Fairs' Point

by Melissa Scott

  “That’s—that leaves the door open for anyone with a grudge,” Sohier said.

  Rathe gave a sour smile. “And if I was a woman with enemies, I wouldn’t write a book this season.”

  Sohier swore under her breath, and Rathe nodded in agreement.

  “Mind you, the chief hasn’t ruled on the matter, and I doubt she will. It’s the last thing she wants to have to notice. But the fact remains, we’ll have to enforce it if someone brings a violation to our attention.”

  “Right, boss, I understand.”

  “No one wants to be asked,” Rathe said. “But if we are—”

  He let the words hang, and Sohier sighed. “I know. It’s the law we have.” She hesitated. “You don’t suppose this is supposed to make this City Guard look good?”

  Rathe blinked. It wasn’t something he’d considered, but there was a nasty sneakiness to it that spoke of the Regents. He shook his head, as much to convince himself as Sohier. “They’re not that subtle.”

  “If you say so, boss.” She let herself out of the workroom, and Rathe drained the last of his tea. He’d take his lunch out, he decided, and see if he couldn’t achieve a few moments’ peace and quiet. He made his way down to the main room, stopping only long enough to be sure that the daybook contained nothing urgent, then ducked out before anyone could think of anything more to ask him. He glanced over his shoulder as he reached the courtyard gate, and nearly ran into the woman coming the other way. He caught the gate by reflex, and just managed to keep it from bouncing back into her.

  “Beg pardon, dame,” he began, and only then recognized DeVoss.

  She gave him a bitter look. “On your way someplace important, I make no doubt.”

  “You were looking for me,” Rathe said, with resignation, and she nodded. “And it’s important, or you’d be at Fairs’ Point, not here. Dame, I’ve no wish to put you off, but I’m dying for my lunch. If you’d join me and talk there, I’d be in your debt.”

  DeVoss looked him over, her expression suggesting that she had seen better dogs any dozen days, but then she gave a shrug and a flinching smile. “Why not? It might be better, anyway—makes it a bit less official.”

  “Does it need to be?” Rathe cocked his head at her.

  “You can tell me,” DeVoss answered, and held the gate for him to pass.

  Under the circumstances, Rathe passed by the station’s usual tavern, chose instead a narrow house with no garden but a second-story summer room that could be opened to catch any trace of a breeze. This early in the season, there was no need of it, and even the ground floor room was less than crowded this late in the day. Rathe chose a corner table, seating himself so that he could see the door, and ordered a sausage and onion pie and a pint of wine. DeVoss ordered wine as well, and regarded him curiously.

  “Don’t they feed you, Adjunct Point?”

  Rathe broke off a corner of the pie to let the meat and gravy cool a little, popped the chunk of crust in his mouth. “Well enough,” he said, indistinctly, “but it’s a busy season.”

  DeVoss snorted agreement. “Don’t I know it.”

  Rathe took an incautious bite of the pie, grabbed for his wine to ease the heat. “So what brings you to Dreams?”

  “I’ve lost a man,” she said bluntly. “And before you say it, I’ve been to Fairs’ Point.”

  “Claes is a reasonable man,” Rathe said.

  “He may be, but he doesn’t have time for the likes of me,” DeVoss answered, then shook her head. “And I’m not being fair. He’s run off his feet, what with the station having to hold all the book-writers’ bonds—I’ve heard that the strong room is full already and more coming in every day. Someone told me they set three or four pointsmen with firelocks to guard it day and night.”

  “I haven’t heard that,” Rathe said, “but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I’ve lost a boxholder,” DeVoss said. “Jan Poirel, his name is, but he goes by Poirel. Sometimes Poirel Asignane, he’s from those parts originally, but mostly just Poirel. He didn’t come to help feed three days ago, and no one’s seen him since.”

  Rathe took another bit of the pie, barely tasting the rich gravy. Boxholders were an odd lot, gifted with dogs and not much else, their stars set in an odd cramped figure. Many of them drank, and there was little money in the business to start with; they had a reputation for cliquishness and unreliability. And yet… “You had him help feed the dogs?”

  DeVoss gave a grim smile, as though he’d passed a test. “He was reliable that way. Yes, I paid him extra, but he never missed a day, at least not without letting me know. More than that, he had a week’s pay due him, and he never collected it.”

  Rathe sat up straighter, the remains of his pie forgotten. “That’s worrisome. I hate to say it, but—”

  “I’ve been to the deadhouse,” DeVoss said. “And to the Charity and the Phoeban Hospice—and I sent a runner to the Maternité just in case he’d been taken there and couldn’t give his right name. And I spoke to the pontoises, too, for fear he’d gone in the river.”

  Rathe nodded slowly. The deadhouse, the city’s hospitals, the pontoises who were responsible for keeping order on the river: DeVoss had covered all her options, all right. “Nothing?”

  “Not a hair.” DeVoss shook her head. “He’s got no kin in Astreiant that I know of—he’s a motherless man, by all accounts, and never had a leman nor a woman who took him on. So I’ve nowhere to go but the points.”

  And Claes and his adjuncts saw only another unreliable boxholder. “Who’d you speak to?” he asked, without much hope.

  “They shunted me off on the junior adjunct. Voillemin.”

  Of course. Rathe sighed. “You know I don’t have any standing in the matter. It’s Fairs’ business, not Dreams’.”

  DeVoss nodded. “At least I know now that I’m not going mad.”

  “You’ve cause enough to worry,” Rathe said.

  “Thank you for that.”

  “But I’m not sure how I can help you.”

  “Poirel lodged in Dreams in the off-season,” DeVoss said. “He’s sort of one of yours.”

  Rathe pursed his lips. “It’s thin.” But it might be enough, especially if Fairs’ Point was overwhelmed. They might be glad for someone else to take a complaint off their books. “But I’ll give it a try. Will you tell your other boxholders to talk to me?”

  “I’ll tell them.” For all the good it will do, her tone implied, but Rathe nodded anyway.

  “Understand, though. To ask questions in Fairs’ Point, I’ll have to have Claes’s permission—if he turns me down, I’ll make inquiries here, but that’s all I can do.”

  “I’ll take what I can get,” DeVoss answered.

  Rathe made his way down Customs Road, crossing into Fairs’ Point below the Hangman’s Bridge, Poirel’s lodging in Point of Dreams noted virtuously in his tablets and Trijn’s twin injunctions—Don’t cause trouble, but find out what’s going on—ringing in his ears. He was still doubtful about his chances of carrying out any of his charges, particularly not if Voillemin was involved, but the missing boxholder was worrisome. It seemed all too likely that the man was dead, and the absence of a body just pointed to the river. The Sier did not easily give up her dead.

  To his relief, there was no sign of Voillemin at the Fairs’ Point station. It was more than usually busy, even for the racing season, and as he waited for a word with the duty point, he picked out the extra women on guard by the strongroom. Unusually, the heavy iron-bound outer door had been pulled closed, rather than just the barred inner door, and the station’s ledgers were piled on the floor outside. Both the guards were armed with the latest wheellock pistols, the barrels as long as their forearms, though neither one of them looked very comfortable with the weapons. The women here on business gave them a wide berth, and Rathe couldn’t blame them.

  He had reached the duty point’s table at last, and gave her a polite smile. She returned it warily.

  “What can
we do for you, Adjunct Point?”

  “I’d like to talk to your chief, if he’s available.” Rathe kept his voice low, and received a look of gratitude.

  “He’s not really seeing anyone, Adjunct Point, but if you don’t mind waiting a bit, I’ll have a runner see if he can fit you in.”

  “Thank,” Rathe said. “What I have won’t take long.”

  “It had better not,” the duty point said frankly. “You can see what we’ve got to deal with.”

  There wasn’t an empty stool to be seen. Rathe rested his shoulder against the nearest unoccupied pillar, and composed himself to wait. He just hoped that Voillemin would take his time getting back from wherever he had gone.

  To his surprise, however, it was less than an hour before the door at the end of the second-floor gallery opened, and Claes appeared, escorting a graying man in a well-cut summer coat. Rathe saw heads turn all across the room, and only then did he see that badge on the gray-haired man’s coat. So that was Solveert, the Patent Administrator. He looked sleek and well-fed—a bit like one of the harehounds noblewomen kept in their houses along the Western Reach. He had a nose like a harehound, too, and Rathe felt a sneaking sympathy for the man. There wasn’t a woman involved with the races, from the wealthiest owner to the lowliest boxholder, who wouldn’t be snickering at the resemblance.

  Solveert moved away, shaking his head generally at several women who seemed inclined to approach him, and Claes looked down from the head of the stairs.

  “Rathe.”

  Rathe lifted his hand in answer, and threaded his way to the stairs, trying to ignored the annoyed stares from women who had been waiting longer. “Thank you, Chief. I won’t take much of your time.”

  “Damn right you won’t.” Claes waved him into the workroom and closed the door behind them. “Anything more on Corsten?”

  Rathe frowned. “The alchemists’ report called it suicide. Any reason I should doubt that?”

  “None that I know of,” Claes said. “If that’s not the question, why are you here?”

  “Maewes DeVoss has lost a boxholder,” Rathe began, and Claes shook his head.

  “Not that again.”

  “She’s concerned.”

  “Boxholders wander off every day of the meet.”

  “He left his pay behind,” Rathe said. “A full week’s wages.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Claes said, more quietly. “That—I’ll admit that’s odd.”

  “Worrisome, I’d call it.”

  “So what do you want?” Claes asked again.

  “Poirel lodged in Point of Dreams,” Rathe said. “I’d like your permission to ask a few questions on DeVoss’s account.”

  Claes frowned. “Who’d DeVoss talk to?”

  Rathe hid a grimace. “One of your adjuncts.”

  “Voillemin?”

  “Yes.”

  Claes shook his head again. “Absolutely not. I’m not helping you pursue your petty feud, not with one of my men.”

  “That’s not what this is about,” Rathe said.

  “Oh?”

  “I won’t pretend I like Voillemin, but this is about Poirel.”

  “I can’t back you against my own man,” Claes said.

  Rathe took a long breath. He understood Claes’s position, would want a chief who’d back him against outsiders, but—“The man’s still missing. With a week’s pay left behind in DeVoss’s strongbox.”

  “I’ll detail someone to take another look,” Claes said. “As soon as I can.”

  “That’s—” Rathe took another deep breath. “As busy as you are, that’s not likely to be until after the meet’s over.”

  Claes looked away. “He’s probably dead, you know. Fallen in the river and drowned.”

  “Or someone pushed him.” Rathe shook his head. “Oh, all right, not likely if he didn’t have his pay on him, but someone might have expected him to—”

  “I’ll have someone look at it,” Claes said. “Not Voillemin, either, if he’s put DeVoss’s back up that badly. But that’s all I can do.”

  Rathe swallowed his automatic protest, knowing it was futile. “Thank you, Chief,” he said, and let himself out of the workroom.

  The New Fair was taking on the semblance of a town within a town. The empty lot between Mama Moon’s and the low-roofed stables had been rented to half a dozen food vendors, each with a portable kitchen and sweating staff, and Mama Moon’s had created a bower along their wall, where for a demming you could sit beneath awnings and eat your meal at a table. The armorer had been joined by a dozen different leather-workers, all displaying collars and harness fit for the best of racing dogs, and a couple of basket makers were hawking their wares. The latter were well-known specialists, Eslingen had gathered, women who were known to make baskets that were sturdy enough to hold an excited terrier but with lids and closures that could be managed one-handed. They were both doing steady business, new work and repairs, and runners stood ready to ferry the work back to the main businesses. Parasol-sellers had set up business as well; once the races got underway, they would paint the thin paper and silk in the colors of the purchaser’s favorite kennel, but for the moment they were selling ordinary summer patterns or plain glazed silk. Quite a few girls of apprentice-age—and a few boys—were selling cheap paper fans and broad-brimmed straw hats, and there were broadsheet vendors in plenty. There was also a barbershop set up beneath a wide awning, and Eslingen paused at the entrance, recognizing the barbers as men from a shop he liked in Point of Dreams. The nearest saw him and flashed a smile, never stopping his work, and Eslingen smiled back, ready to move away.

  “Heard the latest about Beier?”

  Eslingen froze. The speaker was a portly man in a wine-colored coat, leaning close to talk to a woman in summer-green who was having her hands painted.

  “I’ve heard a lunar dozen different things,” she answered. “Where in the Great Hound’s name is the man?”

  Eslingen edged closer, pretending to study the array of wooden hands nailed to the awning’s nearest support. Each one bore a different pattern, ready for clients to choose among the designs.

  “Solveert’s paid him off,” the portly man said. “I heard that from a friend at the University. Beier’s in Altheim at the observatory there.”

  “I don’t believe it.” That was a second woman, one hand poised over a bowl of red-black dye. The barber’s assistant, fair and generously curved in a low-cut bodice, eased it down until each finger was immersed just to the first knuckle. Her other hand was already finished, resting on a leather pillow while the dye cured.

  “I have it on excellent authority,” the portly man said.

  “Can I help you, Lieutenant?” Another of the barber’s assistants smiled at him from the last open paint-table, and Eslingen returned the smile. He’d shaved that morning, and paint would just flake off his hands, but he’d been thinking about getting his fingers dyed anyway. And it would give him an excuse to listen in, perhaps even to join the conversation.

  “Yes, actually. I’d like to get my hands dyed, depending on what it would cost.”

  “Two seillings, unless you want the gold flakes. That’s another seilling.”

  “Just indigo,” Eslingen said firmly, and the woman nodded.

  “An excellent choice, with your coloring. Sit here.”

  Eslingen let her make him comfortable in the folding chair, then sat sipping a cup of fruit tea while she mixed the dye and arranged his left hand in the shallow dish. The others were still talking about Beier, the portly man holding to his friend from the University’s story, while the woman in spring-green set her freshly painted hands in the sun to cure. Another woman—a trainer, Eslingen thought, someone he’d seen around DeVoss’s kennels—leaned on the back of her chair.

  “I can’t see Beier giving up the chance to work the races,” she said. “Not even for a chance at Altheim’s orrery.”

  “There was talk he had some new system in mind last fall at the lesser meet
ing,” the woman with the dyed fingers said. “And I can’t see the University letting him use their instruments.”

  There was a murmur of laughter from the others, and the portly man said, “No, indeed.”

  “So maybe he’s taking the year off to refine his new ideas.” The woman let the assistant arrange her freshly-dyed hand on another pillow, and begin massaging oil into her other hand.

  “Beier tends to test his ideas on his clients,” the woman in green said. That had the sound of a genuine grudge, and Eslingen glanced curiously at her, but he could read nothing more than annoyance in her face.

  “Well, I’ve heard a tale,” the trainer said. “I’ve no idea whether it’s to be believed or not, but…”

  “Tell,” the woman in green said, and the trainer gave a gratified smile.

  “Bear in mind I heard this from someone else’s boxholder, so I’ve no idea if there’s even a shred of truth in it. But the story I heard is that a consortium of printers raised the fee to pay for a proper knife. And that knife hired a magist and they lay in wait for him by Mama Moon’s and killed him there. The body went in the Sier, from a spot where it won’t be found again, and the fee went into the knife’s pockets.”

  “Surely that would be a matter for the points, if it were even likely,” Eslingen said, in spite of himself, and the woman with the dyed fingers nodded.

  “I’d think so. That’s a little specific for the average rumor.”

  The trainer spread her hands. “You may say so. And I put a word in at Fairs’ Point, I’m an honest woman. But if you ask me, they’re not that interested in Beier. He’ll turn up before the meet starts, Tiesheld told me, though where he gets that idea I don’t know.”

  “Claes would know,” the woman in green said.

  “There’s another whose name begins with C that might bear questioning,” the woman with the dyed fingers said, darkly. The assistant had finished with her other hand, and she rose to her feet, reaching into her purse for a handful of silver.