“Steen.”
“A word with you, if I might.”
“All right.” Eslingen wiped his fingers again on his breeches. “I’m headed to the Hopes-Point Bridge—”
“I’d rather talk here. And—maybe more privately.”
Eslingen glanced over his shoulder, wondering what had put Young Steen’s hackles up. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them, but he lowered his voice anyway. “The tavern?”
Steen nodded. “They’ll let me in with you.”
It was, Eslingen realized, the sort of place that catered to the wealthier merchants-resident, perhaps even to the elegant clerks of All-Guilds, who served the regents. But Steen was right, the rich blue coat and silver badge of the City Guard would ensure their acceptance, even if he winced a little at the thought of the prices. He pushed through the door into a warm, dimly-lit room, a bar and serving hatch to the right, and a generous fire burning in the hearth at the back of the room. Most of the tables were empty, only a handful of women sitting close to the fire, and another pair tucked into a corner, a branch of candles and what looked like an account book between them. The tavern’s knife, homely and deceptively slim, looked up from his stool by the door, flexing corded hands, but then recognized Eslingen’s uniform and relaxed again. Eslingen nodded in acknowledgement, and took Steen’s elbow to steer him toward a corner table.
“So what’s going on?” He broke off as the waiter popped out of the shadows, and ordered a pint of wine and, as the waiter remained, hovering, a plate of bread and cheese. He saw the waiter’s lip curl at his frugality, and added, “Apple fritters?”
The waiter bowed. “We have that, sir. Will you have the cheese with that?”
Eslingen nodded, and the man scurried away.
Steed’s unease was evident as he looked around. “Not the sort of place plain folk go to drink.”
“You didn’t want to be seen,” Eslingen reminded him, and Steen sighed. He looked more prosperous than he had the last time Eslingen had seen him, tunic and trousers of better quality, clean and unpatched, but there was no mistaking him for anything but a sailor. And maybe more than a sailor: he wore three silver bracelets on each wrist, and a set of gold earrings, one with a pendant pearl, more jewels than an honest man could afford. But then, rumor said that Steen, like his father and grandfather before him, was what Astreiant called a summer-sailor and everyone else named a pirate. Certainly Eslingen’s old employer, Hanselin Caiazzo, who had at least a finger in most things illegal around Customs Point, had been happy to employ Steen’s father. “You’re looking well—and well-off. If this is summer business—”
Steen shook his head. “I’m keeping to the common trade just now. I’ve made a good bargain with my owner.”
The waiter returned with wine and plates, and Eslingen poured for both of them, watching Young Steen’s nervous hands as he plucked a fritter into steaming pieces. “It’s about the docks,” he said, without looking up. “Which I know isn’t your business, or Rathe’s, but Sighs is too well-fee’d to look into anything, and I haven’t the money to top the offer.”
Eslingen nodded.
“Understand, there’s always extortion on the docks,” Steen said. “It’s a cost of doing business, we all pay it, and our goods get put ashore quick and neat.”
“And if you don’t pay?” Eslingen asked, when it seemed Steen wasn’t going to continue.
Steen shrugged one shoulder. “Then it takes forever to get unloaded, and things go missing, and sometimes something gets broken, too. Or someone has an accident. But it’s different this year.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice so that Eslingen had to lean forward himself to keep from missing anything. “This year, they want twice what they charged last year, and they want it in coin, not goods. That was how most of us paid, we’re coin-poor until we unload and things get sold, so we’d bring a few extra barrels of wine or bolts of fine silk or whatever we’d been trading in, and the dock bosses would take that for their payment. But this year, unless you’ve got tea to trade, they want silver coin only, thank you, and twice as much. And they don’t stay bought like they used to, either.”
Eslingen nodded again. “Not a good situation, I see that. But you said it yourself, this isn’t Guard business. We deal with foreigners and nobles, and these sound like homegrown trouble.”
“They are.”
“And I’ll happily share the news with Rathe, but I know what he’ll say. This happens in Point of Sighs, it’s Sighs’ business. Unless—I don’t suppose you or your owner lodge outside of Sighs?”
“Jesine’s family lives northriver—Dame Hardelet, my owner, that is. City Point is her station, but they don’t deal with trade. They’ve made that clear. Where I lodge, you might stretch a point and call it Point of Hopes, but—” Steen shook his head. “I don’t want to go to the points directly. Jesine’s increasing, and a pregnant woman’s too easy a target. And, yes, they’ve made that threat explicitly.”
Eslingen tipped his head, hearing something in the other’s tone. “Yours?”
“Yes.” Steen grinned like the sun breaking through clouds, as though the mere thought was enough to drive off the worry of the dockside gangs. “The stars say it’s a girl, to be born at midwinter.”
“Felicitations.” Eslingen couldn’t help matching the smile.
“Now you see why we can’t risk a complaint,” Steen said, his smile fading. “The Soeuraine is her biggest ship, true enough, but she’s got part-interests in half a dozen more, and she’s up and down the docks day-long right now. It would be too easy to hurt her. That’s why I didn’t want to be seen with you.”
“If no one complains,” Eslingen said, “there’s not much the points can do. You know that.”
“Someone might. If you think Rathe—or you—would be willing to listen, I can put that word out. Discreetly, mind you, and you’d have to promise discretion—but I thought someone ought to know.”
Eslingen sighed. “I’ll tell Nico. But I can’t promise it will do any good. The points are…territorial.”
Steen drained his cup, and pushed himself away from the table. “You’ll forgive me if I leave separately.”
“Probably wise,” Eslingen said, to his retreating back, and rested his shoulders against the wall.
He took the time to finish his wine and the rest of the now-cold fritters and the bread and cheese, then tipped the waiter more than he deserved, and stood in the tavern doorway for a long moment, adjusting hat and gloves, while he took a careful look along the length of the street. From what he’d seen while he was in Caiazzo’s service, he believed every word of Steen’s complaint, and had no desire to add to the young captain’s troubles. There were similar gangs in Customs Point, though most of them knew better than to trouble Caiazzo’s people, but he’d seen what they’d done to women who didn’t have that protection. There were no obvious knives in sight, however, just the usual evening traffic making its way along the Mercandry where it paralleled the Sier, a few masts rising above the tiled roofs, ships’ hulls glimpsed at the end of the alleys between the factors’ halls. Most of them were still brightly lit, mage-lights and lamplight showing at the ground-floor windows, and where the double doors gaped open to let in a breath of air, he could see the halls crowded with women in fine wools and the occasional velvet: the merchants-resident worked by the clock, not by the light of day. The thought was steadying, after Steen’s fear: there would certainly be knives in plenty, but they’d be at their employers’ sides, not stalking the streets.
He paused again at the foot of the Hopes-point Bridge, pretending to look at a broadsheet posted outside one of the bakeshops. Where other such shops had gardens out back, a pier jutted out over the river, tarred wood and tattered awnings over a scattering of empty benches. Lanterns bobbed in the freshening breeze, magelights glowing behind the painted paper. The tide was half out, though he couldn’t have said whether it was on the fall or rise: a wet beach of mud and stone and less wholesome
debris lay beneath the pier, and he wrinkled his nose as the wind carried the smell. On the far side of the river, stretching east from the foot of the bridge, lay Point of Sighs, the docks so crowded with ships that the masts looked like a leafless, near-limbless forest. House-pennants flew from their tops, and from the warehouses and factors’ towers, but in the gathering dusk, it was impossible to make out color or design. The Soeuraine of Bedarres would be somewhere among them, though, and the extortion gang, too, moving along dock and street and foreshore like gargoyles along the housetops. It was very much Point of Sighs’ business, but he’d learned long ago that not every station kept their books as clean as Point of Dreams. Or, more to the point, as Rathe himself: he was the exception to the rule that the points worked harder if you paid an extra fee.
He glanced around, seeing nothing that made him think he’d been followed, that his conversation with Young Steen had been noticed, and joined the stream of people making their way across the river. Maybe Rathe could think of something clever. At the end of the bridge, he turned west, deliberately turning his back on Point of Sighs, and threaded his way through the twilight streets. The winter-sun wouldn’t be up for another couple of hours; it would be full dark, thieves’ dark, before then, and he was unsurprised to see a pair of pointsmen walking patrol along a section of Lacemakers’ Street.
Another patrol was leaving as he reached the gates of Point of Dreams, and he recognized the young woman who held the gate for him as the woman who’d come to collect Rathe the night before. “Still on night duty, Sohier?”
She gave him a quick grin in answer. “Only till the end of the month. If you’re looking for Rathe, I think he’s down the cells.”
“Thanks.” Eslingen crossed the courtyard, nodding a greeting to the runner hauling water from the building’s well, and pushed through the door into the main room. He didn’t recognize the man at the duty point’s desk, but the man seemed to recognize him, and came to his feet at his entrance.
“Lieutenant—I’m sorry, Captain vaan Esling! Would you mind waiting a moment? I know the chief would like a word with you.”
“The chief?” Eslingen repeated, but the man—Ivelin, he remembered, too late—was already clattering up the stairs toward the workrooms. Eslingen moved closer to the fire, casting a look around to see if he knew anyone else, but the handful of pointsmen still present were bent over their work, mending gear or scribbling assiduously in a set of tablets, refusing to meet his eye. One woman stood apart, still in her leather jerkin over a shortened skirt that showed a hand’s breadth of striped stockings above the tops of her shoes. Not part of Dreams’ contingent, Eslingen thought, from the way the others left space around her, but he didn’t think he’d seen her before.
“Captain vaan Esling!” Ivelin came back down the stairs, ready to resume his post. “The chief says, would you go up, please?”
That was unlikely to be Trijn’s actual wording, but Eslingen appreciated the attempt at tact.
“Actually, I was here to see Adjunct Point Rathe.”
“He’s there, too,” Ivelin said. “If you please, Captain?”
There was no point in arguing. Eslingen made his way up the stairs, to see the workroom door standing open at the end of the hall. It swung wider as he approached, and Rathe looked out, scowling.
“Oh, good. Come on in.”
There was no chance to ask questions. Eslingen could see Trijn at her table, paper spread out in front of her, and a stocky man sat opposite her, his frown even deeper than Rathe’s. “Chief Point,” he said, with a half bow that was meant to include the two men as well.
“Captain.” Trijn spoke the word with a sort of relish, as though she was aware of and enjoyed the joke: Eslingen was no more expected to bear a commission than he was entitled to the aristocratic version of his name. “You’ve arrived conveniently.”
“Have I?” Eslingen asked, but she ignored him, gesturing to the stranger at her table.
“Captain vaan Esling, allow me to present Adjunct Point Dammar, of Point of Sighs. Adjunct Point, this is Captain vaan Esling of the City Guard.”
“And what in Astree’s name does the City Guard have to do with this?” Dammar caught himself. “Your pardon, Captain. A pleasure to meet you.”
“And you,” Eslingen murmured. He let his eyes drift sideways to where Rathe leaned against the door, arms folded, but Rathe no sign of what this was or how he wanted it played.
“Were you aware that there was murder done in Point of Sighs last night?” Trijn asked.
Eslingen hesitated, but could read nothing in Rathe’s expression. “I had heard that much, yes.”
“Adjunct Point Dammar called the point on Mattaes Staenka last night, and he, as a resident of Point of Dreams, lodged in our cells overnight,” Trijn said. “Today his sister has sent to request bail, and has offered a sufficient surety that I’m inclined to grant it.”
“Which I protest,” Dammar said. “And I have my chief’s authority to do so.”
Trijn dipped her head. “So you do. And she’s welcome to take it up with the surintendant. But unless you have more evidence than you had last night—”
“There was blood all over the boy’s shirt!” Dammar’s color darkened toward apoplexy. “And I’ll lay money he’s not offered any explanation.”
“He insists it’s not his shirt,” Rathe said. “And we took another look at the laundry mark by daylight: it’s not his, and not a match to any of the shirts in the house.”
“The Staenkas are well-respected merchants-resident,” Trijn said, “and have offered more than adequate assurances, including a note of hand for sixty pillars as a pledge for his appearance to answer the point. I see no reason to treat them any differently from any other household of their rank.”
“That’s your prerogative, of course,” Dammar said, tight-lipped, “but I promise you, Astarac will take this to the surintendant.”
“And so she may, with my blessing.” Trijn showed teeth in an approximation of a smile. “But for now and until the sur himself rules otherwise—Mattaes is free to leave.”
“If that’s the way of it, Sighs should keep the note,” Dammar said.
“It’s inscribed to Point of Dreams,” Trijn answered. “They’re residents here. You’ve no real rights to them save what I give you—”
“And what good is a bond that goes to fee a family friend?” Dammar demanded.
Rathe moved then, the barest shift of weight, jerkin whispering against the wood panels. Trijn shook her head, her eyes narrowing, but fixed her attention on Dammar.
“Be that as it may,” she said, “and I’d suggest you not make that accusation again, Adjunct Point, you agreed to let him be held here, so you’ve no right to it, either. I suggest that the City Guard hold it for us, until the surintendant decides otherwise. Or until it can be returned to its maker.”
This time Eslingen looked openly at Rathe, and caught the quick twist of his lips that meant reluctant agreement. “If that would resolve this problem for the moment,” he said carefully, “I would of course be willing to oblige.”
“Excellent.” Trijn shoved a roll of paper across her desk. It was taped and triply sealed, a neat secretary’s hand crossing the seam where the folds overlapped, certifying that the document had been signed and sealed before and with the full knowledge of Meisenta Staenka. That was unusual—surely Meisenta herself should have endorsed the note—but he took it anyway and slipped it into the cuff of his coat.
“You’d better hand that over to your colonel straightaway,” Dammar snapped.
Eslingen lifted his eyebrows. “At this hour? As soon as I may.”
Dammar stiffened. “Hardly reassuring. If you’re going to let the brat go, Chief Trijn, I’ll take him home.”
“I’ll just come along,” Rathe said, and Trijn lifted a hand.
“I think we can ask Captain vaan Esling to see to that as well. If you’d be so good, Captain.”
Eslingen hesitated. This
was exactly what no one wanted from the City Guard, interference in what was entirely the Points’ business. And yet he couldn’t very well refuse Trijn’s request, particularly when he saw exactly how it made things easier for everyone. “I’m certainly willing to do it as a favor to Sighs and Dreams,” he said, “though I think we can all agree that it’s not properly our place to intervene.”
Trijn nodded. “Well spoken. And thank you.”
“We’ll keep you company, Bertelan and I—” Dammar began.
Trijn lifted a hand. “No, no, Adjunct Point, we’ve handed this off to the City Guard. Let the good captain handle it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Eslingen saw Rathe relax again.
“You’ll not send your man, then, either?” Dammar rubbed his chin.
“Nor will I,” Trijn said.
“I’ve got business here still,” Rathe said. His eyes slid sideways, and Eslingen tipped his head forward: message received. He’d come back here once he’d delivered the Staenka boy.
“You’ll not send him out onto the streets at full dark carrying a note of hand like that,” Dammar said.
“And who but us would know who had it?” Eslingen asked. He pulled the packet from his sleeve. “But as it happens, I think you’re right. I’ll ask Chief Trijn to keep it for me until I can lodge it in the Guard’s strongbox.”
Dammar opened his mouth again to protest, then seemed to realize that he’d backed himself into a corner.
Trijn gave a thin smile. “I’ll send word to Chief Astarac once he’s safely lodged at home. The agreement is that he won’t leave the house without my permission. And Astarac’s, of course.”
There was nothing more to say, Eslingen thought. Dammar recognized it, too, and managed a strangled agreement before he turned on his heel and stalked away. Eslingen could hear his boots loud on the boards of the hall, and repressed the desire to be sure that he was gone. “Chief Point—”
“I’ll keep the note for you,” Trijn said, “but in the meantime you’d best get the boy home.”
The cells at Point of Dreams lay below the street, in a stone vault that had probably once been a part of the cellars. It was well lit, mage-light and lamplight both, but the cells were small and the stone walls held the autumn damp. They were scantily furnished, just a wooden cot and mattress, and Eslingen suppressed an old anger. Rathe had spent too many nights here after the midwinter masque almost a year ago, the point called even though Rathe—with Eslingen’s help—had managed to stop a plot that would have resulted in the queen’s death and chaos to the realm. In fact, it was because he’d stopped it, killed the noble behind the conspiracy, that he’d been locked up. If it had been an ordinary woman….
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