Noon.
I knew I had to tell my friends straight off. Ersken Westover would hear of my dismissal when we went on watch, if our thief friends hadn't already caught wind of it, so Pounce and I went across the street to breakfast at the Dancing Dove, Pounce more eagerly than me. Most of our regular group was there – Rosto, Aniki, Kora, Ersken, and Phelan. All but Tansy, and I chose not to wait for her. With a baby, a husband, and a business, she doesn't always come. I wanted to get the telling over with.
"Silsbee tossed me back last night," I said as Kora passed the turnovers.
For a moment they all did naught but stare.
Then Ersken snorted, pox rot him. Dogs ought to show a united front! Kora put up her hands to cover her mouth. Mages are always discreet. Aniki cackled. Soon they all made merry at my expense, save Rosto.
He didn't laugh. He only raised an eyebrow and said, "That's four partners, then."
I glared at him. I can do that, seeing as how he's got a sweet spot for me. "So?" I asked. "It's not always a good fit, right off. I've said it afore. Even Ersken had two partners."
"I got lucky the second go-round." Finally Ersken remembered whose side he was on. "It was pure chance that Vinehall was transferred and I got Birch. And it wasn't Beka's fault that her first partner didn't work. He died of the red flux. Half the Lower City got it this summer, even you, Rosto. It's not like she gave it to him."
"She arrested the second cove herself," Aniki said. "She arrested her own partner!"
"He took a bribe to ignore murder," I said, still angry. "That's just wrong."
"You told the third one you'd lop his hands off if he put them on you again." Kora could barely say it for giggling. "He thought you'd really do it, too!"
"She would!" Rosto, Aniki, and Ersken said at the same time.
"So what was it with this one?" asked Phelan. He was offering ham to my cat. Pounce, the traitor, tended to that, not to helping me.
"Silsbee." I was tired to death of the subject already and the day scarce begun. "He says I give him the twitches. And he's a lazy, jabbernob, pudding-livered scut." I'd said little to them before. I had been trying to make the best of things, but there was no reason to now. "He eats, he gossips, and he wouldn't chase a Rat if it was a feeble filcher under his own poxy nose!"
They only laughed all the more. I wondered where Tansy was. My oldest friend would surely stand up for me. Why, today of all days, was she not here?
"I'd say you have curst bad luck," Aniki told me, "but the god's truth is, Beka, you want to bag every Rat in the Lower City, and Silsbee is a known slug. The odds were down to fifty to one that it would last another week."
"I'd've stuck it out!" I cried.
"You won plenty of folk some coin when he didn't resign after one night of you," Rosto said idly. "Even more coin when you didn't quit the Dogs by the third day. But no one would wager a copper on it going a whole month."
I had wagered on me making it to a month. That only means I'm a looby. I tried not to argue with Silsbee when he'd refused to let me give chase. I hadn't questioned his orders, though my tongue was sore from biting it. I hadn't wanted to lose yet another partner.
"Doubtless he thought you were surly, as shy as you are with them that don't know you." Rosto said it like he was my wise old grandfather. "I'd've thought Goodwin and Tunstall would have made you more sociable with the other Dogs."
"I talked to him," I snapped. "For all the good it did me."
"Goodwin and Tunstall didn't make her that sociable," Ersken said. He was trying to feed Kora's cat, Fuzzball, without bleeding for it. Fuzzball could be greedy at times, and his claws were sharp. "Why should they? They're happy when Beka gets kicked back to them, even though my Lord Provost told Ahuda the other day that he wants two good pairs, not one great team of three."
I hid my face in my hands. I don't want my lord to be unhappy with me. It's not just that he's my sponsor, or the head of the Provost's Guards. I want to repay him for taking my family out of the Lower City and giving us a decent life. "When did you hear this?" I asked.
"Three days back," Ersken said. I heard wickedness in his voice as he added, "When he noticed that Silsbee rolled his eyes as you came within his view."
Pounce jumped onto my shoulder as I moaned.
Why are you groaning? he asked me. My lord would see you commit murder before he'd stop liking you.
My friends looked curious. This time they heard Pounce only speaking in cat, not in human speech as I did, or they would have laughed. Half the time he lets them know what he is saying, and half the time he does not. He likes to tease, does Pounce.
Feet clattered up the stair. Tansy had forgotten to take off the wooden pattens she wore to lift her feet clear of the street muck. She flung the breakfast room door wide. Her rain hat was askew, her gold curls tumbling from their pins. She threw her rain cape on the floor and banged a basket of rolls on the table before us. Her cheeks were red, her eyes sparkling with anger.
"I have never been so humiliated!" she said, panting from her run up from the common room floor.
"You tracked mud in here. The wood's not stained yet," Rosto told her. He is as picky as a cat about this inn he's building.
Tansy glared at him. "Mud scrubs off," she said tartly. "It's not dignified for the Rogue to worrit himself about housekeeping." She was vexed, sure enough. Her Upmarket speech was slipping into the Lower City cant of our childhood. Bending, she slipped off her pattens, setting them outside the room's door.
Aniki poured Tansy a cup of hot tea. "Your day off to a bad start?" she asked as Tansy put on a pair of the slippers kept by the door for us.
"Baker Garnett tested the coin I gave him – and it was false! A silver cole, a thin coating over brass!" Tansy sat next to me and ripped a roll in two. "He had guards in the shop. One of them grabbed me. I gave him the knee in the cod, the scut. Then my dozy footman got into it. A flea I put in my cove's ear, not stopping the plaguey bastard before handling a citywoman like me!" She took a gulp of the tea and winced. It was too hot.
"Most citywomen don't jam knees into a cove's cod." Rosto spoke seriously, but his black eyes were laughing.
Tansy shook her head, blushing fiercely. "You don't understand," she said. "I've worked so hard to give our business an honest name! Dealing in coles – it would be the ruin of me and my whole family, if word got about. No one would buy from us! We'd lose everything!"
"And there's being boiled in oil, if they think you guilty of colesmithing," Kora murmured while she played with Aniki's cat. "Or getting your hand lopped off if they just think you're passing fakes along. Why aren't you in the cages?"
"I bribed the baker, of course," Tansy said, and sniffed. I took out one of the handkerchiefs she tucked in her clothes and put it in her hand. "He called off his guard when I wouldn't stop crying... And he said he's had two other good customers come in with false coins. Silver, all of them." She blew her nose. "He let me go, but folk were laughing, and that rusher who worked for him said such a thing to me!"
"I'll send a cove around to have a word," Rosto said. "Don't you worry about that, love."
"Try not to make it a matter for the Dogs," Ersken told him. "Friendly is always best."
Rosto gave Ersken a grin that was all teeth. "I'm the friendliest cove around, Westover," he said. "Ask anyone."
"Living," Aniki murmured.
Rosto glanced at her. "Well, it's Beka you ask if you want to talk to the dead ones, isn't it?" he inquired, all innocent-like.
Fuzzball attacked my fingers. I let him do it, as I was thinking. This baker, Garnett, had seen three customers lately with false silver coins? Respectable folk at that. Tansy's grandfather-in-law had been the Lower City's worst scale and landlord, but since his death Tansy, her husband, and her mother-in-law had gotten rid of the old man's crooked businesses. They'd lost a great deal of money to get straight with the law.
I'd bet a copper of my own that these three false silver cases Tansy mentioned aren't the only ones, not if a baker is hiring guards. How many silver coins does a baker see in a day? Most folk buy with coppers, unless they shop for a group, or a big household.
"It's not you that's behind this, is it?" Tansy asked Rosto. "Because it would be wrong, very wrong! I don't care if you are the Rogue, I'll speak my mind! You can't meddle with people's livelihood, Rosto! Silver coles hurt us all. If a silver noble won't buy what it's supposed to – "
"Will you hush?" Rosto asked, slapping the table. "Mithros's sack, woman!"
Tansy went silent, but she was breathing hard.
"You should learn from Beka," Rosto said. "She says her bit and then waits for a cove to answer. No, I've no hand in these fakes. If you'd a whit of sense, you'd know it. Coles hit the Court of the Rogue even harder than they hit the merchants. You make a bit of coin at first, but if the price of silver goes down, it goes down for all. We'd be cutting our own throats to deal in coles."
Tansy sniffed and blew her nose again. Even as a little girl she would never admit she let her tongue run away with her. "Then you'll keep an eye out?" she asked Rosto. "Afore there's folk begging in the street this winter?"
Ersken and I both sat up. "Hear now!" I said. "Catching colesmiths is Dog business!"
Tansy made a rude noise. "This is serious, Beka," she said. "This is money. Were it a killer, I'd come to you two, of course I would. But Garnett's hired guards. He's afraid he'll be arrested for counterfeit passing, at the least. He's so fearful he's willing to risk offending good customers. That's more than Lower City Dogs can manage, unless maybe it's Goodwin and Tunstall. And you haven't got them, only old flat-footed Silsbee."
"She hasn't got him, either," Aniki said with a smirk.
That distracted Tansy from money, sure enough. She turned to gawp at me, then rolled her eyes. "Mother's milk, Beka, what happened this time? Did you kill him?"
I got up and left, Pounce at my side. So much for hoping Tansy would stand by me. She was more worried about her purse than her oldest friend.
No more can I blame her, despite my stung feelings. She's come a long way from Mutt Piddle Lane, where we both once lived. To be accused of passing false money like a common street mot would have skewered her deeper than any sword. And coles in the marketplace meant her silver that she worked so hard for might not be worth the value stamped on it. She'd be smelling Mutt Piddle Lane just outside her door, if I knew Tansy. Goddess knows I would.
As I climbed the stairs to my garret rooms, I told myself that Goodwin and Tunstall would be glad to take me back. Though I curse when I don't succeed with a new partner, I do like going out with my old ones. We find Rats, and we cage them. Not one- and two-copper Rats, but big ones. Each time Ahuda puts me with Tunstall and Goodwin, I can hear the Lower City's Rats groan.
Inside my rooms, I collected my pack, putting bags of cracked corn and bread pieces in it. I made sure it also held my pouches of dirt from all over Corus. I was still thinking about Goodwin and Tunstall as I locked up again. It would be different if one of them took a promotion to Sergeant, like both of them have been offered. Goodwin's a Corporal, Tunstall's a Senior Dog who's turned down promotion to Corporal because he hates the extra writing. I'd happily pair with either of them. But they've been partnered as street Dogs for years. They don't even have to talk, most of the time, they know each other's minds so well. I'd like to have my own partner like that.
Have faith that the gods know what they are doing with your life, Pounce said, following me down the stairs.
I don't want the gods meddling with my life, I told him silently as we walked out into the street again. I want to do it myself. Gods are trouble.
You don't have a choice, Pounce said.
I don't like the sound of that. I don't like it at all. I can manage on my own, tell them that! I said, glaring at him. And you never mentioned anything like this before!
I thought it would cheer you up, Pounce said.
I began to trot, not to escape Pounce so much as to get away from what he was hinting at. I've accepted for five year gone that Pounce is magic. Kora was the one who first told me he was a constellation, as close to a god as makes no difference. But he's never spoken of the gods in my life before, and I wish he hadn't. Look at all the folk who have had the gods muck with their lives, folk like Jehane the Warrior, that was burned alive, or Tomore the Righteous, beggared and beheaded, or Badika of the Blazing Axe, who drove off the Carthakis, only to be torn apart in one of their arenas! It never goes well for the god-chosen! Pounce can just tell the gods to leave me be.
Pounce and I got to Glassman Square, where one of my flocks of pigeons was waiting for us, as they do every day. We settled there, me to feed them, Pounce to watch. Slapper was the first to land on me, as ever. I think old Slapper is a high priest among the pigeons, the way he commands the others, here and elsewhere in the city. His blue-black feathers were wet and gleaming today. He must've come straight from a bath in the square's fountain.
I steadied his clubfoot with my hand, not looking him in his staring yellow eyes. He's got tiny, tiny pupils. No one ever thinks of pigeons as mad, but I think Slapper has carried so many ghosts that he's cracked in the nob with it. He'll hit me as soon as look at me, for all I feed him corn and wrap warm cloths around his clubfoot in cold weather. Ungrateful feather duster. Now there's one that's god-touched.
I gathered the complaints of the dead from the pigeons while they ate. There were few ghosts complaining of their lot today. None of them said anything I could pass on as good information to my fellow Dogs. Slapper had no ghost at all. He hasn't carried one for more than a week. I wonder if he misses them, or if he is glad not to have some dead human moaning in his ear. I wonder, too, if the Black God ever asks the pigeons if they want to carry ghosts.
On we went to see my dust spinners. For them I brought packets of dust, gravel, and dirt from other parts of town. Stuck in one place like they are, their veils of air spinning tall or small depending on the weather, they savor the taste of other places. In return they give me the bits of talk they've gathered since my last visit.
They're funny creatures, spinners. I don't know how old they are. When I was small, I learned to gather conversations from Hasfush, the one I met first. I think Hasfush is the oldest of the city spinners. My Granny Fern, who taught me how to use this family magic, told me my five-times-great-grandda had listened to Hasfush.
Today we called on Hasfush first. He was spinning short, a whirl of dust, leaves, and tiny stones that rose barely a foot into the air. It was all he could manage with the weather so hot and still. When I entered his circle, I gave him a nice packet of grit from the Daymarket. That cheered him so much that he sped up, growing and rising to my shoulders. He released all the bits of conversations he'd collected over the last week, giving them to my hearing.
As ever, much of it was sheer nonsense, a handful of words or less. There were even pieces in a language that I think was Yamani. That was a guess. I've only heard it spoken twice.
Then I heard, " – at this! I won eight silver nobles off the mammerin' scut, an' six of 'em is coles!" It was a cove who spoke, a whiny one.
A mot replied to him. "So find a game and lose 'em to someone else. You want – "
Those two voices were gone.
The next whole bit that I heard sent goose bumps all over me.
" – rot in the rye?" That was a mot, an old one.
"All that rain they've had in the northeast this summer." This was a younger mot, all business. "We'll be lucky if this year's rye harvest is half what last year's was."
"We will sell the rotten stuff. Mix it well with the good. None will notice." The old mot's voice was hard.
"Are you mad? That stuff kills! I'll have no – "
That mot left the old one, from the sound of her voice.
Hasfush was empty of his week's gatherings. I ground my teeth. I would have liked the name of the mot who wished to sell rotten rye, which brings madness and death. It wasn't Hasfush's fault that the two mots had moved on, nor was it a care of his. Spinners take no interest in what comes to them on the breeze.
I thanked him. Then Pounce and I moved on to visit two more Lower City spinners and more pigeons. Neither spinner had anything about coles. One pigeon carried a ghost who nattered about grain crops overall.
I'd give my news to Sergeant Ahuda. The grain inspectors would get the word to check the rye, at least. Hasfush had done the city a favor. I'd add some spices to his next packet. He always likes those. I know by the way his breezes warm as they circle me.
Troubling as the crop news was, my regular meetings with spinners and pigeons did raise my spirits some. We now had advance word on the rye, so I didn't feel so useless. And I'll get another partner. Ahuda wants me to do well. She'd assigned me to Goodwin and Tunstall in the first place. She will keep trying me on whichever Dog is partnerless until the right one turns up. And when it doesn't work out, Goodwin and Tunstall will take me back.
It could be worse. I could have been sent to one of the other districts, which is the last thing I want. I belong in the Lower City. The Lower City needs Dogs like me, Dogs that love it for all its bad and good faces.
Once I'd used up all my bird feed and talked to my spinners, I made my way home. I meant to do some cleaning and to write in this journal, but Tansy waited for me on the doorstep of my lodging house.
"I'm sorry," she said before I could open my gob. "I'm sorry I didn't wait for your news. I'm sorry Silsbee is a looby and a lazy one at that." Her eyes were puffy. "Beka, I need a favor." Pounce leaped into her arms and licked her cheek. "Dearest cat, that's sweet, but it scratches. My skin looks dreadful from weeping as it is." To me she said, "Beka, please – come home and help me test my silver."
I stared at her.
Tansy kept her voice very quiet when she said, "Beka, Garnett cut three of my coins. I had five silver coins in my purse this morning, and two of them were false. Two of five. If the rest of my house money is like that... My man is too hotheaded – he'll talk. I trust only you to keep it secret."
My tripes turned into a knot. I knew each soul in that household, from the baby to the kitchen maid. I knew their names, their families, even their birthdays. If Tansy's strongbox was lousy with coles, they might be lucky to live in a hut on Mutt Piddle Lane.
So back to her house we went. We slipped in through a side door and shut ourselves in the little room Tansy uses to work on the account books. With the sounds of the busy household all around us, we took out our belt knives and sharp-stones. Tansy opened the lockboxes. Quietly we tested each and every silver coin in them with a cut down the center. We found only three more false ones, in one hundred and twelve coins, which made Tansy cry from relief.
When she calmed down, she hugged me and thanked me. Then she fetched my godsdaughter Joy and had Cook pack up a lunch for me. The noon bells were chiming by the time I got free.
I came home to a pitcher of red gillyflowers in front of my door. Rosto. Once I was in my rooms with the door closed behind me and Pounce, I held them up and buried my face in them. I know why Rosto did it. Whenever aught that was good or bad happened to me, he left me gillyflowers, especially red ones. Goddess knows how he managed it in the wintertime, though I suppose the Rogue could get mage-grown flowers as easy as the King.
It's not like I can give them back, because he won't take them. Still, he knows they won't buy him favors from me.
I'll be that glad when the Dancing Dove's finished and he's moved there. Every time I think of knocking on his door, I remember the things he's done. That just doesn't keep me from thinking that his door is only one flight of stairs down from mine.
I've written enough for the day so far. Time to change to uniform and get my bum to training.
Two of the morning, after watch.
When I got to training this afternoon, Ahuda took me aside. "Silsbee's been transferred," she said in her short way. "He'll be working at the Magistrate's Court from here on. I knew he was a lazy tarse. Now I know how lazy. You're back with Goodwin and Tunstall."
I nodded. Given my druthers, I'd druther Silsbee hadn't been lazy.
"He had no partner, and he was next in line," Ahuda said.
I kept my eyes on the ground. If I hadn't known Ahuda better, I could have sworn she was apologizing to me. That didn't seem possible. Ahuda is a bulldog of a woman who's better at tearing pieces out of my hide for letting my guard down.
She thrust me into the center of the yard. "You six." She pointed to half of the Puppies. "Baton work. Form a circle around Cooper here and attack her. Show no mercy. Cooper, try not to break any of them."
So much for apologies.
I broke none of them, nor did I let any of them break me. This year's Pups are spirited, but slow. The work did take my mind off the jokes of the second-, third-, and fourth-year Dogs, who had heard I was partnerless again. It also helped me ignore Ersken and my other friends' arguments with them, and Ahuda's orders for everyone to shut their gobs and train.
As we gathered for muster, the hard Dogs surrounded me – not just Goodwin and Tunstall, but Nyler Jewel, his partner Yoav, Ersken's partner Birch, and their friends. The serious Dogs of the Evening Watch. They said naught about Silsbee. Mostly they patted my back or clapped me on the shoulder. Then they cleared the way for the Day Watch to assemble for dismissal. Goodwin and Tunstall stayed with me. Goodwin propped her fists on her hips, eyeing me, making me feel like she was the tall one, when I know full well she is two inches shorter than me. Her dark eyes looked me over, top to toe. I felt scruffy next to her, though my breeches and tunic were unwrinkled, my boots brushed. Tunstall, his head someplace in the air over mine, scratched his short gray and brown hair, looking more like an owl than ever.
Finally Goodwin said, "We have to do something about this. There must be someone in the Lower City who isn't a waste of your time."
Tunstall said, "I hope you have some tattle from your Birdies, Cooper. With half the folk out of the city working the harvest, it's quiet as the grave. I'm bored." He patted a bicep that strained his tunic sleeve. "I'm getting flabby."
I shook my head and told them, "There's naught of use from my Birdies. A gambler got coles in his winnings, but I've no way to track him. I do have this from Tansy." I took out the false coin I had persuaded her to give me and handed it to Tunstall. He looked it over, then passed it to Goodwin. I told them about Tansy's morning at Baker Garnett's.
I'd just finished when the Day Watch cleared the room, and we took our places in the ranks. Once Ahuda sent us out on duty, we went into the courtyard. Instead of moving on into the street, though, Goodwin signed to Jewel and Yoav Goodwin showed them the coin and had me tell the tale all over again.
Jewel rubbed his chin. "I was startin' to tell Goodwin and Tunstall that Flash kennel brung down a dice game on our court night. Two river dodgers as was gamblin' there had a fistful of false silver. One of 'em got away. One of 'em tripped and fell in his cage and broke his neck."
Tunstall spat in the dust. Goodwin kicked him. "Hill barbarian," she said. "Hasn't Lady Sabine cured you of that?"
Tunstall grinned. "She doesn't try to change me. That's why we're still walking out."
Yoav opened her mouth, doubtless to make a joke about walking not being what they were doing. She caught Tunstall's look and closed her gob again. Folk can say whatever they like about Tunstall. He'll just blink those sleepy brown eyes. Say one word about my lady Sabine, and he'll put a hand of iron around your throat. My lady may not care that folk joke about her bedding a common Dog, but the Dog cares very much.
"Where was this river dodger?" Tunstall asked Jewel. "Kennel cages or Outwalls Prison?"
"Kennel," Yoav said. "Does it make a difference? Cage Dogs turn their backs on their mothers' murder if they're paid enough."
"What about the false coin?" Goodwin asked. "What happened to that?"
"Took to the palace," Jewel said. "No one'd leave that in a common kennel, where it might vanish, like."
"I had word of a gambler that won eight silver nobles that turned out to be six of 'em coles," I said. "Near Glassman Square. My Birdie had no names, though."
Goodwin spun her dagger point down on her fingertip. She did that when she was thinking. We all watched her. "We've folk passing coles in the Lower City and Flash District, but no word from any of the other districts," she said at last. "Just down here. This baker, Garnett, took in some coins, there's this gambler Cooper heard of, and its river dodgers in Flash District."
"It might pay to check the Lower City end of the riverfront, to see if other gamblers are passing fakes," Tunstall pointed out.
"The Barrel's Bottom," Goodwin said. She flipped her dagger into the air, caught it by the hilt, and sheathed it. I've yet to manage that trick without cuts. "That's the biggest for gambling, this time of the week. We should start there."
I winced. My luck in the Barrel's Bottom has not improved since I kept my first journal. I've been caught in seven large brawls in that outsized scummer-pot, the first when I was a Pup, the rest since. Last time I got my arm broken.
"If any cole passers know of the two who got caught in Flash District, they'll be shy," Jewel warned Goodwin. "They see you come in the front door, they'll be gone out every rathole in the place. You'll need company." Our team and Jewel's were too senior to have fixed patrols, but it was expected that we didn't work the same streets at the same time.
Tunstall smiled. "I'll talk with Ahuda."
She must have been in a good mood, or Tunstall talked extra well. Not only did Ahuda give us leave to take Jewel and Yoav to the Barrel's Bottom, she let us pull Birch and Ersken off their regular patrol of Rovers Street. Having Birch and Ersken along was an extra blessing. Birch has walked Rovers Street for years. He knows all the Barrel's Bottom exits.
It helped that Friday night was quiet, so we could all be spared. It was hot, too hot to do much. Plenty of folk were out of the city working the harvest. Walking down Jane Street, me and Ersken listened as the Senior Dogs wagered on when the streets and drinking houses would fill up with returning harvesters. Autumn is the Dogs' busiest season. Along with the harvesters and those that come to buy their winter's supplies come the thieves and gamblers to clip them. It's best we get this business of coles done with now. It will make a pretty mess once the crowds come.
Around the corner from the Barrel's Bottom, the Senior Dogs halted to give us our assignments.
"Ersken goes through the front door," said Birch. "Walk about slow-like, lad. Look over the games, and now and then give a pile of silver a wee poke with your baton, but not so much as to disturb the coins. Let them know you're there, eye-in' the money. If you're payin' a bit too much attention to the coin, they'll sweat. They won't know why you're lookin', but they'll know it ain't good. Like it says in The Book of Law, the guilty run first. We'll be waiting for them."
"Don't interrupt the games," Goodwin cautioned. "They hate that."
All of us nodded.
"The regulars know Ersken," Birch told us. "They'll know I'm hard by."
"And them with aught on their consciences will scatter for the bolt holes," Jewel said.
"Which I'll be showing you," Birch replied. "Wait till I return, Ersken."
As he led us away, I looked back at Ersken, worried. He's put on weight and muscle since our Puppy year, and he's better with his baton and those brass knuckles that Kora gave him. Birch wouldn't have kept him if he thought Ersken wasn't tough enough for Rovers Street. All the same, there's a difference between working the street with a tough Dog and walking into the Bottom alone.
He has his whistle, I told myself. We're all close enough to hear.
Then I saw Pounce sit down by Ersken's feet and felt better. Pounce is as good as another Dog.
Birch put me at a side door that opened on a tiny alley. A pair of torches over the door gave me light as I waited there, my baton in hand, my sap in easy reach. In my free hand I kept a piece of spelled mirror that Kora had given me for Midwinter. It would show me anyone who might try to sneak past under the cover of magic. I never asked her how much it cost, but to me it's worth my weight in gold. I've bagged five mage-spelled Rats using that mirror. With it and my weapons, I might be outside the rowdiest den on Rovers Street, but I was ready to bag me some Rats. And if there was a brawl, I would do my part.
But there was no brawl. Folk were too hot, seemingly. Instead, they ran. The first three that scuttled out my door were known to me. They were part of Aniki's band of rushers: Bold Brian, Reed Katie, and Fiddlelad. They grinned when they saw me and held up their empty fambles.
"Back with Goodwin and Tunstall?" Reed Katie asked me with a wink, a laugh in her sweet voice. Word moves fast in the Lower City.
"What do you think?" I asked her. "And why are you three sliding out the back way? Put your hands down."
They lowered their arms. "You don't fool us," said Bold Brian. "Westover's in there, lookin' as innocent as a babe. If he's about, Birch isn't far behind."
"An' if the two of them's huntin' in the Bottom, we're off," Fiddlelad told me, running his fingers over his fiddle. "We thought Rovers Street would be restful once Birch got him a first-year Dog for partner, but Westover's sharp. 'Tis best to tread a measure when they're about."
"'Specially when Westover wears that baby face of his," Reed Katie added. "He comes in looking all innocent, you know sommat's in the wind."
Mayhap I've been worrying over Ersken for naught. Seemingly he's building some repute for himself. I prodded Reed Katie's purse. "So what were you up to in there, you three? Gaming? Winning silver?"
They laughed and showed me four silver coins between them. "We don't gamble, not in the Bottom," Fiddlelad said. "Play's too rough here."
"We was havin' but a cup of ale, whilst Fiddlelad earned coin playin'," Bold Brian told me.
All of their coins were cut to show they were silver clean through. The three of them were earning better since Rosto became Rogue, but most of their purse coin was still copper.
"Since when do you cut your silver?" I asked them. "Or were you given these already marked?"
"Checked 'em ourselves." Bold Brian had given me two silver nobles. "Aniki warned us about coles this afternoon."
"Just mind who you tell that to," I said, worried. "We need no panics."
"Aniki said the same," Fiddlelad told me. "Brian only mentioned it now a'cos we're talkin' with you, Cooper."
Bold Brian said, "You don't mind, Cooper, we'll clear out. Time we let you be about your business."
In case I run into trouble, I thought, but I waved them on. Five more mots and coves came through the door, but only one of them carried silver, and that was true coin. I was starting to get bored when I saw a reflection in my charmed mirror – a fat Yamani fellow inside a curtain of magic. I turned as if to look inside. When he eased by me, I checked the mirror a second time to make sure I knew his height and where his head would be. Then I snapped my baton around his neck from behind. Whilst he choked, I threw him against the side of the building and groped for his hands so I could tie them. With that done, I felt for the magic charms at his neck and cut the cords they hung on. He started cursing me then.
Once I saw him clear, I hobbled his ankles with a second thong, then searched him for weapons. He carried only a pair of daggers and a dice box. Seemingly he relied on magic to keep him out of trouble. Though his skin and features were Yamani, he wore his hair like any cove of the Eastern Lands, cut along the sides of his head instead of in a topknot. His clothes were the tunic and leggings most local coves prefer.
As I went through his pockets, he complained, "How might such a pretty lass be so cruel?" His accent was that of Port Caynn.
"Compliments do you not one whit of good," I said as I took the purse from his belt. I inspected its contents in the torchlight. It held a few coppers and at least ten silver nobles. A search of the rest of him gave me another purse, hidden inside his tunic. It was stuffed with silver coins. "And I hate colemongers."
"I know naught of coles!" he protested.
I took out a silver coin from the hidden purse and cut its face with my dagger. Brass gleamed at the bottom of the cut. I dropped that coin on the ground and fished out another, cutting it as I had the first. It, too, was a cole.
He was sweating. "I won them in play on the boat from Port Caynn."
"From who?"
"Some fellows. Decent enough, but – they'd not like my giving their names to the law in Corus, I'm certain."
I grabbed his hair and banged his head against the wall. "You'll not like what will happen to you if you don't tell me who you won those coles from."
"I cannot tell, Guardswoman! I must have played five people on that boat!"
"Then we'll round all of them up," I said. He shook his head and kept shaking it, though he wrenched his own hair in my hand as he did it. "Very well, then. Who are you?" I asked.
He refused to speak.
"Tell me or tell the cage Dogs, it makes no difference. They will get the truth out of you sooner or later," I warned him. Sometimes just the threat of the cage Dogs will make a Rat spill. Not this one, though. He was still holding his tongue when the other Dogs came for me. They'd caught another cole-monger, a mot built like a barge. She looked like a fighter of some kind, dressed as she was in a metal-studded leather jerkin, leather breeches, and boots, with metal-studded gloves folded over her belt. She wore empty sword and dagger sheaths on the belt. Jewel had her weapons.
My cove lit up when he saw her. "Tell them! Tell them we won the coles on the boat! This stone-hearted doxie won't believe me, but maybe these fine Guardspeople will!"
"He's a gabblemonger, but he's tellin' the truth," the mot told us as we walked them down the street. "And it's a gold noble for each of yez if you'll send for the advocate to the Gem-cutter's Guild. She'll bring a mage with truth spells. We'd as soon avoid any rack or Drink or thumbscrews your cage Dogs got waitin'."
"It's true," my Yamani said. "The guild will pay our fees and yours. All our wrong lay in gaming with the wrong folk."
"The Gemcutter's Guild," Nyler Jewel repeated, just to be certain.
"We carry packages for the guild, to and from Port Caynn," said the Yamani.
Jewel groaned. He looked like he'd bit into a pickle with a rotten tooth. Tunstall spat on the street. Yoav swore. Some of the city guilds could walk their people away from plenty of things. If we couldn't prove these two guilty of cole passing, the Gemcutter's Guild would have them out of the cages before dawn.
"Gambling's a pleasant way to pass the time. She's my guard until the packages are delivered." The Yamani nodded toward the mot. "We spend a night in the city, and in the morning we take goods back to the port."
"Be reasonable," the mot said. "You know cage Dogs get lies as often as not with their tortures. A mage is a certain thing. Just send to the guild – they'll get someone to come for us. And the advocate will pay them gold nobles over to yez, nice as honey in the comb."
I could nearabout hear the Senior Dogs' teeth grinding. I asked, "If you're so clean and you're to be bought free of cages and charges, you may as well give up the names of your gamester friends and that boat you came on."
"And your own names as well," Goodwin said.
The mot gave us a hard grin. "We will, once our release papers are signed. If yer cage Dogs haven't been gnawing on us. Then we'll be happy to say what you want to know."
I looked down so no one could see me smile. She had sack, this mot, giving back hard answers when she'd been nabbed by hard Dogs for passing coles. I hope she is honest.
Birch and Ersken came out of the Barrel's Bottom. "It's clear, and the staff inside cursing us," said Birch. "Are these two all we have to show?"
"It gets better," Tunstall growled. "They work for the Gemcutter's Guild." He ruffled his hair. "One of us will have to go to the Guild's Advocate. And why should the advocate believe we have two of their Rats?"
"Hey!" cried the Yamani, insulted. "We're no Rats!"
The mot acted like she hadn't heard. "Where's the magic charms he wore about his neck? That's your proof. And I'd give a rosy copper to know how he got caught with them on, unless he was so rattled he forgot to work the spell." She gave the Yamani a scornful look.
"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.