Point of Hopes (49 page)

Rathe bared teeth in an angry smile. “It could be.
And there’s one in particular that clinches it for me. When I was
at the fair this afternoon, I ran into a woman I know, a
pickpocket, part of a dynasty, really, working out of the old
Caravansary. They’d lost one of their apprentices, told me about it
a couple weeks back.”

“
I thought the ’Serry was in Point
of Sighs,” b’Estorr said.

“
It is.” Rathe shrugged. “What were
they going to do, go to Sighs and say, please help us, one of our
apprentice pickpockets is missing?”

“
But you’ve asked around,” b’Estorr
said, and Rathe nodded.

“
And when I ran into Cassia, I
mentioned the horoscopes, and she said it was a shame
Gavaret—that’s the boy—wasn’t getting the same chance as the rest
of the kids. I didn’t think there’d be a chance of getting a
nativity on him, and I said so, but she had it. And it’s very
detailed, Istre, close to the minute.” He reached into his pocket,
pulled out his tablet and read from the dark wax. “Born on
Midsummer Eve fourteen years ago in Dhenin. The mother said he
crowned as the town clock struck midnight and was born at the half
hour. You don’t get much better than that, not even in nobles’
houses. And all of our missing kids, every last one of them, have
nativities just as precisely noted. It’s not natural, and it’s got
to mean something.”

b’Estorr was nodding even before he’d finished.
“It’s not just your kids, Nico. We—those of us here who’ve been
doing the horoscopes for the stations—we’ve all noticed it. All of
the children, eighty-four of them, for Dis’s sake, know their
births to better than a quarter hour. Your pickpocket—he’s just one
more.” He leaned back. “Of course, we haven’t found anything else
in common, but we are looking.”

“
There’s another oddity here, too,”
Rathe said quietly. “The boy who’d lost his charm, he’s northriver
born—son of a judiciary clerk, in fact. But he doesn’t know his
birth stars, only to the hour. And he’s not missing, even though he
did talk to one of these astrologers, though I haven’t got a shred
of real evidence that they’re involved.”

“
Can’t you do something?” b’Estorr
asked. “Ban them from the fair—hells, can’t you arrest them on
suspicion? I’d think the city would be delighted to see that
happen.”

Rathe shook his head. “The arbiters control the
fair, and they say they can’t ban them because people think of them
as a good thing, and a good alternative to the Three Nations, for
that matter.”

“
Ah.” b’Estorr sat back in his
chair, frowning.

“
And as for arresting them, gods,
I’d like nothing better,” Rathe went on. “We don’t have the
authority.”

“
If you don’t, who does?” b’Estorr
snapped, and Rathe held up his hand.

“
Bear with me, will you? It’s
complicated. The points are relatively new here, we started out
with the writ to keep the peace, and the rest, everything else we
do, has developed from that.”

“
Including tracking down lost
property—and children?” b’Estorr asked.

“
It’s all a matter of the queen’s
peace, isn’t it?” Rathe answered. “The theory being that if a
woman’s household and her property aren’t safe, then she’s more
likely to break the peace trying to preserve them—which I’ll admit
is a good argument. But that’s where our authority comes from, not
anything else. Right now, yeah, we spend most of our time trying to
figure out who’s done what to whom, and even why, but we don’t
really have the queen’s warrant for that. And if we tried to arrest
the hedge-astrologers, well, you’ve seen the broadsheets. People
would cry we were blaming them to save ourselves, and the judiciary
would probably uphold them as a matter of the queen’s
peace.”

“
So where does that leave you?”
b’Estorr asked, after a moment.

Rathe sighed. “Confused. Why would astrologers be
stealing children, anyway?”

“
Stealing children who know their
nativities to better than a quarter hour,” b’Estorr corrected,
frowning again. “We’ve been trying to see what these nativities
have in common, but maybe we’re going at it backwards.” He looked
up sharply, the blue eyes suddenly vivid. “Maybe the astrologers
already know the link, and they’re picking out the children
accordingly.”

“
Which would explain why only the
ones who know their stars closely are missing,” Rathe agreed, “but
it doesn’t tell us why they’re wanted.”

“
No.” b’Estorr lifted one shoulder.
“Finding that’s just a matter of time and effort, though, sorting
through books. Look, thousands of magistical procedures require the
worker to have a specific horoscope—it’s like any job, only more
so, and we all trade off, depending on when we were born, do a
favor here, get a favor there.” He broke off, shaking his head at
his own distraction. “But there aren’t that many for which you’d
want children—for most of them, in fact, children would be all
wrong. And the sheer number involved is unusual. That’s got to help
narrow it down.”

“
If you say so,” Rathe said,
dubiously. He looked down at the charm again, thinking of what
Monteia would say when he told her about this, and then remembered
something else she had told him that morning. “There may be another
problem, Istre. There haven’t been any real disappearances over the
past few days, not since the twentieth of the Gargoyle. We were
thinking it was good news, but now I’m not so sure.”

“
You’re thinking they—whoever they
are—have gotten everyone they need,” b’Estorr said. He shook his
head. “You’d think someone would have noticed someone trying to
hide eighty children somewhere.”

“
Unless they were taken out of the
city,” Rathe answered. “And they must’ve been, someone would’ve
seen them. The city’s been looking too hard not to.”

“
Well, then, you’d think someone
would notice anyone trying to herd eighty-four, no, eighty-five
with your pickpocket, eighty-five children anywhere, it has to be
harder than trying to hide them,” b’Estorr muttered.

“
They must have been moved in small
groups,” Rathe said, and stopped. Even so, the only people who
could hope to hide, or travel with, large numbers of children would
be people who were expected to travel, and that meant another trip
to the fair. He had friends among the caravaners, could ask them
what they’d heard. He sighed then, thinking of the one
hedge-astrologer he’d seen. “The astrologers are still around,
though who knows for how long.” He stopped then, staring at the
books that filled one tall case and overflowed onto the table
beside it. The candlelight trembled on the rubbed gilt of the
bindings, drew smudged highlights from the heavy leather. If this
were an ordinary crime, he thought, something southriver, stolen
goods, say, or pimping, we’d send someone to buy from them, see
what happened. Could I do that here? I’d have to send a runner,
none of the points at Hopes could pass for apprentice-age, and
that’s bad enough—unless Istre could provide some sort of
protection? He said, slowly, “Istre, is there any way you, or
someone here, could protect a child from being stolen?”

“
If we could,” b’Estorr said,
sourly, “don’t you think we’d’ve done it?”

“
I mean, knowing they’re looking
for something—”

“
Without knowing what,” b’Estorr
said, “there’s damn all I can do.” He looked at the pointsman.
“Why?”

Rathe made a face. “I told you, we’d have to catch
them actually doing something before we can claim the point on
them. I was thinking about offering them some bait. If any of our
runners know their stars well enough, or even if they don’t, maybe
we could fake a nativity for them, we could send them to the fair,
see what the astrologers do about them.” He saw b’Estorr’s startled
look, and looked disgusted with himself. “Yeah, I know, it’d be
dangerous. I’d take everyone I could from Point of Hopes—hells,
I’ll borrow from Fairs, if Claes’ll let me—and make damn sure the
kids never get out of our sight. But it’s something to do, before
they all disappear back to wherever they took the kids.”

b’Estorr was silent for a long moment, then slowly
nodded. “It might work—but don’t try faking nativities, to do it
right takes time, and unless you do it very carefully, they’ll know
something’s off. It’s a risk, of course, but what are the odds
they’ll have the right conjunction?” He leaned back in his chair
again, stretching to reach a sheaf of scribbled papers. “Right now,
I’d say don’t use anyone who has Areton in the Anvil—that’s the one
thing I’ve seen more of than I’d expect Of course, that means about
as much as saying most of them have sun or moon in a mutable sign,
anything or nothing.”

Rathe nodded, and scratched the prohibition into his
tablet. “Is there anything else I should know about?”

b’Estorr shook his head, his pale hair gleaming in
the candlelight. “I wish there were, but, as I told you, there
isn’t a pattern. Just—have them be very careful. Anyway, you say
you’ll be watching them?”

“
Oh, yes,” Rathe said, grimly. And
if none of our kids know their stars well enough, someone from
Dreams or Sighs will, he added silently. And I’ll make very sure
they come home safe again. He stood and stretched, hearing the
muscles crack along his spine. “Thanks for dinner, Istre, but I’d
better go now, if I want to get home before second
sunset.”

“
I’ll let you know if I—we—figure
out anything,” b’Estorr said, and smiled. “Whatever the
hour.”

“
Thanks,” Rathe said again, and let
himself out into the dimly lit stairway. It wasn’t much, he
thought, but it was more than he’d had before. Monteia wouldn’t
like it—hells, he thought, I’m not sure I like it—but it stands a
chance of working. He lengthened his stride, heading through the
shadowed streets toward the Hopes-point Bridge. And I’m very much
afraid it’s a chance we’ll have to take.

The winter-sun had passed the zenith, was declining
toward the housetops across the wide road. Eslingen eyed it
cautiously, wishing there were more clocks in Point of Hearts,
guessed that he and Denizard had been waiting for more than an
hour. Not that it wasn’t a perfectly nice tavern, the service deft
and discreet—Point of Hearts was living up to its reputation as the
neighborhood for assignations—and the wine excellent, but still, he
thought, whoever it is we’re waiting for should have been here by
now.

A shadow fell across the table, and he looked up to
see Denizard returning from the open doorway. She was frowning, her
fingers tapping against the bowl of her wine glass, and one of the
waiters hurried to her side.

“
Is everything all right,
madame?”

Denizard forced a smile, nodded. “Fine, thanks.” She
glanced at the table, littered now with emptied plates. “You can
bring us another serving of the cakes, however.”

“
At once, madame.” The waiter
bowed, and hurried away. Denizard made a face, and reseated
herself, settling her skirts neatly around her.

“
No sign of—?” Eslingen asked, and
left the sentence delicately unfinished.

The magist sighed. “No. And if he’s not here by now,
I doubt he’s coming.”

Eslingen waited, but no more information seemed to
be forthcoming. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on? Can you
tell me, I mean? I’m generally more useful when I have some idea of
the circumstances I’m dealing with.”

Despite his best efforts, the words came out more
sharply than he’d intended, and Denizard gave him a hard glance.
“You’re not indispensable, however, Eslingen.”

Eslingen held up his hands. “Agreed. But, until you
dispense with me…” He gave her his best smile, and, to his
surprise, the magist smiled back reluctantly.

“
True. And Hanse said I should use
my discretion.” She glanced around again, and Eslingen looked with
her. The tavern was hardly crowded, most of the drinkers clustered
at the far side of the wide room by the unlit fireplace. A man and
a woman, the woman in a wide-brimmed hat and hood that effectively
hid her face, sat at a corner table, leaning close, their plates
forgotten. Conspirators or clandestine lovers, Eslingen guessed,
and not much interested in anything except each other.

“
It’s the Ajanine property,”
Denizard said. She kept her voice low, but didn’t whisper.
“Hanse—and Madame Allyns, but mostly Hanse; he takes the risk for
her—has owned this land for four years now, and we’ve never had any
trouble, but this year…” She shook her head again. “This year, we
haven’t seen our gold or had word from the so-called landame. The
mine is seigneurial, the landame has full control of the takings.
So she pays her debt in gold and we—Hanse has the funds he needs to
finance his caravans and caravels. But this year, Maseigne de
Mailhac hasn’t done her part.”

Which explained a great deal, Eslingen thought. It
explained Rouvalles’s impatience, and Caiazzo’s temper, and
probably even the old woman in the Court. He said aloud, “You can’t
mean we’re waiting for the gold. Not just the two of us.”

“
I thought you were good, soldier,”
Denizard answered.

“
No one’s that good.”

Denizard grinned. “At least you’re honest. We’re
waiting for one of Hanse’s men, he sent him north a good month ago,
and he should have been back some days since.” She shook her head
the smile fading. “There’s something very wrong at Mailhac,
Eslingen, that’s for sure. And I’m very much afraid Hanse is going
to have to send one of us to deal with the situation.”