a cloudy blue, gold, and black stone with his paw. Berryman saved it from falling.

  "That's Pounce," Tunstall explained. He took a chair. "He's going to be the first cat to earn pay as a Dog. Cooper, close the shutters. You might want to light the lamps, Berryman."

  Berryman took another stone from Pounce. "That's an uncut ruby you're chewing on, my friend. Tunstall, not the shutters! I kept them closed all winter – it's spring, in case you haven't noticed!"

  I closed and locked them anyway. I answered to Tunstall, not some goggle-eyed bead counter. When I turned around, there were fires in all the room's lamps. Berryman had good ones, with bright-polished brass in back of the flames to cast triple the light.

  "There's dark doings in the Lower City, Berryman," Tunstall told the man. I went to stand behind my Dog. As if he took that getting-paid folly seriously, Pounce sat at Berryman's side, tail curled around his forefeet. "Murder and vanishings. We think these stones may be involved." He upended the washed leather pouch on the desk. The stones spilled out.