Ten of the morning.
I should have written about last night when I came in, but I could not stay awake. I was not drunk, for I drank little, compared to my companions. Not that I could have known that Goodwin was drinking, had I not seen her raise and lower tankard or cup to her lips. Where does she put it all, a magic pocket?
No mind. I've yet to get my sleeping hours straight. I just woke, and must set this journal to rights before embarking on the day.
Truda came for the reports yestereve when the clock struck five, as Nestor promised. I watched the gixie trot off through the backyard of the lodging house, worried. If she was watched, or we were, she could have a hard journey home. Then Haden emerged from the bushes with two lads and a lass dressed just as Truda was. They closed around her and took the bridge over the stream away from the house. I smiled and went back inside.
Then I had to dress. It was possible Dale might join us, which made me edgy-like. I had but two dresses for walking out, plus a third for every day, so I had no reason to dither all night over clothes. I chose the blue dress with ivory, yellow, and pink embroideries. The sleeves are wider than fashionable, but they have to be. I strap flat knives to the inside and outside of my forearms, and I need to be able to reach them in a hurry. There are slits in the skirt's seams so I may get at the flat daggers that hang from the sash around my underdress. The outer dress tied with a yellow cord that matched my embroideries. That had weights at each end so I could use it as a weapon at need. I hung my purse and my eating knife from that. My leg knives were belted firmly around my calves.
I wear no earrings, since an enemy can rip them from my flesh. I do own a couple of necklaces of beads. They too can be turned against me, but I must have sommat pretty, and they are so cheap a good tug will break them. One of them was made of yellow glass beads, the color of my sash. I put that on. My hair I wrapped in a braided coil around my head, fixing it in place with my mother's ivory combs. They'd been her only nice things. Finally I put on a wrapped blue cape, using a fold to veil my hair like a proper mot. I pinned it on one shoulder with a brooch in the shape of a flying heron. That I'd bought myself, because I like herons, with my first wages as a full-fledged Dog.
"What do you think, Achoo?" I asked her.
Achoo put her head on her paws and sighed.
"I'm sorry," I told her. "I cannot take you where I'm going. It wouldn't look right, and you'd be bored." I gathered the rope I used to tie her up in the yard at home. "Tumit." I opened the door, but Achoo had not gotten to her feet. "Achoo, I begged the cook for some nice chopped meat for you. You knew when you joined the Provost's Guard that duty isn't always easy. Now tumit!"
Achoo rose with a groan, as if she were a crone instead of a mot of only two years. Down the stairs behind me she went, grumbling in her throat. She looked so pitiful that the cook insisted on adding a gravy to the bowl of chopped meat, which brought a slow tail wag from my shameless hound. I tied her in the yard and made certain she had a nice, deep bowl of water as well.
"Sergeant Ahuda would be ashamed to see one of her Dogs acting like a mumper," I whispered.
Achoo only sniffed and poked the meat with her nose, as if she might find the strength to taste it. I looked back at her as I entered the kitchen. She was devouring her meat and gravy, her tail happily a-wag. "Mumper," I called, and went inside.
Goodwin raised her eyebrows at me when I met her in the sitting room downstairs. She wore a dress much like mine in a kind of coppery wool, with a darker brown cape. It was pinned with a crescent moon at the shoulder. She wore a small round hat, brown with copper embroideries, instead of a veil, fixed in place with bright beaded pins.
"Not bad, Cooper. I always say you clean up well. Are the animals safe for the night?" she asked me.
"Achoo's out back, and Slapper is asleep on the roof," I told her.
"Poor creatures," Goodwin said. "They don't know what they miss."
I was trembling a bit. I've never gone to a place where I was expected to be friendly with folk I barely know. "I wouldn't mind missing it," I muttered.
"You're so much bolder in uniform, I forget what a mouse you can be," Goodwin said as we went outside. A sedan chair waited for us. Goodwin had asked a housemaid to summon one for this hour. We climbed in, me trying not to step on my hem. My sister Lorine would kill me if I ruined her sewing.
"Pay attention," Goodwin told me as the chair lurched up and forward. "At least one of those coves will be there to see you, and that one the best-looking of the lot – though Hanse might be fun as well." She voiced an evil chuckle that shocked me. "Enough, Cooper, I didn't stop living when I married. I can look. They took to you during that riot, and you're going to be friendly if I have to shove you all the way. Pretend to be the person who wears that dress. I know you've been with men before. Surely they knew you liked them somehow."
"It's easier during the festivals," I replied. "And the first one I knew from my lord's house."
"Well, now you'll learn how other mots do it when they haven't grown up with the cove and there isn't a festival." Goodwin sighed. "Goddess, I wish Tom was here. They say this Merman's Cave has good mussels, and my Tom does love his seafood."
"Couldn't he have come?" I asked. "He would've been good cover, you and him visiting the port, seeing the sights, gambling a bit, buying things for your house."
"No," Goodwin replied. "He's his own work to do. Let's not talk about work, though." She drew back the curtain on her side and pointed forward and back, to the men who carried the chair. I winced. I'd forgotten we had ears on us, coves who might pass on anything we said.
"Sorry. I'm all rattled from the day, I expect," I explained. "I'm not used to getting picked up and dragged before strange Rogues."
"She's harsh, isn't she?" Goodwin's voice was admiring. "You'd best mind your manners around her. She's no Rosto you can flirt with."
"I don't flirt with Rosto!" I said, knowing I could be heard. I giggled, settling into the dress and the necklace and the cape. Suddenly I wished I had some scent to make me feel like even more of a mot out for a good night. All this fuss over clothes and such, it could serve me like my uniform, as a different face from plain old Beka Cooper.
Now that I remember it, I'll pick up scent when I have a chance. Mayhap a blackener for my brows and lashes, and a bit of red for my lips. Or not. It's a careful balance, how much is too much. Okha might advise me. He uses far more face paint than Goodwin.
The Merman's Cave turned out not to be in the Flowerbed, but just a few blocks past Gerjuoy and three blocks up from the docks. There was a deep porch all the way around the front of the place, and windows with only one of a pair of shutters ajar. During the warm summer months they must set tables out and open all the shutters to keep the place cool. The night was cold for September, though. The fog had swamped the street, shaping the torches into globes of fire.
Goodwin paid off the chair men. I followed her through the double doors carved in the shapes of long-vanished merfolk. Once inside we saw a small room set off to the left. Two good-sized rushers who stood on either side of the entrance looked us over, then turned their gaze to the cove who entered behind us.
"The sword and the dagger, sir," one of them said. "Leave 'em here, if ye'll be so good. And whatever's hidden that might make for an unpleasant night for others of our guests."
Goodwin and I raised our brows at each other. Seemingly we looked too respectable to be asked to give up our weapons. We moved on into the eating house proper.
The noise swamped us. The smoke that floated along the ceiling made our eyes sting. It came from the fire in the great hearth where kettles full of wines and ales heated. Sweating mots wearing thin dresses and aprons filled pitchers from the kettles and handed them over to serving folk, then refilled the kettles to heat a new batch of drinks. I could smell spices, ale, wine, roasting meat, and hints of puke and piss. The tables around the huge main room were crowded with mots and coves drinking, eating, talking, and laughing. A cove walked past me carrying an eel pie. It smelled so good my mouth began to water.
"There they are!" Only Hanse could roar like that. He beckoned to us from across the room. As if they were a wave rolling back from the land, those in our way moved off. Goodwin and I walked through like proper mots, holding our skirts above the floor and watching where we stepped. Though I have to say, the rushes were fresh, and as yet there were no nasty messes to avoid.
Hanse had changed clothes for the night. He wore a dark blue tunic with red and gray embroideries, very handsome, with white embroidered bands down both sides of the front. He even wore a short gray cape clasped with a twisted gold ring brooch at the shoulder. This was a man who didn't care if folk grabbed for his jewelry in a fight. He wore gold earrings and a broad copper wristband. There was a short knife and an empty loop hanging from his gray sash. They had taken his sword.
Steen sat with him, in the same tunic he'd worn at the Court of the Rogue. He had added two silver earrings in his left ear, though, and a handsome gray pearl in the right.
"Aren't you lookin' fine," Hanse greeted us. The coves helped us to seats inside their booth. "We feared mayhap you'd be thinkin' the better of joinin' us, after runnin' afoul of Queen Pearl."
Goodwin laughed in a coarse, brassy way as Hanse slid onto the bench next to her. "We won't say we weren't a bit twitched, will we, Cooper?"
I shook my head, since she wanted me to. Steen took the place next to me.
"Truth to tell, Pearl needn't have bothered," Goodwin went on. Now she was playing the part of the loose Dog for all she was worth. She sounded like other mot Dogs her age, bawdy and loud, not the daughter of respectable tradesmen. "Oh, Cooper here forgot her orders this morning. She's supposed to be resting while we're in town. We'll not meddle in Rogue business, not away from Corus. Never intended to. I put a word in Cooper's ear. She'll mind me now."
I looked down at my hands as if I were Achoo and I'd been scolded for sneaking food off the table. I was pretty good at guessing Goodwin's cues.
"You be talkin' riddles," Steen told Goodwin. He waved to a barmaid and signaled for drinks. "Ale's all right with you?"
"I'm happy with it, but don't expect Cooper to drink much. She's got some little bit of bird magic that makes her sick if she overdoes."
"Some mages is like that," Hanse said with a nod. "Others you could pour a trough full of mead and they'd drink it, then turn the trough into a horse and ride it away."
"Two pitchers of ale, and what manner of twilseys and waters have you?" Steen asked the mot.
She looked at him as if he'd turned into a winged horse, but said, "Raspberry and apple cider twilsey, and coriander water, sir."
"I'll have the apple cider twilsey," I said quietly. I would thank Goodwin later for making sure I'd do little drinking.
Hanse turned back to Goodwin as the serving maid left us. "You said you won't interfere in Rogue's business here? But what else is a Dog to do?"
Goodwin scowled. "Do her interfering at home, where she may make a profit at it, by Mithros!" She smacked the table. "My lord wants Beka away from some nasty Rats, with me to watch her, so off we go to Port Caynn to see how your Dogs work. That means we're assigned to no watch, with no share of a Happy Bag or the normal coin we'd get for doing good service. That's two-thirds of our income gone, by all the gods! No, I'll not stick my neck out getting up your Rogue's nose for one-third pay. No more is Cooper. We'll keep our skins in one piece and enjoy our holiday."
"Then you've run into the right fellows for that, haven't they, lads?" Dale Rowan had come up while Goodwin was talking. I near jumped when he spoke, then smiled up at him. He looked even better than he had on the boat, decked out in a blue wool tunic that brightened his gray eyes. His blue cape was fixed at the shoulder with a gold owl. He wore a broad gold hoop in one ear only, and a sparkling blue gem in the other. He grinned at Goodwin and said, "Between the three of us we can give your holiday a good launch, Mistress Goodwin."
"Clary, if you will," she replied. "It's hard to tell how good it will be with the ale not even here."
Luckily, since all three coves turned to yell for the serving maid, she was right there with the tray of ale and twilsey. And somehow, in the bustle of the drink service and our ordering food, Steen moved to the outside of the table and Dale sat next to me.
"To new friends met in riots," Hanse toasted when Dale had a tankard. We all laughed and drank to that. When Hanse praised the ale as a proper way to start the night, Goodwin said he was used to watery seaside ale. She, Hanse, and Steen started to compare ales of different towns from up and down the river.
Dale turned to me. "I heard you made Pearl Skinner unhappy today."
I followed Goodwin's lead. "So has all the town, seemingly. It was a mistake," I said tiredly. "I forgot I'm not at home and I'm not supposed to nab folk while I'm here. Why is everyone making a fuss? The gixie escaped."
"That surprises me," said Dale. "I don't see many filches getting out of your grip, Beka Cooper." He was leaning closer so I could hear him speak quietly. His breath stirred the hair around my ear.
Suddenly the cloth over my peaches felt over-tight, and I was finding it a little hard to breathe. I dared to meet his eyes for a moment, even though they were closer than a cove's eyes have been to mine in a long time. I forced myself to make a face and look away.
"She wouldn't have gotten away, Dale Rowan, if some big rusher hadn't rammed me in the back and sent me facedown in the street," I told him. "Nice work your filches have, if they all have bodyguards."
He ran his finger down the curve of my ear. How is a mot supposed to think? "Mayhap you should have the bodyguard."
"Dale," Steen interrupted, "tell Clary what Pearl said when you won that ruby necklace off her!"
Dale grinned at Goodwin, as if he hadn't been halfway down the side of my neck. "Oh, I won't repeat language like that when I'm having a good time," he said. "I did think of having a metal barrel made to wear around myself, to protect anything... valuable, though."
There, I thought, sipping my twilsey. He was playing with me, that's all. He's a playful fellow. Very playful.
Under the tabletop, I felt his hand brush my free arm.
"What's this?" The newly arrived mot was about twenty-five, all curves in orange silk, with tumbles of black curls and bright black eyes to match. She had a cat's pointed chin and draped herself across Dale's left shoulder and Hanse's right with a cat's boneless grace. "You lads havin' a party without Fair Flory?" Her voice dripped honey for the men, but her eyes darted murder at Goodwin and me. Goodwin simply grinned. I met the doxie's eyes with mine, widening my gaze until she looked away. I had to play Goodwin's shy young partner, but that didn't mean I should take sauce from a double-dimpled port mot.
"Flory, you've no call to ownership, you know that," Hanse said, giving her a slap on the bum that made her squeal and smack him back. "This here is Clary Goodwin – Corporal Guardswoman Clary Goodwin, so you mind your manners – from Corus. And this is Guardswoman Beka Cooper, her partner and strong right arm. They're our guests tonight, so unless they say you're welcome, you can shake that pretty round rump of yours elsewhere." To me and Goodwin, Hanse said, "Flory here is mistress of the Port flower sellers and orange girls. Flory knows how to have a good time, don't ye, wench?"
Flory sniffed at him and put both arms around Steen's neck. "I like coves as aren't cruel to me," she said, with a little girl pout.
"I say welcome, Flory," Goodwin said cheerfully. "The more the merrier! I never knew a flower seller who couldn't tell a mot where the best sparkles are sold, and where a cove wouldn't cheat her out of a week's pay for a length of silk!"
Flory laughed as she settled on Steen's lap. "Oh, if it's shoppin' you want, I can help you there!" she said, waving for a serving girl. "These lads have done me favors enough, and I'll do the same for any friend of theirs. On the sly, though, bein's how you vexed my Rogue this day."
"You're afraid she'll frown on you, being with us?" Goodwin asked.
Fair Flory's smile was thin and cruel. "They's lots of flower sellers and orange girls in Port Caynn, Mistress Clary," she replied. "We don't defy Pearl outright, and she leaves us well alone. There's peace in the Court of the Rogue!"
"We'll all drink to that!" Dale said, hoisting his tankard. The maid passed one to Flory, and we drank.
While I did not lose track of new arrivals, I do not precisely recall the order in which they came or exactly what was said after that. It was all laced with loud talk and joking, Goodwin's flirtations with Hanse, and the arrival of all kinds of food.
The great stew of sea creatures unnerved me, I am sad to say. As the maidservant placed our trenchers before us, I tried to peer into the large soup bowl without anyone noticing.
"What's wrong, Beka?" Steen asked. "Have ye never seen a great net stew afore?"
"No, nor even most of what's in it," I said, prodding a strange orange something with the tip of my belt knife.
"Here," Dale said, grabbing the ladle. He dumped a large serving into my trencher and gave himself another before he passed the ladle to Hanse. Then he speared one of the orange things on the point of his eating knife and offered it to me. The orange stuff wobbled on its own. "Try a mussel. You won't be the same thereafter."
"It's safe enough, lass," Hanse jested as he served Goodwin and himself. "If it were oysters, now, you'd be in trouble!"
I ducked my head. Everyone knows the reputation oysters have for putting folk in the mood for canoodling.
"Just open that pretty mouth," Dale wheedled.
I did, to tell him not to cozen me, and he popped the mussel in. My lady always forbade us to talk with food in our gobs, so I chewed. My mouth filled with sommat that tasted the way the sea smelled. The mussel was tender, with just enough garlic to make me happy.
Dale had popped two mussels into his mouth whilst I managed the one. He'd also managed to slide even closer to me, so our legs pressed tight against each other from hip bone to foot. "Now, see? That was good, wasn't it?" he asked when I swallowed.
I nodded. He had another tidbit on his knifepoint for me. "Ever try skate?" he asked as he brought it to my lips.
He fed me a number of things, including the skate. I did not care for the clams, which were harder to chew than mussels, the too-salty sardines, or the squid, but the different fishes were nice. We had the eel pie that had so tempted me, a roast onion salad, a mixed green tart, and stuffed eggs. Whenever I showed I'd not tried something, he insisted on putting it into my mouth with his eating knife or, in the case of the sweetmeats, with his fingers. I let him do it, enjoying his play.
I have never been courted this way, all flirting, jokes, and quick touches. Rosto half insults me as he tries to tumble me. In matters of wooing, men are confusing. I'm far more comfortable when coves treat me as an ally, or a friend, or a student.
There were thirteen of us by the time we had gotten to the sweetmeats. Dale had teased me into trying his wine, a pale golden sort that was crisp and tingly on my tongue. I sipped it carefully, sensing it was the sort of drink that might knock a mot on her rump were she not careful.
"What do you say, then, Clary, Beka, Flory?" Hanse asked us. "D'you feel like a visit to the Waterlily? There's Gambler's Chance, dicing, music, backgammon, chess." He grinned at Dale, who laughed. "How about it? You can bring us luck, play a game yourselves... ?"
Flory rose from Steen's lap, where she'd been sharing his cup. "You'll never have to ask me twice!" she said, keeping an arm around Steen's neck as he stood. Most of the others were getting to their feet as well.
Goodwin laughed that unfamiliar laugh and swung her legs over the bench where she sat. "I never pass a chance to rattle the bones, do I, Cooper?" she asked me. "Cooper's not much for play, but she loves the music and the watching. And maybe some kind soul will teach me this new Gambler's Chance game."
"You don't gamble?" Dale asked me, getting up from his seat.
I looked at him. "I have younger sisters, and our parents are dead," I told him. "Their only dowries come from me." Building dowries for my sisters was hard to fault as an excuse, but it was a lie. Lady Teodorie had already provided for them.
"Then you must bring me luck, and keep me from being sad should my luck turn," Dale told me. With that he wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me bodily from my seat. I yelped and wriggled, then stopped as he set me down, laughing.
I couldn't help it. I laughed, too, but I gave him a small shove. "I manage on my own, Master Rowan!" I said. Goddess, for a slender man he has muscles like steel!
"I've no doubt, but isn't it agreeable to let someone else do it, now and then?" he asked me, helping me to wrap my cape about my shoulders.
"It is not," I said, adjusting his shoulder cape for him.
"Pretty liar," he teased.
"Saucebox," I retorted.
"Will you two flirt all night, or will ye come oan?" roared Steen from the door. We followed the others to the little room where the coves traded brass tokens for their swords and long daggers. Once they had settled their weapons around their sashes and belts again, the coves and Flory led the way out into the street.
"Dale, what's this Hanse tells me?" Goodwin asked. "Here I've been nattering about learning Gambler's Chance in front of the cove that invented the game? I'd take it as a kindness if you'd teach me."
"But teaching means I lose the chance to make coin of my own," Dale complained.
Goodwin showed him a gold noble, making it walk through her fingers. "Will this change your mind?"
I'm not sure buying lessons in Gambler's Chance was what my lord meant when he gave us that fat purse, but who am I to question Goodwin? At least in this company word would get about fast that the older Corus Dog was flashing gold. They'd be certain she was crooked. I eased to the outside of the group while Hanse and Dale started talking about the new game, one that was played with numbered cards and portrait ones.
I was happy to look at the crowds. Folk were out for their night's pleasures, and those who lived by shearing them were out, too. When most of the city ends its workday, the part I understand best begins its hours of labor. Twice I heard the cry of, "Thief!" in the distance. I saw a Dog pair breaking up a robbery in an alley and felt downright homesick.
Hanse told Goodwin, "There's the Waterlily." I looked up and noted the brightly painted sign just four doors down the street. Then I saw a familiar face in the crowd. It was the scared maidservant from the Court of the Rogue, the one who had served Pearl her drinks. She wound her way into a thick knot of folk watching a lad juggle flaming torches.
I wouldn't get lost, not with the Waterlily so near. I strolled over to the gawpers. The maid had worked her way to the front. She watched the juggler, mouth agape, as he added the fresh torches given to him by his helper. She gasped when he set them to twirling yet still managed to catch each one without burning himself. And when he finished, she picked through her scant handful of coins and set one in the hat that his helper passed around. The juggler smiled at her, and blew her a kiss, even though others had probably given him a bigger tip. The maid covered her blushes with her hands and fled, giggling, while the juggler turned to flirt with another girl.
That little bit of kindness between maid and juggler pulled at my heart. Sometimes I forget there's kindness in the world. I remained for a moment to savor it, like a bit of honey on my tongue.
Then I hurried to the Waterlily, in case anyone had noticed I was missing. I suspected not, given how eagerly they'd been talking about that card game.
Inside the Waterlily all was light and noise. I dropped my cape around my elbows and sought my companions. The rooms here were larger than at the Merman's Cave, with comfortable chairs set for the gamblers and stools for their companions. The folk were well dressed and there were lamps hung over each table for light. Servants wound through the crowd with practiced speed, balancing trays of food and drink. In one large room I saw folk sit down to a meal, unhampered by dice or backgammon or chess boards. Two Players with lutes were singing a song back and forth as a talk between mot and cove, each of them doing a verse.
Dale appeared from the crowd and hooked an arm around my waist. "Come on," he told me. "You have to bring me luck!"
"And if I don't, you'll leave off pawing me?" I asked, trying to tug free of his hold. I confess, I tried very little. His arm was strong and warm, his hand flat against my belly. I could feel that as if I had no dress nor shift between me and his palm.
Dale swung me around and drew me up against him until our faces were less than a hand span apart. In his boots he was three inches taller than me, and his heels were small ones. I guessed him to be five foot ten in his bare feet, a nice height for a man. Close like this, it was as if we'd made a space alone in the crowd. Part of me cried to be let go, that everyone was staring at us. Part of me was noticing I fit against him, and he smelled a little like cloves.
I had thought only Rosto could make my head spin like this.
"Tell me to stop, if you don't like it. Tell me I'm unwelcome, and I'll go." He said it in all seriousness, his gray eyes sharp on my face. "I've yet to push myself on a woman who doesn't like me. Tell me piss off, Beka."
"No," I snapped instead.
I felt him chuckle, more than I heard it. "Then we still have a game!" he said, releasing me. He took my hand and tugged me through the crowd, bound for one of the rooms in the back.
When we got there, Dale paused as he drew the lone empty chair out from the table where Hanse, Flory, Steen, Goodwin, four of our other fellow diners, and two strangers sat. "Is Pearl in the house?" he asked. "I told you I won't play if Pearl's up to her tricks again."
"Sit down," Hanse told him. He'd already placed thirty silver nobles in front of his place and was arranging them in five-coin towers. Each coin was scored deep across the center, showing silver all the way through. "One of the guards told me she hasn't been here in a week. No more has Jupp, Zolaika, or Jurji. Play with an easy heart, Dale."
"Your Rogue gambles?" asked Goodwin. "Must be wondrous to win against her."
"What was wondrous was that a month ago, she paid when she lost," Flory replied. She shuffled two fat stacks of what looked to be fortuneteller's cards with quick-fingered ease. "All sudden-like, she had silver a-plenty, although I'da sworn the takin's for the Court of the Rogue weren't so special, even for a summer. Her and Jupp, all of them that's tight to her armpits, they were rollin' in coin."
Steen grunted, his chin on his palm. "They'd play till they lost, then keep playin' till they was winnin', an' winnin' large. Most of the rest of us would be emptied out for a week after playin' wiv them. That's why Dale's so jumpy, like."
"Well, she stopped playin' like that after ten days of it," Hanse said gruffly. "Our pockets are plump enough, and so are Dale's. Let's have some ale in here! Flory, deal them cards!"
"Aye, she stopped, after she made enough off us t' buy them cursed pearl teeth," Flory grumbled. "I wonder how much she spent on supplies for the winter?"
"Sour talk sours the play," Dale murmured. He took his chair as a maidservant placed a smaller seat for me just at his elbow. "Now, Goodwin," Dale said, "lean close so I can whisper what you do in Gambler's Chance."
There were four different sets of cards for the game – Moon, Sun, Coins, and Swords. Each set had its nobles – King, Queen, Lady, and Knight. There was but one Trickster card for the entire deck, who could be any card his holder claimed he was. Then each set had cards numbered one to ten. I grew bored after that, so I lost track of the combinations that made for more points.
I turned to watch the people as cardplayers arrived and left. While many came that had been with us at the Merman's Cave, there were even more who just knew Dale's game and liked to play. As the evening wore on, and I mean wore, other tables in the room filled with folk who played Gambler's Chance. No one let Goodwin bet tonight, since she was just learning. Neither could she collect when she won. At our table silver was bet, lost, and won. At one other table I saw gold being laid down. At a third table the coin was mixed silver and copper. If folk checked the silver to see if they had coles, they did it carefully. Did they know of the danger, or did they think they could get any coles back into play and lose them to someone else?
I had no way to check. As Dale's "luck," I blew on the painted backs of his cards before he turned them to see what meaning they held. Other mots and coves did the same for other players, but they didn't seem to be bored. They sat in their players' laps, fixed food and drink for them, gave them kisses when they won – or lost – and joked along with the players. I was curst if I would fetch and carry like a maidservant.
At last I quietly rose as if I meant to go briefly to the privy. Once outside the room of cardplayers, I looked around. Doubtless I should gamble a little bit, mayhap at the dice tables. I headed toward a table where I saw space for a new player. I confess, I was grinding my teeth at the thought of risking, and like as not losing, good coin, even though it was not my own. Then I heard folk go quiet as a singer's voice glided along the heated air. It was a lovely voice, deep for a woman's and throaty, raised in a wailing Carthaki song.
The singer performed in a larger room than most, another of those where folk came to sit but not to play. On a small raised platform stood a singer and a flute player. The singer wore a lovely gold-brown tunic with a wrapped crimson sash. Her sleeves were wide, almost like wings. When she raised her hands, she revealed gold cuffs on her arms. Her hair was glossy black, pinned in a knot at the back of her head, with golden chains twined through it. Her eyes were shaded in gold and lined with kohl. Her lips were painted a vivid red. She wore gold sandals on her feet. It was those feet, and her hands, with their gold-painted nails, that gave her away. They were much too big. I gave her face a second look. It was Okha.
"I'n't she splendid?" a cove leaning against the pillar beside me asked. "She's called the Amber Orchid. I seen orchids, down on th' docks. They're flowers, y'know. Brung in from th' Copper Isles. She's more beautiful. You sittin' down, dearie?"
I shook my head. The cove pushed off his pillar, walked in past me, and found a seat.
Okha sang three more songs, all of them wonderful. Then he kissed his flute player on the cheek and stepped down from the platform, while the listeners clapped and pounded the floor and threw coins. The flute player collected them. Okha nodded to me, then wandered through the crowd, stopping at tables to say hello to folk he seemed to know.
He then came to me at last and tucked my hand under his arm. "Now they'll think I'm a honeylove," he murmured in a voice that sounded like a mot's, though a deep-voiced mot's. "Shall I get you a glass of wine, Beka?"
"Cider twilsey, if you please," I replied. "I'm over my limit for wine tonight."
"I suppose they'll have to go out to buy it, but of course, dear." Okha beckoned for a serving man to come over. "Sweetheart, my usual, and a chilled cider twilsey for my friend, in my dressing room? I'd be ever so grateful."
The cove blinked at me, but smiled at Okha. "For you, the stars, Amber," he said. He trotted off.
Okha steered me down a hall and up a narrow set of stairs. There, off a hallway, he had a room to dress in and to relax in when he didn't sing.
"Where's Goodwin?" he asked, draping himself on a couch with a sigh. I watched him, wishing I had such grace. He arranged himself naturally, as liquid as water. In a woman's clothes, he was different than he was as a man, yet even more comfortable in his skin. It was the strangest thing.
I remembered my manners and his question. "She's card-playing with Hanse Remy, Dale Rowan, and some others."
Okha raised his penciled brows. "Dale Rowan! Now, there's rich company for a girl on her first night in the port! However did she meet Dale?"
I smiled at him. "We met him in Corus. During a riot, actually. And then on the boat here."
Okha laughed. It was a warm, rippling chuckle, the kind that made coves trip over their feet. "Met during a riot! Well, that's one way, I suppose. And Hanse?"
"The same way," I replied. "And Hanse's man Steen. They invited us to supper tonight, and we've been with them ever since."
"I can see you won't require Nestor and me to show you the sights, not if you're with that crowd. Come in," Okha called to the knock on the door. It was the young servant with his drink and my twilsey. Okha gave the lad a coin and a bit more flirtation, then let him go. As he sat gracefully again, he told me, "They're big gamblers, and they know everyone who plays."
"Good people to know when you're Dogging money," I said, thinking of all the coin that had gone through Dale's fingers already this night. I sipped my twilsey. It was very good, the best I'd ever had. "I hear even Pearl Skinner gambles. Is that her only habit? Or are there others?"
Okha grimaced, as if his drink was sour. "If you're planning revenge for this morning, Beka, forget it now. People who try to hurt Pearl have been known to end their lives flayed, gutted, and hung on the gates at Guards House."
He had a sad, distant look to his eyes. The person who'd met that fate was someone he'd known – now there was something I would bet on.
"So she takes that ridiculous street name serious," I commented, when the silence got uncomfortable.
Okha's eyebrows went up. His thoughts plainly returned to this room and this conversation. "Skinner, a street name? Oh, no. It's her family's name and her father's old trade. Not that he plies it anymore. He was a vicious old sot who mysteriously fell into the sewers and drowned ten years ago. As did the trull who called herself his wife, and Pearl's two older brothers. All at different times, all in the sewers. Shocking luck, wouldn't you say?"
"Pearl seems to have a mean streak," I admitted.
"And an affection for coming at you from behind, though she hardly bothers anymore," Okha told me. "Not when she has Torcall, Jurji, and Zolaika to do her vengeances for her."
I thought that over for a moment. "Jurji. Is that the Bazhir who sits beside her at the Eagle Street court, the one with the curved sword?" Okha nodded. I guessed again. "The older cove, Eastern Lands stock, that's Torcall."
"Torcall Jupp," Okha said, and took a sip of his drink. "He's no hothead, unlike Jurji. He and Jurji are Pearl's main bodyguards. She changes the other around, but those two are constant."
"You mentioned a Zolaika?" I asked.
"Did you see an older woman in attendance?" Okha asked. "Heavy makeup, dreadful wig?"
It was my turn to make a face. "She led the gang that grabbed me and Goodwin."
Okha nodded. "She is Pearl's killer."
I stared at him.
He smiled. "She is not as stiff as she acts, nor as slow. The makeup comes off – it is painted onto a light piece of muslin she can pull off her face. A quick scrub with a wet cloth and you would not recognize her. The red hair is a wig." Okha leaned forward and tapped my wrist with two fingers. "Remember her, Beka, and tell Goodwin. If Pearl wants folk dead in silence, never knowing who murdered them, she sends Zolaika."
I remembered that lofty, mannered doxie, and I just couldn't fit my mind around it. But surely Okha would know. "How can you tell? How can anyone tell, if she is unseen? Pearl could just take a coincidental death and say she set it up."
Okha sighed. "If the death is an important one, or a threat, Pearl leaves pearls by the victim, or on the victim. It's what she did to Sir Lionel's children, when she thought he grew too nosy. She had pearls laid on their pillows, three years ago. Everyone knows. It's why he sent his wife and children to their home fief, and only visits them. I'd worry for Nestor's safety if it weren't for Haden and Truda and their friends. They're splendid guards." He rose and sat before a table laden with pots of paints and powders. Taking up a small, silver hand mirror, he began to examine his face. "Forgive me. They'll be calling me back soon."
"But Haden and Truda are just children," I said.
"Street children, for all Nestor's had them in his house for two years," Okha told me, wetting a tiny brush in a dish of water. He set about renewing the black lines around his eyes. "They run with their gang when there's no work to be done, and their gang sleeps in the basement during the winter. The things they do with knives and ropes! They're fine pickpockets, too, though they're careful not to interfere in the Rogue's trade. Nestor uses them for spies, or loans them out to Dogs he trusts." Okha smiled at me. "They're not cheap, of course. But as you learned with Haden, they are very good."
I was surprised Haden and Truda's friends had not robbed Nestor into poverty. Mayhap he had his own ways to discourage that. "I saw Haden," I told Okha. "Goodwin did, too."
Okha smiled. "And much put out about it Haden is, too. He says the two of you must have little ghost eyes flying behind you, because not even Nestor sees him, and Nestor knows he is there."
For a moment I watched Okha fix his makeup and check his hair. It was a wig, I knew, but unlike Zolaika's, it was a beautiful wig. With every move, every adjustment, he became more a woman. Lady Teodorie, with all her manners and elegance, could not match him for beauty and grace.
"How do you do it?" I asked him. "Become all wonderful and lovely like you are out there?"
He turned and looked at me with shock, something dark and sad in his eyes. It slowly vanished.
"You are an odd one, aren't you?" he asked from somewhere between his mot's world and his cove's. "You say little, but you make me want to talk about things that I don't usually babble about, you know. Maybe it's those eyes of yours. You don't judge..."
I looked down. "Most folk find my eyes frightening."
"My experiences with 'most folk' are not so good that I am inclined to follow their standard," Okha said. His voice was very bitter. He turned back to his mirror. "I had very good teachers, people who took me in when my family cast me out. I worked and I studied, everywhere I went. But that isn't what you're asking."
I shook my head. Since he wasn't looking at me now, I added, "Not really. Your beauty comes from the inside. You don't put that on with a brush and powder."
"Inside I am a beautiful woman," Okha said, fiddling with a perfect curl. "The Trickster tapped me in my mother's womb and placed me in this man's shell."
I'd heard of many tricks done by the gods, but surely this was nearabout the cruelest. "I'm sorry," I whispered.
"At least I understand what happened," Okha said, getting to his feet and smoothing his dress. "How many like me live our lives without ever knowing? How many of us never feel right in the world where we live, and never realize that a god turned our lives all on end? Some of us even claim the Trickster is one of us, and makes us so She/He has company."
"Have you asked the god?" I wanted to know.
Okha gave me a tiny, bitter smile. "The god touched me once, Beka. I'd as soon not get his attention again."
Someone pounded on the door. "Amber, Amber, sorry, but Dale Rowan's looking for his girl. He says he's lost two hands of cards, and she's his luck!"
"I'm not his girl!" I said.
"But you're sitting with him at his table?" Okha asked me. He was already running his hands over my hair, smoothing it, using touches of his comb to tease locks out of my coil and forward over my cheeks. "The one who sits with a gambler is his luck, or her luck. Dale's a true gambler, especially if he starts to lose." He called to the cove outside the door, who'd begun to knock again, "Just wait, silly!" Okha snatched up a clean brush and dipped it in a tiny pot of paint. Before I could dodge, he'd set it to my lips. Next he dotted scent just under my ears, and tucked the bottle in my purse. It was a beautiful perfume. "Lily of the valley," he told me. "More suited to you than rose or violet. Now, let's go see Master Dale!"
I breathed it in. I felt strange. More beautiful. More like a grand mot like Okha. But that felt so strange, too, because I am no beautiful mot. I looked at my palms, to assure myself that I was still Beka. There were my baton calluses. I might smell like a flower in a noble's garden, but in the morning I would still be a Dog. I sighed my relief.
Okha led me downstairs to the room where my companions were playing. Dale was on his feet, arms crossed as he glared at the table, the other players, and the cards. "I won't touch a hand again until I see Beka," he told them. "How's a cove to know if a mot's his luck if she's not even here?"
"Because she stands right behind him while he roars like a bull, precious," Okha – no, he was all Amber Orchid now, graceful and grand – said with a laugh. "Good evening, guests. Welcome. For those of you who are strangers, I am Amber Orchid, a singer who is sometimes welcomed to these rooms, though not, of course, when there is a game." Just the way he made his voice dip and flow turned his speech into a gentle joke on the players. They laughed.
Dale turned to look at me and bent down to speak in my ear. Amber swept forward, still talking to the folk in the room. Dale whispered, "Where did you go? I missed you! And I lost two hands!"
I stared up at him. "A mot has places to go where she isn't likely to want company! And I was bored. Don't go thinking I'm your property, Master Rowan!"
Plenty of coves I knew would have bristled right up. Dale only scratched his head, then grabbed both my hands and kissed each one. "I'm a bad escort, and that's the truth," he told me, a smile of regret on his face. "I get caught up in the play and I forget all my manners. I'm sorry. Do you really not care for the game?"
I was trying to get my hands back, but not very hard. He'd laced his fingers through mine. "I don't gamble," I mumbled. "I don't even know the rules, and I can't see, on a little chair right behind you. Let me go, folk are watching!"
"But your hands are warm," he said in my ear. "And what's this lovely new scent? I like it."
"Dale, are you playing or not?" growled a cove seated at the table. "Your bet's not laid down!"
"A few more hands of cards, and we'll find someplace to dance," Dale wheedled me. "You do like to dance?"
Of course I love it. It's one of the few sociable things I can do without talking.
Dale grinned. "Oh, you like that idea? I finally found something that pleases her!" He glanced at the ceiling. "Thank you, Goddess!" He looked at me once more. "As for seeing the game – "
He turned to sit, and in turning, he spun me until I sat on one of his knees. I made a noise, I know it, and then I said nothing else. I only hung my head so my face wouldn't be so visible to everyone else. I knew I was blushing fierce. I peeked once to see where the strangled noises came from. Goodwin, curse her, was trying not to laugh, and doing poorly at it. Since I'd gone for Dog training, no cove save Rosto the Piper had been this careless with his hands around me, and even Rosto had never had the gall to sit me on his knee! Mayhap he knew he'd have got an elbow in the eye for his trouble. And yet I thought of doing no such thing to Dale. I don't know if it was the warm clasp of his arm about my waist, or the teasing jiggle of his leg under my rump, or the way his beard tickled my neck as he leaned in to explain what his cards meant. I only know that my dress, decent enough before, now seemed scandalously low-cut. Moreover, from the way his arm drew its fabric and the fabric of my shift tight over my peaches, he knew I was not thinking of the cards.
"What did I say?" he murmured to me. "My luck is back. Three Ladies and two Queens – the Goddess favors a humble courier tonight!" He slid two silver nobles out into the middle of the table. "See, that's a hand I'm betting on, five cards." He spoke loud enough that the others could hear, as if he taught me.
Goodwin tossed her cards facedown on the table. "I have naught to work with," she complained.
"Cold fingers, Dale?" Hanse asked with a broad grin. He threw five silver nobles onto the table. "Match me or kill your cards, man!"
"Kill?" I asked Dale, speaking as loudly as he did, taking my cues from him.
"Put them down. Leave this hand of the game," he explained. He inspected his small heap of silver coins, sliding one or two around as if he considered matching Hanse's bet.
I wondered how many of them were coles. Only one or two of them were scored to show they were all silver, unlike Hanse's nobles. "What if you do that?" I asked. "Do you get your two coins back?"
Everyone at the table laughed. "Once money's in the middle, it stays in the middle, same as a dice game or any other bet," Steen told me. "The winner takes it all."
Dale sighed and shoved in three coins. "I'm demented, mayhap, but my luck has to return sometime."
Flory thrust in four silver nobles and ten copper ones. Steen also bet.
"See, Goodwin figures her cards are no good," Dale told me. "She kills them and she wagers nothing more. She does not lose, but she does not win."
I glanced at Goodwin's eyes. They were sharp as they rested on Dale. She knows, I thought. He has fooled Hanse, his friend, and Steen, who knows him, too, but he hasn't fooled Goodwin.
She caught me watching her. One of her eyelids twitched a hair in the smallest of winks.
There was a lot of groaning and shouting, all good-natured, when everyone showed their cards and Dale proved to have the best hand. The pack of cards went to Steen. Dale explained how they were shuffled, or mixed up, so folk wouldn't get the same cards again, then the manner in which the shuffler gave out five cards each to the players.
Three games later, though Dale was still winning, he stopped the play. "I promised my luck a change, and I don't want her to desert me because I didn't keep my word!" he told the others as I got off his knee. "We're going to find some dancing."
"Now that's somethin' like!" Flory said, jumping up. "I'll get the girls. They'll have found some coves by now!"
Dale was scooping his last heap of silver coins off the table and into a bowl brought by one of the serving maids. She nodded and took it away, which seemed to me to be very trusting of Dale. Did they check the coins to see if they were pure silver?
He had kept two silver nobles back. Now he offered them to me. I scowled at them and then at him.
"Mithros's spear. What is that for?" I demanded.
He looked startled. "It's the custom. When someone brings you luck, it offends the Trickster if you don't give that person something in thanks. It's as if you say you don't value the luck."
"I'm sure he knows you value him, and I'll not be tipped like a backstreet trull," I snapped. "You brung your own luck, knowin' the game and the way of playin' the cards." I put a hand over my mouth, hearing myself slide into Cesspool cant. I hardly ever do it. Here I'd been thinking he liked me, but I might as well have been a serving maid or a doxie he asked to perch on his leg!
"No, no – curse it, Beka, you're the prickliest woman I've ever met!" cried Dale.
"No, I am," Goodwin said. She stood nearby, smiling, our capes over one arm. "But she comes very close, I have to say."
"It's not just about the luck. Yes, I had a feeling you'd be lucky for me, but I like you!" Dale stuffed the coins in his purse. "There! The vile money's all gone!"
I had to fight not to smile. He looked comical, his brows arching into his hair, his eyes alight with outrage and dismay, his cheeks flushed. Goodwin handed my cape to him. Carefully, as if I might bite, he came at me, holding it out. I let him drape it about my shoulders, my eyes on him the whole time. I supposed, if he'd thought of me like any wench he'd pay to blow on his dice or cards, he'd not be so upset.
As I pinned the cape with my brooch, I heard him mutter, "I'll just have to buy you something pretty."
I glared at him.
"Peace!" he said. "Peace! Otherwise how will we dance together?" With temptation in his voice he added, "I know where they sell the best spiced fried dough in all Port Caynn – better than Corus, too. Black God strike me if I lie."
I put my hand on his mouth. "Don't talk lightly of the Black God," I told him. "He's always about." I should know.
Impudent mumper that he is, he kissed my palm.
"Sir, yer winnin's," said the maid who had taken his silver. Now I saw why. She had exchanged it for gold. He'd have fewer coins to weigh down his purse. He tucked them away and gave her a copper noble for her trouble. I shook my head and followed Goodwin outside, thinking that they treat coin like sweets in this place. Do they know about the problem with silver coles? Not if the way I'd seen silver change hands that night was any guide. Was the trouble something known largely by the guild banks, that were keeping silent? Surely an educated cove like Dale would have heard something. Hanse at least was checking all of his silver, from what I'd seen.
We didn't have far to go to find the dancing that Dale had promised. There were pipers, drummers, and tambourine players in Seafoam Square, performing for all manner of folk. I noted sailors, tradesmen and tradeswomen, craftsfolk, even a handful of nobles, and a pair of Dogs in uniform. I saw one purse-switching, an exchange of a coney's purse of coin for a red purse of coles. I kept my gob shut while I marked the filcher's face. I danced with Hanse, Steen, Dale, and two coves I didn't know before Pearl's longsword guard, the one Okha had named Torcall, caught me up.
"Let go," I warned him. "Now."
"Calm down," he said. "It's just a reel. Soon over."
"I didn't say I'd dance with you, Pearl's man." I was deciding which knife was the closest. I'd have to be fast. Odds were he'd give me but the one chance to go for a blade.
"Afraid, King's Dog? Afraid of a little dance?" he asked me.
All right. I'd dance with him and see what he wanted. My friends were close enough, and my knives were closer.
If he had a point, he never said what it was, pox and murrain on him! When the reel was done, he bowed and went off into the dark. Had I not been among strangers, I would have shouted for him to come back and fight like a Dog. Instead I stood there, clutching my fire opal and cursing to myself in silence.
Dale found me. He grumbled how everyone was dancing with me but him. Not seeming to notice my foul humor, he swung me into the dance square that was forming. After that he didn't give me up until my feet ached and my mood was much better. He is a very good dancer and lifts me as if I weigh no more than a kitten.
When I mentioned my tired feet, Dale took me to a vendor who sold fried dough spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, then drizzled in honey. I held on to these while he bought cider, which he carried to me in a leather jack he keeps hooked to his belt. I fed him knots of the dough as he gave me drinks of the cider, when I wasn't laughing at the jokes he made about the dancers around the bench he'd found for us. There were plenty of the crisp, sweet dough knots as I dished out one knot for me, one for him. Each time I put one in Dale's mouth, the tricksy fellow tried to nip my finger. Twice I let him. Twice more I smeared honey on his nose for a lesson and grinned at him. I could not have been giddier if the cider had been mead.
Wanting to slow things down and not wanting him to think he'd bowled me over, I was glad to find something to talk about when we reached the end of the knots. The vendor had heaped them inside of a large, curved shell. Since we sat near a cluster of torches, I had a well-lit view of the shell's inside. It was a beautiful, pearly, purple blue.
"How can people give these away? Aren't they valuable?" I asked Dale.
He looked at the shell and raised an eyebrow. "Abalone shells? The beaches are heaped with them. The food sellers gather them when the seafood harvesters have collected the meat. They're good for platters, and if folk make off with them, there's always more. Poor folk use them for plates, buttons – keep it if you like, but I can find you better."
I shook my head. "No. I was just curious." He gave me the last drink of cider. "Where can we find Steen?" I asked him.
Dale frowned. "What do you need Steen for when you have me? I'm better-looking, and I'm more charming."
I laughed. "I need to ask him something about Pearl's court. About one of her guards, actually."
Dale grinned. "Well, I'm as good as Steen for that! I spend almost as much time around there as he does."
I looked at him, feeling a nasty pinch of suspicion in my tripes. "You? In the Court of the Rogue?" Why does a bank courier have any business in that place?
Dale shrugged. "My friends go, and I can find some of the best games there. Up until a month ago, if I was careful to lose to the Rogue now and then, I won a lot of money off of her and her folk. Sooner or later I'll have to go back and lose to her for a while, just to prove I'm not afraid." He laughed. "What, do you fear for my tender skin already, pretty Beka?"
I nearabout said that's exactly what I feared. Then I remembered him in the riot, kicking high to the side with enough strength to knock his foe over. That kind of fighting took skill and training. He'd studied it somewhere.
"You give yourself airs," I told him. "Well, then, Master Quickwit, who's her guard with the straight longsword? He's forty or so, hair a golden brown, shorter than yours, light blue eyes, your height, broader across the shoulders." Okha had given me Jupp's name, but I'd hoped Steen would know more.
Dale raised his brows at me. "I'm no sergeant or Senior Dog, you know. I don't need the whole description. Are you always so definite about people's ages?"
I turned my nose up at him. Kora does that to Ersken, and it's a very pretty move. "I was the best in my class at it. I'd say you're twenty to twenty-two. Will you keep me here forever? My hands are sticky."
"I'll lick the honey off," he suggested.
I tried not to shiver as goose bumps wriggled all over my flesh. "I've a hound will do that," I told him, trying to sound cross and not like my knees had gone to jelly.
"Oh, cruel," Dale said, hanging his head. He cupped my elbow in one hand and steered me along the edge of the vendors' booths. "Your longsword guard is Torcall Jupp. He's from Barzun originally – educated cove. I think his family comes from the trading class, though that's a guess. He doesn't talk about them. He was the first one Pearl hired when she killed the last Rogue, about four years ago. He's her chief advisor – well, he and Zolaika share the honors. Pearl's brave enough, and she understands Rats, but she's not clever the way educated folk are. She needs advisors." We came into open ground, where a fountain rained water into a wide marble basin. We washed our sticky hands, and Dale his nose, as Dale asked, "What interest do you have in an old cove like him? He's strictly for the spintries, so don't get your hopes up."
I flicked cold water in his face. "Jupp danced with me. I don't know what game he plays at."
Now, at last, I had Dale Rowan serious. With a frown he took a seat on a nearby bench. "He danced with you."
I plumped my bum down beside him. "You don't see me getting jealous over you being nowhere in sight awhile, do you? Like as not you were dripping honey in some other mot's ear."
"Actually, Hanse and I were talking about a game tomorrow night," he said, as if he weren't entirely paying attention. Then he looked at me. "You were dancing, and he just grabbed you up?"
I nodded. "Told me he was there to dance. I thought mayhap he had sommat to say, but he never said it. He just finished the dance and left."
Dale picked up my damp hand and stroked it. "I don't understand, either. Tor isn't the sort to play games." He cupped my cheek in his free hand. "Beka, what are you really doing here in Port Caynn?"
I sighed. "I nabbed a Rat with more Rats in his family," I told him, looking straight into his eyes. "Two of his brothers gave me a beating on Monday. Now my patron has sent Goodwin and me off until the Dogs can be certain no other members of the Rat's family will come looking for me. We're supposed to observe how Port Caynn Dogs work, so I follow Goodwin around and do as she tells me."
"Who's your patron?" Dale wanted to know.
I remembered a trick of Tansy's and tried it, wrinkling my nose at him. "Never you mind," I said. "It's nothing to do with us."
"There you are!" I heard Goodwin cry. Hanse and Goodwin, laughing, arms around each other's waists, ran up to us. Both looked windblown and happy, the best of friends. "Come along! They've got Carthaki sword dancers at a place Hanse knows of!"
We followed them.
The Carthaki dancers were wild, colorful, splendid. They showed us the big curved swords were sharp by chopping bundles of reeds and chunks of wood with them, then danced to wailing pipes and fast drums. They whipped the blades over their heads and around themselves, then over and around each other. Their wrists and hands were so fast that the blades started to blur in the torchlight. The sword dancers were men. Then came mots, little more than gixies, who tossed knives back and forth until they were silver butterflies in the air. After such dangerous pleasures came the mots who wore tiny bits of silk, only enough to cover their breasts, wide silk breeches, girdles made of coins, and an assortment of veils that could have been little protection against the chill of the night. They danced slow and fast, wriggling separate parts of their bodies that I never thought could twitch like that on their own, arching backward until their heads touched the ground, playing little cymbals on their fingers all the while.
It was beautiful.
After, our group found a tavern that served up a late supper. There were eleven or so of us by then, Steen with a new mot, Flory with a new cove, two more of Hanse's coves, and another of Flory's mots. I had only a bit of pie and some wine, being close to worn out. Goodwin saw it and told the men we were for home.
Nothing would do for them but that they walk us there, Hanse, Steen and his mot, Flory, and Dale. They left only when Serenity opened the door to us. It seemed that Hanse and Goodwin had already made plans for supper again in the evening to come. Dale told me he would see me there.
He didn't kiss me good night.
We weren't alone, of course, but I didn't expect that to stop Dale.
What is wrong with me? Was I too saucy? Too coarse? Too – Dog-ish?
I wish Kora and Aniki were here. They know so much more about coves than I do. I can't ask Goodwin what I did wrong.