Bloodhound (40 page)

Eleven-thirty of the morning.

I'd been sleeping but a couple of hours when Goodwin hammered on my door.

"Get dressed," she told me when I opened up to glare at her. "Cityfolk clothes and a veil. Nestor wants us."

I blinked at her. "What's the hour?"

"The harbor clocks were striking two when Truda came. Move," Goodwin ordered.

I left Achoo sleeping in my bed. As I dressed in city-mot's garments, she rolled over into the warm spot I had made.

When I came downstairs, I found Goodwin and the half-asleep Truda at the dining table. Goodwin plucked the note from Truda's fingers and gave it to me to read. It didn't exactly bleat with knowledge. It just said:
Tradesmen's kennel has something of interest for us. Truda will take you there
.

Truda led us west, toward Tradesmen's District, using alleys and lesser streets. I was impressed with her knowledge of the town. We encountered no trouble at all.

The Tradesmen's kennel was at the corner of Moneychangers' and Findler. Nestor waited for us inside the courtyard gate. Like us, he wore cityfolk clothes.

"Good girl," he said to Truda with a smile. "Can you stay on?"

Truda nodded. "'M fine, Nestor."

"Then get out of sight," he told her.

Three lads Truda's age appeared out of the shadows on the opposite side of the street. She walked over to them, and together they merged with the dark again. One of them waved to Nestor before he vanished.

Nestor waved back, then looked at us. "This way."

He walked along the side of the kennel, rather than lead us through the front door. "I got word an hour ago from someone who knows my interests," he explained as we caught up. He kept his voice very quiet. "They brought this cove, Durant Elkes, in on suspicion of colemongering. The cage Dogs have had him to question since midnight."

"They called you so late?" Goodwin asked softly. We stopped before a side door. Like our kennel at home, Tradesmen's has a separate wing for the cages. It is even smaller than ours, mayhap because Rats were only stored here briefly before they are taken to the Rattery Prison.

"My friend heard them talk of a red purse," Nestor replied. "I'd set that on the list of things to watch for."

Goodwin stopped him as he reached for the door latch. "I had the idea that Sir Lionel was so affrighted by our news that he wanted any real work we did on the colemongers put aside. Now you tell me you've set friends to looking for colemongers? What game are you about, Sergeant?"

Nestor sighed and leaned against the kennel wall. "He was a decent man once," he told us. "Then Pearl threatened his children."

"We know," Goodwin said. "He sent his family north. Pearls on their pillows, all that."

"You heard. She also sent Sir Lionel's lady a pearl collar, the kind the gemsmiths call a choker. Sir Lionel gave way, that's all. He's terrified to block anything Pearl does. She had the sack to tell him if he resigned his post, my lady dies. So he does nothing."

"The governor?" I asked, looking around. A familiar sound was distracting me.

"A drunkard," Nestor said. "Useless."

"So if those who are paid to ward the city are a waste of air... ?" Goodwin asked, prodding Nestor.

I stepped back into the middle of the street. The sound grew louder. I knew it now. It was the scrape of dust, grit, and leaves as they blew over the roadway, rising on a circling wind and falling again. There was a dust spinner nearby.

"I know some good Dogs," Nestor told Goodwin. "Tried-and-true Dogs, tested in fire. We see what's happening. We agree it must stop. So we build on what we know, in the hope that something will break." He looked at our faces. "It's different in Corus. You've got knights coming and going. You've got the King's Own, and a good chunk of the army. And you've got Lord Gershom. The family calls him Granite, did you know? He doesn't bend and he doesn't break. The Rogue never got to be a great power in Corus. Here, the army is stationed up on the Tellerun or in the sea forts. The navy won't meddle in landsmen's quarrels. It's up to the Dogs alone, and Pearl and the Rogue before her bought as many Dogs as they could. As long as trade wasn't hurt, the Crown didn't care, so the Chancellor wouldn't give Lord Gershom the funds he needs to strengthen the Dogs here. We're doing our best, but truth to tell, we need help."

"If things are as bad as they seem, you'll get it," Goodwin promised, her voice grim in the dark.

Inside we went, to a corridor full of cells fronted by gates with tiny barred windows set in each. Nestor led us to the very end. Here was another door across the hall. A small window covered with a sliding shutter was set in it.

The whole building stank. The Rats inside knew better than to talk to us, them that could see out the small windows. Even in cityfolk clothes Nestor and Goodwin look hard.

The stink got worse the closer we came to the big room at the end of the hall. Nestor rapped on the door twice, then twice more. A cage Dog answered it. He was stripped to his loincloth, covered with sweat, his head and chest shaved so no Rat's flailing hand might catch in his hair.

"Sergeant Nestor Haryse, Corporal Guardswoman Clara Goodwin, Guardswoman Rebakah Cooper, to speak with the prisoner," Nestor told him. "Unofficial, like."

"Always so lovely when ye street Dogs come callin' on us poor cage Dogs," the cove said. There's no denying it, cage Dogs and street Dogs despise each other, mainly because cage Dogs do work like this. Master Sauce opened the door, letting a full drift of the questioners' room stink hit us in the face.

The room was the biggest of the wing. It had to be, to fit the instruments, even though kennel questioning rooms are just basic. This one had a rack, thumbscrew, irons, pliers, a long table, and a hearth fire. The fancier stuff is done at the prisons, if it is needed. This was more than bad enough for me.

There were only two shaved Dogs present, a mot and the cove who'd let us in. The mot was stripped to her breast band and loincloth. Questioning was hot work. I remembered that from my classes in it. The Rat we'd come to see was tied to the long table. They had tilted it so his feet were higher than his head. Then they had released the latch under the headboard so that it swung loose, tilting his head all the way back. He was bruised, covered with welts, naked, and soaked from the hair on his gems to that on his head and chest. They always began with a beating. I saw a strap that matched the welts hanging from a hook on the wall. They'd been giving him the Drink, I could tell. That's why he was so wet. I swallowed to keep the food I'd eaten from coming up. His eyes and lips were swollen, the skin around his nose red. There was a barrel of water next to the table. I clutched the fire opal in my pocket so hard I found later it had dug little holes in my flesh.

I got a mild form of the Drink in training. For him, they had poured water into his mouth without halt, making him swallow by holding his nose. Often, since the Rat was trying to breathe, the water went into his lungs. It was a way to drown a person on dry land. Now and then I have nightmares of it. I nearabout quit because of it, until our trainers said we actually had to volunteer to be cage Dogs. They wouldn't force us to question folk.

The cove's eyes were closed now. Was he dead or had he lost his senses?

His clothes were piled on a smaller table in the corner. On top of them lay a red leather purse, like the ones I had seen filchers switch for their coneys' original purse. Stacked beside his things were silver nobles. I went over to look at them. Each had been scored across the front, cut to show a brass center.

"Don't know why ye're takin' an int'rest in a lousy cole-monger as ain't even in yer own district, Haryse," the cove who'd admitted us said.

"You could've stayed in bed," the mot added. "He's a hard nut, this Durant Elkes. Keeps sayin' he's innocent, when he was caught with coles in hand and a purse full of them. We've given him the Drink three times, and still he wails the same tune."

"I hate these 'innocent' coves," her partner said. He spat on the floor. "Ev'ry evidence agin 'em, and yet they waste our time."

"Was his house searched?" Nestor asked them.

Goodwin went through the heap of things that had been taken from Durant Elkes's pockets.

"They're at it now," the cove replied. "Since he was brung in, matter o' fact. Some of our folk is that angered, bein's how they've got stuck with a few coles in trade of late." Someone banged on the door. The cove went to open the little shutter, grumbling under his breath. He talked softly with whoever stood outside.

"Y'll find naught in his gear, apart from the purse and the coin," the mot said. She looked at Nestor. "Would you be rememberin' me, Sarge? I'm Shales. I served with you in Gauntlet, ten years back."

Nestor gave her a nod. "I remember you, Shales. You were a street Dog then."

Shales sighed. "That was before I had little ones, two fine boys. It's safer bein' a cage Dog now that I'm a ma. I don't get my head cracked so often. My partner over there's Anglesea. He's been a cage Dog pretty much his whole time of service."

"How was this Rat picked up, did they tell you?" Goodwin asked Shales.

"He tried to buy a fancy pair of earrings with the coles. The jeweler was on the lookout," Shales replied. "Seemingly he's taken in too many coles of late."

Anglesea, the big cove, came back. "Search turned up nothin' in the house. They've brung in his mot and son. They're already screechin' they know naught of his cole passin'."

Goodwin called, "Cooper!" and tossed me the red leather purse. I caught it one-handed. Why was Goodwin throwing it to me? I turned it over. It was just a cheap, red-stained leather purse, and yet it stirred some thought in my brain. I tucked my fire opal back in my pocket. I focused on the purse, thrusting away my own sleepiness and my sickness at the torture. I knew this purse, or one like it.

The filcher I had stopped. The other filchers I had seen, switching a coney's purse for a red one just like this. And I had wondered, Why
this
coney and not another? The filchers chose the coney out of all the others on the street. Someone had
chosen
Durant Elkes. Why?

"Stop," I told the cage Dogs, forgetting I was the youngest Dog there.

Anglesea gave me a look that nearabout fried my gizzard. "Listen to this milk-fed Pup!" he said. "Givin'
me
orders!"

"Stop," Nestor told him. "Cooper, what is it?"

I made myself walk over to that table, to that cove. They had been forcing water into his open mouth while I thought. He coughed and choked, spitting gouts of water out. Thank the gods they hadn't gotten too far. It didn't take him long to get rid of the water in his nose and throat. One good set of the heaves, and he could talk again.

I held the red purse up before his eyes. "Is this yours?" I asked him.

"No, never! I never – " Durant hacked. "I never saw it – " Again he coughed, trying to clear his throat. He couldn't speak as he was, his head below his chest and tilting back. The muscles of his neck were pulled tight to make it hard for him to breathe.

I reached under his head with both hands. Gripping the board that supported it, I yanked it up until Elkes's head was even with the table.

"Hey, stop that!" Shales cried, starting forward. I ignored her and felt under the headboard for the latch that would keep it from dropping again. Durant started to hack out water mixed with snot as his muscles relaxed. I pushed his head aside with one hand, saying, "Don't spit up on me."

The latch twisted into place. I let go of the headboard. It stayed level, letting Durant breathe easier. His coughs eased. Goodwin handed me a cloth. I wiped the man's face.

"I never saw the purse afore, I swear on my mother's name," he babbled. "I don't know how I came to have – " He tried to sit up, straining against his bonds, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a silent scream. I looked back. Anglesea had struck him on the kneecap with a short whip.

Nestor turned to Anglesea. The cage Dog was just six inches from him, yet Nestor gave him such a punch in the gut that Anglesea flew back three feet. It was a mule's kick of a punch, and I will learn it if it kills me.

"When you stop your questioning, you
stop"
Nestor told Anglesea, his deep voice very soft. "When another Dog asks the questions, you do not interfere. Understand?"

Shales walked over until she stood across from Nestor, with Durant's body between them. "This isn't your kennel, Sarge," she told him.

"But I can still give the orders," Nestor said. "Right now, your fool partner can't seem to remember that." He went to the door and opened it. "Get out of here, both of you. I'll call you when I want you back. Go on, I say, or you'll find yourselves on duty in the Rattery, I swear it."

Shales stared at Nestor for a moment, her hands clenched into fists. Then Nestor's left hand flashed. He'd just shown her a gold noble, where Anglesea couldn't spot it. That rough cove was too busy puking into the straw.

Shales swung over close to Nestor, bumping him rudely. Even though I was watching, I didn't see the gold change hands. Then she dragged Anglesea to his feet and looped his cleaner arm over her shoulders. "You ain't the King yet, Sarge," she snapped as she half carried her partner out into the hall. "You just watch yourself."

Nestor closed the door behind them. "Keep your voices down and they won't be able to hear," he said quietly, coming back to the table. "I don't know them well enough to trust them if we're getting any solid information here."

I looked at Durant. "So you never saw this purse, but it was in your pocket when you went to buy some sparkles," I told him. "You got it somewhere." He opened his mouth, but I shook my head. "Listen to me. Was your pocket picked today, or yesterday?"

Durant started to say no, then stopped. His eyes went to Nestor, then Goodwin, and back to me. He was trying to think up a lie to cover the thing he was truly guilty of. Didn't the looby realize what trouble he was in? I slapped his cheek, but gently, to get his attention.

"Don't be an ass," I ordered. "Give up the truth, however mad it sounds. You thought your pocket was picked, didn't you?"