Point of Sighs

by Melissa Scott

  And that had the sound of a noble house about it, Eslingen thought. Blame the father’s family for all the ills. “Tell me about it. Were they mediums? Scholars?”

  “Servitors.” It was an old word, and at first Eslingen wasn’t sure he’d heard it correctly, but de Vian spoke again. “That’s what they called them, servitors. They served the temples, collected the fees—like the pontoises, they negotiated justice on the river. That’s what Father said.”

  Eslingen’s hands were on fire, the muscles in his back threatening to cramp as the cold crept higher. But the progress was slower, he thought, and dragged hard on the handle.

  “But she also took young men,” de Vian whispered. “That was what brought her down. Father said that, too—said she’d have taken me, and Mother laughed. I’ve been a fool.”

  “It’s all right.”

  De Vian slipped downward, then dragged himself up again with a cry of pain. “I only wanted you to love me.”

  “Oh, Balfort.” Eslingen’s breath caught, though he couldn’t waste his strength on tears. “You don’t want me. I’m too old, I have a leman—you deserve someone who’ll love you just as desperately, someone as bright and beautiful and brave as you. Someone to match you, to stand at your side—”

  De Vian rolled his head back and forth in denial. “There’s no one….”

  “There will be.” Eslingen put all the conviction he could muster into the words. “Someone is waiting, I know it—you just have to live for them.”

  “I’ll live for you.”

  “Just live.” Eslingen hauled hard on the pump, letting the anger spur him on. They had to keep talking, somehow, he had to keep the boy awake and holding on until the tide finally turned.

  “Can you ever forgive me?” The words were barely a whisper.

  Eslingen swallowed his first answer, knowing it would do no good. “It’s all right,” he said, and bent his strength to the pump.

  They bundled Elecia into the low-flyer still weeping, though she controlled herself enough to give directions. Cambrai relayed them to the driver, and Rathe concentrated on keeping his seat as the coach rolled heavily over the cobbles.

  “Where is this, exactly? And what is it?”

  “Aliez—the de Vians own a house in Sighs,” Elecia said. “It came to them from someone’s husband, a few generations back, they kept it to rent out, and they’ve been living on the money ever since.” Her face contorted, a bitter grimace revealed in the light of the lanterns outside the Sandureigne. “But it’s old, older than the city proper, and the cellars are below the waterline.”

  Rathe swore under his breath. “Do they connect with the tunnels?”

  “I don’t know.” She cringed from his glare. ”I don’t! Aliez didn’t like anyone to know about the place, she thought it was beneath her.”

  “What about the tenants?” Cambrai asked. “What do they know?”

  “There aren’t any,” Elecia answered. “She let the lease lapse, and didn’t look for new ones. She let it stand empty.”

  Rathe fended her off as the low-flyer took a corner in haste. A picture was taking shape in his mind, nothing that he could prove, not yet, but there were too many coincidences and connections. “She let Jurien Trys and his gang use it. You both were up to your necks in that business.”

  “We never—”

  “If you want any sort of clemency,” Rathe said, “you’d better think hard about what you’re going to say.”

  “Aliez had dealings with him,” Elecia said. “I told her he was trouble, but she wouldn’t listen. She thought she could do anything.”

  “And Dammar?” Rathe asked. “He was your agent, wasn’t he? Your idea?”

  “But I didn’t have anything to do with his death,” Elecia said. “That was Aliez.”

  The low-flyer was slowing, the driver looking from side to side to find the house markers. Elecia pointed. “There. The third one on the left.”

  It was an old building, narrow in a style that had been abandoned centuries ago, little more than a room and a stairway wide, wedged in between larger houses that had clearly been built on the remains of its gardens. All of them were shut tight against the dark, and the low-flyer’s driver looked over his shoulder.

  “Want me to wait again?”

  Rathe nodded, and pointed to the runner. “Run to Sighs and let Sebern know we’ve found the house. Tell her to send a company.”

  “Yes, Adjunct Point,” the boy said, and darted away.

  Cambrai had already dropped down from the low-flyer, and was examining the main door. “Locked and barred. We won’t get through that without axes.”

  Rathe looked at Elecia. “Another door?”

  “Around the back.” She pointed to a narrow gate at the head of the alley between the houses.

  Rathe tested it, found it unlocked, and swung it open on well-oiled hinges. Cambrai caught his sleeve.

  “We don’t know who’s in there, or how many.”

  Rathe looked up at the bulk of the house, the lower windows shuttered, the upper ones black and empty.

  “If Trys and the vidame were in this together, half his men could be here,” Cambrai said. “We’re too few.”

  “The place is empty, Euan,” Rathe said. “I feel it in my bones. And Philip is in there.” He stopped, shaking his head. Cambrai was right, that was the problem: if there were guards—and he would be a fool to assume there were none at all, no matter how empty the house felt—he would be leading his people into danger. But Eslingen was in the drowning cell, and every minute counted. “I’ll go first. If we run into anything we can’t handle, we’ll pull back and wait for Sebern.”

  “That’ll give them a hostage,” Cambrai said.

  “If it means pulling him out of the drowning cell,” Rathe began, and stopped himself. “I’ll take that chance.”

  Cambrai nodded, and waved for the others to follow. “So will I.”

  They made their way quietly down the unpaved alley, the mud smelling only somewhat of rotting greens, fetched up in a narrow courtyard surrounded by new walls a good ten feet high. The windows on this side were shuttered all the way up, but the kitchen door beckoned, freshly painted wood and bright brass fittings. Cambrai grimaced.

  “That’ll be a beast to break.”

  “Let me try,” Rathe said, and reached into his pocket for his set of picks. The lock itself carried no enchantment; he found the right pick on the third try, and eased the wards out of the way. As he pushed the door open, he could almost heard Eslingen’s voice in his ear. What unexpected talents you have, Adjunct Point!

  The door gave onto the rough pantry, with its shelves for the great crocks of flour and oil and other bulk goods; they were empty now except for one great tun too large to move, and the dusty floor showed a confusion of footprints.

  “Someone’s been in and out recently,” Cambrai said.

  Rathe nodded. “Let’s hope it’s the vidame.”

  The kitchen was equally barren, the great hearth swept clean of ash and the stone counters empty, and when Rathe checked the brick range, its fire pits were bare. There wasn’t even a last sprig of herb hanging from the hook above the high window. Elecia had been telling the truth at least this far: no one was living here. At Cambrai’s nod, Tiesheld and the pontoise melted through the door that led to the main part of the house, and reappeared a few minutes later shaking their heads.

  “Empty,” Tiesheld said. “Nobody’s been here in a while.”

  But there were marks on the floor, Rathe thought, lifting his lantern. Scuffs of dirt and drying mud, and they led back to a corner where an unobtrusive door opened on the cellar stairs. He looked at Elecia. “Here?”

  She nodded, swallowing hard. “There’s another cellar below.”

  “Bring her,” Rathe said, to Tiesheld, and saw her pull away.

  “No. Please, I’d rather—” She seemed to realize she’d get no sympathy, and fell silent again.

  Rathe nodded. ”Let’s go.
”

  He had run out of things to say, babbling about de Vian’s future, about the Guard and the horses and the things they both had to live for. Eslingen dragged at the pump handle, bending his knees to put his weight on it and spare his back and shoulders. Every muscle felt as though it had been sculpted of molten lead, and if his fingers hadn’t been locked with cold, he could not have gotten his raw hands to grip. De Vian was sagging, his eyes closed, the side of his face rubbed raw by the rough metal. Eslingen drove the pump handle down again. The water was above his waist, but steady there; it might, he thought, it might just be going down a little, and he shook his wet hair out of his face.

  “We’re almost there,” he said, his voice so hoarse he barely recognized it. “Hang on, Balfort, the tide’s about to turn.”

  De Vian didn’t answer, his face sliding slowly down the pump’s cylinder. His hands slowly opened, the interlaced fingers relaxing, and he sagged backwards into the water.

  “Balfort!” Eslingen hauled at the pump handle. If he could get a stroke or two ahead, surely he could grab him, drag him back upright—shake enough wits back into him to hang on just a moment longer. “Balfort, damn it—”

  The lantern’s light dimmed suddenly, as though the shutter had been closed. Eslingen looked up quickly, but there was no movement beyond the grate. Instead, there was a presence, a shadow, rising up out of the water from the conduits that fed the cell, hard and cold and hungry.

  “Balfort!” Eslingen redoubled his efforts at the pump, back and hands shrieking, and thought the shadow wavered. De Vian floated in the dirty water, arms outstretched, pale face and hands just above the surface. He was dying, Eslingen thought, maybe already dead, and he himself didn’t dare stop pumping for fear that the shadow would return. That had been the Riverdeme, surely, ready to take her sacrifice, and if his efforts were keeping her out, that was all he could do.

  And if he stopped pumping, he might never be able to start again. He was at the very edge of exhaustion, every movement energy he couldn’t spare. The tide had not yet turned after all. “Balfort? Come on, answer me….”

  Something moved in the water, a slithering ripple like the flick of a fish’s tail. He couldn’t see anything, though, just the movement, strongly against the still incoming tide. He swallowed a sound that might have become a sob, and bent his back to the pump again. He was getting weaker, he could feel it, was nearly at the point where all the will in the world couldn’t force him to move. The shadow felt it, too; he could almost feel her smile, cold and satisfied. Not yet, he told himself. He could make one or two or a dozen more strokes—one more now, and another, and one more after that. He would keep going, because each stroke was one more chance for Rathe to find him.

  “One more,” he whispered, and leaned his weight against the lever.

  The cellar was as empty as the kitchen above, and smelled of mold. The remains of a set of shelves was heaped against one wall, splintered, rotting wood, and there was a barrel taller than a man set in a cradle in the far corner, but there was no sign of a door. Rathe grabbed Elecia’s arm.

  “Where is it? The door?”

  “I don’t know—”

  It took all his strength not to shake her, his muscles trembling with the effort, and he saw real fear in her eyes. “Tell me.”

  “Beside the barrel.”

  Rathe swept his lantern’s beam across the dirt, over what might have been tracks or the marks where something had been dragged, and Anhalt, who was closest, hurried over, sheathing her knife as she went. Rathe could not remember seeing her draw it, but the sight of the blade cleared his head a little. They were almost there, this was not the time to make foolish mistakes.

  “It’s locked,” Anhalt called, and Rathe shoved Elecia toward Cambrai, reaching for his picks again.

  This was a better lock, which boded well, and he flinched as a magist’s ward stung his fingers. He recognized the symbols cut into the metal case, and grimaced. There were subtler ways to break these wards, but they took time. Brute force was unpleasant, but effective, and he pressed his left hand flat against the lock, muttering the counter-ward. It snapped, a tongue of flame licking the center of his palm, and he jerked his hand away, swearing. But the ward was broken, and there was only a red mark in the center of his palm. He sorted through the ring of picks to find the right size, then gently felt for the wards. Too heavy: he changed the pick for a stronger one, and felt again. Yes, there it was, just there. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the press of metal against metal, pushed down to lift the wards. The lock resisted; he pushed harder, and the pick slipped out of position. He swallowed a curse—no time for that, no time for anything but his best, most perfect concentration—and felt for the wards again. And then he had it, the lock turning open with a heavy snap, and door sagged outward.

  He caught it and pulled it open, teetering for a moment at the top of a spiral stair before he caught his balance. A wave of damp rose out of the dark, carrying with it the smell of the river, and he started down before anyone else could object. He heard Cambrai curse behind him, but Anhalt was at his back, and he held out his lantern, letting its light spill down the curve of the stair. There was no sound from below, no movement in the shadows, and he kept going, lantern in one hand, the heavy truncheon in the other.

  As he passed the third turn, light blossomed ahead of him, faint but unmistakable, and he stopped, pulling the lantern back to narrow the shutter.

  “Trouble?” Anhalt hissed at his shoulder, and he shook his head.

  “Don’t know. There’s a light.”

  “Let me go first?”

  Rathe shook his head again. “I’ve got it,” he said, and moved before she could say anything more.

  The stair opened onto a small and homely room, much like the buttery in the oldest houses, a round room with a shelf running at shoulder height around the circle from one edge of the door frame to the other. The light came from the center of the room—from a hole in the center of the floor, shining up from between the bars of a grate, and there was a broken lock and a heavy metal bar discarded on the stone floor.

  “Philip?” Rathe dropped to his knees beside the grate, holding out the lantern. A second lantern hung from the grate itself, and in the doubled light he could see down into what looked almost like a well, water glittering as it caught the light. There was a pump in the center, and things floating in the water, and a pale and blood-smeared face looked up at him.

  “Nico?”

  “Oh, gods, Philip.” Rathe grabbed the metal bar, levered the grate sideways with a great screech of metal on stone.

  “No, wait,” Eslingen called. “She’s here.”

  “She’ll have to take me first.” Rathe swung on his haunches, looking for some way to get Eslingen out. There must have been a ladder, even just a rope, but there was no sign of one—no, there were eyebolts set into the stone just below the well’s lip, and hooks in them, but the rope that had been attached had been none too neatly severed.

  “By the Bull, you’ve found him,” Cambrai said, and shoved Elecia toward the wall. Anhalt caught her by the arm before she could flee back up the stairs, pinned her against the stone.

  “Rope,” Rathe said, and Cambrai nodded, reaching under his jerkin to reveal a coil tied around his waist.

  “Here. You don’t spend your life at the docks without learning to carry line.”

  “Let me down.”

  “Better he climbs up,” Cambrai said, busily wrapping the rope. It was just long enough, Rathe thought, and he looked down again to see Eslingen still dragging painfully on the pump handle. “The tide’s still coming in.”

  “Philip! Can you climb?”

  Eslingen tipped his head back, and Rathe winced at the streak of blood running down his cheek. “I’ll try…. I’m not alone. De Vian’s with me.”

  “I have to go down,” Rathe said, to Cambrai. “If he’s been pumping since he was taken—”

  Cambrai nodded, looping one end of
the rope through the nearest eyebolt, then stood to take a turn around his waist. “Go.”

  Rathe wound the rope around his own waist and lowered himself cautiously over the edge. He heard Cambrai grunt as the rope took his weight, and began walking down the stone wall. Eslingen was still pumping, but the noise of the water was louder, and Rathe let himself slide the last few feet, dropping into waist-deep water cold enough to take his breath away. What he had taken for Eslingen’s coat resolved to a floating body—de Vian, all right—and he took a step toward him before shaking himself back to the important things.

  “I’ll pump. You see to him.”

  Eslingen nodded, grimacing as he uncurled his fingers from the pump’s handle. Rathe caught a glimpse of raw and bloodied flesh, but then Eslingen stumbled away, splashing awkwardly across the cell, and Rathe made himself focus on the pump. He could feel the water rising, creeping up his ribs, and he braced himself to haul on the lever. It took all his strength to get it moving, and almost as much effort on the upstroke: if Eslingen had been doing this for hours, no wonder he looked half dead. He caught the rhythm, breathing hard, felt the water slow around his feet.

  “Euan! Euan, how long before the tide turns?”

  Cambrai leaned over the edge. “Not more than half an hour. Less. We’ll get you out—”

  The lantern’s light flickered, as though something had moved between it and the depths of the cell. Rathe saw Eslingen look up sharply, then slap de Vian’s face lightly.

  “Balfort. Come on, son—” He choked, shaking his head, but tried again.

  “Let him go,” Rathe said, as gently as he could. Eslingen glared at him, bloodied face stark with grief.

  “He was my ensign.”

  “He’s dead.” The light flickered again and faded, as though a cloud had moved over the sun. Rathe looked up, seeing the air thickening with mist, and felt something slip past his hip. “Philip!”

  “She’s here.” Eslingen released the body and staggered toward him. He slipped, caught himself, then fell forward with an enormous splash, vanishing beneath the surface.