Mastiff (17 page)

“And in years gone by, the king allowed only nobles to buy from the royal granaries and smokehouses in hard times. The nobles sell the goods to their people for much more than they paid,” Tunstall added. “Or they trade for a promise of labor on the nobles’ lands, or for someone’s children as slaves. You know what folk will do when they are hungry.”

I do know.

“You heard of none of this about the council uproar in ’47, Cooper?” Sir Tullus asked.

“That winter wasn’t a time for us to sit and collect the gossip, Sir Knight,” Tunstall explained. “We were busier than fleas on a hot griddle, with folk rioting and stealing food. Mithros bless the king, he made certain the Dogs were fed in the kennels, that we might keep working.”

And Rosto shared what the Court of the Rogue had with his friends, I thought.

Sir Tullus, done with the fritters, stood and went back to his desk. He wiped his fingers on a cloth that lay there, and began to look at the other sealed documents that had been in the packet. “Well, with luck there will be no hard winter this year,” he said, almost to himself. “The seers are predicting a good harvest, if the trouble they see in our future does not interfere with it. I’d wager the attack and kidnapping is the trouble they’ve been seeing.” He looked at us. “I need to get to work on this. Why don’t you two—you four,” he said with a nod to Pounce and Achoo, “go on to Ladyshearth Lodgings and settle in. I doubt I’ll have anything to tell you at least until tomorrow noon.”

We stood and bowed, then left him. His runner bowed to us, then entered his office while we headed on down the hall. In the main waiting room, Sergeant Axman was seated behind his desk once more, perched on his tall chair. He pointed to a pair of bulging packs that lay on a bench.

“I guessed at your sizes, but I’ve a good eye for such things,” he said. “I’d a feeling those packs of yours don’t have extra uniforms, stockin’s, and the like. There’s combs and other useful things, too.”

Tunstall grinned and offered Axman his arm to clasp. “Mithros loves a good sergeant, Lord Gershom always says. My thanks, Sergeant Axman.”

I smiled up at him. “Thanks,” I said. “I know I’ll feel like a new mot in a fresh uniform.”

“I’ve had my night calls, too,” Axman replied. “And not from a bordel, either! Get on with the two of you. I sent word ahead to Serenity. She’ll have your rooms and supper waitin’.”

He was as good as his word. Not only did Serenity have rooms prepared for us, but there were tubs of hot water inside them. She even had food bowls waiting outside her kitchen door for Pounce and Achoo. They couldn’t say they ever starved, working with me.

When Tunstall and I were clean and dressed in fresh uniforms, we found a good supper put on the dining room table. We spoke little, mostly because five other Dogs who were staying at the house at the same time had come off watch and were there to eat with us. They were closemouthed, too, doubtless being weary after their day’s work. I thought back on all I had learned about the current mess and how it might have led to a royal kidnapping.

“I
said
, Cooper, mayhap you should go to bed.” I looked up. Tunstall was leaning over the table to stare at my face. None of the other diners remained with us. Even their dishes had been cleared away. Only Tunstall and Serenity were left.

Achoo was curled up at my feet, Pounce on the chair beside me.
He’s right
, Pounce said.
Only this morning you slid down a cliff and burned yourself trying to search magicked ships
. He looked at Tunstall.
Sleep wouldn’t hurt
you
either
.

I got to my feet. “I think you’re both right,” I admitted. “We should get rest while we can.” I knew that once we had our own orders, chances for a good night’s sleep might come rarely.

In my room, I tried to work on my journal more, but I am tired. I’ll catch up in the morning. Who knows how long we will be here, after all?

Ladyshearth Lodgings

Coates Lane

Port Caynn

One of the afternoon.

being an account of the events of Saturday, June 9
,
beginning at dawn on that day

Achoo woke me at dawn yesterday, of course. We went out, nodding to the busy cook and cook maid, and returned, to go to bed once more. I roused again as the city’s clocks struck nine and cleaned myself up, then visited the kitchen to beg breakfast for my two friends. The crosspatch maid who had been here during my last Port Caynn visit was having her morning meal in the kitchen. She remembered us.

“Don’t you go feedin’ them nasty pigeons on your windowsill, like you done last time!” she said, pointing a finger at me. “This is a decent house, and why Serenity lets you in with all your livestock—”

“Enough,” the cook snapped. “You cross old mud turtle, leave the Dog alone. These two creatures are as neat and well trained as them that live here. Neater than some I could name. So just stop yer gob.” She grinned down at Pounce, who was bumping against her shins. “Some folk just don’t appreciate a gentleman like you, Master Pounce.” She looked at me. “Now, Guardswoman Cooper, what will you have for your breakfast?”

My belly happily full, I returned to my room. There I opened my shutters to a bright, sunny day and a soft breeze. It was a pleasure to set my soggy laundry outside for the maids to wash. I hoped the crosspatch maid got the task. Then I sat down to my table and this journal. First I recorded what had taken place beginning on Thursday the seventh. I finished that and began the other report that Lord Gershom had requested, the one which did not mention Tunstall, Achoo, or me, all in official Dog cipher. I was just finishing when Tunstall hammered on my door at the end of the noon hour.

“Cooper, it’s a beautiful day, and I’m cursed if I’ll waste much more of it!” he bellowed. “Come out of there!”

I opened my door, rubbing my cramped writing hand. “You’re a cracked lad with the manners of a Cesspool bum-washer, you know that?” I asked him.

Tunstall leaned on the doorframe, taking no offense at all. He never did. Goodwin once told me I might bash him with an oaken club, to see if that might make a dent, but it seemed to be hardly worth the trouble.

“Is the report done?” Tunstall asked. When I nodded, he said, “Then you’ve no excuse. Pounce and me are bored.” He wasn’t storying me. Pounce sat at his feet, yawning at us. “Send it to Tullus and let’s amble,” Tunstall ordered. “You know I can’t stay put, not while awaiting orders. Mistress Serenity says she can use her Gift to find us if aught happens—that’s why they keep folk like us here.”

He had a point. Neither of us waits well. I wasn’t sure what would occupy his restless mind until I bethought myself of his flowers. He has a name for himself in Corus for the miniature blooms he grows. Doubtless he’d like to see the flowers in Port Caynn, if I could learn where fine ones were.

Serenity was in the dining room, going over her accounts. “That’s easy,” she said when I asked her. “You’ve been there, Cooper, though it was in the fall. Ridge Gardens. The lower levels on the north side, they’ve got the best flowers.” She looked at me, raising a brow. “Strange. I never took you for the flower sort.”

“Oh, that would be me,” Tunstall said. “I grow them at home.”

Serenity dropped her pen. “You’re
that
Tunstall! But nobody ever said you were a man! Or a Dog! You’re not pulling my skirts, are you? The same Tunstall that grows the Goddess Glory, the rose that’s no bigger than my thumbnail?”

Tunstall bobbed his head, rubbing his hair nervously.

“Maiden save me, you here and me having no notion!” Serenity looked at me. I was leaning on one of her chairs, waiting for her to finish flower talk with Tunstall. “We can talk more tonight. Enjoy the sun and the garden,” she said, picking up her pen again.

I held out my sealed report and a coin. “Do you have a runner to take this to Sir Tullus as soon as may be?” I asked her. “He’s waiting for it.”

Serenity took the paper and drew a sign on it in fire that was almost blood-colored. Immediately she looked to be holding a basket of flowers. “I’ll take care of it right away,” she replied. “Ginmaree!” she called. Instantly a gixie in boys’ trousers raced in from the kitchen.

With the report matter settled, Pounce and Achoo bounded out of the door ahead of us. We caught up with the animals in Coates Lane and wove through the traffic, taking the streets pretty much northeast.

We walked in silence for a time before Tunstall remarked, “I hope we’re kept on this Hunt. That ghost-eyed glare of yours is as good a weapon as Achoo, especially with Rats who know they’ve crossed the gods by taking the heir. The way your eyes go all pale and burning like winter ice, they see the Crone in you. They always give up more than they want to when they catch your eye.”

I shook my head. I’d have called him a superstitious hillman, but I’d seen it happen often enough that I had to believe it. Even Holborn stepped back when we fought. He’d said it was my eyes, too. I think they are simply a pale gray or blue, but I’ve never seen my face when I’m angry. “You spook me when you talk that way,” I told Tunstall.

“I’m not spooked,” my partner told me. “What with your eyes, your pigeons, your dust-demons, and Achoo, you’re the most valuable partner in the Lower City, mayhap all Corus. On a Hunt like this, I think we have the best chance to find our boy with what the two of us can do together.”

I halted to stare at him as a blush crept over my face. Tunstall’s compliments were rare. I knew I would treasure this one. I was too shy to say as much, so I just gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder.

The Ridge Gardens were slightly crowded, but not badly so. Children played on the wide areas of grass, watched by nursemaids and parents. Nobles walked along, eyeing each other’s fashions and gossiping. The governor’s guard marched along in pairs, dressed in their maroon and black uniforms, carrying spears and batons. They were trained to pay no attention to deliberate distractions, like the little group of lads who trooped behind them, making faces.

Tunstall and I walked toward the north end of the gardens where the wealthy showed off their summer clothes. Tunstall was so fascinated by the flowerbeds there that at length Pounce, Achoo, and I found a bench in the sun where we could laze. For a time I watched my partner as he inspected one flower after another as he might eye a piece of evidence.

I was leaning back with my eyes closed, imagining Tunstall questioning a flower for its crimes, when I heard the familiar whir of pigeon wings. I did not bother to open my eyes to see if I was right. I have known that sound since I was a child.

Several landed on the ground before me. I always carry pigeon and dust spinner food, so I scattered a handful of cracked corn among the birds. They went after it as the voices of ghosts rose in the air.

“—tell her it wasn’t me,” an old mot’s voice said.

“I am saying, my lord is up to something. Or didn’t you notice he’s buying weapons?” That was a young cove talking.

“What is your lord’s name?” I asked the spirit.

“No!” he replied, panicked. “He’ll kill me if I tell you!”

“Lad,” I said gently, “he already has.”

At that, the spirit sighed. “He did,” he said. “I remember now.” And he was gone.

“You know I’ll love you forever. I would never betray you!” A young mot this time, terrified.

“No, halt!” another, older cove said. “That thing will fall right over!”

I tossed out more corn. One of the pigeons hopped up onto the bench and looked me over. This was the most ordinary of pigeons, blue-black all over, with white rings around its eyes. Its back feathers were ruffled and it trembled as if it were weary to the bone.

I murmured a blessing to them, wishing them peace from their lives’ fears and safe passage to the Peaceful Realms. That was enough for most of them. I could feel the spirits leave their birds, the ghosts having said what they needed to say. The black one on the bench stayed where it was.

“Have you something important to say?” I asked the bird.

“Speak with respect,” a cove’s voice snarled. “You’re no better than those treacherous, lying curs at the palace!” My body crawled with gooseflesh. Did this one know sommat useful? “They’ll wish they had kept me soon enough. After all I did for them, they murdered me in my bed!”

My throat seized up for a moment. “So you’re one of the cleaning folk, then?” I asked, my voice as innocent as a welloff child’s. “In the way of knowing the little passages and halls where the servants go—”

“Slut!” the ghost snarled. “Doxy! How dare you speak so to the Lord High Chancellor of Mages!”

I crossed my legs at the ankle easily, turning my face up to the sun. “
Any
old bogle might say the same, and me with no way to prove it. I can’t see you, after all. Tell me sommat you’ve done recently that I might know of.”

Lazamon of Buckglen wasted time calling me the kind of names given to some of my friends in the Lower City. Finally, when he ran out of terms for
whore
, I said, “If you want vengeance on your killers, I’m your only chance to get it, traitor.”

He was silent for a moment. I gave his poor bird of burden some more corn. At last he said, “What gives a guttersnipe like you the right to call me anything, let alone ‘traitor’?”

“I’ve just come from the Summer Palace,” I said. “Very nice work, undoing all those spells with no one seeing you at it. And yet your partners decided they could do without you even after that.”

“Spare me your jumped-up moralizing,” he muttered. “You understand nothing of the stakes.” He added bitterly, “
Your king
wants to regulate mage work! He says we
owe
a debt of service to the Crown! Well, he’ll soon learn I won’t do as some randy bastard with a title bids. He’ll rue the day he crossed my friends and me!”

I yawned, despite the hammering of my heart when Lazamon spoke of his fellow conspirators. Then I said, “Your friends didn’t value you so high, did they?” I eyed a broken fingernail as if I’d naught better to do. My luck still held. No one had looked to see a Dog conversing with a pigeon. “Give me their names. It will be a fine vengeance on them. You could greet them in the Peaceful Realms once they’ve taken the king’s justice.”