Authors: Tamora Pierce
"How can people give these away? Aren't they valuable?" I asked Dale.
He looked at the shell and raised an eyebrow. "Abalone shells? The beaches are heaped with them. The food sellers gather them when the seafood harvesters have collected the meat. They're good for platters, and if folk make off with them, there's always more. Poor folk use them for plates, buttons – keep it if you like, but I can find you better."
I shook my head. "No. I was just curious." He gave me the last drink of cider. "Where can we find Steen?" I asked him.
Dale frowned. "What do you need Steen for when you have me? I'm better-looking, and I'm more charming."
I laughed. "I need to ask him something about Pearl's court. About one of her guards, actually."
Dale grinned. "Well, I'm as good as Steen for that! I spend almost as much time around there as he does."
I looked at him, feeling a nasty pinch of suspicion in my tripes.
"You?
In the Court of the Rogue?" Why does a bank courier have any business in that place?
Dale shrugged. "My friends go, and I can find some of the best games there. Up until a month ago, if I was careful to lose to the Rogue now and then, I won a lot of money off of her and her folk. Sooner or later I'll have to go back and lose to her for a while, just to prove I'm not afraid." He laughed. "What, do you fear for my tender skin already, pretty Beka?"
I nearabout said that's exactly what I feared. Then I remembered him in the riot, kicking high to the side with enough strength to knock his foe over. That kind of fighting took skill and training. He'd studied it somewhere.
"You give yourself airs," I told him. "Well, then, Master Quickwit, who's her guard with the straight longsword? He's forty or so, hair a golden brown, shorter than yours, light blue eyes, your height, broader across the shoulders." Okha had given me Jupp's name, but I'd hoped Steen would know more.
Dale raised his brows at me. "I'm no sergeant or Senior Dog, you know. I don't need the whole description. Are you always so definite about people's ages?"
I turned my nose up at him. Kora does that to Ersken, and it's a very pretty move. "I was the best in my class at it. I'd say you're twenty to twenty-two. Will you keep me here forever? My hands are sticky."
"I'll lick the honey off," he suggested.
I tried not to shiver as goose bumps wriggled all over my flesh. "I've a hound will do that," I told him, trying to sound cross and not like my knees had gone to jelly.
"Oh, cruel," Dale said, hanging his head. He cupped my elbow in one hand and steered me along the edge of the vendors' booths. "Your longsword guard is Torcall Jupp. He's from Barzun originally – educated cove. I think his family comes from the trading class, though that's a guess. He doesn't talk about them. He was the first one Pearl hired when she killed the last Rogue, about four years ago. He's her chief advisor – well, he and Zolaika share the honors. Pearl's brave enough, and she understands Rats, but she's not clever the way educated folk are. She needs advisors." We came into open ground, where a fountain rained water into a wide marble basin. We washed our sticky hands, and Dale his nose, as Dale asked, "What interest do you have in an old cove like him? He's strictly for the spintries, so don't get your hopes up."
I flicked cold water in his face. "Jupp danced with me. I don't know what game he plays at."
Now, at last, I had Dale Rowan serious. With a frown he took a seat on a nearby bench. "He
danced with
you."
I plumped my bum down beside him. "You don't see
me
getting jealous over
you
being nowhere in sight awhile, do you? Like as not you were dripping honey in some other mot's ear."
"Actually, Hanse and I were talking about a game tomorrow night," he said, as if he weren't entirely paying attention. Then he looked at me. "You were dancing, and he just grabbed you up?"
I nodded. "Told me he was there to dance. I thought mayhap he had sommat to say, but he never said it. He just finished the dance and left."
Dale picked up my damp hand and stroked it. "I don't understand, either. Tor isn't the sort to play games." He cupped my cheek in his free hand. "Beka, what are you really doing here in Port Caynn?"
I sighed. "I nabbed a Rat with more Rats in his family," I told him, looking straight into his eyes. "Two of his brothers gave me a beating on Monday. Now my patron has sent Goodwin and me off until the Dogs can be certain no other members of the Rat's family will come looking for me. We're supposed to observe how Port Caynn Dogs work, so I follow Goodwin around and do as she tells me."
"Who's your patron?" Dale wanted to know.
I remembered a trick of Tansy's and tried it, wrinkling my nose at him. "Never you mind," I said. "It's nothing to do with us."
"There you are!" I heard Goodwin cry. Hanse and Goodwin, laughing, arms around each other's waists, ran up to us. Both looked windblown and happy, the best of friends. "Come along! They've got Carthaki sword dancers at a place Hanse knows of!"
We followed them.
The Carthaki dancers were wild, colorful, splendid. They showed us the big curved swords were sharp by chopping bundles of reeds and chunks of wood with them, then danced to wailing pipes and fast drums. They whipped the blades over their heads and around themselves, then over and around each other. Their wrists and hands were so fast that the blades started to blur in the torchlight. The sword dancers were men. Then came mots, little more than gixies, who tossed knives back and forth until they were silver butterflies in the air. After such dangerous pleasures came the mots who wore tiny bits of silk, only enough to cover their breasts, wide silk breeches, girdles made of coins, and an assortment of veils that could have been little protection against the chill of the night. They danced slow and fast, wriggling separate parts of their bodies that I never thought could twitch like that on their own, arching backward until their heads touched the ground, playing little cymbals on their fingers all the while.
It was
beautiful
.
After, our group found a tavern that served up a late supper. There were eleven or so of us by then, Steen with a new mot, Flory with a new cove, two more of Hanse's coves, and another of Flory's mots. I had only a bit of pie and some wine, being close to worn out. Goodwin saw it and told the men we were for home.
Nothing would do for them but that they walk us there, Hanse, Steen and his mot, Flory, and Dale. They left only when Serenity opened the door to us. It seemed that Hanse and Goodwin had already made plans for supper again in the evening to come. Dale told me he would see me there.
He didn't kiss me good night.
We weren't alone, of course, but I didn't expect that to stop
Dale
.
What is wrong with me? Was I too saucy? Too coarse? Too – Dog-ish?
I wish Kora and Aniki were here. They know so much more about coves than I do. I can't ask
Goodwin
what I did wrong.
At five of the afternoon.
Slapper roused me at what I later found was sometime after nine of the clock this morning. He landed on my face, sticking his clubbed foot into one of my eyes while he smacked me with both wings.
At least this once he calculated wrong. Hit by something, I did what any street Dog might do. I twisted sideways, grabbing for the dagger under my pillow. The cracked bird went flying into the wall nearby.
Seeing what had truly happened, I yanked off my covers and went to pick him up. I need not have bothered. He fastened his beak in my hand, striking me again. As I lifted him, he launched into the air, trilling in outrage. At least the claybrained bird was unhurt.
"D' you want me to feed you or not?" At the last moment I remembered I was not in my normal lodgings and did not yell. At home I would not have woken anyone. Aniki, Rosto, Kora, and Ersken all sleep like the dead.
Slapper whirled toward the window and perched there on the sill. The open shutters let in the full morning sun.
I turned and glared at Achoo, who sat on my bed, tail a-wag. "Not a
word
," I told her.
I scattered corn on the sill. Four pigeons waited there with Slapper, while others stood on the eaves nearby. "Splendid," I said. "Mumpers at the feast." I leaned out. The sill continued along under the other windows, a solid wooden ledge of a foot in width around the corner of the house. Reaching out as far as I could on either side, I sprinkled corn so more birds could feed.
Then I set about washing my face and cleaning my teeth, listening to the birds as I did. Their ghosts spoke clearer now that I'd had a day and most of a night listening to all manner of Port voices.
" – told 'im I'd 'ave 'is goods in a week!" A cove, with defeat in his voice.
"I tol' Pa the babby broke it." This one was a gixie.
"Di'n't they warn me, yez don' cross Pearl – " A young cove, his voice trembling in fear.
I went to the window to see which bird
that
was, even though I knew I'd need more than a common murder to trouble the Rogue. Shutters slammed open nearby. The pigeons took off in a flurry, even Slapper, as a woman cried, "What are these curst filthy birds doin' here? Hey! You, what are you at over there?"
I stuck my head out. One of Serenity's maidservants, a mot I didn't know, glared at me from the room next door, on the side opposite Goodwin's. "What?" I called.
"You, is what! Feedin' these nasty things on th' ledge! You'll stop that, right now – I'm havin' a word with Serenity!" she cried. "They leave scummer everywhere, their feathers get into the house, they bring all manner of sickness – "
I couldn't just hide when I heard that. She was wrong about these birds that carry so much human misery. I leaned further out and clenched my hands into fists to give myself courage. "See here, mistress, I've handled pigeons for years. I've yet to catch so much as a sniffle from them. And they carry more garbage off the streets than you have, any day."
"They're no more than rats with wings. Serenity won't have them here!" With that she slammed the shutters closed. A moment later I heard her thumping across my neighbor's room, into the hall, and down the stairs.
"That went well," I told Achoo. She was in no mind to listen. Instead she stood by the door, doing her I-must-go dance.
I dressed quickly and took Achoo out and then back through the kitchen. It gave me the chance to wheedle food for her from the cook. The cross-grained maid was nowhere to be seen.
"Porridge and tea?" asked the cook as I prepared to take Achoo and her meal upstairs again. "Downstairs or in your room?"
"I'll have it downstairs, mistress, if it's no trouble," I said. "Only let me feed my hound."
As I climbed the back stairs, I heard her tell the cook maid, "I don't know what Berna was on about. She doesn't seem cracked to me."
With Achoo settled, I went to the dining room. Serenity and Goodwin were the only ones there. The Dogs of yesterday's earlier breakfast were doubtless in bed or on watch. Serenity and Goodwin sat on either side of a corner of the table, deep in talk. I supposed them to be speaking of Goddess affairs, both of them being temple officials. When they looked up as I came in, I felt as if I interrupted something. I saw that my breakfast, along with an apple turnover, was placed at the table, but wondered if now wouldn't be a good time for diplomacy.
"I can take my meal up to my room," I told them.
"You may sit down," Serenity told me. "And you will stop feeding pigeons in this house, mistress. Mine is a clean dwelling, not a coop."
"Very well, Mistress Serenity," I said, taking my place. "I'll find another place to meet with them."
Serenity frowned at me. "I don't understand."
"They carry the spirits of those who were killed, or those who died, with business left undone in the world," Goodwin explained. "Cooper hears those spirits. Sometimes she learns enough to hobble their killers." Goodwin looked at me. "Serenity was telling me the house had watchers last night."
The former priestess shrugged. "As I said on your arrival, this house is safe. I have placed my protections about it. I know when strangers watch us with ill intent. Two of them were here last night." She drummed her fingers on the table, then told me, "I mean what I say about the pigeons, messengers or no. My neighbors would be up in arms if they began to flock here. We have enough trouble with pigs and stray dogs in this district as it is. These spies – I think they were meant to watch us in shifts, but no more came when I blinded the first two."
"Blinded?"
asked Goodwin. "For how long?"
Serenity's face was hard. "Permanently." Goose bumps went up my back as Serenity went on, "Everyone knows I am not to be trifled with. The Rogue was a fool to send them."
"You are certain they came from Pearl Skinner?" Goodwin asked. "How could you know?"
"I have a scrying bowl," Serenity replied, as calm as her name. "I watched the second of them and his keeper report to her. They knew there was trouble when my spell blinded the first one. The keeper stood three houses back and waited to see if the second watcher called for help, as he did. He took that one to their mistress after he was blinded." She sighed. "The stupid woman was gambling again. You would think the idiots at the gambling houses would realize that the more she loses at gambling, the more her folk will steal to fill her purse again." She looked at me. "Are you a mage, Cooper?"
I remembered my breakfast was in front of me, getting cold as I listened to her musical voice. "No," I told her, pouring milk into my bowl. With honey the porridge wasn't bad, even though it was barely warm.
Serenity smoothed the front of her gown. "Well. What resources the temple can give you in your work here, only tell me, and I will secure them for you."
Goodwin leaned back in her chair. "I thought you were a
retired
priestess," she said, suspicion clear on her face.
Serenity shrugged. "A retired First Priestess of the Mother. I am too old to welcome strangers on the great holidays, and I grew weary of factions and struggles in the temple. My retirement does not mean I am without power."