Home
Nine of the clock at night.
The trip downriver with my lord was quicker than ours was to Port Caynn. My lord had a royal courier's ship, manned by rowing sailors of the navy. All of us Corus Dogs traveled with him. My lord felt that Port Caynn law should now be left to the thinned ranks of the Port Caynn Dogs and the army. They would also have the army for two years more, while the trainee Dogs of Corus and Blue Harbor alike would go there to help fill their ranks again. All that was needed yet was a new Deputy Provost. Sir Tullus and my lord argued about it through most of the trip. Sir Tullus did not want the post, while my lord insisted no one else would manage the work so well.
"Couldn't you show Sir Tullus your eyes and convince him the gods want him to do it?" I asked Pounce as we lazed in the sun. Achoo was curled up beside me, keeping my mended hip warm.
I will not, Pounce said. I have interfered in enough other lives of late, Beka.
"Those stars you were seeing to," I said.
Those very stars.
"But now you'll stay home?" I asked, trying not to sound as if I begged. "We'll go back to normal, all of us in our places?"
"Not exactly," Goodwin said, crouching down beside me. She spoke quietly. "I want you to know first of all, you and Tunstall. When I was home last, Ahuda said they want her for Evening Watch in Flash District. She won't do it unless she has a replacement. I'm going to take it."
I sat up, about to yelp, but she put her hand over my mouth.
"Cooper, listen to me. I'm getting tired. I've done street duty and hunts a long time. Wading through sewers after first-rank Rats doesn't get me excited like it did. I need to slow down. Desk Sergeant is perfect for me." Goodwin clapped me on the shoulder. "And you'll be a perfect partner for Tunstall. He'll look out for you, and you'll keep him out of trouble."
She left me with that – just went off and left me with the worst and best news of my life. The great Clary Goodwin was going to be a desk sergeant, and I was going to have a real partner. How am I supposed to feel about that? How am I supposed to feel about anything, anymore?
At the dock, my lord had carts waiting for Goodwin and me. They took us home. Ersken carried my things up to my room. I argued that I felt fine, but Ersken just ignored me. Pounce and Achoo immediately settled on the bed. I stretched out with them, only because my head ached a little, and woke to twilight and a knock on the door. Ersken was there, dressed in cityfolk clothes.
"I'm ordered to take you to the Dove for supper," he told me. "The easy way or the hard way, but you're to come with me." He grinned. "I love to say things like that. Don't I sound like a hard Dog?"
"You look as scary as a buttered muffin," I grumbled.
"Don't be that way. Have supper. You'll still be surly, but you'll be a more cheerful sort of surly," Ersken told me. "I'll take Achoo out, and you can change clothes."
I did as I was told. I was in my own room, with my own bed, where Pounce was curled. I sprinkled cracked corn on my window ledge, a funerary offering, mayhap, for Slapper. I put on a blue wool tunic and gray breeches, and my opal bracelet and necklace. It made me a little sad to look at them and think of Dale, but they were too beautiful to leave in my jewel box. By the time Ersken and Achoo returned, I'd even straightened my braid and had a sip of the medicine the healers had given me to drink twice a day for two weeks. It was to fight the lingering poisons in my body, they said. Goodwin had some just like it. I wonder if Pearl does?
Achoo and Pounce walked beside us as we crossed the street to the Dancing Dove. It was brightly lit within and without. The taproom was busy with folk who'd come with business for the Rogue or folk who simply wanted to please him. For a moment I halted on the threshold, seeing Pearl's courts.
"Beka?" Ersken asked, one hand under my elbow.
I shook my head. "Nothing. It's nothing." Pearl was going to be tried. I had won. I walked into the common room behind Ersken. As he led the way to the stair, I heard the crowd quiet a little. Pounce leaped onto my shoulder.
A cove spoke out. "That's the one I was tellin' yez about. The Bloodhound."
I turned and looked for the one that said it. He was a sailor, mayhap one of the oarsmen from my lord's ship. "Don't talk," I said, shaken. "Not until you know what you say." Achoo barked, as if she agreed.
Ersken and I trotted upstairs. The door to the dining room we had always used for breakfast was closed. I thought it was to keep out the noise from downstairs, and opened it wide.
"Welcome home!" them inside called. It was our breakfast company – Rosto, Aniki, Kora, Phelan, Tansy – but it was also Lady Sabine and Tunstall, Tunstall being on a reclining chair. It was my brothers and the sister who still spoke to me, Aunt Mya and her husband from Provost's House, and my Granny Fern. Goodwin and Tomlan were there, as were Jewel, Yoav, Birch, Elmwood, and the rest of the Dogs who had been in Port Caynn.
I might have dove under the table, overwhelmed by the notice, until I saw that many were here for Goodwin as much as me. That made it easier to take. Achoo was glad for the attention, which came in the form of food.
I was halfway through my soup when Lady Sabine tapped my shoulder. "He's tired," she whispered. "He shouldn't have come, but try to keep him away. I think it did him good."
So Achoo, Pounce, and I went over to Tunstall. He had red patches high on his cheekbones. Pounce leaped onto his lap. "So, when are you on your feet again?" I asked. He looked wrung out.
"My lord sends a Crown mage to me tomorrow," he replied, stroking Pounce. "After that, they say another week. It seems Crown mages can heal a little better than the ones available to common Dogs."
Well, we all knew that.
Tunstall beckoned me to lean closer. "Goodwin gave you her news?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Are you fine with it? Maybe you want a partner who's not an old man who goes flat for stupid broken legs?" Tunstall asked. Achoo stood between him and me, wagging her tail so hard she beat us with it.
Stop that, Pounce ordered him. It's undignified. Lady Sabine hid a smile.
I agreed with Pounce. I glared at Tunstall. "Did you break your nob, too?" I asked.
"I've felt curst useless, knowing you two might be in trouble there," he explained.
"There's plenty more trouble to get into," I said, hiding my trembling hands in my pockets. Did he mean it? Did he really mean it? "I'm going to get into it without Goodwin. Don't make me get into it without you, too."
Tunstall sighed. "Oh, very well. But only because you disgraced yourself begging and pleading this way."
I looked him over. "You're lucky you're a feeble old man laid up in bed, or I'd kick your bum up between your ears."
You're both so adorable I feel a hair ball coming up, Pounce told us.
"Vexing cat. You're lucky I'm laid up yet, Cooper, after you went for a queen Rat without your partner," Tunstall replied. "Oh, yes, Mistress Know-It-All, I've heard about your latest fit of idiocy. I'll have none of that when I'm your partner. Agreed?"
"Agreed," I said. Achoo barked. She, too, agreed.
Tunstall tapped his fist on top of mine, then I tapped mine on top of his. We'd made a Dog's bargain of it.