Bloodhound (47 page)

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.