Bloodhound Read Free Page A

skewered her deeper than any sword. And coles in the marketplace meant her silver that she worked so hard for might not be worth the value stamped on it. She'd be smelling Mutt Piddle Lane just outside her door, if I knew Tansy. Goddess knows I would.
    As I climbed the stairs to my garret rooms, I told myself that Goodwin and Tunstall would be glad to take me back. Though I curse when I don't succeed with a new partner, I do like going out with my old ones. We find Rats, and we cage them. Not one- and two-copper Rats, but big ones. Each time Ahuda puts me with Tunstall and Goodwin, I can hear the Lower City's Rats groan.
    Inside my rooms, I collected my pack, putting bags of cracked corn and bread pieces in it. I made sure it also held my pouches of dirt from all over Corus. I was still thinking about Goodwin and Tunstall as I locked up again. It would be different if one of them took a promotion to Sergeant, like both of them have been offered. Goodwin's a Corporal, Tunstall's a Senior Dog who's turned down promotion to Corporal because he hates the extra writing. I'd happily pair with either of them. But they've been partnered as street Dogs for years. They don't even have to talk, most of the time, they know each other's minds so well. I'd like to have my own partner like that.
    Have faith that the gods know what they are doing with your life , Pounce said, following me down the stairs.
    I don't want the gods meddling with my life , I told him silently as we walked out into the street again. I want to do it myself. Gods are trouble .
    You don't have a choice , Pounce said.
    I don't like the sound of that. I don't like it at all. I can manage on my own, tell them that ! I said, glaring at him. And you never mentioned anything like this before !
    I thought it would cheer you up , Pounce said.
    I began to trot, not to escape Pounce so much as to get away from what he was hinting at. I've accepted for five year gone that Pounce is magic. Kora was the one who first told me he was a constellation, as close to a god as makes no difference. But he's never spoken of the gods in my life before, and I wish he hadn't. Look at all the folk who have had the gods muck with their lives, folk like Jehane the Warrior, that was burned alive, or Tomore the Righteous, beggared and beheaded, or Badika of the Blazing Axe, who drove off the Carthakis, only to be torn apart in one of their arenas! It never goes well for the god-chosen! Pounce can just tell the gods to leave me be.
    Pounce and I got to Glassman Square, where one of my flocks of pigeons was waiting for us, as they do every day. We settled there, me to feed them, Pounce to watch. Slapper was the first to land on me, as ever. I think old Slapper is a high priest among the pigeons, the way he commands the others, here and elsewhere in the city. His blue-black feathers were wet and gleaming today. He must've come straight from a bath in the square's fountain.
    I steadied his clubfoot with my hand, not looking him in his staring yellow eyes. He's got tiny, tiny pupils. No one ever thinks of pigeons as mad, but I think Slapper has carried so many ghosts that he's cracked in the nob with it. He'll hit me as soon as look at me, for all I feed him corn and wrap warm cloths around his clubfoot in cold weather. Ungrateful feather duster. Now there's one that's god-touched.
    I gathered the complaints of the dead from the pigeons while they ate. There were few ghosts complaining of their lot today. None of them said anything I could pass on as good information to my fellow Dogs. Slapper had no ghost at all. He hasn't carried one for more than a week. I wonder if he misses them, or if he is glad not to have some dead human moaning in his ear. I wonder, too, if the Black God ever asks the pigeons if they want to carry ghosts.
    On we went to see my dust spinners. For them I brought packets of dust, gravel, and dirt from other parts of town. Stuck in one place like they are, their veils of air