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I felt a quiver around my belt knife. I gave the wrist I clung to a slight turn so she’d know I was paying attention. Then I looked down. She took her hand from my belt. That was the trouble with talking close together. Still, I had to admire how limber she was, especially at her age.
“I’m a Puppy as wants sommat. I’m willing to be forgiving in return,” I said. Where had all my shyness gone? Was it that she reminded me of Granny Fern, and that gave me comfort?
No, it was that I felt so comfortable doing a true Dog’s work. For I’d never worried about shyness hobbling Orva and getting her knife back or fighting river dodgers.
Now Mother Cantwell’s eyes were on my free hand, the one with the gems. “Forgivin’? You mentioned forgiveness. I’m old, but I have my hearin’ yet.”
I thrust the gems into my belt purse and twisted my belt to put the purse behind my back. “Not that forgiving, Mother. Besides, you’d just sell them to Crookshank for not even a quarter of the value. Trust me, he’s rich enough. He don’t deserve your custom.”
“You’ll keep ‘em for yourself. There’s wickedness! Stealing from the Happy Bag already!” She shook her head in disgust.
I tried my best not to grin. Being schooled in morality by this old mumper was the funniest thing to happen to me all day. “Mother, if you strive not to vex me, you’ll not spend the next six days in the cages or however many years you’ve left working for the King. May we get to business?”
She cocked a knowing dark eye at me and waited, like street sparrows wait for crumbs.
“Nine men and women got a digging job in the Cesspool, Mother,” I told her, keeping my voice down. The street wasn’t busy, but I wanted no passerby to overhear me. I drew her partway into Meadowsweet Alley. “They were told it was a well, but it wasn’t. They were killed maybe a week ago. They’ve families that only know they vanished. Have you heard aught of them?”
Mother Cantwell curled her lip, disgusted with me. “Gixie, your nob is cracked up and down and side to side. Folk – “
I cut her off. “I know folk vanish all the time in the Lower City! But this is different. Nine at once, all together. Even for the Cesspool that’s a clutch. If you’ve heard naught now, that doesn’t mean you won’t hear it later, if you keep your ear flaps clean and turned.”
She smacked her lips like she was thinking.
“Listen, Mother. They dug in a building somewhere. Think on the sparklers I took from you. A mage can put a truth spell on me to know I didn’t take them, and you did. When that happens, you are on your way to royal justice.” I smiled. “And I’d hate that. We could help each other.”
“Seemingly it’s more me helpin’ you,” she said.
“I’ll have the odd present for you now and then.” I’d have to manage extra sweetening somehow down the road, when her gratitude ran cold. “I’m not some Dog as will ask you to cough up for love of me.”
She grinned, showing naked gums. She’d been afraid she’d have to do it all for free. “You’d get spittle if you did, Fishpuppy.”
I do not want folk calling me that forever. “There’s one more thing, Mother,” I said as she tried to shake my hand off her arm. “The Shadow Snake.”
She drew the sign against evil, the light that drives back the shadows. I almost copied it but tightened my grip on her instead.
“You don’t know what you’re askin’ for, Puppy Cooper,” she said, all serious now. “I know naught. I’ll ask no questions as will get me floatin’ bum up in the river. I’ve nothin’ the Shadow Snake wants. Long as I keep from his business, we needn’t even bow in the street. Not that anyone knows who to bow to.” She turned sideways and spat.
The Crone Goddess lit the tiniest witch light of a thought in my brain. “I can see not going to the kennel with this,” I began slowly, choosing my words. “But what about the Rogue? Surely this Snake is poaching on the Rogue’s ground, on the folk the Rogue is supposed to look after.”
The old mot actually smirked at me. “In long-ago tales, mayhap. You truly think Rogue Kayfer and his chiefs care for little bits of things like spell books and jewelry? He’s booted so many poor folk from the Court they don’t even go to him no more. His chiefs are the same. The last cove whose babe was took that went to Dawull got tossed in the river for a swim. Folk were laughin’ and kickin’ ‘im back in when he tried to climb out. Long as the Snake don’t go slitherin’ around no big score, the Rogue and his chiefs will leave us low folk to manage as best we may.”
There is knowing and then there is knowing. “Folk went to Kayfer?”
“More’n one, girl. Now d’you see? There’s no tellin’ who’s the Snake, and none to care if I’m doused for nosin’ about the Snake’s business!” The mot yanked on my grip, and yanked hard.
“But you can listen, can’t you? You older folk are everywhere and hear everything. Listen and ask about the nine that went all at once. Mayhap someone’s looking to hire more diggers. I’ll need to know of that, too, soonest. I’ll see to it you’re paid.”
“Not much, I’ll wager,” Mother Cantwell said.
I smiled. “I can give those gems to our mage. He’ll find you and the owner.”
“Of course, I’ll be happy to listen as I may,” she told me, and sighed.
“I’d appreciate your courtesy, Mother,” I replied. “I’m hopeful you won’t make yourself hard to find.” I was certain any Dog at Jane Street could tell me where to meet her.
“Of course I won’t, for so sharp a wench as you,” she said, her voice sour. With that I let her go.
She went her way and I went mine, turning my belt to set my purse where I could see it. The Crone had put Mother Cantwell in my path, I was sure. I went straight to the Crone’s shrine on Healall Close. There I left Mother Cantwell’s sharp blade as a thank-you offering. The gems would go into the kennel’s Happy Bag when no one was looking. It happened that way all the time when no one wanted to hobble a personal Birdie.
Then I went in search of Mistress Noll’s Daymarket stall.
I didn’t expect to see her there. Not when she worked at the Nightmarket all last week. Her children minded the Daymarket place. The stall was new, and easy enough to find, since it was on Bakers’ Row. I was impressed when I saw it. This was a true building, no three-sided shed with room only for warming ovens and braziers. There were shelves with pasties, buns, and pies on display, with muslin over them to keep off the
flies.
Mistress Noll’s youngest daughter, Gemma, was working the big paddles, pulling finished round loaves from the ovens and putting fresh ones in to bake. Her brother Yates leaned against the counter, talking to a blond cove and a brunette one who’d just placed sacks of flour on the floor. My hackles stiffened. I didn’t like Yates. He was a bad Rat, in and out of the cages for brawling and theft. The other Noll sons were well enough, but Yates was trouble.
I made choices for breakfast, small fruit loaves that could be split, depending on how many of us gathered at Nipcopper Close. I made sure to get spice buns, favored by Kora and Rosto, and the ones with plenty of raisins for Verene and me. Then I waited for those who were ahead of me to put down their coin. They were servants in good houses from their talk, who treated Yates like he was hardly there. He smiled like a sick fish at them and spat on the floor when they turned away.
One of Yates’s friends who had been with him and his mother at the Court of the Rogue made some whispered joke that set the three coves laughing. Mistress Noll hired hard men to make her deliveries.
“Gemma, ‘member me?” I asked, quiet enough that she would be the only one to hear. “Beka Cooper.”
She smiled. “Everyone knows ‘bout you. Livin’ up in Provost’s House and all. Lookit you, dressed all nice, like you wasn’t from Mutt Piddle Lane.”
I looked down at my wrinkled and stained dress. “Mayhap you could say that,” I said, watching her from the corners of my eyes. She had a bruise on her forehead, a healing cut on her lip. There were bruises on her arms, left bare when she’d pushed up her sleeves to work. Was her man knocking her about? Did she have a man? She was forty or so, old enough to be a grandmother at least, with plenty of gray in her brown hair.
“If you’re buyin’, you’re buyin’.” Yates smashed a fist down on the counter. “You don’t need to be botherin’ my sister, wench.”
Gemma’s eyes went from him to me and back like we both of us was monsters. “Yates, don’t! You remember Ma tellin’ us ‘bout Beka Cooper – this’s her!”
