Bloodhound (4 page)

I'd just finished when the Day Watch cleared the room, and we took our places in the ranks. Once Ahuda sent us out on duty, we went into the courtyard. Instead of moving on into the street, though, Goodwin signed to Jewel and Yoav Goodwin showed them the coin and had me tell the tale all over again.

Jewel rubbed his chin. "I was startin' to tell Goodwin and Tunstall that Flash kennel brung down a dice game on our court night. Two river dodgers as was gamblin' there had a fistful of false silver. One of 'em got away. One of 'em tripped and fell in his cage and broke his neck."

Tunstall spat in the dust. Goodwin kicked him. "Hill barbarian," she said. "Hasn't Lady Sabine cured you of that?"

Tunstall grinned. "She doesn't try to change me. That's why we're still walking out."

Yoav opened her mouth, doubtless to make a joke about walking not being what they were doing. She caught Tunstall's look and closed her gob again. Folk can say whatever they like about Tunstall. He'll just blink those sleepy brown eyes. Say one word about my lady Sabine, and he'll put a hand of iron around your throat. My lady may not care that folk joke about her bedding a common Dog, but the Dog cares very much.

"Where was this river dodger?" Tunstall asked Jewel. "Kennel cages or Outwalls Prison?"

"Kennel," Yoav said. "Does it make a difference? Cage Dogs turn their backs on their mothers' murder if they're paid enough."

"What about the false coin?" Goodwin asked. "What happened to that?"

"Took to the palace," Jewel said. "No one'd leave
that
in a common kennel, where it might vanish, like."

"I had word of a gambler that won eight silver nobles that turned out to be six of 'em coles," I said. "Near Glassman Square. My Birdie had no names, though."

Goodwin spun her dagger point down on her fingertip. She did that when she was thinking. We all watched her. "We've folk passing coles in the Lower City and Flash District, but no word from any of the other districts," she said at last. "Just down here. This baker, Garnett, took in some coins, there's this gambler Cooper heard of, and its river dodgers in Flash District."

"It might pay to check the Lower City end of the riverfront, to see if other gamblers are passing fakes," Tunstall pointed out.

"The Barrel's Bottom," Goodwin said. She flipped her dagger into the air, caught it by the hilt, and sheathed it. I've yet to manage that trick without cuts. "That's the biggest for gambling, this time of the week. We should start there."

I winced. My luck in the Barrel's Bottom has not improved since I kept my first journal. I've been caught in seven large brawls in that outsized scummer-pot, the first when I was a Pup, the rest since. Last time I got my arm broken.

"If any cole passers know of the two who got caught in Flash District, they'll be shy," Jewel warned Goodwin. "They see you come in the front door, they'll be gone out every rathole in the place. You'll need company." Our team and Jewel's were too senior to have fixed patrols, but it was expected that we didn't work the same streets at the same time.

Tunstall smiled. "I'll talk with Ahuda."

She must have been in a good mood, or Tunstall talked extra well. Not only did Ahuda give us leave to take Jewel and Yoav to the Barrel's Bottom, she let us pull Birch and Ersken off their regular patrol of Rovers Street. Having Birch and Ersken along was an extra blessing. Birch has walked Rovers Street for years. He knows all the Barrel's Bottom exits.

It helped that Friday night was quiet, so we could all be spared. It was hot, too hot to do much. Plenty of folk were out of the city working the harvest. Walking down Jane Street, me and Ersken listened as the Senior Dogs wagered on when the streets and drinking houses would fill up with returning harvesters. Autumn is the Dogs' busiest season. Along with the harvesters and those that come to buy their winter's supplies come the thieves and gamblers to clip them. It's best we get this business of coles done with now. It will make a pretty mess once the crowds come.

Around the corner from the Barrel's Bottom, the Senior Dogs halted to give us our assignments.

"Ersken goes through the front door," said Birch. "Walk about slow-like, lad. Look over the games, and now and then give a pile of silver a wee poke with your baton, but not so much as to disturb the coins. Let them know you're there, eye-in' the money. If you're payin' a bit too much attention to the coin, they'll sweat. They won't know why you're lookin', but they'll know it ain't good. Like it says in
The Book of Law
, the guilty run first. We'll be waiting for them."

"Don't interrupt the games," Goodwin cautioned. "They hate that."

All of us nodded.

"The regulars know Ersken," Birch told us. "They'll know I'm hard by."

"And them with aught on their consciences will scatter for the bolt holes," Jewel said.

"Which I'll be showing you," Birch replied. "Wait till I return, Ersken."

As he led us away, I looked back at Ersken, worried. He's put on weight and muscle since our Puppy year, and he's better with his baton and those brass knuckles that Kora gave him. Birch wouldn't have kept him if he thought Ersken wasn't tough enough for Rovers Street. All the same, there's a difference between working the street with a tough Dog and walking into the Bottom alone.

He has his whistle, I told myself. We're all close enough to hear.

Then I saw Pounce sit down by Ersken's feet and felt better. Pounce is as good as another Dog.

Birch put me at a side door that opened on a tiny alley. A pair of torches over the door gave me light as I waited there, my baton in hand, my sap in easy reach. In my free hand I kept a piece of spelled mirror that Kora had given me for Midwinter. It would show me anyone who might try to sneak past under the cover of magic. I never asked her how much it cost, but to me it's worth my weight in gold. I've bagged five mage-spelled Rats using that mirror. With it and my weapons, I might be outside the rowdiest den on Rovers Street, but I was ready to bag me some Rats. And if there was a brawl, I would do my part.

But there was no brawl. Folk were too hot, seemingly. Instead, they ran. The first three that scuttled out my door were known to me. They were part of Aniki's band of rushers: Bold Brian, Reed Katie, and Fiddlelad. They grinned when they saw me and held up their empty fambles.

"Back with Goodwin and Tunstall?" Reed Katie asked me with a wink, a laugh in her sweet voice. Word moves fast in the Lower City.

"What do
you
think?" I asked her. "And why are you three sliding out the back way? Put your hands down."

They lowered their arms. "You don't fool us," said Bold Brian. "Westover's in there, lookin' as innocent as a babe. If he's about, Birch isn't far behind."

"An' if the two of them's huntin' in the Bottom, we're off," Fiddlelad told me, running his fingers over his fiddle. "We thought Rovers Street would be restful once Birch got him a first-year Dog for partner, but Westover's sharp. 'Tis best to tread a measure when they're about."

"'Specially when Westover wears that baby face of his," Reed Katie added. "He comes in looking all innocent, you
know
sommat's in the wind."

Mayhap I've been worrying over Ersken for naught. Seemingly he's building some repute for himself. I prodded Reed Katie's purse. "So what were you up to in there, you three? Gaming? Winning silver?"

They laughed and showed me four silver coins between them. "We don't gamble, not in the Bottom," Fiddlelad said. "Play's too rough here."

"We was havin' but a cup of ale, whilst Fiddlelad earned coin playin'," Bold Brian told me.

All of their coins were cut to show they were silver clean through. The three of them were earning better since Rosto became Rogue, but most of their purse coin was still copper.

"Since when do you cut your silver?" I asked them. "Or were you given these already marked?"

"Checked 'em ourselves." Bold Brian had given me two silver nobles. "Aniki warned us about coles this afternoon."

"Just mind who you tell that to," I said, worried. "We need no panics."

"Aniki said the same," Fiddlelad told me. "Brian only mentioned it now a'cos we're talkin' with you, Cooper."

Bold Brian said, "You don't mind, Cooper, we'll clear out. Time we let you be about your business."

In case I run into trouble, I thought, but I waved them on. Five more mots and coves came through the door, but only one of them carried silver, and that was true coin. I was starting to get bored when I saw a reflection in my charmed mirror – a fat Yamani fellow inside a curtain of magic. I turned as if to look inside. When he eased by me, I checked the mirror a second time to make sure I knew his height and where his head would be. Then I snapped my baton around his neck from behind. Whilst he choked, I threw him against the side of the building and groped for his hands so I could tie them. With that done, I felt for the magic charms at his neck and cut the cords they hung on. He started cursing me then.

Once I saw him clear, I hobbled his ankles with a second thong, then searched him for weapons. He carried only a pair of daggers and a dice box. Seemingly he relied on magic to keep him out of trouble. Though his skin and features were Yamani, he wore his hair like any cove of the Eastern Lands, cut along the sides of his head instead of in a topknot. His clothes were the tunic and leggings most local coves prefer.

As I went through his pockets, he complained, "How might such a pretty lass be so cruel?" His accent was that of Port Caynn.

"Compliments do you not one whit of good," I said as I took the purse from his belt. I inspected its contents in the torchlight. It held a few coppers and at least ten silver nobles. A search of the rest of him gave me another purse, hidden inside his tunic. It was stuffed with silver coins. "And I
hate
colemongers."

"I know naught of coles!" he protested.

I took out a silver coin from the hidden purse and cut its face with my dagger. Brass gleamed at the bottom of the cut. I dropped that coin on the ground and fished out another, cutting it as I had the first. It, too, was a cole.

He was sweating. "I won them in play on the boat from Port Caynn."

"From who?"

"Some fellows. Decent enough, but – they'd not like my giving their names to the law in Corus, I'm certain."

I grabbed his hair and banged his head against the wall. "You'll not like what will happen to you if you
don't
tell me who you won those coles from."

"I cannot tell, Guardswoman! I must have played five people on that boat!"

"Then we'll round all of them up," I said. He shook his head and kept shaking it, though he wrenched his own hair in my hand as he did it. "Very well, then. Who are you?" I asked.

He refused to speak.

"Tell me or tell the cage Dogs, it makes no difference. They will get the truth out of you sooner or later," I warned him. Sometimes just the threat of the cage Dogs will make a Rat spill. Not this one, though. He was still holding his tongue when the other Dogs came for me. They'd caught another cole-monger, a mot built like a barge. She looked like a fighter of some kind, dressed as she was in a metal-studded leather jerkin, leather breeches, and boots, with metal-studded gloves folded over her belt. She wore empty sword and dagger sheaths on the belt. Jewel had her weapons.

My cove lit up when he saw her. "Tell them! Tell them we won the coles on the boat! This stone-hearted doxie won't believe me, but maybe these fine Guardspeople will!"

"He's a gabblemonger, but he's tellin' the truth," the mot told us as we walked them down the street. "And it's a gold noble for each of yez if you'll send for the advocate to the Gem-cutter's Guild. She'll bring a mage with truth spells. We'd as soon avoid any rack or Drink or thumbscrews your cage Dogs got waitin'."

"It's true," my Yamani said. "The guild will pay our fees and yours. All our wrong lay in gaming with the wrong folk."

"The Gemcutter's Guild," Nyler Jewel repeated, just to be certain.

"We carry packages for the guild, to and from Port Caynn," said the Yamani.

Jewel groaned. He looked like he'd bit into a pickle with a rotten tooth. Tunstall spat on the street. Yoav swore. Some of the city guilds could walk their people away from plenty of things. If we couldn't prove these two guilty of cole passing, the Gemcutter's Guild would have them out of the cages before dawn.

"Gambling's a pleasant way to pass the time. She's my guard until the packages are delivered." The Yamani nodded toward the mot. "We spend a night in the city, and in the morning we take goods back to the port."

"Be reasonable," the mot said. "You know cage Dogs get lies as often as not with their tortures. A mage is a certain thing. Just send to the guild – they'll get someone to come for us. And the advocate will pay them gold nobles over to yez, nice as honey in the comb."

I could nearabout hear the Senior Dogs' teeth grinding. I asked, "If you're so clean and you're to be bought free of cages and charges, you may as well give up the names of your gamester friends and that boat you came on."

"And your own names as well," Goodwin said.

The mot gave us a hard grin. "We will, once our release papers are signed. If yer cage Dogs haven't been gnawing on us. Then we'll be happy to say what you want to know."

I looked down so no one could see me smile. She had sack, this mot, giving back hard answers when she'd been nabbed by hard Dogs for passing coles. I hope she is honest.

Birch and Ersken came out of the Barrel's Bottom. "It's clear, and the staff inside cursing us," said Birch. "Are these two all we have to show?"

"It gets better," Tunstall growled. "They work for the Gemcutter's Guild." He ruffled his hair. "One of us will have to go to the Guild's Advocate. And why should the advocate believe we have two of their Rats?"

"Hey!" cried the Yamani, insulted. "We're no Rats!"

The mot acted like she hadn't heard. "Where's the magic charms he wore about his neck? That's your proof. And I'd give a rosy copper to know how he got caught with them on, unless he was so rattled he forgot to work the spell." She gave the Yamani a scornful look.