He sent a runner to the University with a note for Istre b’Estorr, asking for unspecified help—he didn’t feel this was something he could explain in writing—and received a scrawled response saying that the necromancer was free any time after his morning lecture. It was coming up on the spring ghost tide, at the Dog full moon, and Rathe suspected b’Estorr would be glad to get away from his colleagues for a bit. The University’s necromancers tried to take the ghost tide off, but that meant rushing through extra work in preparation, and b’Estorr was usually out of patience with them by now. Eslingen sent a note as well, promising Calaon’s attendance at any point. Rathe checked the station clock, calculating the time it would take to collect b’Estorr, and sent back a note asking the Leaguer to meet them at the White Horse. It was on the border of the University and Manufactory Point; he was unlikely to attract attention there, and if he did, it was unlikely to be tied to the troubles in Fairs’ Point.
He grabbed jerkin and truncheon from their hooks by the door, was shrugging into the jerkin just as Trijn came up the stairs.
“And where are you going?”
“Business in University Point, Chief,” Rathe answered promptly, and Trijn groaned.
“Beier?”
“No, in point of fact—”
Trijn held up her hand. “On second thought, don’t tell me. I’m sure it will be a lovely surprise.”
“Right, Chief,” Rathe said, and escaped before she could change her mind.
The weather had turned cloudy after a week of spring sun, and the air held a distinct chill. Rathe was glad of his leather jerkin as he crossed the exposed center of the Hopes’ Point Bridge. The same breeze was in his face all the way down the river’s north bank, and he was glad finally to turn into the shelter of the streets that surrounded the University.
b’Estorr had left word with the doorkeeper that he was at home to visitors, and Rathe climbed the stairs to the necromancer’s comfortable lodging. The door was propped partway open, as was the University’s custom when a master was at home and available for consultation, but Rathe knocked briskly anyway. b’Estorr opened it promptly, and waved him into a study that smelled of beeswax and a brisk fire.
“Is it true that someone’s finally murdered Aardre Beier?” he asked.
“Who told you that?” Rathe shook his head. “I mean, he’s not dead that I know of, so I’m curious.”
“No one and everyone,” b’Estorr answered. “I was sure that was what you were here for.”
“Actually, it’s a bit weirder than that,” Rathe said. “Believe it or not. Mind you, we’re being asked about it hypothetically, but I’ve reason to believe it’s real enough.”
“Well, you certainly have my attention now,” b’Estorr said. He plucked at the front of his long gray gown. “Should I change, or do you need my academic authority?”
“Change,” Rathe said. “Discretion is today’s watchword.”
“Do I want to know who you’ve annoyed this time?” b’Estorr disappeared into his bedroom, and Rathe heard the clothes press open and shut.
“It’s complicated.” Rathe could feel the presence of the necromancer’s ghosts, eddies of cold air unnaturally close to the fire, and moved toward the window. Outside, the Great Clock struck the quarter hour, and b’Estorr emerged in an unremarkable rust-brown coat, his stock discarded for an open collar. “I’ll explain on the way,” Rathe told him.
By the time they reached the White Horse, Rathe had managed to summarize the various cases currently at Dreams and the problems in Fairs’ Point, and as they ducked through the tavern’s narrow door, b’Estorr shook his head.
“The missing boxholder is what strikes me. That’s not reasonable.”
“I know,” Rathe said. “But there’s nothing I can do, not unless I want to start a feud with Fairs’ Point that will run for decades. Unless there’s something you could do to help?”
“You know as well as I do that even if he was dead and I did manage to find his ghost, there’s precious little he could tell us of the matter of his death,” b’Estorr answered. “And less than that if it’s murder.”
Rathe nodded. Murder bound a ghost, created a sort of geas that prevented her from naming her killer, or much of anything that would be useful to a pointsman investigating the crime; despite the contortions of playwrights, no ghost yet had ever been able to give testimony that led directly or even indirectly to her killer.
Eslingen and Dame Calaon were there before them, seated at a table in the corner by the painted stove. It was unlit this late in the season, and they had the corner to themselves. Eslingen had already ordered wine and a plate of hard savory cakes, and Rathe poured himself a glass, mildly surprised to find it good.
“This is Dame Calaon,” Eslingen said, “who as I mentioned has a rather pretty theoretical problem. Dame, I expect you know Adjunct Point Rathe—”
Calaon nodded. “Honored.”
“And the other is Istre b’Estorr, of the University.”
“Their necromancer from the broadsheets?” Calaon cocked her head in amusement, and b’Estorr sighed.
“Yes, probably. I’m a necromancer, and I’ve worked with them before. But I have more general training as well.”
“I profoundly hope it won’t come to your specialty,” Calaon said, and b’Estorr murmured something polite and meaningless in answer.
“I understand this is a purely hypothetical discussion,” Rathe said, and Calaon gave an unhappy smile.
“Being as it involved unlicensed book-writers for a starting premise, of course it is. No one here is admitting to breaking the Queen’s law, Adjunct Point. Nor do I know anyone who has.”
“Absolutely not,” Rathe agreed.
“With that understood,” Calaon went on, and drew a breath. “There’s a tale one hears, about thefts from locked strongboxes—only the silver taken, and no likely thieves in view.” She went carefully through the story that Eslingen had told, with more detail but the same fundamental result: silver coins had been stolen from double-locked strongboxes, and there was no ordinary way to explain the theft.
When she had finished, Rathe shook his head. “We’d had word from Fairs that there had been thefts from strongboxes, on top of a plague of pickpockets, but they didn’t give us the details. And it’s the detail that makes the difference. I can’t say I’ve heard the like. Not even in the casebooks they made us memorize when I was a journeyman. It sounds like magistry, but I’ve never heard of anything like that, either. Unless you have?”
He looked at b’Estorr, who shook his head. “Not me. Admittedly, theft isn’t my specialty, but something like this—if it were a known technique, there would be countermeasures, at the very least.”
Calaon nodded. “The merchant sisterhood would pay solid coin for a counter, certainly. But I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“So it’s new,” Rathe said. New and disastrous, at least until someone figured out how to prevent it. Though why it wasn’t being used more widely—but, no, a truly clever thief would start like this, small thefts that added up, all from women who couldn’t afford to complain, and hope to make her fortune before someone was finally forced to take it to the points.
B’Estorr was shaking his head, and Rathe frowned.
“You’ve thought of something?”
“Not exactly.” B’Estorr was frowning, too, a deep line showing between his brows. “What I don’t see is how it could be done at all. It’s hard to move objects by magistry—that’s why you don’t see magists down on the docks shifting cargos. It takes more energy and skill to move anything much bigger than a loaf of bread by magistry than it does just to pick it up yourself, and it’s a lot easier to be sure it ends up where you want it.”
Eslingen stirred. “I’ve seen sappers place a charge by magistry. Barrels of powder.”
“Yes, but that’s something you don’t want to do by hand,” b’Estorr said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“True enough.” E
slingen nodded. “And it took a team of magists to do it, too, which proves your point.”
“And there’s another factor,” b’Estorr said. “Silver’s not like gold. Gold is magistically active, it doesn’t take much energy to do things with it. Or to it. Aurichalcum is the extreme form, of course.”
“I’d gathered that,” Rathe said, his voice dry. The summer before, a mad magist had created enough aurichalcum to build an orrery that had been powerful enough to untune the clocks in Astreiant. It was not a thing anyone wanted to see again.
“Yes, well.” b’Estorr shrugged. “Even ordinary gold is malleable, responsive to magistry. Silver, now… Silver’s exactly the opposite. It’s a pragmatic metal, magistically inert. You have to use an enormous amount of energy just to get it to react at all, and even then it’s hard to predict whether you’ll get the reaction you want, or whether the whole thing will just melt into a big lump. I just can’t see trying to steal silver by magistical means. If it were gold, now—but it’s not.”
“There’s no chance that something designed to steal gold, or do something else entirely, could have misfired and taken the silver instead?” Rathe spoke without much hope, and wasn’t surprised when b’Estorr shook his head.
“That’s close to impossible. Gold isn’t silver, it isn’t even like silver. Magistically, they’re as different as the sun and the moon, at opposite ends of the spectrum.”
“Always in opposition,” Eslingen said.
“Yes, that’s right,” b’Estorr said, startled, and Eslingen gave a crooked smile.
“Read that in a broadsheet once. But it makes sense.”
“It’s a good analogy,” b’Estorr said. “That’s why magists who work with aurichalcum use vessels and tools made of silver. The two don’t mingle. So, no, I don’t think it’s a mistake.”
“It’s too targeted for that,” Calaon said, and Rathe nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Also…” Calaon hesitated, then shrugged. “I have heard that one person might have had gold in her box, and that coin wasn’t touched. Just the silver.”
“Which confirms it’s not an ordinary theft,” Rathe said, with a sigh. “If someone was opening the boxes, there’s no way she’d leave gold behind and take silver instead.” He frowned, considering. “When did these thefts happen, dame? Hypothetically, I mean.”
“One was two days ago, sometime between nine o’clock and first sunset,” Calaon answered. “The rest—all in daylight, I think, but I don’t know for sure.”
“Could you get a list?”
“I might,” Calaon said. “I can try.”
“You’re thinking something in the stars,” Eslingen said, and Rathe nodded.
“I’m not sure what, exactly, but, yeah, something in common.”
“A suitable conjunction might make it easier to work with silver,” b’Estorr said. “I can look into that. But even so—it just wouldn’t be easy.”
Rathe looked at Calaon. “Send to me, if you would—or give it to Philip, here, that’s more discreet, and he’s at the Fair most mornings. Aren’t you?”
“I’ll find him,” Calaon said.
Eslingen nodded. He was tracing shapes on the scarred table, frowning as though he were trying to tease out a lingering thought. “There’s nothing you’d need silver for? No process or special need?”
“Like the tale that it takes a silver bullet to bring down a revenant?” b’Estorr asked.
“Or your silver vessels for working gold,” Eslingen answered.
“I thought revenants were a myth,” Rathe said.
“Oh, they are,” b’Estorr answered. “The dead don’t walk, at least not in their own bodies. But people believe in them, and so it might be a cause. If you needed a mass of raw silver, well, yes, coin silver is pure enough for the purpose, but it would be simpler just to buy the goods you need. Any silversmith in the city has the tools, or can make them in a day or so.”
“Someone who couldn’t afford to be seen buying them?” Rathe asked. “And who didn’t want to have a servant traced?”
“Maybe?” b’Estorr looked doubtful. “For that matter, you could buy a set of silver spoons and melt them down for less effort than it would take to steal silver like this. And I can’t think what you’d want them for in the first place. Bullets make more sense.”
In the distance, the Great Clock stuck the hour, followed a moment later by a nearer, less melodious chime, and Calaon pushed back her stool. “If we’re reduced to talking about revenants, I’ll leave you to it. I’ve work to do.”
Rathe looked up at her. “Dame. If there’s any chance that someone could put in a formal complaint—”
“What, you’d pay the fine?” She laughed without humor.
“Someone who could afford it might,” Eslingen said.
Calaon snorted. “If by that you mean Caiazzo—not likely. And I wouldn’t want to owe him the favor.” She looked back at Rathe. “Besides, we’d have to go to Fairs’ Point, and they’re so busy with the meet that they’d dismiss it as nonsense. Or spend more time calling the point on a poor book-writer than taking down the details of the loss.”
“Claes is a good man,” Rathe said again. He felt as though he’d had to say it far too many times lately.
“Claes is too busy running Solveert’s errands to listen to common business,” Calaon retorted. “And his adjuncts are worse than useless.”
Rathe sighed, conceding the point. “You know there’s not much I can do without a formal complaint.” He held up his hand to forestall her answer. “I will keep this in mind, and we will make inquiries, but if there’s no case—”
“I know.” Calaon nodded. “I do know. But someone needed to be told.”
She turned away without waiting for his answer. Rathe watched her go, her skirts swaying as she made her way between the tables. She was right, that was the trouble: if Claes didn’t handle the matter himself, the adjuncts, especially Voillemin, were likely to focus on the lack of license rather than the theft itself. But without some official excuse, he couldn’t interfere—
“It’s a bad business,” b’Estorr said, and poured himself more wine. That in itself was unusual, and Rathe lifted an eyebrow.
“That bad, then?”
B’Estorr tipped his head to one side. “Anytime someone is using magistry of an entirely unknown nature, I get nervous. If someone has figured out how to work silver in safety, well and good. But—I’m not sure I believe that.”
“If this is like those Dis-damned flowers,” Eslingen began, with a wry grin, and Rathe shook his head.
“The Pillars forfend! Istre, what about Maseigne Vair?” That was the Royal Fellow who’d advised him once before about the properties of missing gold. “Would she be able to help?”
“I thought I’d talk to her,” b’Estorr said. “And there might be something in the stars, if you’ll bring me that list, Eslingen. Though there’s nothing particularly potent in the skies just now.”
“The sun, the moon, and Argent are in conjunction,” Eslingen said. “That’s good for gamblers, or so the broadsheets say.”
“And that stellium stands in opposition to Metenere which in turn squares Heira,” b’Estorr said. “Silver is the moon’s metal, yes, but the sun negates it, and Argent-Bonfortune stands for the merchants who deal in silver, not the metal itself. No, this is individual luck, private luck, not luck for sober women of business. Perfect for the races, but I don’t see how it bears on missing silver.”
Rathe shook his head. “No more do I,” he agreed. “But we’d best find something that does.”
Chapter Seven
The knock at the door came at the false dawn, when Eslingen could just see his hand before his face. Rathe rolled over, reaching for shirt and breeches even half asleep, had them both decently fastened by the time he reached the door.
“Who’s there?”
“Maeykin, Adjunct Point. I’m sorry, but you’re needed.”
Rathe swore, a
nd reached for the poker, stirring up the embers until he could light a straw, and the candles from that. “Give me a minute.”
Eslingen pushed himself out of bed, reaching for his shirt as well, then shrugged on his dressing gown as Rathe pulled back the door.
“What’s amiss?”
Maeykin was short and stocky, with a determined jaw blued with the night’s stubble. He pulled off his shapeless cap as he came in, and Rathe’s frown deepened.
“Well?”
“Sorry, Adjunct Point.” Maeykin sounded both tired and out of breath, as though he’d run a distance on top of the long night’s shift. “The pontoises have found a body, and they say it’s ours. The Chief says you should look at it before we claim it.”
Rathe groaned. “Really?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Astree’s tits.” Rathe ran his hands through his hair, and cast an apologetic glance over his shoulder. “If someone wakes the chief, the rest of us had better be out of bed. Any idea who it is?”
“A man?” Maeykin turned up his hands. “That’s all they told me, Adjunct Point.”
“The pontoises?” Eslingen asked.
“They’re the pointsmen for the river and the bridges, though I won’t let them hear me say that,” Rathe answered. “Their writ’s older than ours. Which means this one’s probably drowned—what a lovely way to start the day.”
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