Beka Cooper: The Hunt Records, page 90
“Go,” she said.
Pearl was but ten feet away. She had turned to face us. I pushed myself forward off the wall, diving across the water’s surface for the length of several grips. I grabbed on to one. Then I launched myself forward a second time. I had my free hand, the one that didn’t grip the wall, under the water, where Pearl couldn’t see I held a knife.
“Hands up,” I said, bobbing in that curst water. Here the waves were swells. Shadows lay everywhere around us with the lantern half hid in its niche. “You’re going back to Corus to face your trial.” I risked a glance back. Goodwin was coming forward more slowly, passing the end of the rope through two handgrips and tying it off.
Pearl shoved herself off the wall and came at me, darting across the water. She had knives in both hands. I learned that when I caught one knife on my dagger’s hilt, and took the blade of her second knife along my right hip. It hurt like fire had chopped into my side. I jammed my free hand up under her chin and locked my legs around hers. Down we went into the deep water at the center of the tunnel, sinking. I twisted my knife hand around her arm, trapping it. Pearl shook and thrashed, trying to make me let go as the tide dragged on us. I could not see or hear what else was going on, but I could feel another force tugging Pearl back by her upper body, or mayhap her neck. Goodwin was in the fight, gods be thanked. Pearl was jerking her free arm, trying to stab Goodwin, I think. Their movement thrust me back until I hit the tunnel wall. I ground Pearl’s trapped hand against the stone until her fingers opened. She dropped that knife. The pull on her body stopped. Somehow she’d made Goodwin release her. I clung to her arm as I came up for air.
I’m a poor swimmer, or mayhap I could have stayed down longer. I unlocked my legs but still clung to Pearl as I kicked for the surface. A bad, ragged pain dug into the wrist I used to grip her arm. I beat on Pearl’s head with my free hand as long as I could, but I’m no hero of old. A bite hurts. Mayhap someone like Callun the Dead Man or Lita Flyingstar could have held her, but they were not there with scummer bouncing off them and four-legged rats swimming by. I let Pearl go.
She came up a yard from Goodwin and me, gasping. In her open mouth I saw three pearl teeth were shattered. One other was missing, but that was the one I had in my pocket, I think. She had a newly swollen eye as well as a broken nose that Goodwin must have given her in the water.
“Bitches!” she cried. “All of you, even the coves! Slinking, bum-licking bitches for any noble with the coin!” The tide shoved her toward us. I lunged and seized her shirt, Goodwin her arm. Pearl slashed at us both, having drawn another blade. We let go as the tide thrust her deeper into the sewer.
She thrashed and tried to paddle now that she had knives with both hands. Her head went below the water. She came up again, choking. Now the water was rushing back toward the sea, pulling her into the center of the sewer pipe, out of reach.
“Better the sea than your poxy law!” she cried, and she went down again.
“None of that,” I whispered. I dove out after her. She would face her trial.
Somehow in that muck I found her and her knives. She cut me several times, light slices. I got behind her and wrapped my arm around her neck, settling her chin in the crook of my elbow. Now she could not bite. I shoved us up to the surface, where I choked her until she dropped the blades. And Goodwin reeled us in with the rope she’d tied around my waist.
We didn’t really take Pearl from the water. Goodwin swiftly bound her arms behind her, working underwater, a skill I should practice. Then she untied the rope from the handgrips, and looped it around the bindings on Pearl’s arms so there would be two ends to hold. Goodwin took one end and I the other. Those we tied around our waists. We went back up the sewer that way, towing the cursing and gasping Pearl along as we went from handgrip to handgrip. Goodwin retrieved the lantern from its niche when we reached it. It kept the rats at bay.
It seemed to take forever to find the stairs where I’d left Achoo. I knew they were the right stairs because there sat Achoo, looking at me as if I’d just killed her pups. She was covered in mud and dragging part of her leash. The free end was well chewed.
I blinked at her stupidly. “You’re a mess,” I said as we halted there. “What have you been doing, wallowing in street muck?”
Pearl struggled to her feet. I looked at Goodwin to see what her orders were. Let Pearl stand, or shove her into the middle of the sewer, where she would float? She seemed harmless enough, swaying on her feet from exhaustion, but she had gotten rich from her work as a liar.
“Keep an eye on our friend here,” Goodwin ordered me. I kept my knife to Pearl’s throat as Goodwin hobbled Pearl’s ankles. She could walk in small, shuffling steps, but that was all.
Goodwin looked at Achoo and the steps, then at me. “I think you’ll find a hole dug under the door up above. That and her being soaked from coming down here explains Achoo’s state. I don’t know what explains yours, Cooper. What’s this?” She reached down and poked my hip. That was when I screamed and fell to one knee on the ledge, in the water. My vision went all white. I dug my fingernails into my hands until it came back, slowly.
“Idiot Pup,” Goodwin muttered. She got an arm under one of mine and helped me higher up the stairs to one that was dry. Then she went back and tied Pearl to a grip in the stone, after testing it to make certain that she could not break free. I wanted to study the knots she tied, but my head was spinning by then, and throbbing.
Goodwin climbed back to me and set the lantern down. Then she took off her tunic and folded it in a square. All she wore beneath it was her breast band and hidden knife sheaths. “There’s no help for it. All we have is soaked in scummer. Put this on your hip and hold it there to stop the bleeding.” She helped me do as she’d ordered. “Why did you say nothing about being wounded?”
I blinked at her. “I was busy. You’re wounded, too.” I pointed at her arm.
“I’m going for help. Do not die on me, Cooper. Do you understand? Do not die. Promise me.”
She seemed very intent, so I promised. Then she left us there.
“Let me go, Cooper,” Pearl said. “You ever seen some’un boiled in oil? You’ll never forgit the stink. I’ll make you rich, you set me free.”
I tried to find a comfortable position for my hip. I wanted to puke. Achoo came and sat beside me, so I was warmer, at least. “Would you?” I asked while my teeth chattered. I was so very cold. “Will you do the same for all them that got the Drink when your filchers gave them purses full of coles? The poor loobies got caught passing them, but you meant them to, so I think you owe them.”
“Cork it,” she snapped.
I kept talking. “There’s naught you can do for Hanse and Steen and their caravan. They’re all dead. No more can you make it up to any of the folk killed back in Corus at the Bread Riot.”
“They’d have served me the same, given the chance,” she told me. “So would you.”
“You’re a wicked, vicious mot, and I will be there when you die.”
I think I said it.
Guards House
written Sunday, September 23rd
Goodwin and Pearl and I slept while mages worked on us. A scummer bath will kill someone that’s all cut up unless Lord Gershom pours coin into mages’ hands, saying, “Don’t you let them die.”
So I was told, anyway.
I slept while mages worked still more on Goodwin and me.
Goodwin and I slept most of the day, though Goodwin says she was up by afternoon.
Guards House
Near midnight.
I wasn’t awake for three-odd days. Mage healing, losing blood, all of that.
When I did wake, I was in a small bedchamber on a bed with curtains drawn on one side. I saw wax candles burning wastefully on the window ledge, a fire in the hearth, and more wasteful still, a brazier next to my bed, burning something that smelled lovely and expensive. I tried to sit up, but that required more strength than I seemed to have.
“Easy there, Mistress Bloodhound.” The voice came from behind the curtain. Lord Gershom drew it back. Over his shoulder as he helped me to sit I saw that there was a writing desk near the other window. He too had wax candles to work by. Outside the windows—all glass!—the day was gray and rainy.
As he settled my pillows to keep me upright, I drew lines on my coverlet with my thumbnail. “My lord, it isn’t fitting that you do these things for me.”
“Well, I’m here. We can’t hardly talk with you flopping on your back.” There was a pitcher and a cup on a table beside the bed. He filled the cup, then helped me to hold it as I drank. It was barley water with something tangy, mayhap lemon, in it. Then he drew a chair to my bedside and sat there.
“First, you’re in Guards House,” he told me. “Goodwin’s here, too. Not everyone in this cursed cesspool of a city believes that their Rogue was behind the colemongering. They believe you and Goodwin hung the evidence on her.”
I took a breath, about to protest, but my lord held up his hand. “It keeps them from blaming Nestor, Axman, and the other local Dogs, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t rush to try and change their minds. I’m not certain that I could. You two will come home with me as soon as you’re able, and we’ll make certain you don’t return to Port Caynn for a long time. Understand, Beka?”
I didn’t like it, but I understood it. “Yes, my lord.” Briefly I wondered what would become of Dale and me, but I had no time to worry the problem now. My lord had more to say.
He patted my arm. “Good. Third, we had to get mages in to heal both of you and Pearl. Your wounds were poisoned, from her weapons or the filth down below, we can’t say. But that’s why you’re so weak. They had to do something much like burning you out, top to toe.”
Clumsy, Pounce commented as he jumped onto the coverlet. But it did save your life.
My lord raised his eyebrows at Pounce. “Your friend here almost got mage-scorched. He commented freely as the mages worked. I still don’t know why he didn’t heal you himself.”
Pounce sniffed and came to curl up on my belly. It is not permitted, he said at last. My hands shook as I petted him. I don’t think it was all from being weak, but I was not about to get sloppy with him in front of my lord.
“Then don’t quibble with those who can do it, that’s my advice,” my lord told him. “Next time I’ll let them scorch you.”
“Goodwin’s ear?” I asked. “Someone cut the top off it.”
“The mages cannot create flesh to replace what was lost,” my lord explained. “She says she doesn’t mind. Now. Where was I? Fourth. Pearl and her fellow conspirators are on their way to Corus for trial. I see no reason to keep her in a bed here when she could recover just as well in Outwalls Prison. Her trial will begin as soon as you and Goodwin can give evidence. Fifth. Goodwin says to tell you that the Finers are home, and very angry they are. I believe the King will permit them to appoint the new officials of the Silversmith’s Guild.”
I stared at Lord Gershom. He grinned like an old wolf over a fresh kill. “Oh, yes. There will be changes here, and trials. Quiet ones, but the Goldsmith’s Guild and the Silversmith’s Guild have much to answer for.”
“Sir Lionel?” I asked.
“In Corus, meeting with the Lord High Magistrate.” Lord Gershom rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “You know how things are, Beka. He belongs to one of the most powerful families in the realm, and the King’s brother is his father-in-law. He will never hold another Crown position, and he will never leave his family’s holdings again. Knowing his father, I think there will be all manner of humiliations there, but they will be private ones.”
Lord Gershom inspected some old knife scars on my hand. “It will be a hard winter, Beka, but it could have been far worse. There are King’s Awards waiting for you, Goodwin, Nestor, and Sergeant Axman, and commendations for all the Dogs who took part in this.”
King’s Awards. I sank back in my pillows. It was a medal—a medal, and a purse. Only a handful of Dogs ever got them. And the only reason I was in a position to get one was because Tunstall got his legs broken.
“Achoo?” I asked, starting up from my bed.
“She is quite well and on a walk at the moment,” my lord said. “Pounce has been able to keep her from worrying too much. All you need do is heal. Then we can go home.” He took both of my hands in his firm grip. “Mithros bless us, I knew that Goodwin and you are good, but you went so far beyond what I expected, and so quickly!”
I shook my head. “I know, my lord, but much of it was the gods’ own luck. Surely Goodwin is saying the same. Look how some coves we met in a riot were gamblers and connected to Port Caynn’s Rogue—no, Hanse was even at the heart of the ring, providing the silver and encouraging her to do her worst. Goodwin’s tie to Master Finer goes back years. It was all luck, and her guiding us to stay with Hanse and his friends, and connect the right links to make the chain.”
My lord grinned. “She says it in nearly those same words, though she gives you more credit. But I tell both of you this. It took two of the cleverest Dogs in Corus to connect those links. You did it before disaster came not only to us, but to the Yamani Islands.”
I stared at him, and he smoothed his mustache. “We took the ship she planned to use for her escape, once we had Jurji and Zolaika to question. Pearl’s colesmith and his people were aboard already, with stamps for Yamani coins.”
I made the Sign on my chest.
“Undersell what you have done if you must, and I know you will,” Lord Gershom told me. “But you and Goodwin did far better here than even I expected, and I will not be forgetting it.”
I smiled sleepily at him. “I have the very best of teachers, my lord.” I might not have spoken so boldly, had I not been getting tired all over again. “I started with you, didn’t I?” I fear very much that I went to sleep before his eyes.
When I woke again, it was dark outside the windows. Fresh candles burned on the desk, but my lord had capped the inkstand and put the papers away. That always meant he had finished for the night.
On the table beside my bed was a bowl of soup, the pitcher of barley water and my cup, and two soft rolls. I was strong enough both to sit up and to eat for myself. I even used the chamber pot tucked behind a screen. Seemingly I hadn’t needed one before. Mage healings always dry me out.
Pounce watched me from the foot of the bed, where he and a freshly bathed and combed Achoo lay. You won’t limp for long, he said. The wound on your hip was the worst. Once it is healed completely, you will walk normally. It will give you pain now and then, though. The cut was a deep one.
“Achoo, kemari” I said. She scrambled up the bed to flop down beside me. Right away she began to wash my face.
“We managed without you,” I told Pounce. “Achoo better than me, but we managed.”
Did you doubt it? Pounce asked. I did not.
“I wish you could have chosen a quieter time for the lesson,” I grumbled. “One of those long winter freezes, say, when no one goes out and nothing happens.”
Pounce walked up and rubbed his face against my hand. I wish I could have chosen such a time, as well.
“Has Dale Rowan left any messages for me?” I asked. I hoped that he had, though I looked less than lovely right now.
He has not, Pounce replied.
Mayhap he doesn’t know where I am, I thought. Or the bank sent him off for work. Or he heard about my jolly, ugly walk through the sewer.
“It’s nothing,” I told Pounce.
Liar, he said.
I got up again, to help myself to my lord’s pen and ink and to find my journal in my pack. I thought it would be a sorry thing, soaked through and unreadable, but while it is much wrinkled, every word is there.
“Pounce?” I asked.
How will your descendants know what you have undergone without me? he asked, curling up by my pillow. I could do that much for you.
I kissed him on the head, which I know he hates, and began to write about Thursday the twentieth.
Guards House
Two of the clock in the afternoon.
Goodwin found me as I had fallen asleep, with my journal, pen, and inkwell all around me. At least I’d had the wisdom to stopper the inkwell.
I woke to Achoo’s “Whuff!” and Goodwin standing beside my bed, hands on hips. “Why didn’t you put this aside, looby?” she asked, pointing to the things on the bed.
“I thought I’d just rest my eyes. I didn’t know I was going to sleep,” I explained. I struggled out from under the covers. “Can I take Achoo out? She must be fit to burst.”
It was still raining, but light was coming in.
“I took her for a walk when I woke and again at noon,” Goodwin said.
“Noon?” I squeaked.
She was not attending. “Cooper, I ought to break your skull and cook what’s in it like an egg. Do you know how many things you did wrong? You have to remember your backup from the beginning, not trust that it will catch up to you! You’re getting too old to forget!” Her heart wasn’t in it, though. I could tell because she was petting Pounce.
I bowed my head. “Do you want to box my ears?” I asked meekly.
She gave me a light buffet on the shoulder. “I’m too stiff to box your ears. If you feel well enough, we have a cart and guards. We can go to Serenity’s and pack. My lord says if we do, we will leave for home tomorrow.”
I scrambled out of bed and looked for my things. Goodwin pointed. While I slept, someone had draped a clean uniform and underthings on a chair.
“Your old uniform is ruined,” Goodwin told me as she carried Pounce over to the window by the desk. She stood with her back to me, looking outside as I dressed. “I went through the pockets, but—Beka, I’m sorry. Your fire opal cracked to pieces when it dried. Seemingly they do that if you get them wet.”
