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If I had my ear to the walls like you think, I’d’ve known about the Snake when he took Rolond, or a year ago, or two. I thought it, but did not say it. I was too ashamed.
I stopped dead in the street to glare at him. “Your Dogs mayhap said sommat when you heard about Crookshank.”
He made himself stop laughing. “They did not. Come on. Tell me what you’ve heard, and I’ll see what I turn up.”
And so I told him. Now two of us will be seeking this snake.
After my watch.
It was a beautiful spring evening. I felt a bit of a twinge when Tunstall greeted me at muster with “We’re back to the Cesspool tonight, Cooper.” Not even spring improves the Cesspool much, though the weather was perfect. Not too cold, not too hot.
An hour in, we raided an illegal slave auction. One of Goodwin’s Birdies brought the word to her and carried away her coppers for thanks. It was being held in a ramshackle barn. As big as the place was, my Dogs had no choice but to post me at the side door, since they had to go in at the front and the back.
Lucky for me I had my baton out and was ready for trouble. A Rat came dashing through my door. He was a giant fellow a head taller than me. When I called, “In the King’s name!” and grappled with him, he turned and caught me one on the cheekbone with his elbow. For all that, I hung on and got my baton placed so he went quiet and gave me his full attention. I got the hobbles on his wrists, then made him kneel so I could get his ankles.
Goodwin came out the door to see what had become of me. Seeing us, she gave me a nod and a quarter smile. It turned out my Rat was the ringleader, a crooked cove who’d tried to sell a dozen slaves without paying the King’s tax. Even with the knot on my cheekbone, I felt as good at dropping him as I had Orva Ashmiller.
Around nine we took supper in an eating house by North Gate. For the rest of our watch we worked that part of the Cesspool. It was quiet.
“Such nights happen,” Tunstall said as we trudged down Rovers Street on our way back to the kennel. “I like to give Mithros a bit of an offering before I go home, to show him I’m proper grateful – “
We were passing the Barrel’s Bottom. It was one of the worst riverfront taverns. It proved its reputation now as the double front doors blew open and a knot of brawlers fell into the street.
“You had to tempt the Crone,” Goodwin muttered. We drew our batons. “Cooper, just keep anyone we pull out from piling back in.”
They were splendid to watch, my Dogs. To dishearten the brawlers they yanked from the knot, they hit them neatly with the fist end of their batons. The blows caused so much pain even these drunken swine felt it.
The problem began when the river dodgers fighting inside learned someone was pounding their friends outside. Bees hummed in my belly as they came stumbling out of the tavern. I knew my Dogs were tough, but this looked like a lot of scuts and not enough batons. My mouth went wool dry.
When one mot whose arm muscles were double mine seized Goodwin, I don’t even remember deciding to disobey my orders. I smashed her aside like Sergeant Ahuda taught us to do. That brought me to the river dodgers’ attention. I got caught up in a tide of bodies. Somehow we were pulled inside with the fight. I laid about me as my Dogs did, feeling my baton hit. I remember trying to get my whistle to my mouth to call for other Dogs. Someone cut the cord from my belt and sliced my arm in the doing. I was scared. Sooner or later I was going to fall and be trampled. Try as I did, I couldn’t get close to Goodwin or Tunstall.
I don’t think Tunstall remembered he even had a whistle. He pounded heads with his baton, roaring. Goodwin blew her whistle even as she laid out coves and mots alike. Sometime in that fight, I decided I wanted to be Clara Goodwin if I lived. I don’t know if that was afore or after someone laid a very hard fist in my left eye.
I kicked up as I was taught. My reward was a yell of pain. Then I heard a cat’s battle scream. Pounce landed on the head of a cove who’d drawn a blade on Tunstall. My cat blinded the knife wielder with scratches that bled into his eyes. Then Pounce was on to his next Rat before that one could grab him.
Curse all Dogs who can’t hear a whistle! he yowled.
Someone pushed me against a table. I smashed him across the head hard, then shoved him behind me. I heard him smack into furniture. Somewhere in the corner at my back I heard a woman’s voice, a low and pleasant one.
“All I want is to get peacefully drunk after eating hill dirt in my ale for months. Goddess, was it too much to ask?”
I didn’t think the Goddess was anywhere present. I glanced back, in case the woman who was getting up from her table might need a baton smash on her head. She was near as tall as Tunstall, brown-haired, brown-eyed, long-nosed, broad-shouldered, slim enough for her height. She wore a brown leather jerkin and breeches and a shirt that mayhap once was white. The leather scabbards of her dagger and sword were just as beat up as her clothes and boots.
The tall mot battered her way to the bar. She dragged the barkeep up by the shirt, seized the well-polished club he clutched, and shoved him back into his hiding spot.
Hands grabbed me. I was busy again. I did my best, but I was getting tired. I finally remembered Ahuda’s teaching and fought my way to a wall. I put it at my back so no one else might grab me from behind. Taking care, I got into a corner, with a wall on the side of my black eye. I didn’t like having my arm restricted, but it beat fighting on my blind side.
Goodwin was backing up to me, using a lull in the fight. The woman in brown wielded the club like a blade. Behind her lay a trail of collapsed river dodgers. Some even decided they’d had enough fun. They were sneaking out the side doors. More crawled through the doors in front.
By the time the lady and Tunstall met at the center of the room, Goodwin had reached me. She leaned against the wall, panting. “You’re a mess,” she said. “You’re bleeding where?”
I showed her my arm. She cut a strip from the shirt of a cove I’d downed and bound my cut with that. “Carry spare handkerchiefs and strips of linen. Bind cuts right off,” Goodwin told me as she knotted the bandage. “Elsewise you’ll as soon die of blood loss as someone’s shiv in your ribs.” She grabbed a pitcher from a table that had survived the jostling and took a huge gulp of the contents. Then she made me take a few swallows. It was ale. For a moment we watched as Tunstall traded blows with a nimble, fat cove.
“Cooper, nice baton work. Very nice.” Goodwin took a deep breath, then looked away. Finally she leaned in and spoke quietly. “Me’n Tunstall got lucky here, Cooper. You’re good in a fight, thank the Goddess. We didn’t look out for you as we should have done. Most Puppies would be dead right now, understand? Because this isn’t the kind of fight Puppies survive without their Dogs watching out for them. We’ll look out for you better in future.”
“I was doing the job,” I said.
“Shut up. We weren’t doing ours, me and Tunstall. We were doing the job we used to have, just breaking heads. We can’t do that anymore. Now we have you to look after.” Goodwin nodded. “We’re learning this teaching Dog business same as you’re learning a Dog’s work, but that’s no excuse. Older Dogs look after younger ones, that’s the rule. Now, who do you suppose our lady knight is?”
“That’s a knight? How can you tell?”
I was glad to see Goodwin’s hooked half smile. “I saw her and four other knights riding down Messinger on my way to the kennel this afternoon. I didn’t see more than the shape of the shield, but she had the armor and trappings. And knights have a way about them, chin so high in the air they’re just begging for you to give them the nap tap.”
I grinned. All of us love that hammer blow of baton against jaw, even if it doesn’t always knock a Rat out. Goodwin has the city’s record for the highest number of perfectly delivered nap taps that end with a Rat carried away, stone unconscious.
The scrape of wood got our attention. A mot with one eye picked up a wooden bench, meaning to throw it at the lady knight. Goodwin started forward to help
, but the lady turned and caught sight of her danger, and Tunstall’s. She didn’t even waste the breath to shout. She slung her free arm around Tunstall’s neck, hooked one of his legs from under him, and dragged him down and to the side. They fell as the mot hurled the heavy bench. It went over their heads and smashed into the three river dodgers who’d been moving in on Tunstall. As he and the lady struggled to their feet, Goodwin returned to lean against the wall.
“They’re all right,” she said. “They don’t need me.”
Pounce wandered over to us. Sitting on the floor, he began to wash his paws. I bent over to pet him, only to see the floor yaw away from me. “Pox,” Goodwin whispered as she grabbed me.
I straightened with her help and let her get me to a bench. “Sorry,” I muttered, feeling miserable.
Pounce jumped on my lap and began to talk to me. Cheer up, you’re doing fine. Learning hurts.
“It’s the blood loss.” Goodwin half sat on the table next to me and crossed her arms over her chest. “It makes a girl feel giddy, and no mistake. The healer will set you right, Cooper.”
