Bloodhound (18 page)

"Everyone keeps warning me about sailors," I complained. "Why can't someone tell the sailors to stay clear of me?"

Granny snorted. "Oh, you're the fierce one now! Just take care no one else catches you unawares and knocks you on the nob! Master Pounce, why didn't you – " She looked around. "He's not with you. He's always at your side, that cat."

I wrung my handful of sheets out extra hard. "He's got duties in the Divine Realms, Gran. He told me he'd be away for a time."

She stared at me, drumming her fingers on her forearm for a few moments. At last she said, "Then you truly need to be on the watch, don't you? You won't have your magic cat looking out for you."

"I have Achoo," I reminded her. Achoo lay on her back, wriggling in the bit of grass that was growing in my gran's yard.

Granny looked at Achoo and raised an eyebrow. "Fills me with trust, that one."

I fixed all that needed fixing and did Gran's shopping for that day. Before I left, I brought up something that had troubled me. I knew I shouldn't, but she is my gran. My cousins help her out at times with coin and work, but they have their own worries.

"Gran, I'll be needing silver in the port. I'll trade you coppers for whatever silver coin you have, equal up," I told her.

She had three silver nobles. I gave her three silver half-nobles and the rest in coppers, while I tried to think of the best way to tell her the rest. "I think the silver mining hasn't been good of late," I said at last. "I was you, I'd get my coin in copper for a time."

Granny squinted at me. "Warnin' me off silver, are you? I heard a bit of gossip."

"I know of no gossip, Granny. Don't hearken to it," I answered quickly. "No more should you spread any and say it's come from me!"

"Lucky your cousins mostly get paid in copper and goods, eh?" Granny patted my arm. "Did you think Philben would keep
his
gob shut about coles? You aren't the only one as can think, girl. Are the Dogs going to do sommat? Seems to me the Rogue is the better cove to put a stop to it, if the colemongering isn't his to start with."

"Gran, for the gods' love, it's talk like yours that starts riots!" I said, keeping my voice down.
"No
, the Rogue has naught to do with coles! Will you just put a stopper in it?"

She looked at me and sighed. "Girl, do you ever take a breath and wonder if folk don't put out bait for you? To see if you'll bite? You'll never get a man if you don't relax."

My dear old gran. It's a wonder her children aren't every one of them mad as priests, if she mangles their wits as she mangles mine.

"Granny," I told her, "this is dead serious. I can't relax, no more than any Dog. I'm not shopping for a man. That's the
last thing
I need."

"A good swiving would freshen you right up," she said. "I've heard folk say the Goddess never meant for mots to be brawling like soldiers and Dogs, elsewise why put wombs in them? You'd best think on that, Beka, afore someone cuts yours clean out, and you never have children of your own."

There's no denying it, Gran has good days and bad. I kissed her and took off. I'll keep my womb to myself. The first looby who tells me I'm not fit to do a Dog's proper work because of it gets a kiss from my baton.

Back home, and then I did the rounds of my pigeons and dust spinners, including Raaashell. I told them I'd be going, I didn't know for how long, and that Aniki and Kora would look after them. I can't say if they understood, particularly Raaashell, since she was so new. It's not like our conversations were so promising. The spinners took my gifts of dust and continued to spin. The pigeons stuffed themselves. They had plenty to say, or their few ghostly riders did. I just couldn't make head nor tail of most of it. It was my own fault. I was just plain rattled. How would I manage without Pounce?

When I realized what I was thinking, I was more upset. I
do
depend on him a great deal, more than I should depend on anyone but myself.

Home I went again, to clean myself up. I changed into my uniform and went to Provost's House. I got there an hour early, so no one might complain that I hadn't left time to say goodbye to my brothers and sisters. I tied Achoo in the kitchen yard, my foster aunt Mya being particular about animals in the kitchen. She was the head cook at Provost's House.

Although the kitchen was as mad as ever, Mya found me right away. "Beka!" Her little wren's face lit up. She came to embrace me, then stopped. "Oh, I've flour on me. I'll smutch your uniform. You haven't come in so long!" She beckoned to one of the message runners. "Tell my lady that Rebakah Cooper is here."

I must have fidgeted or done something to let Mya know I didn't like that. She smiled up at me.

"Beka, you know my lady will be unhappy if she does not see you. It's polite. She requires it," Mya said, her dark eyes warning me.

"I know," I replied. "I'd just hoped she would be out, or something." My lady Teodorie does not approve of me. My lord never had any children who liked the low and dirty life of the Dogs as he did. The young folk of his household who took up Dog work did so because it seemed like a decent living, nothing more. In me he had found someone like his cousin Nestor, who loved it as he did. I would talk to him about the ins and outs of the cases at the end of the day. Having me at Provost's House renewed Lord Gershom's love of being Provost at a time when my lady had arranged a position for him that she thought was better fitted to his bloodline, and to hers. Since she did love her husband, she decided to hate me instead.

It helped not at all that my brothers and sisters wanted to better themselves in ways that Lady Teodorie valued. The girls were good, obedient maids. Diona was skilled at handling clothes and dressing hair. Lorine was a fine seamstress, bidding fair to be a much-favored designer of clothes. My brothers Willes and Nilo were good with horses. Will was a trusted messenger already, while Nilo was learning how to train horses for different tasks.

I answered Aunt Mya's questions about my recent days, even telling her about Silsbee and the riot, but my ear was cocked for that messenger. I wanted this meeting over with so I could return to the kitchen and warm up. I'd done Rat watches on freezing slate roofs in January that were more comfortable than a few minutes in my lady's solar.

The messenger returned, but not at the trot Lady Teodorie required. He walked. His eyes were huge in his face. He looked at me and said, "My lady says she don't wish to see Guardswoman Cooper. She says she don't wish her servants talkin' with someone that has no better sense than to stay with the Provost's Guard when bein' in it almost got her head bashed in twice in one week. She says Guardswoman Cooper is to wait for my lord in his library."

She'd heard about the Pell brothers as well as the Bread Riot. Only my lady Teodorie would make both of those my fault. Her disapproval meant that it would do me no good to try to see my brothers and sisters. They took their directions these days from the look on my lady's face.

Well, a murrain on her! I did proper work during the riot, and the Pell brothers taught me a lesson I needed to learn. If my lady expected me to come begging for a better position, I hope she had food and drink to keep her while she waited. She has
no right
to judge what I do.

I'm sure I didn't hear Aunt Mya mutter the word I thought I heard her say. "Go on to the library, dear," she told me. "I'll send you in a bite to eat while you wait."

I nodded and kissed her cheek. "I've got a hunt in Port Caynn," I whispered in Aunt Mya's ear. "Tell my brothers and sisters I said goodbye, and gods all bless."

She clung to my hand. "No bad thoughts, now," she said, gently scolding. "Don't tempt any bad spirits. Gods all bless, Beka."

I do regret not being allowed to say farewell to my brothers and sisters. There's no knowing what will happen to me on a hunt.

I fetched Achoo and took her back inside with me. The servants gawped as I passed them on the way to the library. Word goes around quick. I was relieved to shut the heavy door behind us. At least in the library I felt comfortable. It smelled of leather, cinnamon, juniper, and bay, my lord's own scent. Reports from the different watch districts, each with its own color of seal, were scattered on his desk. His leather case lay atop them, open to show the colemonger report and notes. Letters were strewn everywhere, some writ by elegant scribes, others scrawled notes from Dogs. The servants knew better than to straighten my lord's desk.

"Achoo,
turun,"
I said, pointing to a place on the floor. "And
tinggal
. You're in a nobleman's house, remember."

Achoo gave her very soft whuff, as if to say she knew very well what was expected of her. She curled up on the space I had pointed out, watching me as I turned my attention to the walls.

Here Lord Gershom displayed his maps. Everywhere there were no shelves of books, my lord had maps that could be drawn down to full view of the eye. There were tables on which maps could be laid and studied as well. The precious documents were stored underneath. My lord required a good knowledge of Tortall's many cities and towns, and of the great distances between, to understand the reports that came to his desk.

One wall map drew me. My lord would have been studying it with a keen eye since he'd had our information on the colemongers. It was the map of Port Caynn. Port Caynn is two cities divided by a ridge, half on the southeastern shore of the sea harbor, half on the northeastern shore of the Olorun River. The northern half is the better half, where the monied folk live and the harbor is deeper. The big cargo ships and naval vessels dock there in the shelter of a breakwater built near sixty year ago, by King Roger's grandfather. The southern shipping is the river traffic – cargo barges, small boats, fishing smacks, and the like.

Two bridges spanned the river where it emptied into the sea. They marked the end of the river dodgers' run to the port, and posed a barrier for any as tried to raid inland by sailing up-river. They were low and solid, raised in the deep riverbed by magecraft in times long past. No seafaring vessel could sail through their low arches, but folk could travel back and forth between north and south Tortall with ease.

The place was built on rising ground. My calves and bum always ached from clambering about after my visits there. I'll have to get used to that.

The door opened. I turned. It was my lord, followed by a servant with a tray of food and drink. My lord pointed the lad to a table kept clean for the purpose, and thanked him when the boy had put everything down there. Once he was gone, my lord looked at me.

"Stop bowing, please, Beka. I feel like I should bow to
you"
He made a face and shoved his long hair away from his eyes. He had not tied it back today. "I just had an interview with my lady. I understand she was informed you were in the house, and was not pleased."

I looked at the floor. What could I say? I never talk to a man about his wife. That goes ten times for ever saying a bad word to my lord about my lady.

"Time will mend this." My lord filled two cups and offered me one. "She will come to see that it is improper of her to interfere with your family, as it would be improper for you to interfere with hers."

Well, he could think that, I suppose. The thought of me interfering with House Haryse would have been funny if I hadn't been so angered with my lady. I checked the cup I'd taken from his hand. It was filled with peach nectar, cold from the cellars. I sipped it. Didn't it serve me right, to be forbidden my family, after I'd worked to keep my time with them as scant as possible? Now I had none at all.

"Is this Achoo, then?" Lord Gershom asked. "She won't come to me, will she?"

"Not unless I bid her to, my lord. They're only supposed to answer their handlers. Achoo,
kemari. Kawan
."

Achoo came dancing over to smell my lord's hands and leggings, wagging her tail. She circled him, showing that she was pleased to meet him.

"This is a great honor," my lord said. "I've been hearing of your exploits, Achoo. But you're not looking as well as I expect for the finest scent hound in the Lower City." He looked up at me with a frown.

"Her last handler was a brute," I said.

My lord went to the door and looked outside. "A bowl of chopped meat and another of water for a scent hound," he ordered the messenger who always stood there when he was inside. My lord looked back at me. "Does she have any favorite meat?"

I had to smile. My lord was famous for spoiling his hounds. "She will eat anything, my lord."

"See to it," he ordered the messenger outside. He closed the door and took a chair across the small table from mine, then snatched a pear from the plate. I took up one of Aunt Mya's spice cakes. I can't resist them, not even if it means eating in front of my lord.

"Tell me, how did poor old Tunstall get his legs broken?" he wanted to know. "I sent my own healer to him yesterday, and she says she can't do better than what's being done. I've been so busy reading the information on this colemongering that I haven't finished the Bread Riot reports."

I heaved a sigh of relief. My lord's healer was
very
good, as good as Master Sholto. If anything more could be done for him, she would have taken care of it, and not counted the expense.

We were yet talking about the Bread Riot when a footman brought Goodwin and the messenger came with Achoo's bowls of meat and water. Lord Gershom stood when Goodwin arrived. Achoo whuffed and wagged her tail, but did not get up. I was impressed. She clearly wanted to go to Goodwin, but she waited for me to give her permission.

"Pengantar,"
I said. Achoo happily bounded over to Goodwin, to lick her hand and dance around her.

"Hello, Achoo, hello." Goodwin bent to scratch Achoo's ears. She was actually pale, something I'd never seen, not even when her jaw was broken or the healer was stitching up a six-inch gash in her side. "My lord, is there no one else to send?" she asked. "Already my Tomlan speaks of the gatherings he will hold when I am gone from the house. He is threatening to have the plaster newly painted indoors before winter sets in. No, Achoo, I don't need kisses."