Point of Hopes p-1 Read online

  “I’m here to see Aagte,” he said, to the room at large, and the handsome man’s smile widened slightly. One of the waiters put his cards aside with palpable relief—he’d been losing, Rathe saw, by the piled coins, and scurried through the kitchen door. He reappeared a moment later, held the door open with a grimace that wasn’t quite a smile.

  “She says, come on back,” he said, and Rathe nodded, and stepped through into the hall that led to the kitchen. The smell of food was much stronger here, onions and oil and garlic and the distinctive Leaguer scent of mutton and beer, not unpleasant but powerful; through the open arch he could see Devynck’s daughter Adriana helping to scour the pans for the night’s dinner. She saw him looking, and grinned cheerfully, her hands never pausing in their steady motion. Rathe smiled back, and a side door opened.

  “So, Rathe, what brings you here?” Devynck’s eyes were wary, despite the pleasant voice. She beckoned him into the little room— another counting room, Rathe saw, though a good deal smaller than Mailet’s—and shut the door firmly behind him.

  “A few things,” Rathe answered easily. “Nothing—complicated.”

  “That would be a first.” Devynck leaned against the edge of her work table, which looked as though it had seen service in the kitchens, the top scarred with knife marks. There was only one chair, and Rathe appreciated the delicate balance of courtesy and status. She wouldn’t sit, and keep him standing, but neither would she stand when he sat.

  “I understand you have a new knife,” he went on.

  Devynck nodded. “You probably saw him when you came in. His name’s Philip, Philip Eslingen. Just paid off from Coindarel’s Dragon’s.”

  “Is that a reference?” Rathe asked, with exaggerated innocence, and Devynck gave a sour smile.

  “To some of us, anyway. Coindarel’s no fool, and he doesn’t hire fools.”

  Rathe’s eyebrows rose, in spite of himself. Coindarel was known to choose his junior officers for their looks, and the man in the main room was easily pretty enough to have caught the prince-marshal’s eye.

  Devynck sighed. “Not for his sergeants—not for the men who do the real work, anyway. And Philip came up through the ranks.”

  “It wasn’t his sleeping habits that worried me,” Rathe answered. “I hear you had a little trouble here the other night.”

  “We did not,” Devynck answered promptly, “and that’s precisely why I hired the man. There could’ve been trouble, easy, but he nipped it in the bud.”

  “What I heard—what’s being said on the Knives Road,” Rathe said, “is that he was talking about missing butcher’s brats before he could’ve known about it.”

  Devynck sighed again, and shook her head. “Paas. He’s a bad lot, that one, be a journeyman all his life—if he doesn’t drink himself right out of the guild.”

  “So what happened?”

  “You’d have to ask Philip for the details,” Devynck answered, “but what I saw was, Paas came over to their table—Eslingen was drinking with a man, looked like an old friend. I don’t know his name, but he’s a Leaguer, too, works for one of the caravan-masters. But anyway, they were drinking, and Paas comes over their table, says something I don’t hear except for the tone.” She smiled suddenly. “And the next thing I know, Philip’s got him by the arm and is leading him gently out the door. The rest of the butchers’ boys went with him, pretty well abashed. Everyone knows Paas drinks too much.”

  Rathe nodded. “I’ll want to talk to Eslingen, of course—Monteia wanted me to be sure he understood the situation, anyway, with the fair and all.”

  “Reasonable enough,” Devynck answered.

  “And I wanted to say, if you hear anything, anything at all, that might have to do with the missing children, I expect to hear from you.”

  Devynck’s eyes narrowed. “Did you think otherwise, Rathe?”

  Rathe shook his head. “No. But people are starting to talk, up on the Knives Road. If you have any trouble, I also expect to hear from you.”

  “That you certainly will,” Devynck said. “Who’ll be taking Philip’s bond?”

  “Andry. You don’t mind if I talk to him?”

  “Philip? No.”

  “Thanks, Aagte.”

  Devynck nodded, pushed herself away from the table. “I hope I won’t be seeing you, at least not by way of business, Nico.”

  “So do I,” Rathe answered, and went back out into the main room. Eslingen—it had to be Eslingen, with those looks—was standing with the remaining waiter, flipping idly through the cards left on the table. “You’re Eslingen, I presume. Can we talk?”

  The dark-haired man nodded, letting the gesture serve for both answers, moved toward the windows. Rathe looked back at the waiter. “I think you’re wanted in the kitchen.” The man made a face, but moved slowly away, closing the kitchen door behind him. Beside the hearth, the old woman stirred slightly, then subsided again. “The chief point asked me to have a word with you, seeing that you’re new in Astreiant—and seeing that it’s fair time.”

  “Ah.” Eslingen smiled, the expression consciously cynical. “How much?”

  “You might hear me out,” Rathe answered.

  “Sorry.” Eslingen reseated himself at the corner table, flipping the skirts of his coat out of his way, and gestured vaguely to the stool opposite. Rathe accepted the invitation with a nod, and leaned both elbows companionably on the table.

  “What Monteia—she’s the chief at Point of Hopes—what Monteia wants is for this fair to go off peaceably. Like last year, if not better, in point of fact, which, since you weren’t here, you might want to ask Aagte about. And to that end, seeing as Aagte’s felt the need to hire a new knife—” Eslingen flushed at that, the color clear on his pale skin. So he thinks himself above that title, Rathe thought, but went on without comment. “—she, Monteia, has asked me to tell you that we don’t get a lot of trouble in Point of Hopes. Devynck’s is a soldiers’ place, true enough, but it doesn’t get what you might call soldiers’ business.” Rathe paused, eyeing the other man’s politely impassive face. “Which means, in plain words, if you run into trouble, send a kid to Point of Hopes. That’s the only way we can guarantee everyone will get treated properly, when it’s soldiers’ troubles, is taking the points and letting us bear witness.”

  “And the fee for the service?” Eslingen asked, but he sounded less cynical than the words implied.

  Rathe shrugged. “I don’t generally take fees.” He smiled suddenly, unable to resist. “You see, I like my points too much, or so they tell me—I get a great deal of satisfaction out of my job, and taking money to let someone go, well, that would spoil it, wouldn’t it? And there’s not much point in feeing me when it won’t buy you off, and when I already enjoy my work. You can ask Aagte for the truth of it, or anyone in the point, they’ll tell you.”

  “I’ll probably do just that,” Eslingen said.

  “A wise move.” Rathe leaned forward again. “I do have some questions for you, though.”

  Eslingen made a face. “That butcher’s journeyman, right?”

  Rathe nodded, not surprised that the man had guessed. He didn’t seem stupid, and it would be a stupid man who failed to make that connection. “You want to tell me what happened?”

  Eslingen shrugged. “Not much.”

  He went through it quickly, concisely—he told the story well, Rathe thought, plenty of detail but all in its place. It was the same story Devynck had told, the same that Mailet had recounted, barring the butcher’s automatic suspicion of the Leaguer woman. And it sounds to me, Rathe thought, as though he handled an awkward situation rather well. He said aloud, “So why’d you pick a ‘butcher’s brat’ for your example?”

  Eslingen’s mouth curved into a wry smile. “I wish to all the gods I’d picked anything else. I don’t know—there were, what, near a dozen of them, butchers, I mean, sitting by the bar. I suppose that made it stick in my mind. That and being near the Knives Road.”

  Rath
e looked closely at him, but the Leaguer met his eyes guilelessly. It was a plausible explanation, Rathe admitted. And I have to say, I think I believe him. Stealing children, for whatever cause—it’s just not Devynck’s style, and she’d never put up with that traffic in her house. He nodded. “Fair enough. But remember, if you have trouble here, send to Point of Hopes. It’ll pay you better in the long run than feeing me.”

  “I’ll do that,” Eslingen said again, and this time Rathe thought he meant it. He pushed himself to his feet, and headed for the door.

  Eslingen watched him go, impressed in spite of himself. Rathe wasn’t much to look at—a wiry man in plain-sewn common clothes, hands too big for his corded arms, with a scar like a printer’s star on one wide cheekbone and glass grey eyes with a Silklands tilt to them—but there was something in his voice, an intensity, maybe, that carried conviction. He shook his head, not sure if he was annoyed with himself or with the pointsman, and crossed to the kitchen door, pushing it open. “Oy, Hulet, you can come out now.”

  “Thanks,” the waiter answered, without notable conviction. “Aagte wants to see you.”

  “What a surprise. So who is he, the pointsman?”

  The other man shrugged, and went to pick up the coins that lay still untouched on the table among the scattered cards. “Nicolas Rathe, his name is. He’s adjunct point at Point of Hopes.”

  “How salubrious,” Eslingen murmured.

  “Oh, Point of Hopes isn’t bad,” Hulet answered. “Monteia’s reasonable, for a chief point.”

  Or bribeable, Eslingen thought. His experience with the points had been minimal, but unpleasant; for all their boasting, Astreiant’s vaunted points seemed to make a very good thing out of the administration of justice. He nodded again, and stepped through the kitchen door.

  Devynck was waiting in the doorway of her counting room, arms folded across her chest. She jerked her head for him to enter, closed the door behind him, then seated herself behind the table. “So Point of Hopes is already taking an interest in your exploits. Did he tell you about Andry?”

  Eslingen shook his head.

  Devynck snorted. “Andry’s one of the pointsmen. He’ll be along to collect your—bond, he’ll call it. Tell me what he charges, I’ll pay half.”

  Eslingen lifted an eyebrow, but said, “Thanks. Is this trouble?”

  “Not the bond, no,” Devynck answered, “but these kids… that could be.”

  Eslingen nodded at that, thinking about his own brief explorations in the neighborhood. The people hadn’t been precisely unfriendly, the bathhouse keeper and the barber had been glad of his custom, but he’d been aware of the eyes on him, the way that people watched him and any stranger. He’d walked across the Hopes-point Bridge that morning to the Temple Fair, to visit the broadsheet vendors who worked there, and the talk had been all of this child and that one, gone missing from their shops or homes. Half the prophecies tacked to the poles of the stalls had dealt with the question, and the lines had been five or six deep to read and to buy. “People are worried.”

  “And ready to blame the most convenient target,” Devynck said, sourly. She shook her head. “I can’t see the recruiters bothering, damn it. There’re usually too many people wanting a place, not the other way round.”

  “Do you suppose it’s the starchange?” Eslingen asked, and Devynck looked sharply at him.

  “I don’t see how it could be, these are common folks’ kin who are going missing.”

  Eslingen lowered his voice, despite the closed door. “The queen is childless, and the Starsmith is about to change signs. There is talk—” He wasn’t about to admit it was Cijntien’s idea. “—that that might be the cause.”

  Devynck winced, looked herself toward the closed door. “That’s dangerous talk, from the likes of us, and I’ll thank you to keep it to yourself.” Eslingen said nothing, waiting, and the woman shook her head decisively. “No, I can’t think it. If the queen were at fault—well, there would have been some sign of it, surely, some warning, and she wouldn’t have ignored it. Besides, the gossip is, she’s barren. She couldn’t be blamed for that.”

  Eslingen nodded. He was less convinced by the benevolence of the powerful—though Devynck was a skeptic by nature, certainly—but he acknowledged the wisdom of her advice. This wasn’t speculation to be voiced openly, at least not now.

  “In any case,” Devynck went on, “I want to make sure we don’t have any trouble here for a while. I’ll tell Hulet and Loret, too, of course, but I’d like you to keep a special eye on the soldiers, especially any newcomers. If they haven’t heard what’s going on, they may do something stupid.”

  “Like I did?”

  Devynck smiled. “Not everyone has your—tact, Philip.”

  Eslingen laughed. “I’ll keep an eye on things.”

  “It’s what I pay you for,” Devynck said, without heat, and Eslingen made his way back into the main room.

  The broadsheets he had bought that morning still lay on the table by the garden window, and he collected them, shuffling them back into a tidy pile. The one on top caught his eye. It was a petty thing, one of the two-for-a-demming sort, offering predictions for the next week according to the signs of one’s birth. He had been born under the signs of the Horse and the Horsemaster, and the woodcut that covered half the page—the most professional thing about the sheet, he acknowledged silently—showed a horse and rider, and the rider held a gambler’s wheel, balancing it like a top in the palm of his outstretched hand. The fortune lay crooked across the page beneath it: chance meetings are just chance and chancy, bring chances, take chances. chance would be a fine thing! Eslingen allowed himself a smile at that, wondering if his encounter with the pointsman, Rathe, was covered in that prediction, then headed for the garden stairs and his own room.

  Rathe took the long way back toward Point of Hopes, through the Factors’ Walk, with its maze of warehouses and shops and sunken roads and sudden, unexpected inlets where the smaller, river-bound lighters could tie up and discharge their cargoes in relative privacy. He was known here, too, was aware of people slipping out of sight, staying to the edges of his vision, but they weren’t his business today, and he contented himself with the occasional smile and pointed greeting. Some of the factors dealt in human cargo—there would always be that trade, no matter what the law said or how many points were scored— but they had been the first to be searched and questioned, from the first report of missing children, and all their efforts, both from Point of Hopes and Point of Sighs, had turned up nothing more than the usual crop of semiwilling recruits. A few of the more notorious figures, the ones who’d overstepped the bounds of tolerance bought with generous fees, were spending their days in the cells at Point of Sighs, but Rathe doubted the points would be upheld at the next court session.

  “Rathe!”

  He looked up at the shout to see a tall woman leaning over the edge of one of the walkways that connected the warehouses at the second floor. He recognized her instantly: Marchari Kalvy, who made her living providing select bedmates for half the seigneury in the Western Reach, and owned a dozen houses in Point of Hearts as well. He admired her business sense—how could he not, when she’d had the sense to provide not just bodies but the residences where a noble could keep her, or his, leman in comfort, taking their money at all stages of the relationship—but couldn’t like her, wished he’d had the sense to pretend not to hear.

  “Rathe, I want to talk to you.” Kalvy bunched her skirts and scrambled easily down the narrow stairs that led to the wooden walkway that ran along the first-floor windows of Faraut’s ropewalk. “Will you come up?”

  She was more than capable, Rathe knew, of coming down, and making a scene of it, if it suited her. “All right,” he said, and found the nearest stair leading up again.

  The smell of hemp was strong on the walkway, drifting out the open windows of the ropewalk, and he could hear the breathless drone of a worksong, and the shuffle of feet on the wooden floor. Ther
e was a smell of tar as well, probably from the floor below, and he wrinkled his nose at its sharpness. Kalvy watched his approach, hands on her hips.

  “So what is it you want?” Rathe asked.

  “Do you want to discuss it in the street?” Kalvy returned.

  “It was you who wanted to talk to me,” Rathe said. “I’ve business to attend to. It’s here, or come in to the station.”

  “Suit yourself, pointsman.” Kalvy leaned against the rail, looking down onto the cobbles a dozen feet below. “It’s about Wels.”

  “I assumed.” Wels Mesry was Kalvy’s acknowledged partner and the father of at least two of her children—though not, malicious rumor whispered, of the daughter who bade fair to get the family business in the end. Mesry had been arrested for pandering to a landame from the forest lands north of Cazaril. The boy in question, a fifteen-year-old from Point of Hopes, had claimed he was being held against his will, though Rathe personally suspected that he’d exaggerated the degree of force Mesry had used while his mother was listening.

  “You know the point won’t hold,” Kalvy said. “The boy wasn’t half as unwilling as he claims—hells, how could he be, gets the chance to live in luxury for a moon-month, maybe two, and it’s not like she was that unattractive.”

  “Old enough to be his mother,” Rathe muttered.

  “Sister, maybe.” Kalvy shook her head. “I tell you, Rathe, the brat was glad of the chance, losing his virginity that way.”

  “She paid extra for that?” Rathe asked, and shook his head in turn. He would have liked to claim a point on the landame as well, but Monteia had flatly refused to countenance it, saying it was a waste of time and effort. She was probably right, too, but it didn’t make it any better.

  Kalvy glared at him. “The landame’s childless, poor woman, that hits high as well as low. The boy had the right stars to be fertile with her, and he was well paid.”

  “Practically a public service,” Rathe said, and Kalvy nodded, ignoring the irony.