“Shot with a bird-bolt,” Eslingen said. “And either left to die, or got away.”
“Got away, I think,” Rathe said, the pieces slotting into place. If someone had been after Old Steen—that made more sense, even if it meant that Grandad’s murder was an afterthought, someone covering her tracks. If Old Steen had been visiting his father when he was shot— He shook himself. “Philip, what are you doing here?”
“Caiazzo’s business,” Eslingen answered, and Rathe made a face. Of course it was, Hanselin Caiazzo being master of a lunar dozen businesses of just the sort of questionable legality that would lead to meetings in the dead of night, and it didn’t make it any better that he, Rathe, had been the one to find Eslingen the position as Caiazzo’s knife. It didn’t matter that he’d needed Eslingen’s help then—it had been at the height of the child-thefts, and he’d been desperate for any clue—or that he hadn’t realized then quite how much he’d come to like the Leaguer. He’d made his bed, and would have to lie on it: a pointsman could not afford too close a friendship with Caiazzo’s knife.
Eslingen took his silence for disapproval. “I can’t tell you much, Nico, you know that. I was supposed to meet him at the Bay Tree, but he didn’t show. I waited a bit, and then when it was getting on to sunrise, I came out to see what was what before I went back to Customs Point. And found him here.”
Rathe nodded, unaccountably relieved. “They’ll vouch for you at the Bay Tree, then?”
“They will.” Eslingen didn’t seem offended, thankfully, but then, being Caiazzo’s man had left him inured to suspicion. Or maybe that was just being a soldier in a city notorious for its unmartial attitudes. “But why are you here, Nico? And before anyone’s sent for you.”
“I came from his father’s body,” Rathe said. “Someone stabbed Grandad Steen, and then presumably shot Old Steen—or maybe it was the other way around, but in any case, I followed a blood trail here.” He sighed. “Grandad’s hands were marked. He’d fought, and I hoped I was trailing his killer.”
“The father dead, too?” Eslingen shook his head. “I didn’t know he had one—living, that is, or anyway one he knew. You know what I mean.”
“I do. There were three of them, Grandad and Old Steen, and his boy, Young Steen, all sailors—summer-sailors, according to rumor.”
Eslingen tipped his head in question.
“That’s pirates to you,” Rathe said. “Or so the rumor went. Motherless men, all three of them, but no worse than many.”
“I’m a motherless man myself,” Eslingen said, a little too lightly.
Rathe winced, but it was too late to apologize. “Well,” he said, and knelt beside the body. “Hold the lantern, will you?”
Eslingen did as he was told, opening the shutter and tilting the light so that it fell from the side, minimizing the shadows. The day-sun would be rising by now, but the alley was still deep in shadow. Rathe reached for the edge of Old Steen’s coat—it was fancy, long-skirted, expensive braid still neatly stitched at hem and cuffs—and something growled at him. Beside him, Eslingen swore, and the skirts bunched and shifted, the growl increasing.
“Easy, now,” Rathe said, and a head poked from beneath the cloth, fierce brown eyes above a pointed muzzle, teeth bared. “Easy.”
“What in Seidos’ name?” Eslingen began.
The dog wriggled free of the coat, backed itself between the body and the wall, hackles up and teeth still showing white in the lantern-light. It was tiny, not much bigger than a two-pound loaf of bread, with a shaggy black coat and pointed ears and no tail at all.
“It’s a little-captain,” Rathe said. He extended his hand cautiously, not so far that the dog could bite, but close enough that it could get the scent of him. “They’re a river breed, meant to guard the barges.”
“That’s a guard dog?” Eslingen said, dubiously, and in spite of everything, Rathe grinned.
“Depends on where he latches on, doesn’t it?”
Eslingen shifted, but to his credit didn’t step back. “I’ll assume you just mean ankles.”
“You do that.” Rathe kept his hand extended. “Hello, small dog, Steen’s dog. No one’s going to hurt you, pup.”
The little-captain flung back his head and let out a piercing howl.
Eslingen winced. “I begin to see their uses.”
“Yeah.” Rathe stood, truncheon displayed now as a badge of office, as windows opened all along the alley. “Points business!” he called. “Who’ll earn a demming carrying word to Point of Hopes?”
There was a scuffling from the head of the alley, and a girl appeared. “I’ll go.”
“Ask for Chief Point Monteia,” Rathe said. “Tell her there’s another body, and to send to the dead-house.”
“Another body and send to the dead-house,” the girl repeated. “Yes, sir.”
She scampered off, and Rathe looked as Eslingen.
“I don’t suppose your credit at the Bay Tree extends as far as a collar and leash?”
“I imagine they can provide,” Eslingen answered. “But—favor for favor, Nico? I’d like to be there when you examine the body.”
Rathe hesitated. It was far too easy to fall into old habits, the way they’d worked together over the summer, when they’d rescued the stolen children together—and after, when they’d fit all too well, in bed and out. But whatever was going on now, Caiazzo was up to his neck in it, and the Surintendant of Points had been wanting to call a solid point on him for more than a decade. “One thing first,” he said. “Spread your arms.”
Eslingen paused. “I’m no archer,” he said, but lifted his arms from his side so that his coat fell open over his waistcoat and shirt. Rathe could see there was no standard crossbow concealed beneath the fine wool, but stepped closer anyway, ran his hands along the other man’s ribs. Eslingen caught his breath.
“Now you’re just being—difficult.”
“Don’t you want me to be able to swear you had nothing to do with this?” Rathe glanced quickly around but there was no place in the alley to hide even the smallest of crossbows.
“You can keep looking if you want,” Eslingen offered. “Wouldn’t want to miss anything.”
“Later, maybe,” Rathe said, with a certain amount of regret, and Eslingen shook himself.
“Right, sorry. Leash and a collar, you said?”
“A leash, anyway,” Rathe answered. In the rising light, he could see that the little-captain had a collar already, well-worn studded leather. “Or a rope. Anything like that.” He paused, sure he was going to regret this. “And then, yeah, you can come to the dead-house with me.”
In the four months he’d been in Astreiant, Eslingen had had no reason to visit the city’s dead-house, and couldn’t say even now that the idea particularly appealed to him. It was especially unappealing after an exceptionally early morning, trailing the alchemists’ cart across the fog-wreathed Hopes-Point bridge and across the city to the border the University shared with the manufactory district. The river fog was burning off now that the sun was fully up, the cobbles damp and slick underfoot, and he stifled a yawn. Rathe, walking a little ahead of him so that he could talk quietly to one of the apprentices, looked as though he got up before sunrise every day. Which he easily could, Eslingen thought. It was more startling than he liked to realize how little he really knew about the man. Except that he was good with dogs: the little-captain was following quietly now at the end of his leash, not happy, but recognizing authority.
Eslingen shook his head. He refused to regret his choices—if, indeed, you could call them choices at all. Leaguers like himself had been the first people suspected when children started disappearing from the city’s streets; Rathe had not only defended him, but found him a place when he’d lost his, and even if that had been as much to make Rathe’s own job easier, Eslingen had been, and still was, grateful. Except that Caiazzo had two fingers in nearly every questionable business dealing in his home neighborhood of Customs Point, and had made it cle
ar that Eslingen would have to choose between his position and his growing affair with Nicolas Rathe. Caiazzo’s knife could not be in bed with the points, in any sense of the words. Probably he should have left Caiazzo’s service, but that would have meant leaving Astreaint altogether, and that—well, it would have put paid to any chance of seeing Rathe again. Better to drift a little longer, and see what turned up, or so he’d kept telling himself. This dead man, however, wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind.
The dead-house was a long low building with nothing to distinguish it from the other, similar buildings around it except the mage-lights in its windows and the air of quiet bustle already surrounding it. The apprentices brought the cart around toward a back door, but Rathe caught his sleeve when he would have followed.
“We can use the front door.”
“Generous of them,” Eslingen said, but followed obediently.
There was no smell at all, that was the thing he noticed most. The walls and floor were stone laid so tight Eslingen doubted you could slide a slip of paper into the gap, and everything was scoured spotless. A trio of apprentices were washing the far end of the hall, one sluicing the stones, the others driving the water ahead of them with heavy brooms, but all it did was make Eslingen think of the smells that weren’t there. He’d seen dead men in plenty, having been a soldier since he was fourteen, had done his share of burial detail, and this cleanliness felt unnatural.
Rathe clearly knew his way around the place, as of course a pointsman would. He stooped to tuck the little-captain under his arm, then steered them down a series of halls, finally knocking on a heavy iron-bound door. It opened at once, and a plump homely woman peered out, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Hello, Nico,” she said. “Are these yours?”
Rathe nodded. “Afraid so. And I’m going to need answers in a hurry. I have a feeling this one’s going to be ugly.”
“So I see,” she answered. “I was born in Point of Knives, I knew Grandad and his stories.”
“Thanks,” Rathe said, with what sounded like relief. “Cas, this is Philip Eslingen. He’s with me for now. Philip, this is Nianne Castera.”
“Magist,” Eslingen murmured, and she nodded briskly in answer.
“Who’d want to kill the old man?” Castera pulled the door open fully, beckoned them inside. Eslingen braced himself, and followed.
The bodies were already stripped, laid out on a pair of stone tables, and a curly-headed boy was just sorting their clothes into two neat piles. The air was more than naturally chill, and still utterly without scent. Eslingen took a step closer to the table that held Old Steen’s belongings, and Rathe gave him a sharp look.
“Something particular you’re looking for?”
Eslingen gave him his best smile. “Not really, no.” From the lift of Rathe’s eyebrow, he didn’t believe that for an instant, and Eslingen couldn’t really blame him. But in point of fact, the things he’d been expecting, the things he’d been sent to fetch, had clearly never been on the man. Caiazzo wouldn’t be happy that his man was dead, but he’d be even less happy at the possibility that he was being cheated.
“There’s not much,” the boy said, misunderstanding, “Just the usual.”
“Less than that, I’d say,” Rathe said, frowning. He glanced at Eslingen. “We wouldn’t be looking for letters or anything like that, would we?”
“Not on my account,” Eslingen answered, with perfect truth. “Or not that I know of, anyway.”
“Don’t tell me Hanselin doesn’t trust you,” Rathe said.
“He feels my provenance to be doubtful,” Eslingen said, and won a smile.
“I suppose he might, at that.”
“Your recommendation is a double-edged sword, Adjunct Point,” Eslingen said.
The little-captain chose that moment to give another mournful howl, and everyone jumped. “Sorry,” Rathe said, and gentled it to silence. He looked back at Eslingen. “Grandad was searched pretty thoroughly. What about Old Steen?”
“I don’t think so,” Eslingen said. “He wasn’t very cold when I found him, and I think I was first there.”
“I’d agree,” Castera said. “There’s his purse still on him, and a knife, and quite a nice pipe. And his keys.” She stood back, hands on hips, studying Old Steen’s body. The boy was sponging it clean, but the birdbolt still jutted between the ribs, the flesh torn and purpled around it. “And he didn’t die straightaway. The bolt took him turning, I’d say, and he ran—is that his dog? Maybe it distracted the killer. And then he kept moving, trying to escape, trying to get somewhere safe, until his heart gave out and he died.”
Eslingen shivered at the images she conjured. Alchemists were masters of transformation, they could read the changes in an object and track them to their source, that was why they were guardians of the dead. But it wasn’t a comfortable talent. He glanced at the other body, the old man—another Steen, Rathe had said, Old Steen’s father. The boy had done his best to make him presentable, but the stab wound below the breast was still ugly. And not, Eslingen thought, with sharpening attention, what he would have expected. Oh, it was effective enough, but it wasn’t expert, and most of the knives and bravos who meddled in Caiazzo’s business were nothing but expert.
“You noticed that,” Rathe said in his ear, and Eslingen lifted an eyebrow.
“Noticed what?”
“Whoever stabbed him was no professional,” Rathe said. “Just like whoever shot Old Steen didn’t make it count. Does that mean anything to you?”
“There’s only so much I can tell you, Nico,” Eslingen said. He chose his words with care. “Caiazzo sent me to meet Old Steen, by way of business, and that’s all I can say about that. But he wasn’t expecting trouble, nor was I, and if there were going to be trouble in this business, I wouldn’t expect to find the bodies at all.”
Rathe made a face, but nodded, the little-captain squirming again under his arm. “What about Grandad?” he asked, and Castera looked up from contemplating the body.
“He fought, though I’m sure you saw that yourself. I’d say he had a knife of his own, from the marks on his hands, but he was an old man, for all his talk. It wouldn’t take too much strength to beat past his guard.” Her mouth tightened for a moment. “He died about the same time his son was shot, and, being that they’re father and son and the bodies found not too far apart, I’d be inclined to say they were attacked in the same place.”
“But there’s nothing alchemical to say that,” Rathe said, and Castera shook her head.
“Sadly, no. Two different weapons, otherwise I could say yea or nay. And different enough that I can’t even say if it’s a similar hand. At least not by alchemy.”
Rathe nodded. “Hold them for me, will you? And do a full autopsy?”
“Rathe, the cause of death is entirely clear,” Castera said.
“Humor me?” he asked, and after a moment she shrugged and nodded.
“All right. But I doubt I’ll find more than I’ve already told you.”
“There’s something not right here,” Rathe answered. “With your permission, Cas, I’ll take their belongings back to Point of Hopes, and put out a cry for the next-of-kin.”
“D’you have the list?” she said, to the boy, and he nodded. “Right, then. Sign for them, Rathe, and they’re all yours. And—good luck. Grandad was a worthless old sot, but he didn’t deserve this.”
Rathe checked the list, and scribbled his name and title at the bottom, then tucked the bundle into the pocket opposite the little-captain. The dog struggled as they left, yelping and whining, but once they were out in the street, it settled to a morose silence. Eslingen adjusted his hat, shading his eyes from the rising sun.
“I’m for Customs Point,” he said, and Rathe shook his head.
“Sorry, Philip. You’ll need to give us your story.”
“I’ve given it to you,” Eslingen protested. “Have a heart, Nico, I’ve been up most of the night.”
“I�
��m sure you’ll manage,” Rathe answered, and Eslingen followed.
The sun was fully up by the time they reached the station square at Point of Hopes, the streets waking to the routines of the day. A flock of gargoyles scolded from the midden beside a bakery, and a sleepy-looking apprentice was washing the steps of the inn at the corner. There was a a bustle of activity in the station’s main room, the night-watch handing over to the day, and Eslingen checked just inside the doorway, not wanting to be in the way. Rathe ignored it, and hung cap and jerkin on the waiting hooks. The little-captain hovered at his ankles, wary but not yet growling.
“Is the chief in yet?” he asked, to no one in particular, and a blonde woman straightened from the duty point’s table, where she’d been studying a ledger.
“Not yet, Adjunct Point. She’s on her way.”
“Good.” Rathe worked his shoulders, then picked up the dog, settling it into the crook of his arm. “There’s been two murders on the edge of Point of Knives, probably related—it’s Grandad Steen and his son.”
The blonde frowned. “Why would anyone kill Grandad, for Sophia’s sake?”
Rathe looked at Eslingen. “I intend to find out. And have one of the runners make us some tea.”
“Right, Adjunct Point.” The blonde reached for a pen and a scrap of paper, began scribbling.
Breakfast would be nice, too, Eslingen thought, but he wasn’t sure enough of Rathe’s mood to say it aloud.
The blonde finished her note, handed it to one of the waiting runners, and sent another one to the station’s well to fill Rathe’s kettle. “I heard that Young Steen’s ship came in yesterday,” she said. “Should we send for him, too?”
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