Point of Hopes p-1

by Melissa Scott

  He could hear himself on the verge of anger, was not surprised to see Follet’s matching frown, but Nigaud lifted both hands in surrender. “The guild will pay the bonds, Adjunct Point.”

  Follet nodded. “You said two things?”

  “That’s right.” Rathe did his best to moderate his tone. “Devynck’s knife, Eslingen—I don’t expect you to press the point. It was self-defense and defense of property, and that’s where it will stand.”

  Nigaud looked at Follet. “He was your journeyman.”

  Follet made a face, as though he’d bitten into something sour. “And he was at fault, I admit it. All right. I won’t press the point.”

  “Good.” Rathe sighed, suddenly aware of how late it was, and in the same moment heard the tower clock strike three. “Then let’s get your people home.”

  He made it back to his own lodgings in time to snatch a few hours’ sleep, but dragged himself out of bed as the local clock sounded eight. Someone from the Butchers’ Guild would be coming to pay the journeymen’s bond, and he wanted to be there personally to oversee the process. Still, he was later than usual as he entered the gate at Point of Hopes, and glanced around to see if the guild’s representative had somehow gotten there ahead of him. There was no sign of him or her, and he allowed himself a sigh of relief.

  “We’re sent for,” Monteia said.

  Rathe paused in the station doorway, coat already halfway off his shoulders. He looked at her, seeing the unexpected tidiness of her clothes—her best skirt, unmistakably, and probably her best bodice beneath the polished leather of her jerkin—and the truncheon slung neatly at her waist. “The sur?” he asked, and Monteia gave a grim smile.

  “The city.“ She nodded to the table where the duty recorder sat, trying very hard to pretend she wasn’t all ears. A half sheet of good paper lay among the clutter of slates and reused broadsheets, the city seal at its foot visible from across the room.

  Rathe’s eyebrows rose at that, and he shrugged himself back into his coat, crossed to the table to pick up the summons. It was from the Council of Regents, all right, signed by the grande bourgeoise herself, and her seal lay just above the more massive slab of wax that was the city’s.

  “The sur will be there, of course,” Monteia went on, “but it’s for us—me, primarily. Madame Gausaron dislikes disorder.”

  Rathe nodded absently, skimming through the neat lines of secretarial hand. “All right,” he said, “but I don’t know what she thinks we should have done.”

  “Nor I.” Monteia studied him thoughtfully. “Houssaye! I won’t have you, Nico, appearing before the regents like that. It won’t help us any if you look hungry.”

  “Chief Point—”

  “Ma’am?” That was Houssaye, the station’s junior pointsman, coming in from the garden belting his trousers. He finished that and reached for the buttons of his coat, but Monteia shook her head at him.

  “Don’t bother. You’re loaning that to Nico—we’ve business with the regents.”

  Houssaye blinked, but slipped obediently out of the coat. “Yes, Chief.”

  “I have clothes of my own,” Rathe said.

  “And no time to fetch them,” Monteia answered. “This is important, Nico.”

  Rathe started to bridle, but she was right, of course, it mattered how one looked, prosperous but sober, particularly when one was dealing with the women of the Council of Regents, but he had dressed for the work he expected, not for a council visit. Not that his best clothes were anything out of the ordinary—he was hard on clothes, and knew it, had learned to buy good plain materials that stood the wear—but it stung to be dressed like a child in someone else’s best. Still, Houssaye was his size and build and coloring; as he pulled the light wool over his shoulders, he had to admit that it wasn’t too far from something he might have bought himself. He fastened the waist buttons—loose; Houssaye had an inch or three on him there—and hastily rewound the stock that fastened the neck of his shirt. “We’ve got people from the Butchers’ Guild coming to post bond, and I wanted to be there,” he muttered, a last protest, and reached for his jerkin and the truncheon that hung beneath it.

  “Oh, you can still have that one,” Monteia answered, and looked at Houssaye. “You’re in charge until Salineis gets in or we get back—I told her she could sleep in, after last night. The release order is in my office, get a fair copy made and send it off to Point of Sighs as soon as you can. Use the station seal. When the guildmasters show up, tell them they’ll have to wait—and you can tell them why.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “What’s going to happen to Eslingen?” Rathe said. “It wasn’t exactly fair, calling the point on him, no matter how necessary it was.” He still felt obscurely guilty for calling a point on the Leaguer, couldn’t quite work up much indignation for Paas Huviet, even if he had been shot. His eye fell on the daybook, and the most recent entry: Paas Huviet had died close to first sunrise, according to the physician who’d tended him. He considered it, but even the death didn’t make much difference. Huviet had been a troublemaker, Eslingen had been doing his job, and that, he hoped, would be an end to it.

  “It’s technically manslaughter,” Monteia said, and jammed her hat onto her piled hair. Rathe looked at her, and she sighed. “But I’ve ordered his release, you heard me do it, and I won’t be pressing charges unless and until someone’s stupid enough to force me to it. Does that meet with your approval, Adjunct Point?”

  Rathe nodded. “He did the best he could—better than I’d’ve expected, frankly, it was a nasty situation. And it wasn’t him who started it.”

  “I know,” Monteia said. “And you know why you had to do it. Now, come on.” She swept through the door without waiting for an answer.

  Rathe followed, aware of the unfamiliar weight of the coat’s skirts around his legs. They hampered his knife hand, got in the way of his reach either for purse or tablets, but he had to admit that the beer brown wool looked good against his skin, and against the decent linen of his shirts. It might be nice to have a coat like this, for best—he put the thought firmly aside. The coat might look well enough now, but after a month of his wearing, it would be as shapeless as any other he owned. Monteia had a nice eye for clothes on a man—but then, she had a son just reaching apprenticeship, and the vanities that went with it.

  They crossed the Hopes-point Bridge, squinting in the morning light that glinted from the river. The sun was still low in the sky, the shadows long, the winter-sun not yet risen, and there was dew on the grass as they crossed the gardens of the Maternite. It would be hot later, Rathe thought, and made a face at the irrelevance of the concern.

  The only heat he needed to worry about would come from the council.

  The regents met at All-Guilds at the heart of the Mercandry. The massive building dominated the little square, four stories high, new halls built against the walls of the original until the walls rose like stairsteps to the point of the roof. The old-style carvings above the arch of the main entrance showed Heira presiding over a banquet of the various craft deities. Rathe recognized Didonae and Hesion and a few of the deities invoked by the lesser guilds, but there were a good half dozen he couldn’t place at once. Which wasn’t that surprising, he added silently: each craft was its own mystery, and had its own rites and special patrons. No one could know them all, not even the university specialists. Only Bonfortune was missing: the god of the longdistance traders had no place in this gathering of Merchants Resident.

  One of the four doors was open, and Monteia led the way into the sudden shadow. Inside, the hall was startlingly cool, the heavy stones still holding a faint chill from the winter’s cold. The people hurrying past—young women, mostly, the long blue robes of guild affiliation thrown casually over brighter skirts and bodices, clutching ledgers and tablets—barely seemed to notice their existence, or no more than was necessary to avoid running into them. Rathe made a face, but knew enough to keep his mouth shut, and followed Monteia to the fo
ot of the main staircase. There was a guard there, a greying man in council livery and polished back-and-breast, half-pike in hand: more symbolic than anything, Rathe thought, but it wasn’t a symbol he much liked.

  “Chief Point Monteia, Point of Hopes,” Monteia said. “And Adjunct Point Rathe.”

  The soldier nodded gravely. “Down the hall to your left, Chief Point. Madame Gausaron is waiting.”

  Monteia nodded back, and turned away. Sunlight striped the stones of the hall, falling through windows cut into the wall above the roof of the building’s latest addition, and Rathe was grateful for its intermittent warmth. Another young woman in the blue guilds’-coat was waiting by a carved door; as they got closer, he could see the council’s badge, a stylized version of Heira’s Banquet, embroidered above her left breast. She bowed her head slightly at their approach, and said, “Chief Point. Monteia?”

  “Yes.” Only the twitch of Monteia’s lips betrayed any emotion at all. “And Adjunct Point Rathe. For the grande bourgeoise.”

  The woman nodded again, and swung the door open for them. “Chief Point Monteia and Adjunct Point Rathe.”

  The room was very bright, startlingly so after the shadows of the entrance and the intermittent sunlight of the hallway. Two of the four walls were fretted stone, a pattern of flowers filled in with orbs of colored glass, so that they looked out into the garden behind All-Guilds through another garden made of light and shade. Rathe blinked, dazzled, and brought himself to attention at Monteia’s side. He had never been this far into All-Guilds—never been this close to any of the guild mistresses who controlled the city’s day-to-day government—but he refused to show his ignorance.

  “So. What the devil is going on southriver, Surintendant, that your people can’t keep control of a tavern fight?” The speaker was a tall woman in the expensive respectable black of a merchant whose family had kept shop on the Mercandry for a hundred years. There was fine lace at her collar and cuffs, and on her cap, forming a incongruously delicate frame for her long, heavy-fleshed face. She looked, Rathe thought, with sudden, inward delight, rather like Monteia would, if the chief point were fattened for a season or three.

  “Madame, the situation is hardly normal,” the surintendant began, and Gausaron waved a hand that glinted with gold leaf.

  “No, Surintendant, it’s all too normal. The points do nothing—for what reason I don’t know, and make no judgment, yet—until the situation is past bearing. And then a man, an honest journeyman-butcher, is shot dead in the street.”

  “This is not a question of fees—” Monteia began, and the surintendant cut in hastily.

  “Madame, the people who attacked the tavern were and are concerned for their missing children, but they were still outside the law.”

  “We’re all concerned about the missing children.” The voice came from the shadows behind the grande bourgeoise’s desk, a cool, pleasant voice that somehow suggested a smile. The speaker—she had been sitting in the shadows all the while, Rathe realized—rose slowly and came around the edge of the desk, skirts rustling with the unmistakable sound of silk. The metropolitan of Astreiant, the queen’s half-niece and one of the stronger candidates for the throne, leaned back against the desk, and smiled benevolently over the gathering. “And I know some of the actions the points have already taken, thanks to you, Surintendant. But I’d like to hear from you, Chief Point, what happened last night. And from the beginning, if you please.”

  “Your Grace.” Monteia took a deep breath, and launched into an account of the trouble, beginning with the Old Brown Dog and its history, through the complaints that Devynck was hiding the missing children and her own search of the premises, to the violence of the night before. Her voice was remote, almost stilted, faltering only slightly when she came to Paas’s death. Rathe, who had heard her speak a hundred times before, watched Astreiant instead. She looked no older than himself, tall and strongly built, with the body of someone who faced active sports and the table with equal pleasure. She wore her hair loose, the thick tarnished-brass curls caught back under a brimless cap. The style flattered her handsome features—lucky for her that’s the latest fashion, Rathe thought, and only then thought to wonder if she’d started it.

  “And you’re certain this Devynck has nothing to do with these missing children,” Astreiant said, and Rathe recalled himself to the business at hand.

  “Absolutely certain, Your Grace,” Monteia answered.

  The grande bourgeoise made a soft noise through her teeth, and Astreiant darted an amused glance in her direction. “I think what Madame is too polite to say is that you’ve taken Devynck’s fees.”

  “I have,” Monteia answered. “And I’ve taken fees from every other shopkeeper and guildmistress and tavernkeeper in Point of Hopes, too. It’d be more to the point, Madame, Your Grace, to say I’m Aagte Devynck’s friend, because I am, and I make no secret of it. But it’s because I know her, because I’m her friend and I know what she will and won’t sell, that I can tell you she would never be involved in something like this. I’m as sure of that as I’m sure of my own stars.”

  Astreiant nodded gravely. “Will the rest of Point of Hopes believe it, though? I’m as concerned as Madame Gausaron with keeping the peace southriver.”

  Monteia looked away, looked toward the surintendant as though for reassurance, then back at Astreiant. “Your Grace, I think so. It’s morning, they’re chastened by what they did.” She darted a glance at the grande bourgeoise. “As Madame said, there was a death to no purpose. I think it’s sobered them all down.”

  “Yes, the journeyman-butcher,” Astreiant said. She looked at Gausaron. “I must say, Madame, I think he got what he deserved. Threatening a woman’s property—the knife, what’s-his-name, seems to have been within his right.”

  “What’s being done with the knife?” Gausaron asked.

  “Madame, he was taken to the cells at Point of Sighs,” Monteia answered.

  “He’ll be released today,” Rathe said, and heard the challenge in his voice too late. “The point’s bound to be disallowed—it was self-defense, not just defense of property.”

  Astreiant fixed her gaze on him for the first time. Her eyes were very pale, a color between blue and grey, and tilted slightly downward at the outer corners. “It seems a reasonable interpretation,” she said, after a moment, and Rathe wondered what she had been going to say. She looked at Gausaron. “Madame, it’s a dangerous time, and you’re right to be concerned, but I have to say, I think the chief point handled this as well as anyone could have.”

  The grand bourgeoise nodded, rather grudgingly. “Though there’d be less to worry about if they’d find out who’s stealing our children.”

  “Madame, we are trying,” the surintendant said, through clenched teeth.

  “And I would appreciate your keeping me informed of your progress,” Astreiant said, and pushed herself away from Gausaron’s desk. “And in the meantime, I know we’ve taken enough of your time.”

  It was unmistakably a dismissal. Rathe bowed, not as reluctantly as sometimes, and followed the other pointsmen from the room. As the door closed behind them, the surintendant touched his shoulder.

  “That was well handled, Monteia. I want to borrow Rathe, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m glad Astreiant was there,” Monteia said, and only then seemed to hear the rest of the surintendant’s words. “I’ll need him back, sir, and soon.”

  “Only for a moment,” the surintendant answered, and Monteia shook her head, lips tightening.

  “Very well, sir. Rathe, I’ll want to talk to you when you get back.” She turned, skirts swirling, walked away down the hall, her low heels ringing on the stones.

  “Yes, Chief,” Rathe said, to her departing back, and wondered what was going to happen now. He knew Monteia distrusted Fourie— he shared the feeling himself at times—and found himself, not for the first time, reviewing the list of his most recent behavior.

  Fourie’s thin lips were twi
sted into an ironic smile, as though he’d read the thought. “I may have just made more trouble for you, Rathe. Sorry.”

  And if you are, that’s the first time, Rathe thought, but couldn’t muster real resentment. This was the way the surintendant worked; he could accept it or not, but live with it he had to. “What was it you wanted, sir?”

  Fourie shook his head, looking around the busy hall. “This is no place to talk. Come with me.”

  Rathe followed him through the Clockmakers’ Square and then along the arcaded walk that ran along the southern edge of the Temple Fair, feeling if anything rather like a dog of somewhat dubious breed. Fourie made no comment, never even looked back, until at last he stopped by one of the tall casements that looked out across the dust-drifted paving. The ballad-sellers and the printers seemed to be doing their usual brisk business, but there were fewer children than usual among the crowd. Rathe looked again, but saw no sign of black robes or grey, freelance astrologers or students.

  “They’re only interested because it’s bad for business,” Fourie said. His tone was conversational, but Rathe wasn’t fooled. The surintendant was angrier than he had let on in the grande bourgeoise’s presence—in Astreiant’s presence—angry that two of his people had been questioned by the regents’s representative, angry that none of them had done anything to find the missing children, angriest of all that he didn’t have any more likely course of action than he had the day the first child had disappeared. And don’t we all feel that way, Rathe thought, but I wish I were elsewhere just now.