Point of Hopes (48 page)

“
Oh, for the dogs’ sake,” Gavi
snapped “that only plays well on a really large stage.”

Rathe blinked—that was not the tack he’d expected
Jhirassi to take—but after a heartbeat, bes’Hallen grinned and let
her hand fall from Cytel’s shoulder. “Oh, it plays better in the
small spaces than you might think, dear, if you weren’t afraid of a
little honest emotion. But, really, we can’t—”

“
Nico just wants to talk to him—I
don’t even know if he’s told Dreams or not—”

“
I haven’t,” Rathe said. “I will,
but I haven’t had the time.”

“
I’ll chaperone,” Jhirassi
finished. “If that will make you happier.”

bes’Hallen lifted an eyebrow at that—another
practiced gesture—but nudged the boy forward. “All right. Go with
Gavi, dear, and don’t worry. You’re welcome here. Savatier has said
so, and so have I.”

“
Let’s go in,” Jhirassi said. “It’s
more private.”

Rathe stood aside to let the boy follow Jhirassi,
and then went with them into the crowded backstage. Savatier’s
troupe clearly spent a decent sum on stage settings: there were at
least a dozen rolled canvases stacked against the wall, and there
was real furniture scattered about the space. Jhirassi chose one of
the chairs, shook it to make sure it would hold his weight, and sat
with grace.

“
Sit down, Albe—find a stool, for
Oriane’s sake.” He looked at Rathe. “You’d think you were going to
eat him for dinner.”

Rathe sighed. “Albe, I’m not here to bring you back
to your mother—you heard bes’Hallen, I’m from Point of Hopes, and
this is Point of Dreams’ affair. But I do need to ask you some
questions.” He paused looking at the boy’s wary face. “It may help
find the other children, or I wouldn’t be bothering.”

The boy nodded slowly. “All right.”

“
First,” Rathe said, “do you know
your nativity?”

Cytel scowled. “Yes, well, sort of. Within the hour
anyway.” He seemed to see Jhirassi’s surprise, and burst out, “It’s
not my fault, I was born early, the midwife wasn’t very good. But,
no, I don’t have a real good nativity.”

Rathe allowed himself a sigh of relief. So far, the
pattern was holding true, at least in the cases he’d dealt with.
“Now, did you go to the fair, or the First Fair, before you—came—to
Savatier’s?”

Cytel blinked, but nodded. “Yes.”

“
By yourself, or with other
people?”

Cytel shrugged one shoulder. “Maseigne Foucquet gave
a dozen of us an early afternoon so we could go. Palissy—she’s the
senior clerk-journeyman—she went with us.”

Rathe nodded. “And once there, I’m assuming you did
the usual things. Did you get your stars read?”

The boy looked embarrassed again, and Rathe willed
him not to become mulish. “I was thinking about it, yes, because I
don’t want to go to the judiciary, and I do want to be an actor,
and I wanted to see what my stars said about that.” He scowled.
“Even my mother admits they’re not right for the law.”

Rathe held his breath. A negative answer wouldn’t
disprove any of his theories, but if the boy had spoken to one of
the hedge-astrologers…. “But you didn’t?” he asked when Cytel
seemed unwilling to continue. “Get them read, I mean?”

“
Is it important?”

“
Yes,” Rathe said, and only just
controlled the intensity in his voice. “It’s important.”

Cytel shrugged again. “Well, I did, only not at the
temples. They’re expensive, and I didn’t have much money with me.
There was an astrologer, one of the new ones, who offered to read
them for me. He said I looked like I had a career ahead of me.” His
lips curled slightly. “Which is pretty safe to say, I suppose. But
when I told him my stars, he told me it’d be hard to give me a
proper reading because I didn’t have the details—like I didn’t know
that—but he only charged me half a demming so I can’t
complain.”

“
So he didn’t do a reading,” Rathe
said.

“
I told you, he did sort of a one,
but it wasn’t very detailed. About what you’d expect, I
guess.”

“
Did he give you any kind of charm,
say anything about trouble coming?” Rathe asked.

“
Oh.” Cytel looked startled reached
into his pockets. “Yes, he said times were going to be hard for
people in my sign, and I should take care—he gave me a sigil, just
a piece of wax, but I think I’ve lost it.”

“
That’s all right,” Rathe said.
“But if you should find it—send it to me, or to any pointsman.
Don’t keep it.”

Cytel’s eyes widened. “You don’t think—”

“
I don’t know that it’s anything,”
Rathe said firmly, “but this is not the time to take
chances.”

“
I won’t,” Cytel
answered.

“
Good. Thanks for your help.” Rathe
sighed, thinking of Foucquet and his responsibilities there. It
seemed a shame to send the boy back when he was obviously happy
here, but he shoved the thought away. “I’ll have to tell Maseigne
Foucquet where you are. And she will tell your mother. But it looks
as though Savatier wants you here.”

“
She’s never met my mother,” Cytel
said.

“
I’ll put in a word with Maseigne,”
Rathe said “but I can’t promise anything. But I will talk to
her.”

“
Thank you,” the boy said with
doubting courtesy. He pushed himself to his feet, and, at Rathe’s
nod hurried back toward the courtyard.

“
Did you get what you want?”
Jhirassi asked and stood stretching.

Rathe spread his hands, trying to contain his
excitement. “I don’t know. I don’t even know for sure what I’m
looking for. But—yes, I think so. It’s what I hoped he’d say.”

Jhirassi lifted his eyebrows, but visibly decided
not to pursue the question. “Well, then. Shall we get dinner? I’m
starving, myself.”

“
You go ahead,” Rathe answered. “I
have business at the university.”

“
Your friend from Wicked’s?”
Jhirassi asked.

“
Yes.”

“
Do say hello to him for me, would
you? And if he doesn’t remember who I am, I don’t want to hear
about it, Nico. Lie.”

“
Oh, he’ll remember. Istre doesn’t
forget people—” Rathe saw the other draw himself up in mock anger,
and added hastily, “And I doubt anyone who’s ever met you has
forgotten you.”

“
Better,” Jhirassi said. “All
right, then, go on, and here I was going to buy you dinner from
Wicked’s. You won’t get better at the university, you
know.”

“
I know,” Rathe agreed, and let
himself out the side door.

By the time he reached the university precinct, the
sun was well down, and the winter-sun’s cool light threw pale
shadows across the grassy yard. A gang of students, all male, and
mostly Ile’norders by their accents, were arguing loudly on the
steps of one of the dormitories; from an upper window, the delicate
notes of a cittern floated down, sour now where the player missed
her fingering, and a trio of gargoyles tumbled quarreling across
the path in front of him. It was all appallingly ordinary, all
signs of the clock-night erased, as though the troubles that had
hit the rest of Astreiant had bypassed the university completely,
and for an instant he could understand northriver folk’s anger at
the students. But then he passed one of the outside gates, and saw
the bright tassels of protective charms dangling from the posts.
There was a guard, too, a big man, leather-jerkined, sitting
unobtrusively in the shadow of the nearest building, and Rathe
shook his head. The university knew, and was taking
precautions.

b’Estorr had left word he was expected, and the old
woman swung open her door before he could even ask. Rathe climbed
the long flight of stairs, lit by hanging oil lamps against the
winter-sun’s twilight, and found b’Estorr’s door ajar. He caught
his breath, and in the same instant dismissed his fear. No one
would rob a magist, especially not on his own home ground. He
tapped on the frame, and pushed open the door. The room was dim,
only a single lamp lit on the worktable. b’Estorr himself was
sitting in one of the window seats, a tablet tilted to the pale
light, looked up with a smile at Rathe’s appearance.

“
Good, you’re here.”

Rathe closed the door behind him, and flicked the
latch into place. “Is it because your stuff is hard to fence that
you leave the door wide open?” As he spoke, there was a familiar
eddy of cold air, like the trailing of fingertips across the nape
of his neck. They were the real reasons for b’Estorr’s confidence,
of course; the palpable presence of the ghosts would discourage all
but the most hardened thieves, and those would know better than to
give a ghost the chance to reveal their identities.

b’Estorr grinned. “Oh, I dare say there are shops
around here that would buy a used orrery or an astrolabe, and no
questions asked.” He folded his tablets, and crossed to the table
to light the candles that stood in a six-armed candelabrum. The
warm light spread, filling the center of the room, but Rathe could
still feel the cool presence of the ghosts. It was stronger at
night, when the shadows seemed to give visible shape to the odd
breezes, and he had to make an effort not to peer into comers.

“
Have you eaten?” b’Estorr asked,
and gestured to the remains of a pie that stood on the table. There
was a dish of strawberries as well, and cone-sugar and a grater,
and Rathe felt his mouth water.

“
No, I haven’t, but you don’t have
to keep feeding me.”

“
You might as well eat when you
can,” b’Estorr answered, and poured a glass of wine without being
asked. Rathe took it, glad of its delicate tang, and accepted a
wedge of the pie as well. He had eaten at the fair, a fried pie
snatched in haste, and there had been the bread at his own
lodgings, but this, cold cheese and onions, was far better than
anything he’d had in days.

“
Anything more on the clocks?”
Rathe asked his mouth full, and b’Estorr’s eyebrows
twitched.

“
Not really. There are no records
of anything similar happening at star-change, though of course, the
records aren’t great for the last time the Starsmith was in a
shared sign—for one thing, clocks were very rare then.”

“
That was, what, six hundred years
ago?” Rathe asked. Before Chenedolle had become one kingdom, before
Astreiant itself was more than a minor fief of a petty
not-yet-palatine.

“
About that,” b’Estorr answered.
“You should know, though, that there’s a minority view that holds
that it was someone playing with powers they shouldn’t.”

“
Gods above,” Rathe said,
involuntarily, and b’Estorr gave him a sour smile.

“
I doubt it’s that—the sheer scale
of the power is just too great—but the masters and scholars are
looking sidelong at each other, and at all the tricksters among the
students. It’s a mess, Nico.”

“
Better yours than mine,” Rathe
answered.

“
Thank you. Is there any news of
the children?” the necromancer went on, and Rathe nodded,
swallowing hastily.

“
Maybe, but it’s more than we’ve
had yet. There are two things, really, and I need your help with
both of them.” He reached into his pocket, brought out his purse
and carefully unknotted the strings. He poured its contents onto
the tabletop, the wax disk he’d gotten from Ollre dark among the
mix of coins and tokens and a pair of flawed dice. He handed the
disk to b’Estorr and swept the rest of it back into the purse,
saying, “Trijntje Ollre—she’s Herisse Robion’s leman, they’re both
apprentice butchers—she tells me they had their stars read by one
of these hedge-astrologers, and he gave her this.”

b’Estorr picked it up curiously, held it in the
sphere of brightest light from the candles. “A pretty poor piece of
work it is, too. It’s supposed to be sort of a generic
‘from-harm’—you know, the sort of things mothers give their babies
before they go off to dame school—but it’s not very well made. All
the signs are generic, and it wouldn’t be much more effective than
throwing coins in a wishing bowl.” He shook his head, and handed it
back. “You say it’s from one of those new astrologers? I can’t say
I’m surprised. They can’t be that well trained.”

“
So it’s not harmful,” Rathe
said.

b’Estorr shook his head again. “Not likely. It’s not
helpful, either, and if the girl paid money for it, well….”

Rathe waved that away. “What would you say if I told
you I’d found another child—obviously not one of the missing—who’d
gotten a charm from another one of these astrologers?”

“
I’d be—intrigued,” b’Estorr said.
“Can I see it?”

Rathe shook his head regretfully. “The boy didn’t
have it, said he’d lost it, but from the sound of it, it was pretty
much the same as this one. What makes it really interesting,
though, is that half the kids who’ve gone missing from Point of
Hopes had their stars read before they vanished, and probably by
one of the hedge-astrologers.”

“
You’re right,” b’Estorr said.
“That’s very interesting.” He lifted the charm again, holding it to
the light. “Mind you,” he went on, reluctantly, “it could just be
coincidence—these aren’t very effective, and maybe they just didn’t
work.”

“
It has to mean something,” Rathe
said. “We don’t have anything else to go on.” He took a deep
breath. “There’s one other thing.”

“
Oh?” b’Estorr gave him an odd
look, and set the charm down again. “I wonder if it’s the same
thing we’ve been noticing, with these nativities.”