Okha's dressing room
Four of the clock in the morning.
Nestor woke me around one of the morning by setting a plate full of supper beside me. He sat on his heels, watching, as I struggled to sit up among the pillows. Achoo placed her nose beside my plate.
"You're shameless," Nestor told her. "And I left a plate of chopped meat for you in the other room. Let me get it." He fetched it and put it before her, grinning as Achoo gobbled her food. He waited beside me as I polished off a nice fish stew. "Now. What have you to tell me that has my dearest Okha so unhappy?"
I met Nestor's eyes. "Okha senses I can give you a way to hurt Pearl, but Nestor, it's really dangerous."
Nestor inspected me, his pleasant blue-gray eyes gone hard. They were Dog eyes now, and pleased I was to see them. "Guards House has a writ out on you."
"Because I told Sir Lionel he'd let things run wild here and he knew curst well who the colemonger is." I must have been weary or addled, because I kept on talking. "His gems are the size of millet seed. Folk in this city are dead for that. They'll have a long winter and more will die hungry, because he could have put his hand on Pearl Skinner long ago, and he never did."
Nestor sighed. "Pox," he muttered. "We were fools, thinking all would be well if we just swept up after him. But it isn't. And now our mess has leaked over Tortall."
"All over the Olorun Valley, anyway," I replied.
We sat in silence for a bit. Finally Nestor said, "I'll do what must be done, Beka. So will the folk I trust. That's a Dog's bargain." He made a fist. I offered my own. He tapped my fist with his, and I returned the tap to seal the bargain.
"I'm asking that you keep most of what we do secret until you talk to Lord Gershom. Sir Lionel and most of Port Caynn's Dogs never get a whiff of what you're doing. Not the slightest tickle in the nose," I told him.
"Very well," Nestor said.
"I can take you to the colemongery," I said. "You and them what you can trust will have to take all you can gather, if we can get in at all. I don't know how long it'll be until the cole-mongers learn someone's found the place. I made it hard for anyone to enter the room, but that alone will tip them off."
"They'll know the fair has left town if we loot it," Nestor told me.
"Not if we make it look like it wasn't Dogs as carried off the spoil," I replied. I flapped the skirts of my habit at him. "Inside one of these, they'd be hard put to name the dams that birthed them. Or use burnooses like the Bazhir wear, if you fear to offend a god." I plucked at my habit. "I work for this one sometimes."
Nestor paled and made the Sign. "We'll use burnooses," he said. "And we can go tonight. I'll have it all in a couple of hours, crew and wagon alike. A safe hiding place for the goods, too." He got to his feet. "I'll let you know when we're ready."
"Nestor?" I asked before he could go. He waited. "Is there any way you could get word about a Master Isanz Finer and his family? They're silversmiths. They were taken up and charged with colemongering by Tradesmen's kennel."
Something changed in Nestor's face. "Friends of yours?"
"Goodwin's more, Master Finer, particularly, but yes, I know them, him." I was starting to fumble my words, not liking the look in his eyes. "You do know sommat."
"Tradesmen's sent them on to the Rattery, Beka, all but Isanz," Nestor said gently. "His heart failed him on the way to the kennel. The Black God has him now."
I said something to thank him, something to make him feel I would be all right while he was out. He left to make his arrangements. I sat with Achoo, my appetite gone. I couldn't sleep, either. I'd failed Master Finer. If I'd been more polite to Sir Lionel, or if I'd just gone to Tradesmen's with some gold, mayhap I could have saved him.
I might have worried like that all night, but my memory is sharp like a Dog's. Nestor had said, "On the way to the kennel." Isanz was dead afore I even knew he was taken. It was folly for me to belabor myself.
Still, I wish I'd had a proper chance to save him. I liked him.
I tried to keep busy, so as not to grieve to no purpose. In between Okha's visits, his rest times between performances, I exercised, completed this journal so far, and sharpened each blade I carry. I even combed Achoo's fur and went over all of her commands to refresh them. And I prayed to the Black God for Master Finer.
The night for this place ends at two of the clock. Okha was just making sure I had food and drink and a chamber pot when Nestor, in a properly arranged and tied burnoose, came for me. He fairly crackled with eagerness and kissed Okha as a lover kisses his sweetheart after a long separation. Okha murmured a brief prayer, but he said no word against Nestor's undertaking.
I left Achoo in the hidden room, though Achoo liked it not at all. I had to give her the diamlah order twice before she would stop barking. Then I followed Nestor into the night, my veil and hood over my face, my gloves on my hands. All this secrecy would do no good if Pearl's mages tracked us by the essence we left on what we touched.
"No names," warned Nestor as we met up with three other folk in burnooses. One of them carried a torch for light. There was little of it in the streets. Nestor spoke quietly to us all. "Remember what happened to those who have tried to trap this Rat before. Eyes everywhere." We nodded. I settled comfortably in my skin. This wasn't the kind and careful Nestor of his house, or even the sharp-edged Nestor who had gone to supper with Okha, Goodwin, and me. This was Sergeant Haryse. He'd command us well. He'd stay calm, even if the Rat we were Dogging was a Rat he'd been after for a long, long time.
The streets were near empty. Nestor saw me looking about. "The fishing folk must be up two hours before dawn," he murmured to me. "If you don't handle the nets or the rigging, your work doubtless depends on those who do. Even rascals like your special friend keep fisherman's hours."
"Let's see if he's my special friend after the law books on this are closed," I said.
Nestor snorted. "Him a colemonger? No, not him. He's too fond of his life and his fingers to wager on so foolish a bet."
So I wasn't alone in thinking Dale innocent. That was a comfort. "He's friends with two others I know for a fact are in it," I told Nestor, feeling contrary. I realized I was touching the opal pendant Dale had given me, hidden under my robe, and took my hand off of it.
"Pecking at a lover because of his friends is a fast way to an empty bed," Nestor told me. He strode ahead to meet four more people clothed in burnooses. Every one of the folk he'd summoned wore not only robes and veils, but gloves. By daylight, or even earlier in the evening, we would have been a strange-looking crew. At this hour, no one was out to mark us. One of the newcomers carried a torch, which gave us two to light our steps.
We gathered more Dogs in disguise. There were fifteen of us when we came to a side street beside the Eagle Street court. There another false Bazhir waited beside a cart. A mule stood between its shafts, giving us a sharp looking-over. I was glad I'd left Achoo behind. She hates mules.
Nestor spoke to the carter quietly. Then he turned to the rest of us. He made certain that his hands were visible in the torchlight as he signaled. Two of us went to the cart and threw back a canvas sheet in its bed. There lay pry bars, heavy mauls and chisels, and a number of sturdy baskets. I grabbed one of those.
Nestor took my basket away. "You're guide," he whispered in my ear. "Get to it." He pointed to the shadowy door that was one of the Eagle Street court's side entrances.
I brought to my mind's eye the court's map until I knew where this door was. One of Nestor's friends was already there, dripping some manner of liquid into the lock.
"It's bespelled on it," he told me. "To bar folk from breaking in. It would never stop anyone from coming out, as our leader says you did." He murmured something. The magic smoked dreadfully. When the smoke blew away, the mage Dog motioned for me to employ my picks. "Now it's safe to unlock."
Within a moment I had the lock open. The mage went first, then beckoned me inside. He lit the hall lamps with snaps of his fingers as the others doused their torches and entered.
Happily, we were on the same hall as the clothes room. My friends were gone. It seemed they had escaped with their new clothes. I asked the gods to bless them, then went on to open the secret door to the hidden rooms upstairs.
"We'd never have found that," Nestor murmured in my ear.
Up the stairs we went. I'd thought they'd ask the mage Dog to open the lock I'd jammed with my clay. Instead a big cove came forward with a three-foot-long ram. He swung it by its iron grip, smashing it into the door. Three smashes later, we were inside.
At first all Nestor and his Dogs managed to do was wander about, staring at this complete colesmithy. I heard murmurs like, "The sack o' them!" and, "Right under our noses!" Some of them felt as I did, saying, "Are they mad?"
Nestor was the first to come around. "Get to it!" he ordered. "We haven't got forever!"
Nestor's Dogs got to work indeed. When they finished, the only thing that could yet be used for colemongery was the forge, set into the chimney as it was. Everything movable was piled in the cart outside, hidden under the canvas sheet. We waited until we were a good four blocks away before we halted for a quiet celebration, only slapping one another on the back or shoulder. We all knew that Pearl had never been the victim of so thorough and deep-cutting a raid.
The driver of the cart, Nestor, and two other Dogs took our loot off to a safe hiding place. The rest of us were left to go home with a last wrist or hand clasp. It's wondrous, to know you've aided in making Dog history.
As I let myself into the Waterlily with the key Okha had lent me, I wondered about Pearl's reaction. No doubt she would explode when she found her colesmithy had been stripped. She would be terrified that her goods might have gotten into Sir Lionel's hands, giving him a proper weapon against her. Ives would tell her soon enough that Sir Lionel had no knowledge of the burglary, but that surely would make Pearl's fears all the worse.
I needed to calm down before I slept, so I took Achoo out onto the roof. Okha had said that we could do that even during the day, the buildings around us being all warehouses without windows. Once I was calmer and Achoo had finished her business, we went back inside. I made us a bed of drapes and pillows, where she settled. Alas, my thoughts are still awake and lively. Might Pearl suspect that the Lord Provost himself would be informed of her colemongering? She'll be remembering I told Sir Lionel she was the colemonger. She'll be wanting me more than ever. Will she turn on her enemies when she cannot find her coles and her coin stamps? Or on folk she suspects of trying to seize her throne? If she does, she will drive off those she needs to defend her. It would be her gift to us if she did.
At last I am sleepy and my journal is caught up. I hope the rest of today is less mad than its start!