Point of Sighs

by Melissa Scott

  The right-side oars lifted, the left-side oars dug hard, and the steerswoman leaned on the tiller. The boat swung, tilting, water slipping briefly over the side as a larger wave flicked against it, and then they were facing the southern shore. A dock stretched to meet them, a single caravel tied up at the end where the water was still deep enough to hold it; to the left, a few of the smaller fishing boats were grounded on the pebbled strand, heeled sideways at awkward angles. There were people at the rails, though, and on the caravel, staring and pointing, and another great cluster of women on the strand itself, gathered around something humped on the stones. Another of the pontoises’ boats was beached just beside the dock, oars laid by as the rowers milled around at its bow, not quite joining the gathering, but not quite standing apart.

  The steerswoman gave quick orders, and the rowers made a few quick strokes, then shipped oars as the boat ran up onto the pebbles with a grinding sound. The runner and one of the first-rank rowers leaped out to steady it, and Rathe pushed himself cautiously to his feet. On the fishing boat, a little-captain, obviously the owner’s dog, raced to the down-sloped rail and barked furiously at them until her owner caught her up and silenced her, smoothing the thick black fur.

  He made his way carefully between the rowers and out onto the beach. The stones were slippery underfoot, and the beach was dotted with shallow, foul-smelling puddles. He stepped wide to avoid what he hoped was a fish’s rib cage, and made his way to the group. Sebern was there, he was pleased to see, as well as Cambrai, and he nodded to both of them.

  “I hear you were looking for me?”

  Cambrai nodded, his mouth tight and angry, and Sebern pushed between a pair of pontoises to grab Rathe’s arm.

  “It’s Jurien Trys, dead as a fish—they’re claiming rights.”

  Rathe looked past her, at a body on the strand, heaped bonelessly where the water had left it. He could see a bare heel splotched with crimson—the fish had found him first—but the rest was little more than a sodden pile of rags. “What happened to him?”

  “They won’t let us look at him. I told them Trys was above the tide-line, and that makes him ours.”

  Rathe looked up the slope to see the line of debris that marked the extent of high tide, and saw her scowl.

  “It was low tide when he was found—”

  “He came from the river,” Cambrai said. “That makes him mine.”

  Another territorial dispute. It took an effort for Rathe to keep his voice steady. “ He’s between the tide-lines, there’s no arguing that, which means we both have a claim on him. The tide’s coming in. I say we need to share.”

  “River deaths are ours—” Cambrai began.

  “And land deaths belong to us. And the law says that the strand between the tides is neutral ground. I’m willing to bet this death ties in with our troubles at Sighs, and I don’t intend to let that go. I’ll work with you.”

  There was a moment when it hung in the balance, old friendship poised against older rights, and then Cambrai looked away, conceding. “We want him, too, but I’ll grant it’s for the same reason. All right. We’ll share—but it sets no precedent.”

  “None at all,” Rathe agreed. “Have you sent to the deadhouse?”

  “We did,” Sebern said. She jerked her head toward the bank, where a young woman in an alchemist’s leather apron and a heavy wool coat scowled down at them. “She’s waiting up there.”

  Rathe raised a hand to beckon, and Cambrai gave some sign to his people. One of them fetched a short ladder, and the alchemist swung herself down to the strand.

  “You do know the tide’s turned, right?” she asked, striding through the gathered points and pontoises as though they weren’t there.

  Cambrai shrugged. “You’ll need to hurry, then.”

  “Won’t be my fault if I have to move him too soon.” She went to one knee in the mud, holding out a hand over the huddled body. A wide-brimmed hat was perched on her head, its feather drooping with damp, leaving her face in shadow. “I doubt he died here.”

  She flipped the body onto its back, unfolding the contorted limbs. They moved easily enough, Rathe saw: dead for some time, then. Coat and breeches were ripped and torn as though they’d been caught on something underwater, and the body beneath was savaged. “Drowned?” he asked.

  “Maybe.” The alchemist sat back on her heels. “But he was knifed, too. Not by a skilled hand. Looks like he fought back. I’ll know more once we have him in the deadhouse.”

  “Knifed?” Cambrai asked, and the alchemist turned back the sodden layers of coat and shirt to reveal a purpled slash between two ribs. There was a set of ragged gashes further down, but those had clearly happened after death.

  “Might be the cause of death,” the alchemist said, cocking her head, “Or whoever stabbed him might have dropped him in the river afterward, and he might have drowned.” She picked up the nearest hand, and Rathe grimaced, seeing half the fingers missing. The palm was skinned and raw and the alchemist examined it curiously.

  Cambrai pointed to a ragged tear on the thigh. “That looks like a bite mark to me.”

  The alchemist nodded. “Fish have been at him, that’s for sure. They’re all after death, though.”

  Rathe looked at Cambrai. “If he washed up here—where would he have gone in the river?”

  “This side of Hopes-Point, I’d think, or I’d expect him to be a bit more battered from passing through the gaps. What I’d like to know is how long he’s been dead.”

  “I can’t tell you here.” The alchemist stood up, wiping her hands on the skirts of her coat. “I’ve a wagon waiting, if your people will help me get him up. We’ll do a proper examination at the deadhouse, and send you word.”

  Cambrai gestured to Saffroy, who whistled for his people, and looked back at Rathe. “Do you want to go to the deadhouse, or shall I?”

  “I think you should send someone senior, and I’ll send Bellin if she’s here.” Rathe drew the cap’pontoise further down the beach, out of earshot. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

  “More important than this?” Cambrai didn’t pull away.

  “Potentially.” Rathe lowered his voice even further. “Euan, you wanted me to have a word with the university. About the Riverdeme. Well, I’ve just come from there. And I was summoned, I didn’t have to go looking.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve seen that pamphlet, the Accounting?”

  Cambrai nodded.

  “It’s caused some concern for at least a few scholars, and one of them is afraid that the wards on the bridges might have failed—that the Riverdeme might have wakened. You’re better placed to prove or disprove that than I am.”

  Cambrai whistled softly. “That—she’s not a lucky thing to speak of, not on the water, and especially not between the bridges. Yeah, I’ll check the bridges—and sooner rather than later, Nico, I promise.”

  “I’d like to go with you,” Rathe said. “Just let me get a word with Sebern first.”

  “You think it’s that serious.”

  “I don’t think we can afford to think otherwise,” Rathe answered

  Cambrai gave a jerky nod. “No time like the present, then, and maybe we’ll spot where Trys went in the water while we’re at it.”

  Cambrai collected his crew, and they climbed aboard, Rathe scrambling awkwardly in their wake. He settled himself in the stern, just in front of Saffroy at the tiller. Cambrai helped the rowers shove the boat back into the rising river, and then made his way past them to drop to the seat beside Rathe.

  “What else did this scholar tell you?”

  Rathe ran a hand through his hair, feeling the curls drawing tighter in the damp air. The fog had lifted enough that it was possible to see the full height of the bridge, and for an instant he glimpsed a dirty brass circle behind the murk. The winter-sun was up as well, a brighter pinpoint burning through the clouds. ”He seems to think the Riverdeme’s behind these deaths—”


  “Folly,” Cambrai said, not quite under his breath.

  “Istre b’Estorr thinks he’s worth listening to.” Rathe ran through what Raunkeleyn had told them, and at the end, Cambrai shook his head.

  “He’s got no proof at all, bar the deaths, and they’re—more than usual, certainly, but not an outrageous number.”

  “The alchemists are seeing bodies half-eaten by fish,” Rathe said.

  “Even sensible folk say they’ve seen the great dogfish. But, Nico, the Riverdeme’s been bound for centuries. How can there be anything left of her?”

  “Do I look like a philosopher?”

  Cambrai reached back to tug at the knee of Saffroy’s breeches. “Lay us against the middle pier if you can.”

  The boat surged forward with each stroke of the oars, riding the rising tide toward the bridge. From the water, it seemed even larger than usual, the spare pale stone only a little darker than the fog. The bases of the piers were stained dark by water and weeds; the upper edge of the mark was still more than an ell above the water. Iron rings hung above that, in staggered rows, and two of the rowers shipped their oars as the boat came closer. One seized a boathook, while the other crouched in the bow, eyes fixed on the pier. The boat heaved and jostled as it hit the swirl of water around the pier. The rowers grunted and lost cadence, oars flailing for an instant, and the boat tipped sideways, sending a great swirl of water over the gunwale. Cambrai swore, tipping himself and Rathe toward the other side and the boat righted itself, Saffroy cursing behind them.

  “Easy, there!”

  The boat swung sideways, caught in the current, and for a moment Rathe thought they were going to be pulled through the gap and have to come round somehow to try again. The rowers heaved, one last short stroke, and the woman with the boathook managed to catch one of the rings. Instantly, another pontoise sprang to help her, and the boat swung into the stones of the pier with a soggy thud.

  “Fenders,” Saffroy yelled.

  The boat swung back—undamaged, Rathe saw, with amazed relief—and on that side the rowers dropped their oars and hastily flung what looked like sacking bolsters over the side, to cushion the boat against the pier. The rowers on the other side leaned hard to balance them.

  “Hold her!” Saffroy leaned hard on the tiller, pinning the boat against the stone, and two more pontoises caught at the rings, bringing the boat at last to a kind of equilibrium. “Alongside, Cap’.”

  “All right, Nico, let’s see what we’ve got.” Cambrai eased forward between the lines of rowers, crouching to keep the boat balanced, and Rathe followed less gracefully, not ashamed to cling to shoulders for balance. At the center of the boat, Cambrai rummaged in a compartment set between two of the rowers’ benches, and came up with a mage-light lantern with a single convex lens in its tin sides. He lit it with a word, throwing a beam of light that looked thick enough to touch, and let it play across the pale stone. Rathe crouched beside him, watching the light glint off the tiny flecks of crystal caught in the rock, and then the beam settled on a square of inlaid metal about a foot across.

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s one of them.” Cambrai steadied the light with an effort.

  From below, the knot of tarnished-silver metal set into the stone looked untouched, the strands coiling in on each other into a twisted figure that seemed to have a hole in the very middle. The light fell across it, but the dark point at the center never brightened. All of the lines seemed unbroken, and the square itself was solidly fixed to the stone.

  Cambrai let the light fall. “I don’t see anything wrong there.”

  Rathe looked again at the rows of rings, the pontoises standing braced against the pull of the boat. There were more symbols, smaller squares and triangles, like a decorative band above the rings, and he pointed to them. “Is that part of it, too?”

  “A lesser part.” Cambrai swung the lantern’s light along a darkened section, more worn than the square, lines and sharp angles tracing out a set of knots.

  Rathe pointed quickly. “There.”

  Cambrai froze, the circle of light rising and falling with the river’s waves, and they both stared up at the pier. One of the lines looked darker and duller than the others, as though the metal was more discolored. No, Rathe thought, it was missing altogether, there and in several other spots along the same section of the pattern, as though someone had pried away some of the strips of metal.

  “I see it,” Cambrai said. “And there’s more.”

  Rathe clung to the rowers’ benches as Cambrai’s light picked out more gaps. None of the were very large, the largest only as long as his forefinger, but there was no denying that there were breaks. “Do you think that’s what he meant?”

  “The patterns are nearly intact. All these turns, they’re meant to reinforce each other, to stand up to wind and water. The main seal is untouched. I don’t think this would be enough.”

  Rathe squinted, trying to count the gaps. Cambrai was right, there were only six, maybe seven, in a band that was easily half again as long as the boat. “You wouldn’t think it would be that delicate.”

  “I wonder what the others look like,” Cambrai said, and dropped into a crouch beside the storage chest. “All right, let’s check the next pier.”

  Rathe imitated the cap’pontoise, curling himself uncomfortably between two rowers as the boat fell away from the pier.

  The piers at Hopes-Point stood in pairs, like enormous tree-trunks rising out of the river, to join in a stone arch. The keystone was marked with another seal, and Cambrai rose cautiously to his feet as the rowers backed oars, balancing the boat against the current. He played the lantern’s light over its surface, but from the water it was impossible to see more than the general shape of the figure. Still, its colors were uniform, the pattern neat and symmetrical, and Rathe was fairly sure that a closer inspection would show no damage.

  They pulled alongside the upstream pier, rowers again dropping oars to catch at the dangling rings, and drew the boat alongside. Cambrai found the larger seal again, its pattern the reverse of the one on the downstream pier, and once again the tarnished metal showed no gaps. There were a few more breaks in the band above the row of rings, but again, nothing that destroyed the intricate pattern.

  “I just don’t see it,” Cambrai said, letting the light play a final time along the sharp angles. “It’s what you’d expect, time and tide. If someone was trying to break the bonds, I’d think they’d have to cut straight through.”

  Rathe nodded. “I’ll ask Raunkeleyn, but from the sound of it, he was looking for something a bit more dramatic.”

  Cambrai offered a wry smile. “Best check the other piers first.” He waved to Saffroy, holding them pinned against the stone. “North piers, Saffroy!”

  The tillerman waved back, and loosed his grip on the steering. The rowers released their rings as well, and the boat sagged away from the pier. A couple of men in a smaller boat passed them on the shore side, pulling hard against the tide, and one of them shouted something that was lost in the rush of water. Cambrai made an obscene gesture in their direction, and clutched at the nearest bench as the rowers straightened them. The current caught the boat, driving it on and through the gap beneath the bridge, to emerge in a brief flash of sunlight upriver of the bridge. Rathe looked up, counting the shops that clung to the rail overhead. Yes, there was the gap where Dammar had been thrown from the span. Not a killing drop, on this side of the pier; the man had been lucky, neither the fall nor the beating nor the knife’s blow had been fatal, but someone had been determined to see him out. Poison was a surer thing than most.

  Cambrai saw where he was looking. “A bad business, Nico. I do know that.”

  “I know.” Rathe braced himself as the boat heeled against the current, Saffroy turning them back to examine another pier.

  “I do have a word for you that you may find useful.”

  “Yeah?”

  “One of my women talked to a friend of her sisters,
who said she had dealings with Dammar not quite a year back. Said he’d taken payment in kind—Leaguer sprits—and she delivered the keg to him in one of the pier storage rooms.”

  “One that theoretically belongs to Dame Havys.”

  Cambrai nodded. “I’d say so.”

  “An easy way to lure him down there. And presumably whoever killed him wasn’t going to leave anything worthwhile behind, so they cleaned it out.” Rathe sighed. “Which would be more helpful if I knew what he’d kept there.”

  “Hard to track who’s selling something when you don’t know what to ask for,” Cambrai said.

  “And now I’ve lost my best lead.”

  “Trys?”

  Rathe nodded.

  “Not a nice man,” Cambrai said, with restraint. “With him dead, I’m hoping this problem on the docks will fall apart. And maybe we’ll turn up someone willing to talk, now that he’s gone.”

  “One can only hope.” Rathe grabbed the edge of his bench as the boat lurched and tilted sideways, Saffroy fighting the current to line them up with the northern piers. He’d spent enough time on the river as a boy that he’d thought he was comfortable in boats, but the pontoises’ flat-bottomed, blunt-nosed craft were faster and nimbler than he had expected. Or else the pontoises took more chances than most: with Cambrai in charge, that was probably true.

  Saffroy brought the boat alongside the northern piers, eased them slowly downriver as thy examined the inlaid seals. They looked no different from the their fellows on the southern pier, and Cambrai shook his head, letting the light play a final time across the upper seal.

  “I don’t see anything wrong, Nico. Which, let’s face it, is good news.”

  Rathe laughed. “So it is, though it doesn’t help explain anything.”

  “It’s a bad autumn,” Cambrai said, abruptly serious. “The weather’s been against us, and there’s more people looking for work, more folk willing to take stupid chances. That’s what’s behind most of these deaths, I’d stake money on it.”

  “You’re probably right,” Rathe said, but couldn’t entirely believe it. He shook himself. “I’ll talk to Raunkeleyn anyway, tell him what we’ve found. If he has anything more of interest, I’ll pass it on.”