Bloodhound (26 page)

"They're either very dirty in the bank vaults, or they're testing these coins," Goodwin told me. "We need to alert Sir Lionel. 'Peaceful,' he says. Peaceful doesn't mean good, not at this guild bank. It's rotten with coles, if your visit and mine are proper measures. Otherwise, why would they test all of their silver? This gives me the crawls, I don't mind telling you."

"There's more," I told her. "Mayhap not so big a thing, but neither is it good." As Goodwin steered us northeast, away from the bay and toward Guards House, I explained my encounter with the gixie pickpocket and her return of the false purse.

"What a curst odd game," said Goodwin, frowning. "Return false coin for good, and let your coney spread them about the town. Who benefits? We heard no report of such a thing in Corus. Could they be moving the coles this way? The colesmith sends them out with filchers, who trade with coneys, only the coneys are carriers. The carriers take the coles somewhere else... ? Or spend or gamble them away?"

"It seems too complicated to work," I said. "It leaves too many folk to turn into Birdies the minute the cage Dogs heat up the irons or show them the rack."

Goodwin sighed. "It does. Two games, then, but surely only one colemonger gang. There are still far too many good coles, good copies, for it to be even a whole fistful of small cole-mongers. Ratpox, I wish we knew more!"

"Coneys wouldn't be willing to tell us anything no matter what," I said. "Either they've got a windfall, or they know they've got a purse full of coles and they're liable to be nabbed. They'd spend the coles or get rid of them any way they can." I looked around us. We were on Mouse Lane, a street for small shops and homes. "Where do we go now?"

"Remember I'd mentioned silversmith friends?" Goodwin asked. "Isanz Finer, the old man, isn't in the business anymore, but at one time he could make silver talk as clear as Pounce."

"But what can he say that we need to know?" I asked, confused. And why would someone want to flood the money-stream with silver coles? I wondered. Wasn't the whole idea of making false coin the fact that you spent them like real ones? You don't give them away.

"Isanz can find out where the silver comes from, Cooper," Goodwin said. "He could tell you if he worked Copper Isles silver, Yamani silver, hill silver, Barzunni silver. I'll bet a week's wages he can point us to where this stuff began."

"Surely my lord has royal mages tracking the silver by now. They'll tell us where it's coming from," I said.

"Everyone knows mages can track royal coin. That's because they've spelled Crown silver," Goodwin told me. "I'll wager you buttons for badgers these colemongers are getting silver from someplace else. Silver that's
not
carrying a Crown spell."

That shocked me. "But the mages could work out where the silver's coming from. Can't they?"

Goodwin was shaking her head. "Cooper, I've been on cole hunts before. Mages like you to think they can do near everything, but that's not always so. Throw dirt from someplace far away into a melt, and even though it sinks to the bottom, it sets a mage to chasing his tail. And you needn't even do that with silver. You know how they use silver charms to purify wounds and curses and bad thoughts?"

"It never purified
my
bad thoughts," I told her without thinking, like she was Kora or Aniki.

Goodwin thumped my head lightly, but she was smiling. "Silver purifies, is the thing. That's its power by nature. And once it's been melted down, there isn't a mage who can tell where it came from. It throws off all the magic that was in it, even the magic of the place where it was born. That's where my friend Isanz comes in." She pointed. "Turn here. I was working Port Caynn once for a few months, when Tom and I were in difficulties. Isanz's son took me dancing. I learned a great deal from the old man." She halted. "Here we are."

We'd come up before a small cluster of silver businesses. There were three forges, two on one side of the street and one on the other, and a good-sized shop next to the lone forge. A big house stood beside the shop.

"All these belong to Finers," Goodwin told me. She pointed to the forge beside the shop. "Isanz's oldest son's." She pointed to one of the shops across the street. "His oldest daughter's. And his youngest son-in-law's. Two of his other sons and one of his other daughters work in the forge, and one of his sons and one daughter-in-law run the shop. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren are apprenticed out to silversmiths all over the city."

"Then why does he live up here?" I asked. "Shouldn't he live with the other master smiths, in one of the better parts of town?"

Goodwin shrugged. "He likes being close to Tradesmen's District."

Turning to look about as we did had given me another chance to check for our watcher. He was nowhere in view, but there were plenty of doors and alleys he could have popped into. What I wouldn't give for a scrap of his clothes to give to Achoo!
She'd
find him for me in the flirt of a goat's tail!

"Cooper, this is no time to daydream!" Goodwin stood beside the path that led around the side of the big house. Achoo and I trotted to catch up as she led the way back to the kitchen. There she knocked on the open door.

"I think you'd best stay," I told Achoo. Seeing her eye the geese and chickens in the yard, I pointed to a spot by the fence around the vegetable garden and ordered, "I mean it.
Tinggal
."

Achoo sniffed the air and leaned toward the fowl.

"Achoo," I said, glaring at her. "Shall I get the leash?"

Achoo leaped at a butterfly passing overhead.

I unslung my pack. "I'm getting the leash."

Achoo flattened her ears and went to the spot by the fence. She stood there, looking back at me.

"Tinggal,"
I ordered. "And no more mucking about!"

With a sigh and a look that told me I was a brute to happy-natured hounds, she lay down.

"Cooper!" Goodwin bellowed. I ran into the house.

The kitchen was large and well lit, more than enough to serve a house of this size. It should have been easy to move about, but the women of the house had to work around a tiny old man at a table next to the largest hearth fire. Here he shaped silver wire as fine as thread, winding and curling the wire on tiny pegs. The finished creations were designs like lace, made all of silver wire. I couldn't help but stare. The old cove's knuckles were knobby with age, but his fingers were as precise as a fly's feet in handling his tools.

"Cooper, you gawp like a countrywoman who just saw the King," I heard Goodwin say. She stood next to a mot of her own age who just plain grinned at me. "For your information, that is Master Isanz Finer. This is his daughter, Wenna."

"Daughter and busybody!" snapped Master Finer without looking up. "Pestilence and scold!"

"And how would this house run, Da, if I were none of those things?" Wenna asked, seemingly unbothered by his insults. She turned to talk with Goodwin. I stepped out of the way of a manservant carrying a joint of mutton, which brought me closer to the snapping turtle by the hearth.

"Never seen a
real
craftsman work in that city of yours, eh, wench?" he asked, still not looking up from his work. He never fumbled or hesitated. Delicate twists and curls formed under his fingers. "A crew of layabouts, charging too much for shoddy work, those Corus smiths! Forget true craft! Make it glitter with some mage potion. They don't care that the work looks drab when the magic wears off. Then they undersell honest craftsmen!"

I hardly knew what to say. I didn't dare try to defend Corus silversmiths to him. He might bite my nose off.

"Luckily, Isanz, we aren't here to invite you to Corus," Goodwin said over my shoulder. "Just as well. You'd put our smiths out of business. My partner Cooper and I are on more serious business. May we speak privately?"

Now he looked at us with eyes that were an amazing shade of green. "Craft is deadly serious to me, you fribbety female! Look at you, back again after you toyed with my poor lad's heart – "

"Your poor lad is married these ten years and has five children to show for it," Goodwin told him coolly. "He hasn't stopped thanking the Goddess I chose to stay with my husband and keep bashing folk for fun."

"Da just misses you. None of us argue with him the way you did," Wenna told us. "I've had cakes and drink sent to the little sitting room. Da, I even set out a tankard of Goldenlake ale."

Isanz put his tools aside and got to his feet. "Why didn't you say so?" He grabbed a knotted walking stick and led the way. Goodwin and I followed him down a short hall to a small room set up with cushioned chairs. There was a table laid with tankards and plates of cakes, and a small brazier to keep the chill off. Isanz and Goodwin had ale, while there was barley water for me. Goodwin must have told Wenna my preference.

Once the door was closed and Goodwin had taken the first sip from her tankard, Isanz put his down. "You're too senior to have a temporary place here," he told Goodwin, his eyes sharp. "They know of the coles in the capital, don't they? Did the report come from here?"

Goodwin looked into the tankard as if her answer was a casual one. "The other way around. The Lower City Dogs brought word to the Deputy Provost from Corus. What do
you
know of coles, Isanz?"

He cursed. "I sent two of my boys and two of my students to talk to the Watch Commander here in Tradesmen's District. They went representing the lesser silversmiths of Tradesmen's. About a month ago we reported a sharp rise in the coles coming over our counters, and the Watch Commander said he'd take care of it. Then we reported it to the Silversmith's Guild. We've not heard a word from Dogs nor guild since."

"Which watch?" Goodwin asked.

"Day, of course. Evening Watch is as crooked as the coastline." Isanz took a swallow of his ale.

"How long ago?" Goodwin put her tankard down.

"Ten days. Ten days, and we've taken in more coles. Kept 'em, too, waiting for guild orders to hand them over." Isanz looked at Goodwin, then at me. "If you didn't come about
our
report, why are you here?"

Goodwin nodded to me. I placed the cole Goodwin had taken in change from the bank on the table between us and Isanz. "Isanz," Goodwin said, "you know more about the whys and the wherefores of silver than any cove I've ever met. We need to know where the colemongers get their silver."

The old man's eyes brightened. He picked up the cole.

"I think it's coming from somewhere that isn't under Crown supervision," Goodwin said. "But where? Are foreigners behind this, destroying our coin to soften us up for invasion? Normal colemongers would keep stores of coin and dole out their coles little by little. They want to get rich, not flood us with false silver and drive the value down. Or do they get silver from inside the country somehow? Either way, we must plug up that end of the operation. You're the cove that can tell us where to look."

Isanz leaned back in his chair. "Well," he remarked, his voice quiet. He looked from Goodwin to me. "The two of you are on the hunt."

"We're one part of it," Goodwin said. "But few know Cooper and I are involved, and we want to keep it that way. I doubt they'd think to come to you. But I know you. I think you'll get farther, using your powders and glasses on whatever silver you can melt off this coin, and the ones you've kept, than all the King's mages."

"Mages! Fah!" Isanz spat on the floor. His daughter would not be happy about that. "You leave it to me. Mages look for influences, and stirrings in power. I look for what is always there."

"Alone?" I wanted to keep the word to myself, but decided to speak it anyway. This venture was too risky for me to keep quiet. "Will you do this alone, Master Finer?"

He hesitated. I think he wanted to lie, mayhap from vanity. At last he shook his head. "No. I have a granddaughter and a great-granddaughter I have been training in just this work."

Now Goodwin looked troubled. "Isanz, I doubt that it's a good idea to bring in more folk than we must. There are too many lives at stake already."

The old cove sighed. "My eyes are not what they were, Clary." How he could say that, doing the fine silver work I had seen in the kitchen, I do not know. "I am not as sharp with the colors and the fine distinctions."

"The what?" I asked.

He glared at me. "Never you mind, mistress! This is my family's secret, mine! I will not be surrendering my craft to one who is not my own blood!"

Oh, forgive me, Master Snapping Turtle, I thought angrily. I did glare back, even if I was polite and held my tongue.

"I'll swear my girls to silence, Clary, a
second
time, since I already swore them to keep my secrets. We will be careful," Isanz told Goodwin after a final glare in my direction. "You ought to get
her
teaching in curses." He pointed his bony finger at me. "She's got the eyes for it. Now, begone. If I'm to do this, there's preparations I need to make."

"How long?" Goodwin asked, not moving from her chair. "How long will the work take?"

"Some days, I think. It's not magic, to be done with a whisk of hands and a poof of smoke!" Now he stood, and we did, too. "I'll send for you – where?"

Goodwin gave him our direction and kissed his cheek. Then we said our goodbyes to the lady of the house and went into the rear yard to retrieve Achoo. She was actually where I'd left her. I gave her a strip of dried meat for a reward. "Good girl," I whispered to her as she wagged up a small breeze.
"Very
good girl!"

Wenna followed us out. "You've done him some good, Clary, I have to say! He's got color in his cheeks, and he's stepping along as if he was sixty again," she told Goodwin as she walked us to the gate. "You'll come back?"

"Of course," Goodwin said. "But thank Cooper for his improved spirits. Once he'd insulted her a few times, he was in the pink."

Wenna laughed heartily at this and waved goodbye to us as we passed down the path to the street. Only I could see the worried look on Goodwin's face.

"Do you think he can keep it quiet?" I asked her softly.

"I believe so. He used to be as silent as the Black God. The secrets of what he does have come down in his family through generations." She shook her head. "I flinch at gnats, Cooper, that's all. He's surrounded by family, and they are watchful." She rubbed the back of her neck. "To tell the truth, I don't like what I'm seeing here. This town seems like there's rotten money in its veins. I can tell you're thinking the same. How could Sir Lionel keep telling Lord Gershom all is well here?"