“We’re not universally loved,” Meisenta said, with another of her wry smiles, “but I can’t see any of our rivals running the risk of murder. Not in a year when everyone is short of supplies. It would be simpler to pool their holdings and undercut our prices—which means the same argument holds for business. I don’t think it’s likely, Captain.”
“I don’t agree,” Redel said. “The Petts would happily see a man dead if it would ruin us, and the more so if it was bes’Anthe. You remember, Elecia, they hired him last year and wouldn’t give him a good name when we enquired.”
“I can’t see the Petts planning a murder just to make us look bad,” Meisenta said.
“No, but suppose one of their men met bes’Anthe after Mattaes left him,” Redel said. “They might have quarreled, too, and then when their man killed him, they’d be just as happy to let the blame fall on Mattaes.”
“It’s still not likely,” Meisenta said.
Nor was it, Eslingen thought, but this was the sort of thread he was looking for. “The Petts?”
“Perrin and Pett,” Meisenta said. “Angaretta Pett is the holder, her son Tibot is the blender. We sell to many of the same markets. But they’re honest folk, in their way.”
“Honest?” Redel’s voice rose.. “After they scooped that cargo out from under us last year?”
“That’s business,” Meisenta said, and there was an edge of steel in her voice. “We’ve done the same to them, and no one’s ever died of it.”
And that, Eslingen thought, was the sum of their answers: there were plenty of rivals, but none who had ever shown themselves willing to commit murder. “And you?” he said, to Elecia. “Has your family had trouble with the dockers, too?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Aucher wince, but Elecia’s expression didn’t change. “We currently trade in partial cargoes. Meisenta has been kind enough to carry our goods with hers.”
Aucher cleared his throat. “I did talk to one or two of the folk we’d dealt with in other years, in case they could do better for us.”
“I asked him to,” Mattaes said, and Redel subsided.
“But no luck.” Aucher shrugged one shoulder. “Someone’s organized the docks this year, that’s for sure.”
And that was no surprise, the attack on Hardelet and Young Steen was further proof if it was needed, but it didn’t get them any closer to bes’Anthe’s murderer. “Going back to your competitors,” he said. “Did any of them have any connection to bes’Anthe?” He was grasping at straws, and he knew it.
“Only the Petts,” Redel said. “They’d hired him last year, and something didn’t go right. They wouldn’t say what, but they wouldn’t give him a reference, either.”
“And that’s my fault,” Elecia said. “I suggested the man, and I’m sorry for it.”
“He’d made the passage in record time three years running,” Aucher said.
Redel nodded. “The Petts were the only people who had anything serious to say against him. I’d still hire him, if he weren’t dead.”
“We all agreed to it,” Meisenta said. “There’s no use blaming yourself, Elecia.”
“But I do.” Elecia gave her a surprisingly warm glance, and Meisenta smiled wryly, as though she’d somehow felt it.
“And I say you mustn’t.” She held out her hand and Elecia took it long enough to bow over her delicate fingers, then stepped away.
“Would you say bes’Anthe was a generally difficult man?” Eslingen asked.
The others exchanged blank looks.
“He was a hired captain,” Mattaes said, after a moment, and Redel nodded.
“He was quarrelsome, by all accounts, and not scrupulous about his cargoes, but that’s—to be honest—what we paid him for. To get the best tea he could, through our factors or any other means, and bring it to Astreiant as quickly as he could. All of the rest—I just can’t help you, Captain.”
“I understand.” Eslingen pushed himself to his feet, his back twitching. “You’ll forgive me, madame, if I take my leave.”
Meisenta dipped her head in regal dismissal, and Elecia said, “I’ll see you out, Captain, if I may.”
“Of course.” Eslingen offered her his arm, and let her lead him into the hall.
Once the door had closed behind them, he disengaged himself, looking past her for de Vian, but Elecia caught at his sleeve.
“A word, Captain, if I might?”
“Certainly.” Eslingen suppressed another wince, and shifted his weight to his right side. The tightness eased a little, and he did his best to smile.
“I don’t know if you follow the broadsheets?”
“Some.”
“Then you’ll have seen the rumors of the dogfish returning to the Sier?”
“Yes, and young men going missing, possibly eaten by an unpleasant sort of mermaid,” Eslingen said.
“The Riverdeme’s not that,” Elecia said. “Whatever she is, she’s not that.”
She seemed disinclined to continue, and Eslingen did his best to hold back his impatience.
“I’m not sure what all that has to do with a man stabbed on dry land.”
Elecia managed a preoccupied smile. “There’s bad luck everywhere, and I think bes’Anthe’s just a part of it. He and Mattaes have fallen foul of some strange conjunction…. There have been accidents, Captain, all up and down the river, more than there should be even at this time of year. Drownings, too, and the fish—I’d swear I saw one myself, just at dusk, crossing the Sier back to our factor’s house. I’d taken a boat from Point of Hearts, thinking it would be faster on the outgoing tide.”
“Your own boat?” Eslingen asked, curious in spite of himself.
She shook her head. “A hired one. I saw the badge clear as day. But the wind was up and the river was rough, and we had trouble passing under the Hopes-Point Bridge, came far too close to the middle piling for my comfort. And then, just when I thought we were safe and the water had stilled a bit, I saw it—just its back first, with a line of fins down the middle and the scales as big as a pillar coin. The dogfish dove under the boat before I could do more than point, and came up on the other side, lifting its head and splaying out its front fins like it wanted a good look at us. Looked like the ones they carve on the pontoises’ standards, big head and tusks like a boar in its lower jaw and teeth like razors. But the worst of it—the worst of it was it had a woman’s eyes.”
Eslingen felt a chill run down his spine, in spite of knowing better, and couldn’t quite manage smiling disbelief. “Yet you’re still here.”
“Because I’m a woman.” Elecia’s smile was wry. “And the boatmen was a graybeard. The Riverdeme takes only men, and the young and the beautiful for preference.”
“Oh, Elecia, are you telling tales again?” That was d’Entrebeschaire, de Vian silent and wary-eyed at her side as they emerged from the library.
“It’s no tale,” Elecia protested.
“If you say so,” d’Entrebeschaire said. “Captain, I’m very pleased that Balfort’s making himself useful to you and to the company. I knew he was young for the post, but he very much wanted to apply.”
“We’re glad to have him.” Eslingen saw the color rising under de Vian’s skin. There was nothing he wanted more than the baths, but he managed a polite half-bow. “And now, if you’ll excuse us?”
“Of course,” Elecia murmured, and d’Entrebeschaire gave a gracious nod. Drowe let them out into the street, and Eslingen allowed himself to stretch, wincing.
“We’ve done enough for today,” he said. “Be at the barracks, I’ll fetch you if I need you.”
“With all respect, Captain, you ought to see a physician.”
Eslingen slanted a glance at him. “That obvious, is it?”
De Vian blushed again. “You’re—not moving right. Are you hurt?”
“Not seriously.” Eslingen saw the concern in de Vian’s eyes, and sighed. “One of the dockers put a stick in my ribs. What I need is the baths.”
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“I should go with you.”
“That’s—” Eslingen swallowed what would have been an ungracious answer. “Thank you, but there’s no need. I’ll send if I need you.”
For a moment, he thought the boy was going to object, but de Vian swallowed any complaint. “Yes, sir,” he said, and turned back toward the bridge.
Rathe parted company with Cambrai and the rest of the pontoises outside the pewter-smith’s, and stood silent for a moment, watching them retreat toward the river. Cambrai was no fool, though the pontoises’ methods tended to be more direct than his own; if there was a name to be found among the sailors and dockers, he’d turn it up. And that left this Dame Havys, and her shop on the bridge.
“Did we get anything useful, sir?” Ormere asked.
Rathe nodded. “We’ve a woman to see on the Hopes-Point Bridge.”
“Sir?”
Rathe made the explanation as they walked, skirting the docks for the quieter approach along the border between Sighs and Hopes. “So if you know anything about this Dame Havys, I’d be glad to hear it. There wasn’t anything in his book, I’d have remembered the name.”
Ormere shook her head. “I don’t know her, sir, sorry. But the adjunct, he didn’t always give me an entry until he’d resolved the point.”
Unsurprising, Rathe thought. Not to mention unhelpful. “Well, that’s where he says he was, so it’s where we have to start.”
“Are you going to leave the rest of it to the pontoises?” Ormere gave him a nervous look. “Finding out who had cause to hate him, I mean.”
“I’ve already asked at the station and suggested people look into it. I’m still waiting for the answers.”
Dame Havys’s shop proved to be a wax-chandler’s, a narrow space barely wider than the door and the open counter, with a ladder at the back that led to a loft and a tall ledger-desk where a grandmotherly woman sat at her books, one eye on her inkstand and the other on the lanky apprentice who tended the counter. Tapers and cake-candles were laid out in trays, arranged by size and color, along with a handful of small wax rabbits that mimicked the sign above the door, and the shelves at the back of the shop were filled with pillar-candles, the biggest as thick as a man’s thigh. The air smelled heavily of beeswax and perfume, drowning out the scent of the river.
“Help you, dame?” the apprentice said, to Ormere, and then faltered as the jerkins and truncheons registered.
“We’d like to speak to Dame Havys, please,” Rathe said, and the woman closed her ledger.
“I’m Havys.” Her voice became wary. “What can I do for you, pointsman?”
“Adjunct Point,” Rathe answered pleasantly. “I don’t know if you’ve heard about Adjunct Point Dammar, at Point of Sighs?”
She shook her head.
“He was attacked and thrown into the Sier, from the bridge here, and he says he was on business for you.” Rathe watched closely as he spoke, but she shook her head again.
“I hadn’t heard that. I’m sorry.”
“I’d like a word,” Rathe said again.
She eased herself off the tall stool. “If you want to talk in private, there’s a tea house just past the foot of the bridge. I’ve no space here for anything but my goods.”
“Lead the way.”
The tea house was small and shabby, but spotlessly clean, and lay on a side street that led down to the water. At this hour, the main room was only half full, and it was easy to find a table where they wouldn’t be overheard. Rathe ordered a pot of tea and cakes to go with it, and leaned his elbows on the worn table.
“Edild Dammar said he was looking into something for you when he was attacked. I’d like to find out a bit more about it.”
“What did he tell you?” Havys was pleating the edge of her bodice between her fingers, then seemed to realize it and laced her hands firmly together.
“Just that he had a job from you.” Rathe frowned when Ormere seemed about to say more, and she subsided. “As I said, I’d like to hear it from you.”
“He’s done any number of jobs for me,” Havys said. “I know his sister, we’re old friends. He’s been kind enough to handle some minor troubles for me without fuss.”
“When did you see him last?” Rathe frowned at Ormere again, and she subsided.
“Sweet Heira, I don’t know,” Havys said. “A week, two?”
“Not these last few days?” Rathe’s attention sharpened, and he saw a flicker of worry cross her face.
“Did he say so?”
“What sorts of trouble did he handle?” Rathe swallowed a curse as the waiter arrived with the pot and the plate of cakes, and Havys fussed with it, insisting on serving all of them.
“Ordinary bits of business, really.” Havys stared at the cups as she filled them one by one. “There was a man owed me money, he’d bought one of my great candles on installments, and then wouldn’t finish. My apprentice—not this one, the one before—got in a fight and he got the bail reduced. Things like that.”
“Do you rent storage in the bridge pier?” Rathe asked, and this time he was certain a look of fear came into her eyes.
“You saw my shop, it’s too small to keep a decent supply, and my house is on the border of Dreams—” She stopped, mastering herself with an effort.
“Had you lost goods recently, from there or from the shop?”
Havys hesitated and reached for one of the cakes to cover her uncertainty.
“Dame.” Rathe drew the plate back an inch or two, and saw her flinch.
“I had…I thought Edild might help me, he’s been good before.”
“He said you’d asked him to look at your storage, that you’d lost goods from there,” Rathe said.
“Yes. Yes, I had, from there and the shop.” Havys’s voice was pitched suddenly high, and she cleared her throat unhappily. “You understand, even the small pieces are valuable—even the damaged bits, I can turn them back to the makers, get credit. It’s good beeswax I sell, none of your tallow or adulterine goods. And none of your cheap perfumes. I asked him to look into it.”
“Can you tell me what was missing?”
“I told Edild. Gave him a list.”
“It seems to have gone missing, too,” Rathe said dryly.
For a moment, her face was blank, but then she rallied. “Some short tapers, a medium pillar. A handful of the rabbits, they’re always popular, but they’re so small you have to watch them.”
“Color?”
“All colors—plain, mostly.” Havys drained her cup and pushed her stool back from the table. “And I can’t stay talking any longer, it needs more than the boy to watch the shop these days.”
“If I need to talk to you again….”
She shook her head. “I’ve told you everything I know, there’s nothing more. Good day, Adjunct Point.”
Rathe leaned back on his stool, watching her bustle out of the tea shop, then reached for the pot to refill his own and Ormere’s cups.
“She was lying.” Ormere ducked her head as though it embarrassed her to have spoken.
Rathe nodded. “And I wonder why.”
There was nothing more to do, Rathe thought as they walked back to Point of Sighs, at least not without a lot more information in hand. Havys had lied and he’d missed his chance to ask her for the key to her storage cell. On balance, it was probably better to wait on that: he doubted Dammar had been attacked there, though why he’d chosen that for his lie Rathe couldn’t see. Instead, better to set a team to search the bridge to see if they could find where Dammar had been taken—and talk to the pontoises’ witness who’d seen the man fall, he added silently, that might give them a hint—and come back to Havys when he knew better what questions to ask.
He made the arrangements once they were back at the station, choosing women he knew as reasonably honest, or at least likely to stay bought, and settled down in his workroom to compose a note to Cambrai. They needed the witness’s account, and better still, the woman’s name so that they
could ask their own questions; the trick was to find a phrasing that would let Cambrai give it to them. He brushed the tip of his quill across his lips, trying to come up with just the right words, and looked up when the door opened.
Bellin scowled in at him. “A word with you?”
“Come in.” Rathe set his pen aside, gestured to the nearest stool. “What’s on your mind?”
“What’s this order to search the bridge? That’s properly the pontoises’ business.”
“Since when are you so protective of their rights?” Rathe asked. “The bridges belong to all of us, that’s always been the agreement.”
“And it’s a waste of time,” Bellin said. “We should be looking for who did it, not where it happened.”
Rathe felt his temper snap. “I’d be very glad to do that, if you’d care to list some names. Every time I’ve asked, you and the rest of this station have sworn up and down that the man had no enemies. Give me names, and I’m happy to see them questioned.”
“I may not have names, but I know the sort who hated him. Let me take the night watch down the docks—”
“And do exactly what?”
Bellin hesitated. “I’ll take half the watch, sweep the waterfront taverns, pull the known troublemakers. That’ll get an answer.”
“You will not.” Rathe lifted a hand to tick off the reasons on his fingers, aware that he sounded like Fourie and not much caring. “First, that’s the perfect way to be sure no one ever talks to you again—you’ll drive them straight to the pontoises. Second, what in Tyrseis’s name makes you think you’ll get useful answers? Half of them will tell you what they think you want to hear just to get free of this. Third, it’s as much casting nets at random as searching the bridge—more so, without anything more to go on. You have a name for cleverness here in Sighs, I’d like to see some of it.”
“There are names.” Bellin looked ready to pull her truncheon. “Names and people, summer-sailors and dockers and the scum of the river, they all have cause to hate him—”
“Name them and question them for cause, or let it be.”
Bellin blinked, then dropped her gaze. “Sorry, Adjunct Point, I spoke out of turn.”
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