Bloodhound Read Free

of me and my whole family, if word got about. No one would buy from us! We'd lose everything!"
    "And there's being boiled in oil, if they think you guilty of colesmithing," Kora murmured while she played with Aniki's cat. "Or getting your hand lopped off if they just think you're passing fakes along. Why aren't you in the cages?"
    "I bribed the baker, of course," Tansy said, and sniffed. I took out one of the handkerchiefs she tucked in her clothes and put it in her hand. "He called off his guard when I wouldn't stop crying... And he said he's had two other good customers come in with false coins. Silver, all of them." She blew her nose. "He let me go, but folk were laughing , and that rusher who worked for him said such a thing to me!"
    "I'll send a cove around to have a word," Rosto said. "Don't you worry about that, love."
    "Try not to make it a matter for the Dogs," Ersken told him. "Friendly is always best."
    Rosto gave Ersken a grin that was all teeth. "I'm the friendliest cove around, Westover," he said. "Ask anyone."
    "Living," Aniki murmured.
    Rosto glanced at her. "Well, it's Beka you ask if you want to talk to the dead ones, isn't it?" he inquired, all innocent-like.
    Fuzzball attacked my fingers. I let him do it, as I was thinking. This baker, Garnett, had seen three customers lately with false silver coins? Respectable folk at that. Tansy's grandfather-in-law had been the Lower City's worst scale and landlord, but since his death Tansy, her husband, and her mother-in-law had gotten rid of the old man's crooked businesses. They'd lost a great deal of money to get straight with the law.
    I'd bet a copper of my own that these three false silver cases Tansy mentioned aren't the only ones, not if a baker is hiring guards. How many silver coins does a baker see in a day? Most folk buy with coppers, unless they shop for a group, or a big household.
    "It's not you that's behind this, is it?" Tansy asked Rosto. "Because it would be wrong, very wrong! I don't care if you are the Rogue, I'll speak my mind! You can't meddle with people's livelihood, Rosto! Silver coles hurt us all. If a silver noble won't buy what it's supposed to – "
    "Will you hush ?" Rosto asked, slapping the table. "Mithros's sack, woman!"
    Tansy went silent, but she was breathing hard.
    "You should learn from Beka," Rosto said. "She says her bit and then waits for a cove to answer. No, I've no hand in these fakes. If you'd a whit of sense, you'd know it. Coles hit the Court of the Rogue even harder than they hit the merchants. You make a bit of coin at first, but if the price of silver goes down, it goes down for all. We'd be cutting our own throats to deal in coles."
    Tansy sniffed and blew her nose again. Even as a little girl she would never admit she let her tongue run away with her. "Then you'll keep an eye out?" she asked Rosto. "Afore there's folk begging in the street this winter?"
    Ersken and I both sat up. "Hear now!" I said. "Catching colesmiths is Dog business!"
    Tansy made a rude noise. "This is serious , Beka," she said. "This is money . Were it a killer, I'd come to you two, of course I would. But Garnett's hired guards. He's afraid he'll be arrested for counterfeit passing, at the least. He's so fearful he's willing to risk offending good customers. That's more than Lower City Dogs can manage, unless maybe it's Goodwin and Tunstall. And you haven't got them, only old flat-footed Silsbee."
    "She hasn't got him, either," Aniki said with a smirk.
    That distracted Tansy from money, sure enough. She turned to gawp at me, then rolled her eyes. "Mother's milk, Beka, what happened this time? Did you kill him?"
    I got up and left, Pounce at my side. So much for hoping Tansy would stand by me. She was more worried about her purse than her oldest friend.
    No more can I blame her, despite my stung feelings. She's come a long way from Mutt Piddle Lane, where we both once lived. To be accused of passing false money like a common street mot would have