Ten of the clock on Sunday morning.
being yet a record of the events of the Evening Watch of Saturday, September 8th
It is too hot to sleep more this morning, and no matter which way I turned, something hurt. I woke to Achoo panting in my face, making me hotter still. "I am surprised you held your water so long," I grumbled as I pulled on my breeches. All my body ached.
Achoo went out with Kora at breakfast time, Pounce told me. She has a charm that slides the bolts on the door.
I was too weary to be angry. Instead, as Achoo took care of her necessities, I drew a bucket from my landlady's well and dumped it over my head. Lifting it hurt my arms dreadfully, but it was worth it to feel cool all over. I led Achoo back upstairs. She was in fine fettle this morning, her tail waving like a banner. I gave her and Pounce cold meat pasties for their breakfast and settled down to finish my accounting of yesterday's watch, the Evening Watch of Saturday, September 8.
First I had to check with Mistress Trout that I would be allowed to leave Achoo tied in the backyard this evening. Five coppers bought her agreement. I left Pounce to bear Achoo company. I set them both up in the kitchen garden behind our lodging with a bowl of water and their supper. Achoo I tied to a long rope attached to a post, in case she got the urge to wander. Then I reported to training.
When I got there, Ahuda was waiting for me. Her arms were crossed over her chest.
"I'm informed you consider yourself a scent-hound handler now," she told me.
I winced as I handed her the notes on what I had gathered from the pigeons and the spinners. I should have figured Hempstead would rush to bleat his tale in Ahuda's ear. "Sergeant, I never tried to take Achoo from him. He was the one who thrust her on me."
"Never mind, Cooper. I'd have taken the poor thing myself, except I'm no street Dog. We don't have any more handlers." She rubbed her nose. "It's not what I would have chosen, but it may serve. It won't hurt you to have a handler's skills. Stop by my desk after your watch musters off duty, and I'll give you the allowance for the hound's food and care. You still see Phelan, don't you?"
Phelan had been Achoo's handler before he'd left the Dogs. "Yes, Sergeant, I do."
"Have him teach you the commands until I can get you regular training. It's just as well you're between partners, wouldn't you say? Now get in that yard and warm up."
Word raced ahead of me, as always. By the time we walked into muster from training, Goodwin greeted me with, "You're turning us into a menagerie, Cooper, is that it? First a cat, now a hound – what's next, winged horses?"
"Always wanted to see those," Tunstall remarked with a sigh. There was a light in his eyes as he added, "Always wanted to ride one."
"Didn't that barbarian nursemaid tell you winged horsies are stories, man?" Yoav teased. "You go ridin' stories, you're due for a long fall!"
"Hempstead made me take Achoo," I told Goodwin. "Besides, you should see her. Skin and bones and open sores."
Tunstall went to spit on the floor. He stopped, seeing Ahuda's eye on him. "It's a tiny soul that'll beat an animal, even one as silly as that Achoo," he said, his voice a soft growl.
"Muster up!" Ahuda bellowed. We took our places in the ranks. Ahuda gave us our orders for the night and called up the Senior Dogs for anything special.
When Ahuda dismissed us to duty, we walked out into the courtyard, where the heat smothered us. It clung wetly, filling our noses and lungs. We all grumbled, each in our own fashion. Saturday is a big market day. Plenty of folk come out when their jobs are done. On a night like this, with the heat so bad, tempers would be short.
The free-roaming Senior Dogs and Corporals bunched up near the gate to choose their routes. Goodwin picked the Market of Sorrows for the three of us. The lordlings and rich merchants who came to look over the slave merchandise after dark would be short with the beggars and street folk. Things would go smoother if we were there to stop trouble before it began.
"Any word?" Jewel asked me. "Ahuda said you had sommat troublin' on the rye crop."
I told him what I'd learned while the others listened, frowning.
"That's bad," Yoav said. "If it gets out, it could start a panic."
"I gave it to Ahuda," I told them. "She's always careful with the delicate things."
Tunstall growled. "I'd like to get my hands on the kind of snake that would sell folk rotten grain."
We all growled our answer. Everyone would be looking at any seller of rye now, alert for anything that didn't look or smell as it should. The Senior Dogs and us lucky enough to be partnered with them lingered a little while longer, talking about the harvest in general. None of us were eager to rush out into the heat and the business of the watch. Despite the shadows granted to us by the city walls and the coast hills, the air felt just as hot and sticky as it had during full daylight. At last our knot of Dogs undid itself, Jewel and Yoav going one way, Goodwin, Tunstall, and me another.
We'd just ambled a couple of blocks down Jane Street when Tunstall halted and put a hand to his ear. I'd heard something, too. We all waited, listening. Then we heard it clear. Somewhere from the direction of the Nightmarket, Dogs were blowing the General Alarm signal on their whistles.
We turned down Sophy Street at the trot, bound for the Nightmarket's eastern edge at Feasting Street. We knew this was bad. Five regular pairs and two roving ones had the Night-market on Saturday. If the ones who sounded the whistle continued to do so, it meant that fourteen Dogs were in trouble there.
Goodwin halted us a block short of the Nightmarket. The whistles had continued to blow. "Weapons check," she said. "Mother, watch over us."
"So mote it be," Tunstall and I whispered. The Great Mother Goddess was not who either of us prayed to first, but we would take all the help we could get. I checked my knives swiftly, though I'd done so before leaving the kennel, and made certain my arm guards were tightly laced. I mourned the absence of my armor, which lay snug at home, because I'd decided it was too hot to carry. Then I drew my baton and gave Goodwin the nod. She and Tunstall had gone through the same checks that I had, though perhaps they had not hated themselves for leaving their armor at home. They were wearing their gorgets, which made me kick myself again. They had thought it was worth at least wearing their neckpieces. Mine wouldn't have made me sweat that much more.
"Keep breathing, keep learning," Ahuda says.
Goodwin held up her whistle, which hung on a thong from her gorget. Tunstall produced his, hanging around his neck. I showed her mine. "Very good, Cooper," Goodwin said. "Let's go."
We emerged onto Feasting, the eastern edge of the market, batons in hand. Our view was blocked by the rows of stalls in front of us. The trouble was doubtless in the heart of the market, where there was more open ground. We swung down to the Rovers Street border of the market and trotted along until we found the edges of the crowd. The open heart of the market was filling up with the kind of cracknob who always came to see what the fuss was about.
Using our batons and elbows gently, ordering these loobies to go about their business or go home, we muscled our way to King Gareth's Fountain. It stood at the heart of the central square, four shallow bowls of lesser and lesser size along the length of a carved stone pillar thirty feet in height. It gave a determined climber a good view of the square between Stuvek Street and Rovers Street. A handful of lads and gixies had already climbed it to take in the events at the south side of the market.
"Up you go, Cooper," Goodwin said. "You're the lightest."
"Not to mention the most junior of the team," Tunstall added.
I undid my weapons belt, and gave it and my baton into Goodwin's care. They would only hinder me as I went up.
I clambered up the sides and over the three lowest bowls, shifting the lads and gixies who didn't want to make way. Lucky for us all they let me pass once they saw my uniform. Standing in the last bowl, hanging on to the crown-tipped point, I could see where the problem was.
The crowd had turned into a boiling mass of hornets at the front, all its attention centered on a line of Dogs – eight at the center with one a step back on each side, whistles to their lips. That was all but two of the pairs assigned to the market. The line of Dogs stood at guard, their batons horizontal in their grips, before the Two for One bakery. In front of Two for One hung its famous slate sign, Day-old loaves, 2 for 1 copper. Only someone had crossed out the 2 and chalked the number 1 in its place.
"Bread!" them in the crowd were shouting. "We need bread!" Mostly those in the lead were women armed with naught but market baskets. Behind them were others, coves and mots alike, better prepared for a brawl with bottles, stones, sticks, and jars.
It was unthinkable. Two for One had sold day-old loaves of bread two loaves for one copper ever since I could remember. They bought up much of the city's fresh bread at the end of the day and sold it here the next day at that rate. In the Lower City, even one copper made a difference.
"Move on!" shouted the burliest of the Dogs. It was Greengage, one of our Corporals. "Be about your business. I'll have no trouble tonight!"
"Easy for you to say!" I heard a mot cry. "You're paid a decent wage! One copper, two, it's no skin from your cheek!"
The two Dogs at the ends of the line of guarding Dogs took a deep breath and blew the summons to all Dogs in the area. They were right. Ten Dogs, or even fourteen when the two other pairs arrived, weren't enough for this crowd, and the folk in it weren't calming down.
"Bread," folk in the rear of the crowd began to call. "Bread, bread, bread."
"Eat this, cur!" I heard someone yell. "Here's fare ordinary folk can buy!"
I looked back at Two for One in time to see a rotted cabbage head hit Greengage straight in the chest. It splatted brown-gray sludge over him and the Dogs on both his sides.
Down the fountain I went, ordering the others who climbed it, "Get home afore you get your bones broke!" On the ground again, I told Goodwin and Tunstall what I'd seen. Goodwin returned my belt to me and watched as I buckled it on, making certain everything was settled where I could reach it. Then she handed me my baton.
We all gave each other a last swift going-over by eye to see that all buckles were done up and all laces were tied. Then Goodwin nodded to the left. That would be our direction around the fountain, toward Two for One. She and Tunstall moved first into the crowd, then I stepped in behind them, as we had done at other crowd fights, so I could guard their backs.
Folk around us surged forward, punching their neighbors and shrieking, "Bread!" as sweat poured down their faces. The heat alone might drop a third of them soon enough. Our job was simple. We ordered the brawlers home. If they disobeyed, they got a taste of the baton. Rushers with clubs or blades in their hands got the baton to the head, hard enough to drop them. We didn't need anyone up and about who'd come with a mind to draw blood. Our job was to clear these folk out. And we had to get them that weren't fighting out of the way. It was hard, fast work and left me no time to think about how frightened I was. I'd never been at the heart of a riot, only its edges. I felt beat at by the noise alone.
Goodwin was tangling with a tattooed cove and Tunstall with two drunken Rats when a mot grabbed my braid and yelped in pain. She had found the spiked strap woven in it. I gave her the baton to the belly and let her stumble away, gasping for breath. A cove to my right was keeping a fainting mot on her feet. At the same time he reached for a child who screamed in the grip of a grinning rusher, a child stealer like as not. I lunged for the little gixie, slamming the child stealer's elbow with my baton. He squealed and took one hand off the girl. I wrapped an arm around her waist, then rammed the cove's cod with my baton. He went down under the feet of the mob, wailing. Quick as I could, I thrust the girl into the man's free hand. "Papa!" she cried, reaching for him.
I grabbed the fainting mot and got her arm over my shoulders. "There!" I ordered the cove, pointing to a stall where other cityfolk huddled, wanting no part of the violence. I shoved the three of them under the scant protection of the stall's awning and looked about me for my partners. I could see naught of them in that lump of heaving flesh.
Again I threw myself into it. My ears rang with screams and the never-ending chant of, "Bread! Bread!" More than once the crowd's force picked me off my feet and bore me along, held up by the bodies of them that were packed in around me. That was the worst, when I had no control over where I went. I was in the power of this beast of sweaty arms and faces and dozens of screaming heads. When it let my feet touch the ground, I fought to keep them there.
Over and over I banged the unlawful on knees and shoulders, then dragged folk clear of the mob – women, mostly, and little ones. I had to switch baton hands twice as my arms began to ache. Part of me knew I would hate the next day, when I woke up to feel all those places where the brawlers landed their own blows on me. I didn't feel them now, that was all that mattered. That and the knowing that other Dogs were here, same as me, bringing order to this mess. I could hear their whistles high over the beast's roar, letting me know they were nearby.
It wasn't all clean-cut battle. I was running out of places to get the helpless who couldn't run out of harm's way. Folk that might have ducked a common market brawl came to this one to tell the shopkeepers what would happen if any more prices went up. Word of a bad harvest on top of so many hot days made the Lower City folk lose what sense they had.
The stall that had sheltered the first people I got out of the fight didn't exist anymore. The mob had torn it to pieces for clubs. I went looking for those who'd hidden there. They were in the next row of stalls, tucked inside one. I dragged two of the women, who clutched as many little ones as each could manage, down the row, trusting that the others would follow. I wanted to get them clear of the market. I hoped that the sight of a street with no mob on it would give rise to some sheep-like instinct to run home, or to Jane Street kennel.
Then the mob crashed into the row ahead of us, smashing through the walls of two stalls on either side. Both places sold drink. I saw mots and coves handing around jacks, tankards, and bottles. I turned my people back, toward the main square.
"Here." A light-haired cove, slender and muscled like an acrobat, appeared in front of us like something from a dream. "This way." He gathered up two children and set off, sure we would follow. When a river dodger rose in his path, ready to club him down, he leaned to the side and kicked high, catching him in the breastbone. I shoved the mot I'd been towing after the fair-haired cove and turned to make sure the others followed. Then I wiped my sweating forehead on my arm and moved alongside our little group, bashing any that threatened us.
The cove led us to the Jack and Pasty, the oldest of the square's places for food and drink. Mother's mercy, it was built of stone and roofed in slate. The windows were shut and barred. Only a door in the front was open. It was guarded by a big, slope-shouldered cove armed with a staff as thick as my wrist.
"Not dead?" he asked our leader with good cheer, his voice loud enough to cut through the roar. "Curse it, Dale, I had a bet on that you wouldn't make it." He passed each of us a flask of barley water. I drained mine and thanked him.
The light-haired cove – Dale – grinned at the big one as he ushered our group into the shelter of the Jack. "You always lose when you bet against me, Hanse, admit it." He looked at me. "If you find more, Guardswoman, we've started a collection in here." And he winked.
I nodded and headed back along the edges of the crowd. I needed to find Goodwin and Tunstall, so I got out my whistle and blew our private signal. I'd not gone far when I heard an answer nearby. I swallowed my fear of getting back into the thick of it and plunged in. Now that I wasn't spending all my wits on getting those cityfolk to safety, I listened harder to the whistle calls. I heard seven different sets, not counting my own partners'. That meant every pair assigned to the Nightmarket was engaged and calling for help. Ahuda must have the word by now. She would be sending every pair that could be spared from their own duty here in the Lower City. We dared not use everyone. The Rats would take advantage of our absence and go after those we'd left unprotected.
Finally I saw Tunstall's head over the dense wall of blind, furious bodies. I brained a huge cove who wouldn't drop when I struck his knee, then dashed sweat from my eyes. I didn't know if the salty drops came from the heat or my own fear anymore. Every second I stumbled, shoved by half-mad folk. I was scared I wouldn't live to reach Tunstall.
Suddenly paving stones flew into the air. Columns of brown river water followed them, blasting holes through the mob. Mots, coves, children all went flying if their luck was ill enough to put them in those powerful blasts. Folk screamed. There were mages nearby, mages with the codes to free the spells on the riot founts. Those pipes of river-fed water were made for just these times, to soak a mob. I clambered up the back of the cove whose skull I'd been trying to break. Maddened with fury and who knew what else, he barely felt me. He was struggling with a pair of tough rushers near as big as he was. I knelt on his shoulders, clinging to his hair. Five more riot founts blew water into the sky, showering folk around them.
It wasn't enough. If anything, them as hadn't been blasted were glad for the cool of the spray. The only good the riot founts did for us Dogs was that the water's hard push upward knocked out any who stumbled into the columns.
There was Tunstall, three yards ahead. I marked his place in my mind. A last thought made me glance at Two for One before I dismounted. The old bread shop was burning.
Then I heard a roar like a bull who'd been cut with a rusty axe. I knew that roar. Tunstall! I don't know when I drew my long boot knife, but I used it, smacking sidelong as I would use a baton.
Folk are much quicker to notice a blade than they are a stick.
Goodwin was holding off the mob with a torch in one hand and her baton in the other. She stood over Tunstall, who was propped up against the base of King Gareth's Fountain. Both of Tunstall's legs were stretched out before him, and not properly. They bent in directions straight legs are not supposed to.
"The sarden tarses stepped on his legs when he went down," Goodwin yelled. "They were the size of oxen!"
"That's no good," a cove said behind me. I turned, my blade up. It was the big man, Hanse, who'd been at the Jack and Pasty. "Doubtless they're both broke, the way they look." He hunkered down beside Tunstall. "It'll hurt to move you, barbarian."
Tunstall rolled his eyes at Hanse. "Call me barbarian twice and I'll hurt you," Tunstall said, but there was no vigor in it. His dark face was ashen, his lips blue. He had what the healers called shock. We needed to get him out of danger fast.
"Right, then." Hanse bent, gathered Tunstall's arms under one of his, hoisted Tunstall over his shoulders, and stood.
Tunstall started to roar but never finished it. His eyes rolled up in his head as he fainted.
"Just as well," Hanse shouted to Goodwin.
"You got a place to go?" Goodwin yelled.
"We've a snug little fort we're holdin'," Hanse called. "Ask your friend, here."
"Then take him there," Goodwin snapped. She smacked a cove with her baton and kicked him away from Hanse. "Cooper, go with them – "
I shook my head. I could hear new whistles shrilling over the low snarl of the mob. "They're calling us in!" I cried. "Come on. It'll take both of us to get Hanse and Tunstall to the Jack and Pasty."
Goodwin took Hanse's left side, I his right. We grabbed others who looked like they wanted only to escape and towed them along, dealing harshly with any that got in our way as we ducked the riot founts. I truly cannot remember how we made it across sixty-odd yards of packed square. I will say as much in my formal report, and let Ahuda take me to the laundry for it if she likes. I thank the gods for the mage-made balm that Kora found this summer. Without it to rub into my arms and shoulders, I doubt I could write this down while it is fresh in my mind.
Make it to the Jack and Pasty we did. A stocky fellow with a cord-thin beard, or maybe it was a long mustache, guarded the front door and window. He opened the place for us. I stayed outside with him, in case any had followed us. Truth to tell, I hated to see old Tunstall all ashy and broken like that. It made the world seem cracked, like it might fall to pieces any moment.
The stocky cove introduced himself to me as Steen. He explained he was one of Hanse's crew of caravan guards and that others guarded the shuttered windows around the sides and back. They'd been looking for trinkets for their lovers at home when the fighting started. I soon learned why he'd been left on his own to protect the door. He was very comfortable with the club he carried. Any of the rioters who thought we looked worth a try soon joined the growing pile of unconscious busy-bodies in front of the shop.
I don't know when the air boomed, nearabout scaring the sweat out of me, if I'd had any left. Steen hawked and spat. "Mages," he called. "They finally noticed the riot founts weren't doin' the job. That sounds like the start of a freezin' spell – good idea, now they have the square all wet."
I looked at him and raised my brows. "You've done this afore, is that what you're tellin' me?" I was that tired, to be speaking street cant.
Steen winked. "A time or two. Not in Corus. They do things this way in Galla and Tusaine. I heard they were plannin' to try it here." A breath of heavy air touched us. "Here we go."
I raised my hand through a breeze that had the weight of thick honey. The brawlers a couple of yards away moved slower and slower. Steen dragged me inside before we were entirely caught in the spell.
Once Steen and I were within stone walls I felt normal. "They's layin' a freeze spell outside," Steen yelled to the folk inside the Jack and Pasty. "Yez may as well set. 'Twill be a while afore they break this mob up, doin' it thataway, and ye'll freeze if yez go outside."
While the others gasped and wondered when they might go home, I looked about for Tunstall. They'd put him on one of the long tables near the hearth. Someone had a small fire burning there. I hobbled over to Goodwin, who was wiping down Tunstall's face with a cloth.
"How does he go?" I asked.
"Left leg's broke in three places, the right in two, according to Master Lakeland," Goodwin said, pointing to a short, fat cove. He directed four men as they placed another long table near Tunstall's. There was a pregnant mot on that. Lakeland is a healer who works over on Messinger Lane. He isn't the best, but he would do until we could get Tunstall to a kennel healer. Goodwin asked, "What's going on outside?"
"Freeze spells," I told her. "Why didn't they use that on the mob last year?" I thought of all the buildings and lives lost back then.
"You think that kind of magic is there for just any hedge-witch to use, young Terrier?" Master Lakeland asked as he rolled up a shirt and slid it under the pregnant woman's head. "It takes a fearful lot of power."
"Wasn't that riot spread all over the Lower City?" Dale, the fair-haired cove, came over as I took a seat next to Tunstall. "I heard somewhere that the bigger the crowd, the harder it is to magic the whole thing."
"It's true," Lakeland said, checking the pots in the hearth. "Boiling already?"
"They was still hot when we found 'em in the kitchen," replied a gixie who was watching the pots there.
"Clever girl," Lakeland told her. He looked at the rest of us. "This square's circled about and the riot is largely only here. The mages can hold it with freezing spells. The Dead Men's Riots went from the Commons almost down to here. No one could freeze all of that."
"And the mages would charge more than the Crown is willing to pay, I'd wager," Dale remarked cheerfully.
Tunstall stirred and moaned. Lakeland put a hand on him. I saw yellow fire trickle over Tunstall's face and sink in. My partner went quiet again.
"Keeping him quiet is the best I can do till you get him to your healers," Lakeland told Goodwin. "This mot beside me is starting labor. She'll need me soon. I'm not so good with broken bones. Your friend has two broken legs, and he's been healed often. I'd have to work like a slave to get a simple healing to stick, let alone a complex one. Too many healings and the patient gets resistant, see?"
"I know," Goodwin said, and sighed.
"You look worn out." Dale offered me a cup of something. I think it was ale. I shook my head. "You've had a busy night," he said.
"I'm fine," I said. "You're not from here, Dale – ?"
"Dale Rowan, of Port Caynn," he said with a grin. He looked all right: straight nose, large eyes, brownish-blond hair and small beard, and that slender, lean-muscled body. "I'm a courier for the Goldsmith's Bank. That's how Hanse and I came to be here – I often travel with the caravans he guards. No one bothers a skinny lad like me with Hanse and his rushers about."
Hanse yelled something to Dale. I leaned my head on the table where Tunstall rested, just to shut my eyes. I must have gone to sleep. Goodwin roused me around three by the chimes of the city's clocks, when the King's soldiers opened the door to let us out. I looked about for Dale, but he, Steen, and Hanse were already gone.
They carried Tunstall to the Mother of Healers' temple. Goodwin and I reported at last to Jane Street. Ahuda was still there, waiting for all of us from Evening Watch to report in. She ordered us home.
I came home to free Achoo from her rope tie in the garden. She slobbered and jumped up, pawing at my weapons belt, all because she was glad to see me. Pounce, though, was different. He stood on Mistress Trout's chicken coop, staring at the sky. I spoke to him three times before he so much as looked at me.
"Are you all right?" I asked. "Are you missing the other constellations?"
Pounce jumped down and walked inside ahead of me. I do not miss them, he told me. They are troublesome, and some of the young ones misbehave. You look like you have been fighting.
I frowned. Pounce always knows what I have done, even if he is not with me. Finally I told him, "It was nothing. Just a small riot," as I unlocked our door. "Tunstall got both legs broken."
That got his attention. I told him what had happened as I fed him and Achoo dried meat I'd left to soak before I went out. Then I tried to write up the night's events, but I was too weary to finish. I dragged myself to my bed to sleep.
I remember trying to turn over, to find myself up against a warm body. My face was buried in coarse fur that smelled of roses. Kora's soap is rose-scented. I shoved Achoo. My arms gave me warning twinges of pain. "I don't recall saying you're allowed to sleep on this bed," I told her. I could as well have talked to a sack of flour. "There's scarce room for me and Pounce." I pushed at the hound again. Achoo moaned. I pushed harder and she yelped, fighting to sit up. She planted a paw in my eye in the doing. I brought away a hand covered in greasy ointment. I'd hit one of her sores by accident.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I told the hound, scratching her ears and gentling her, talking in my softest voice. "I never meant to hurt you. Easy, now."
Achoo washed the goo off my hand. Then she washed my face.
"Pounce, tell her there's only room for the two of us. She'll do fine on the floor. None of my lord's hounds sleep on a bed," I reminded the cat.
This bed was comfortable enough for three while you were asleep, Pounce told me. Let the poor creature be. You ought to be happy she still likes humans after the way she's been treated.
"I am happy Achoo still likes humans," I said. "I just wish she didn't like sleeping with them. It's too hot!"
I was about to give Achoo the order to get down when I saw that she slept once again. I pushed, taking care not to touch her sores, but it was no good and it made my arms hurt. In the end, I put my back against hers and went back to sleep despite the heat. I must track Phelan down and learn the proper words to command a hound.
I had the burning man dream again. It's like it was four months ago. I see that cove run into the curst Cesspool building with his torch. I hear the bang as he slams the door and the clack as he bars it. I'm blowing my Dog whistle as hard as ever I can, but no sound's coming out. And I'm trying to run to the building, trying so hard my legs ache, but I'm too gods-curst slow, no matter how hard I push.
Then all of a sudden the whole thing is on fire. Flames stream out of all of the windows. Even though I couldn't see the faces of them that were jumping out of the building the night it happened for real, in the dream I always see them. They're burning just like the real dead burned that night, and in the dream they wear faces I know. Today it was my sisters and my brothers. They were burning alive. I was running hard to save them, but my feet hit the mud so slow, one at a time, and the burning building was moving away from me. My brother Willes was getting ready to jump. I reached out to him, my mouth open to scream.
That's when I woke. Pounce was kneading my shoulder hard. Achoo pawed my ribs, whining. I'd sweat clean through my nightdress. I always do when I have the burning dream.
"Did I shout?" I mumbled.
You never do, Pounce said.
"Good." I stumbled to my washbasin and splashed water on my face. I'm glad I don't scream. I don't want anyone to know I have such babyish nightmares.
Achoo trotted over to the door and sat beside it, looking at me. I stared at her for a moment before I understood what she wanted. "Can't you just magic yourself out, like Pounce?" I asked. There was no answer, not from the hound. I pulled on breeches and a shirt and took Achoo outside. Then we returned and went back to sleep.
I woke around ten. Filling out the rest of last night's events had to wait until I'd taken Achoo outside, fed her and Pounce, then dragged my aching body to the bathhouse. Only when I'd returned, slathered on that special balm for my sore muscles, and eaten a cold pasty could I fix my mind on writing.
And here are Kora, Aniki, and Rosto with food. It is just after noon and they are eager to give me the news they gathered while I was getting bruised from head to toe. I will write my proper Sunday journal tonight.