Beka Cooper: The Hunt Records, page 61
I listened to the others talk about news from the palace and news from the port. They discussed ship trade, the harvest and the rye blight, the Bread Riot, and omens. Folk were saying that a sword had appeared in the harbor foam and had broken up, a sword like the one on Tortall’s flag. Okha scoffed at that one, since foam is always breaking up. The bad harvest itself was supposed to be an omen that King Roger’s crown was in trouble.
Once Truda had cleared the plates and left us with our drink and bowls of cardamom and anise seed to chew, the conversation turned to why we are in Port Caynn. Nestor had sworn Okha to secrecy yesterday about the reason for our presence. We had to trust Nestor’s judgment, and Okha had news for us.
“I’ve taken about ten coles in fees for the last three weeks,” he told us gravely. “The other entertainers are whispering about it, too. They’re no fools. In the bordels they’ve stopped taking silver. It’s copper nobles or gold pieces. The customers don’t like it, but they pay. And I am certain the customers have begun to wonder.” When Goodwin looked at him, Okha shrugged in an elegant way. “It’s impossible to keep false coin a secret for long. It raises a stink, like bad eggs.”
“But you say you don’t know who’s passing the coin to you,” growled Nestor.
“I would have no clients left if I tattled,” Okha replied. His face was calm. He didn’t seem to mind that Nestor was vexed. “You have known that from the beginning, my dear. I can be useful in some ways, but a Birdie I am not.”
“Perfectly sensible,” Goodwin said. “Folk already know you live in Nestor’s house. Chances are you’re the first person they’d eyeball if he came sniffing around.”
“Exactly,” Okha said with a pleased smile.
“I know,” Nestor said. “I do know. It just makes things curst complicated.”
“Well, maybe Cooper and I will uncomplicate them for you,” Goodwin said. “That’s why we’re here.”
The evening ended soon thereafter. Both coves walked us back to our lodging—not to protect us, they insisted, but because it was too nice an autumn night to waste.
Goodwin and I set a time to meet in the morning and went to our rooms. First I took Achoo out by the brisk stream that flows through the rear yard of the lodging house. When we came back upstairs, I fed her and set about writing the rest of this long day’s events in my journal. The worst of it is done now. I can sit here with the shutters open, Achoo curled beside me. From this seat I have a fine view of the city lights. The sound of the creek is peaceful.
I am not sleepy, though. I want to be out there, finding the gambling dens. I want to get a whiff of the smithy that turns the coles out, and the network that carries them inland. I wonder if this is how Achoo feels, all quivery and wishing to be taken off the leash.
One of the afternoon.
Though our bodies knew Evening Watch hours best, Goodwin and I were up around dawn, not being used to such an early bedtime. First things came first. I took Achoo outside, then brought her back in and fed her and Slapper. While I cleaned up and dressed in uniform for the day, Slapper flew out to inspect our new territory.
Goodwin rapped on my door. “Cooper. Breakfast.”
There was a room just for dining on the ground floor. Three mots were seated there in Dog uniform also, eating with their heads down. They nodded or grunted when Goodwin and I came in, but seemingly none were in a mood for talk. We took our seats and let a maid serve us pease porridge and fresh-baked rolls. The tea was a strong mix of herbs, a true eye-opener loaded with mints and some ginger. By the time we were ready to leave, I was eager to face the strange city.
Goodwin and I set off down Coates Lane, Achoo beside me. The city was stirring. Folk were opening their shops. Coates Lane was too narrow for all but the smallest carts, so we had only horses and mules to avoid, in addition to folk with loads on their shoulders.
Overhead on our left shutters swung open and a mot leaned out. “’Ware scummer!” she cried, and emptied a chamber pot into the street. We dodged it and two more before Coates Lane emptied into Dockside Road.
Happily there were no houses on Dockside, and thus no chamber pots. Here the risks came from wagons, carts, horses, mules, and ships’ cranes. The waterfront was wide awake, ships having come in on the tide to offload cargoes. Goodwin soon decided it was a little too busy for us and took an alley away from the bay. She had to tug me, since I was gawping, but I went quick enough when a sailor asked my name and when I came off duty. Up to Kings Way we went. Goodwin knew her way along the cross streets. I followed our path on the map I’d memorized, making certain that my information was true. We were bound for the Goldsmith’s Bank at the southeast corner of Gerjuoy Road and Moneychangers’ Street.
Once we’d reached the bank, Goodwin handed me a fat purse. “The moneychangers’ booths are on the Gerjuoy side,” she told me. “Get those changed for copper and for gold bits.”
I bowed my head. “Um—Goodwin,” I whispered.
I could see one of her fists go to her hip, over the grip of her baton. Her weight shifted so she rested on that hip. She was thinking.
“I shall guess. You’ve never been inside a guild bank before,” she said quietly.
I nodded.
“Well, Cooper, it’s easy enough that I taught Tunstall how to do it, and him barely able to speak Common Eastern,” she informed me.
I swallowed a chuckle.
She went on. “There are tables with flags over them and clerks that sit behind them. The flags show where they change that realm’s money. Whose money do you want to change?”
“Ours,” I replied. “So I go to the tables with our flag over them.”
Goodwin nodded. “And you ask the clerk behind the table—?”
“To change our coin for coppers and gold bits,” I answered. “And I get a receipt.”
“I knew I forgot to tell you something,” Goodwin said. “Exactly. Get a receipt. Trust me, the greatest danger is dying of boredom in the line. I’ll be in the offices on the far side of the building. I’ll take care of the rest of our coin and the letter of credit. You meet me in the waiting room there when you’re done.”
With that she strode off to the far side of the bank. For a moment I wanted to beg her to let me stay with her. I’ll say it here, though nowhere else. I was terrified. These folk jostled me as if I was nobody. I could hear at least five different languages being spoke, when at home it’s Common Eastern, with maybe some Bazhir and some Hurdik unless you’re down by the docks. The clothes were just as mixed, and there were more brown- and yellow-skinned people than I am used to.
I looked at Achoo. She stood beside me, her paws set firm in the road, her nose up, scenting the air. I suddenly noticed that the bowed shoulders and the drooping tail of the hound I’d first met were gone. Achoo was happy. She was healthy, well fed, and ready to do her work in this place that held all kinds of information for her to find.
“You’re right,” I told her softly. “This is what we are made to do. We should take pleasure in it.”
I stood up straight and took a deep breath. I am a Dog on my first hunt, with the best partner and the best hound in Tortall. I will not disappoint them.
I entered my assigned door and found myself in a great hall well lit by tall windows. Banners hung overhead showing the gold scale insignia of the guild. There were stalls at intervals along the far walls, some with the flags of foreign lands so folk would know those coins were changed there. A member of the guild, wearing the guild’s badge, sat at a desk in each stall, ready to do service. A well-armed guard in leather armor, also sporting the guild insignia, stood before the stall, to guard the privacy of those that entered, and to take care of any Rats who thought to help themselves to the coin.
I took my place in a line before one of the stalls that changed Tortallan coin and tried to wait with patience. At last I stepped up to the moneychanger’s desk. I took gold nobles from my purse and stacked them before the mot, twenty coins in all. When she began to remove silver nobles from one of the boxes at her side, I shook my head.
“Half copper nobles, half gold bits, if you please, mistress,” I said, keeping my voice down. “No silver.”
The moneychanger’s hand jerked. She stared at me with shock and a little fright. “No silver?” she asked quietly, and coughed.
“None, mistress,” I replied. Her reaction was interesting. She knew. She knew the silver coins weren’t to be trusted, and she was afraid.
“But—but—that’s a fearful lot of coin for you to be carrying, Guardswoman …?” She let it dangle.
“How I carry is my affair. I’ll take no silver. You know why, don’t you?” Now I was no longer a stranger in a new town, but a Dog on a scent. I took a closer look at that box of silver coin beside her. She closed it, but not before I saw that every coin in it had a greasy shine. They looked as if a mage had touched them with some oil that would show if they were coles. It was more costly than the stroke of a knife, but it didn’t give the test away to most folk.
“The guild knows?” I asked her. “They know there’s a problem with silver?”
The moneychanger didn’t even look up at my question. She just hurried to count out ten gold nobles’ worth of gold bits. Then she pulled leather pouches, each holding one hundred copper nobles, from a large box at her feet. She put them on the table and shoved them all at me. As I stowed all that coin in my pack and tunic, she wrote out a receipt.
“You’ve not answered my question,” I reminded her. Her hands were shaking.
“It’s forbidden to discuss guild policy, Guardswoman,” she said. Her voice and her mouth were tight now. She did not look at me. “You may be assured this has been reported to your superiors, and they are taking care of the matter. This is hardly a concern for street Dogs.” She thrust the receipt at me. “Good day to you.”
She had given me a gold bit more than she should have done. “Is this a mistake?” I asked. “Did you forget the guild’s fee for changing my gold?”
She did not look at me. “I forgot nothing. Surely even a young Dog knows what that coin is for.”
I pocketed the gold bit separate from my other coins. The gold equal of two silver and ten copper nobles was a heavy bribe. I scooped up my receipt and left the hall, thinking hard. If the moneychanger had thought our talk was worth a gold bit, then I’d wager the Goldsmith’s Bank had not reported the coles they had received to the Deputy Provost. Surely Sir Lionel would have told us if they had, instead of bragging about his peaceful city. Moreover, the bankers must have known for at least a few days, to pull together the mages and potions they’d needed to test their silver coin.
I could point to all manner of reasons the bank would not want word to get out that they suspected the silver. A panic was the most obvious. The Silversmith’s Guild would lose, but so too would the gold- and coppersmiths as folk scrambled to get other coin and prices went mad. I don’t know exactly what will happen, but riots and high prices in other years have taught me what I will have to face. I don’t want a panic. But the bank is breaking the law, not to notify the Provost’s office. And if things are unsteady here, Sir Lionel must be told.
I was out in the street, off to meet Goodwin, when movement at the corner of my eye grabbed my attention. A merchantish-looking cove was talking with a friend, two arms’ lengths away from me. A young pickpocket brushed his side.
“Achoo, tinggal” I ordered. I lunged for the gixie. She swerved away from me, deeper into the crowd in the street. I lunged again and seized her by the sleeve.
“Hand it over,” I ordered. “And come along with me.” Then I realized, what would I do—take her to the Tradesmen’s District kennel? I’m not sure if I’m allowed to nab anyone here. At home I’d not even bother to nab her. She was too small a Rat to worry about. Do the Port Caynn Dogs care about mice? I needed to think.
She was crying already. They all cried the minute a Dog had them in hand, the little ones, to make us pity them. “Please, Guardswoman, we was hungered at home,” she told me. She fumbled in the side slit of her tunic where she’d stuffed her prize.
Behind me I could hear the witless coney had finally noticed his coin had been lifted. He started to shout, “Thief! Thief!”
The gixie handed me a fat red purse. I took it in my free hand, not loosening my grip on her. Now would be the time she’d try to kick me or hit me to make me let go. I was surprised she’d not done so before now.
Instead she wiped her eyes. “I give it back,” she said. “Why don’t ya let me go? I’m no golden filch, baggin’ twenny purses a day.”
Achoo barked a warning, but I never saw whoever rammed me from behind, knocking me facedown in the muck of the street. Achoo snarled. There was a thump, and she yelped.
“Achoo!” I cried. I jumped to my feet and went to my hound, who’d been knocked flying, no doubt by the same mammering canker blossom that had bowled me over. I looked around quickly, but the gixie and her rescuer were gone. Then I went over Achoo with my hands to make certain naught was broken, while Achoo whimpered and licked my face. “Don’t go grabbin’ folk like that, you silly creature,” I whispered to her, hugging her for a moment. “You’re a scent hound, not a pit bull nor a man hunter. You might’ve gotten your fool nob cracked.” Achoo wagged her whole self and made a kind of happy groaning noise, as if I wasn’t insulting her.
Sure that Achoo wasn’t hurt, I took stock. All I had for my trouble was a bad scare for my hound, the coney’s red purse, and a lot of laughing cityfolk who enjoyed a Dog’s humiliation.
“See if I save your purses for you,” I grumbled. I wiped my face on my sleeve. “Achoo, tumit.” She fell in step at my heel as if that tarse had never hit her. We went back to the coney, who was still bellowing.
I thrust the purse in his face. “Here,” I told him. “Keep your hand on it from now on.”
“But that’s not my—” he said as he took it and looked inside. He closed his mouth, then opened it. “My—my thanks, Guardswoman.” He bit his lip, then gave me a silver noble. “My thanks to the gods that you were here!”
I took the coin. It was a generous bribe, but now I was suspicious about that purse. “You were saying this isn’t yours,” I told him.
“No, no, I was wrong. The excitement, and … I thought I took the brown purse today, but I just remembered it was the red-stained, to go with my tunic.” He waved a hand at his tunic, which was red.
I looked at the coney-cove again. “You lie,” I told him. “The gods will punish you if you’ve claimed coin to which you have no right.”
“’Tis his purse, you impudent Dog!” said the coney’s friend, who’d been silent until now. “He paid for our morning meal with it!”
I could do nothing when they both swore to it. They turned and walked off in a huff, the picture of two righteous coves whose honor had been insulted.
I drew my dagger and scraped it across the front of the silver noble the coney had given me, before we’d got so unfriendly. The metal curled away. At the bottom of the cut was the gleam of brass.
Achoo and I made for the banker’s door. My mind was busy with what I’d just witnessed. What if that whole purse was full of coles? Had I gotten in the middle of a trickster’s game? The gixie nudged the coney a-purpose while she lifted his purse, for all he didn’t notice right off. She wanted him to cry, “Thief!” She’d let someone catch her so she could hand over a purse bulging with silver coles. The rusher that knocked me down was in the crowd in case she couldn’t escape anyone who caught her. Then either the coney got the false purse in return and said not a word, thinking himself richer, or the one who caught her kept the purse. So would more coles get into the moneystream. The gixie would keep the good money, having exchanged it for false.
What was the purpose of that? Who gained?
Something made me glance back. A small body, sized about the height of a ten- or twelve-year-old, shifted from my sight behind larger folk.
“Did you see that, Achoo?” I asked her softly. “Our spy got careless. I don’t suppose you could fetch him.”
Achoo looked up at me and gave her soft whuff.
“No, I suppose you can’t.” Without her able to answer as Pounce did, I had to make up her replies. For a moment I missed Pounce so fiercely that my heart felt squeezed. “You’d need sommat of his to sniff, same as if you were seeking him. That’s my part of the job, and I haven’t done it.”
I looked forward at the bank, sifting my memory of the morning. Had that been the watcher in drab brown clothes, on the way to the docks, or to Moneychangers’ Street earlier? My memory caught on glimpses, but they could have been glimpses of anyone of that size, dressed so plainly. Wasn’t that the whole point of a tracker?
If we had one on our trail, we’d seen him again soon, or her. I was reaching for the door to the bank’s offices when Goodwin opened it. “Cooper, you’re a mess. Did a wagon roll over you? No, explain later. Come inside and give me my half of the coin. It’ll be safer.”
I followed her. There was a waiting room for the bank officers, with a clerk to take names and a guard to keep order. Several coves and mots in merchants’ dress sat on the benches, giving us the fish eye. Goodwin moved so none of them could see what we did.
As I handed over her half of the gold bits and copper nobles, I told her what I had seen in the moneychanger’s stall. Then I waited to see if she would say I was full of chicken dung.
“Hunh,” she said as she stowed her coin in her pockets and tunic. She gave me a round brass token with a hole punched through the top. It had the Goldsmith’s Guild scales on one side and a number on the other. “Keep that close,” she ordered. “If you need funds or the letter of credit, show that to these people and they’ll provide. I have one of my own. Now, let’s see about the silver.”
Back we went to the moneychanger’s side of the building. Achoo and I stayed outside, so as not to give the moneychanger a whiff that sommat was off. Goodwin went in, a gold coin in her fist.
