Point of Knives (15 page)

“No.” Rathe shook his head. “You?”

“No.” Eslingen paused. “Well, she could be hiding any number of frauds in her ledgers, I’m no clerk. But I haven’t seen anything that looks like a sudden influx of money, and I certainly haven’t found anything that might be notes from Old Steen about where he hid his treasure.”

“Damn it,” Rathe said. It was all wrong, the whole thing. There should be more here, or considerably less, and yet if it was some kind of lure, what was it meant to bring? Them? He tipped his head to the side, considering the idea. He couldn’t quite see what van Duiren would gain by it—she already knew he was working against her, he’d made that clear when she first brought her claim to Point of Hopes. And she must know by now that Caiazzo had fee’d Monteia to place his knife with the points, so what she could hope to gain…. But it was too late for that to matter. They’d taken her bait, and now the main thing was to extricate themselves as discreetly and painlessly as possible.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Eslingen said, and set the last ledger back in its place. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“No more it does,” Rathe answered. “I don’t know why, but I think she wanted us to break in—maybe just to find nothing.”

“If she wants us here,” Eslingen began, and Rathe nodded.

“I think we’d be wiser to be somewhere else.” He closed the chest again, letting the lock close, the wards reforming with a heavy snap. “We’ll put back everything we can as we go, but the main thing is to leave. Now.”

They swept back down the stairs and though the house, Rathe in the lead with the lamp, Eslingen behind him with the candle end. In the front room, Rathe restored the firescreen to its place and set the lamp back on its shelf, cupping his hand to blow out the light. That left them with only the single candle to survey the empty kitchen, and then Eslingen licked his fingers and pinched out the flame, stood holding it as the wax solidified.

“If she looks closely—if she has reason to look—she’ll know someone’s been here,” he said.

“Yeah,” Rathe said, unhappily. “And she’ll be able to see that I’ve manipulated her locks. But it’s too late to worry about that now.”

The candle had cooled enough, and Eslingen set it back in its box. “And what about those people from the University?”

Rathe eased back the door, peered out into the alley. “That’s a good question. Were they even from the University, or were they just more bait?”

I hadn’t thought of that.
Eslingen swallowed the words, and slipped past Rathe into the alley, scanning the street to either side. There was no sign of another presence, no movement in the shadows; when he looked up, the windows were all shuttered and nothing moved on the rooftops. Behind him there was a soft, heavy click as the lock resealed itself, and Rathe straightened, pocketing his key. Eslingen turned, ready to retrace his steps, but Rathe caught his sleeve, and pointed in the other direction. Eslingen nodded, and fell in at the pointsman’s shoulder, following him down the narrow street.

The winter-sun had risen, and Lanyard Road was bright enough to see shadows. Eslingen heard the sound of hooves and the low rumble of wheels at the crossroads, saw a cart pull slowly past, the driver hunched on the seat. Otherwise, the street was empty: this was not a neighborhood where people gathered after dark. Rathe turned right, heading south; this was not the most direct route to Point of Hopes, and Eslingen glanced curiously at the other man.

“I’d just as soon not go straight home,” Rathe said. “And there will still be traffic on Customs Road.”

“You think we’re being followed?” Eslingen just managed to keep himself from looking over his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Rathe said.

They walked in silence for a while longer, Eslingen straining to hear footsteps behind them. There was nothing, just once the distant sound of another cart, and another time the cackle of fowl disturbed at roost, but he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that someone was there. And that was asking for trouble, asking for tight-strung nerves to make a man go off half-cocked, and he rolled his shoulders as though that would shed the sense that they were being watched.

“Do you think they weren’t from the University, those people?” he asked.

Rathe shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said again. “And, thank Dis, it’s not my problem. I’ll send word to Vair and let her deal with it.”

“Nice that something isn’t,” Eslingen said, and that drew a fugitive grin.

“I have enough on my book right now, yes, thank you.”

Customs Road was busier, lanterns lit in front of the taverns and the few late-working chandlers; a string of mage-fire globes framed the bathhouse at the Sandureigne. Eslingen gave it a wistful glance—a hot bath and cold beer sounded deeply appealing—but matched Rathe’s easy pace. In the crowd, it was easier to find an excuse to look back and sideways, but he saw no real sign that they were being followed, only the usual mix of night-working women and those bound for home and bed. A string of four horses plodded up the middle of the street, pack frames piled high, a wicker cradle strapped onto the lead horse’s frame. Bells jingled softly, counterpoint to the sound of the hooves, and the baby slept, oblivious. A late arrival or an early departure, it was impossible to tell which, and they disappeared around a curve of the road.

Past the Sandureigne, the crowds thinned again, the road passing between shuttered shops and houses that showed lights only on their uppermost floors. Rathe glanced over his shoulder again, and took the first right hand turning. Eslingen cocked his head to listen, but heard nothing, not even the wheels of a cart or a porter’s bells.

“I’ve got a feeling,” Rathe said softly, sounding almost embarrassed. “We’re being watched.”

“I haven’t spotted anyone,” Eslingen said.

“No more have I,” Rathe admitted. “But—”

“If you say so, that’s word enough for me,” Eslingen said. He could feel the itching between his shoulder blades now, too, the unnatural certainty that he was under observation. “Do we split up, draw them out? Or I could fall back, see if I could spot them.”

“I don’t want to split up,” Rathe said. “For one thing, I’ve no idea how many of them there might be.”

“Then we find a spot,” Eslingen said. “You know the city better than I do, you call it, but—a place where we can drop into shadow, out of their sight, and see if they come up.”

“And then what?”

Kill them.
Eslingen swallowed his first suggestion, said, more moderately, “Get a good look at them, for a start. Grab them and beat some answers out of them if we can.”

Rathe nodded slowly. “What my old chief point would say to the idea, I don’t know.”

“From what I’ve seen of your current chief, she’d be hefting a big stick herself,” Eslingen said.

Rathe grinned. “True enough. Monteia’s very—direct in her ways.” He sobered quickly. “Once we cross Bakers’ Row, the road splits. We’ll take the right fork, and almost immediately there’s an alley to the right. We’ll duck in there and see what happens.”

Eslingen nodded. He could almost hear movement behind them now as the city quieted, the occasional faint scrape of a shoe on cobbles, a click that might have been a cudgel carried unwarily, or might only have been imagination. He knew better than to look back, but he could see the tension in Rathe’s shoulders, the pointsman’s movements every bit as tight as his own.

Ahead, the road forked, and it took all his willpower not to pick up the pace, but he kept walking, his head bent a little as though he were listening to some fascinating story. They took the right fork, Rathe leading them casually to the right-hand side of the street, and, sure enough, the road curved still further, cutting off the view of anyone following them.

“Now,” Rathe said quietly, and they slipped together into the mouth of the alley. Eslingen pressed his back against the wall, flattening himself into the darkest part of the shadows; Rathe leaned beside him, his head turned to watch the street beyond. They stood there for a hundred heartbeats, another hundred, and still another. Rathe shifted slightly, trying to see beyond the end of the building, but there was no movement. Then at last there was the sound of hooves and the rumble of wheels, and another cart rolled into view. By the sound of it, it was empty, but Rathe took a step forward to get a better look. The movement drew the carter’s eye, and he gave a yelp, seeing them lurking in the alley. He flourished his whip, urging the horse to a heavy trot, and in spite of himself Eslingen snickered.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Adjunct Point, frightening a law-abiding man like that.”

“What makes you think he’s law-abiding?” Rathe said, and shook his head. “I’d say that wasn’t our man.”

“It doesn’t seem likely,” Eslingen agreed. “What now?”

“They must have gotten suspicious,” Rathe said, “guessed what we were going to try. Damn it, I’d have liked to get a look at them.”

“We could backtrack a bit,” Eslingen said, doubtfully.

“They’re long gone,” Rathe said. “No, we might as well go home. There’s nothing more for us here.”

“But not by the most direct route,” Eslingen suggested, and Rathe grinned.

“And I thought I had the nasty suspicious mind.”

“We’re two of a kind,” Eslingen said.

They spend another three-quarters of an hour making their way back to Rathe’s lodgings, but Eslingen was sure within minutes that whoever had been following them was gone. It took Rathe longer to be certain, or at least longer to admit it, but finally they slipped into the courtyard below Rathe’s stair. Eslingen stood listening a final time while Rathe relocked the gate, and shrugged as Rathe gave him a questioning glance.

“Nothing. I haven’t felt as though we were being followed, either, not since we tried to draw them out.”

“Me neither.” Rathe shook his head. “Come on, let’s fetch water and go to bed.”

“Water?”

“For bathing,” Rathe said. He was, Eslingen thought, unexpectedly fastidious for someone who generally looked as though he’d slept in his clothes.

“The bathhouse at the Sandureigne has marble floors,” Eslingen said. “A hot pool and a cold, and masseurs with hands like tree-roots….”

“What you’ve got is a washbasin,” Rathe said briskly, and heaved on the well-rope. Eslingen caught the bucket, emptied it into the pail that stood waiting.

“What about the massage?”

Rathe glanced over his shoulder. “You’ll have to earn that.”

“At your service,” Eslingen murmured, and followed up him the stairs.

Rathe woke a little after the day-sun’s rise, built up the fire and had just set water to boil when he heard the voices from the courtyard. He glanced quickly out the window, saw Jiemen and Mirremay’s adjunct Chaudet just closing the gate, and swore under his breath.

“Philip!” He crossed quickly to the bed, but Eslingen was already sitting up, awake and alert in an instant.

“What?”

Rathe scooped up the other man’s clothes, thrust them into his arms. “Chaudet. Through there—” He pointed to the alcove that served as his storeroom, and Eslingen obeyed, not stopping to dress. “She’s got Jiemen with her, and whatever’s going on—I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“Right.” Eslingen pulled his shirt over his head. “Is there a back way out?”

“No.” Rathe caught the lifted eyebrow, and shrugged. “I didn’t want a place with a back way in.”

“You may want to rethink that,” Eslingen said, and backed into the narrow space. Rathe pulled the painted screen across it, and braced himself for the knock at the door.

“Adjunct Point?” Jiemen’s tone was scrupulously polite. “Sorry to bother you, but it’s urgent.”

Rathe gave the room a last glance, saw nothing that would betray Eslingen’s presence, and unfastened the latch. “What is it?”

“Is Philip Eslingen here?” Chaudet asked.

Rathe shook his head, unblushing. “What’s wrong?”

“Dame van Duiren’s sworn a charge against him,” Jiemen said.

“On what grounds?” Rathe asked. He reached for his coat, shrugging it onto his shoulders. The sooner they were out of his rooms, the less chance there was that Eslingen would betray himself.

“She says he tried to kill her last night,” Chaudet said. “Presumably at Master Caiazzo’s behest, but that’s not a point she can claim, at least not yet.”

“But—” Rathe closed his lips firmly over his automatic protest. With Mirremay involved, it was better not to show his hand immediately. Not to mention that an alibi that consisted of ‘I know Eslingen wasn’t trying to kill anyone because I was with him and we were robbing a counting house that just happens to belong to Dame van Duiren under another name’ wasn’t likely to impress anyone. “Is it just her word? She’s got a court case against Caiazzo, you know. And he has a countersuit, last I heard. That’s not what I’d call reliable witness.” He was moving toward the door as he spoke, collecting his truncheon and leather jerkin as he went.