Young men who walk by autumn’s tides
Should careful be their face to hide
Or the Riverdeme will drag them down
To make her meal ’neath waters brown.
It did not, Eslingen noted, specify how a fish-tailed being would confront those young men walking on the bank, or say why any sensible person would stay to chat with something that not only intended to eat them, but was clearly well-equipped to do so. The next three dealt with the dogfish sightings—universally agreed to be unfortunate—but quickly devolved into an astrologers’ quarrel over which stars governed the fishes’ reappearance, and the implications of the quincunx between the sun and the winter-sun. The last of those was more technical than he had realized, and he eyed the calculations with disfavor before putting it aside.
The last was the one that had first caught his eye, plain type without an illustration, but the headline easy enough to read as one passed the printer’s stall: An Accounting of the Drowned. It was a double sheet, back and front, the front proclaiming that sixteen men had died in the river since summer’s end, and the back listed each of them, and the date and place of their death. And if that was anywhere close to the truth…. He held the sheet closer to the lamp, studying the seal that indicated the publication had been officially licensed. It was hard to tell, but he thought it was a forgery. He didn’t recognize the printer’s name or her house, but he guessed Rathe would.
And this was certainly something Rathe would want to see once he got in. He tidied the stack together and set the lamp on it to keep Sunflower from knocking them over, then blew out the flame. He checked the stove, Sunflower pattering at his heels, and took himself to bed.
He woke to clouded morning light and a hand on his shoulder, rolled over to see Rathe waving a cup of tea in his direction. Sunflower scrabbled noisily on the floor, apparently looking for crumbs, and Eslingen pushed himself upright. “Sorry. I thought I’d hear you come in.”
“You were dead to the world, and I wasn’t far behind.” Rathe paused. “I saw the broadsheets.”
Eslingen stretched, trying to guess the time, but the clouds defeated him. They had moved the bed into the second room after they’d knocked out the plaster-and-lathe that had blocked the original connecting doorway, but the household clock stayed in the main room.
“Half past seven,” Rathe said, “and you’re lucky I let you sleep that long. Cambrai wants to talk to Dammar today, and that’s going to be tricky. But I wanted to talk to you first.”
Eslingen sighed. “Give me a minute, and I’m all yours.”
“We don’t have time for that.” Rathe sounded genuinely regretful. “But there’s tea.”
Eslingen made a hasty toilet, and came out into the main room still in his shirtsleeves, his hair curling loose on his shoulders. Rathe looked as though he was about to say something, but handed him the toasting fork instead. Eslingen flipped open the front of the stove, pleased to see that the fire was already built up, and busied himself turning the slices of bread in front of the flames. Rathe filled the teapot, and by the time the plate was stacked high with toast, the tea was ready. Eslingen took his share gratefully, and stretched out his toes to the stove’s warmth.
“I thought you’d want to see that one,” he said, and pointed an elbow at An Accounting of the Drowned.
Rathe swallowed a mouthful of toast. “If that’s even half true—surely someone would have noticed sixteen deaths.”
“They don’t offer any cause, just the list, but everyone else is linking it to the dogfish and this Riverdeme.”
“I saw that, too,” Rathe said. “The Riverdeme, she’s just stories, scary ones, but—old. She’s been bound a long time.”
“By the bridges, you said.”
“That’s what I was taught.” Rathe gave a sudden grin. “And being as they’re all intact, I’d say there’s not much chance she’s involved.”
“From the broadsheets, I have to say I’m glad of that.” Eslingen reached for the broadsheet, trying not to leave greasy fingerprints on the paper. “All right, we can assume some of these are just accidents—and is this even an unusual number of accidents for the docks? I wouldn’t know.”
Rathe took the sheet back, tucking it into his pocket. “It’s definitely something I’m going to ask Cambrai, and Sebern—oh. Yeah. I have a new assignment.”
“Oh?”
“I’d have told you before, but there wasn’t time. Fourie’s put me in as senior adjunct at Point of Sighs.”
Eslingen swore under his breath. “That seems —chancy.”
Rathe shrugged. “Astarac, that’s the chief, is confined to her bed—she’s with child and having a hard go of it—and with Dammar laid up, Fourie announced that Sebern, she’s the junior adjunct, was too junior to hande the station on her own.”
And he’s also glad to have an excuse to put his own man into the middle of what’s becoming a peculiar situation, Eslingen thought, but there seemed to be no point in saying it. “Is this likely to be permanent, do you think?”
“All gods forbid,” Rathe said. “I’ve never liked Point of Sighs.”
Eslingen nodded slowly. He suspected that Point of Sighs returned the sentiment, but once again it seemed unhelpful to comment. “So you’ll ask them about these deaths, then?
“I will.” Rathe nodded. “It seems like a lot, though.”
“I wonder if there’s anything in their stars,” Eslingen said. “Anything they have in common—or, for that matter, if there’s some conjunction at work.”
“Also worth asking,” Rathe said. “But, since collecting horoscopes is a particularly thankless task, let’s make sure it’s worth the effort. One thing you could do, though—pick up another couple of copies of that one. It’ll help if it comes to anything.”
“You think it will.”
Rathe shrugged on his coat, and then the stiff leather jerkin, hung the truncheon at his waist. “I’m afraid it might.”
He was out the door before Eslingen could think of an appropriate answer. Sighing, he turned his attention to the mud-spattered coat, and managed to brush away the worst of it before he had to leave himself. The weather had eased overnight, and streaks of blue showed between the scudding clouds, though the wind coming down the Sier was cold. He made his way to Temple Fair, bought two more copies of the Accounting, and scanned the stalls for anything else in that vein. He saw the same sheets he’d bought the day before, and obvious variations, but nothing new. Whatever was going on in Point of Sighs and on the river, it wasn’t drawing the full attentions of the broadsheet astrologers. He wondered if that were significant in itself, and put the thought aside to ask Rathe later.
As he made his way to the Guard’s barracks, he found himself hoping that de Vian might have changed his mind. Rathe was wrong about there being any passion there, but he was right that it was all too likely to end with the boy estranged from his sister, which did no one any good. And it was hard enough figuring out how to do this new job without having to teach the boy as well. And yet a runner might be useful, someone to carry notes and run errands—track down horoscopes and all the other tedious bits of business. If de Vian had sense enough to refuse this job, it might be worth taking him on later.
Rijonneau was by the riding ring, but professed himself entirely happy to step into the shelter of the stables. “I hear you’re on detached service for a bit.”
“I’ve been told off to help the points.” Eslingen gave a quick summary, and the other captain nodded.
“The Major-Sergeant said it was something like that, though I wasn’t quite sure I believed it. I didn’t think that was really our job, figuring things out. I thought we just knocked people over the head.”
Eslingen gave him a sharp look, and relaxed as he saw the gleam of humor in Rijonneau’s eyes. “If you wanted something that simple, you should have stayed with the Dragons.”
“I thought the pickings might be better in the city,” Rijonneau said, “and then th
ey tell me there’s to be none of that.”
Eslingen grinned in spite of himself. “The question is, Matalin, can you handle the company for a week or so?”
“We’re not doing much now but keeping the horses in training. I’ve men to spare for that. And surely this case won’t last until the Galeneon.”
The company was supposed to be formally sworn in at midwinter, and put on a show to prove their worth. They would all need to work on that if it was to do Coindarel credit. “I’ll be done before then,” he said, “or I’ll come back here anyway. Have you seen Balfort de Vian today? I could use a runner.”
“Is that wise?” Rijonneau cocked his head to one side.
“Quite possibly not. He’s determined to earn a place here.”
“I know. And we could do worse.” Rijonneau sighed. “Last I saw, he was cleaning tack.”
The stables were dim and quiet, a third of the horses drowsing in their stalls, the air warm with their scent and the sweet smell of hay. Eslingen had grown up in a stable, and the stalls always made him think of his childhood home. Not that his father’s stable had been anything near this grand, nor had they owned but one horse of their own, a sleepy cart horse to be rented to unlucky merchants. But, like his father’s, this had stone outer walls and wooden stalls and loft, and he had to shake memory away as he reached the tack room.
De Vian was there, as promised, perched on a tall stool while he buffed the leather of a well-cleaned bridle. He looked up at Eslingen’s step, and smiled widely.
“You didn’t forget!”
“No. Though I’m still not sure it’s a good idea.” Eslingen eyed him unhappily. “I’m asking you to maybe go against your sister, to do something that has the chance of hurting your family. No one, least of all me, will think worse of you if you say no.”
“This is something I can do,” de Vian said. “I know how the family works, that’s useful.”
“But your sister may well see it as betrayal,” Eslingen said. “You need to be sure you’ve thought this through.”
“I have.” De Vian set the bridle back on its peg and laid the brush on its shelf, and when he turned, there seemed to be a new maturity in his face, like the shadow of bones beneath the skin. “I’ve considered the consequences and—I’m no worse off if my sister disowns me, she does nothing for my keep now. And I know I’m the youngest here, and it’s unlikely I’ll have a better chance to show my worth. I’ll do anything to earn my place, Captain, anything at all. But mostly—most of all, it’s what you said. This is what I swore to, this is my duty. It’s in my stars.”
That was all true, Eslingen thought, and also exactly why Rathe had recommended refusing him. But Rathe had never had his way to make in a company, not like this. “All right. For the time being, you’ll act as my runner. I’ve arranged it with Captain Rijonneau.”
De Vian reached out as though to take his hand, then seemed to think better of it, bowing deeply instead. “You won’t regret it, sir, I promise.”
Rathe had expected mornings at Point of Sighs to be busier than at Point of Dreams—the theater crowd tended to sleep late, and save their quarrels for the afternoon—and had arrived early accordingly. However, though both great doors were open and the duty points were at their tables, the hall was largely empty. One of the station’s runners was building up the fires in the stoves, and a woman in a plain bottle-green skirt-and-bodice was talking to a pointsman, but his hands were hooked in his belt and from their smiles, it looked more like flirtation than business. He skimmed through the overnight entries, and found only tavern brawls and petty thefts, plus an unlucky climbing thief caught halfway up a drainpipe. He lifted an eyebrow at that, and the duty point looked aside.
“Garin got lucky on that, just happened to swing his lantern a little higher. We’ve got the man in the cells unless someone bails him.”
Or Garin took a fee, and then decided to call the point anyway, Rathe thought. But he was not here to clean house, and the story might just as well be true—in Dreams, he wouldn’t have doubted it. “The thief’s known to you?”
“We’ve had our eye on him. His mother’s a fence, though she mostly works northriver.”
“She’ll post bail, then,” Rathe said, and the duty point gave a regretful nod.
“Unless she’s thoroughly annoyed. We might get lucky.”
“Will the householder prosecute?”
“She’s a busy woman.” The duty point gave the words a sour twist.
Rathe grimaced in sympathy—if a crime was stopped without loss, most women preferred to let the matter go than spend the time and money to take a case to court, and that was as true in Dreams as it was in Sighs—and headed up the stairs.
His workroom was as he had left it, though someone had built up the fire here as well. The kettle was empty, though, and he leaned out the door long enough to call for a runner, and looked again at the table. He had left Dammar’s books stacked to one side, their spines neatly aligned; now they sat slightly crooked, as though someone had put them back not quite perfectly. Or maybe the runner who had fed the stove bumped against them, but Rathe was glad he hadn’t left any notes in the station overnight.
The runner appeared, brought water and fresh tea. Rathe settled himself at the table again, one ear cocked for the arrival of Cambrai’s request, and reached for Dammar’s books. If the cap’pontoise was right, and someone at Sighs was behind the attack on the Senior Adjunct, he would do well to watch his back.
The clock had struck ten before he heard footsteps on the stairs, and Ormere put her head in the open door.
“Adjunct, there’s a message from the pontoises—from the cap’pontoise, actually.”
“Send it up.”
Ormere shuffled her feet as though she was an apprentice again. “The chief doesn’t like the pontoises coming into the upstairs.”
Rathe bit back his instinctive response. “All right. Then I’ll go down.”
“But—” Ormere stopped, and Rathe lifted his eyebrows.
“If it’s beneath her dignity to come down, and she won’t let them up, what does your chief do when she gets a message?”
“Usually the duty point reads it.” Ormere was scarlet.
“And this message is addressed to—?”
“To you, Adjunct Point.”
“Then you can send it up, or I’ll come down.” Rathe waited, but Ormere couldn’t seem to find an answer. “I’ll come down.”
Cambrai’s tillerman Saffroy was waiting by the duty point’s table, the long tail of his knitted cap tossed around his shoulders like a chain of office, and what looked like a small satchel tucked under one arm. He looked up at Rathe’s approach. “Adjunct Point.”
“Tillerman. I hear you have a message?”
Saffroy produced the satchel. “A formal request from the cap’pontoise, Adjunct Point. He’d like a word with Edild Dammar.”
There was a murmur of disapproval from the listening points, but Rathe ignored it, unbuckling the straps of the satchel to retrieve the folded sheet of parchment. He unfolded it carefully, the enormous wax seals clattering—seven of them, as promised, from the cap’pontoise himself and the Regents and Trijn at Point of Dreams, which held jurisdiction over the land around the Chain Tower that was the pontoises’ headquarters, plus a university physician and the Maternité—and, at the very bottom, not just the seal of the Tour but the surintendant’s own embossed monogram. He looked up sharply—Fourie must have loved giving that, no matter how necessary it might be—and caught the ghost of a smile on Saffroy’s lips.
“Adjunct Point Dammar’s badly hurt,” Rathe said. “It’ll depend on what his physician says.”
Saffroy pointed to the Maternité’s seal. “His physician has already accepted, and the Maternité certifies it. He’s well enough to talk.”
“I assume his physician will be in attendance?”
“She can be if she wishes.” Saffroy shrugged. “But the cap’ very much wants a word with him. He
’s not been well enough to speak since we fished him out of the Sier.”
Rathe ran a finger over the seals, pitching his voice to be sure the others heard. “I can’t go against the surintendant’s orders, of course. But I want to be present.”
It was Saffroy’s turn to look doubtful for the listening points. “I expect the cap’ can agree to that.”
“It’s that or nothing,” Rathe said, and Saffroy managed a sort of bow.
“May we say noon, then, Adjunct Point?”
“Meet me here at quarter of,” Rathe said firmly.
“Agreed,” Saffroy said, and turned away.
Rathe kept his expression neutral as he turned to face the others. “Ormere. You’ll come with me.”
“Adjunct.” That was Bellin, her hair in a loose tail as though she’d been called before she was quite ready. “You’re not really going to let the cap’pontoise question one of ours?”
“I don’t have a choice.” Rathe tapped the surintendant’s seal again. “The sur’s agreed, and the physicians, there’s nothing I can argue to say no. I’ll be there, and I’ll make sure Dammar isn’t harmed.” Physically, at least, he thought, and was afraid from the dissatisfied expressions that the others guessed the thought.
The Exemption Docks were technically outside the city limits, though houses and shops had filled in what had once been a perceptible gap until it was hard to tell what belonged where. Presumably Customs Point knew which of the crowded streets formed the boundary, Eslingen thought, and some of the buildings bore painted badges, proclaiming them either generally Exempt or belonging to some other taxing entity, but the sprawl of crooked buildings and dogleg alleys was enough to tangle less experienced folk. The chophouse was near the actual docks; Eslingen fixed his eyes on the masts visible above the housetops, and threaded his way through the rutted streets, de Vian wide-eyed at his heels.
Point of Sighs Page 13
