Point of Sighs

by Melissa Scott

  “And Trys is mine,” Cambrai said. “He’s a docker, and what he’s doing is dock business.”

  “I can’t stop my people from asking after him,” Rathe said. “And if the poisoning leads his way….”

  “I’ll expect you to come to me with it.” Cambrai shoved his stool away from the table. “We’ll keep looking for Trys, and we will find him. But keep your people out of my way—and that goes for you, too, Captain.”

  Eslingen lifted his hands. “My business is with whoever killed bes’Anthe.”

  “And if that’s Trys?” Cambrai glared down at him.

  “Then it is my business.” Eslingen matched him stare for stare.

  Cambrai snorted and turned away.

  Rathe swore under his breath. “The trouble is, he’s right, we haven’t got anything more to go on.”

  “No.” Rathe’s cup was empty, and Eslingen refilled it, then waved for the nearest server to bring a fresh cup and another pint of wine. “So what do we do now?”

  Rathe glared.

  Eslingen lifted a hand. “No, I meant, this must happen. What’s the procedure?”

  “What I said. Go back to Dame Sawel’s house, question everyone there. Send my people along the docks regardless of what Euan says. Keep turning over rocks until something turns up.” He made a wry face. “Enforce the laws. That’ll upset business enough that someone will turn Trys in, if only to get us off her back. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “What if I were to take some of that tea to the Staenkas’ house?” Eslingen asked. “The sister said it was expensive, a special gift, they might recognize the blend—and before you say it, while they might want to murder Dammar, I can’t see how they could have done it.”

  Rathe rubbed his chin. “That’s not a bad thought, actually. And in the meantime—Istre had an unofficial question about drownings. Want to come along?”

  “I could be persuaded,” Eslingen answered.

  The next morning dawned colder still, and cloudy, the mist crawling along the edges of the garden while Sunflower took his morning run. At Point of Sighs, the fog hovered over the river, forming a wall at the end of each dock, the ships lost in its depths, and Eslingen shivered in spite of the stove in Rathe’s workroom. The space was larger than the room he had at Point of Sighs, and better furnished, but for once the kettle was off the hob, and the teapot, when Eslingen lifted it, proved to be dry and empty.

  “I’m a bit off station tea at the moment,” Rathe said, and Eslingen couldn’t help but nod.

  Rathe had sent a note to the university, asking b’Estorr to set a time, and the runner returned before the clock struck ten, flushed and fog-damp, carrying a reply that said the necromancer would be free until early afternoon.

  “No time like the present,” Eslingen said, though he was not looking forward to the walk in the rising damp, and they made their way out into the fog.

  The bridge was heavily shrouded, and less crowded than usual; it was hard to see more than a house ahead, and they both clung close to the walls for fear that a cart would overtake them without warning. This was the sort of day that you might well expect murder on the bridge, and Eslingen loosened his knife in its scabbard.

  Rathe gave him a sidelong glance. “Seen something?”

  Eslingen shook his head. “I don’t like the weather, that’s all.”

  They were at the apex of the bridge, where there was a gap between the ranks of houses. It stretched perhaps fifteen ells, where the roadway opened out and there was nothing but a chest-high railing between the bridge and the river below. On better days, the space would be filled with peddlers, apple-sellers and broadsheet criers, maybe a fiddler playing for demmings, but today it was empty, the stones slick with damp, the water rushing beneath the span, invisible but insistent. Eslingen hesitated for an instant, listening, wondering if he’d heard the sound of hurrying feet on stone, but the river washed away all other sounds.

  “Come on,” Rathe said, and Eslingen saw him shiver and shift a step or two away from the railing.

  The fog was no better on the Sier’s northern bank, but more houses had lit mage-lights, and there were torches in iron brackets in the smaller squares. A damp bonfire burned in Temple Square, its smoke hanging low to wreath the entrance to the Pantheon, and the outdoor booksellers hadn’t bothered to set up their tables. The Pantheon seemed more normal, though, merchants-venturer in rich wool visible between the ranks of the outer columns, and Eslingen told himself that was a good sign.

  The university gates were mage-lit, and there was another smoky bonfire in the enclosed yard, students hovering in black-gowned knots to roast apples while gargoyles scrabbled in the leaves that had drifted against the bases of the buildings. Eslingen followed Rathe across the open space, and together they climbed the winding stair to the rooms b’Estorr held by right of his university position. The door opened at once to Rathe’s knock, and b’Estorr waved them in, closing the door firmly behind them. Eslingen braced himself for the unnatural chill that always seemed to accompany the necromancer—b’Estorr’s ghosts, invisible and intangible but omnipresent—but the fog-bound damp seemed to conceal their presence. Eslingen wasn’t sure that wasn’t more unnerving than the cold and feathery touches.

  “I didn’t expect you to be able to come this quickly,” b’Estorr said, “but I assure you, we are grateful.”

  The ‘we’ encompassed a small graying man perched uneasily on one of the b’Estorr’s carved chairs, his dark blue gown open over a suit of russet wool. The gown’s corded silk had been fine once, Eslingen noted, but the hems showed years of water-stains and the slit sleeves were frayed: poverty, or just changing his coat to match the weather? The suit was in better repair, so it was hard to tell.

  “This is Hannes Raunkeleyn, who holds the Disputations Chair in the Faculty of Elements,” b’Estorr said. “Hannes, these are Adjunct Point Nicolas Rathe, of Point of Dreams, and Captain Philip vaan Esling of the City Guard.”

  “I’m attached to Point of Sighs at the moment,” Rathe said. “In case that makes a difference.”

  b’Estorr looked at Raunkeleyn, who managed a shy smile. “No, that—if anything, it might make it better? No harm, at any rate.”

  “Normally I’d offer wine,” b’Estorr said, “but today tea seems more appropriate.”

  “Sounds good,” Rathe said, and perched on one of the other carved chairs.

  Eslingen accepted a cup, white-glazed pottery painted with a design of ships and clouds, expensive stuff to match the furniture, and he found himself wondering if it belonged to the necromancer or to the university. At the moment, b’Estorr had left off his gown and was at ease in a scarlet house coat over plain breeches and a fine linen shirt; the coat was block-printed with black and gold flowers, and not, Eslingen thought, bargained for in the Mercandry’s secondhand shops. It was rumored that the necromancer had made some small fortune in the years that he served the King of Chadron, and Eslingen guessed it might be so.

  “So,” Rathe said. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

  “Off the books,” Raunkeleyn said. “I need that understood.”

  “Why?” Eslingen asked, with his most guileless stare.

  Raunkeleyn looked into the depths of his cup. “My chair is called the Disputations Chair because not only must the holder defend her theses against all comers, but because the holder must represent the faculty in any internal debates. So it’s extremely important that my name not be attached to any controversies for fear that someone might get the idea that the Faculty of Elements intended to begin some dispute. And I have no intention of doing so, particularly over this matter. If any of what I fear is true, it’s far too important for abstract argument.”

  “Have you seen this pamphlet?” b’Estorr held up a copy of The Accounting of the Drowned.

  Rathe nodded. “I have.”

  Raunkeleyn set his cup aside and knotted his fingers together as though to keep himself from gesturing. “Is it accurate?
”

  “I don’t know,” Rathe said. “There have been more deaths on the river than usual, but I don’t know if that list is strictly accurate. I’ve put the question to the cap’pontoise, but he hasn’t answered.”

  And wasn’t likely to, not in his current mood, Eslingen thought.

  “I’m more interested in these deaths.” Raunkeleyn reached beneath his gown and brought out his own copy of the pamphlet, considerably more dog-eared than b’Estorr’s. “These where she claims they were eaten by fishes.”

  “I have heard at the deadhouse that there have been bodies that seem to have been attacked by fish,” Rathe said. “Partly eaten, in at least some cases. But that’s all I know. The alchemists are rarely wrong about the causes of death, though.”

  “They’re very accurate.” Raunkeleyn rolled the pamphlet into a cylinder, then seemed to realize what he was doing and spread it out again. “I expect you’ve heard of the Riverdeme?”

  “That’s a broadsheet horror,” Rathe said.

  “Not originally.” Raunkeleyn fingered an edge of the parchment.

  “It’s made a comeback,” Eslingen murmured. He said, more loudly, “I wasn’t born in Astreiant, so I don’t know any more than I’ve read in the broadsheets. And what I’ve read—something like a mermaid that lures young men to their deaths?”

  “That’s what she’s become,” Raunkeleyn said. “Originally, the Riverdeme—she had other names, but they’ve been lost to time—she was a tutelary spirit, a deity whose home was in the Sier and who may have demanded sacrifices, and certainly received them, from the people who first settled on the banks here. She had a proper cult, and at least one temple, but that burned when Astreiant burned in the reign of Queen Amarial.”

  Eslingen lifted an eyebrow.

  “That was seven hundred years ago.” Rathe looked back at the scholar. “I understood she was bound by the bridges.”

  Raunkeleyn nodded. “That’s the account we have. First the Queen’s Bridge was built, and the Riverdeme could no longer travel south to the sea. She took so great a harvest of young men then that the Hopes-Point Bridge was built upstream of the Queen’s Bridge. Hopes-Point was built to confine her, and the Queen’s Bridge was rebuilt with new symbols to hold her on the southern end, and the cult itself was rooted out on the grounds that it had actively helped the Riverdeme claim her prey. With such a narrow hunting ground, and no help from worshippers ashore, she dwindled and disappeared. Even the greater dogfish that were her emissaries and alternate shapes vanished from the river. But now the greater dogfish have been seen again, and young men are being pulled drowned from the water.”

  There was a little silence when he had finished, the fog pressing against the glass. Eslingen cleared his throat. “Both those bridges are intact, and there’s even two more bridges downstream of them. How can she be loose?”

  “The bridge at Point of Graves was duly warded,” Raunkeleyn said, with a pleased smile, “though the bridges at Customs Point were not. Apparently no one deemed it necessary. But if someone were to revive the cult, or if the warding symbols were damaged or removed—or, I suppose, if someone were to dig a channel that let the Sier flow unimpeded again…. Yes, the Riverdeme could once again demand her tribute.”

  Eslingen gave Rathe a wary glance. Certainly there were more deaths, and the stories of half-eaten bodies were worrisome, but who in their right mind would revive a cult like that? To what end?

  Rathe said, “It seems to me that we can only say there’s proof of two things, more drownings than usual, and the return of these greater dogfish to this part of the Sier. Does that fit your pattern?”

  Raunkeleyn nodded. “And I hope that we are only at that stage of the problem. The greater dogfish are her harbingers, you see. If they are here, then either she is here, or she will not be absent much longer.”

  “Why not raise this in the university?” Eslingen asked. “It seems to me this is exactly the thing the university is supposed to deal with.”

  Raunkeleyn blushed.

  b’Estorr said, “Hannes has tried to bring the matter forward. Neither his faculty nor the Provost have found the argument…convincing.”

  And we should? Eslingen glanced again at Rathe, and saw the same thought in the other man’s eyes.

  “What exactly is it you want us to do?” Rathe asked.

  “I want to know if the wards on the bridges are still intact,” Raunkeleyn said. “I can’t exactly go climbing around the piers myself, but you have the authority. And also, you’d do well to be sure the cult isn’t operating again—that would be a true disaster even if she was still trapped between the bridges.”

  There was just enough truth in the broadsheets to make it worth looking. Eslingen saw Rathe sigh.

  “All right. I’ll have the Hopes-Point Bridge checked, and see what I can do about Queen’s. And if there is a cult—what should I be looking for?”

  “They’ll need sacrifices for the Riverdeme,” Raunkeleyn answered. “That will be the easiest way to find them. Attacking people along the river’s edge.”

  “The points generally frown on such activity,” Eslingen said, and Rathe bit his lip as though to hide a grin.

  The university clock struck the hour, and Raunkeleyn bolted up out of his seat. “Sweet Sofia, I’m late! Istre, tell them anything else they need, and thank you, gentlemen—” He was buttoning up his gown as he spoke, and was gone before the clock had finished striking.

  Eslingen felt his eyebrows rise

  Rathe fixed the necromancer with a stare. “Istre. Are you serious?”

  “He is,” b’Estorr answered. “His manner’s against him, Nico, but I’ve always found him reliable.”

  “Right.” Rathe shook his head. “Well, it’s not like we have much else to do at the moment. Tell him I’ll have the bridges checked.”

  “Thank you,” b’Estorr said. “If he says something’s wrong in the river, I think you should take great care.”

  They parted company at the university’s main gate, Eslingen claiming business with the Guard, and Rathe turned with a sigh toward the Queen’s Bridge. He supposed he had known that the bridges bore signs and seals of magistical importance, but he’d assumed they had to do with the building, or with keeping the bridge intact. Now as he made his way over the high arch he found himself looking for the symbols carved into the paving, and woven along the breast-high stone railing. They all seemed intact, the carvings inlaid with what looked like weathered brass. At the center of the span, mage-lights hung to guide ships under the highest point of the arch, the bases of their stanchions etched with more signs. At least the fog had lifted enough to let him see. A few strands still coiled on the water, but most of it had retreated to hang overhead as low clouds.

  The person who was most likely to know more was Cambrai: the pontoises, after all, had been founded to watch the river and its bridges, though after their last conversation, Rathe wasn’t eager to talk to him. But Cambrai needed to know about the Riverdeme, and at the base of the bridge he turned south toward the pontoises’ boathouse.

  The yard was quieter this time, the high-tide flag still raised, its folds hanging damply in the foggy air. A young man in the pontoises’ long-tailed cap was standing in the open door, and straightened at Rathe’s approach.

  “Pointsman!” He stopped, eyes widening. “Adjunct Point Rathe? Thank the Bull they found you.”

  “No one’s found me,” Rathe said, a cold chill running up his spine. “I was looking for the cap’pontoise.”

  “And he’s looking for you. They’ve found Jurien Trys, dead between the tide lines.”

  Rathe swore. Trys dead, unable to talk—it was entirely too convenient, especially coming hard on the heels of the other deaths. A body between the tide lines belonged to no one—the river was properly the pontoises’ jurisdiction, while the land belonged to the Points, and the tidal span was arguably both or neither. “Where?”

  “Above the Queen’s Bridge, at the end of the
docks where the flat-boats tie up. We were taking a boat upriver ourselves, we can ferry you if you’d like.”

  Rathe hesitated. To arrive in the pontoises’ boat was already something of a concession, but it was also the fastest way to get there. “Yes,” he said, and managed to add, “Thanks.”

  The crew was already aboard the blunt-bowed boat, and Rathe accepted the steerswoman’s hand to steady him into the stern. The pontoises remaining on the dock gave the boat a hard shove, thrusting it out into the current, and the steerswoman leaned hard on the tiller to bring the boat around so that the oars could bear. Rathe clung to the edges of his bench, water sloshing around his toes, as the oars moved for a moment in seeming chaos, women and heavy wood moving in apparently random directions, the boat rocking wildly as the current hit it. And then all sixteen oars struck the water at once, and the boat straightened, pointing upstream as the rowers put their backs into it. The steerswoman tucked the tiller under one arm and leaned down to shout in Rathe’s ear.

  “The tide’s with us, that’ll help.”

  The Queen’s Bridge soared ahead, stark against the white sky, a sailing barge with its mast down and steering sweeps out looming in the center gap. The steerswoman eyed it, then put the tiller over, aiming the boat for the gap between the southern pier and the bank. There was plenty of room, Rathe knew, but the water rose and frothed against the stones, and he clutched the seat again as the boat slid through. The rowers’ pace had never faltered.

  West of the Queen’s Bridge, the river widened, bending north. The water was more crowded here, a dozen small boats riding the tide, a single larger barge wallowing upriver under a broad striped sail, and Rathe was glad the fog had retreated. A runner crouched in the bow sounded what sounded like a battered hunting horn, a dissonant bleat, and the smallest boats gave way.

  Their boat surged forward, flattening the low waves, and the runner sounded her horn again. The steerswoman lifted her free hand. “Hard aport!”