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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.
I ordered more fritters from the serving girl. Achoo gobbled her share and much of mine, but that was all right. I was too nervous to eat. There was still that tale to tell, before as many people as sat below.
Achoo was begging for the last fritter when I heard Pearl's raised voice. "Cooper, you may be Dale Rowan's newest bed-mate, but that doesn't make you my friend."
I wiped my sticky fingers on the inside of my tunic and hoisted my pack on my shoulders. "Kemari," I told Achoo. Together we walked to the dais, me remembering to let my hips swing.
I gave Pearl a bow, though it wrung my tripes to do it, and offered her the pink pearl string, warm from my pocket. I had a tale to tell, and bowing to that rank maggot pie went with it, just as the pearls did.
Jurji reached out to me with his sheathed sword and poked the pearls heaped in my hand. I hung the string over the weapon, hating him for showing me so much disrespect.
He let them slide down the length of the sword until they rolled onto his wrist, where he inspected them. Only when he'd run them through his fingers did he stick the sheathed blade in his sash and hand the string to Pearl. She passed them through her fingers, not as he did, feeling for sharp edges or seams, anything that might show there was a trick in them, but in a savoring way.
"Very nice," she said at last. "A little out of range of a Dog's wage."
I kept my eyes on the floor. Let her think it was respect. "We had funds for this trip," I said. "I borrowed some."
Pearl set the string in her lap instead of handing them off to someone else. "Aright, then, Cooper. You've earned some speech wiv me. The gift is well done. What've you got to say, then?"
Now I could meet her eyes like I was innocent and my story was true. I was another kind of Dog now, and these folk were all people who might help me. That was the tale I'd spun. "Forgive me, Majesty, but I'm in a fix. I couldn't think where else to go that I might be safe," I explained. "And I couldn't leave Achoo behind. It's taken this long to get Achoo to trust me after her last handler beat on her. I didn't want her in harm's way."
To my surprise, Pearl's face darkened. "It's the lowest kind of scummer that will beat a creature who can't speak of it," she muttered. "Will she say hello?" She offered her hand, palm up, leaning down in her chair.
I hesitated. It would look strange if I didn't permit Achoo to greet the Rogue. "Achoo, pengantar"
Of course Achoo went to smell Pearl's fingers, wagging her tail. The silly hound loves everyone.
Pearl actually looked at me for permission to pet my hound. I nodded. Inside I was shocked. I never thought Pearl would ask anyone for anything.
It wasn't long until Achoo was on her back, paws in the air, tail thrashing, whilst Pearl gave her a good belly scratch. It was plain to everyone that the Rogue was glad to play with my hound. It was just as plain to me that she understood them.
I hate to know good things of an enemy. It makes my life harder.
"Aye, I can feel a scar here, and another here," she said, her hands gently touching spots on Achoo's belly and ribs. "If her last handler was in this room, I'd mark him as he did her, see how he liked it." She looked to the nearest servant. "How about some chopped meat for my friend, here? Good stuff, mind, not street scrapings."
I smiled. I had to. "Thank you, Majesty," I said.
Pearl sat up. Achoo sat up with her so Pearl could rub her ears as the Rogue spoke to me. "Start talking."
"It's a bit of a tale," I replied, sinking deep into the other self I'd made. "See, Goodwin has these silversmith friends here, the Finers. She was good friends with one of their men ten years back. The old cove who's head of the family likes her yet. We visited them, the first day we were here."
Pearl glanced at me, an odd expression in her eyes. Was she the one who put the Dogs on the Finers?
"I heard today the family got taken up for colesmithing," I went on. "The problem is, Goodwin went off to Corus yesterday morning to visit her man. I figured she'd be grateful to me if I tried to help the Finers. If you knew the grandfather, you'd see he'd never go near colesmithing. He's one of those stern, right-thinking sorts. We report to Nestor Haryse, I s'pose you know that, but the Sarge is no good for sommat like this. He's not high up enough. For charges as serious as coles, I had to talk with someone powerful. I have some luck with powerful men." Someone behind me snickered. I ignored it. "So I dipped into Goodwin's cash box and went up to Guards House."
Around me I could hear Pearl's Rats chuckle. I turned and glared at them. "I didn't think it was a fool idea." I showed them my pout. My mask had worked. I'd wanted them to see a spoiled pet Dog, pretty and free enough with her favors that other Dogs cover for them. We didn't have any in the Lower City – they don't tend to last. But some of these Rats had seen me hanging on Dale often enough. I only needed to fool them, and Pearl.
"Forget my folk and tell me," Pearl said. "I'm the one as decides if you linger here or get your arse kicked into the street."
"Oh, aye," I replied hurried-like, facing her. "So I go to that lard gut Axman. I tell him I need to speak with someone higher up, preferring Sir Lionel, and I slip him a sweetener. He calls for Ives, that collects the entry fees, I suppose. Well, Ives takes me to Sir Lionel, once I've given Ives his sweetener. And I start telling Sir Lionel about Master Finer. Only Sir Lionel interrupts me and says where's Goodwin. I tell him, she's gone back to Corus. Then he asks me if she's got my report with her. I ask him, what report. And he tells me, Don't play me for a fool. I know why you're here. Everyone knows you're Gershom of Haryse's pet."
"See, that's interesting," Torcall Jupp said from his chair near Pearl's. "All I can find out is that your family was part of his household, and he sponsored you to the Dogs."
I gave him the sidelong smile that the trulls give a cove to bring them racing across a street. At least, I hope I got that right. "'Tis a very large house," I said, as sly as Kora working a new spell. "All manner of hidden passages." Forgive me, my lord, I thought. "Then my lady gets wind and she decides I need a trade that'll get my face broke in, only I like being a Dog. So I told Sir Lionel that my lord and my lady sponsor us to a trade once we're grown. Only Sir Lionel says I'm not to treat him like a coney. He says he knows my lord sent me and Goodwin here to spy on him, and make up lies about him so my lord Gershom can replace him or something worse." I let my voice climb, so more Rats might listen and laugh. "I told him no! But old Lionel kept asking what I would tell my lord. He wouldn't drop it and he wouldn't talk about Master Finer. I even put gold nobles before him. He dashed them to the floor! He said it were proof I was my lord's spy, when it were Goodwin's gambling money. I figured even a Deputy Provost wouldn't turn up his nose at gold! When he said he'd not touch Lord Gershom's money, I lost my head and told him he was stupid."
I stopped to catch my breath. I felt as I did on Court Days, when I talked fast to
get my whole story out before I began to stammer. It wasn't easier than testifying, to fork over a huge lie. I still had to spit it out fast. But it was done. The whole Court of the Rogue was laughing their buttons off, Pearl included. I figured that any tale that made Sir Lionel out as a fool would amuse her.
"What next?" Torcall Jupp asked me as folk began to catch their breaths. "You still haven't said why you are here."
I let my shoulders droop. "Because Sir Lionel said I could bed down in the cages for my insolence. His man came for me, but I got a head start on him, running. They know my lodgings. Nestor, that we've been reporting to, will have word to grab me up, I'll wager. I hoped to hide out here till I think of sommat," I said, looking at the floor.
"And what if the Deputy Provost sends his people here to find you?" Torcall wanted to know. "If you bring trouble on us – "
I glared at him. "I've been here two hours, maybe, and no one's come. They'd not seek me here. All the city knows Her Majesty's cross with me for trying to grab one of your foists. I hardly made a fuss up there at Guards House, anyway. Maybe I hit a few Dogs on my way out. Could be I made some horses rear in the courtyard. So a couple of the horses was already hitched to wagons that weren't too sturdy. They've got worse things to handle than one junior Dog, to my way of thinking."
That set them all to laughing again, as I'd meant it to. I stayed as I was, wearing a sullen pout. Achoo leaned against my knees. I knelt beside her and hid my face in her ruff. Let the others think I was embarrassed at the uproar. I was on pins and needles, waiting to hear Pearl's ruling.
