Fairs' Point

  Fairs` Point

  A novel of Astreiant

  Melissa Scott

  Lethe Press

  Copyright © 2014 Melissa Scott.

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in 2014 by Lethe Press, Inc.

  118 Heritage Avenue • Maple Shade, NJ 08052-3018

  www.lethepressbooks.com • lethepress@aol.com

  isbn: 978-1-59021-188-5 / 1-59021-188-x

  e-isbn: 978-1-59021-353-7 / 1-59021-353-x

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imaginations or are used fictitiously.

  Cover and interior design: Alex Jeffers.

  Cover artwork: Ben Baldwin.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Scott, Melissa.

  Fairs’ point : a novel of Astreiant / Melissa Scott.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-59021-188-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-59021-353-7 (e-book)

  1. Fantasy fiction. 2. Mystery fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.C672F35 2014

  813’.54--dc23

  2014011835

  Praise for the Novels of Astreiant

  Fairs’ Point

  by Melissa Scott

  “To open Melissa Scott’sFairs’ Point is to return to a world as complex and astonishing as our own—but with magic. A welcome return it is. Intellectually engrossing and emotionally satisfying, told in magisterial prose, this fourth venture of Nico Rathe and Philip Eslingen among the streets, squares, and fairgrounds of the fantastical but very real metropolis of Astreiant deepens their relationship, proves again their acumen at solving mystical murder mysteries...and features puppies. Puppies!”

  —Alex Jeffers, author ofDeprivation

  Point of Dreams

  by Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett

  “A warmly inviting story where astrology and magic work, and ghosts sometimes name their murderer.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Readers of police procedurals will recognize the form ofPoint of Dreams, if not the details, which are necessarily changed by the fantasy setting…. Scott and Barnett blend the genres deftly, transposing their mystery plot seamlessly into their magical world, effectively building suspense and scattering both clues and red herrings with panache. The writing is skillful, as is the characterization…. Best of all, though, is the world-building. Scott and Barnett have created a setting so densely detailed that it’s at times hard to remember you aren’t reading about a real place….Point of Dreams is a thoroughly rewarding reading experience.”

  —SF Site

  Point of Knives

  by Melissa Scott

  “Scott returns to the intrigue-laden city of Astreiant in this novella, which bridges the gap between 1995’sPoint of Hopesand 2001’sPoint of Dreams…. Primarily an intriguing pseudo-police procedural, this fantasy also serves as a satisfying romantic story, with strong world building and great characterization that will leave readers wanting more.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Blood, alchemy, sexual tension, murder, intrigue, and truly wonderful characters: Melissa Scott’sPoint of Knives delivers them all, in a world that seems so real, I’m surprised to look up and find I’m not living in it.”

  —Delia Sherman, author ofThe Freedom MazeandThe Porcelain Dove

  “Rathe and Eslingen are fascinating to follow as they navigate the deadly intrigues and dangerous magic ofPoint of Knives.”

  —Ginn Hale, author ofWicked Gentlemen

  Point of Hopes

  by Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett

  “Scott and Barnett use elegant and well-crafted language to carry the discerning reader into a world where astrology works. The two handle the interwoven characters, plots, and subplots with skill and an understated sense of wit.”

  —L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

  “Like Scott and Barnett’s previous collaboration,The Armor of Light (1987), this book features good writing, good characterization, and exceedingly superior world-building. Astreiant has a marvelous lived-in quality…. Place this one high in the just-plain-good-reading category.”

  —Booklist

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for the Novels of Astreiant

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The circular arrived before the station’s runners returned with breakfast for the daywatch. Nicolas Rathe, the senior adjunct at Point of Dreams, had just set his teapot on the little summer-stove, and turned frowning at the knock on his door.

  “Sorry, Adjunct Point, but I thought you should see this straightaway.” That was Lievreth Maeykin, just out of his apprenticeship and serving his time on the night shift. He held out a sheet of paper, closely covered in a neat scrivener’s hand, and Rathe took it, feeling his frown deepen.

  “Aren’t you off duty yet?”

  “Just going,” Maeykin answered. “Passile said she’d bring me back a nightmeal to take home, so I’m waiting for that.”

  Rathe nodded, relaxing, and took the sheet from him. “Right, then. Thanks.”

  Maeykin backed away, and Rathe turned his attention to the paper. It was a typical circular, the issuing station’s name at the top and the chief point’s seal and signature at the bottom—from Fairs’ Point, this one, and that was no surprise. With so much of the city’s business passing through the linked markets that were the Great and Little Fairs and the New Fair, there was always some warning or appeal coming out of the district. This one was a request for information about a missing person, someone not seen in his usual haunts and whose friends had made formal representation to the points that they feared some mishap. All that was standard enough, the stilted formal phrases taken from the Pointswoman’s Handbook, and he skimmed over the names of the friends-at-law and the circumstances of the appeal until the name caught his eye. Aardre Beier should not be missing at this time of year.

  He looked back at the standard text, picking out names he should have noticed: the friends-at-law were all dog trainers or veterinarians, and their concern was not just that Beier hadn’t been seen at his usual haunts but that there had been no broadsheets from the man in the moon-month before the Dog Moon races. And that was, Rathe admitted, worthy of notice and probably of concern. It was no wonder Guillen Claes, the chief at Fairs’ Point, had been willing to have the circular drafted.

  He heard familiar footsteps on the stairs, and pushed himself away from his worktable, reaching the door just in time to see his own chief, Trijn, reach the top of the stairs. She gave him a wary look, and he matched it with an apologetic shrug.

  “Got a minute, Chief?”

  She gave him the look that deserved: if he couldn’t wait until she’d had time to reach her own office, or even put down the lunch that was surely in the basket tucked under her arm, she had the time to hear him. “Come on in.”

  Rathe followed her into the largest of the station’s offices, the paneling a bit better polished here, though t
he table and sideboard were no less piled with papers. Trijn eyed him unhappily, but motioned him to the visitor’s chair. “Trouble?”

  Rathe held out the circular, and she took it with a sigh. She was a handsome woman, neatly dressed as any merchant-resident—and indeed her family was solidly of the merchant class—with greying hair pinned up beneath a fine lace cap. She made a face as she read, then set the sheet aside and reached for her pipe. “Do we know anything?”

  “Not that I’ve heard,” Rathe answered. “But I haven’t had a chance to ask more closely. I’d just read it when you came in.”

  “Beier’s hardly the sort to hide himself,” Trijn said. “I can see why his friends are worried.”

  Rathe nodded. Beier was an eccentric rarity, a University-trained astrologer who had chosen to focus his skill on the peculiar art of dog racing. He cast veterinary horoscopes for the breeders and trainers, published pamphlets on the fine art of handicapping the races, and over the last few years had also had a sideline in scurrilous but clever broadsheet commentary on the racing scene in general. Two years ago, a trainer had lost her temper and taken a shot at him with a thoroughly unlicensed firelock pistol—Rathe suspected Beier had provoked her, perhaps with some printed disrespect. “We’re sure he hasn’t published anything this year?”

  “So his friends say, but we can check it.” Trijn’s stove was unlit; she worked a striker until she could get a spark, then puffed hard to get her pipe to draw. “I don’t believe I’ve seen anything from him, though.”

  “I haven’t been looking,” Rathe said.

  “What about your own black dog? I thought he followed all the broadsheets.”

  “I’ll ask him when I see him.” Rathe hoped he wasn’t blushing. He was still getting used to having his leman acknowledged about the station.

  “Do that.” Trijn pushed the circular back across the tabletop. “And make sure the station sees this, just in case—”

  She broke off, and Rathe turned as the door opened.

  “Sorry, chief.” It was Sohier, one of the daywatch, a tall slender woman with her brown hair tied in lovelocks. “There’s a body at the Bell.”

  Trijn swore.

  Rathe said, “At the Bell?” It was one of the more respectable theaters in Point of Dreams: a body there would have the doorkeepers in a panic.

  “So they say. Will you take it, Nico?”

  Rathe grimaced, and Trijn nodded. “Yes, go on, it’ll make Paramis happy.”

  “Right.” Rathe pushed himself to his feet. He collected the circular before Trijn could remind him, and smiled at Sohier. “And you’ll second me, Sohier.”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered, unperturbed, and he followed her down the stairs to the station’s main room.

  This early in the day, it was relatively uncrowded, just a junior point at the main desk, the station’s daybook open before her, and Leenderts and Hegt talking to a skinny boy in a bright blue coat a size too small for him. Leenderts broke off, seeing them.

  “Ah, Adjunct Point—”

  “I told him,” Sohier said, and Rathe took the opportunity to drop the circular on the daybook.

  “Record that, would you, and then make sure it’s posted where everyone can see it.” Rathe turned to the others. “Now. What’s this about a body at the Bell?”

  “Found in the left box, third level, please you, sir,” the boy said. “And it wasn’t there last night, either.”

  “Lovely,” Rathe said. “Right. Leenderts, you’ll have the watch until we get back. When the runners return, send one of them to the deadhouse, we’ll want an alchemist. And a cart.” He looked at the boy. “Lead the way.”

  The winter-sun was just up, casting its paler light between the houses that lined the road between the station and the Bells. It was early for the denizens of Point of Dreams to be stirring, dependent as they all were on the theaters that were the district’s life-blood, but it was without surprise that Rathe saw a small crowd gathered at the side door. At least this wasn’t the Tyrseia, built on its own square and fronting a popular tavern; there was a remote chance they might get the body dealt with before they attracted a crowd. Or perhaps not, he amended, seeing a couple of women—actresses, he thought; their faces were familiar—leaning from their third-floor window while a gargoyle scolded from the rooftree. A trio of children with slates under their arms dawdled in the road, and a respectable-looking shopkeeper and her manservant peered from the doorway of the building that was both shop and house. Further up the street, the Gallenon doorkeeper stood hands on hips, and even as Rathe noticed her watching, a younger man broke away from the group at the Bells’ door and loped up the street to join her. As usual, the theater folk were looking after their own.

  He slowed his step as they came up to the waiting group, letting his eyes run over the crowd. Like most doorkeepers, they were women of sober years, neatly dressed in hard-wearing wool, but to his surprise it was the lone man who stepped forward to meet him, pulling off his hat in respect.

  “Adjunct Point! I hadn’t hoped they’d send you.”

  “Thank you, Master—”

  “Alemendes, Adjunct Point. I’m the head doorkeeper here.”

  Rathe nodded. “And you say you’ve found a body?”

  Alemendes nodded in turn. “In one of the boxes. And he wasn’t there when we closed last night, I can promise you that—”

  “I told you there was someone in the house,” one of the women said, not quite under her breath.

  “And didn’t we make another sweep through, for all it was past midnight and the moon barely a finger wide these nights?” Alemendes demanded indignantly. “Tell the Adjunct what we found, then, Mielle.”

  The woman looked mulish. “We didn’t turn up anyone, no. But it wouldn’t have been hard to get around behind us.”

  From the sound of it, the argument could go on for hours, and Rathe held up his hand. “Let’s see the body first. I’ve sent to the deadhouse, too, so if someone could wait here for them.”

  “You stay, Fridi,” Alemendes said, and the youngest of the women nodded. “If you’ll come this way, Adjunct Point?”

  The corridors of the Bells were dark, the air heavy with silence that damped even the desire for conversation. Alemendes led them up two flights of stairs, to emerge at the back of the first gallery. Mage-lights bloomed blue-white on the far side of the hall, glinting brightest in one of the mid-priced boxes, and Rathe was faintly relieved to see that it was one he’d never occupied. He and Philip Eslingen had spent a number of evenings here before Eslingen had left Caiazzo’s service: the boxes at the Bells had doors with locks instead of velvet curtains.

  He put that thought firmly aside as they came around the curve of the gallery and into the corridor behind the boxes. The mage-lights were at their brightest here, revealing every flaw and chip in the field of painted flowers that decorated the plaster, and showing, too, that the expensive-looking paneling of the boxes was just clever painting. Alemendes fumbled in his purse and came up with a ring of keys, sorted through them for a moment and finally unlocked the door.

  There was someone there, all right, though in the mage-light it was an instant before Rathe was sure he was dead and not merely watching the stage. He was an older man, dressed like any decent shopkeeper or petty merchant—though on second glance the coat and linen had both seen better days. There was a bottle on the table at his elbow and a glass broken on the floor at his feet, and Rathe looked sharply at Alemendes.

  “This is how you found him?”

  “Exactly like this,” the doorkeeper assured him. “We didn’t touch a thing. That’s why I was a little surprised they sent you, Adjunct Point—not that I am at all complaining, mind you. But it seemed clear enough what had happened.”

  Rathe touched the cold skin below the hinge of the jaw, found as expected no sign of life, and lifted the nearest wrist. The arm came with it, moving all of a piece. “Dead some hours,” he said.

  Sohier nodded, her tab
lets and stylus already in hand. “Poison, do you think?”

  Rathe stooped to examine the remains of the glass, but whatever had been in it was sunk into the carpet, and he picked up the bottle instead. He shook it gently, hearing the faint sound of liquid still remaining, and sniffed cautiously at the mouth. He drew back at once, wrinkling his nose at the spoiled-honey smell. He knew what that meant, as did every other pointsman in Astreiant:yris melios, the poison better known as never-wake. He held it out to Sohier, who sniffed in turn, and shook her head.

  “That’s no real surprise.”

  “Yeah.” Rathe contemplated the body for a moment longer, then set the bottle back on the table. Better to wait to search it until the alchemists had had a chance at it, just in case there was something more here than the obvious. He looked at Alemendes. “Your fellow downstairs said she thought there was someone in the theater when you closed?”

  “So she said,” Alemendes answered, “and pity it is that I didn’t listen to her. You know how we close?”

  “Tell me.”

  “There are nine of us in the house on a play-night,” Alemendes said, “to mind the doors and the stairs and keep an eye on the boxes. When the play’s done, we go through the pit and the galleries to collect anything that’s been left and make a start on the cleaning. We’re quick, but it’s a big house, the actors are generally long gone by the time we’ve done, especially if much of anything’s been left behind. And sometimes you get a thief trying to stay behind, too, though what they think they can steal from the dressing rooms or the properties, I don’t know. The only thing worth taking might be the buttons off a few of the costumes, and even they’re more for show—but I’m wandering, Adjunct, I apologize.”

  “Go on,” Rathe said.

  “So we go through the house in a pattern, top to bottom, stage to doors, with the notion that we’d drive anyone ahead of us, if you see my meaning. And of course I lock up everything that can be locked as we go.” He flourished his keys again. “And that’s exactly what we did last night. There really wasn’t a thing out of the ordinary, bar a very nice cloak left in the expensive boxes opposite, which I’m sure someone will send round for this morning. Except Mielle would have it she heard someone, or felt someone, or something, and, give her her due, she said she thought it was first or second gallery. But, as I said, we swept through a final time, top to bottom, and no one saw anything.”