Point of Sighs

by Melissa Scott

  “But that assumes Dammar didn’t hoard his supply,” Rathe said. “Save it for special occasions.”

  “Exactly. And while by everything you’ve said he made more than the average pointsman, my impression is that he didn’t live like a rich man.”

  “I’d say not. At least not from what I’ve seen here. If anything, I’d have said he was a parsimonious sort. Liked having money more than spending it. But in that case—”

  “Why not just say it was your blend?” Eslingen finished. “Maybe they fee’d him for other jobs, but I can’t help wondering if there wasn’t some connection with the Staenkas.”

  “I take your point.” Rathe pushed himself up from the table and went to the door. “Ormere!”

  The pointswoman appeared almost before Rathe could take his seat again, a tall, mouse-haired woman with brass-rimmed spectacles sliding down her nose. She pushed them back into place. “Sir?”

  “Do you know if Dammar was involved with any other business involving the Staenka family before bes’Anthe’s death?” Rathe asked. “Did he take fees from them?”

  Ormere frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t know offhand, but if it was something small I wouldn’t necessarily remember. I could go through his books if you’d like.”

  “Do that, please.”

  Another woman tapped at the office door. “Adjunct—oh, sorry, Ormere.”

  “I’m done,” Ormere said, and backed away.

  Rathe looked at the newcomer.

  “News,” she said. “Edelm Ammis says he’s found where Trys was killed. Or he thinks he has.”

  “That was quick work,” Rathe said. “Where?”

  “An alley between two warehouses just off Bonfortune’s Row. He sent a runner if you want to see it tonight.”

  “Oh, yes, I want,” Rathe said, reaching for his jerkin. “Philip?”

  “I’d very much like to come.”

  The runner led them through the shadowed streets, the day sun already sunk below the rooftops. They were at the eastern end of the Row, where the elegant shops and busy warehouses declined to older buildings, less well kept and less busy. Gargoyles scrabbled for trash in the gutters, and rose with a rattle of wings to perch scolding on the roof of a tumbledown shed. Eslingen picked his way carefully, grimacing at the smell of the puddles, and saw Rathe’s hand on his truncheon.

  “Ammis?”

  “Down here!” A figure peeked around the edge of the shed, and vanished again, but Eslingen saw Rathe relax, and took his hand off his own knife.

  Beyond the shed, the alley was unpaved, and sloped gently down toward what looked at first like a disintegrating stack of hay bales, but as they got closer was revealed to be a somewhat battered stone wall imperfectly padded with the hay. A two-wheeled cart was tilted against it: the reason for the hay? Eslingen wondered. He could smell the river again, mud and decay, and looked over the wall to see a narrow stretch of pebbles, the water licking at the stones perhaps ten feet below.

  “Here!” Ammis called again, and Rathe pulled a mage-light from his belt, adjusted the screen to cast a fan of light across the alley’s end. In its beam, Eslingen saw a young man crouching at the base of the wall, a door open beside him. Another point stood beside him, her skirts tucked up as though she’d been wading. Ammis waved, and Rathe came nearer, Eslingen keeping close on his heels. The ground was covered with what looked like relatively fresh straw, but it had been strewn seeming at random—no, had been swept away from the base of the wall, where the ground and stones were darkly stained. Some of the straw closer to the stain was also darkened and crumpled, and Eslingen sniffed cautiously, and thought he caught a faint metallic tang above the scent of mud and damp.

  Rathe crouched, bringing the lantern closer, then let the light play carefully along the base of the wall.

  “We don’t know if it’s blood, sir,” Ammis said, “but it comes up red when you rub it.”

  “We’ve sent to the deadhouse,” the woman said.

  “I don’t know your name,” Rathe said, looking up at her with a smile.

  “Couenter, sir. Liez Couenter. I usually work the night watch. I do think it’s blood, sir.”

  “Philip?” Rathe said, and Eslingen bent closer. The stain ran along the wall’s base and across the dirty stone sill that extended half an ell from the building, then disappeared into the packed mud. In the lamp’s light, it was nearly black: if it was blood, a dying woman would have needed to lie there for at least a quarter hour—easily time enough to bleed to death, and plenty of time for a murderer to find a way to cover her tracks. He leaned back, seeing for the first time that the alley curved just enough to hide this wall from easy observation, then stooped to rub an edge of the stain. His fingertip came away faintly red, and he grimaced.

  “It looks like blood to me, too.”

  “Trys usually holds court at Crow Hall,” Couenter said, “but he was last seen at the Crown and Anchor.”

  “Crow Hall’s not as fancy as it sounds,” Ammis said. “It’s a wreck of a place, at the foot of the wharf that Filipon rents.”

  “Not a nice place at all,” Couenter agreed, “but they say he hasn’t been there.”

  “Did you ask them yourself?” Rathe rose to his feet. The light swept over the woman’s face as if by accident, but Eslingen was not deceived.

  “We went in together.” Couenter tucked a loose strand of hair under her cap, looking awkward. “And my mother makes compasses. They won’t cross her, so they tolerate me.”

  Eslingen felt his eyebrows rise at that—there were so often odd overlaps between the points and the professional lawbreakers—but Rathe merely nodded. “You believe them?”

  Couenter nodded. “They didn’t know he was dead. It was us who brought the news.”

  Rathe nodded again. “And the Crown and Anchor?”

  “It’s a dockers’ haunt, tavern and eatery and a few rooms on the second floor.” That was Ammis, this time. “Hook-hand Bregit, she runs it, she said Trys came in and asked for a room for the night. She assumed he’d be meeting someone, offered to sell him a dinner as well, but he said he didn’t need it. She said he wanted to be let alone, so she did just that. He was gone in the morning when she went up, but he’d left her fee on the chest.”

  “Did she see anyone go up?” Rathe asked.

  Ammis shook his head. “It was a busy night, and she wasn’t watching.”

  “And there’s a back gate and back stairs,” Couenter said. “The gate gives onto Perman’s Alley. I expect that’s why he hired the room there, and not at Crow Hall.”

  “So you think he met someone there,” Rathe said. “And then—came here?”

  “It’s not far,” Ammis said, pointing. “Just around the corner to the left. Two doors down is the alley, and it’s not more than a minute’s walk here.”

  “I think someone told him they had business here,” Couenter said. “Maybe brought him to look at something in the warehouse, we found the door latched but not locked. And then they knifed him.”

  “And threw him in the water here?” Rathe asked.

  Eslingen frowned at that himself, thinking of the strip of beach he’d seen below the wall, and Rathe rose gracefully to his feet. He paced off the distance to the wall, then leaned against it, peering down into the water. “They’d have had to do it at high tide, then.”

  “And in the dark.” Eslingen joined him, stretching to see over the rail. The tide was close to high, and the water just touched the base of the wall, little waves lapping against the stone. “How deep would you say that is?”

  “Not very,” Rathe said. “And the tide’s in.”

  “They might have had help,” Ammis offered. “Someone in a boat, maybe?”

  “You’d be taking a hell of a chance,” Eslingen said. He leaned out, trying to see the backs of the buildings on either side of the alley. They both seemed to have windows overlooking the water, and there was certainly enough traffic on the river even at this hour to make dumping a bo
dy a risky proposition.

  “But you wouldn’t want to carry a body any distance either,” Rathe said. “And what about this worked to exhaustion that Fanier sent?”

  “Chased here?” Eslingen shook his head, rejecting the idea as soon as it had formed. “No, he left the Crown and Anchor quietly, by their account.”

  “Though he might have been pursued,” Rathe said. “Run to ground.”

  Eslingen looked back at the open doorway. “What’s down there?”

  “Nothing much,” Ammis answered.

  Eslingen brushed past him to peer down the short flight of stairs. Rathe joined him, opening the mage-light’s shutter, but the light showed a dirty stone floor and more wisps of straw. He glanced at Eslingen, who shrugged one shoulder. Rathe grinned, and they started down the stairs.

  The ceiling was low enough that they both had to duck under the beams that held up the floor above, and from the look of those beams, draped with dusty cobwebs, the place was not in use. The floor was scuffed, though, blurred marks showing in the dirt, and the smell of the river was suddenly strong. Eslingen frowned, and Rathe said, “Ah. Look there.”

  He lifted the mage-light as he spoke, and light glinted from water. A straight channel about three ells wide ran the depth of the cellar, from the river wall to disappear into the shadows toward the street. There was a heavy door set in the river wall, and as Rathe raised the light, they both saw the arrangement of chains and pulleys that opened it. It was barred, a lock the size of a man’s fist looped through staples on the bar and the frame, and Eslingen looked over his shoulder.

  “Where does it go?”

  Rathe turned the light, to find another door in the far wall. It was barred, too, though there was no lock in evidence, and Rathe said, “That’s under the street. The cellar’s bigger than the house.” He flashed the light around again. “Well, maybe not as wide, but certainly deeper.”

  “Redel said there were tunnels that led to their warehouse,” Eslingen said, “and it’s two streets back from the river.”

  “I’ve heard of those cellar ways. But they don’t reach into Point of Hopes. They’re only part of Sighs.”

  “Convenient for moving cargo,” Eslingen said, “but it doesn’t look like anyone’s used this one in a while. Convenient for moving a body, do you think?”

  “Possible.” Rathe turned, letting the light point back up the stairs to where the points waited. Without it, the cellar seemed very dark, and Eslingen was suddenly aware of the faint sound of water, of little waves whispering against stone, against the closed door. The river-smell seemed suddenly stronger, and in spite of himself he took a careful step away from the channel.

  “Ammis!” Rathe swung the light again. “What about the channel here? Could they have taken the body out that way?”

  Ammis stooped to peer down at them, Couenter hovering behind him.

  “The door’s locked and barred,” she said. “And we didn’t see any blood.”

  “You’d have almost the same problem taking the body out that way,” Eslingen said. “You’d need to wait for the tide to come in—there must be a channel dug in the shore.”

  “Must be.” Rathe flashed the light around the cellar again, a familiar dissatisfaction on his face. This didn’t make any more sense to him, Eslingen thought, and he was determined to sort things out. “Come on.”

  Eslingen followed him back up to the street, and together they leaned over the rail. Sure enough, there was a gap in the beach beneath the house’s wall, and the shadow of a door in the stone wall.

  “You could do it at high tide,” Eslingen said, and swung to look at the river again. As always, traffic was heavy, a barge just coming abreast of them in midstream, half a dozen smaller boats between them and it, and he shook his head. “Except someone would see you. Unless it was the middle of the night?”

  “The dark would help, but the river’s busy,” Rathe said. “The sailors have to take the tides when they come. Though a body flat in the bottom of a boat…. Couenter!”

  “Sir?” She came to join them, leaning cautiously against the rail.

  “You’re sure nobody took the body out that way?”

  “I’m not sure. But the door—you saw it, barred and locked from this side, and it didn’t look like anyone’s been keeping the mechanisms in good repair. We can ask around and see if anyone saw anything.”

  “Or heard anything,” Ammis said, joining them. “That watergate must scream like a gargoyle when it’s opened.”

  “What about the other gate?” Rathe asked. “The inner one. Where does it go?”

  Eslingen felt rather than saw Couenter stiffen, heard a quick intake of breath before she controlled herself. “There was a channel under Bonfortune’s Row, it probably joins that. But it was blocked years ago—a lot of the cross channels were, the ones that run parallel to the river. Too many people were using them to rob each other’s warehouses. Most of the ones that are left run south, away from the river.”

  “There was no lock on that door,” Eslingen said, watching the woman, and saw her freeze again before she relaxed with an effort.

  “But it was barred, sir, from the inside.”

  Eslingen glanced at Rathe, saw him shake his head slightly.

  “All right. Ask around, see if any of the neighbors saw or heard anything—probably the time to consider is the last few high tides, but I leave that to you. See if you can find anyone who saw the body put in the river.” He clapped Ammis lightly on the shoulder. “Good job, both of you.”

  “Though for all that,” he said some hours later, “I’d like to know what frightened her.”

  “Frightened?” Eslingen tipped his head to one side. They were sitting together on their bed, a last cup of wine between them, and he leaned one shoulder against Rathe, grateful for his warmth. “I’d have said worried….” But no, “frightened” was the word, wasn’t too strong at all, and Rathe met his eyes squarely.

  “I think so.”

  “Yes.” Eslingen nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right. And you’re right, that raises the question of what.”

  “The Sier’s a chancy place,” Rathe said, and leaned his head against the wall. Eslingen, who had acquired most of the pillows, passed him the wine. “It always has been, and this year it’s worse than most, with all this talk of the dogfish. But also her mother works on the docks. I didn’t want to push her then, not knowing her family, but if her mother deals with summer-sailors and the like, she might know something useful.”

  “And be too afraid to share it,” Eslingen said. “At least not while her fellows are listening. Someone at Sighs must know.”

  “I’m sure they do,” Rathe said, “but I don’t know who I can trust to ask.” He offered the cup again; Eslingen took it and drank, then handed it back.

  “There was one odd thing,” Eslingen said. “I didn’t have a chance to mention it before, and I don’t know even if it matters, but—Elecia Gebellin and Meisenta Staenka are very close.”

  Rathe drained it, and stretched to set it on the chest beside the bed. “I thought you said Elecia was the vidame’s leman.”

  “So she is.”

  “That’s—interesting.” Rathe paused, considering, his eyes as slitted as a gargoyle’s against the lamplight. “Is it just an ordinary falling-out, I wonder? Lemen part ways, it’s hardly unheard of.”

  “I’d guess d’Entrebeschaire hasn’t noticed? She doesn’t seem the sort who’d let it pass.” Eslingen shook his head. “But I don’t know what that has to do with anything, except that someone’s going to regret it.”

  Rathe grunted agreement. “I had another idea,” he said, after a moment.

  “Oh?” Eslingen raised an eyebrow.

  “Only I’d like to have you go along, since you heard Raunkeleyn, too.”

  Eslingen felt a chill creep down his spine. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  Rathe looked away. “Tell me if I’m wrong.”

  “Well, I would, if
I knew what you were suggesting.”

  That earned a quick smile, little more than a flash of teeth. “Didn’t Raunkeleyn say that the Riverdeme could be raised again if the flow of the river were unimpeded?”

  “Yes, but you said the seals on the bridges were intact.”

  “Euan says they are, and he’d know. But the other thing Raunkeleyn said that could break it was if the main channel was bypassed somehow.”

  “The tunnels,” Eslingen said, and felt the cold grip the nape of his neck again. “Where exactly do they go?”

  “That’s the question.”

  “Your point, Couenter, she said they were blocked, had been blocked for some time.”

  “But if they were open…. It would explain why she was nervous.”

  “We could go back, see what’s behind that inside door.” The thought of walking along the banks of an underground canal with its slippery stone banks was entirely unappealing, and Eslingen was relieved when Rathe shook his head.

  “Only if we have to. And I don’t want to ask Couenter, or anyone else at Sighs, not until I know more. No, I thought we could talk to Cambrai. He may well know more, the tunnels would technically have come under the pontoises’ jurisdiction, and we might be able to see some of the outlets from the river itself.”

  “I’m not eager to go out on the water just now.” Eslingen had no love for water at the best of times, or at least any water larger and wilder than the cold plunge at the bathhouse. And he had slipped once, wading in the Sier, felt the current tug with unexpected strength, hurrying him toward the center of the current. But Rathe had caught his arm, and nothing had happened.

  “I don’t blame you,” Rathe said. “But I could use your eyes.”

  The pontoises’ boats were sturdy, larger than the cockleshells that carried passengers from bank to bank, or along short stretches of river, and solidly made, designed to stand up to the worst the river could throw at them. Surely that would be safe enough. “I’ll come,” Eslingen said, before he could change his mind.