Page 5 (1/2)

Wednesday, June 6, 249 HE

Mistress Trout’s 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, ant our bodies to lie in the sun Stones decorate the graves, stones placed there for rens that the Dogs who lie beneath were loved by fauards both

There were plenty of folk for Holborn Rosto, Kora, Aniki, and Phelan had coue 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 round of the boneyard Everyone believed I’d wept so hard I had no tears left

Holborn’s family came The men left uilt because I had none to shed with them They told hter, their sister They also tried to keep his o did she break from them to come at me

I saw her slap coht to stop it Only when she went for a second blow did I grab her wrist

“You cold, Cesspit trull!” she screa to i to prove hiood as you, and you led him to his death!”

My partner, Tunstall, took her and gently put her in the hands of her ently in his hillht to do with it”

“She was there,” Holborn’s mother cried

“She was not” My sergeant, Goodwin, had come over “Had she been there, she would have stopped hiuards all on his own Your son got himself killed”

The s and knew that Tunstall and Goodere right “Forgive her,” Holborn’s father whispered in my ear while his sons drew their ” He looked shamefaced as he followed his family

Other Dogs were present, to stand for Holborn and forwho’d 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 aswith the cityfolk were randmother, as well as my merchant friend Tansy and her family Beside them was my foster family from the days when I had lived at Provost’s House

My inforeons attended, to host wasn’t riding a to say farewell to eon until he, or she, could settle old business, but not Holborn In his last hours he’d 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 Gersho those around her that Holborn had saved her oldest lad when a gas from his old district shared the tale that Holborn was known to jump on tables and stand on his hands when he’d had one cup too many A dancer whose full purse he’d saved from rushers was there It was she who set a cube of incense by the headstone

A priest of the Black God said soround So did Lo

rd Gershoave Holborn’sof the stones, as all who chose to leave a token did so Most of them who’d come went on to the Jane Street Guardhouse after that There Holborn’s Day Watch fellows had laid out a funeral feast Those closest to oodbye I stood by the headstone as they approached

My oldest friend, Tansy, clung to me and wept on my uniform, and left three chunks of crystal by the headstone That done, her man Herun took her and the babies home Then h, said their farewells I collectedto est brother’s arm, my other brother, and my sisters all looked more broken than ood terain My foster aunt Mya, my foster uncle, and my other fas of Jane Street kennel, who had gone through so many street battles with me, trickled away, two and three at a ti they would not thinkso at a time like this

Now and then Pounce, ainst ive theain

My re human friends took counsel of each other as we remained in the sun Finally Aniki said, “She’ll come when she’s ready” Most of them went on their way They never would have left me entirely alone, not with the enemies I’veto the winds, in case they carried a scrap of Holborn’s voice, and to the talk of the pigeons, for the sheer comfort of their coos and chuckles More and more birds assembled on the rooftops and the fence

The shadows got longer The warm early-summer air turned cool Far off I heard a distant roll of thunder If I ate, I would have to do so now, before she herever they go when rain falls

Kaasa had already picked up speed as the storht of s, bits of flowers fros, and who knehat else I took out the packet of dirt I’d brought her special for this day, gathered froreat temple of the Black God, who clai body As she accepted it, I stepped into her heart

The first bit of talk she released into uide you—” It was a nored her Usually I heard everyday talk gleaned from the district around us

“Why do they put down rocks?” That was a little one Hard to tell if they were lad or gixie at that age “Are they too poor for flowers?”