Point of Dreams a-2

by Melissa Scott

  Aconin hesitated, then glanced over his shoulder as though searching for eavesdroppers. Eslingen followed his gaze, but most of the actors were watching the work onstage. “I–I suppose I made a mistake, ended something badly.”

  Your specialty, I thought. Eslingen swallowed the words, did his best to look encouraging.

  “I took something when I left,” Aconin said. He made a face. “Oh, I was entitled to it, I thought–I’d been promised it, even– and I needed it, but still… It was a mistake.”

  “And the person you took it from is angry,” Eslingen said. “Can you give it back?”

  Aconin shook his head, looking, for the first time since Eslingen had known him, genuinely afraid. “It’s too late for that. I–the person–” He broke off, flinching, and Eslingen glanced over his shoulder, but all he saw was a knot of people, Simar, Aubine, his arms full of flowers, a couple of actors, including Forveijl, Rathe’s former and Aconin’s apparently still current lover. “It’s nothing,” Aconin said, and forced a smile that held more than a little of his old mockery. “Come along, Philip, when has my life ever not been a melodrama? This is nothing new.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Eslingen saw Aubine smile in rueful recognition, and Aconin turned away.

  “You’d best get back to work,” he called over his shoulder. “I don’t think the landames will give their best without you.”

  Eslingen made a face–he should be onstage, that much was true–but hesitated, watching the playwright out of sight. Whatever he said, Aconin had been honestly afraid, and that was something Rathe should know. More than that, he realized, Aconin had as much as admitted that he knew who attacked him– not that that should surprise either of us–and Rathe needed to know that, as well. If anybody can get the truth out of Master Aconite, it’ll be Nico– and I’d like to be there when he does.

  It was mid‑afternoon before Rathe was able to free himself from a tangle of reports–Fanier’s on Ogier’s body, confirming that the man had died from the knife wound, a pair of notes from b’Estorr, one saying he thought the dead man’s clothing had indeed been Temple handouts, chosen perhaps in an attempt to throw some magistical pursuer off his trail, the second a pass‑along from one of the university phytomancers, saying that the posy Leussi had apparently made up was, in fact, harmless, as unlikely to bring about discord and harm as it was to bring about its promised concord. There was a long report from Mirremay turning the attack on Aconin’s rooms over to Point of Dreams, much to Trijn’s vocal displeasure. And she had a right to be displeased, Rathe thought, making the turn onto the Horse Road that led through the old city walls toward the Queen’s Eastern Highway. No chief point, and particularly not Mirremay, ever released a responsibility if she wasn’t sure it was going to be more trouble than it was worth. Part of him wanted to be at the theatre, questioning Aconin, but his first duty was to the dead man. The most recent dead man, he amended, sighing. The folly stars seemed to be compounded by something more deadly.

  Ogier had lived on the outskirts of the city, only a little south of the crossroads where the Horse Road met the Highway, and crossed the Promenade that ran back west toward the queen’s residence and the nobles’ houses of the Western Reach. It was typical of Ogier, Rathe thought: it would only be an hour’s walk, at most, along the Promenade to reach the most distant of his clients, but it was far enough that none of them could claim to have him at their beck and call. A difficult man, he could almost hear his mother saying, but a clever plantsman, and he wished he’d had a chance to stop at her house, to ask her advice. She was as likely as anyone to know if Ogier had recently made enemies–but she lived by the Corants Basin, just east of the southern Chain Tower, across the city and on the far side of the Sier from the crossroads. Ogier’s kin first, he thought, but then I’ll find the time to see her.

  He stopped at the neighborhood tavern, low‑ceilinged and comfortable, to get the final directions to Ogier’s house, found himself at last on a rutted lane bordered by tall rows of rise‑hedge, still green even in the depth of winter. They were overgrown, narrowing the street even farther, filling the air with the smell of cloves as his coat brushed against them. For an instant, he was surprised that Ogier hadn’t trimmed them, but then, the man was a gardener, not a groundskeeper, and the hedges were hardly his own to mend. The house itself stood at the very end of the street, an odd building barely more than one room wide, as though a series of rooms had been built one after the other, and tacked hastily together into a single building. It was neatly kept, though, the paint not new but not peeling, shutters and roof and yard all in good repair, and smoke drifted from the chimney. At least someone was home, he thought, and hoped the Temple priests had done their job.

  He knocked gently at the door, and out of the corner of his eye saw a woman watching from the doorway of the house next door. She seemed to see him watching, whisked herself back out of sight as the door opened.

  “Nico! Oh, sweet Sofia, I’m so glad it’s you.”

  “Mother? What are you doing here?” Even as he asked, Rathe thought he could guess the answer. Ogier had been a friend, as well as being a guild‑mate; of course the man’s kin would send for her, in preference to any other, to help settle his affairs.

  “Frelise sent for me,” Caro Rathe said, and stepped back, beckoning him into a spare room that smelled of pipe smoke. “That’s the sister. The same Temple initiate who broke the news was kind enough to come and fetch me. And of course, the crows are all flocking, trying to pick up the gossip.” She touched his arm, glancing over her shoulder toward the single darkened doorway. “She’s lying down, but–Nico, is it true? Grener was murdered.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Rathe answered. He grimaced, looking around the room with its one good chair, the trestle table turned up against the wall to make more room. The only sign of indulgence was the stand of half a dozen corms, each in its own glass jar, positioned to take the light, and to be seen from the chair. “I was with him when he died, which is no comfort, I know.”

  “How horrible for you.” She shook her head. “I’m glad you found the place. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever brought you here.”

  “I asked at the Metenerie,” Rathe said. That was the guildhall; and even they had known only the direction, not a proper address. He shook his head again, wondering if Ogier had had cause to hide, or if it was simply his well‑known eccentricity.

  “Sensible. I assume you’ll want to talk to Frelise?”

  “Yes.” Rathe paused. “Is she an Ogier, too?”

  Caro nodded. “There was no business in the family, and Frelise is a seamstress, so there wasn’t any need for him to take another name. She kept house for him, oh, it’s been years, now.”

  There was a rustle from the doorway, and Rathe turned, to see a tall woman leaning against the frame. She was probably older than her brother had been, a plain woman with a lined, open face, her eyes red and swollen now, the tracks of tears still visible on her cheeks.

  “Caro, who–”

  Her voice was little more than a whisper, and Caro moved quickly to take her hand, drawing her into the room and settling her on one of the low stools that stood against the wall. Rathe frowned, wondering why his mother didn’t settle her in the chair, then realized it had been Ogier’s. Too much, too soon, to remind her again that he wasn’t coming back, and he moved to join them. The contrast between them was almost painful, his own mother browned and sturdy, her greying hair chopped short to fit beneath a gardener’s broad‑brimmed hat, Frelise pale as paper, well‑kept hands–hands that handled silks, Rathe realized–knotting in her lap. Caro’s hand, resting on her shoulder, looked even browner and more roughened by the contrast.

  “It’s the pointsman, Frelise,” she said. “You knew they’d come. But there’s nothing to worry about, my dear, he’s my own son.”

  There was a warning in her voice, and Rathe nodded, keeping his voice low and soft. “I’m Nicolas Rathe, mistress, adjunct point at Point of
Dreams. I was with your brother when he died. I’m so very sorry.”

  Frelise managed a watery smile. “Adjunct Point. Oh, that’s good of them, to send someone of rank, and Caro’s son, too. Tell me, did he suffer?”

  Rathe dropped his head, hiding the wince. “No, mistress, not to speak of.” It was a lie, but the truth was unlikely to comfort. “I have some questions I have to ask, if you think you’re strong enough.”

  “Yes.” Frelise nodded. “But–I don’t understand any of it! And Elinee, and Versigine, they kept saying that he must have done something, no respectable man should be murdered, not if he wasn’t doing something he oughtn’t…”

  Her voice broke off in a gasp as she fought back tears, and Rathe glanced at his mother.

  “The nearest neighbors,” she said softly. “I sent them packing, but not fast enough.”

  “I wish it were true that folk were only murdered who deserved it,” Rathe said, and Frelise looked up at him, frowning, on the verge of offense. “I’m sorry, mistress, but I’ve seen people killed for no reason, for being an inconvenience, for having coin when someone else didn’t. It’s no shame to him or you that he was killed like this, just a tragedy.” He shook his head, aware that he was quoting Holles and his grief. “But we have to be sure, have to know if there was any cause, any old grudge, anything at all, that might help us find his killer.”

  Frelise’s hands were locked together in her lap, and she fixed her eyes on them, still struggling for control. “I kept house for him, came in, oh, two or three days a week, dined with him perhaps one of them, but we didn’t talk all that much. He had his life, and I have mine.”

  “So you don’t know of any quarrel, any enemy?” Rathe asked, his heart sinking.

  Frelise shook her head. “No. He was stiff‑necked, stubborn, nobody’d know that better than me. But you don’t kill a man for being like that.”

  Some people do. Rathe killed that thought, said instead, “Do you know who he’d been working for lately? They might know something.”

  Frelise shook her head again. “A few, I think–it was busier than you’d think, this time of year, and the corms everyone’s mad for, they made for extra work.” She nodded to the jars standing on the narrow table. “Those were gifts, they’re supposed to be very fine. He said half the people buying them don’t know what to do with them, and so some of his regulars were referring new people to him, and he couldn’t say no. Not to the people, I mean, he could do that, but not to the plants. He couldn’t stand to see them mistreated.”

  Caro nodded in agreement, and Rathe found himself nodding with her. He’d felt the same thing, more than once. He said, “Do you know the names of any of these people, the regulars or the new ones?”

  “They’d be in his book,” Frelise said, and looked around almost helplessly. “Caro, did you see it?”

  “Not yet,” Caro answered, her voice comforting, but she met her son’s eyes with sudden worry. “I’m sure it’s here.”

  “Do you happen to know any of them yourself?” Rathe asked. If the gardener’s notebook was missing, that might well be a sign that it was one of his clients, or at least someone connected with their household, who had murdered the man.

  “A few.” Frelise frowned, loosed her fingers at last to touch her temples, as though she had the headache. “There was a vidame, Tardieu, I think. And an intendant in Point of Hearts, I can’t remember, but it was a man. And the landame Camail. Donis, I can’t remember.”

  Her voice rose in a wail, and Rathe glanced at his mother, wondering if he should withdraw.

  “But there was someone else, dear,” Caro said. “You mentioned someone special, I think, all kinds of extra work?”

  Frelise’s hand flew to her mouth. “Donis, you must think me a fool.”

  “Never that,” Caro said. “Never that.”

  “It was the succession houses,” Frelise said. “The landseur Aubine’s houses–four of them, Grener said, the finest in the city, and all of them busy just now, producing flowers for the midwinter masque.”

  Ogier had worked for Aubine. Rathe closed his eyes, letting his head drop for an instant. So this was another theatre death, at least potentially, another death connected with the masque. Except that the manner was different, none of the theatricality of the other deaths, just a good, old‑fashioned knife through the ribs.

  “And there was another thing,” Frelise said. “This I truly don’t understand. When I came in this morning, before the girl came from the Temple, I found clothes in the stove. Grener’s clothes, all burnt to ash. There’s nothing left but the buttons.” She shook her head. “I can’t think why he’d burn them. It’s more like him to sell them, or give them to the Metenerie.”

  But I can think why. Rathe kept his face expressionless with an effort. I think I know why. He’d burned his clothes, was found wearing temple handouts, Istre confirmed that– he must have feared that someone would track him by magistical means, and tried to break the trail. And that’s another link to the theatre deaths: they have the stamp of magistry on them as well. “You’re sure they were his?” he asked, without much hope, and Frelise nodded.

  “Oh, yes, his usual daywear. Clothes are my trade, you know.” Her face crumpled again. “I made that shirt myself.”

  Caro patted her hand gently, and the other woman smiled her thanks, drew a deep breath. “I’ll look for his book, pointsman. I’m sure it must be here somewhere.”

  I doubt it, Rathe thought, but nodded. “I’d be grateful, mistress.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Caro said. “If you’d like.”

  “Do you have someone to stay with you tonight, mistress?” Rathe asked, and Frelise nodded.

  “I live with my mistress–guildmistress, I mean, above the shop, she’s been very kind. And there’s a journeyman who’ll keep me company if I need it.”

  Rathe smiled, relieved, and his mother said, “I’ll keep you company until you’re finished, and then I’ll see you home.”

  Frelise nodded, and Rathe touched his mother’s arm, drew her aside. “And who’s going to see you home, especially if you’re late? The stars seem–chancy–these days, you have to admit.”

  Caro smiled. “I’m not a child, Nicolas. I’ll take a low‑flyer, even if it is an extravagance.”

  Rathe kissed her cheek. “Your safety’s not an extravagance.”

  “Neither is hers,” Caro said, but her tone was less sharp than the words. “Or yours. Be careful, Nico.”

  “I will,” Rathe answered, and hoped he could keep his word.

  It was, as he had guessed, a little less than an hour’s walk along the Promenade from Ogier’s little house to the Western Reach, a pleasant walk, except for the carriages that crowded even the wide pavement. The sprawling complex of buildings that was the queen’s residence and the Reach were busier than ever, nobles visiting for the masque and the rumored naming of the heir tucked into every available room and rentable house. Rathe felt distinctly out of place, on foot, his shapeless coat hanging loose from his shoulders, and he wondered just what the passing landames thought of him, seeing the truncheon hanging at his belt.

  There was no points station in the Reach, of course, but the adjunct at Point of Hearts was happy to direct him to Aubine’s residence–owned, she pointed out, not rented; the man was a permanent resident. He would have to be, to have built succession houses that caught Ogier’s fancy, Rathe thought, but thanked her nicely, and retraced his way through the streets until he found the house. It was smaller than its closest neighbors, but perfect, a jewel of a building, three storeys to the roof– which means, Rathe thought, that this younger son isn’t kept short of funds. This house required staff and funds to maintain both, and it would cost even more to maintain the succession houses. They were invisible, tucked somewhere in the gardens behind the building, but he knew from his mother’s conversation that even a small glasshouse cost a small fortune to heat, never mind the cost of building it in the first place. Four suc
cession houses would easily consume even a landseur’s income, would explain why Gasquine had sought Caiazzo’s coin for the masque, content to let the landseur loan his name and flowers only.

  He knocked at the door, carefully not looking to see if he’d tracked mud onto the scrubbed and swept stones of the stoop, and it was opened almost instantly by a very young girl, a child, almost, in miniature livery. Her lack of expression, however, was perfectly adult, the polite disinterest of a well‑trained servant, and like a good servant, she waited for him to speak.

  “Adjunct Point Rathe, to see the landseur, if he’s home.” If he’ll be home to me, Rathe added silently, and the girl looked up at him.

  “I–I think he’s in the succession houses, pointsman–Adjunct Point, I mean. Will you wait here? And may I tell him what this is about?”

  “It’s about his gardener. Or possibly ex‑gardener. A man named Ogier.”

  Her eyes widened, her voice suddenly and completely southriver. “Oh, sir, have you found Ogier? We’ve all been worried–the landseur’s been most unhappy since he left, we all have.”

  “You liked him, then,” Rathe said, and the girl nodded.

  “Oh, yes, sir. I miss him.” Her manner changed with her voice, so that she was suddenly a child again, despite the drilled manners and the livery, but then she shook herself back to her duty. “Please step in. If you’ll permit, Adjunct Point.”

  Rathe did as he was told, grateful for his own childhood. He’d worked hard enough, his parents had needed the extra hands more than once, for harvest and planting and in high summer, when the groundsman’s work was at its height, but there had always been time for play, for pleasure. He hadn’t had to take on adult responsibilities until he’d become a runner, and he’d been older than this girl. She disappeared down the long hall without a backward glance, and Rathe made himself look around. He could smell the ashes of a fire somewhere close at hand, but the hall itself was almost cold, the last of the sunset filtering through the narrow window above the door. The light fell on a series of engravings, fine work, better than the average woodcut, and Rathe took a step closer. They all showed a great estate, the same estate, and its gardens, each drawn from a different angle, playing up a different feature, and he wondered if it was Aubine’s ancestral home, or some as‑yet‑unrealized dream. There were drawings of plants as well, single plants in the various stages of their growth, hand‑colored–all late‑year plants, he saw, and wondered if Aubine had another set for each of the seasons. The drawing of the winter‑creeper was particularly fine, the pale berries luminous against the tangle of vines, and he started when the girl cleared her throat.