“Make for open water,” Cambrai said.
Eslingen looked up sharply. “What’s that?”
The splashing was louder this time, closer, and Rathe missed his stroke, the oar kicking back painfully.
Something moved under the water, a wave lifting against the current, and vanished again. Rathe didn’t dare look, concentrating on keeping the boat steady, but he saw Eslingen’s head turn, scanning the surface.
“There. On my left, about two ells—”
Rathe looked to his right and saw the water rise again, a humped shape heading straight for the boat’s side. For an instant, a fin broke the water like a sail, and then it was gone. A moment later, something struck the bottom of the boat, jolting them all sideways.
“It’s coming again,” Eslingen said. “On the other side—wait, there’s two of them.” He slewed sideways, scanning the water. “Three. There’s another one out there.”
“Oars up!” Cambrai called, and Rathe heaved the blades out of the water, turning them so that they lay parallel to the water.
The two came on, humped shapes boring toward the side of the boat. The leader’s head broke the surface, and Rathe swore under his breath. It was a dogfish, but nearly an ell long, ten times the size of any he’d seen before. Great eyes gleamed in a high-arched skull, flat and silver, its teeth just visible in the water. And then it was under again, and the two together struck the boat amidships, their force tilting it sideways. The water churned as though they were trying to get purchase on the hull, to tip it, and Eslingen cried out.
Rathe felt the boat tip again, automatically leaned toward the high side to balance it, and saw the third dogfish half in the boat, hanging on to the side with wide-spread fins, the spiny frill around its thick neck erect and all its teeth showing. Water sloshed over the side, soaking their feet. Eslingen drew his knife and stabbed at it, first overhand and then, when it hissed and snapped, reversed his grip and brought the point up under the thing’s out-thrust jaw. The dogfish hissed again and flipped away unharmed, splashing back into the water, and Rathe scrambled back into his place, searching for the other two.
“Above the bridge,” Cambrai shouted, and Rathe risked a glance at him.
“What if we beached here? It’s a hell of a lot closer.”
The boat rocked again, and a second time, the dogfish slamming into the hull as though they could shatter the wood. Eslingen clung to his seat, knife ready in his other hand.
“This was always her territory,” Cambrai said. “Above the bridge, or by the seals, that’s safer.”
Not that it felt all that safe, venturing out into the main current of the river in a fog so thick they could barely see the end of the boat, but if this was the Riverdeme’s territory…he should trust Cambrai’s instincts. He adjusted his grip on the oars, and suddenly something seemed to grab the right-hand blade. He swore, falling sideways, and Eslingen reached to steady him, keeping his own weight on the other side of the boat. Rathe flailed the oar up and down, and the weight released with a splash. He recovered his stroke, hands and back burning, felt Cambrai putting all his strength into the effort.
“They’re coming again,” Eslingen called.
Rathe cursed, trying to spot the moving water, and heard Eslingen swear as well.
“On my left.”
As he spoke, the water erupted in froth and fish, two of the dogfish now clinging to the boat’s side, working their strong tails to pull the boat down toward them. Cambrai flung himself to the high side, but he was too far away to make much difference. More water slopped into the boat, and Eslingen thrust awkwardly at the one closest to him, trying to force it overboard without tipping the boat further. Rathe leaned to his left, unable to do more than struggle to keep hold of his oar. Cambrai lifted one oar and flicked the other out of the oarlock to sweep it clumsily along the gunwale. The dogfish dropped away, and Cambrai just managed to keep hold of the oar.
“Pull, Rathe!”
Rathe straightened, dug both oars into the water. Eslingen jabbed his knife under the remaining dogfish’s jaw, and the creature dropped away, leaving a smear of ichor.
“Pull!”
Rathe heaved on his oars, the boat a dead weight against the pressure of the outbound tide. His hands were burning, his back aflame, and he kept pulling, hauling the boat toward the middle of the channel. Behind him, he could hear Cambrai fighting with his own oars, but didn’t dare look. Something struck the boat’s stern, a resounding crack, and water rolled forward over the boat’s bottom, soaking Rathe to mid calf. Eslingen had taken off his hat, was using it to scoop water out of the boat, but if there was a leak, that would never be enough—
There was a sharp snap and the boat lurched forward: Cambrai had finally gotten his oars back in place and joined the stroke. The boat lurched again, swaying—was that a final blow from a dogfish hitting the hull?—and then settled to a smoother progress. The fog thinned, too, shredding away to reveal the now-distant bank and the faint shape of the Queen’s Bridge downstream.
“Can you keep the pace?” Cambrai called, and Rathe managed a nod. “Good. We’ll pass the bridge and put ashore at the Chain.”
The fog thinned again north of the Hopes-Point Bridge, and the force of the tide seemed to ease, but Rathe was still exhausted by the time they pulled into the boathouse at the Chain Tower. He shipped oars at Cambrai’s order, glad to let the pontoises pull them into the slip, and staggered clumsily ashore. Eslingen followed, his whole body drawn tight, ruined hat crumpled in his hand. Cambrai came last of all, shaking his head at the station chief who came to meet him.
“Everything’s fine, Josc, we just took some water. Have someone light the fires in my workroom, and then bring a pot of tea.”
From the look on the station chief’s face, he didn’t believe it, but he wasn’t going to contradict Cambrai in front of a pointsman. Cambrai nodded briskly, and led them up two flights of stairs to an odd, wedge-shaped room with long narrow windows that overlooked the river. Not quite arrow-slits, Rathe thought, feeling faintly giddy, but close enough. A fire was already blazing in the broad hearth, and an apprentice was busy lighting the second of two braziers. On an ordinary day, that would be too much, but at the moment Rathe was grateful for the warmth.
“The tea’s making, sir,” the girl said, bobbing a curtsey, and hurried away.
Cambrai shut the door firmly behind them, and came to stand by the fire himself, holding out his hands, and then turning so that the heat struck legs and thighs.
“You’ll have to tell them sometime,” Rathe said. It wasn’t what he’d meant to say; he’d planned something more diplomatic, but the cold and the reaction had him shaking, blocked more sensible comments. He was wet from the knees down, heavy cloth soaked almost through, rough and chill against his skin.
“Here,” Eslingen said, and drew him closer to a brazier.
“I’ll tell them once I know what it is I have to tell,” Cambrai answered. “By the Bull! If that wasn’t a dogfish—”
“I’d like to know what else it might be,” Eslingen said.
“Those weren’t the dogfish that used to steal my catch when I was a boy,” Rathe said, trying to bring the conversation back to solid fact. “I’ll admit they looked like the great dogfish in the broadsheets, but if that’s accurate….”
“Accurate enough.” Cambrai broke off as the door opened again.
Two apprentices each carried a tray, one with mugs already filled with steaming liquid, the other with a swaddled teapot and a squat square bottle that carried the remnants of a paper label. They set them on the worktable, shifting papers to make room, and Cambrai waved them impatiently away.
“And shut the door behind you!”
He waited until it had closed, then handed round the mugs. Rathe sniffed his, recognizing river-tea, brewed thick and sickly sweet, full of herbs to warm and buffer the body against shock. It tasted like honey with an unpleasant hint of something old and musty, like mushrooms, and he saw
Eslingen recoil from his first sip.
“Drink up,” he said, and Cambrai nodded.
“Yeah, get that down you, and then there’s better waiting.”
Eslingen swallowed obediently, but his expression was pained. “What is this?”
“It’s good for shock and drowning. Near drowning, anyway, and we came close enough.” Cambrai shook his head. “Does that mean we’ve got our answer, Nico?”
“That the Riverdeme is unbound?” Rathe made himself take another swallow. It would go down better before it cooled, and he could feel the shivers easing.
“I’d say the proof nearly ate us,” Eslingen said. “And my hat’s ruined.”
“Drink,” Rathe said again, not sure if that was shock or not, and looked at Cambrai. “We have to assume she’s freed.”
“Ordinary fish don’t try to upset boats.” Eslingen drained his cup with a grimace, and Rathe couldn’t control a shiver. If the boat had capsized, there would have been three of them in the water, a good twenty ells from the shore; even three of the great dogfish could have made a meal of them. He saw the same knowledge in Cambrai’s eyes, and swore under his breath, thinking of the bodies at the deadhouse.
“What does she want, now that she’s unbound?”
Cambrai tossed back the last of his tea. “The gods only know”
“We should have brought de Vian,” Eslingen said. “His sister’s full of stories about the Riverdeme, some of them might be of use.”
“You can get them from him later,” Rathe said.
Eslingen frowned as though he hadn’t heard, and poured himself a cup of the better tea. “There was something he said, about a temple and a punishment cell?”
“I know that story,” Cambrai said. “You, Nico?”
Rathe shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
“Centuries ago, when the Riverdeme ruled the river, she had women ashore to do her bidding, servitors, priests and congregants who’d sworn to serve her. They were powerful as queens, and if anyone disobeyed them, they’d be put in the drowning cell. That was a chamber below their temple, below the tide line, nothing in it but an old-fashioned pump. They would put an accused woman in there, and if she could pump hard enough to keep out the tide, the Riverdeme was presumed to have favored her, and she was freed. If not….” Cambrai shrugged.
“If not, she drowned,” Rathe said. This was the sort of thing he’d joined the points to stand against—how fair could such a test be, for someone old or unfit, a woman weak from sickness or prison? How easy would it be to jam the pump, or leave a woman in the cell for more than one tide cycle? Without food, without drink, drenched in river water—the strongest might manage to hold back the water for a second time, but not a third.
“An ugly tale,” Eslingen said.
Rathe finished the last of his tea, grimacing, and poured himself a new cup to wash the taste away. “Is this true, Euan? Was there such a place? Or is it another river-story?”
Cambrai shrugged. “I’ve always taken it for true—it was part of the channel system under the south bank, so they say.”
“And, in theory, closed up,” Eslingen said. “It seems to me there’s a question we haven’t asked yet, and that’s precisely how the Riverdeme came to be unbound. Not by accident, I’m thinking.”
To Rathe’s surprise, Cambrai shook his head. “No one’s paid much attention to the cross channels these last ten years or so. It’s the tunnels that are in use, so they get the attention. It’s just possible that enough of the barriers have eroded that the river can flow, and that’s freed her. If your magist’s right, Nico.”
“I’ll pass it on as soon as I have it,” Rathe promised. “But Philip’s right, there’s a looming question. Did someone open the channels for her? And if so, who?”
“I can’t think who’d benefit,” Cambrai said. “Or how.”
Eslingen put aside his second cup. “What about the dockers? That gang seems to be at the back of everything that’s been going wrong lately.”
Cambrai lifted an eyebrow. “He’s got a point there. But I don’t see how it benefits them.”
“If it’s one of their threats, maybe?” Rathe shook his head. “But then they’d have to have her under their control, and by all accounts, that’s not really possible. But it’s a place to start.”
“You really expect me to go up and down the river questioning folk about the Riverdeme?” Cambrai asked. “They’ll think I’ve run mad.”
“Start with the ones who don’t,” Rathe said.
It was another hour before their clothes were fully dry and by then the nearest clock had struck three. There was just time to get to the university before the day’s lectures ended—with a bit of luck, Raunkeleyn would be able to explain what they’d seen, perhaps even point them toward something they’d missed. He said as much to Eslingen, who nodded.
“Worth a try. But I should talk to Balfort. I’m curious what other stories he might know.”
Rathe’s mouth tightened, but he had to admit that Eslingen was right. They needed more information about the Riverdeme, and the old tales might have hints the university lacked. “All right.”
“What do you say we meet at the baths, and Wicked’s after?”
It was a peace offering, and Rathe managed a smile. “Not the Sandureigne twice in one week. There’s a perfectly good bathhouse not two streets from us.”
“Did I say the Sandureigne?” Eslingen asked. “They’ve proved they lack…discretion. Deukeyn’s will do for me, and then Wicked’s. I’ll even pay.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Rathe said, and turned away.
The long walk to the university gates loosened the muscles in his back and thighs—it had been a long time since he’d rowed that far, or that hard, and he flexed his hands, the rubbed skin pulling. It could have been worse, he told himself, and shouldered through a crowd of students to ask the gatekeeper for directions to the Faculty of Elements. The woman directed him to one of the older buildings on the far side of the compound, square-built of gray stone, the elemental symbols carved over the main entrance blurred almost out of recognition by time and weather. A porter sat in the box at the base of the stairs, knitting in hand and her feet propped on a lit warming-box, and she lifted her head at Rathe’s approach.
“Can I help you? This is the Faculty of Elements, you know.”
Rathe put on his best smile. “Yes. I’m looking for Hannes Raunkeleyn, of this faculty—the Disputations Chair, I believe? I’d just like a brief word with him, we’ve spoken before.”
“He’s not here.” The porter shook her head for emphasis, but her needles never slowed. “You might try his lodgings—the west wing of the Scholar’s Hall—but I don’t know if he’ll be there, either. He’s been very flighty of late.”
Her tone invited gossip. “Has he?” Rathe asked, but before she could answer the door above her opened, and a tall woman in a deep blue gown, the chain of a senior faculty member spread across her shoulders. The porter looked back at her knitting, her back suddenly straight.
“Not here, sir.”
“Thanks anyway,” Rathe said, and turned away.
He had no better luck at the Scholar’s Hall: Raunkeleyn had said not to expect him for dinner, and hadn’t said when he might be back, though he had a lecture to give at the end of the week. He would certainly be back then—assuming nothing had gone wrong. It would probably be wise to leave a note with b’Estorr as well.
He made his way back across the university precinct to b’Estorr’s lodgings, half hoping to beg a cup of tea for his trouble, but the necromancer’s windows were dark. He left a note with the porter—Need to speak with Raunkeleyn as soon as may be, on the matter he inquired about, which has acquired some urgency—and turned back toward Point of Dreams.
It was twilight by the time Eslingen arrived at the barracks, the clouds obscuring what was left of the light of the true sun. The breeze had strengthened a little, driving away the remnants of the fog, and
he was grateful for its chill touch. The dogfish had been unsettling—terrifying, if he was honest with himself—and he didn’t need the reminder to keep him looking warily into the shadows. It was foolish—pointless, too; the dogfish couldn’t come on land, not in any telling of their story—but he imagined he could still smell the river, still feel its chill in the marrow of his bones. He was lucky his stars had not betrayed him: it would do no harm to light a stick or two of incense at Seidos’s altar.
Evening stables was just ending, a last stableboy trundling a loaded wheelbarrow toward the midden, and he allowed himself the indulgence of ducking through the feed-room door. He lifted an apple from the barrel that stood waiting, and made his way down the line of stalls to where King of Thieves stood waiting. The big gelding lifted his head from his hay when Eslingen called to him and thrust his head over the stall door to make a grab for Eslingen’s hat. Eslingen fended him off easily and offered the apple instead. King of Thieves lipped it delicately from his palm, then made a half-hearted lunge at his cuff buttons before settling down to finish the apple. Eslingen patted his neck, feeling the winter coat coming in, drinking in the familiar sounds and smells of the stables. He had been born here, his stars were in their exaltation here, and he felt the river’s threat recede. King of Thieves snatched at his hat again, and he dodged, aware of the training sergeant’s disapproval, then turned toward the barracks.
De Vian was alone in the room he shared with one of the other candidates, a branch of candles lit and a pot of tea on the worktable along with a stack of paper. He had an inkwell ready, and a disreputable pen, and perhaps a third of the sheet was covered with much-corrected writing. Eslingen tapped on the door, and de Vian started to his feet, annoyance changing to pleasure as he opened the door.
“Captain! Welcome. Would you like some tea?”
Eslingen shook his head. “I wanted a word with you—how far have you gotten with these tales?”
De Vian gave the worktable a guilty glance. “Not very. I’m no storyteller, I’m afraid.” He looked back, his expression sharpening. “Did you find something, sir?”
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