Rathe hesitated. The last thing he wanted was to rouse suspicions about Caiazzo among the Royal Fellows, but he didn’t see that he had a choice. “All right, Maseigne,” he said. “But there’s a good chance I might miss the right question, not knowing enough about the subject.”
Vair smiled. “I expect we can resolve that, Adjunct Point, if and when the problem should arise.”
“All right,” Rathe said again. “As I said, it’s about gold—a chest of gold smuggled ashore, we think, by a summer-sailor. The chest has gone missing, and there are several interested parties, but my immediate concern is whether foreign gold, untaxed gold, has any special value to a magist.”
Vair grinned. “That’s a much disputed question. Ask any five Fellows, and you’ll get seven answers.” She sobered instantly. “But forgive me. I’m sure that if Istre sent you to me, it’s not a matter for academic jokes.”
“Sadly, no,” Rathe said. “I’ve two dead men on my books already.”
Vair dipped her head in acknowledgement. “And that, indeed, is nothing to mock.” She folded her long hands, resting her elbows on the arms of her chair. “Does untaxed foreign gold have magistical effect? My answer wasn’t entirely a joke, unfortunately. Traditionally, foreign gold, which by definition isn’t taxed by our Queen, has been used in certain magistical operations. It’s not nearly as powerful as aurichalcum, for which I’m sure we’re all grateful.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Rathe saw Eslingen’s mouth curl up into a rueful smile. They’d both seen and felt the effects of aurichalcum during the hunt for the children, when an orrery of the pure metal had set all the city’s clocks out of tune; felt it, too, when the orrery was destroyed, its power annilhilating its maker as though the man had never existed.
Vair said, “In recent years—since before the current Queen’s reign, in fact—most magists have believed that the binding implicit in the minting of a coin was enough to dilute its potency beyond practical use, and that the tax mark placed on duly received coin was magistically unnecessary. However, the tax revenues involved are sufficient that there seemed to be no real need to meddle with the system. But because the concern has been more fiscal than otherwise, there’s not been much interest in making sure that nothing slips through the cracks. A few untaxed, unstamped coins here and there simply didn’t seem to matter—they weren’t a danger, and the revenue their tax would bring in wouldn’t pay for the effort to find them.”
“But?” Rathe said, and she gave a thin smile.
“But. There has been a rise in certain magistical—let’s not call them crimes, they’re not precisely that. Activities, perhaps. Certain magistical activities that are best accomplished with aurichalcum or a near similitude, and some of us have begun to consider that untaxed gold may not be as harmless as we thought. And as Her Majesty has not yet named an heir….” Vair shrugged.
And that brought it back to politics again. Rathe swallowed a curse. Succession politics had begun the matter of the stolen children, though a madman had tried to turn it to his own ends. The succession was what had the court on edge and city’s Regents minding their purse strings and the Surintendant eyeing every common crime for some hint of political intent.
“Our simplest defense against this has been that it takes a considerable quantity of untaxed gold to have any serious effect,” Vair said. “The Queen’s tax collectors generally take care of that for us. But now you tell me that an entire chest of gold—foreign, untaxed gold—is up for sale in Astreiant. I can’t say I find this calming, Adjunct Point.”
“No more do I,” Rathe answered. “Still—politics isn’t my business, maseigne, but I don’t see what a southriver merchant who’s probably a fence can have to do with the succession.”
“Unless she’s acting as agent for someone,” Vair said.
“I’ve seen no sign of it,” Rathe said, “though I’ll look into it now, be sure of that.”
“And there is also Master Caiazzo to consider,” Vair said.
Eslingen stirred. “Who would not have sent me to cooperate with the points if he were playing politics, maseigne.”
“Most likely not.” Vair nodded. “But I can’t discount the possibility.”
“Everything that I’ve seen so far points to this being about the coin as coin,” Rathe said slowly. “But if it is political—where would you suggest we look?”
Vair hesitated. “We—the Fellows—have heard certain rumors within the University, that certain factions might have some hand in politics, some candidate to support. But we have no proof.”
Rathe looked at her. “I don’t suppose you could give me a better hint than that?”
She hesitated again, but shook her head with what looked like genuine regret. “I’m sorry, Adjunct Point. The situation is too delicate to mention names, even under these circumstances. But if you should find anything that points back to the University, or toward any magist in particular….”
Rathe sighed. “Be sure I’ll consult you,” he said, and she nodded.
“It would be very helpful.”
They made their way back toward town in thoughtful silence. The breeze had picked up, as it often did toward evening, blowing dust and strands of hay across the road, while in a field between two houses a pair of young bay horses chased leaves and each other across their paddock. Eslingen gave them an appraising glance, regretting again the rangy chestnut he’d sold at the beginning of the summer, but there was no possibility that he could afford to keep a horse in the city. Nor would Caiazzo stand for it. The merchant-venturer kept no stable of his own, and Eslingen had never known him to do more than borrow a horse from one of his caravaners. Still, those were pretty creatures, and he glanced back in spite of himself, until the turn of the road cut off his view.
“This doesn’t make things any better,” Rathe muttered, and Eslingen shook himself.
“More politics, you mean? No, it doesn’t.”
“And the University,” Rathe said. “I’m sure Istre will help, but—we’ve never had much luck asserting our authority over the Three Nations, never mind their masters.”
The Three Nations were the students, Eslingen knew, who were notorious for what he felt was a distinctly unscholarly tendency to drop their books and draw knives over the most unlikely quarrels. He said, “Do you think she’s right?”
“That there is some sort of political conspiracy within the University?” Rathe shrugged. “I wouldn’t bet against it.”
He was looking uncommonly discouraged, Eslingen thought, not like him at all. They had almost reached the wine bower, its banner rippling in the breeze, and he touched Rathe’s shoulder. “I promised you an early supper,” he said.
“And a bit more besides,” Rathe said, but the words sounded forced.
“Food and a decent bottle of wine to start,” Eslingen said, “and a private place to talk. For the rest—we’ll see.”
The bower was uncrowded at this hour, the midday crowd long past, the evening not yet begun, and Eslingen turned his best smile on the young hostess. She agreed to rent them a private table and to serve up a pint of the pale Silklands wine that was Rathe’s current favorite along with a plate of bread and cheese to stay their appetite until the evening’s ordinary was ready. They were led toward the rear of the bower, across the central garden where the grass had been trampled almost to bare ground by the summer’s hard use. The private tables were set up within small tents of brightly painted canvas, divided from each other by hedges of thorny rose; there were small braziers in each one now, and lanterns hanging from the center posts, but at the moment the sun on the canvas kept them warm enough. The chairs were piled with cushions—enough, Esingen noted, to make quite a comfortable bed on the grass between the table and the tent’s rear wall—and the air smelled of late roses and the oil in the lamps. The waiter fetched their order, and offered with a leer to close the curtains, but Eslingen shook his head.
“Later,” he said, and the waiter withdrew.
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“You’ll ruin your reputation,” Rathe said, and poured the wine.
Eslingen stretched his feet out under the table, and leaned back in his chair. “Or yours.”
“That’s done already,” Rathe said, with a grin. “Damn it. You’re sure Caiazzo’s not playing politics?”
“As sure as I can be,” Eslingen said. “I’ve seen no signs of it, I know what he does need gold for, and—as I said, it just doesn’t pay.”
Rathe nodded. “And there’s Mirremay to think about.”
“What about her?” Eslingen lifted his wine in salute.
“That’s right, I haven’t told you.” Quickly, Rathe sketched out his encounter with the enforcement men at Dame Lulli’s. “And Mirremay signed the writ. I hadn’t really had her on my books, but now—now I think I have to consider her.”
“From what you’ve said, I don’t see how she’s involved in politics,” Eslingen said.
“I’m not sure I do, either,” Rathe said, frankly. “It’s just that—I know she spent a lot of money to buy her post, and to get the Regents on her side, because the Surintendant didn’t want to give her Point of Knives in the first place.”
“She’s that bad?”
“She’s the direct descendant of the Bannerdames,” Rathe said. “Not that they were bannerdames, they were a pack of bandits who took over part of Point of Knives after the Court was destroyed.”
“What a charming and peaceful city this is,” Eslingen said.
Rathe looked torn between pride and guilt. “I never said there weren’t interesting people southriver.”
“I do see why your boss might not want her in charge,” Eslingen said.
Rathe nodded. “Her great-grandmother was one of the worst of them, and don’t think she’s forgotten.”
“Lovely,” Eslingen said.
“Yeah.” Rathe leaned back as the waiter appeared with the first course of the night’s ordinary, a pale soup smelling of cinnamon and winter gourds. When their bowls had been filled and the waiter had disappeared again, Rathe sighed. “I need to have a word with Mirremay, I suppose, which is a bit—ticklish—at the best of times. I’m Point of Hopes, not Knives. She’s not actually a chief point, just a head point, which may not seem like much of a difference to you, but—”
“Oh, believe me, I’m very sensitive to all the little nuances of degree,” Eslingen said. “I’ve served with sixteen-quarter nobles who wouldn’t sit down at table with common folk under the rank of colonel, and that when the ‘table’ was the tail of a wagon balanced on a pair of powder kegs.”
“Mirremay’s worse,” Rathe said.
“I’ll refrain from making the obvious remark,” Eslingen said, and was pleased to draw a smile.
“What, that common folk are worse about such titles as they’ve earned?”
“I’d never suggest such a thing,” Eslingen said.
“I don’t like it that she’s signing bailiff’s writs on van Duiren’s account,” Rathe said. “That—well, I’m sure she was well fee’d for it, but it smacks of politics. And I don’t trust her.”
“Why not?” Eslingen paused, but there was no good way to say it. “Plenty of the points take fees, and are still good for their word.”
“My own chief among them,” Rathe said. “Yes, I know. And Mirremay stays bought, or always has. It’s just—she’s too much like her great-grandmother for my comfort, that’s all.”
And are you like your great-grandmother? Eslingen wondered. He himself had never known his mother, had been left to his father’s raising and the streets and horse barns of Esling, and left there as soon as he was old enough to beg a place in one of the mercenary companies that passed through the city. But Rathe was southriver born and bred, a child of Astreiant, and Eslingen knew nothing at all of the man’s family. He opened his mouth to ask, then closed it again, unaccountably shy. He could still hear Rathe’s pronouncement on Old Steen, a motherless man but no worse than many, and though he’d heard worse, he had no real desire to see even pity in Rathe’s eyes. He didn’t know Rathe’s stars, either, not even his solar sign, but that was a question even more intimate, and he reached for the wine instead, refilling their glasses.
“The thing is, I can’t see how Mirremay would use the coin,” Rathe said. “If she had it, I mean. Yes, she spent a huge sum to buy the post, but this is gold she can’t use.”
“Could she change it through a fence?” Eslingen asked. “Or in the Court of the Thirty-Two Knives?”
Rathe shook his head. “I don’t see how. Not so much of it, not at anything close to its worth.”
“And Caiazzo can use it on the caravan roads at near its value,” Eslingen said. “But Mirremay—presumably she doesn’t have any foreign ventures?”
“Not that I know of,” Rathe said, “and I think I’d’ve heard. And that leaves politics.” He shook his head. “I’ll have to talk to her, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
“I assume you mean ‘we’ have to talk to her,” Eslingen said.
“Oh, yes,” Rathe said. “I’m not going into Point of Knives on my own.”
One of the bower’s younger servants arrived then with a basket of kindling and a taper, and Eslingen nodded for him to build up the fire in the brazier. He ordered another pint of wine as well, and looked at Rathe.
“Of course I’ll come with you, and if your sanction extends so far, I’ll even go armed.”
Rathe nodded.
“In the meantime, though—” Eslingen gestured to the tent’s painted walls. Outside, the crowd had grown, and a pair of fiddlers was tuning, ready to start the dancing as the great sun set. “There’s nothing we can do about it tonight. Let’s enjoy what we have.”
For a moment, he thought Rathe was going to refuse, but then the pointsman reached for his wine. “You’re right. We should enjoy this—”
He bit off the rest of his words, but Eslingen knew perfectly well what they would have been: we should enjoy this while we can. And that, at least, was something he knew how to manage. He set himself to be at his most charming, light gossip and jokes without bite that had Rathe rolling his eyes even as he grinned.
He kept up the nonsense through the two removes of the meal, feeling Rathe’s mood ease and rise, and when there was nothing left but crumb from the gingercakes, he reached for Rathe’s hand, turning it to kiss the callused palm as though he were in fact the gentleman he pretended.
Rathe caught him by the chin instead, pulling his head up to fix him with an almost angry stare. “Don’t play-act.”
Eslingen blinked, startled, but answered with reflexive honestly. “I’m not. I don’t, not—” Not when it matters, he had been going to say, but—that was not a thing said between winter-lovers. “Not now,” he finished, and wasn’t sure that wasn’t worse.
Rathe glared at him, the gray eyes narrowed, and Eslingen leaned in to kiss him, hard and fierce. There was an instant’s pause, and then Rathe responded just as fiercely, pushing him back in turn. Eslingen gave way willingly, thinking of the piles of pillows, but when he broke the kiss to reach for the nearest, Rathe pulled back, shaking his head.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
There was no point in going into Point of Knives before ten o’clock—by then, the night workers and knives would be well abed, and the first flurry of business would be concluded—and Rathe allowed himself the indulgence of sleeping in. When he woke, well past sunrise, the other half of the bed was empty, and he was startled and a little annoyed to feel momentarily bereft. He shoved that thought away and built up the fire, then went downstairs to the well to fetch the morning’s water, trying not to wonder where Eslingen had gone. Probably to fetch clean linen, he told himself, or a longer blade than was legal in the city—though the more he thought about it, the less it seemed like a good idea to go into Point of Knives carrying weapons that were conspicuously in violation of the law.
He had just finished shaving when the door opened and Eslingen appea
red, a basket tucked under one arm. “Oh, you’re awake,” he said, and set the basket on the table. “I brought breakfast.”
“Thanks.”
Eslingen began unloading the basket, setting out bread and honeyed cheese and a crock of salt butter. Rathe moved the kettle to the front of the stove, savoring the sheer ordinariness of the moment. Eslingen finished arranging his purchases—he was surprisingly finicky in some things, Rathe noted—and pulled out the rolled cylinder of paper he’d tucked into a corner of the basket. Rathe lifted an eyebrow, recognizing a vice familiar from the summer.
“Broadsheet prophecies? The printers have them out already?”
“The early printer catches my demming,” Eslingen answered. “At least today. I’d have brought you one, but I don’t know your stars.”
“No more you do,” Rathe said, the words suddenly tight in his throat. He made himself go on making the tea, spooning the dry leaves into the pot. The kettle had begun to hiss, and he poured the water with extra care, brought the pot to the table to steep.
“I’m not asking,” Eslingen said. He did a creditable job of not sounding hurt, but there was a bleak look in his eyes. “You’d be a fool to tell me, me being Caiazzo’s man.”
And so he would. Rathe knew it perfectly well—he’d kept his natal horoscope a secret since his apprentice days, when he’d seen an entire glassblower’s workshop poisoned through the similarity of their stars—and Hanselin Caiazzo was the last man he’d want to trust with anything that could be turned against him. Still, most people were willing to share their solar signs, there wasn’t much even a skilled astrologer or magist could do with that. And yet— He forced a smile.
“The Pillars of Justice are well aspected in my horoscope,” he offered, and Eslingen snorted, as though it were only a joke.
“That shocks me to the core, Adjunct Point.” He flattened his sheet of paper, not bothering to hide the symbol at the top—the Horse, Rathe noted, in spite of himself, and felt a pang of guilt. The tea was ready; he poured them each a cup and cut himself a slice of bread. They ate in silence, not precisely uncomfortable, and then Eslingen laughed and picked up the broadsheet again.
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