He had been dressing as he spoke, fastening collar and cuffs, pulling on stockings and shoes, and now he reached for the coat he’d left draped over the back of his chair. Eslingen shook himself. “I’ll go with you.”
Rathe stopped for an instant, then gave a quick smile. “No need for both of us to be awake at this hour.”
“I’m up,” Eslingen said. He hesitated, looking for the words that might get him what he wanted. “I’ve got a feeling about this, Nico.”
“Oh, yes?” Rathe gave him a searching glance, and Eslingen met it squarely. “Then you’d better hurry.”
Eslingen dressed with practiced haste, pulling his hair back into a passable queue, and jammed his hat onto his head. He could stop at a barber’s later—perhaps even in Rathe’s company, a small bright possibility in the cold dawn. “Let’s go, then.”
To Eslingen’s surprise, Rathe led them west along the Sier, through Point of Dreams and into Point of Hearts, past closed and shuttered houses that grew increasingly larger and better appointed until at last the squat tower of the Chain loomed at the end of the road. Eslingen gave it a thoughtful look, and then glanced at Rathe.
“I thought you told me once that the chain wasn’t in use.”
“The actual chain isn’t,” Rathe said. “I don’t think it’s been deployed in living memory.” He grinned, teeth showing white in the rising dawn. “Not even the last time we were at war with the League.”
“Because we’re such a great maritime power,” Eslingen said.
“It’s never a good idea to take chances,” Rathe said. “But it’s an even worse idea to inconvenience the merchants-venturer unless the enemy is actually sailing down the river.”
At which point, Eslingen remembered, the two Chain Towers would set waterwheels and windlasses in motion and raise the massive chain that currently lay at the bottom of the river. He’d seen the spare chain stacked on the riverside on the edge of the market at Little Chain: enormous iron links half as long as a man, each one forged with square studs like an ironmonger’s punch, enough to splinter a ship’s hull. No, the merchants-venturer would want that put in place only as a last resort. They were as cold-blooded in their way as any Ajanine landame; they took risks by way of business that made the hairs rise at the back of Eslingen’s neck.
Hanging lanterns were lit at the entrance to the Great Chain Tower, mage-lights glowing blue behind a lattice-work of glass and iron, and more homely lamplight flickered behind the half-shuttered windows. A young woman was minding the door, wound in a cloak against the night’s chill. She straightened at their approach, then seemed to see Rathe’s truncheon and relaxed slightly. Rathe nodded a greeting.
“I’m from Dreams,” he said. “Nicolas Rathe. I had word you had a body for me?”
“That’s right.” She stepped aside, motioning for them to pass beneath the raised portcullis. “The cap’pontoise is within.”
“Thanks,” Rathe said, and Eslingen followed him through the narrow entrance.
Inside, the Great Chain Tower was much like all the points stations Eslingen had seen. There was a heavy worktable to one side, where a bored-looking young man tended an open ledger; a pair of boatmen, their long-tailed caps distinctive, were arguing in low voices while another man took notes. A set of shapeless leather coats hung ready on the wall behind them, but instead of truncheons there was a rack of cutlasses, old-fashioned but clean and well-kept. On the opposite wall, the river wall, there was a rack of oars, each one as long as an Altheim pike, each blade painted with bright symbols, suns and moons and stars on fields of vivid red and blue and ochre. In the corner, an arched door gave onto a darkened stairwell, and for a moment Eslingen thought he could hear the rush of the river, or perhaps the mutter of the tower’s wheel, turning idle in the current. His stars were bad for water, and he kept Rathe between him and the open door.
“Nico!” That was a fair man with untidy blond hair and very bright blue eyes, and a smile that showed a chipped tooth. Despite the hour and the chill, he was barefoot and bare-legged, patched homespun shirt open at the neck to show solid muscle and a bit of fine gold hair. “Good of you to come out at this ungodly hour.”
Rathe submitted to his embrace. “Hello, Euan. They told them at Dreams it was my dead man, so here I am. This is Eslingen, by the way. Philip, Euan Cambrai.”
Eslingen sketched a bow, and Cambrai grinned even wider. “I’m sorry you feel the need of your black dog, Nico. You know you’re always welcome in my house.”
Rathe shook his head. “You won’t get around me that way, Euan. Not with a drowned man to look at—he is drowned?”
“As far as we can tell,” Cambrai answered, with new seriousness. “He’s been in the water a while. At least a week, by Saffroy’s best guess. He’ll need to go to the deadhouse, but I thought you should see him first.”
“Do you have a name for him?” Rathe asked.
“That’s how we knew him for yours,” Cambrai said. “He had a set of tablets on him with his name carved in them. Poirel. You put out a circular for him.”
Rathe swore, and Eslingen grimaced, thinking of Naimi and the dogs still hoping he’d come back. “He’s mine. Where did you find him?”
“In a dock on the Manufactory side of the river, just above Point of Graves. From the look of him, though, he’d got caught on something, and only broke free last night or thereabouts.” He paused. “He wasn’t a friend, was he?”
“I never met him in life,” Rathe said, grimly. “That bad?”
“I’ve seen worse.” Cambrai shrugged one shoulder. “I wouldn’t like to swear to the face, but our magist says the tablets are his. We go to court with less.”
“Let’s see him,” Rathe said. “I can’t swear to him, mind, but I imagine there are people at Fairs who know his goods.”
Cambrai led them through the arched door and down a spiral stair that opened into a stone-flagged room well-lit by mage-light. The sound of water was louder, and Eslingen realized that the walls were open to the river, water lapping at the edge of what was less a room than a large dock. A square gate opened to the river, and the first light of dawn was seeping in, though it didn’t reach the flat-bottomed boat snugged up to the edge of the dock. The body lay on a stone table, covered with a thin piece of cloth; a pile of tattered objects was heaped on a smaller table, and a long-faced man looked up from examining it.
“Saffroy,” Cambrai said. “My tillerman. I’ve got Rathe and his black dog.”
“Adjunct Point.” Saffroy nodded in acknowledgement. “Lieutenant. I’m sorry it’s not better news.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Rathe answered. “Euan says you knew him by his goods?”
Saffroy nodded again, and rummaged through the things on the table until he produced a set of wooden tablets. Eslingen looked over Rathe’s shoulder as the other man opened them. The wax was spoiled, but the name could still be clearly seen, chip-carved into the frame in a repeating pattern:poirelpoirelpoirel. Eslingen looked away, focusing on the other items that had been recovered. A single shoe and stocking, torn linen that might have been a shirt and drawers, rags that had been coat and breeches. No apron, though, and no stick; either they’d been washed away or he’d left them in his lodgings. There was a small purse, good stout leather, and Saffroy saw where he was looking and turned it out.
“The tablets were in there, too,” he said. “A couple of demmings, a comb and brush, a pair of dice—nothing much.”
“And no way to tell if he’d been robbed,” Rathe said. He gave an unhappy sigh. “All right, let’s get it over with.”
Cambrai nodded, and Saffroy moved to the stone table and folded back the length of linen. Eslingen grimaced at the sight. The man had been in the water, all right. The skin was puffed and pale, flesh watery and loose on the bones. The fish had been at him, nibbled at nose and ears and one eye, and at second glance, one leg looked odd, as though it had been wrenched out of socket and set back imperfectly. He had been held
in the river some days, Eslingen remembered, trapped in the tangles of debris that lined the banks, and he had to swallow hard. There were more scrapes and gouges, bloodless tears here and there deep enough to show purpled muscle, and Rathe shook his head.
“I’ll see if DeVoss can’t name him from his things. All right, you can cover him—”
“Wait,” Eslingen said. There was a deeper cut on Poirel’s chest, not far off the heart, and it looked more like shot than either a stab wound or something that happened after death.
“What?” Rathe looked over his shoulder.
“There,” Eslingen said, and pointed.
Rathe frowned, and then his eyebrows rose. “All right, that’s—interesting.”
“Fish,” Cambrai said, but his tone wasn’t as certain as the word.
“Always possible,” Rathe said, “but I think I want Fanier to take a good look at that. Good eye, Philip.”
“Glad to oblige,” Eslingen murmured.
“Have you sent to the deadhouse?” Rathe asked, and Cambrai nodded.
“When you got here. They should arrive any time now.”
“Thanks,” Rathe said, and turned toward the stairs.
Eslingen followed, but couldn’t resist a last look over his shoulder. Saffroy had covered the body again, but there was still no mistaking what it was. Naimi and DeVoss would be upset—they had both cared about the missing man, and they would both be eager to blame Fairs’ Point for ignoring their reports. “DeVoss isn’t going to like this.”
“I know,” Rathe said, “and I’ll have to get her to identify the body, I can’t swear to him, and Fanier won’t take goods as evidence.” He shook his head. “Will you take her the word, Philip? I don’t imagine you’ll be sorry to miss the deadhouse.”
“I can’t say I will,” Eslingen admitted. A clock was striking six somewhere in the distance, and he sighed. “They’ll be up already with the dogs. I’ll go straightaway.”
“Thank you,” Rathe said, and squeezed his shoulder.
Eslingen nodded back, unreasonably pleased, and made his way out into the rising dawn.
Even the alchemists were subdued at this hour. Rathe rode to the deadhouse with the body, sitting on the tongue behind the sleepy-looking journeyman. The wagon left him at the main door, and he tugged the bell rope without great expectation. To his relief, a light blossomed behind the shutters, and a few moments later a girl in an apprentice’s smock pulled back the heavy door.
“Might have known it would be you,” she said, and Rathe lifted an eyebrow.
“And a good morning to you, too, mistress.”
She shrugged, unabashed. “They said we were getting a drownie, but it belonged to the points, so, yeah. Fanier’s here already, if you want him.”
“Thanks,” Rathe said, and let himself be led through the stone-floored halls to one of the workrooms at the back of the building. Like everywhere in the deadhouse, it was scrupulously clean, and slightly cold, and the air smelled of nothing, not even the herbs that hung ready in bundles on the wall. As promised, Fanier was there already, a barrel-chested man in a riverman’s jersey and wide-legged breeches, brass-framed spectacles caught in the wild tangle of his graying hair. The body lay behind him on another stone table, and a pair of journeymen were laying out the instruments for Fanier’s examination. Seeing Rathe, one slapped the other on the shoulder, and held his out his hand in the universal “pay-me” gesture. Rather sighed, and Fanier shook his head.
“I had more sense than to bet, thank you. I knew this one would be yours.”
“His year-round residence was in Dreams,” Rathe said, “and we had a request from his employer and his landlady. So, yes, he’s mine.”
Fanier nodded, but his eyes were on the hovering apprentice. “You. Have you sat on a drownie before?”
The girl shook her head. “Have to start sometime.”
Fanier sighed. “Well, this one’s not as bad as some. Stay over there, and don’t get in the way. Nico, can you put a name to him for me?”
“Not officially,” Rathe said. “Sorry. I never met the man. But we’re missing one Poirel, and that’s the name on his tablets.”
“Age and profession?” Fanier turned to the body, now naked on the slab, and Rathe looked away.
“Between forty-five and fifty, I’d guess. He was a boxholder for Maewes DeVoss.”
Fanier plucked his glasses from the thicket of his hair and perched them on his nose. “Nothing contradictory there. What’s his full name?”
“Jan Poirel.”
Fanier made a gesture, and frowned. “Go by any other names?”
Rathe reached for his own purse, brought out his own tablets. “Also Poirel Asignane, but I’m told he mostly went by just Poirel.”
“Huh.” Fanier performed another series of gestures, and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Well, that fits. Who should we tap for the formal identification?”
“DeVoss,” Rathe said. “I’ve sent Philip to let her know.”
“Make a note,” Fanier said, and one of the journeymen scrambled to obey. Fanier walked slowly around the table, considering the body from all angles. The air was suddenly damp, as though a breath of river fog had rolled through the room. “I’ll make sure of course, but I’d say he was dead before he hit the water.”
Rathe slanted a glance in his direction, saw him prying open the swollen mouth, and looked hastily away again.
“He’s been in the water at least five days, more likely six or seven,” Fanier said. “Looks like his right leg caught on something and that held the body down for a few days before there was enough change to pull him loose. But he definitely didn’t drown. There’s not a drop of water in his lungs.”
“So what did kill him?” Rathe kept his eyes determinedly on the nearest flagstone.
“Did you notice this hole in his chest?”
“I did, in point of fact.”
“That’s the fatal injury.” Fanier held out his hand, and one of the journeymen gave him what looked like a long pair of tongs. Rathe flinched as the alchemist inserted that into the wound, spreading the flesh with a soft, nasty sound, then reached for a second set to probe the sodden flesh. For just an instant there was a stink of spoiled meat, and then Fanier gave an exclamation.
“Well, that’s—unexpected.”
He turned away from the table, holding a blackened piece of metal in the tongs.
“That’s what killed him, though how it got there…” He set the piece in a plain white-ware dish, and Rathe came over to examine it cautiously. It was roughly triangular, and blackened as though it had been through a fire: the point of a knife, maybe, he thought, then realized that there were markings beneath the black, blurred but familiar.
“It almost looks like coin.”
Fanier made a gesture, and the bit of metal rattled in the dish. “It’s silver, all right.”
“Part of a pillar, maybe?” Rathe turned it over gingerly, but the other side was no clearer.
The apprentice, who had crept closer without his noticing, gave a little bounce. “Please, sir—”
Fanier put his glasses on top of his head again. “Yes, Kijten?”
“Please, sir, it’s a cut pillar, from a Mercandry bank. They cut them on the diagonal there.”
Rathe looked curiously at her, and Fanier sighed.
“Kijten’s mother’s a banker herself.”
Rathe nodded. The stars that made one an alchemist were rare enough to begin with, and the conjunctions that brought one to the dead were even rarer, rare enough and odd enough that even a northriver banker would happily send such a daughter to a life where she would fit. “So he was killed with a coin?”
“Half a coin,” Fanier said. He turned it himself, shaking his head. “Not that the corners are all that sharp. But, yeah. That’s what killed him.”
“Lovely,” Rathe said. “How, in Tyrseis’s name?”
Fanier turned back to the body, probing the chest wound again. “If I didn
’t know better, I’d say he was shot with it.”
“Which would explain the blackening,” Rathe said. “But you’re saying not?“
“Well, first of all, I’d expect coin silver to distort if it was fired from a lock,” Fanier said. He was probing the other wounds now, and Rathe averted his gaze. “Well, maybe not if it was a sailor’s blunderbuss—I’ve seen them loaded with all manner of scrap—but then you’d expect more shot wounds. Which I’m not finding.” He glanced past Rathe again, fixing Kijten with his stare. “What else might cause silver to blacken like this?”
“Alchemical changes in the body itself,” the girl answered promptly. “Either natural changes after death or poison, though I wouldn’t think poison would be a factor here? But either one will tarnish silver.”
Fanier nodded. “Do you know the test for that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then do it.”
Kijten bounced again, but steadied quickly. She set her feet shoulder-width apart and carefully sketched a shape in the air above the coin. There was an answering flash of light, and she looked up with a grin. “That’s confirmation.”
“So it is,” Fanier said, and nodded to Rathe. “Though I’d say decomposition rather than poison. Mind you, that doesn’t rule out that it was fired from some sort of firelock, but it makes it seem less likely.”
“Can you prove it one way or the other?” Rathe asked.
“Poison or decomposition, yes, with a few more tests. But whether or not a lock was involved—I doubt it. He’s been in the water too long. All the indicators are going to be lost among the larger changes in the general changes in the body. They’re fairly subtle.” Fanier shrugged. “It’s possible something will turn up, but I wouldn’t expect it.”
Rathe nodded. “There’s no chance he was killed by something else, and a coin put into the wound?”
Fanier raised his eyebrows. “You have an active imagination.”
“Tell me it’s never happened.”
“Well, true.” Fanier considered the body again. “All right, I’ll do what I can to tease that out, but he was a long time in the water. That’s the overriding affinity, it blurs everything.”
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