Tamora Pierce - Mastiff: The Legend of Beka Cooper #3

Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales

B EKA C OOPER T RILOGY

Terrier

Bloodhound

Mastiff

Tricksters Choice

Tricksters Queen

P ROTECTOR OF THE S MALL Q UARTET

First Test

Page

Squire

Lady Knight

T HE I MMORTALS Q UARTET

Wild Magic

Wolf-Speaker

Emperor Mage

The Realms of the Gods

T HE S ONG OF THE L IONESS Q UARTET

Alanna: The First Adventure

In the Hand of the Goddess

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

Lioness Rampant

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright 2011 by Tamora Pierce
Jacket photograph copyright 2011 by Jonathan Barkat

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pierce, Tamora.
Mastiff / Tamora Pierce. 1st ed.
p. cm. (Beka Cooper; bk. 3)
Summary: Beka, having just lost her fiance in a slavers raid, is able to distract herself by going with her team on an important hunt at the queens request, unaware that the throne of Tortall depends on their success.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89328-5
[1. KidnappingFiction. 2. PoliceFiction. 3. Kings, queens, rulers, etc.
Fiction. 4. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.P61464Mas 2011 [Fic]dc23 2011024152

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v3.1

Mistress Trouts Lodgings

Nipcopper Close, Corus

Ten of the evening.

We buried Holborn today.

The burying ground has no trees in it, no shade for us Lower City Dogs. Because most of us work in the dark, we want our bodies to lie in the sun. Stones decorate the graves, stones placed there for remembrance. Some graves are piled waist-high with them, signs that the Dogs who lie beneath were loved by family and guards both.

There were plenty of folk for Holborn. Rosto, Kora, Aniki, and Phelan had come from the Court of the Rogue. Even Rosto had learned to like Holborn this last year, for all that he was green jealous that Holborn was my betrothed. Kora and Aniki wept for me. My eyes were as dry as the ground of the boneyard. Everyone believed Id wept so hard I had no tears left.

Holborns family came. The men left my shoulders damp with tears, my belly filled with razors of guilt because I had none to shed with them. They told me how sorrowed they were that Id never become their daughter, their sister. They also tried to keep his mother back. Only when they turned to go did she break from them to come at me.

I saw her slap coming, but I did naught to stop it. Only when she went for a second blow did I grab her wrist.

You cold, Cesspit trull! she screamed. My poor lad was forever trying to impress you. He wouldnt be here if he hadnt been trying to prove himself as good as you, and you led him to his death!

My partner, Tunstall, took her and gently put her in the hands of her men. He made a mistake, mistress, he said gently in his hillmans rumble. Beka had naught to do with it.

She was there, Holborns mother cried.

She was not. My sergeant, Goodwin, had come over. Had she been there, she would have stopped him from running into a nest of slave guards all on his own. Your son got himself killed.

The men of the family were all Dogs and knew that Tunstall and Goodwin were right. Forgive her, Holborns father whispered in my ear while his sons drew their mother out of the boneyard. It is her grief talking. He looked shamefaced as he followed his family.

Other Dogs were present, to stand for Holborn and for me. Holborn was a leather badge, a five-year Dog whod transferred to Jane Street last year. His old friends and partner from Flash District attended, as well as the Jane Street folk. Goodwin, her man, Tunstall, and his lady, Sabine, were there, as well as my Jane Street friends. Standing with the cityfolk were my brothers, sisters, grandmother, as well as my merchant friend Tansy and her family. Beside them was my foster family from the days when I had lived at Provosts House.

My informants among the citys pigeons attended, to my surprise. None landed on the grave. Holborns ghost wasnt riding among them, waiting to say farewell to me. Many a soul thats been murdered rode a pigeon until he, or she, could settle old business, but not Holborn. In his last hours hed only given my hand one more squeeze before he left me for the Peaceful Realms of the Black God of Death.

I listened to the folk murmur to each other as they waited for the priest and Lord Gershom to arrive. One mot was telling those around her that Holborn had saved her oldest lad when a game of dice went bad. The Dogs from his old district shared the tale that Holborn was known to jump on tables and stand on his hands when hed had one cup too many. A dancer whose full purse hed saved from rushers was there. It was she who set a cube of incense by the headstone.

A priest of the Black God said some words once Holborn went into the ground. So did Lord Gershom, before he gave Holborns medal to his father. Then came the placing of the stones, as all who chose to leave a token did so. Most of them whod come went on to the Jane Street Guardhouse after that. There Holborns Day Watch fellows had laid out a funeral feast. Those closest to me stayed for a while. Eventually they came to tell me goodbye. I stood by the headstone as they approached.