Bloodhound (5 page)

"I worked them!" he said. "But the young Dog there caught me all the same, the mot with the ghostly eyes."

Jewel and Birch looked at me. Ersken and my partners knew about Kora's Gift. "My friend Kora gave me a mirror that shows what's behind an illusion," I explained. I pulled the Yamani's charms from my pocket. I'd hoped Kora would tell me how I might use them, but that was out now. I wouldn't be allowed to keep them. They'd go to the Senior Dogs, or maybe even the Watch Commander.

The mot selected one made of the costly blue stone called lapis lazuli. She handed it to me. On it was carved the sign of the Great Eye, for eyesight, but there was something wrong about it. I turned the charm about and realized the Eye was carved upside down on one side and closed on the other. "Show it to the Gemcutter's Advocate," the mot said.

I left Pounce with my partners. I knew where the advocate lived from my days as a message runner from the different kennels. She was well enough, for someone who was paid to get Rats out of their rightful sentences. Still, there were times when we nabbed someone wrongfully, and then the advocates have their uses.

It was a fair way from the Barrel's Bottom, and I took it at the trot. The servants didn't keep me waiting at the gate very long. Scarce ten minutes after I'd handed that strange eye charm to the manservant on duty there, he returned with the advocate, who was pulling on her robe as she walked.

"Fetch my horse and two grooms suitably armed and prepared to ride," she ordered the servant. To me she said, "How many of our people do you have, Guardswoman, and where are they held?" She is always that way, straight to the point and no mucking about.

"Two of them, Mistress Advocate, and they'll be at the Jane Street kennel," I replied.

"Very well. You may go about your duties," she told me.

And that was that. She did not ask me the prisoners' names or the charges. They never do, these busy, important folk. She and I both knew she could buy them out of the cages, given the guild's heavy purses.

I returned to my partners as quickly as I had left them. Our captives were gone, tucked into a cage cart for transport to Jane Street and their advocate. We six Dogs and Pounce returned to Rovers Street.

We spent the rest of the night in every drinking den and gamblers' hall on the side that lay within our district. We brought in seven others with more than two of the silver coles, but we'd no good feeling from them. The Yamani and his guard were our best bet for a scent of the colesmiths responsible for this run of false coin.

"So who told the colemongers there was good coin to be made here?" Ersken asked after we'd mustered out. We were yawning over our reports, wanting to get them wrote up before we went home. I kept having to shove Pounce over to write mine. He likes to nap on my papers. "One of those colemongers that Flash District had?" Ersken suggested.

I shook my head. "I'm thinking mayhap it's whoever made the coles, or who's in charge of passing them on. Gambling's a good way to do it, right? Folk will gamble for silver when they won't buy things with it. Silver makes folk like them that live in the Lower City crackbrained. They gamble and win, they gamble and lose. If you've a fistful of coles and you know how to gamble, you can trade your coles for coppers and your coppers back for good silver at the games. Your gamblers go out and play with other folk, sending your coles further along. No one asks your name, they hardly look at your face."

"And they can't describe you for the Dogs," Goodwin said over my shoulder. She took my finished report from me and read it over. "Good, Cooper. Tidy, as ever." She gave Ersken and me a sheet of parchment each. "Flash District sent these over and Ahuda had them copied. We'll show them around. It's the cole passers they had, and lost."

We looked at the drawings. They could have been anyone.

"I know," Goodwin said. "Come on, you two. Let's have a late supper at the Mantel and Pullet. Lady Sabine is buying."

As much as I wished to see my lady, and as much as it pained me to turn down a free meal, I was near asleep on my feet. I begged off. Walking home woke me enough to write in my journal. I've been thinking hard to see if there's aught I've forgotten, turning the fire opal stone I got as a Puppy over in my fingers. The bits of bright color my candle strikes from it spark my thinking.

So is there a colesmithing ring in Port Caynn? Or just a lone colemonger like the Yamani or his river dodger mot?

Time for bed.

Saturday, September 8, 247

Noon.

Poxy, plaguey, sheep-biting Tunstall.

The morning came on even hotter and more miserable than yesterday. The pigeons were pecking at my shutters. I was rolling over for another hour of sleep when someone hammered on my door, shaking dust loose from the cracks.

"Murrain take you, I'm a Dog and I'm dragging you clean to Outwalls!" I cried at last. Clad only in my nightdress, I grabbed my baton and undid my bolts, ready to break someone's nob. "If y' think this be a joke, ye'll chuckle through gaps – " I yanked the door open. There stood Tunstall, looking fresh and cheerful, wearing a cityman's clothes instead of uniform.

"Cooper," he said, shaking his head in a woeful sort of way. "Talking cant like a Lower City gixie. And you such a careful-bred thing. I take no pity on you. I left my beautiful lady all sweet in bed so we could go and roust Mistress Tansy's baker."

I scowled at him. I wished I could do more than scowl, but I like him too much. "When was this decided?"

"Last night, over supper. Goodwin tossed me for it, and I lost." He shrugged, a true eastern hillman. The gods had decided on the toss of a coin, and that was that.

"But I'll miss breakfast with my friends," I complained.

"So you will," he said. "I am missing breakfast with my lady. Is Pounce around?"

Pounce trotted through the door between my feet, meowing a greeting.

"We'll wait downstairs," Tunstall said.

Pounce led him away while I closed the door. I dressed in cityfolk clothes, long blue tunic over undyed breeches, half mot, half cove. The garments stuck to my skin before I even put my boots on. I did my hair in my long braid but left out the spiked strap so I might pin it up in a maidenly coil. And I fetched my basket. Tunstall didn't think to bring one. He was a bachelor. He took his meals at eating houses and seldom shopped for food. He wouldn't know folk no more went to the baker without a basket or bag than they went naked. There was no use telling the world we had Dog business there.

Tansy's baker, Garnett, had his shop on Stuvek Street. Pounce curled up outside the door while we went inside and looked around. It was a prosperous-looking shop. Apprentices worked his counters, whilst Garnett supervised the money box. There were the guards on each side of him, just as Tansy had said. They were a pair of rushers who had seen more shining days, but doubtless they were good enough for a baker.

The moment he saw us, Garnett was on his feet. Mayhap we still looked like Dogs, in or out of uniform. "What may I do for you?" he asked, polite enough. Then he got a good look at Tunstall and knew him.

Tunstall smiled. "We'd like a word, Garnett. No trouble, just a word, mayhap three."

The baker looked at me and sighed. "Your hair's too long and it ain't black, so you ain't Goodwin. You must be Cooper. Bad luck either way."

I kept silent. I'm not chatty with strangers when I'm not dressed as a Dog.

Garnett called for one of the counter folk to take the cash box and ordered the guards to stay with it. Then he led us into the back room. It was small and godless hot, a place for light bookkeeping only. A feeble breeze came through the slats in the shutter. Garnett took the comfortable chair behind the desk. Tunstall had a chair. I had to lean against the wall.

Garnett looked up at me, then at Tunstall. "What brings two Evening Watch Dogs to my place so early of their day? I doubt it's for the baking, for all you carry a basket."

"A Birdie told us you've hired guards because folk are slipping you coles," Tunstall said agreeably. "Now we've seen the guards for our own eyes, right, Cooper? And we're curious. Jane Street has had no report from you. When did you find you were receiving coles?"

Garnett drooped in his chair. "Me and my wife check the coin. We do it every week, afore we sort out taxes and pay and expenses and the like. Three weeks runnin' we found a few coles in the week's takings. We used to check one in ten. That first bad week it were fifteen coles in all, so we decided to check three in ten. The next week we found twenty-seven. Then we checked all our coin, startin' two weeks back. Last week it were fifty-five, more'n half the week's gain. That's when I hired the guards, to keep folk from causin' violence when I caught them in the shop."

"What did you do with the coles you had?" Tunstall wanted to know. "You didn't report them."

Garnett turned white and looked at the floor.

I tapped my foot on the tiles.

"Cooper," Tunstall said.

It would be in here, somewhere. He'd need it close so he could put the dry coins back in the money box. I went around and yanked open the drawers of the desk. Garnett started to grab me, until he saw Tunstall clean his nails with his dagger. Then Garnett just covered his face with his hands.

I found the jar of silver paint and the brush in his bottom drawer. I put them on top of the desk.

"You painted silver over the bronze cut in the coles. Then you paid out the false coins to someone else as good ones," Tunstall said. "You've committed colemongering yourself, Garnett. What you say from now on decides whether you visit Magistrate's Court or not. Who has tried to pass coles to you that you can name?"

"Mistress Tansy Lofts had two. A journeyman carpenter buyin' for one of the weekly guild suppers had five. That came from the guild's own fund, so they'll do the reportin' of it to the kennel." He sighed again. "I s'pose you're wantin' to speak with the others? I only have the names of six." He looked at Tunstall, who gave him a pleasant smile. Garnett took a scrap of parchment from a pile of them, uncapped the ink bottle, and picked up a quill. He made his letters carefully. I guessed he'd not been writing so long as to be comfortable at it.

Tunstall watched him for a moment, then looked at me and raised his brows. I got the hint and asked, "Have you recorded the extra coppers you made them pay as a penalty? For your Crown tax?"

Garnett's hand jumped. He left a streak from the parchment straight onto his leather blotter.

"Cooper, you startled him," Tunstall said with mock reproach.

Tansy hadn't mentioned Garnett making her pay a fine. She must have been too ashamed of having coles to say he'd charged extra so she might leave without him calling the Dogs. But it was a reasonable guess. He had to get money for his guards
somehow
. From the way he'd jumped, he'd not set any of it aside for the King's taxes or for the Dogs' Happy Bag. Naughty baker.

Garnett blotted the line of ink. He was sweating beyond what the heat called for. "Of course I kept the record," he muttered. "Why shouldn't I charge a fee, when I've been given false coin? I have to make up all the money I'm out, after takin' in so many coles before!"

"He lies," I said. "He no more kept a record of it than he reported the coles he got."

Garnett wiped his face on his sleeve.

"Tell the truth, now, Master Baker. It will do you good," Tunstall prodded.

"I didn't record it," the baker said.

"There – that's better. How much is your fee?" Tunstall asked.

Garnett sighed. "Five coppers." He didn't have the air of a liar this time.

"Half a silver! You've a granite set," Tunstall said.

Garnett hung his head. "Better half a silver noble to me than several silver to the cage Dogs, and the court Dogs, and maybe a bath in boilin' oil despite all they pay," he said. "I
know
my neighbors ain't colesmiths, but Dogs is hard, suspicious sorts. They haul you in, and things get expensive and painful fast."

Tunstall picked up the list. "Six names. That's not so bad." He gave the paper to me and stood. Then he leaned on Garnett's little desk so that he towered over the shrinking baker. "Not a word to anyone, Garnett. Or me and Cooper and Goodwin will visit you again. Start recording that fee you charge, for the tax and the Happy Bag. And send what coles you have left to Jane Street. We know it's hard to find you're getting paid in bronze for hard work. But you don't want us chewing at your ass."

Tunstall never raised his voice. He hardly even growled. Garnett would no more warn the folk who'd paid him in coles than he would eat his own hand. Having six-odd feet of sleepy-eyed barbarian looming over them did influence people to do as they were bid.

Outside, we found Pounce waiting. He followed us into the shade of a nearby tree. Tunstall gave him an ear scratching while I looked at Garnett's list.

"We already know about Mistress Tansy, so we needn't worry her," Tunstall said when I gave the paper back to him.

"My cousin Philben is on that list," I said. "And this Urtiz fellow doesn't live so far from my lodgings."

"Seek out at least one before watch today and talk to him like a neighbor," Tunstall said. "I'll see who I can find out of the other three names. Don't tire yourself out." He looked at the sun, shading his eyes with his hand. "It's going to be cursed hot again. You'll need your strength for duty tonight, and I'm sure you have errands and such."

"It's no bother," I told him. "I don't have anything special to do."

Maybe, and maybe not
, Pounce said at my feet.
Maybe I have plans for you
.

This was one of those times when Tunstall understood him. "Do they involve me,
hestaka
?" Tunstall asked. Ever since Pounce saved his life at Midwinter, Tunstall has called him
hestaka
. It means "wise one" in Hurdik. That's what Tunstall calls the hillman speech. Whenever Tunstall says
hestaka
, Pounce fluffs up his chest and looks smug.

No. My plans include only Beka
, Pounce replied.