Wednesday, September 19, 247

 

Okha's dressing room, Waterlily gambling house

One hour past midnight.

 

I've had days that drank donkey drippings before, but yesterday beat them all, Black God strike me if it don't. And it started so fine, too, as fine as a day could start, with me and Dale all warm and rosy in his bed.

It started when Serenity interrupted my daydreaming yesterday. "Cooper, you'd best come quick," she called through my door. "There's a girl here from Isanz Finer's house. She's nigh hysterical."

I opened my door and ran downstairs after Serenity, Achoo following. The gixie who stood in the hall was fourteen or so, dressed in a fine but rain-sodden tunic. Her braided hair was unveiled and mussed. Mud was splashed all over her slippers and hem. Her eyes and nose were red with weeping.

"Cooper? You're Cooper?" she asked, staring at me. "How can you help?"

"Why don't you tell me the problem?" I asked, steering her into the dining room. "I can't say how I must help until I know what the trouble is." Serenity had vanished into the house.

The gixie wouldn't sit when I pulled a chair out for her. "But you're barely more than a girl! The way Grandfather talked – I thought you'd be a real Dog!"

I held her shoulders and made her sit. "I am a real Dog. A junior one, but real nonetheless. And if you want a Dog, why aren't you at your own kennel?"

"Because they're the ones who took him, you ass!" she cried. She shook all over. "Grandfather, my uncles, my aunts – all of them! They're charged with colemongering!" She began to cry. Achoo looked at me with reproach. Seemingly she did not care for my rough treatment of my visitor. Whining her sympathy, Achoo began to lick the gixie's hand.

Serenity came with a cup. "Drink this," she said. "It will calm you. You need to be calm if you're to help your people." She put the cup to the gixie's lips and held it steady for her. I took my fire opal from my pocket and turned it over in my hand to keep myself steady. Finer's arrest was very, very bad news.

"You're certain they said colemongering?" I asked when the gixie had quieted.

"The legal charge is nailed to the door of every house and shop we own. They even cried it from the corners of our street!" Though she was steadier, the tears still rolled down the gixie's cheeks. "And they found coles when they searched our house. Of course they did! Grandfather ordered us to put any we came across in the money box in his study, for when the guild chose to do something about it. But the guards found the box and said it was proof!"

"What about the guild?" I asked her. "He reported the coles to them. He said other silversmiths talked to the guild when he did. Did Master Finer tell the Dogs the guild knows about the coles? The guild will say he didn't make them."

"Of course he told the Dogs! One great brute hit him and blacked his eye. He said no talking from prisoners!" The gixie blew her nose.

"Did you go to the guild, then?" I asked. "They can help better than a lone Dog."

"It was the first thing I did, you stupid trull!" she cried. "The clerk I spoke to said they knew nothing about it, and if I was wise, I'd surrender myself to the Crown's mercy!"

I let the insult pass me by. I must seem like a complete lump, asking such basic questions, but I had to know what ground had been covered and what answers the gixie had been given.

The Finers were Goodwin's friends. With her gone, she would want me to do all in my power to help them. This was more true because I feared they would not be in such a mess had we not asked Isanz Finer to learn of the origin of the silver in the coles.

I used my training tricks to remember everything I'd learned of the Finers. "I have more stupid questions for you, mistress," I told the gixie. "I'd prefer it if you'd wait until I am done to scold me." I turned to Serenity. "May we have a number of sheets of paper – ten at least. Ink and a pen, also?" When she had left us, I asked the girl, "What is your name?"

She glared at me. "You waste time!" Achoo pawed her lap, as if she asked the gixie to give me a chance. Absently the girl scratched Achoo's neck.

"No," I replied quietly. "It will not do you, your family, or me any good for me to rush about with but half a plan in mind. I cannot be forever calling you mistress if we are to work together. And I did ask that you wait to scold me until we are finished." I smiled at her then, as if she was one of my sisters. She was Lorine's age, when all was said and done.

She sat up a little straighter and wiped her eyes. "I see. I'm Meraud. Meraud Finer. My papa is Grandfather's grandson. I'm really Grandfather's great-granddaughter, but he gets impatient with the greats."

"Meraud," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder, "if you know the names of those who went to the guild with Master Finer, remember them whilst I run up to my room. That's Achoo, by the way. She particularly likes a scratch on the rump. Achoo, tinggal. Kawan." I raced upstairs.

First I opened my shutters and hung my spare tunic over the windowsill so that Haden, watching from somewhere behind the house, would know that I needed him. I took the maps that Okha had given me from under the mattress and set them in the hidden pocket of my pack.

My nerves were prickling, telling me to gear up. I obey my nerves at such times. I undid my braid and rebraided it with the spiked strap woven in. I thrust my sap into my pocket. I slid my arm guards on, checking to make sure that each slender knife was in its sleeve on the forearm parts before I did up the laces. All of my hidden knives went into their sheaths. My round iron cap I would put in my pack. Last of all, I checked the chain on which I wore my insignia before I put it over my head. There was my badge, marking me as a true Dog, if but a junior one. I gave the leather a polish on my knee. Then I took the round glassy circle of my Dog tag from my pouch and strung it on the chain as well. I took my supplies of coin and the letters of credit that Goodwin had entrusted to me, tucking them into the pack.

When I returned to the dining room, Meraud stared at me. "You look different." Achoo leaned against her leg, panting. The paper and ink I had requested lay near Meraud's cup.

"I just put the rest of my uniform on," I said as I set my pack on the table. I took out my journal, wet the pen Serenity had brought in with the ink, then sat cat-corner from Meraud. "Did you remember who went to the guild with Master Finer?"

She pulled herself up. "I'm not a ninny," she began. "Ouch!" Achoo had pawed her bare wrist, leaving white scratches. Meraud gave me a shamefaced look. "She doesn't like strife, your hound. He wanted me to take his share of the business, one day, Grandfather did. I went everywhere with him, and wrote it up for him. His memory isn't as good as it was." A tear rolled down her cheek.

"Are you the great-granddaughter he mentioned that might help him learn where the false silver comes from?" I asked. I opened to a fresh page in my journal so I could write down my notes.

She nodded and dashed her tear away. "I don't normally cry so much," she said, and glared at me. "Now, it was Grandfather that went to the guild, and my uncle Uthno – "

"Was Uthno taken up this morning?" I interrupted.

Meraud nodded.

"He's no use, then," I told her. "We need them that aren't in the cages."

"Well, there's Jelbert Moorecoombe, Honna Bray, Oriel Barber, and Rauf Makepeace. They came with us," said Meraud.

I wrote the names down. "Who spoke to you at the guild?" I asked.

"Senior Guildsman Tobeis Hawkwood and Senior Guilds-woman Donnet Newmarch," Meraud replied. She sat straighter in her chair.

"You must write notes to them all," I told her as I scribbled the names down. "I have a message runner who will be here soon. He and his friends will carry them for us. In each note you must say that Master Isanz Finer and his family have been taken to the Tradesmen's kennel for colemongering. Say this regards those coles they spoke about when they met with the Silversmith's Guild, only give the names and titles of them your folk spoke to. Say that their aid is needed now. They must speak to the Finers' innocence before the Tradesmen's District magistrate. Do you need me to repeat that?"

Meraud shook her head. The moment I began to speak, she had begun to write on one of Serenity's sheets of paper. I was interested to see that she used a cipher I hadn't seen before.

"It must go to the silversmiths and to Hawkwood and Newmarch, this same note. Have you a way to mark that copies have gone to others?" I asked.

Meraud nodded.

"Be certain to put that on it," I said.

Meraud looked at me.

"Folk are sometimes more eager to help if they think others are watching," I explained.

Meraud gave me the tiniest of smiles.

I thought of something. "Don't sign your name, or give this address," I told her. "Some of them will give you up. They'll fear the Dogs are coming for them next. Some may think to hand you over to them to buy favor."

Meraud set her pen down. Her hands were shaking.

"As soon as you're done here, go to the nearest temple of the Goddess and sit at the statue's feet," I said. "They will have to prove you guilty to the Goddess's court before they can take you from the temple." There are advantages to having a partner who's a magistrate in the Mother's temple. Thinking of magistrates, I remembered something useful from my own days spent seated in a courtroom. "Does your family ever work with an advocate?"

"Master Rollo Liddicoat," Meraud said.

"Write to him first. Tell him what's happened and send him to Tradesmen's kennel with a sackful of gold. He can buy your family comfort if anyone may." I hoped this Master Liddicoat knew enough of how cage Dogs worked that he would buy Master Finer out of early questioning. "Be sure you tell him to take gold, understand?" I chewed my lip, trying to think. How long would it be until all the city heard that a family of silversmiths had been taken up for colemongering?

Who in Mithros's name had written those bills of arrest? Didn't he, or she, know that this was the worst possible move? A panic would start if folk stopped trusting any silver or worse, started to take their good silver out of the banks. Were all the Dogs in charge of things loobies at best?

I couldn't waste my time on Watch Commanders, that was plain. I had to get to Sir Lionel. He was the only one with the authority to order the Watch Commanders to lock the city down, if need be. He was also the only one who could release the Finers before they were tortured. I only hoped that he would take my word. I was not about to tell him that Goodwin was off gathering troops. Somehow I didn't think he would like knowing that we had judged him too fearful of Pearl to do what had to be done.

I went to the kitchen to find Serenity. She was talking with the cook. When she saw me, she beckoned me into the pantry. "What trouble have you brought to my doorstep, Beka?" she asked.

"I don't see where blaming me for things that began months ago will be useful," I replied. I was in too much of a hurry to be polite. "Will you give that poor gixie in there up to the Dogs?"

Serenity drew back. "Of course not!"

"Then don't go scolding me," I said. "She's writing up some notes that my friend Haden will take away when they're done. I'm off to Guards House for a word. When Mistress Finer is done, she'll need to go to the temple for safety. Will you see to it that she gets there?"

Serenity gave me the strangest look then.

"Now what?" I asked. I admit, I was feeling testy.

She smoothed her skirts. "You are very different when you have work to do," she said, as if she remarked upon the weather. "Of course I will get Mistress Finer to safety. What of Achoo?"

I shook my head. "We're a team, she and I. We'll stay together." I slung my pack onto my shoulders.

"What should I say to Nestor?" Serenity asked me.

"Doubtless I'll see him before you will," I replied. I looked to the back door, which stood open. Haden waited for me in the yard, near the chicken coop. "Excuse me," I said, bowing to Serenity. I went to Haden.

"I saw the signal," he said, his brown eyes all a-sparkle. "Have ye business for me?"

I gave him twenty coppers. "There's a gixie in the dining room writing up some notes," I explained. "I need you and your friends to deliver them, fast. The one to the advocate goes fastest of all, understand?"

Haden nodded.

I held my finger up to make sure I had all of his attention. "Here's another thing. Hand those messages over to servants, say the thing is urgent, and get out of there. Don't linger. Don't wait for a tip. Don't answer any questions at all, understand?"

Haden's eyes widened. "Dangerous, it be."

"Mayhap even a cage matter, Master Haden. Be sure your friends take it serious," I warned. "Nestor will never forgive me if I get you in trouble."

Haden grinned at me. He'd lost an eyetooth in some scrap or other. "It'll get done and we'll vanish," he promised me. "We're old hands, never you fear."

I pointed him to the hall that led to the dining room. "Mistress Meraud's in there. Where are your friends?"

"I'll whistle 'em up once I've the papers and I'm away," he told me. "Better like that." He trotted down the hall. I relaxed a little.

I said farewell to Serenity and Meraud, settled my pack, then left with Achoo. Half a block away I stopped by a railing for horses and bent as if to check my boot. I looked to the side. There was the flick of a much-washed red skirt.

Achoo could have run her off easy, but there was no danger to the gixie following me to Guards House. She'd never get in, so she would have no way to know who I spoke with there. I took off my pack and found another of the Viviano apples I'd filched from the kitchen and tucked away. I left it on the rail atop two copper nobles, then slung the pack on my shoulders again. That gixie had to keep Pearl happy. That's enough trouble for anyone to have in her life. I won't add to it. Achoo and I continued on up the street.

My mind kept me busy as we trudged up the steep hillside streets to Guards House. If Pearl had set the Finers up to be hobbled, why? Did her watchers see Isanz when he called on me? Did someone remember the old man's skill at naming the sources of silver?

It didn't even have to be that. If any of her people worked in one of the family's houses, they could have heard something. Mayhap the old man misspoke and told his family that he'd found the source of the silver in the coles. Mayhap a spy found his notes, if he kept them.

Pox! Isanz said a daughter and a granddaughter worked on the silver with him nowadays. I should have asked Meraud who the daughter was, and the granddaughter, if it wasn't Meraud herself. Was the daughter taken by the Dogs along with the old man?

I couldn't think that way. Goodwin will return with reinforcements. It might take a few days, but if I can keep the Finers alive that long, they'll be saved. I was sure Sir Lionel would intervene, once I'd explained everything. He knew why me and Goodwin were in Port Caynn, after all. Better still, I'd be offering him a way to get free of Pearl Skinner at last. He could restore the balance between proper authority and the Court of the Rogue.

Sergeant Axman was on duty when I entered Guards House. I waited until he'd dealt with the Dogs already at his tall desk, then stepped up.

"Sergeant, Guardswoman Rebakah Cooper, on detached duty from Corus," I told him. "I need to speak to my lord the Deputy Provost on an urgent matter." I slid the gold noble I'd held in my hand since I'd left my lodgings across the top of his desk.

Sergeant Axman looked at the coin, at me, and at the coin again. Then he shoved the coin at me. "I'll take your word for it," he said, his voice gruff. "Nestor told us that're friends about you. Put that thing away."

I did as I was told. The sergeant whistled for a runner and spoke to her in a soft voice. I don't know what orders he gave her, but she took off. Then the sergeant looked at me again. "You'll need to leave your pack here, as well as the hound," he said.

I hesitated, but there was naught else I could do. The set of the sergeant's face told me I wasn't going to see Sir Lionel with my pack. I set it next to his desk. I pointed to the floor beside it and told Achoo, "Dukduk. Jaga."

"The weapons belt, too," Sergeant Axman told me. He looked a bit shamefaced. "My lord's list of them that wear the belt in his presence is a short one."

I stared up at him, shocked. No Watch Commander in Corus had ever made his or her Dogs leave a weapons belt behind. What sort of milk-gutted custard spine was Sir Lionel? I looked at the floor, getting a grip on my temper. If I feared Pearl Skinner, and if I knew my Dogs were flea-bitten with Pearl's spies, mayhap I'd be wary of who carried weapons near me, too. If Sir Lionel did know many of us wore hidden weapons, he didn't think to ask us to drop them with Sergeant Axman.

"Has he always made his own Dogs surrender their gear?" I asked, quiet-like.

The sergeant nodded. He looked around, but the waiting room was empty. "Ever since his family was threatened," he whispered. "Me he lets come around armed, and Nestor, and a handful of other old-time Dogs. You didn't have to drop your gear last time because you and Goodwin were in cityfolk clothes. My lord hardly trusts his household guard."

It seems to me that a cove who is that afraid ought not to be a Deputy Provost.

The runner came back. "This way, Guardswoman," she told me. I followed her to Sir Lionel's office. He was seated behind his great desk. I stood at attention, waiting for him to give me the nod, as the runner left, closing the door behind her. Sir Lionel took his own time about going through his papers, signing a few, making notes on others, until he'd reached the end of the pile. Then he set down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and looked at me.

"This had better be worth my time, Guardswoman Cooper," he said. "I'm a busy man. Where is Guardswoman Goodwin?"

"She is unavailable, Sir Knight. This matter would not wait." I spoke carefully, trying to be as correct in my manners and speech as I'd been taught. Everything depended on me making the right impression. "Sir Knight, one of our informants has been falsely arrested on charges of colemongering. I come to you asking for your help in the matter. Master Isanz Finer and many members of his family, all silversmiths, were taken up this morning and brought to the Tradesmen's District kennel. Coles were found in the house, but these are coles set aside by the family. They have kept them out of the money-stream until the Silversmith's Guild answered their report of coles in trade throughout the city. The Finers made their report over a week ago. They also made this complaint together with other silversmiths in the guild. Master Isanz Finer also informed Goodwin and me of this the day after our arrival here." My mouth had gone as dry as paper. I licked my lips, but I dared not stop. "Moreover, Sir Knight, Master Isanz Finer was known in the past for his ability to identify the origins of different kinds of silver. That is why Corporal Guardswoman Goodwin and I visited him. He undertook for us to learn the origins of the silver in the coles. We now know where it comes from, thanks to his hard work. We also have a likely suspect in our eye. It is someone with no connections whatsoever to the Finers. An innocent family is being caged right now, Sir Knight. You must trust our word that these people are not involved."

I bit my lip to shut myself up. I waited, eyeing the floor. I'd already noticed Sir Lionel would not look at me. I felt a sinking in my gut.

"Have you documents from the Silversmith's Guild testifying that these silversmiths told them of false coins?" he asked, pouring himself a drink from a pitcher at hand.

"Sir Knight, we are trying to get those now, but my hopes are not good. The guild told the smiths there was no problem of coles," I replied. "You, with your greater understanding of such persons, would know better than I why they would say such a thing. To a lowly Dog like me, it looks as if they are trying to cover up the problem."

"I don't want the opinions of a lowly Dog like you," Sir Lionel said, his voice icy.

I looked at the floor again. "Of course not, Sir Knight."

"Have you documents from the other silversmiths who reported to the guild?" he asked.

"We are trying to get some, Sir Knight," I replied.

"You say you have a suspect?" he asked very softly.

I looked him in the face. His mouth was unsteady. His hands were shaking. Where was Goodwin when I needed her? I didn't know how to talk to someone of his position. He was the chief law officer here, even if we thought him tainted by his fear of the Rogue. Surely if he knew he could bring Pearl down, he would do his duty.

I thought of something. "My lord, today or tomorrow a caravan guarded by Hanse Remy will be coming here with smuggled silver. Isanz Finer told us where the silver comes from. We know that Remy went there. You can set a trap at the north gates to the city. If your people find smuggled silver in Remy's keeping, you will know that Isanz has served the Crown. He will have proved his innocence."

"What if he simply gave up his cohorts in crime, knowing that you and Goodwin were closing in?" Sir Lionel asked.

"We went to Master Finer for help, Sir Knight," I replied. "He could have had us looking up our own bums for the smuggled silver. Instead he told us where it came from. All I ask is that you send a writ to Tradesmen's kennel to spare the Finers until you learn if his information is good."

Sir Lionel was blinking too much. I never trust anyone who blinks too much. "Who is your suspect, Cooper?" His voice was sharp.

"Sir, I should not tell." I said it flat out.

"Answer me, you guttersnipe." He gripped the edge of his desk with white-knuckled hands.

I was on the very edges of my nerves, my whole body aquiver, or I might never have spoken as I did then. Writing it now, in cold blood, I can't believe I was such a fool. "You know curst well who it is, Sir Knight. If you'd been using your head instead of shrinking at every shadow, you'd have seen it for yourself. And if you hadn't let her run fast and far beyond all control, it might never have come to this."

"You dare." He whispered it. His skin had gone the color of ash.

"There's yet time," I said like he was a fellow Dog and I his equal. "Pick her up. Put her to mage spells and she will talk. Better yet, question Hanse Remy. He'll name her in trade for his own life. She's at the heart of a rot that's spreading all down the river. Without her it will stop. You'll have the credit for hobbling her – "

He raised a hand. Purple fire flew at me from his fingers. I didn't even have the chance to dodge before it coated me, freezing my arms to my sides and clamping my lips fast together.

He put a magic on me. Gods curse him and his ancestors, he put a magic on me without my consent. I will have my vengeance for that, nobleman or no. I've been touched with other magics before. They never felt like this, but then, they were magics I'd agreed to, like healing spells, or Kora darkening my lashes and brows for a night's fun.

I'll have revenge for Lionel of Trebond's stinking trick. I don't care who he is. I have rights under the law.

"You ignorant, feckless piece of common get," he whispered, leaning toward me. "You're like a child playing with death spells. Did you stop to think of the lives you will destroy if your mindless accusations come to light? Of course not. You want the glory of arresting a Rogue. Mithros save me, you would see this city at war with itself! Well, not on my watch, girl. Not on my watch. Is that other one, what was her name – Goodwin – is she in this with you? Does she know of your insane idea? You may nod or shake your head. I am tired of your mouthings."

I only stared at him. He is as mad as a privy snake, I understand that now. He must be, to think he can cover it all up. I was horrified to know the city's law was in the hands of an out-and-out cracknob, but I was also enraged. He had to fumble for Goodwin's name – Goodwin, with all her reputation and honors! What had this Gift-lazy noble sop ever done with his life, save bring the whole country near to disaster by doing nothing?

Sir Lionel glared at me. He gave another twitch of his fingers. That purple Gift came swimming my way again. This time it made me feel as if a thousand burning needles thrust deep into my skin. I'd never felt such all-over pain. My eyes teared up and ran over. I ground my teeth. Then the magic on my mouth came off. I spat on his desk. He ignored it.

"Goodwin. Does she know of your ideas about the source of the false coin?" he asked me again. "The next time will hurt more, wench."

I swallowed. He wouldn't believe an answer I gave him too easily. I'd have to let him hurt me a second time. Don't take me wrongly. I hate pain. But guaranteed Sir Lionel had magic ways to talk to folk in Corus. I had to make certain there would be no killers going after Goodwin there. He'd have to hit me afresh before he'd believe anything I'd tell him about Goodwin, I knew.

The purple Gift came at me again. I felt like my skin was on fire. If the other magic hadn't been holding me up, I would have dropped to the floor. I shuddered, terrified that he'd do it again.

When I could, after the pain stopped, I started to spit blood from my bitten lip onto his desk and caught his eye just for a moment. He was giving me what I'm sure he thought was a frightening glare. I blinked a couple of times and looked away without spitting on his desk a second time.

"Does Goodwin believe you?" he asked.

"Di'n't even tell her," I mumbled. That part was easy. My lip was swelling.

"Speak up, slut," he ordered. "Be quick about it."

I closed my eyes and counted to nine, three times three for the Goddess, before I cooled off enough to answer safely. "She doesn't know." I said it slow and louder. "I never told her who I thought it was. She always gets the glory for the hobbling. I wanted it for a change."

He flicked another bit of magic at me. My lips froze together. "I can't have you stirring folk up with your wild talk." He spoke to himself. He'd made it clear I meant nothing to him. "Great Mithros, all I need is for you to spread rumors, and for the Rogue to hold me accountable. No, you must be safely out of the way."

He yanked a bellpull beside his desk. I closed my eyes, pretending the pull was a snake that dropped to wrap around his throat. Imagining that kept me from panicking. Whatever he meant to do with me, I was helpless. If Nestor even thought to inquire for me here, what could Axman say?

The door opened. A Dog came in, not one I recognized. Had he been listening at the door? He'd come fast if the other end of that bellpull was in some room far off. He was one of those rawboned, redheaded northerners who looked as if he never smiled – much like Sir Lionel, actually.

"Ives, this wench has committed a crime against the realm. I want you and Dogs you trust, Dogs who will speak to no one, to bind and gag her, and escort her to Rattery Prison," Sir Lionel ordered. He could as well have been asking this Ives cove to carry out the trash. "I want her in a Coffin cell, understand me?"

Ives bowed. "It will be exactly as you say, Sir Knight." He looked me over. "Enno and I can manage this ourselves. No need to involve anyone else."

"Very good," Sir Lionel said. "You will find me grateful. She must be gagged and bound at all times, understand? Do it immediately. The spell will not hold once you take her more than one hundred feet from me."

Ives bowed. From his belt purse he fetched the rawhide thongs every Dog carried. He bound my ankles so I could make short strides only. My hands he tied behind me, with very good knots. I'd be hard put to get at my weapons. I was certain he was waiting only until I was out of Sir Lionel's presence before he searched me for them.

The gag was harder – he had none. He left the room. Sir Lionel poured himself a cup of wine and began to write something. He was trying to show he was calm and in control. He would have been much more believable if he didn't keep blotting the page.

Ives returned with a length of bandage and a muscled hill-man who was near as wide as he was tall. I guessed this was Enno. Most of his girth at chest and arms was muscle. Mayhap I could fight my way past Ives, but not this tree trunk of a cove. He was the one that gagged me.

Ives gave me a shove. I only rocked on my feet, which stuck fast to the floor. "Sir Knight," said Ives.

Sir Lionel raised his hand and beckoned. I felt the magic drop away, and I stumbled. Enno grabbed me and hauled me up with one hand clamped hard around my arm.

They half walked, half dragged me from Sir Lionel's presence. I spent no time worrying about my destination. I'd soon have the leisure to appreciate my Coffin, a tiny, dark room with no light and a door only in the ceiling. Instead I tried to work at the knots around my wrists without Enno catching me at it.

They marched me down a different corridor from the one I'd used to reach the Deputy Provost's office. We'd gone but fifty feet when Enno clamped his hand around my wrists and squeezed until my bones ground together. "None o' that, Duchess," he told me. "Swive with the ties and I'll break one o' your elbows, Mithros strike me if I lie."

They shoved me into a small room. There were logbooks on the desk, a bottle and two cups on a small table, chairs and a handful of cards that showed me Sir Lionel had interrupted a game. A bell hung on a rope that dangled from a hole in the wall. That would be the way Sir Lionel summoned Ives. Trays were stacked in a corner, I supposed for serving Sir Lionel. Another door led to the outside.

Pounce! I thought, calling to him. It was useless. He was in Corus, or among the stars. Of all times for him to be away! I stopped calling and tipped my head back. I would not cry in front of these two tarses. I would not. Somehow, between here and the Rattery, I would find a way to escape.

Then I bethought myself of my eyes. Many folk did not like them, especially when I was angry, and I stared. I turned my eyes on Enno, letting all of my rage fill them. When I'd done the same to Rosto, and I was not nearly so angry, he said he'd seen friendlier headsmen waiting to start their day's work.

"I'd best see if she left any gear with Sarge Axman," Ives told Enno. "It'll look bad if anyone comes hunting her and sees her weapons. Don't search her till I get back."

"You can have her," Enno said, backing away. "I don't want to tangle with this one. She's puttin' a curse on me."

"Hill barbarian," Ives said, putting his hand on the door latch. "They're just eyes. Mages have to speak to curse." He pulled the door open and shut up. Someone outside had placed a dagger right under one of Ives's own eyes.

Sergeant Axman shoved Ives into the room and came in, still keeping his dagger on Ives's face. Five other Dogs entered behind Axman.

"Shut the door," the sergeant ordered. One of the other Dogs obeyed. "Ives, what's Sir Lionel got planned for Cooper, here?"

Ives shook his head. He wouldn't betray his master's plans. The sergeant gave him a cuff that knocked him against the wall. Another Dog hauled him to his feet. The woman among them came at me, her dagger in her hand. With quick, hard strokes she cut the gag and the ties off of me.

"They were to take me to the Rattery and dump me in a Coffin," I said, rubbing my wrists. "Sir Lionel wants me silenced. He thinks if he can do that, his problems will disappear."

"He's got more of 'em instead," Sergeant Axman told me as two of the other Dogs set about tying up Enno and Ives. "Bread went up two coppers this mornin', and there's a Crown ban on rye. Seemingly part of the crop's gone bad, and they want to see what part. It's not sittin' well in the marketplaces." The Dog who kept watch from the door handed my weapons belt and my pack to me. He stood aside as Achoo leaped in. I dropped to my knees to hug her.

"I thought I told you to stay," I said quietly. I was trying to act like a proper Dog, when I wanted to cry into Achoo's fur. I looked at the Dog who'd let her in. He wore a padded leather coat and gloves that showed fresh scratches. He must have taken my gear from Achoo.

He grinned at me. "Yon's a fine hound," he said. "Hadda hold her up inna air afore we could get your things."

"Cooper, you need to get out of here and go to ground," the sergeant told me. He turned me away from the others and bent down to whisper in my ear. "We can't hold Ives forever. He's Sir Lionel's man. There'd be all Chaos caperin' in the halls if we killed 'im. Best we can hope for is, he'll be too scared to tell Sir Lionel that you escaped 'im an' Enno."

I nodded. That made sense. "Won't you and your people be in trouble?" I asked.

Axman showed me a wolf's grin. "We'll make us a bargain. He'll keep 'is gob corked an' we'll let 'im keep 'is sack. Now, you get movin'. You know who's safe to contact and who's not."

Ives shouted under the gag they'd put on him. I could tell he'd cried, "Traitor!"

The mot who'd cut me free kicked him. "You need to learn a bit of what's goin' on, laddie," she said coldly. "What's goin' on ain't as simple as you."

Axman hauled me to my feet and towed me through the door. He pointed down the corridor. "First left, down the stairs, through the door, second right down that hall, and out the door," he said. "It puts you two blocks downhill of here. Go."

"Won't they come after you for mutiny, Sarge?" I asked him. "You and them in there?"

"I ain't mutinyin'!" he said, his eyes wide and innocent. "I'm gettin' rid of a cracked gixie as has been makin' trouble in my waitin' room, screamin' mad lies about the Deputy Provost! Gave her the sole o' my boot, didn't I? Dunno how she got runnin' loose here in Guards House!"

I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. "You're a wicked one. Gods all bless, Sarge. Help is coming," I said. Then Achoo and I took off.

Sergeant Axman's directions led me through a door in a small alleyway that opened onto a street lined with small houses. I was on the north side of the ridge, the ocean harbor side. Coming outside with Achoo, stopping to catch my breath, I felt very strange. Only a few moments ago I'd been bound for a cell that was rightly called a Coffin. Instead, thanks to Nestor's friends, I was free, but to what purpose? Once Sir Lionel discovered I had not reached the Rattery, he would go to Serenity's house first. Meraud would have to get help without me, at least for the moment.

I knelt before a small shrine to the Wavewalker and put a copper in the jar. Anyone who saw me would think I was offering prayers. Truly I was buying time and peace to think. Nestor's would be the next place Sir Lionel would look. I could try to make contact with Okha at the Waterlily, but that had to wait until tonight. Dale would be at the Goldsmith's Bank. Besides, I didn't know if I could trust him for this. It was one thing to believe he was no part of Pearl's game, quite another to ask him to hide me from the Crown's law master in the city.

The idea struck me then. It was completely mad-brained, but what did I have to lose? I took off my pack and slipped Okha's maps from the hidden pocket. Pearl's Gauntlet court was closest to me. I reminded the Trickster that I deserved a little good luck just now and memorized the map before I tucked it away once more.

"We're going to have an adventure," I told Achoo, putting her leash on her collar. "And it's a very good thing Pounce isn't here, because he might try to stop us. But you, you're game for nearabout anything, aren't you?" Achoo pranced, wagging her tail. She was excited. "Well, then," I said, "I'll be Goodwin, and you'll be Tunstall, only fuzzier. And mayhap we'll live to tell this tale."

My body was filled with a strange quivering as we set out, a slight tremble that did not stop. Was it nerves? Kora and Aniki swore I had none. I only knew I was doubly awake and aware, balanced on a razor's edge. I took note of almost everything, even the soft thump of Achoo's pads in the street dirt as we walked. Since she kept looking at me with such lively interest, I kept my voice quiet and continued to explain as if she were Pounce. "The Court of the Rogue is where fugitives may find a welcome, isn't it? Well, we are fugitives, and we are looking for a welcome. It's the last place Sir Lionel will seek us. Mayhap I'll learn sommat into the bargain."

Achoo whuffed. It sounded as if she agreed.

We were passing some shops when I had another good idea. Achoo and I entered a jeweler's place. One of my lord Gershom's gold nobles bought me a strand of light pink pearls. It would do us no harm to greet the Rogue with a proper guest gift.

On we went, leaving the respectable homes and shops for the poorer streets of the Gauntlet District. Walking along, I learned for myself sommat I'd heard of last year, when a corporal in Highfields District back home murdered his wife. He went about the city after, just ambling. As long as he acted normal, folk ignored him. He was just another Dog. When Goodwin and me got noticed here, it was because we did something that brought us to local folk's attention. If I just walked like I belonged, flipping my baton up and around my hand, Achoo at my side, I was an everyday Dog.

I stayed ordinary until I went down Darcy Walk. A pair of coves who were idling near the entrance to Pearl's court halted me. "You just stop right there," the shorter of them said. "What's the likes of you doin' here? You're not one of th' Gauntlet Dogs. We never seen you b'fore."

I looked them over like they were privy scrapings. "I never knew I needed permission from as miserable a pair of Rats as you two if I wanted a word with Her Majesty," I said. I held up two copper nobles. "Or is it that I forgot the fee?"

The bigger cove took my coins. The little one was still not impressed. "You're wearin' blades. And you've a cur wiv you."

"That's no cur. That's a scent hound. And Her Majesty knows us." I spun my baton until I caught it neatly in my hand. "Will you let me by? Or shall I ring the Sunset Hymn on your skull with this?"

The little cove drew breath, doubtless to tell me off. The big one poked him in the ribs. "Let 'er go," he said lazily. "If she offends, one of 'er Majesty's blades'll cut 'er to cat meat soon enough."

They let me pass. Achoo and I walked between them, feeling the little one's glare as we went.

From what I could see of the outside, this court was a Guild Hall once, a great single building. Now it was enclosed by other, smaller ones built as the neighborhood got poorer. The lesser houses were attached to the place by corridors or breaks in the walls that joined them. The Rogue would own those places and make sure her trusted folk lived in them, to keep the court safe.

If anyone watched me from behind the shutters on the outlying buildings, I did not see them. Instead Achoo and I walked through the small door that opened onto Darcy Walk into the main building. Once inside, we stood in a narrow corridor that led to the left. The right-hand side of the corridor was bricked up. What light there was came from lamps that burned in sconces on the walls. Since the windows, too, were bricked up, it wasn't exactly a welcoming place to stand. We walked quick down that hall. I did not like the thought of being caught there if the lamplight died.

The door at the hall's end opened onto the main Guild Hall. It was a full three stories high, with a fancy ceiling framed in arches, wide galleries on the second and third stories, and hearths at each long end of the room. As at the Eagle Street court, there were tables, stools, and benches everywhere for Pearl's court to sit. Her own place, like Rosto's in Corus, was marked by a wooden platform beside the hearth farthest from me. A chair stood there, furs draped over it to cushion the seat. Two stools, one to either side, marked her bodyguards' places. There were small tables as well, to hold her cup and anything else she cared to set down.

Pearl herself was not in the room. A gixie a year or two younger than me came over, wiping her hands on an apron. "What'll it be?" she asked. "I serve till we gets busy. Then if you want more, ye go through that door there and gets your own." She pointed to a door where another serving girl leaned at leisure. Seemingly it was yet early in the day for the Court of the Rogue. "We've salmon in pastry, cheese fritters, honey fritters, onion tart, stuffed eggs, and mutton pasties. Chickpea soup, too."

"Have you barley water?" I asked.

She actually took a step back from me. "What?"

"Twilsey?" I asked. "Regular apple cider, not hard?"

The maid shook her head. "A Dog as won't drink. What's the world comin' to? We've apple cider for mages and them that bring their young ones. Will you have food?" She looked at Achoo. "Your hound had best have indoor manners."

"She's better-trained than I am," I said. "I'll have an onion tart, a stuffed egg, and two cheese and two honey fritters." Achoo would like the fritters.

The gixie held out her hand. "Five coppers, then."

I frowned. The same lunch would cost three coppers back home. "Do I pay extra for the honor of dining at the Rogue's?"

The gixie made a face. "I forgot my purse of laughter when I dressed this mornin'," she told me. "Have you not bought anythin', the last few days? Prices have gone up. Pay or starve, it's all one to me."

I paid and found a seat. The day was half over, yet those folk I could see in the hall were scarce awake. A pair of gamesters played dice with dozy slowness. A mot seated by the empty hearth opposite the Rogue's throne sharpened a series of knives most carefully. Achoo lay down and took a nap.

Sitting for the first time in hours, I thought of Dale. Things were so good last night, but what would happen now? He might shrink from me once he learned I was on the run from Sir Lionel. Or would Dale think this was some new game he might play, a game of wits with the Deputy Provost? He could very well do that. And there was the matter of Hanse and Steen. They'd be nabbed as soon as Goodwin returned with help. Would Dale try to save them from the Rattery? Or would he shrug and say they had gambled and lost?

They weren't the only ones who'd gambled, to be sure. I'd no way of knowing where I stood with the Rogue's people. If they knew nothing of what had passed between me and Sir Lionel, I was safe enough. If word got out, though, I'd taken the most foolish step of my life. Much depended on whether Sir Lionel put up a hunt for me with more Dogs than just the two he'd sent to bury me in the Rattery. By now I knew that Nestor and Sergeant Axman were respected well outside their home kennels. If other Dogs believed them instead of Sir Lionel, I'd do fine.

I'd rolled the dice. I'd play the numbers I got.

Meanwhile, I was still hunting colemongers and evidence. It would be good to prove my suspicions of Pearl. I needed to lay hands on some pieces of her clothes, in case Achoo and I had to track her. And I had to think. I needed to work out each bit of the tale I was going to tell Pearl. I would have to give it before her, her guards, and anyone who stood within earshot.

I put my head down. This is why I hate Court Days, and speaking in front of Sir Tullus and a roomful of people. But there was no time to moan. Pearl would come at any moment, and I had to be ready with my most fanciful tale ever.

The maidservant returned with my tray of food and my cider. As soon as she walked away, Achoo sat up and whuffed at me.

"Yes, I remembered you," I told her. I placed a honey fritter and a cheese one on a small plate, together with half of the stuffed egg. Those I placed on the floor. Achoo gobbled them down as if she'd had naught to eat in days. In the end, I had but half of the onion tart and the other half of the stuffed egg. Achoo wheedled all the rest from me.

I was setting the dishes aside when them that were relaxing in the hall stirred. Pearl came down a staircase that led to one of the upper stories, guards in front and behind. A few hard-looking mots and coves followed the guards, talking among themselves. Once Pearl settled on her dais, a serving girl opened a door at the middle of the room, admitting folk from outside.

I had entered the back way. From the map Okha had made, these newcomers had come through the house that served as the court's main entrance. This place and the Eagle Street court were all set up like mazes, so the Rats had plenty of bolt holes if the Dogs came in force. It showed either how lazy Pearl was about safety, or how well she knew Sir Lionel's fear of her, that I had gotten in without challenge.

I watched, turning my tale over in my head. I'd learned more than a year ago that wearing a Dog uniform turned me into someone else, a proper Dog who only remembered she was shy in a courtroom. I'd already had the thought that mayhap I could be someone else in different clothes, and so I was bolder with Dale when I wear dresses. Now, to stand before Pearl with no Goodwin to hide behind, I made myself into the Dog of the story Goodwin and I told. I was Gershom's pet and a pretty Dog, the kind that gets the men to do her work for her. I bit my lips to puff them up and pinched my cheeks to redden them. I practiced fluttering my lashes. I thought of my peaches as fuller, my hips as rounder.

I watched carefully as them that had requests to make of Pearl lined up before her. Everyone carried a little something to sweeten the Rogue. The better-off ones had coin. The poor ones carried baskets of food or goods. The old doxie Zolaika, the Bazhir Jurji, or Torcall the longsword fighter would accept the gift. Once they gave Pearl the nod, she would hear what the giver had to ask. It made me grind my teeth. Rosto did not take gifts from everyone who came before him. Folk could talk with him outright. Sure, he accepted bribes, but in private, for important matters. If folk wanted to thank him, he asked that they just thank him. Some Rogues know what it's like to be poor.

I ordered more fritters from the serving girl. Achoo gobbled her share and much of mine, but that was all right. I was too nervous to eat. There was still that tale to tell, before as many people as sat below.

Achoo was begging for the last fritter when I heard Pearl's raised voice. "Cooper, you may be Dale Rowan's newest bed-mate, but that doesn't make you my friend."

I wiped my sticky fingers on the inside of my tunic and hoisted my pack on my shoulders. "Kemari," I told Achoo. Together we walked to the dais, me remembering to let my hips swing.

I gave Pearl a bow, though it wrung my tripes to do it, and offered her the pink pearl string, warm from my pocket. I had a tale to tell, and bowing to that rank maggot pie went with it, just as the pearls did.

Jurji reached out to me with his sheathed sword and poked the pearls heaped in my hand. I hung the string over the weapon, hating him for showing me so much disrespect.

He let them slide down the length of the sword until they rolled onto his wrist, where he inspected them. Only when he'd run them through his fingers did he stick the sheathed blade in his sash and hand the string to Pearl. She passed them through her fingers, not as he did, feeling for sharp edges or seams, anything that might show there was a trick in them, but in a savoring way.

"Very nice," she said at last. "A little out of range of a Dog's wage."

I kept my eyes on the floor. Let her think it was respect. "We had funds for this trip," I said. "I borrowed some."

Pearl set the string in her lap instead of handing them off to someone else. "Aright, then, Cooper. You've earned some speech wiv me. The gift is well done. What've you got to say, then?"

Now I could meet her eyes like I was innocent and my story was true. I was another kind of Dog now, and these folk were all people who might help me. That was the tale I'd spun. "Forgive me, Majesty, but I'm in a fix. I couldn't think where else to go that I might be safe," I explained. "And I couldn't leave Achoo behind. It's taken this long to get Achoo to trust me after her last handler beat on her. I didn't want her in harm's way."

To my surprise, Pearl's face darkened. "It's the lowest kind of scummer that will beat a creature who can't speak of it," she muttered. "Will she say hello?" She offered her hand, palm up, leaning down in her chair.

I hesitated. It would look strange if I didn't permit Achoo to greet the Rogue. "Achoo, pengantar"

Of course Achoo went to smell Pearl's fingers, wagging her tail. The silly hound loves everyone.

Pearl actually looked at me for permission to pet my hound. I nodded. Inside I was shocked. I never thought Pearl would ask anyone for anything.

It wasn't long until Achoo was on her back, paws in the air, tail thrashing, whilst Pearl gave her a good belly scratch. It was plain to everyone that the Rogue was glad to play with my hound. It was just as plain to me that she understood them.

I hate to know good things of an enemy. It makes my life harder.

"Aye, I can feel a scar here, and another here," she said, her hands gently touching spots on Achoo's belly and ribs. "If her last handler was in this room, I'd mark him as he did her, see how he liked it." She looked to the nearest servant. "How about some chopped meat for my friend, here? Good stuff, mind, not street scrapings."

I smiled. I had to. "Thank you, Majesty," I said.

Pearl sat up. Achoo sat up with her so Pearl could rub her ears as the Rogue spoke to me. "Start talking."

"It's a bit of a tale," I replied, sinking deep into the other self I'd made. "See, Goodwin has these silversmith friends here, the Finers. She was good friends with one of their men ten years back. The old cove who's head of the family likes her yet. We visited them, the first day we were here."

Pearl glanced at me, an odd expression in her eyes. Was she the one who put the Dogs on the Finers?

"I heard today the family got taken up for colesmithing," I went on. "The problem is, Goodwin went off to Corus yesterday morning to visit her man. I figured she'd be grateful to me if I tried to help the Finers. If you knew the grandfather, you'd see he'd never go near colesmithing. He's one of those stern, right-thinking sorts. We report to Nestor Haryse, I s'pose you know that, but the Sarge is no good for sommat like this. He's not high up enough. For charges as serious as coles, I had to talk with someone powerful. I have some luck with powerful men." Someone behind me snickered. I ignored it. "So I dipped into Goodwin's cash box and went up to Guards House."

Around me I could hear Pearl's Rats chuckle. I turned and glared at them. "I didn't think it was a fool idea." I showed them my pout. My mask had worked. I'd wanted them to see a spoiled pet Dog, pretty and free enough with her favors that other Dogs cover for them. We didn't have any in the Lower City – they don't tend to last. But some of these Rats had seen me hanging on Dale often enough. I only needed to fool them, and Pearl.

"Forget my folk and tell me," Pearl said. "I'm the one as decides if you linger here or get your arse kicked into the street."

"Oh, aye," I replied hurried-like, facing her. "So I go to that lard gut Axman. I tell him I need to speak with someone higher up, preferring Sir Lionel, and I slip him a sweetener. He calls for Ives, that collects the entry fees, I suppose. Well, Ives takes me to Sir Lionel, once I've given Ives his sweetener. And I start telling Sir Lionel about Master Finer. Only Sir Lionel interrupts me and says where's Goodwin. I tell him, she's gone back to Corus. Then he asks me if she's got my report with her. I ask him, what report. And he tells me, Don't play me for a fool. I know why you're here. Everyone knows you're Gershom of Haryse's pet."

"See, that's interesting," Torcall Jupp said from his chair near Pearl's. "All I can find out is that your family was part of his household, and he sponsored you to the Dogs."

I gave him the sidelong smile that the trulls give a cove to bring them racing across a street. At least, I hope I got that right. "'Tis a very large house," I said, as sly as Kora working a new spell. "All manner of hidden passages." Forgive me, my lord, I thought. "Then my lady gets wind and she decides I need a trade that'll get my face broke in, only I like being a Dog. So I told Sir Lionel that my lord and my lady sponsor us to a trade once we're grown. Only Sir Lionel says I'm not to treat him like a coney. He says he knows my lord sent me and Goodwin here to spy on him, and make up lies about him so my lord Gershom can replace him or something worse." I let my voice climb, so more Rats might listen and laugh. "I told him no! But old Lionel kept asking what I would tell my lord. He wouldn't drop it and he wouldn't talk about Master Finer. I even put gold nobles before him. He dashed them to the floor! He said it were proof I was my lord's spy, when it were Goodwin's gambling money. I figured even a Deputy Provost wouldn't turn up his nose at gold! When he said he'd not touch Lord Gershom's money, I lost my head and told him he was stupid."

I stopped to catch my breath. I felt as I did on Court Days, when I talked fast to get my whole story out before I began to stammer. It wasn't easier than testifying, to fork over a huge lie. I still had to spit it out fast. But it was done. The whole Court of the Rogue was laughing their buttons off, Pearl included. I figured that any tale that made Sir Lionel out as a fool would amuse her.

"What next?" Torcall Jupp asked me as folk began to catch their breaths. "You still haven't said why you are here."

I let my shoulders droop. "Because Sir Lionel said I could bed down in the cages for my insolence. His man came for me, but I got a head start on him, running. They know my lodgings. Nestor, that we've been reporting to, will have word to grab me up, I'll wager. I hoped to hide out here till I think of sommat," I said, looking at the floor.

"And what if the Deputy Provost sends his people here to find you?" Torcall wanted to know. "If you bring trouble on us – "

I glared at him. "I've been here two hours, maybe, and no one's come. They'd not seek me here. All the city knows Her Majesty's cross with me for trying to grab one of your foists. I hardly made a fuss up there at Guards House, anyway. Maybe I hit a few Dogs on my way out. Could be I made some horses rear in the courtyard. So a couple of the horses was already hitched to wagons that weren't too sturdy. They've got worse things to handle than one junior Dog, to my way of thinking."

That set them all to laughing again, as I'd meant it to. I stayed as I was, wearing a sullen pout. Achoo leaned against my knees. I knelt beside her and hid my face in her ruff. Let the others think I was embarrassed at the uproar. I was on pins and needles, waiting to hear Pearl's ruling.

"Quiet down, you mudskippers!" she cried. They obeyed, though some were yet snorting. "You've given us a good laugh, Cooper, and you know how to treat a Rogue proper." She fingered the pearls I'd given her. "I guess Rosto taught you some-thin'. You can stay until you give me reason to throw you out. Mayhap Sir Lionel will look for you harder than most. More like he'll just whine to my Lord Provost about you. That's more like him. He's a whiner, not a doer. You and the hound may stay, for now." She waved us off.

Achoo and I walked through the Rats, who patted my back and joked about my tale. I pouted, or smiled, or handed out little light slaps, playing my part, and held my course for the privies. Here they were set outdoors, up on a platform so them that drove the scummer wagons could empty the barrels from the alley behind. There was a fence closing the courtyard off, so folk couldn't leave this way easy. Looking at the brown stains on the fences and wall around the privies, I shook my head and breathed through my mouth. Seemingly folk who were in too much of a hurry to wait for the three stalls to clear used those instead. I wouldn't like to try climbing those slippery lengths of wood, for certain.

I did my business and sat there a little while, waiting for my shakes to end. I'd pulled it off. I'd played the part and they had believed. Now I had time to think of something else.

Achoo and I went back inside, to the second-floor gallery, where tables and chairs were set. These were yet empty and gave me a good place to view the floor below. Achoo settled beside me as I watched folk come and go. I even dozed, mayhap for an hour, if I judged by the light that streamed through the few windows. When I woke, Achoo had climbed to the bench next to me. Her eyes were filled with starvation.

I looked at her. "You're a mumper, plain and simple. I'm surprised you don't roll instead of walking, the way you eat." Achoo leaned against me and sighed. I gave her a strip of dried meat as I looked down at Pearl's court. Rats sat, eating and talking. Pearl was having a meal of shellfish and rice, chewing with her mouth open. She could have done with Lady Teodorie's fan on the back of her head, I thought. I would back my lady against Pearl any day. A doxie was towing a grinning cove through a door that led, so my map told me, to a private room off the hall. And Dale Rowan stood in the middle of the floor, speaking with Jurji. The Bazhir pointed up to where I sat. Dale nodded, clapped him on the shoulder, and made for the stairs.

I fidgeted with my belt pouch. What was I to say after last night? Should I leave, avoid him entirely? I really didn't think he was part of the colemongering ring, but that could just be my heart talking. If he was innocent, I was bound for all manner of trouble. Shouldn't I keep him out of it?

Dale came up behind me then. I knew his step, though I had only known him for a few days. He cupped my chin in one hand. Tilting my head back, he gave me a kiss that set my whole body burning. Finally he freed my mouth, though not my chin. "What in the name of Mithros and the judges of the underworld are you doing here?" he asked me, his face upside down before my eyes. "Serenity said you left with no warning, never came back. Then the Deputy Provost's men came looking for you at her place and mine!" He kept his voice soft. "Now I find you here? What manner of cow flop have you stepped in?"

"You give me a headache, making me look at you this way," I said, buying myself time to think. "How hard do they search for me?"

Dale kissed me again, then sat next to me, putting his arm about my shoulders. "Achoo, you're supposed to look after her! Instead here you are, giving her your countenance and comfort!" Achoo wagged her tail and did her happy dance for him. Dale raised his brows. "Now I understand. You're just as bad as Beka is." To me he said, "Sir Lionel's Dogs are searching the markets. I didn't stop by Nestor's kennel to see if he'd heard. How did you manage to get up the Deputy Provost's nose, sweet?"

I looked at my lap. "I said he was stupid," I began.

Dale burst into laughter. Folk below turned to look up at us, grinning. No doubt they knew I was giving him the tale I'd given Pearl.

He heard my story out with snickers at all the right places, but at the end he took me by the shoulders and gave me a gentle shake. "Beka, you know better!" he scolded. "You don't go calling the nobility stupid, however stupid they may be! They're too prideful and they have long memories! Was anyone else there to hear you?"

I shook my head. I hated lying to him. He seemed honest and true when he was like this, but I couldn't trust my feelings entirely. He was a gambler. He was good at hiding what he truly thought.

"Gods be thanked for that. Without witnesses, there's a chance he'll lose interest," Dale told me. "With them, nobles always feel they have to make an example of you."

Dale picked up my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist slowly, as he liked to do. I'd thought that perhaps, now that we'd had a tumble, his touch wouldn't unravel my tripes as it had before. I was wrong. Now my every muscle went loose, knowing just what he could do with that warm mouth and those gentle, long fingers.

"Stop it," I whispered, trying to tug my arm away. "I'm in trouble and you're – "

Dale looked at me, his gray eyes bright and teasing. "You need to hide, I understand that. We have private rooms all around us, cozy little rooms with locks on the doors. You hide in one, and I'll keep you company. Much cozier than sitting up here." He kissed my cheek, then the side of my neck. "Hide, and tell me why you talked to the Deputy Provost like a looby, when I know you're no such thing," he murmured into my ear.

I was going to push him away, but my hands lingered on his chest. "He's a fool," I murmured back. "I hate fools."

"All the more reason for me to believe you'd never act like one yourself," he whispered, wrapping his arms around my waist. "You're either stupid or you're clever, pretty, pretty Beka, and I know you're not stupid." He pulled me half onto his lap. "Look, I brought you a present." He slipped it from his own neck over my head. The fine gold chain was still warm from his skin. I looked at the pendant that lay against my uniform tunic, a jagged piece of glassy, dark brown stone framed in gold wire. In the brown depths of one side, when I angled it toward the torches, I saw sheets of deep crimson. Flipping it over, I stared at the other side. Scales of blue and green light seemed buried just under the surface. It was a Sirajit opal.

"Don't screech about the price and how you're not bought," Dale whispered, trailing his fingers down the side of my neck. "I've won a lot of games in the last two days. Your luck stays with me. That's the best kind. And the stone wasn't that expensive. It was a piece off of a greater stone, too delicate itself to be worked. I told the cove who sold it to me that it was meant for one who'd love it for its own sake. After I'd bought it, of course."

"Of course," I agreed, knowing it did no good to argue with him about his strange gambler's code. It is a splendid stone.

"A bit of pretty to cheer you up, seeing's that you're having a bad day," Dale whispered. He touched his lips to my ear and then to my neck.

We were kissing greedily when a loud voice in the room below made us stop. We slid over on the bench to see who was so angry.

"Bread just went up two coppers the loaf, I told you, are you deaf?" Fair Flory stood before Pearl, her hands on her hips. "That's two increases in less than a month!" Behind her waited some of her flower girls and orange sellers. None of these were the tiny, pretty ones, either, but the ones built on the solid side, mots who worked the rowdy drinking and gambling dens. "Only two ships brought harvest wheat from the south this week. The captains say it's a bad year down there. We've no rye at all! Plenty of farmers are hangin' on to what they have, for their own winter."

"One captain says it's a bad year and you're panickin', Flory?" Pearl asked, a sneer on her face. "Ye'll stir up the Roguery with rumors and little to back 'em?"

"Not on the say-so of just one captain, and it's not just rumors," Flory snapped back. "And I'm here to ask you, you've put by to cover your own, right?"

"What's my supplies to you, Flory?" Pearl snapped. "I don't go thrustin' my nose into your business!"

"Rogue's stores is my business," Flory replied. "I pays you my cut, my people hand over their cut, all like our law bids. But my ear's sharp, Pearl Skinner, and I've not heard of you layin' up stores. There's no word anywhere of you buyin' grain and oil to keep our people alive through the winter. That's Rogue's duty!"

Pearl stood. Her hands were hidden in the folds of her clothes. "As if I'd share my business wiv a brass-backed trull like you!" The weapon must have been tucked under a slit in her skirt. Pearl drew it now. It was a long knife with a dark ivory hilt and a blade that looked wicked sharp. "Are you challengin' me?"

"I'm lookin' to our own good," Flory snapped, but she looked nervous. "You spend our coin like it's ale. How're we to know you're ready to feed them as give you a cut of all they make? Them as do the work? How do we know it ain't all gone to them curst teeth?"

I heard the Rats below mutter at that. It was hard to tell if they approved of what Flory said or if they were angry with her.

Pearl leveled her long knife at Flory. "Either challenge me or shut yer flappin' gob," the Rogue snarled. "Come on, Flory! You want my throne?"

Flory backed up a step. Pearl looked at the others who had muttered. "What about you? And you? No? You, then?" She pointed her blade at someone else each time she said "you." Each time that person flinched. Pearl's face twisted with disgust. She almost had my respect, standing there with her knife out, wearing a long dress of stained satin over cambric. Her hair straggled out of its knot, hanging in tangled locks. "Gutless milksops, all of you!" she cried. "Easy to gossip in the shadows, innit? Not so easy t'take the Rogue on! You lot wouldn't last a bird's breath in my place, not with winter comin'! Well, keep your cods dry! There'll be bread in the Roguery, aye, and meat for all of you whinin', pukin' brats! And the next one to mutter wakes with a cut throat, my word on that!" She sheathed the knife. "Get out o' my sight, Flory, you and your whores." As Flory and her mots turned to go, Pearl yelled, "Leastways I never made my livin' on my back!"

Flory whirled around, a knife in her hand this time. "It's an honest livin'!" she cried, taking a step forward. "We don't suck the coin away from them that work for it!" Two of the flower girls seized Flory by the arms and dragged her from the room.

Pearl laughed. She picked up her tankard and drained it. "Stinkin' trollop," she bellowed, but the flower sellers and orange girls were gone.

Dale and I watched as folk who had stayed swarmed around the dais.

"Oh, they want to make sure Pearl believes they're faithful," Dale muttered sourly as he emptied my pitcher down his throat. There was very little cider left in it. "Goddess tears, Beka, why can't you drink like a normal person!"

I looked at him. "My head spins if I have too much. I don't like it, so I don't drink, most of the time."

Dale shook his head at me. Leaning over the gallery rail, he snapped his fingers. One of the maids looked up and nodded. As Dale settled back on our bench, he told me quietly, "Flory doesn't know the half of it. I heard two higher-ups in the Grain-seller's Guild tell my masters that if wheat went up, barley and rice will, too. If they don't go double in price by the end of day, I'll eat my boots. Rye's clean gone from the market."

My stomach dropped. Meat follows grain, vegetables follow meat... At those prices, my savings will vanish by spring.

"It might be all right if King Roger has done as he should, and put by grain and oil himself," Dale told me, seeing the look on my face. "He'll see to it the guards are fed, the same as the army. The guilds will tend to their people, and the Rogues to theirs. The decent nobles will look after their people, too."

I looked at the table, knife-gouged and old. What of the folk who had no guilds or army or kennels to belong to? How many decent nobles were there, anyway?

"Here's what worries me, Beka." Dale placed silver coins in front of me, face side down. Each of them was cut through the side with the Tortallan sword and crown. At the bottom of the cuts I saw the gleam of brass. No doubt these were the coins I'd seen in his home. "I'd been hearing the word coles of late, so I looked at my own coins. My copper and my gold pieces are good. But far too many silver coles have come my way. One or two, for a cove like me, who roams all over the kingdom, that I expect. A friend melts them down and gets the silver for me. But not this many coles. I'm not the only one who's getting bit this bad. So I'm wondering, here are Beka and Goodwin, fresh in town. Maybe they're looking for colemongers."

I laughed. "If my lord Gershom was sending Dogs out for colemongers, don't you think he'd get his finest bloodhounds? Goodwin's one of the best, but she'd be part of a team, not holding the leash on one of Lord Gershom's pets!"

The maidservant came with a bottle, a cup, and a pitcher. The bottle was wine, for Dale. The pitcher was cider. Dale gave her a copper half-noble for thanks, and a pat on the bum. I kicked him under the table.

"I was just being polite!" he protested.

"Mayhap she'd like to keep her bum to herself," I told him. "If you need to be patting someone, pat me."

He sighed. "I suppose you're right, about not being on the hunt. But don't you want to know who's doing this?"

He's being canny, if he's one of them, I thought as I took a gulp of cider. Mayhap he thinks I'm so dazed with love that I'd never suspect him. I wish I was so dizzy with it that I'd quit wondering about him. This way, wanting him, liking him, then wondering if he is in it, hurts.

"I leave that kind of Dog work to the wise ones," I told him. "I get myself in enough trouble without trying to outthink Rats as use their heads."

"I know something we can do that doesn't involve thinking," Dale whispered, snuggling closer. He began to kiss me.

It turned out one of those private rooms was very near. Achoo guarded the door outside. Inside, Dale worked hard to make him and me forget things like higher prices, false coins, and the Deputy Provost. He even dozed after, though I could not. All too soon my brain was bustling again. I wanted to imagine our future together. Since that was a bad idea, I tried to figure out how long I had to stay hid and what else I might find out before Goodwin returned with my lord Gershom.

Where is Goodwin right now? I wondered as I smoothed Dale's fine hair with my fingers. I try to write it down now as I thought it out then: Goodwin would have reported to my lord and explained the state of things here. Would he believe her when she said Sir Lionel had lost control of his city to his Rogue? He must. It's why he sent her and me to Port Caynn, after all.

Say Lord Gershom did believe Goodwin. He'd have to convince the Privy Council that it was needful to mount an operation in Port Caynn. Goddess, at least a couple of days to get anything from that bunch of noble slugs. Then assembling all they might need and the return to Port Caynn.

I'd be on my own for at least a week. I could not flee to Corus, difficult as things are. I'd told Goodwin I would gather information here. That information is important, more important than my running the moment things get a little chancy.

Sooner or later Pearl would learn of my lies. I'd have to leave the Court of the Rogue before then. Would Dale put me up? Could I trust him?

Mayhap I could, for a day or so. Certainly I'd learn what he's made of, were I to ask. Truly I don't think he is in the cole-mongers' ring. He likes a game where the chances are more than good he will win. Pearl's game is not one of those.

Sunset was gleaming in the windows when we dressed again and left the room. Achoo greeted us in wriggling quiet. She knows she and I are on duty, even if I tried to forget with Dale for a time. We went back to our same table. A maid was just setting more drinks before us when a big-bellied young mot came before Pearl's dais on the floor below, breathing hard. Her face was marked with tears. She collapsed before Pearl as the Rogue and Zolaika admired someone's gift of a gold statue.

"Majesty, you must help us! Gods witness it, you must!" the mot cried. She actually reached out to clutch at Pearl. Quick as thought, Torcall had his sword unsheathed. He set the blade in front of her hands. The young mot pulled them away. "Forgive me! I'm out of my head with grief, I forgot – "

"What is it now?" Pearl asked with a sigh. "Have you a gift for me?"

The mot looked startled and frightened. "Oh – no, no, but surely in this case – "

Pearl looked away.

"'Tis your business, too, Steen said it was!" the mot cried.

Dale sat up straight at my side.

The mot went on. "When he changed his plans so suddenlike, Steen told me 'twas your biddin'! And now they've taken 'im to the cages, him and all the others!"

Pearl drank from her tankard. "Steen is supposed to be away," she said at last.

"He said he might be home this afternoon, or tomorrow mornin' at the latest," the mot said. She kept her hands on her belly, as if to calm the babe within. "I thought I'd meet them. He told me, see, what gate they'd come in. The caravan got here, sure enough. As soon as it was through the gate, Dogs pounced on 'em. They cut at the packs. Most was just filled with bales of cloth, but there was silver blocks in the middle two."

"So they was carryin' silver for the Smith's Guild," Pearl said lazily. "So what?"

The mot shook her head. "They didn't have the royal stamp, Majesty. I was standin' right close, even though Steen was signin' to me to get back. The silver wasn't marked at all. The Dog Sergeant ordered the Dogs to collect it. Then he said everyone in the caravan was arrested for transport of illegal silver! They took 'em all to Guards House, in the King's name!"

"How can it be stolen from the Crown?" Jurji the Bazhir asked, confused. "We haven't heard of a large robbery. We'd know."

Zolaika answered him. Pearl was staring at the cup in her hands. "All silver mined in Tortall is the Crown's property," she said slowly, as if she gave a small child his lesson. "It goes to the Treasury, where it is registered, spelled by royal mages, and marked. Everyone must buy silver with the Crown's stamp on it. If the silver is unstamped, it is illegal. As far as the law is concerned, it is as good as stolen."

"They took all the guards and the merchants!" cried the mot when Pearl still said naught. "Hanse and my Steen and Amda are friends of your'n, everyone knows that! Can ye do nothin'? They'll start to question them anytime now!"

Pearl looked at the mot. "Do you think my arm stretches into Guards House?"

"Does it not?" the mot asked.

Pearl's face went hard. Her eyes were cold. The mot realized she maybe went too far and covered her mouth with her hand.

"Did you know about this?" Dale asked me.

He was staring down at Pearl. That made it so much easier for me to say, "No." It even made it easy for me to ask boldly, "Did you?"

"Don't be a looby." He still watched Pearl. "Me, a cole-monger? Before the Crown got me, the guild would administer its own punishments."

"Not if you escaped beforehand." I kept my voice soft. Only Dale heard me. "You could switch false coin for good and hide the good everywhere you travel. Lose bad coin at play, even."

He didn't answer me. His eyes were still fixed on Pearl. Suddenly he muttered, "Trickster curse her, she's going to let them rot. Her friends, and she'll leave them for torture! I have to get to the bank before they finish for the day." He gave me a swift kiss and stood. "Come to my place once it's dark," he ordered me. "I'll tell the landlord to open my rooms for you." He strode off, headed down the stairs.

I don't believe he's part of it. I think he means to buy good treatment from the cage Dogs for Hanse, or to get an advocate for him. That's the act of a friend, not a conspirator.

Pearl looked at the pregnant mot. "It'll take me some thinkin', to decide what to do," the Rogue said at last. "You leave it to me. Now go." She turned and beckoned to Zolaika. They put their heads together, with Pearl shielding their mouths with her hand so any who could read lips wouldn't know what was said. From the way the air around them rippled, I'm positive that part of the hall is shielded by magic, too. If Pearl can afford pearl teeth, she can afford magical protections.

No one spoke as the mot left the hall. Pearl finished her private talk and sent Zolaika away. Once the older woman was gone, Pearl made some manner of joke to Jurji, who laughed.

"What's going through these Rats' heads?" I whispered to Achoo. She was on her feet, whining a little. She needed to go outside. "If I was one of them, I'd ask myself how far Pearl would reach for me, if she turns cold for good friends like Hanse and Steen."

I slung my pack over my shoulders. "Achoo, tumit."

We went outside, using the way we'd come in. Three small clusters of Rats stood near the door. One was the guards, but the others wanted to talk. Flory was there with two of her mots. Everyone went silent as I led Achoo to the gutter she needed.

When Achoo finished, Flory asked, "Where's Goodwin?"

I shrugged. "Off on her own business. May I ask sommat? The mot with all the face paint, that fetched me and Goodwin for Pearl – Zolaika, right? What does she do here?"

Flory and her friends made the Sign. Flory drew me in close. "Zolaika is Pearl's own private killer," Flory whispered. "The knife you never see comin'. Don't ever ask about her again."

So Okha was right. I didn't like how Pearl had sent Zolaika off after the news had come on Hanse and Steen. Seeing the tremble in Flory's hands, I don't think she liked it, either.

Flory turned her back on me to talk with her friends. The others did the same. Achoo and I took the hint and went back up to our table in the gallery. The atmosphere at the court had changed. Sullen voices drifted on the air. Folk watched Pearl from the corners of their eyes. She was having supper placed before her on a little table. From abve above I watched convresa conversations turn to arguemits arguments. Pearl's rushers broke up a dice game when the players started to punch each other. And I could heer bits of talk abut about stores, coles, and pryces.

I think I mst halt for a time. I've dun done a fearful abont amount of writing. Even in syfer I've writ a lot of pages. Ill write more of yesstrday yesterday, night, after a nap.