It was another foggy morning, and colder, too, so that Rathe took the time to build up the fire a little and make a pot of tea before braving the garden. When he returned, Sunflower at his heels, Eslingen was making toast, already dressed in a heavy vest and coat and his thickest stockings.
“Not exactly a day for the river,” he said, and held out a piece of toast.
Rathe took it, grateful for the stove’s heat against his thighs. “We should talk to Euan anyway, see what he knows about the tunnels.”
The fog was lighter than the day before, the suns brassy behind the drifting clouds, and the station was busy, lines at each of the worktables and at least one of the night watch still arguing with a pair of sailors in a corner. Rathe swore under his breath, and braced himself to work through the book: nothing that the duty points hadn’t handled perfectly well, but also no further news of Trys or Dammar. The man from the night watch—Luet, his name was—was giving him a begging look, and Rathe swore again, but went to join him.
“What’s the trouble, then?”
The older of the sailors, a stout, graying woman in a respectable skirt and knitted jerkin, put her hands on her hips. “Our business was with Edild Dammar. They tell me he’s dead? And Astarac’s in child-bed.”
Was it, now? Rathe swallowed the words, keeping his expression blank, and nodded. “Dammar’s dead, yes. And Chief Astarac is confined to her bed. My name’s Rathe, I’m adjunct in Dammar’s place for now. Can I help you?”
The two exchanged glances, and then the woman lowered her voice confidingly. “I’m Josset Cade, and this is my bosun Pauterel. Am I to take it you’re handling Dammar’s cases, then?”
“I have his books,” Rathe said, and waited. Cade matched his silence, and Rathe couldn’t hold back a quick smile. “All right, Luet, I’ll take this from here. You’re off duty now?”
“That’s right, adjunct point.”
“Go on, then, and I’ll leave a note for your book.”
Luet nodded and moved away, and Cade took a sideways step, pulling them further away from the rest of the crowd. “Now that you mention books…. We’d made an arrangement with the adjunct, Pauterel and I, but it was off the books. So I’m wondering, would it be you we talked to, if we wanted to affirm the arrangement?”
“It depends on what you wanted,” Rathe said.
“We wanted respite from those thieves of dockers,” Pauterel said, and Cade frowned at him.
“And Dammar said he could provide that?” Rathe fought to keep his voice from sharpening.
“Well, not exactly,” Cade said. “We hadn’t encountered them when we spoke to him. But he promised to clear our unloading, and I hold that covers these people, as much as it covers the usual expenses.”
“He told me he could,” Pauterel said.
“He did not.” Cade glared at him.
“What exactly did he say?” Rathe interjected. If Dammar had promised—it wasn’t proof of a connection between him and Trys’s gang, but it was a reason to start pressing harder.
“He said he knew and that he’d have a word with someone,” Pauterel said. “And he meant it. I’d lay money on it.”
“I take that as a two-for-a-demming broadsheet,” Cade said. “Tell the adjunct what he was doing when you talked to him.”
“He still said it,” Pauterel said, stubbornly.
“What’s she talking about?” Rathe asked.
“Ah, I ran into him as I was leaving the tavern. I practically tripped over the man. And, yeah, Captain, he was in a hurry, but he knew who I was and he knew what I asked him. And that’s what he said.” Pauterel crossed his arms, glaring at Cade.
Rathe glanced over his shoulder, looking for Ormere, and waved for her to come over. “I don’t know if you’d heard that Jurien Trys is dead?”
Cade and Pauterel exchanged glances, the bosun’s mouth drawing up as though he wanted to spit. Cade said, “I hadn’t heard.”
“We believe this may change matters with the dockers,” Rathe said. “And if you wanted to make a proper complaint—”
“I don’t know about that,” Pauterel began, and Cade elbowed him to silence.
Rathe pretended he hadn’t heard. “Ormere will be glad to handle it. Or if you’d prefer to make it informal, she’ll make notes on the problem and see if there’s anything we can do short of an actual complaint.”
Cade hesitated, then shook her head. “No complaint, Adjunct, I’d rather keep this off the books. But I’ll talk to her.”
“That would still be useful,” Rathe said, and pulled Ormere aside. “They seem to have had some arrangement with Dammar about fees and unloading. I want to know if there was any connection between Dammar and Trys, or the docker gang in general—and I mean any connection, he may have had some other arrangement for keeping his own fee-friends safe.”
He saw Ormere’s expression relax slightly at the excuse, though he thought she knew as well as he did that if there was any arrangement, it was most likely that Dammar had been working with the gang. “I’ll do that,” she said, and led the sailors away.
Rathe looked around again, hoping no one else would need him, and moved quickly to the duty desk. “I’m off down the river,” he said. “Business with the pontoises. I’ll be late this afternoon.”
“Very good, Adjunct Point,” the duty point answered, scratching a note in the daybook, and Rathe turned away, relieved to find Eslingen waiting by the river door. But not alone, he saw instantly. Standing beside him was a boy in the Guard’s blue coat, warm chestnut hair bright against the coat and the clouded day. He turned his head then, and his face in profile was as beautiful as a statue’s.
“Nico.” Eslingen straightened at his approach. “This is Balfort de Vian, who’s been assigned as my runner. You’ll remember I mentioned him to you. He was sent with a message, and I thought we might find another pair of eyes useful.”
Another very pretty pair of eyes. Rathe fixed Eslingen with a sharp look. “I thought you were going to keep the vidame’s kinsman out of this.”
“See if you can find a low-flyer,” Eslingen said, to the boy, who nodded and backed away. Eslingen leaned against the door’s frame, lowering his voice as he spoke. “I know you thought I should keep him clear, but he needs to earn his place in the Guard. He’s got nowhere else to go, and his living to make.”
“With those looks, that shouldn’t be a problem.”
“He wants a place in the Guard. And, as I told you, he wants to serve justice.” Eslingen shrugged, miming unconcern, but his eyes narrowed. “He knows a bunch of tales of the Riverdeme—he’s heard them from his sister, apparently. I thought that might be useful.”
“It might.” Rathe took a breath, willing himself to step back from an argument he hadn’t meant to have. “But there’s no room in the boat. Talk to him later.”
“I’ll do that,” Eslingen said, and started after the boy.
CHAPTER 11
To Rathe’s relief, both Saffroy and Cambrai were at the boathouse, and the four of them crowded into Cambrai’s tiny workroom. Rathe explained what they had found at the spot where Trys had died, and saw Cambrai’s eyebrows rise.
“I think I see where you’re going with this. Those tunnels should have been blocked centuries ago, but if they’ve been opened—”
“They’ve never been opened in all the years I’ve worked the river,” Saffroy said. “When I was an apprentice, I worked in some warehouses that had tunnels, but the cross channels were all shut off.”
“Shut how?” Cambrai asked, and Rathe closed his mouth over the identical question.
“The ones I worked at had barred gates closing off the connections,” Saffroy said. “Heavy ironbound wood, like sluice gates, only tall enough to reach the ceiling. And the bottom of the channel, of course. There was one that was blocked with stone, so you could see that there was a tunnel, but it was dry even at high tide.”
“What would it take to qualify as ‘open’?” Eslingen asked. “I me
an, how much water would have to flow for the channel to count as unblocked?”
Cambrai shook his head “I don’t know. Your university man might.”
“Surely more than just a trickle,” Rathe said. “If the river needs to flow without hindrance, then surely there has to be water in the channels at low tide, too?”
“Unless it’s only unbound at the high tides,” Cambrai said.
Rathe sighed. “You’re right, that’s a question for Raunkeleyn. I’ll send a note. But in the meantime, I wondered if we might be able to see more from the river than trying to tramp through women’s cellars.”
“Maybe,” Saffroy said. “You can certainly see the tunnel entrances, and not all of them are barred at the river end.”
“I don’t know,” Cambrai said. “There’s one or two that are only really useable at high tide, but if we see water draining, that would be an indication of water in the channel. I think.”
“At least it would be a place to start looking,” Rathe said. “Will you take us out, Euan?”
“I will. We’ll take one of the smaller boats.”
“Do you want me?” Saffroy asked, and Cambrai shook his head.
“I want you here to keep an eye on things. This shouldn’t take more than an hour or two.” He reached over his shoulder to snag a battered sheet of paper. It proved to be a tide chart, which he turned so that everyone could see. “In fact, we’ll want to get a move on. The tide’s already on the turn.”
The smaller boat was flat-bottomed and blunt-bowed, like its larger sister, but it was only eight or nine feet long, and seemed far less stable. Rathe saw Eslingen hesitate at the edge of the dock, and leaned close enough to say quietly, “I thought we’d have a bigger boat. You don’t have to go if you don’t want.”
Eslingen hesitated, then shook his head. “I’ll be all right. Just don’t expect me to row.”
Cambrai looked up at that. “Oh, surely a big man like you could handle it?”
“I’m not much one for boats,” Eslingen said, tight-lipped, but stepped carefully aboard.
“I can row,” Rathe said, following, and there was an awkward moment while he and Eslingen changed seats. They ended up facing each other, with Cambrai at Rathe’s back, and Saffroy released the last line and gave them a shove toward the river.
It took him a moment to match Cambrai’s easy stroke, but then they hit a mutual rhythm, and Rathe leaned into the weight of the boat. It had been a while since he’d been on the river, longer still since he’d had to do any of the work, and he wished he’d brought gloves. He could feel the places where blisters would begin, and the pull of muscles he hadn’t worked in years. Eslingen crouched on the bench in front of him, sitting in the exact center of the boat, his shoulders hunched and his hands closed tight on the edge of the bench. Rathe tried a smile, and got the flicker of one in return.
The tide was against them, though not as strongly yet as it would be; it took extra effort to heave the boat through the gap between the piers of the Queen’s Bridge, but Cambrai steered them through, and pointed them toward the southern bank. The current eased a little there, and Rathe risked a glance over his shoulder.
“Where away?”
“Let’s just take a trip up the bank,” Cambrai said. “Spot the tunnel entrances, see which ones are still in use. Damn, the fog’s getting worse again.”
Rathe grimaced. More strands of fog were curling up from the shore, drifting across the water. The Hopes-Point Bridge was a ghostly shape in the distance, a darker shadow against the curtaining fog, the roofs of its buildings completely obscured.
“A little further inshore,” Cambrai called, and Rathe copied the changed stroke. As if to emphasize it, a horn sounded from the middle of the river, low and urgent, and shouts and splashing followed it. Cambrai shipped his oars, listening, and Rathe peered through the fog, trying to see the source of the sounds. For an instant, he thought he caught sight of a ship’s hull, a wall of wood rising from the water, and then the fog closed in again. A volley of curses came from upstream—a smaller boat had nearly been run down—and the horn blotted them out again.
“A bit close, that,” Eslingen said, through clenched teeth.
“They’re all right,” Cambrai said, and bent his back to the oars again.
“I wouldn’t like to take a ship downriver in this,” Rathe said. “I’m surprised they’re even trying. What’s the hurry, this time of year?”
“They probably cast off before it got bad,” Cambrai said, “and you know it’s not cheap to tie up again once you’re under way.”
“I’d pay,” Eslingen muttered, and Rathe gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
“If it gets much worse….” Cambrai began, and Rathe risked another look over his shoulder.
“What?”
“We might want to tie up under Hopes-Point, wait it out. Or pull all the way up to the Chain, though I’d rather not try that unless we have to.”
“It doesn’t seem to be getting worse,” Eslingen said, sounding doubtful, “but it’s not getting better.”
There was no answer to that. Cambrai steered them still closer to the shore, and a shift in the air showed pilings and the end of the dock suddenly through the fog, not quite a man’s height above their heads.
“Portain’s,” Cambrai said. “That’s the longest.”
There was a ship tied up alongside, high stern outward; a dim light showed in what would be the captain’s cabin. Masts and spars were bare and hung akimbo: no one had plans to go anywhere, Rathe thought, at least not soon. It was harder to see the shore, the stone wall and the buildings beyond, but there were brighter lights in the alehouse windows, and an enormous ball-shaped magelight hung from the upper windows of a warehouse, bathing the bricks in stark light even through the fog. The silk-dealer Rochendor, Rathe remembered, and the light was to keep off climbing-thieves. There was no sign of a tunnel here, though a section of stone toward the middle might have been lighter in color, a newer replacement.
The next dock was shorter, and there were several smaller ships tied up alongside, the round-hulled, single-masted craft that carried trade from the Sier’s mouth and back again. Lights showed aboard all of them, and a dog barked wildly from the nearest as their boat slid by. A woman joined her at the rail, hugging the little-captain to her side to silence it, and Rathe caught the smell of her tobacco as they slipped by.
There were two doors in the next section of walled bank, both nearly completely exposed by the falling tide. One was closed by a heavy wooden door, and the other by a rusted iron grill festooned with a thick chain and a lock.
“That one I know is in use,” Cambrai called. “The one with the gate. But the channel access was bricked up a long time ago.”
Rathe made a noncommittal noise in answer, wishing they’d had time to talk to Raunkeleyn before starting on this expedition. Magists’ work so often involved a symbol standing for the whole, a fingernail paring for a woman entire. It wasn’t impossible that a missing brick would be enough to let water through and break the seal.
“That door’s half rotten.” Eslingen tipped his head toward the bank, and Rathe leaned forward, squinting. Eslingen was right, the door’s lower edge was discolored and split, the wood as ragged as if it had been chewed, and there was a gap at least a hand-span wide between that and the sill revealed by the receding tide.
“Well, that’s one,” Rathe said, and Cambrai grunted agreement.
They hauled the boat around the next dock, this one occupied by a pair of barges and another of the single-masted ships. A fire blazed in an enormous brazier, and Rathe smelled melting tar and heard shouted orders, the words deadened by fog. The fog was getting thicker again, coils of it rising from the narrow strip of beach now exposed at the base of the wall, and Rathe saw Eslingen shift unhappily.
“Do we go on?”
“We’re safe enough between the docks” Cambrai heaved at the oars. “There’s not much traffic in this weather.”
“Might be a reason for that,” Eslingen said, and straightened cautiously. “Hello, there’s water coming out of that one.”
Rathe shipped his oars to see better. A curtain of fog hard drifted between him and the shore, but he could still make out the opening, black against the gray stone. This tunnel had neither door nor grate, and sure enough a small but steady stream spilled over its sill and carved a shallow channel through the pebbles and silt.
Cambrai swore, and Rathe hastily worked his oars to hold them steady. The fog was cold on his skin, chilling in spite of the exertion.
“I’m not liking this fog,” Eslingen said.
“What do you mean?” Cambrai asked.
“Aside from not wanting to be run down?” Eslingen craned his neck to look toward shore. “Something my ensign said, that fog like this comes from the Riverdeme.”
“The Riverdeme is bound,” Cambrai said. From the sound of it, he was clenching his teeth, though Rathe didn’t turn to look. “Don’t talk nonsense.”
“It shouldn’t be this thick,” Rathe said. “Not on the river.”
“Stop talking foolishness,” Cambrai snapped, and as the words left his mouth a billow of fog rolled over them, cutting them off from the shore. They could no longer see the docks, either, or more than a few feet of water; even the raised stern was blurred, veiled in mist.
“Ship oars?” Rathe asked, feeling the boat waver against the current.
“No! Hold us steady,” Cambrai answered. “Slow strokes, we don’t want to drift back into the pier.”
Rathe did as he was told, matching Cambrai’s pull, and heard a splash out of time with their oars. Eslingen looked up sharply, his face pale in the dim light, pointing.
“Dogfish!”
Rathe craned to look, his oars idle, saw only a ripple in the water, moving against the tide.
“There’s no such thing.” Cambrai pulled hard on his oars. “Nico! Match me unless you want us over.”
Rathe shook himself, lifting the oars again, and on the second try fell back into rhythm with the cap’pontoise. “Should we run ashore?”
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