“This was not precisely what I had in mind,” Eslingen said again, but did as he was told.
Rathe found the pottery jar on the shelf where he had left it, the stopper still solidly in place, and carried it and the lamp and a couple of towels into the bedroom. Eslingen lay face down on the mattress, his clothes for once left in an untidy heap. He was naked in the dark, his head pillowed on his folded arms. Rathe set the lamp on the chest by the bed, and sat carefully at Eslingen’s side. He could see one eye open, but Eslingen made no other move. The bruise looked even darker in the flickering lamplight.
Rathe worked the stopper out of the jar and dipped out two fingers-full of ointment, breathing on it to warm the chill ointment. He laid it gently on the bruised area, but in spite of his care, he felt Eslingen flinch. “That bad?”
“Cold,” Eslingen said, his voice muffled, and then he sighed. “Yeah, it hurts. But it’ll be better for it in the morning.”
“I’ll be quick.” Rathe did his best, wincing himself as he felt Eslingen tense under his touch, but at last the bruised area was done and he could spread more ointment across the small of Eslingen’s back. Eslingen sighed again, but Rathe thought it was release rather than pain. He could see a few more bruises on Eslingen’s upper arms and treated those as well, keeping his touch feather-light, and saw Eslingen drift into sleep under his hands. That was the wine as well as the bruises, and the arnica salve might have an extra herb or two to encourage rest: the best thing for him, Rathe thought, wiping his hands on the towel and closing the jar again. He was still incandescently angry at the men who’d done this—even knowing it was folly, knowing that Eslingen was probably a better fighter than he was himself, didn’t relieve the urge to find the docker and beat him bloody. That would do him no good, and certainly wouldn’t help Eslingen. He sighed, putting the jar of ointment aside, and stood up to undress himself. He blew out the lamp and settled in the bed beside Eslingen, who stirred and shifted without waking, and a moment later there was a clicking of claws and a thump as Sunflower found his place at the foot of the bed. Rathe tucked one foot under the dog’s warmth, obscurely comforted, and composed himself for sleep.
CHAPTER 8
Eslingen woke to milky daylight, and braced himself to roll over with only a silent grimace. The hot water and Rathe’s ointment had helped, though, and he was able to sit up without undue complaint. The other side of the bed was empty; he could hear both Rathe and Sunflower moving around in the outer room, and a part of him was grateful to make his first cautious movements without a witness. The bruise still ached, but there was none of the sharp pain that meant broken bone or a torn muscle, and when he used the pot there was no sign of blood in his urine. A bad bruise, then, and certainly painful, but nothing that he hadn’t dealt with before. He stretched again, cautiously, testing his limits, and the door swung open.
“You’re moving better,” Rathe said.
There was an edge to Rathe’s expression, excitement barely leashed, and Eslingen’s eyes narrowed. “What’s happened?”
“A runner just brought a note from Sighs. They’ve found where Dammar was attacked.” Rathe held out the jar of arnica. “Want to come along?”
“Oh, yes,” Eslingen said, and reached for the jar. “Where?”
“Dame Havys’s storage room in the pillar of the bridge.” Rathe showed teeth in a feral grin. “Which I’m bound to say I don’t think she knew when she spoke to us.”
“Give me a quarter hour,” Eslingen said, and reached for his shirt.
One of Rathe’s runners was loitering at the foot of the bridge, and came bustling up at their approach, a heavyset boy in a fisherman’s jersey under his almost outgrown coat. “Adjunct Point! Dame Sebern says come this way.”
“Sebern’s here?” Rathe asked.
The boy nodded. “Daiva—Daiva Hockel, she’s the one who found it—she sent for the adjunct first, and she told me to run for you.”
Eslingen slanted a quick glance at Rathe, but the pointsman’s expression was unreadable.
“In the storage area, you said?”
“Yes, sir.” The boy nodded again, harder. “This way.”
The bridge was already crowded with the morning’s traffic, and at first they had to fight their way up the sloping approach. On the bridge itself, the narrow shops rose to either side of the structure, and they fought their way up the left side, carts rumbling slowly past along the center of the span. It was just wide enough for two carts to pass without crowding passersby into the walls, but collisions were inevitable, and Eslingen winced as someone bumped against his bruises. It was also ideal territory for pickpockets, but he hoped being with a pointsman would spare him that indignity.
A third of the way across, the runner darted abruptly sideways, toward a gap between two of the narrow buildings. A rusted iron gate closed the mouth of what would have been an alley anywhere else in the city, and the man waiting behind it straightened at their approach.
“Adjunct Point.”
“You said you’d found the place?” Rathe barely made it a question.
“Daiva did, yes, sir.” The pointsman unlocked the gate, flattening himself against the wall to let them through. Beyond him, the passage ended in a lattice-work railing, the river showing through its gaps. “It’s just through there, down the stairs—you’ll see the lights. Pol, you stay with me.”
The runner rolled his eyes, but did as he was told. Eslingen followed Rathe, keeping one eye on the river churning beyond the rail. Not that it wouldn’t take some effort to go over that wall, it was nearly breast-high, but it was far from impossible. And just as possible to throw a body over it, he realized, and saw from Rathe’s glance in that direction that he was thinking much the same thing.
“I haven’t seen Cambrai’s report yet,” Rathe said. “But it could be.”
Eslingen nodded, not liking the images that conjured for him. Fugitive sunlight glinted on the rushing water, the faint sparks only emphasizing the speed and depth of the river.
Ahead, almost at the end of the space, the wall of the right-hand house bulged outward, a door set into the curve of the laid stones. Rathe pulled it open, revealing a round opening, half filled with a wooden platform. A hoist and chain dangled into the open center, and a stairway led down to the left. There was light below, the steady glow of mage-light, and Rathe leaned cautiously over the platform’s rail.
“Sebern?”
“Down here.” The voice echoed up from below, distorted by the curved walls. “Wait, let me send Bartei up, it’s crowded in here.”
Rathe stepped back, and Eslingen pressed himself against the cold stone between the door and the edge of the platform. He was almost on top of the hoist, the drum with its coiled cable glistening with oil: obviously it was much in use, and looked to be in good repair, the brake braced firmly in place. He looked up, and saw a hook and leather sling dangling just below the ceiling.
Footsteps sounded on the stair, and a stocky man appeared, followed by a slight woman whose truncheon tapped against the stones as she climbed. The man said, “The adjunct says, go on down.”
Rathe nodded, starting down the stairs, but Eslingen waited until the points had stepped out into the alley before he followed. Not that there was much he could do, if they wanted to attack, not in this cramped space and outnumbered three to one, and in any case, he told himself, it was unlikely to happen, so unlikely that he should be ashamed. He followed Rathe down the curving stair, steep and chill, with only a wooden rail to shield them from the central open well. He touched the knife at his belt for reassurance, knowing that it was at least partly the river that worried him, and kept his other hand firmly on the rail.
The stairs ended in a round room perhaps ten paces across, smaller than he’d expected, given the width of the bridge, but then, there was probably a matching chamber accessed from the shops on the other side. The stone floor was scuffed and dirty, and the entire circumference of the wall was broken at regular intervals by
doors half a hand taller than a man. Each one was marked either with a stamped-brass emblem or a painted mark, and each had at least one heavy lock. There was a second row of smaller doors above them, and a third above that, and a sturdy-looking ladder ran on rails to grant access, but the mage-lights hung below the first rank, so their details were lost in shadow. A stocky woman in a pointswoman’s jerkin was standing at the foot of the ladder—the other adjunct point, presumably, Eslingen thought, and in the same moment Rathe said, “Sebern. What have you got for me?”
“Not proof, but a good indication,” the woman answered. “Who’s this?”
“Captain vaan Esling of the City Guard. He’s here on my say-so.”
Eslingen thought Sebern would protest, but she said only, “It looks like there was a fight here, and I’ll lay bail that’s blood.”
The dusty floor showed a confusion of marks, lines that might have been made by a sliding foot or a knee or hip of a falling woman; half a handprint showed clearly at the base of the wall, but there was nothing else that Eslingen could read. He looked up, unable quite to pick out the sling waiting at the top of the tower. If one was hauling goods from storage up to the shops, would one leave similar marks? It was impossible to tell.
Sebern lifted a smaller lantern, went to one knee to cast its light on the base of the wall between two doors. Rathe bent over her shoulder, careful not to cast a shadow, and Eslingen joined him. Sure enough, the extra light showed a dark stain on the stone, the dust thickened and damped, and on the wall about waist height was a line of darker dots.
“It certainly looks like blood,” Rathe agreed. “Better get an alchemist down here to be sure.”
“I’ve sent to the deadhouse already,” Sebern said, and Rathe nodded.
“So, stabbed here—beaten and stabbed, I should say, that could have come from either. I take it this is where Dame Havys rents a space?”
“Yes.” Sebern straightened, and the marks disappeared back into the shadows as the light left them. “So that holds.”
“Why attack a man here, though?” Rathe put his hands on his hips, turning to survey the space. “It’s crowded with the three of us, there’s hardly room to swing a cudgel.”
“Room enough for a knife,” Sebern said.
“Yes, but he was beaten, too.” Rathe squinted up into the dark. “And then you’d have to carry him up the stairs unconscious—”
“Use the hoist, surely,” Eslingen said.
Rathe nodded. “Yeah, and we should check that for blood, too. But if you knew he was going to be down here, why not wait and take him when he came up? Knife him then, and tip him over the rail at the back of the alley. No need to risk someone else coming down here and trap you with your dead man.”
“We’re just lucky no one else is dead,” Sebern said.
“Possible.” Rathe frowned at the marks on the floor. “He came down here—with his attackers? Maybe they had to lure him down themselves, and that’s why he was attacked here.”
“But you said he said he was here on Dame Havys’s business,” Eslingen said.
“So he said,” Rathe agreed.
“He wouldn’t lie,” Sebern said.
“Business she knew nothing of,” Rathe said. “Maybe that’s what they used to lure him?”
Eslingen looked up toward the hoist again, then let his gaze skim back along the stones. The two rows of compartments above the line of mage-lights were barely darker shadows, reminding him of the ash-grave hills along the Chadroni borders. The folk there burned their dead, dug the ashes into little chambers in the side of a hill and covered them with stones, until the entire hill was honeycombed with rock, and filled with the ashes of the dead….
One of the dark squares looked different from the others, darker, its shape faintly elongated. He frowned, looked away, looked back again to see the same anomaly. “Nico.”
Rathe turned, eyebrows rising in question.
Eslingen pointed. “I think one of those bins is open.”
“Where?”
“Third from the left,” Eslingen answered. He saw Sebern scowl.
“Surely—” She stopped abruptly. “You’ve got good eyes, Captain.”
“It might just be unused,” Eslingen said, reluctant to hope too much.
Rathe shook his head. “Not down here, there’s a waiting list for the spaces.” He grinned. “It’s your find, Philip, want to go up?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Take my light,” Sebern said, and Eslingen hooked the lantern onto his belt.
He slid the ladder along its rail, then pulled himself up past the row of mage-lights. Even outside their circle, it was easy to see that one door sagged open, no more than a finger’s breadth, but enough to distort the shape from below. He caught at its edge and started to swing it open, then hesitated, seeing the sign chalked on the dark paint. “What was the woman’s shop sign, the one he was working for?”
“Two rabbits,” Rathe answered.
“Then this is hers.” Eslingen lifted the lantern, angling it to cast the best light. The space revealed was smaller than he’d expected, perhaps an ell square, and mostly empty, except for a few paper-wrapped parcels thrust toward the back of the space. He reached in, stretching, and winced as the muscles across his back protested. But his fingers had touched paper, and he braced himself and reached again. This time, he touched string, and managed to hook a fingertip under the loop to draw it closer. It was small enough to fit in his pocket, and he let himself back down the ladder, holding it out like a prize at the bottom. “There’s three or four more like it up there, but otherwise it’s empty.”
Rathe took it from him, assessing the knot with a glance—a shopkeeper’s loop, nothing fancy—and tugged the dangling end to release the tie. He folded back the paper to reveal half a dozen beeswax rabbits, a tiny model litter cupped in his hands, and Sebern touched one as gently as if it had been alive.
“She sells these, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah.” Rathe folded the paper back around them. “I saw them in her shop.” He looked at Eslingen. “And you say there’s only a few more packages up there? No candles?”
“No,” Eslingen said. “As I said, there are three or four more like this one—small goods, and, what’s more, pushed all the way to the back. Either she’s not using the space, or something’s been taken.”
“Havys could have just brought up a load and not yet refilled the space,” Rathe said, “but I’ll agree your idea seems more likely. She won’t have kept it empty, not at the rent they charge for these spaces.”
“But what’s a wax-chandler got that’s worth knifing one of us?” Sebern said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Nor does it,” Rathe said. “But that’s what we’ve got.”
Eslingen inspected his sleeve, then turned his arm to display it. “I swept my arm back and forth a few times trying to get hold of that package. If there was anything else up there, it didn’t leave traces.”
“No,” Rathe agreed. “I think I’d like another word with Dame Havys.”
“Sebern!” The voice came from the top of the stair. “The boy’s here from the deadhouse. Shall I send him down?”
“Go ahead,” Rathe said. “Vaan Esling and I will talk to Havys.”
Sebern nodded, and Rathe started up the stairs. Eslingen followed, grimacing as the climb pulled at his back. But then at last they were at the top, the platform crowded now with the pointswoman Daiva and a journeyman from the deadhouse.
“Before you go down,” Rathe said, “I’ve a question for you here. Daiva, can you bring the sling down to us?”
“Sure, Adjunct,” she answered. It took a minute for her to release the brake, but she brought the sling down to chest level and swung it toward them. Eslingen craned his neck, and saw with some satisfaction that there was a dark stain on the leather. Rathe gave a grunt of satisfaction.
“The stain. Can you tell me if it’s blood?”
The journeyman blinked, then rea
ched under his leather apron to produce a phial no longer than his little finger. “I thought the blood was down there.”
“It might be up here, too,” Rathe said.
The journeyman steadied the sling against his chest and carefully let a single drop fall on the very edge of the darkened area. It hissed and sparked, and when it vanished, the stain was unchanged. “That’s blood, all right. But I can’t tell you if it’s animal or human without more tests. Though I don’t imagine you get much butchery down here. Or meat kept.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Eslingen said, in spite of himself, and Rathe nodded in wry agreement.
“I want to know if it’s human, and if the other stains are also blood. Can you tell if it belongs to a particular person, if we can provide a sample?”
“I can’t,” the journeyman said, “but Fanier might.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Rathe said. “Come on, Philip, let’s see what Dame Havys has to say for herself.”
It wasn’t far to the wax-chandler’s, with its sign of two young rabbits curled together in a leafy nest. There were candles marked with painted rabbits, and more of the little wax rabbits, and Eslingen wondered abruptly if they were meant to bring on conception. There was no time to ask, however, as Rathe pushed open the half-door, and Eslingen put on his most harmless smile. A young woman in a long blue coat turned away from the shelves at the back of the shop, hastily tucking the cloth with which she had been dusting into a pocket beneath her coat.
“Good day, sirs, how may I help you?”
“I’m looking for Dame Havys,” Rathe said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said. “She’s taken ill. I’m minding the shop for her today.”
“Do you think she’ll be back tomorrow?” Eslingen kept his smile steady, but he could see the woman turning wary.
“I couldn’t say, sir. Perhaps I could help you?”
“Our business was with Dame Havys. And it’s somewhat urgent….” Rathe let his voice trail off invitingly, but the woman didn’t take the bait.
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