Bloodhound (34 page)

"We aren't here for anything but learning," I said. It worries me that Goodwin trusts the Goddess-folk too easily because she is temple magistrate at home. "We're not up to anything special."

"Then why does Pearl set watchers on you?" Serenity asked. "She has never showed interest in any other Dogs under my roof. Good Dogs, with plenty of hobblings to their names. You've drawn her attention. She's not one to forget those who do that. You may well need the temple. I will get help to guard this place." She pursed her mouth. "Pearl is like a stupid stray. She only remembers you've hit her for a time. Then she forgets and comes slinking back to try to steal from your kitchen again."

"You talk careless of a Rogue who had the sack to leave pearls with Sir Lionel's children," I said. Goodwin looked at me and raised her brows.

"Pearl has power only so long as people give it to her," Serenity replied. "Had Sir Lionel any backbone, he would have sent his children to our temple or Mithros's for safety, then hunted her down and broken her back like the Rat she is. Men like Nestor and a few others fight, while others make deals and Sir Lionel hides in Guards House. Some of us are tired of it. We are tired of her."

Goodwin got to her feet with a sigh. "Speeches are all very well, but if we don't show ourselves out and about, Mother back in Corus will scold." She looked at Serenity. "Don't get your throat cut on our account, Priestess." She walked past me. "Cooper, bring that hound of yours."

I went upstairs for Achoo.

She was glad to run downstairs with me, beating me with her wagging tail all the way. Goodwin waited for us in the courtyard. Achoo had to say good morning to Goodwin, which required standing and licking until Goodwin said, "Enough!" She didn't even have to say it in Kyprish. Down on all fours Achoo went.

"The plan for today?" I asked Goodwin as we turned right on Ashlie Lane.

"I'd like to see what we overhear at the gem markets on western Moneychangers'," she replied. "See what's said of Pearl and the Dogs here. And Sir Lionel. Port Caynn has always been wild, but not like now. I'd almost swear Pearl rules here, not the Crown." Her lips thinned. "That won't do."

Hearing her say that, so quiet, made me feel as strong, as awake, wary, and
eager
as the Growl of a roomful of Dogs. So
this
was what a hunt felt like!

We walked for a couple of blocks in silence until I settled and I thought she had settled. "Should we do aught about watchers on our lodging?" I asked. "Or do you think Serenity has it in hand?" I'd already glimpsed movement behind a cart stopped in front of a shop. I could tell it was Haden.

"I've been wondering that myself," Goodwin said. "We can't go to Isanz Finer's house without being sure we're not followed. If Pearl is involved, she'd kill to stop anyone from finding out where she gets her silver. I think she believes we're here, or actually,
you're
here, to spy on her for Rosto."

I snorted.

"Yes, but she doesn't know you," Goodwin said. "I want her to go on believing you are Rosto's spy. If she thinks that, she'll stop trying to watch us after a few days, when she realizes you're no such thing. Then we can visit Isanz and see if he has the source of the colemongers' silver. That's one of the things that makes me doubt Pearl as a colemonger. How would a city Rat like her learn of an unknown silver mine?"

"She'd be mad to be the colemonger," I said, surprised that Goodwin even considered Pearl seriously. "Rosto won't, and he's as greedy as any Rat. He says dealing in coles is cutting your own throat. True coin means everything to them."

"Aye, but Rosto's a curst wise Rogue for all his youth, and he's got some kind of book-learning to go with it." Goodwin picked up an apple from a stall and flipped a coin to the vendor. "Pearl's clever in a street way, but in a commonsense way? I've had the chance to meet eight other Rogues apart from Kayfur, Rosto, and Pearl. None of them made a display of being too rich, like she's done with those stupid pearl teeth. Even if she's only been Rogue four years, she should have learned some things by now. Either her bodyguards are poxy devoted, or she's a better killer than even Rosto." She bit into the apple and chewed like she was vexed with it.

"Mayhap her counselors warned her off coles," I said. "Dale says Jupp and Zolaika advise her. They'd tell her the pitfalls. Maybe they don't care about her teeth, but they'd say she dumps scummer in her own well, passing coles in her city. That her people, too, will bring coles back instead of real coin."

"But we know she handles some cole passing already, Cooper," Goodwin reminded me. "That red purse game – they'd have to get her permission to use rushers to protect the filchers when they swap purses. But that still doesn't mean Pearl's a colemonger, and the more I see her, the more I think she's too stupid to be one. Still, we don't count her out." She ate some more apple, thinking. "It's our good fortune that our new friends gamble with the Rats of this town, eh?" She drew a Goddess crescent on her forehead with her thumb. "We were blessed at the Bread Riot, whether we knew it or not, falling in with them! They'll get us closer to the Rogue's court than we ever could have done on our own. Now, tell me how you learned that the Rogue threatened Sir Lionel."

As we walked along, I relayed everything Okha had told me the night before. About a block from Moneychangers' Street, we found an empty lot where I could scatter the seed and corn I'd brought with me. Goodwin added her apple core. Just as I suspected, Slapper and his new friends had been following me. They flew down in a rush, settling on the food. They startled a thin gixie, no more than twelve, wearing a much washed and tattered red gown, out of the bushes at the edge of the lot. She took off into an alley.

"One of Pearl's watchers, I don't doubt," Goodwin muttered.

I stood, listening to the pigeons. I heard a handful of voices, but none of them gave me anything I could use. The feeding ended when Goodwin nudged me and pointed out Achoo. My hound lay flat, her head on her forepaws, yearning on her silly face. It was as clear as if she spoke that she wanted to chase the pigeons. I broke out laughing. Mayhap the pigeons thought I meant them and got offended. More likely they'd gone through all the food. They took off and did not return.

"Achoo,
tumit,"
I said. She, Goodwin, and I resumed our walk toward Moneychangers'. "Did you learn aught of interest last night?" I asked Goodwin.

"Mostly about Hanse's group of caravan guards," she told me as we dodged around a mule loaded with packs. "Thirty mots and coves work for him. Ten are on the road to Blue Harbor now, guarding a caravan. Ten more are on the river, taking a cargo to Whitethorn. It seems pirates get a little rough once the ships are past Corus. Hanse and nine more are right here in Port Caynn. We met four of them last night, not counting Steen."

I remembered. "What's keeping them in town? There's plenty of ships coming in. Business is at its peak with the harvests finishing up."

"Hanse says they're working on the docks for now," Goodwin said, "hiring out in small groups at night to guard ships or warehouses." We hurried around a string of carts to step onto Moneychangers'. Looking to the side, I saw a pickpocket swap purses. This time the coney caught wise. He grabbed the pickpocket's hand just as this one, a lad, was letting go of the red leather purse. I nudged Goodwin.

We looked on as the pickpocket's guardian rusher smashed into the coney. The cityman released the lad with a grunt, falling to the pavement as the rusher strolled off. The lad turned to run and saw that Goodwin and I watched him without making a move in his direction. He stared at us, then fled as the cityman staggered over to lean on a store wall. Some yards away, the young filcher turned to stare again. Seemingly he didn't know we'd been warned to leave him be.

There was a demon in me for a moment, I guess. I winked at him. Then I touched my forefinger to my eye and pointed it at him in the sign meaning, "I see you." The lad ran then, as if the Black God gave chase.

"I don't know that tweaking Pearl Skinner's tail is a good idea," Goodwin remarked. "You're lucky the rusher didn't notice. Nor did the coney."

"I doubt the lad will tell her I made it plain we saw what he did," I replied, stuffing my hands in my breeches pockets.

"Has Pearl set her filchers to swapping every purse they lift, do you suppose?" Goodwin asked as we walked away.

"For the three I've seen do it, there's dozens more who don't," I replied. "I can't help but wonder if these coneys are picked deliberate, or if they're just picked because the filchers or their rushers don't like the coney's face."

"The skinny gixie in red is on our rumps again," Goodwin murmured. "And Haden is behind
her
. At this rate, Cooper, we shall have a parade."

"I could circle around, ask Haden to rid us of her." I hated to do it. The watcher, from the glimpse I had of her, was half starved and might not fare well with Pearl if she lost us.

Goodwin shook her head. "Not yet. Let's see if she follows us all of the time, or if they swap watchers. What is Pearl so
nervous
about?"

"She's all over us like maggots on garbage, just because I interfered with one pickpocket yesterday." I whispered it. "I think we should do something to draw her into the open!" Achoo whuffed. I think she liked to see me so excited.

Goodwin sighed. "Cooper... Look, there's too much here that does not make sense." Goodwin's voice was soft, and we had the street noise to cover it. "Who makes the coles?
Where
do they make them? If all the Rogue's in it, why isn't Port Caynn soaking in coles and why hasn't Nestor told us they've been arresting cole passers? No, the group that's switching bad coin for good, at the gambling places or at the banks before they found out, that group is a small one. The secret would have spread elsewise. And what's the reason for those red purse swaps? Sure, it puts more coles into the moneystream, but it doesn't make the Rogue a big enough profit. What's it
for?"

Goodwin had me there. I couldn't think of a sensible reason for the purse swaps. The good coin that the filchers got wouldn't be enough to buy the Rogue so much as a single pearl tooth.

We walked on in silence down Moneychangers', both of us thinking. Achoo stretched her
tumit
orders as far as they would go, stepping back or to the side to sniff at sommat. Then she would pop into place by my left heel, looking as innocent as if she'd never left it. As we passed the Gold- and Silversmith's banks, I heard Goodwin mutter to her, "You're not fooling Cooper, you know."

The street began to rise. Queen's Heights loomed some way up ahead, its granite cliffs rising even higher than the city walls. We were in Flowerbed now. I recognized this part of town a little, since we had been here only a few hours ago.

We turned down a side street that led us to a winding avenue just a block back from Moneychangers'. Here the gem merchants have their scales, their goods, and their guards. Merchants come here directly from their ships, small pouches in their hands or carried by their own hard mots and coves. We watched as they upended those pouches in the vendors' scales. They'd brought pearls, emeralds, sapphires, opals, rubies, spinels, garnets, and topazes, rough or polished into cabochons with fires burning at their hearts. One vendor had four clerks inside his small shop. Each of them was carefully weighing gold dust.

As we walked up the street, we noticed that business was slack. Then, from inside one shop, we heard a woman with a Sirajit accent snap, "I told you, it's gold or nothing!"

Goodwin and I looked at each other and halted by the open door.
"Tunggu,"
I told my hound. Achoo took her post by the door and I stepped inside. This mot dealt in opals. I saw Tortallan fire opals, the black opals of northern Galla, and something new, stones that were labeled
Sirajit opals: tawny and dark
. The tawny ones were the color of a Yamani's skin, with orange, green, and red fires inside. The dark opals were mahogany brown, with red, blue, green, yellow, orange, and purple fires that made my fingers itch to pick them up.

The source of the argument was not the opals. A Tortallan noble was the only other person in the shop apart from the vendor, the guard, and me. The noble was dressed in the height of Corus fashion, with gold braid on his silk tunic and gold embroideries on his round cap. He did not look like the sort who accepted any block to his plans.

The vendor was a dark-skinned Sirajit woman. Heavy gold rings that dripped with rubies hung in her ears, while a gold chain with ruby drops on it swung between her nose and one ear. She wore a loose Carthaki dress made of colorfully striped wool. Behind her stood a large and muscular guard armed with a curved sword.

The vendor was thrusting ten stacks of silver nobles at the Tortallan. "I am forced to change my policy, honored sir," she told him politely. "I have received instructions from those I represent to accept payment only in gold."

The Tortallan clapped his hand to his sword hilt. "Impudent slut! You
dare
imply that my money is no good!"

The vendor stood, sweeping up her opals with one hand. The guard drew his curved blade. I made myself small in the shop's corner and took out my baton. I saw Goodwin move to block the open doorway. We had the same thought, that we might have to act as working Dogs after all, to keep the two Sirajits from a nasty death far from home.

The Sirajit woman glanced aside and down. "Honored sir, I may not gainsay my masters' orders, forgive me. The stones are theirs, and I must sell as I am bid." She glared at me and snapped, her voice far sharper, "You, get out of my shop! Your kind is bought and paid for!"

The noble turned to stare at me. I shrugged, which just happened to cause me to raise my baton. "Sorry, yer honor," I said, trying to talk like one of the Port Caynn folk. "I guess we're not welcome, unless ye've gold for the mistress." He couldn't say I threatened him, after all, could he? The baton just happened to be in my hand.

"Trull!" the noble said to the Sirajit mot. The guard rumbled and stepped out from behind the counter.