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“And Beka will never change her mind?” Rosto asked, trying to hold my eyes with his dark ones. “Never, ever?”
I looked back, even though his way of looking at me makes my skin prickle all over. I’ve had a sweetheart or two, but none of them gave me the tingles like Rosto. He’s bad for you, I keep telling myself. Bad, bad, bad.
From somewhere I sucked the words out of my gut to tell him, “The only ones who fitly punished a cove who treated all my family like garbage was the Dogs, Rosto the Piper. Did you know folk have gone to the Rogue for justice when their children were kidnapped, and he’s done nothing?”
“Nor did the Dogs,” Phelan said. “I’d’ve heard if we sought kidnappers in the Lower City.”
I looked at Phelan. We’re going to,” I promised him. “That’s what makes us different. We’re outnumbered, and not all of us care. But eventually some of us will do what’s right.”
Aniki smirked. “That’s sweet, Beka.”
Rosto nodded. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Verene yawned. “Too serious. Let’s feed the nasty birds afore they come in and swipe our food.” She pointed to the windowsill. Pigeons were lined up there, waiting.
I looked at Ersken and Kora. There was no reading Kora’s eyes as she studied me, and Ersken was tearing up a roll to feed the pigeons. I shrugged and stood. The others would learn or not. I already know the Dogs will take care of the Shadow Snake, sooner or later. It was the same way with the Bold Brass gang eight years ago. The Dogs just need a bit of help sometimes.
Pounce trotted over to my side. They’ll see, he told me. They don’t know how mule-headed you are.
It’s not just me, I replied silently, sprinkling corn. There are Dogs who only need an extra bit of help to get started. A little more information in their hands, and they’ll be after the Shadow Snake like lice on hens. And the one who killed those diggers. If I can get that information, so much the better.
I faced them. “I’ve heard sommat – mentioned it to Ersken, but you all need to know. It’s important.” I said it fast. They were friends, but they might decide I was cracked when I finished talking about this. “Rolond Lofts, Crookshank’s great-grandson, that was kidnapped and killed? He was taken by someone calling himself the Shadow Snake.”
Phelan snorted.
I glared at him. “I’ve seen proof, all right? And there’s more. Folk in the Lower City have lost children to the Snake for years – and sometimes got them back. Near three dozen families, mayhap more. The Snake takes the little one and leaves orders to pay up sommat of value or the child dies. They get a week. Them as pays gets their little one back. Them as don’t…Either they see the body, or they never see the little one again. Ever. Up till now it was the poor folk, them who couldn’t bribe the Dogs or the Rogue. But Crookshank – the Snake found out Crookshank has something that would make the Snake really, really rich.” The fire opals, I thought. It can only be the fire opals. If the Snake gets fistfuls of fire opals now, before they’re common on the market, he’ll never have to kidnap poor children again. But Crookshank refused to pay, and Rolond’s dead. The Snake is still about. What if he goes for Tansy?
“Will you ask about? Find out who fell victim to this piece of pig scummer? Mayhap someone knows sommat, or saw someone. Even if we only know who lost a child, or what the Snake wanted – any knowledge is better than none. I can pass it on to my Dogs.” I swallowed and said something I’d hoped I’d never have to say. “Or to my Lord Provost. Either way, if we hobble the Shadow Snake, whether we’re Dogs or crooked, folk will think well of us for it.”
There was a very bad moment when I thought they might laugh. When they’d call me troublemaker. When they’d say who did I think I was, me being just a Puppy.
Kora looked fierce as she turned to Rosto. “I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Rosto leaned over and stroked her cheek. “You know we’d help just for your sake, love.”
Aniki nodded. “We have our reasons. Beyond ambition, that is. We’ll keep our ears open.”
Phelan rubbed his temples. “Pox, Beka, I just thought it was wild stories. You have proof?”
I nodded. “My Dogs have proof.”
Phelan looked down, grim-faced. “I’ll remember where I heard those tales. I’m sorry. I thought…Never mind.”
Ersken nodded to me. “You already told me about the Snake. Of course I’ll listen and ask.”
Verene’s eyes blazed. “When we catch this Snake, I’ll make me a belt of his hide. Child killers – it’s sad the Black God shows mercy. They deserve none.”
My chest felt warm, warm like those times that Pounce comforted me.
I like having friends.
After my watch.
When we mustered for watch this evening, I presented my new gear to my Dogs for inspection. “Very nice,” Tunstall said as he eyed the arm guards I had found in the Provost’s House gear room. They fit from my wrist to my shoulder and had tongues that sat over my palm. Some of the metal ribs that fit in sleeves in the padded leather were thin knives. They might come in handy. Better still, a slash like I’d taken in the fight with the river drovers would glance off those guards, cutting only the leather, not my flesh. I’d found a leather sap, too. The pack was my third piece from Provost’s House.
“There’s another piece of gear you need, particularly for the Cesspool,” Tunstall said as Goodwin checked my sap. He reached in his pack and fished out a metal gorget like him and Goodwin wore. “There’s a cloth pad on the inside, see, to keep it from chafing. You’ll need to wash that now and then. Try it on.”
Goodwin and the Dogs watched as I tied the curved metal piece around my neck. It was meant to stop a throat cut. I looked from Tunstall to Goodwin. “I can’t – “
“I said I’d get one,” Tunstall said. “You need it.”
I opened my mouth to argue again.
“Shut it,” Goodwin ordered. I did. “You’re our Puppy. That means your neck is our responsibility. Besides, it’s used. Don’t go getting sentimental.”
“Are you going to admire the jewelry, or are you ready to catch some Rats?” Ahuda yelled. We lined up for muster, even Pounce. He had decided he was part of the Evening Watch.
We were on our way to the Nightmarket when Goodwin said, “Rosto the Piper killed a cove last night in Prettybone. It was a stupid thing. Looby said Rosto had no right, taking work from Ulsa when there were blades right here in Corus who could do it. Rosto tried to get out of it, my Birdie told me. He asked Ulsa to rule on it, but Ulsa said it had nothing to do with her.”
“Woman’s responsible for more bloodletting than all Scanra,” grumbled Tunstall. “She could have put a stop to it.”
“So Ulsa dodged it. Then the cracknob drew his blade. My Birdie says he never even saw Rosto draw his.” Goodwin looked up at Tunstall as our partner began to sniff the air. “Why do you even bother to pretend you don’t want to go straight for the raisin pat
ties? Let’s just visit her booth.”
I thought of Rosto, flirting over breakfast after killing a man. Even for a rusher, he was a cold one. I am used to thinking of my Cesspool years as hard. Now I begin to wonder what his were like, that even a fresh murder would leave no clear mark on him.
On the way to Mistress Noll’s, I asked Goodwin, “But he was storying, wasn’t he? Your Birdie? Or someone blocked his view. Saying he never saw Rosto draw his blade is just storying. No one’s so fast for real.”
Goodwin glanced back at me. “You live in the same house as Rosto, Cooper. You let us know.”
“Or we’ll find out ourselves,” Tunstall said. “He’s not going to stay in the shadows long, not that one.”
Mistress Noll was at her stall, kneading bread. She has strong arms. I could see the muscles stand out as she mauled it. “There’s my three favorite Dogs,” she said as Tunstall laid down his handkerchief. “And a lively week you had of it, by what I hear. That Ashmiller mot, the one as struck you, Mistress Clary. What a dreadful thing, to attack your own man and children!”
“Yet it happens all the time, Mistress Deirdry,” Goodwin said. She leaned on one elbow at the counter, turned so she might watch the passersby. “You know it far better than I. There are all manner of sad tales hereabouts.”
Tunstall laid down some coppers. “I’m paying this time, Mistress Deirdry. I won’t hear ‘no’ if it comes from your mouth.”
Mistress Noll smiled at him. “Then I mustn’t say it, must I?” She was just frying the patties, as if she knew we were on our way. “I owe young Beka an apology, or rather, my son Yates does.”
Tunstall raised his brows at me. “Cooper?”
I glanced at him, then returned to my own watch of Spicers’ Row. “I saw him and Mistress Gemma when I stopped by Mistress Noll’s Daymarket shop yesterday, Guardsman,” I replied, being formal before the outsider. “We had a talk.” It was a Dog’s way of saying I’d had to get stern, but not rough. “My lady Sabine can vouch for me.”
