“It could have been me that went missing,” I said. “My brothers, my sisters. Any of us. Vanished or dead in a gutter, a snake on our pillows and Mama heartbroke. She was so frail. It would’ve killed her before her time.” I looked at them. “It could still be one of them, if they wasn’t safe in my Lord Provost’s house.”
“Wake up, Cooper.” Goodwin said it, but she did not seem angry. “Do you know how many mothers drown newborns and tots in privies or rain barrels? How many fathers and uncles toss them into the rear yard with broken skulls?”
“Someone they know or some stranger who offers a solid meal hurts them and leaves them to die.” Tunstall’s eyes were sad. “And plenty sell ‘em to the slavers. Instead of telling folk and face the shame, they say the child just vanished. Savor your good luck, Cooper. Savor it for you and your family. If we catch this Snake, we’ll catch him. But there aren’t enough of us to chase every vanished cove, mot, and child. Not near enough.”
Goodwin rubbed the scar on her cheek. “Tunstall says you’ve word of seven missing mots and coves. We haven’t heard anyone hunting for them, let alone the odd vanished child. Let’s get moving. And toughen up, Cooper, that’s my advice.” She got to her feet. “Before you jump into the Olorun or slice your wrists. We lose five Dogs a year to the Black God’s Option. Don’t you be one.”
“We look around on patrol, Cooper,” Tunstall said as he stood. “But it’s harder once it gets dark. Not many littles around, and their faces aren’t clear. And it hurts. You find enough dead ones, you don’t want to know, after a while. The older ones, they went looking for it most of the time. Not the dead children.”
In the Lower City we’re supposed to give up pretty ideas and dreams. I’m vexed with myself, to find I’ve nursed some about these two. They are only human. And their people aren’t from here. Tunstall is a barbarian from the eastern hills. Goodwin’s family are respectable members of the Carpenters’ Guild. My Dogs don’t know what it’s like to have no one fighting for them. They do their jobs and that gives them plenty of work, looking out for them that fill the Happy Bags.
I won’t content myself with filling the Happy Bags. Not ever. The Lower City is mine. Its people are mine – its children are mine. If I find them that’s doing all this kidnapping and murdering, they’d best pray for mercy. Because once I get my teeth in ‘em, I will never let them go. And I start with the Shadow Snake.
We washed up from supper and left for the last two hours of our watch. I had plenty to think on. Luckily we returned to the Nightmarket, where it was too busy to give me time to think. I was taken up learning to tell the differences between minnows and pikes, and learning how to spot the best of the Nightmarket foists and sutlers. I came home with eyeballs that jumped from trying to look everywhere at once, to write in this journal.
I have only been a Puppy three days, yet it feels like three year. I feel I have changed so much from the mot who wrote her account of that first day. Who will I be by week’s end?
Saturday, April 4, 246
Afternoon, before training.
What woke me this morning wasn’t Pounce’s washing, but a pigeon’s good hard peck on my cheekbone. I yelped and threw the beast off. Back he came, landing on my crown and digging his claws into my hair.
Pounce had opened my shutters. I forgot my gratitude. “Y’ mangy fleabag!” I yelled through a mouthful of cover. “Y’ want us murdered in our sleep?”
“She’ll think I run off,” a cove whispered. “She’ll think I di’n’t love ‘er an’ the girls. She’ll think I got a decent job an’ pay an’ run off with it.”
Goose bumps raced over my flesh. I reached up slow with both my hands. A hard beak fastened in the tender skin between my thumb and forefinger and twisted. I closed my fingers around the bird, growling from pain, and brought him around where I could look at him.
Slapper.
I worked his beak free of me and tried to shift my hold so we were both easier. For my trouble he got a wing free and smacked me full in the face. It was a pigeon’s punch. He clipped me on the nose as the spirit that rode him said, “She’ll think I run off.”
“I heard you.” I took hold of Slapper’s wing and tried to wipe my watering eyes on my shoulder. That blow hurt. “Tell me where I’ll find your corpse. Then she’ll know you’re dead and can’t go to her.”
“She’ll think I run off,” the ghost moaned. “I’m dead in the ground.”
Slapper turned his head and bit my cheek. I yelped and let go. The curst bird took off out my window.
He would be back. Or I would find him, and his rider, with other pigeons. Should I feed them? Or try to find the murdered folk the dust spinners spoke of? I checked for my clothes. I looked out the window. From the sun’s angle, it wasn’t quite yet nine in the morning. I had time, and I needed to do chores.
I had to wash a uniform today. At least I had a clean one ready now, thanks to Goodwin. I would soak the soiled one free of wrinkles, then hang it with weights on overnight. If I mucked up today’s uniform, I would have a clean one for the morrow.
I was pulling on breeches when I heard a mot’s shriek. Something crashed on my stairs. I beat Pounce to the door and pulled it open. The door to the rooms opposite mine was wide open: moving day for a new neighbor. Someone came up the stairs backward and half bent over, carrying a wooden table legs up. Atop the table were some packs and a small trunk. Another person down below supported the other end of the table as it bobbed and swayed.
The bearer who was almost to my level looked over her shoulder and grinned. It was the swordswoman Aniki, wearing breeches and shirt, her sleeves rolled up. She looked back at the other end of the table. “Rosto, leave that box! Kora can get the curst thing. If you try to grab it, you’ll dump everything else down the stairs!” She told me, “I think we overloaded it.” She backed up again. Here came the rest of the table, with Rosto the Piper holding up the wobbling end.
“Told you I liked the look of the street,” he said to me. “And here’s this place, with three sets of rooms nice and empty, for cheap. I rented ‘em last night – me and Kora have the two just downstairs, and you’ve got Aniki for a neighbor.”
I blinked at Rosto. Trouble has just moved in, I thought. Then I remembered I stood there in no more than breastband and breeches. I shrieked and slammed my door. I cleaned up for the day and put my uniform to soak in a washtub, my poor brain racing. Aniki and Kora seemed like good sorts, for mots clearly on the other side of the law. Truth to tell, it would be nice to have friendly folk here. But Rosto…
“Aren’t there other lodgings?” I asked Pounce as I felt my hair. It was all tangles. I brushed it out, then wet my comb and worked to make a smooth braid. By the time I was done, the moving noises had ended with a clattering of feet down the stairs. I can’t say how I might avoid Rosto after him seeing me half naked if he is to live here, but knowing he wasn’t right outside my door was a start.
Someone knocked. I peered through the eye cheat to see that Kora and Aniki were outside. My nose twitched. I smelled spiced turnovers. I opened the door. Kora, neat and tidy in a green cotton gown fit snug to her hips, held the covered basket that gave off the wonderful smells. Aniki stood behind her, two flasks in her hands.
“We fetched breakfast to begin well as your neighbors,” Kora told me with a wicked smile. “The turnovers come from a baker named Mistress Noll. They say at the Court of the Rogue she’s the best. And I warmed up everything with a bit of magicking.”
My belly growled. It had been a very long time since last night’s dry chicken. Both of them laughed.
I ducked my head and let them in. It felt like they brought sun and fresh air with them. Aniki set aside her flasks and lay down a cloth on my floor. I fetched three cups and plates from my shelf and set them down at the cloth’s center whilst Kora whisked the napkin away from her basket. We sat cross-legged, spearing pasties with our belt knives.
“It’s partly our own celebration,” Aniki explained w
ith her mouth half full. “Me’n Rosto have work. Me with Dawull – “
I nodded. Dawull was the redheaded chief of Waterfront District. It ran from the South Gate to the North Gate along both sides of the river.
Kora took a gulp of barley water. “And Rosto with Ulsa, who runs the Prettybone District.” She gave Aniki a pert smile. “You owe Cooper’s tall Dog two silver nobles. You bet him Rosto would hire on with Dawull.”
“I know, I know,” Aniki said, grabbing another pasty. “And now I can afford to pay him.”
I looked from one to the other. Kora and Aniki are so relaxed and friendly that it doesn’t seem to matter if I talk or no. They act as if we’ve known each other all our lives. I know there are Dogs who are friends with folk on the far side of the law. It can be done, so long as everyone observes the rules. If they do not give me knowledge of acts against the King’s peace, so long as I do not catch them breaking it, we can do this.
“You’re wondering how Aniki can work for one chief and Rosto another?” Kora asked. In a way I was, since my problem was similar. She offered a scrap of pasty to Pounce. “We’ve never turned against one another. Masters come and go. Friends remain always.”
“Besides, where’s the problem?” Aniki stretched her long body and leaned against my wall as if she sat in the most comfortable of chairs. I tossed her a couple of pillows. “Thanks.” She stuffed them in around her back. “Kayfer’s chiefs spend all their time protecting Kayfer. They don’t battle each other.” She grinned, but it was a wolf’s grin, showing teeth. “So me’n Rosto don’t have to worry about fighting. Not that we would. So what’s your Dog’s name, Cooper? The one I owe money to?”
“Tunstall,” I replied, watching her hands as she flexed them. She didn’t even look like she noticed she did them, the exercises swordfolk were always about to keep their hands limber. “Matthias Tunstall. The other one’s Clara Goodwin. And I’m Beka.”
Aniki wove the fingers of both hands together, turned her palms out, and stretched her arms as far as she could. I gave it a try. “Easy,” she warned me. “Push too hard and you hurt yourself fairly bad. I’m Aniki Forfrysning. That’s Koramin Ingensra. You heard Rosto say we’ve all moved in.”
“And you are a very fine fellow,” Kora told Pounce, gathering him up in her arms. “Aniki, feel his coat! It’s like velvet!” She looked at me. “I’ve never felt a cat’s coat so clean and so soft. How do you do it, when he runs in the street?”
Pounce looked at me. Make her stop, he said in cat.
I looked back, telling him silently, She’s a mage. You make her stop.
Kora had just found his favorite place to be scratched, right under the point of his jaw. Fickle Pounce began to purr instead. Aniki scooted over to scratch him herself.
“We’ve been on the road too long,” she announced with a sigh. “I’d like to settle here and have a cat. Maybe I’ll steal this one.”
“Pounce doesn’t take to being stole. I should just mention it,” I explained. Shadows broke up the light from the window. All three of us looked up. Kora freed a hand. I could see a pale green-blue gleam around her fingertips. I shook my head at her. Pigeons lined up on my sill. There were three, Slapper, Pinky, and White Spice. Slapper, with no more sense than the average cracknob, hopped onto my floor and limped to our cloth. He glared at us all like some prophet out of legend.
“Friends of yours?” Aniki asked mockingly.
I shrugged.
Slapper began to peck at our crumbs. Seeing their flockmate was getting away with something, the other two flew over to us.
“Look at this,” Kora whispered. “He’s not so much as twitching.”
Pounce sat in her lap, purring away. He wasn’t about to give up being petted.
Since they weren’t crying out and demanding the dirty birds be chased off – like my sisters, Diona and Lorine, often did – I crumbled some of my pasty and held out my crumbs. White Spice came over.
“My little boy’s lame,” his man ghost mourned. “Who will look after ‘im? Slavers took ‘is ma. She was so beautiful I knew we wouldn’t be let keep ‘er, but we did our best. Who’ll look after ‘im now?”
“This wasn’t s’posed to happen,” cried Pinky’s ghost. “We was supposed to dig a well, that’s all, just a well, and we dug it – “
“Beka! Beka!”
That living cove’s yell jerked me from my listening. I spilled what was left of my palmful of crumbs. My pigeons took flight, leaving droppings on my floor before they fled through the open window. Aniki and Kora both grabbed their daggers.
“Beka, you are not hiding in your rooms all day! You are having fun with your friends! You know, friends?”
“Ersken,” I said with a sigh. My head ached as he pounded up my stairs. He had others with him, too, unless he had brought a herd of horses. “It’s my friend Ersken,” I explained to Aniki and Kora. “He’s another Puppy. And one, mayhap two, of the others.”
“This could be interesting,” Kora murmured.
“Beka, they’s more to life than sleepin’ an’ walkin’ your watch!” Verene is from Blue Harbor and still has the accent to show for it.
Pounce muttered in cat. At least, Aniki and Kora heard it so. Aniki petted and admired him for being “such a talky little pippin.” I heard, Humans. Always getting good ideas and interrupting important business with them at the stupidest times.
I would have said he had a poor idea of them who fed him, but Ersken was almost up the stairs.
“Beka, I mean it! You will open this door and – ” He halted in my open doorway, blinking. Verene and Phelan collided with his back. Phelan was a second-year Dog who’d befriended us Puppies. “You’re – Hello,” Ersken said to Kora and Aniki. “Bek, you – um…”
Kora looked at him sidelong and smiled. That was it for Ersken. He turns as shy as me when a pretty girl bats her lashes at him. Then Aniki got to her feet. She is half a head taller than Ersken, more woman than he knows what to do with.
Verene started to giggle. She came in and offered a hand to Aniki. “We’re Beka’s friends. We came to keep her from turnin’ into a mushroom. I’m Verene, tha’s Phelan, and th’ spaniel Pup is Ersken. He’s sweet. Don’t bruise him.” Ersken turned beet color.
“We’re moving in, so we invited Beka to breakfast,” Aniki explained as she shook Verene’s hand. “That’s my friend Kora on the floor. She’s living downstairs now. I’m Aniki. We met Beka at the Rogue’s Court.”
“You were there when Crookshank pitched his fit?” asked Phelan, his eyes bright with interest. “The word is he tried to kill the Rogue. Some Scanran pretty boy saved ol’ Kayfer’s life.”
“That ‘pretty boy’ would be me,” said a slow voice from my doorway, behind the group.
My friends turned. Pounce gave the mrt that served him for a laugh.
“I brought fresh food,” Rosto said. He eased his way in. The next thing I knew, I had six guests on my floor splitting up fresh-baked oatmeal and rye bread. Rosto had bought soft cheese to put on the bread, which made him a good fellow in my friends’ eyes.
“So why do they call you the Piper?” Verene asked when he’d been introduced around. She’d taken care to get the seat beside his. Verene had an eye for a good-looking cove.
“I play well enough, don’t I, girls?” he asked. Aniki and Kora nodded. Rosto smiled. It was a razor blade of a smile that made me wonder if he was thinking of Kayfer Deerborn. I was sure Rosto and his mots had come to take the Rogue’s throne. They couldn’t do it alone. Three young rushers new to Corus would stand on that platform for less time than it would take to mop away the old Rogue’s blood before they’d be overwhelmed by his followers. But being new, they didn’t have the old feuds and hates built up among the folk in the present court. If they made friends, Rosto might well be on the way to a kingship.
To make his point, Rosto took a flute from his tunic and began to play. He was very good. Then Verene recognized one of his tunes and sang it. She had t
he prettiest voice in all the Provost’s Guard. Kora danced for us. Rosto and Phelan discovered they had met the same old wandering mage in different towns. Finally we decided someone had to go for lunch before all of us but Kora went on duty. Everyone put in some coppers. Me and Ersken went out to get sausages, more cheese, and some spinach tarts.
“Be a shame to hobble any of them,” he said after we’d walked in silence for a bit.
I nodded.
“You think that Rosto likes you?”
I gave him a shove.
“He moved into your lodging house, didn’t he?”
“He said he liked the location. And he’s got Aniki or Kora.”
“I’d say both.”
“That’s his business, Ersken.”
“What if he’s looking to add you, Beka?”
“That’s my business.” I kicked a rotting vegetable away from me to hide my blushes. “Besides,” I said, keeping my eyes down, “he’s got to be twenty-two if he’s a day.”
“Oh, ancient,” Ersken said, scoffing. “Handsome as the sunrise, if you like that sort of cove. Don’t look at me,” he said when I stared at him. “Well, look at me, but not that way. I have older sisters, remember? If I don’t know what makes girls wiggle their toes, I’ve had my head in the Olorun for seventeen years.”
To distract him, because I didn’t want the talk to come round to whether I saw Rosto that way or he saw me the same, I asked, “Have you heard of the Shadow Snake?”
Ersken frowned. “Shadow Snake? You mean, what they say Crookshank and the Rogue were talking about that night you were there?”
“The same, but before then. Stealing children from the Lower City. Threatening folk who had something of value and taking a little one if they didn’t pay it over. Have you heard aught?” I never had trouble talking with Ersken. He made it that easy. The other girls said he was too nice, but what was wrong with that? Better that than Rosto’s sword-edge self.
“Me? Heard anything?” Ersken began to laugh. “Beka, we’ve only been on the prowl three days! I’m new in the Lower City, remember? I’ve not got my ear to the walls like you!”