Point of Hopes (32 page)

“
We’re all concerned about the
missing children.” The voice came from the shadows behind the
grande bourgeoise’s desk, a cool, pleasant voice that somehow
suggested a smile. The speaker—she had been sitting in the shadows
all the while, Rathe realized—rose slowly and came around the edge
of the desk, skirts rustling with the unmistakable sound of silk.
The metropolitan of Astreiant, the queen’s half-niece and one of
the stronger candidates for the throne, leaned back against the
desk, and smiled benevolently over the gathering. “And I know some
of the actions the points have already taken, thanks to you,
Surintendant. But I’d like to hear from you, Chief Point, what
happened last night. And from the beginning, if you
please.”

“
Your Grace.” Monteia took a deep
breath, and launched into an account of the trouble, beginning with
the Old Brown Dog and its history, through the complaints that
Devynck was hiding the missing children and her own search of the
premises, to the violence of the night before. Her voice was
remote, almost stilted, faltering only slightly when she came to
Paas’s death. Rathe, who had heard her speak a hundred times
before, watched Astreiant instead. She looked no older than
himself, tall and strongly built, with the body of someone who
faced active sports and the table with equal pleasure. She wore her
hair loose, the thick tarnished-brass curls caught back under a
brimless cap. The style flattered her handsome features—lucky for
her that’s the latest fashion, Rathe thought, and only then thought
to wonder if she’d started it.

“
And you’re certain this Devynck
has nothing to do with these missing children,” Astreiant said, and
Rathe recalled himself to the business at hand.

“
Absolutely certain, Your Grace,”
Monteia answered.

The grande bourgeoise made a soft noise through her
teeth, and Astreiant darted an amused glance in her direction. “I
think what Madame is too polite to say is that you’ve taken
Devynck’s fees.”

“
I have,” Monteia answered. “And
I’ve taken fees from every other shopkeeper and guildmistress and
tavern-keeper in Point of Hopes, too. It’d be more to the point,
Madame, Your Grace, to say I’m Aagte Devynck’s friend, because I
am, and I make no secret of it But it’s because I know her, because
I’m her friend and I know what she will and won’t sell, that I can
tell you she would never be involved in something like this. I’m as
sure of that as I’m sure of my own stars.”

Astreiant nodded gravely. “Will the rest of Point of
Hopes believe it, though? I’m as concerned as Madame Gausaron with
keeping the peace southriver.”

Monteia looked away, looked toward the surintendant
as though for reassurance, then back at Astreiant. “Your Grace, I
think so. It’s morning, they’re chastened by what they did.” She
darted a glance at the grande bourgeoise. “As Madame said, there
was a death to no purpose. I think it’s sobered them all down.”

“
Yes, the journeyman-butcher,”
Astreiant said. She looked at Gausaron. “I must say, Madame, I
think he got what he deserved. Threatening a woman’s property—the
knife, what’s-his-name, seems to have been within his
right.”

“
What’s being done with the knife?”
Gausaron asked.

“
Madame, he was taken to the cells
at Point of Sighs,” Monteia answered.

“
He’ll be released today,” Rathe
said, and heard the challenge in his voice too late. “The point’s
bound to be disallowed—it was self-defense, not just defense of
property.”

Astreiant fixed her gaze on him for the first time.
Her eyes were very pale, a color between blue and grey, and tilted
slightly downward at the outer comers. “It seems a reasonable
interpretation,” she said, after a moment, and Rathe wondered what
she had been going to say. She looked at Gausaron. “Madame, it’s a
dangerous time, and you’re right to be concerned, but I have to
say, I think the chief point handled this as well as anyone could
have.”

The grande bourgeoise nodded, rather grudgingly.
“Though there’d be less to worry about if they’d find out who’s
stealing our children.”

“
Madame, we are trying,” the
surintendant said, through clenched teeth.

“
And I would appreciate your
keeping me informed of your progress,” Astreiant said, and pushed
herself away from Gausaron’s desk. “And in the meantime, I know
we’ve taken enough of your time.”

It was unmistakably a dismissal. Rathe bowed, not as
reluctantly as sometimes, and followed the other pointsmen from the
room. As the door closed behind them, the surintendant touched his
shoulder.

“
That was well handled, Monteia. I
want to borrow Rathe, if you don’t mind.”

“
I’m glad Astreiant was there,”
Monteia said, and only then seemed to hear the rest of the
surintendant’s words. “I’ll need him back, sir, and
soon.”

“
Only for a moment,” the
surintendant answered, and Monteia shook her head, lips
tightening.

“
Very well, sir. Rathe, I’ll want
to talk to you when you get back.” She turned, skirts swirling,
walked away down the hall, her low heels ringing on the
stones.

“
Yes, Chief,” Rathe said, to her
departing back, and wondered what was going to happen now. He knew
Monteia distrusted Fourie—he shared the feeling himself at
times—and found himself, not for the first time, reviewing the list
of his most recent behavior.

Fourie’s thin lips were twisted into an ironic
smile, as though he’d read the thought. “I may have just made more
trouble for you, Rathe. Sorry.”

And if you are, that’s the first time, Rathe
thought, but couldn’t muster real resentment. This was the way the
surintendant worked; he could accept it or not, but live with it he
had to. “What was it you wanted, sir?”

Fourie shook his head, looking around the busy hall.
“This is no place to talk. Come with me.”

Rathe followed him through the Clockmakers’ Square
and then along the arcaded walk that ran along the southern edge of
the Temple Fair, feeling if anything rather like a dog of somewhat
dubious breed. Fourie made no comment, never even looked back,
until at last he stopped by one of the tall casements that looked
out across the dust-drifted paving. The ballad-sellers and the
printers seemed to be doing their usual brisk business, but there
were fewer children than usual among the crowd. Rathe looked again,
but saw no sign of black robes or grey, freelance astrologers or
students.

“
They’re only interested because
it’s bad for business,” Fourie said. His tone was conversational,
but Rathe wasn’t fooled. The surintendant was angrier than he had
let on in the grande bourgeoise’s presence—in Astreiant’s
presence—angry that two of his people had been questioned by the
regents’s representative, angry that none of them had done anything
to find the missing children, angriest of all that he didn’t have
any more likely course of action than he had the day the first
child had disappeared. And don’t we all feel that way, Rathe
thought, but I wish I were elsewhere just now.

“
If it weren’t for the fair,”
Fourie went on, “they wouldn’t be quite so concerned. Of course, if
it were just southriver brats going missing, they wouldn’t even
have noticed. Makes me sick. Do your jobs, but expect us to
interfere every chance we get, and don’t, whatever you do, let
doing your jobs disturb us.”

“
Astreiant seems a bit
more—reasonable,” Rathe ventured, wondering where this was
leading.

The surintendant seemed on the verge of a snort,
then shook his head. “No, you’re right about that. Astreiant seems
to have a finer understanding of what’s involved in the enforcement
of the queen’s law. Gods only know where she got it. It doesn’t
seem to run in the nobility.”

“
Or the haut bourgeoisie,” Rathe
said, unable to stop himself, and Fourie responded with another
thin smile.

“
Oh, they’re worse. And I dare say
you and I could go on like this all day with our grievances, but
that would get nothing done. So, Rathe. What have you done about
Caiazzo?”

Not precisely the haut bourgeoisie, no long-distance
trader is, but close enough, Rathe thought. I might have known
where this was leading. “I wasn’t aware, sir, that you precisely
wanted me to do anything. I thought my writ was to keep an eye on
him, for any possible involvement in these disappearances, and that
I’ve done. I’ve spoken with him, mostly on the matter of his
printers. And that knife of his I made the point on at the end of
the Dog Moon.” He shook his head. “But—I’m sorry, sir—I just don’t
see that this is anything Caiazzo would get himself involved in.
Where’s the reason behind it, sir? And, more to the point, where’s
the profit? Oh, I know what you said about political profit, but
that’s never been his style, it’s too—too far down the road.
Caiazzo always wants results he can see now as well as make use of
later. Sure, he could make use of a political profit later, but
where’s the immediate profit?”

Fourie shrugged, a faint frown creasing the space
between his eyebrows, and Rathe realized he’d let himself get
carried away by his own argument. “Have your investigations turned
up something more likely, Adjunct Point?”

“
I’ll agree it’s likely the
star-change is involved,” Rathe said, stung, and remembered
b’Estorr’s account of the rumors circulating at the university. “As
a matter of fact, I’ve been wondering about these hedge-astrologers
the Three Nations were complaining about.” He hadn’t meant it, had
just been looking for an alternative, but as his own words sank in,
he pursued the thought. “Think of it—where have they come from?
They don’t claim association with any of the altars, or with the
university—and they’ve pissed off the students as a body, which
sensible people don’t do—and ostensibly claim no political
affiliation. And if you’re not buying that bill of goods for
Caiazzo, sir, you can’t buy it from these.”

The surintendant studied him with a jaundiced gaze.
“Then I trust the arbiters of the fair, or Fairs’ Point, or
University Point, are looking into it, as well as you. But at the
same time, I don’t want you ignoring the possibility of Caiazzo’s
involvement in favor of your own theories—I very carefully don’t
say because you like him. This is too important, Nico. Whatever you
think of my feelings toward him, I wouldn’t order you do to
something like this if I didn’t think—feel—there was good reason.
But I want it done.”

Rathe took a deep breath, held it until his own
temper subsided. Fourie had spent more time in the company—the
presence—of the grande bourgeoise. If Gausaron had left Monteia,
and Rathe himself, a little short-tempered, it was astonishing that
the surintendant had kept his notoriously short temper in check for
so long. “I’ll keep an eye on him, sir, though I won’t pretend
it’ll be easy.”

Fourie smiled, a bloodless expression, without
humor. “If it were easy, Nico, I wouldn’t have insisted on your
doing it.” And that, Rathe thought, was as close to a commendation
as anyone got from the sur, short of a eulogy.

When he got back to the station, the hour-stick was
just showing midday, and he made a face at it: it had already been
a long day, and didn’t look to get any shorter. He found Houssaye,
returned his coat to him, and shrugged gratefully back into his
own, welcoming its familiarity. He had just settled in at his
worktable when Salineis poked her head in the door. “Lieutenant
Eslingen to see you, Nico.”

Rathe bit back a groan—he doubted the Leaguer was
there to thank him for anything—but nodded. “All right, send him
in.”

Eslingen had clearly found—or taken—the time to tidy
himself up from the depredations of a night spent in one of Sighs’
cells. His hair was caught neatly back, though the ribbon no longer
matched the color of his coat, his hat was brushed, its plume
uncrushed, and his linen was bright. Rathe wished for a moment that
he hadn’t been in such a hurry to return Houssaye’s coat, then put
the thought aside with impatience. The Eslingens of this world
would always seek to gain advantage through appearance, and the
Rathes could never hope to match them. What did surprise Rathe was
the lack of resentment he felt toward the soldier.

“
Adjunct Point.” Eslingen’s voice
was icy, and Rathe’s heart sank. Clearly, Eslingen felt rather
differently about the whole thing.

“
Eslingen, look, I’m sorry about
what happened, but I didn’t have a choice.”

“
It wasn’t me who started
this—Seidos’s Horse, you ought to thank me for ridding you of a
troublemaker.”

“
We don’t generally shoot them
dead,” Rathe shot back, and, hearing his voice rise, got up to
close the door of the narrow anteroom. He shook his head. “Forget
it, it’s not worth arguing about.”

“
I’m inclined to disagree with you,
Adjunct Point, seeing as it’s lost me my job.”

Rathe turned to stare at Eslingen. “You’re joking.
No, no—sorry, forget I said that. She let you go?”

“
Can you blame her? In times like
these, does she want a Leaguer who, even in self-defense, and—what
was it the magistrate said the release said—defense of property,
was seen to kill a member of one of the most influential guilds in
the city? I’d say that would be bad for business in a bad time,
wouldn’t you, Adjunct Point? So now I’m in your city without
employment or a roof over my head. All because I did what you told
me to, Rathe, and that’s send for the points if there was any
trouble. I did, and look what happened.” He gestured widely, and
for the first time Rathe noticed the heavy saddlebags on the floor
at the other man’s feet. “Hells, I thought we Leaguers were looked
on with disfavor, I didn’t realize the extent of the loathing
people have for your lot.”