Both Tunstall and Goodwin looked at Mistress Noll. “Yates should apologize to Cooper?” Tunstall asked, his voice gentle.
“I need strong men to haul the flour and suchlike about. Their manners, his manners, are not what a mother could like,” Mistress Noll said, meeting his eyes. “There’s not many places as will hire him and his friends.”
“With reason,” Goodwin said. Her eyes were cold.
“But coves must work or they’re idle, and they’re back doing the things that bring them before the Magistrates.” Mistress Noll’s soft face turned hard, as hard as the face of any Cesspool mot who lived to be her age. “I’d as soon not die with my son in the quarries.” She gave me the eye. “I apologize for him, Beka. He was rude to you.”
“Cooper?” Tunstall asked me again.
Pounce meowed, as if he ordered me to say sommat. “Better if he gave his sorries to Mistress Gemma. It was her he knocked down.” I wanted the subject to change away from me, so I told Mistress Noll, “Lady Sabine enjoyed your patties very much.”
“It’s the spices,” Mistress Noll said. “Most think the fruits is enough, but they lose taste so close to summer. I thank you for your care for Gemma, Beka. I’ll have a word with my son.” She set out a thin cloth and put turnovers on it, then bundled them up and gave them to me. “For breakfast. No charge.”
I hesitated all the same, until Goodwin muttered in my ear, “You’re so rich you can pass up free food?” Pounce hooked my boot and made a loud noise that sounded like agreement. I mumbled my thanks and settled the turnovers in my pack.
Goodwin waited for Mistress Noll to serve a gaggle of merchant lads and their sweethearts. Then she leaned on the counter and said, “Who’s been calling themselves the Shadow Snake, mistress? Who’s been stealing children and giving them back, some dead, some alive?”
Mistress Noll snorted. “Mistress Clary, the Snake’s a tale! I told my little ones the Snake would get them if they didn’t eat their kidney stew and do their chores!”
“But someone’s been dressing in the tale. You know it and we know it,” Goodwin said. “Preying on the Lower City like a taxman wearing bearskin. He steals their children and gives them back when they’ve surrendered what’s valuable. And if they don’t, he leaves the children dead.”
Mistress Noll fluttered around the stall, poking up the fire, checking dough she’d set over a small oven to rise. She sold buns to an off-duty armsman and his doxie and a loaf of bread to a weary-looking cove with ink stains on his fingers. At last she said, “Nobody cares about missing children hereabouts. Their parents can always make more.” She said it with an angry twist to her mouth, as if she quoted somebody.
“We’re asking,” Goodwin said. “Do you know aught? Who’s been seen where the children vanish, or where they’ve been found? Mistress, you’re in the Nightmarket and the Daymarket.”
“What I know is that no one knows,” Mistress Noll replied, her voice very soft. “No one knows, no one sees, no one hears. Maybe a monster from tales does do this, Mistress Clary.”
Goodwin straightened and gave the counter a rap with her fingers. “I don’t believe in monsters, not in the Lower City. If there is one, Mistress Deirdry, someone made him. But I’m more likely to believe it’s a man, or a gang. I want whoever it is. I want him to dance on Execution Hill for the folk he’s terrorized.”
Tunstall tied up his handkerchief after setting a patty aside. “We’ve let him run wild in the Lower City. It’s a disgrace to our name. We mean to clean it up.”
“Welladay,” a man said nearby, “lookit who’s come out of Crookshank’s burrow. I’d thought mayhap she was dead along with her son.”
I’d almost forgot the Nightmarket, so hard was I listening to my Dogs and Mistress Noll. Now I looked around. Here came Tansy all in black, with a black cap covered with a veil for her gold curls. She had a basket over her arm.
A maid walked beside her, one I hadn’t seen before. She was odd-looking, forty or so, hair combed back in a sleek black and gray braid, black eyes, short nose, mouth wide with frown lines that drew the corners down. She’d plucked her brows clean off and drawn perfect black arches in their place. She had a black teardrop tattooed on her chin and two more at the corners of her eyes. She looked like she could tangle with Goodwin and fight for every inch she was forced to give up.
Her underdress was a finer cotton than I’d look to see on a maid, though her overdress was plain enough. She wore jet earrings and a necklace with a tiger-eye pendant. The metal of the necklace could have been brass, but it looked gold to me.
“Beka!” Tansy cried. “Look at us, out and about!” She smiled at me, the corners of her mouth trembling. She looked at Goodwin and far up at Tunstall.
“Cooper?” Goodwin asked. “You need to do a mannerly thing here.”
“Oh.” I opened my mouth, but Tansy interrupted.
“If we wait for Beka to introduce us, it will be dawn. She’s shyer than moonflowers. You must be Guardswoman Goodwin and Guardsman Tunstall. I’m Tansy Lofts – Beka’s been my friend since we were…” Her smile failed, then she forced it back onto her mouth. “Since we were small. My husband is Herun Lofts.” She extended her hand. They must have taught her that in Crookshank’s house, because she never knew about it in Mutt Piddle Lane.
Tunstall took her hand and kissed it. “Our sympathies, Mistress Lofts,” he said, his voice kind. “We are doing all we can to find and hobble the Rat who took your child from you.”
Tansy gave his hand a squeeze. “I’ve heard you two are the best in all Corus,” she said. “I know you will do all you can.” Not realizing that she’d just set up the hackles on both my Dogs, implying they might fail, Tansy cried, “Pounce, you wicked creature! No greeting for me?”
Pounce said several things to her, all sounding happy, then leaped into her basket. Tansy laughed and braced herself against his weight.
“Mistress, we don’t want this dirty animal’s hair in the food we buy,” the maid said. Her voice was smooth and cold. “He’s been on the streets – “
“Nonsense,” Tansy informed her. “If you’re going to fuss, go back to the house. I said I didn’t want my own maid, let alone you.” Her eyes were too bright; her lips trembled a little. She was on the edge of her temper. Did this mot see that and hear the grief talking? Tansy rubbed Pounce’s head. “I can take Pounce as my companion, can’t I, boy? You must be bored if Beka is working.” She turned to the counter and saw Mistress Noll looking at her. “Grannylady, why is it every time I see you, you’re frowning at me?”
Mistress Noll smiled. “You’re mistaken, Mistress Lofts. My heart goes out to you in your loss. I too have babes who died, mine when they were newborn. I know what you feel, losing your Rolond.”
Tansy looked away, her eyes overfull. Goodwin wandered across the row to talk with a vendor. Tunstall sniffed a citron bun as he looked down the way. Where Spicers’ Row crossed with the fruit sellers’, Ulsa of Prettybone District walked. She was flashy in a red shirt and black breeches, both Carthaki silk. She even carried a curved Carthaki-style sword. Rumor said she could use it. Three of her handsome guards walked behind her. One of her women guards was on her far side, but the guard on her left, closest to us, was Rosto. He was all in black and more graceful even than Pounce. Tunstall watched them.
“I am sorry that you lost any children, Grannylady,” Tansy whispered. “Whatever their age. I – I said something bad to you about that once. I think the Goddess punished me for it, taking my son.”
“Child, that’s water sunk in the ground,” Mistress Noll said. My memory is bothering me about that now. What did Tansy say to Mistress Noll that has Tansy thinking the Goddess has punished her?
“You must give over your sorrow now for the child on the way,” Mistress Noll said to Tansy. “And you must eat. I have some fine rastons here, fresh from the oven.” She offered a big loaf for Tansy’s inspection.
I heard the familiar creaking of pigeon wings overhead
. Splendid, I thought. They find me, and now they think Mistress Noll is offering a meal.
“I think we’d best go about our watch,” Goodwin said, returning. “Cooper, say good night to Mistress Lofts and Mistress Noll – “
The dead clamored in my ears as the pigeons descended into the torchlit row. Customers and vendors moved away as the birds flapped between the torches. The ghosts cried out, dozens of them telling me their complaints.
“Maiden’s mercy, what are they doing?” Tansy whispered.
Mistress Noll picked up a frying spoon. She poked the awning of her booth, cursing the birds that had landed there. “Send them away, Beka!” she ordered.
“I didn’t call them!” I said. Tunstall set a copper on the counter, breaking up a bun. He held out his hand, crumbs falling from his palm.
“Oh, you would,” Goodwin complained as five pigeons descended to sit on his arm and fingers.
“Mama?” The young white bird with black-dripped feathers flew in circles around Tansy’s head, then tried to land. She shrieked and threw up her arms, knocking it away. The ghost cried, “Mama, take me home! Mama, I’m frightened!”
I froze. In four years I had never seen a ghost seize its messenger bird before.
“Mama, Mama, I’m lost! Someone took me. He said Grandpapa doesn’t love me!” The pigeon who carried Rolond’s spirit tangled his claws in Tansy’s curls. Her maid unsheathed her belt knife.
“No, you looby!” I shoved the mot out of the way. “Tansy, hold still!”
“Beka, get it off, get it off!” Tansy shrieked.
I couldn’t blame her. The bird was in a panic now, whirling as it tried to escape, smacking Tansy with its wings. Pigeon slaps hurt. And this one was mad not just with panic, but with the ghost that rode it, who was so certain Tansy could hear him.
“Mama, take me home, please! I’ll be good!” Rolond screamed as the pigeon dodged my hands.
I stumbled against Tansy. We both fell against Mistress Noll’s booth.
“The man said there was a parrot, but he lied – “
Tansy let out a shriek that made my ear stop working. “Rolond! Rolond, Goddess preserve me, sweeting, where are you?”
Dear Goddess. She heard him. She was pressed against me, and she could hear her dead son’s ghost.
“Mama, I’m sorry I was bad!” Rolond was weeping when I got my hands on the pigeon. It was a young bird, not even feathered all the way up to the plate that formed around its nose holes. “Mama, the cove put me in a bad place, and then it was dark. I don’t like it in the dark!”
Tansy hit me. She punched my face and my shoulders. “Where is he, Beka! Take me to him, pox rot your womb! I want my child! He’s alive! You know where my babe is!”
Now the pigeon, still tangled in her hair, flew at me, hitting me, too. “Don’t you make my mama cry!” Rolond yelled. “You’re bad! Mama said the folk in black help and you don’t, so you’re bad!”
Tunstall pulled Tansy off of me. I shifted to untangle the bird’s feet. Tansy wrenched around to attack Tunstall. Once I had the pigeon free and his wings pinned, I looked up at my partner. He made Tansy face me, though he kept her in his grip. She kept struggling. “Let me go!” Tansy cried. “I want my son!”
“Stop it, Tansy,” I said coldly. “Stop it right now. You act like a Mutt Piddle trull.”
That caught her attention. She quieted, her eyes streaming tears, her chest heaving.
“Look at me,” I said quietly. I held her eyes with mine until I was certain I had her attention. Then I showed her the young bird in my hands. Somehow he’d kept clean. His white feathers shone in the torchlight. His black ones really did look like ink. “They carry unhappy spirits. Understand? This poor creature carries Rolond until Rolond decides to go to the Peaceful Realms. But Rolond doesn’t know what’s happened, Tansy.” My mouth was dry. I licked my lips and told my oldest friend, “You have to tell him he’s dead.”
I cradled the pigeon against my chest so I could keep his wings pinned with one hand. Then I grabbed her with the other. “Tell him. Elsewise he’ll wander in that dark he keeps talking about.”
“Tell a pigeon he’s dead?” Tansy asked.
Someone nearby tittered.
“Mama, why would you tell a bird it’s dead?” Rolond asked her. “Birds don’t have ghosts, do they? Are there birds in the Black God’s land?”
Tansy sobbed. Her knees gave way. I hauled her up. I knew that if I let go, she couldn’t hear him anymore or he hear her. “Tansy, do it!”
“Lambkin – sweetheart, of course the Black God has birds,” Tansy whispered, straightening. “Beautiful ones. But you won’t see them if you stay where it’s dark. You have to go to the Peaceful Realms.”
“But I don’t want to go, Mama,” Rolond complained. “I want to come home with you.”
“Oh, Rolond, you can’t.” Tansy reached out her free hand. It shook as she stroked the pigeon I held. “Rolond, you died. The man – the man killed you. That’s why you’re lost.”
“No,” he whispered. “No. I’m just in a dark place. When they stole me, I was in a dark place.” His voice broke. “There was cloth on my head, and then the girl who was with me took it off. And then the man came back and put it on again. He carried me away.”
“And he killed you,” I said, since Tansy couldn’t. “There’s no hood now, Rolond. You need to say goodbye to your mama and go see the Black God.”
“I’ll come to you,” Tansy whispered. “One day, in the Peaceful Realms, I’ll come to you there.”
His voice was fading. He believed her. “Promise, Mama?”
“Promise, my baby. I love you.”
But he was gone.
All around us the market was silent. Tansy made no sound. I think we all forgot where we were until the city’s clocks began to chime seven. That broke the spell on the crowd that had gathered. Tunstall helped Tansy to her feet.
“You need to get Mistress Lofts home,” Goodwin told the maid. “Now.” The maid glared at her. Goodwin stopped and looked the mot over, memorizing every inch of her. “What’s your name, wench?”
The maid bridled. “Vrinday Kayu.”
“Kayu. Copper Isles name, Carthaki tattoos. I don’t like you. I’m going to remember your face. All three of us are.” Goodwin’s jerk of the head took in Tunstall and me. “You’d best keep your fingers clean when you venture out of Crookshank’s house. Now be on about your work.”
I thought for a moment Kayu might hiss and scratch Goodwin. I saw shimmering around her hands. Then she put an arm around Tansy and led her back to Crookshank’s house. She didn’t glance at us again, but from the too-careful way she handled my friend, I’d say she knew we were watching.
“Maid, my left nostril,” Tunstall murmured. “Mage. You saw that bit of magic?”
“Later.” Goodwin said it very quiet-like. She looked around at me. “Can you loose your little pigeon friend now, or will he attack Master Pounce?” She glared at my cat, who sat at her feet. “And where were you when the bird was going mad on that poor girl’s head?” she asked Pounce.
Pounce stared up at her, then said, “Manh!”
Whatever that meant.
I already looked a cracknob and a half to the crowd that had seen our performance. It couldn’t matter what I said or did anymore. I lifted up my head and called, “Slapper! You need to teach this one how to keep control!” I held up the young pigeon in my hand. I didn’t even know if it would work. I’d never gotten the birds to take orders, but no ghost had ever grabbed hold of his bird, either.
I hadn’t noticed the pigeons overhead had been silent for some time. I did now, because I could hear only one bird flapping toward us. Slapper landed on the dirt of the row. He began the growling coo that was the pigeon anger noise.
“None of that,” I said. “He’s just a youngling. It’s not his fault.”
Tunstall crouched before Slapper. “Who’s this one?” he asked. “Slapper, you called him?” He was bre
aking up another bun. He put the pieces down in front of the pigeon.
“They should be smaller,” I said. I couldn’t help correcting him, even if he was my training Dog. I worried about the silly feathered nuisances, and so few folk seemed to care about them. “If pieces are big – if they can’t break them up, the loobies try to swallow them whole. Often they can get stuck in the pigeon’s throat.”
“Mithros’s teeth,” Goodwin muttered.
Tunstall crumbled the roll into pigeon-sized bites. Slapper was already shaking a big one, breaking off a smaller bite for himself. Tunstall hurried to crumble the rest. Gently I placed Inky down in front of Slapper. The young bird went after the bread, eagerly pecking. Slapper instantly smacked him with a wing, then began to limp and dance around him, talking in pigeon.
“Slapper, eh?” Tunstall asked again as he straightened. He was grinning. “He looks cracked, with those yellow eyes.”
“Unless you’re going to put some coppers in a hat, our play is over,” Goodwin told the crowd. “Move along. There’s naught to gawp at.”
“The pigeons could fight,” someone called. “My money’s on the black one.”
Other birds came down to eat. The crowd was still arguing if, as young as Inky was, he couldn’t take crippled old Slapper when the birds finished the last crumbs and flew off into the dark. Then the people really did move on.
“Let’s go,” Tunstall said. “We’ll talk about pigeons and ghosts over supper. Can folk always hear them when you touch them, Cooper?”
We said goodbye to Mistress Noll and walked on down the row. “No, sir,” I replied to Tunstall. “No, because my brothers and sisters would lean against me when I fed ‘em, and they never heard nothing. Maybe it’s the ghost wanting to be heard so bad, or it being a ghost related by blood….”
“We really do need to pay mind to our work,” Goodwin said. She sounded apologetic, which was a strange thing in itself. “Much as I want to hear this, attention unpaid – “
” – is a grave that’s made.” I knew the saying. “Sorry, Goodwin.”