Rathe sighed again, and flipped back through the book, checking the list. Eight runaways reported so far, two apprentices—both with the brewers, no surprises there; the work was hard and their particular master notoriously strict—and the rest laborers from the neighborhoods around Point of Hopes, Point of Knives, Docks’ Point, even Coper’s Point to the south. Most of them had worked for their own kin, which might explain a lot—but still, Rathe thought, they’re starting early this year. It lacked a week of Midsummer; usually the largest number took off during the Midsummer Fair itself.
A bell sounded from the gate that led into the stable yard, and then another from above the main door, which lay open to the yard. Rathe looked up, and the room went dark as a shape briefly filled the doorway. The man stepped inside, and stood for a moment blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light. He was big, tall, and heavy-bellied beneath a workingman’s half-coat, but the material was good, as was the shirt beneath it, and as he turned, Rathe saw the badge of a guildmaster in the big man’s cap.
“Help you, master?” he asked, and the big man turned, still blinking in the relative darkness.
“Pointsman?” He took a few steps toward the table. “I’m here to report a missing apprentice.”
Rathe nodded, repressing his automatic response, and kicked a stool away from the table. “Have a seat, master, and tell me all about it.”
The big man sat down cautiously. Up close, he looked even bigger, with a jowled, heat-reddened face and lines that could mean temper or self-importance bracketing his mouth and creasing his forehead. Rathe looked him over dispassionately, ready to dismiss this as another case of an apprentice seizing the chance to get out of an unsatisfactory contract, when he saw the emblem on the badge pinned to the man’s close-fitting cap. Toncarle, son of Metenere, strode crude but unmistakable across the silver oval, knives upheld: the man was a butcher, and that changed everything. The Butchers’ Guild wasn’t the richest guild in Astreiant, but it was affiliated with the Herbalists and the scholar-priests of Metenere, and that meant its apprentices learned more than just their craft. An apprentice would have to be a fool—or badly mistreated—to leave that place.
The big man had seen the change of expression, faint as it was, and a wry smile crossed his face. “Ay, I’m with the Butchers, pointsman. Bonfais Mailet.”
“Nicolas Rathe. Adjunct point,” Rathe answered automatically. He should have known, or guessed, he thought. They weren’t far from the Street of Knives, and that was named for the dozen or so butcher’s halls that dominated the neighborhood. “You said you were missing an apprentice, Master Mailet?”
Mailet nodded. “Her name’s Herisse Robion. She’s been my prentice for three years now.”
“That makes her, what, twelve, thirteen?” Rathe asked, scribbling the name into the daybook. “Herisse—that’s a Chadroni name, isn’t it?”
“Twelve,” Mailet answered. “And yes, the name’s Chadroni, but she’s city-born and bred. I think her mother’s kin were from the north, but that’s a long time back.”
“So she wouldn’t have been running to them?” Rathe asked, and added the age.
“I doubt it.” Mailet leaned forward, planting both elbows on the table. A faint smell rose from his clothes, not unpleasant, but naggingly familiar. Rathe frowned slightly, trying to place it, and then remembered: fresh-cut peppers and summer gourds, the cool green tang of the sliced flesh. It was harvest time for those crops, and butchers all across the city would be carving them for the magists to preserve. He shook the thought away, and drew a sheet of paper from the writing box.
“Tell me what happened.”
“She’s gone.” Mailet spread his hands. “She was there last night at bedtime, or so Sabadie—that’s my journeyman, one of them, anyway, the one in charge of the girl-prentices—so Sabadie swears to me. And then this morning, when they went to the benches, I saw hers was empty. The other girls admitted she wasn’t at breakfast, and her bed was made before they were up, but Herisse was always an early riser, so none of them said anything, to me or to Sabadie. But when she wasn’t at her bench, well… I came to you.”
Rathe eyed him warily, wondering how best to phrase his question. “She’s only been gone a few hours,” he began at last, “not even a full day. Are—is it possible she went out to meet someone, and somehow was delayed?”
Mailet nodded. “And I think she’s hurt, or otherwise in trouble. My wife and I, after we got the prentices to work, we went up and searched her things. All her clothes are there, and her books. She wasn’t planning to be gone so long, of that I’m certain. She knows the work we had to do today, she wouldn’t have missed it without sending us word if she could.”
Rathe nodded back, impressed in spite of himself. Even if Mailet were as choleric as he looked, a place in the Butchers’ Guild—an apprenticeship that taught you reading and ciphering and the use of an almanac, and set you on the road to a prosperous mastership—wasn’t to be given up because of a little temper. “Had she friends outside your house?” he asked, and set the paper aside. “Or family, maybe?” He pushed himself up out of his chair and Mailet copied him, his movements oddly helpless for such a big man.
“An aunt paid her fees,” Mailet said, “but I heard she was dead this past winter. The rest of them—well, I’d call them useless, and Herisse didn’t seem particularly fond of them.”
Rathe crossed to the wall where his jerkin hung with the rest of the station’s equipment, and shrugged himself into the stiff leather. His truncheon hung beneath it, and he belted it into place, running his thumb idly over the crowned tower at its top. “Do you know where they live?”
“Point of Sighs, somewhere,” Mailet answered. “Sabadie might know, or one of the girls.”
“I’ll ask them, then,” Rathe said. “Gaucelm!”
There was a little pause, and then the younger of the station’s two apprentices appeared in the doorway. “Master Nico?”
“Is Asheri about, or is it just you?”
“She’s by the stable.”
Asheri was one of half a dozen neighborhood children, now growing into gawky adolescence, who ran errands for the point station. “I’m off with Master Mailet here, about a missing apprentice—not a runaway, it looks like. I’m sending Asheri for Ranazy, you’ll man the station until he gets here.”
Gaucelm’s eyes widened—he was young still, and hadn’t stood a nightwatch, much less handled the day shift alone—but he managed a creditably offhand nod. “Yes, Master Nico.”
Rathe nodded back, and turned to Mailet. “Then let me talk to Asheri, Master Mailet, and we’ll go.”
Asheri was waiting in the stable doorway, a thin, brown girl in a neatly embroidered cap and bodice, her skirts kilted to the knee against the dust. She listened to Rathe’s instructions—fetch Ranazy from the Cazaril Grey where he was eating, and then tell Monteia, the chief point who had charge of Point of Hopes, what had happened and bring back any messages—with a serious face. She caught the copper demming he tossed her with an expert hand, then darted off ahead of them through the main gate. Rathe followed her more decorously, and then gestured for Mailet to lead the way.
Mailet’s house and workshop lay in the open streets just off the Customs Road, about a ten-minute walk from Point of Hopes. It looked prosperous enough, though not precisely wealthy; the shutters were all down, forming a double counter, and a journeyman and an older apprentice were busy at the meat table, knives flashing as they disjointed a pair of chickens for a waiting maidservant. She was in her twenties and very handsome, and a knife rose into the air, catching the light for an instant as it turned end over end, before the apprentice had snatched the meat away and the knife landed, quivering, in the chopping board. He bowed deeply, and offered the neatly cut chicken to the maidservant. She took it, cocking her head to one side, and the journeyman, less deft or more placid than his junior, handed her the second carefully packaged bird. She took that, too, and, turning, said something over her
shoulder that had both young men blushing and grinning. Mailet scowled.
“Get that mess cleaned up,” he said, gesturing to the bloodied board. “And, you, Eysi, keep your mind on your work before you lose a finger.”
“Yes, master,” the apprentice answered, but Rathe thought from the grin that he was less than chastened.
Mailet grunted, and pushed past him into the shop. “Young fool. And the pity of it is, if he makes a mistake with that trick, it’ll be Perrin who loses a finger.”
“How many people do you have here?” Rathe asked.
“Four journeymen, two boys and two girls, and then a dozen prentices, six of each. And my woman and myself. She’s co-master with me.”
“Do they all live here?”
“The apprentices, of course,” Mailet answered, “they’ve two big rooms under the roof—with a separate stairway to each, I’m not completely a fool—and then the senior journeymen, that’s Perrin whom you saw, and Sabadie, they each have a room at the head of the stair. And Agnelle and myself live on the second floor. But Mickhel and Fridi board out—their choice, not mine.”
The door that gave onto the main hall opened then, and a dark-skinned woman stepped through, tucking her hair back under her neat cap. She was close to Mailet’s age, and Rathe was not surprised to see the keys and coinpurse at her belt.
“Agnelle Fayor, my co-master,” Mailet said, unnecessarily, and Rathe nodded.
“Mistress.”
“You’re the pointsman?” the woman asked, and Rathe nodded again.
“Then you’ll want to talk to the girls,” Fayor said, and looked at Mailet. “They’re almost done, I don’t think it’ll cause any more stir if he does.”
Mailet grinned, rather wryly, and Rathe said, “I take it the apprentices were upset, then?”
Mailet nodded.
Fayor said, “They didn’t know she was going to run, I’d stake my life on that.” She looked at Mailet, seemed to receive some silent signal, and went on, “We’ve had prentices run away before now, everyone has, but they’ve always told us first, given some warning.”
“Not in so many words, you understand,” Mailet interjected. “But you know.”
“Did Herisse have any special friends among the apprentices?” Rathe asked. “A leman, maybe? Somebody she might’ve confided in?”
Fayor’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I don’t hold with that. It causes all sorts of trouble.”
“You can’t stop it, though,” Mailet said. It had the sound of a long argument, and out of the corner of his eye, Rathe saw Fayor grimace expressively. “And it keeps their minds off the opposite sex.” Mailet looked back at the pointsman. “Sabadie would know if she had a leman. You can ask her.”
“Thanks. I’d like to talk to her. But right now, can you give me a description of Herisse?” Rathe had his tablets out, looked from Mailet to Fayor. The two exchanged looks.
“She’s an ordinary looking girl, pointsman, pretty enough, but not remarkable,” Fayor began.
“Tall for her age, though,” Mailet added, and Rathe noted that down, glancing up to ask, “And that’s twelve, right?”
Mailet nodded and took a breath, frowning with concentration.
“She has brown hair, keeps it long, but neat. Not missing any teeth yet. Brown eyes?” He looked at Fayor, who sighed.
“Blue. She has a sharp little face, but, as I said, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“What was she wearing, last time anyone saw her?”
“Last time I saw her, she was wearing a green skirt and bodice. Bottle green, the draper called it, and it’s trimmed with ribbon, darker. She had the same ribbon on her chemise, too, she liked the color. And that’s probably what she was wearing when she went missing, her other clothes are still in her room,” Fayor said. She spread her hands. “I don’t know what else I can tell you.”
Rathe closed his tablets. “That’s fine, thanks. Right—can I speak with Sabadie now?”
Mailet nodded. “I’ll take you to her. Mind the shop, Agnelle? And make sure Eysi doesn’t hurt himself with his fancy knife tricks.”
Fayor muttered something that did not bode well for the apprentice, and Rathe followed Mailet through the door into the main hall. The room was filled with the sunlight that streamed in through the windows at the top of the hall, and the air smelled sharply of vegetables. A dozen apprentices, conspicuous in blue smocks and aprons, stood at the long tables, boys on the left, girls on the right, while a woman journeyman stood at the center of the aisle, directing the work from among baskets of peppers and bright yellow summer gourds. Another journeyman, this one a woman in the black coat and yellow cravat of the Meteneran magists, stood toward the back of the room, one eye on the clockwork orrery that ticked away the positions of the suns and stars, the other on the sweating apprentices. From the looks of things, the piled white seeds and discarded stems, and the relatively small number of baskets of whole vegetables, the work had been going on for some time, and going well. The journeyman butcher turned, hearing the door, and came to join them, wiping her hands on her apron. Rathe was mildly surprised to see a woman in charge—butchery was traditionally a man’s craft—but then, the woman’s stars probably outweighed her sex.
“Just about done, master,” she said. “We’ve another two hours yet, and this is the last load for Master Guilbert.”
Mailet nodded, looking over the hall with an expert eye. “I brought the pointsman—his name’s Nicolas Rathe, out of Point of Hopes. Sabadie Grosejl, my senior journeyman. Can you spare Trijntje to talk to him?” He glanced at Rathe, and added, “Trijntje was probably Herisse’s closest friend.”
“She’s not much use to me today,” Grosejl said, rather grimly, and Rathe glanced along the line of girl-apprentices, wondering which one it was. She wasn’t hard to pick out, after all: even at this distance, Rathe could tell she’d been crying, suspected from the hunch of her shoulder and the way she glared at the pepper under her knife that she was crying still.
“I’d like to talk to Sabadie as well,” he said, and the journeyman hesitated.
“Go on, I’ll take over here,” Mailet said. “Fetch him Trijntje when he’s done with you, and then you can get back to work.”
“Yes, Master,” Grosejl answered, and turned to face the pointsman, jamming her hands into the pockets of her smock beneath her apron. She was a tall woman, Leaguer pale, and her eyes were wary.
“So you’re in charge of the girl-apprentices?” Rathe asked.
Grosejl nodded. “For my sins.” She grimaced. “They’re not so bad, truly, just—”
“Young?” Rathe asked, and the journeyman nodded.
“And now this has happened. Master Rathe, I don’t know what Master Mailet told you, but I don’t think Herisse ran away.”
“Oh?”
“She liked it here, liked the schooling and the work and the people—she didn’t tell Trijntje she was going, and she’d have done that for certain.”
“Was she Trijntje’s leman?” Rathe asked.
Grosejl hesitated, then nodded. “Master Mailet doesn’t really approve, nor the mistress, so there was nothing said or signed, but everyone knew it. You hardly saw one without the other. If she’d been planning to run away, seek her fortune on the road, they would have gone together.”
Rathe sighed. That was probably true enough—runaways often left in pairs or threes, either sworn lemen or best friends—and it probably also told him the answer to his next question. “You understand I have to ask this,” he began, and Grosejl shook her head.
“No, she wasn’t pregnant. That I can swear to. Mistress Fayor makes sure all the girls take the Baroness every day.”
“But if it didn’t work for her?” Rathe asked. The barren-herb didn’t work for every woman; that was common knowledge, and one of the reasons the guilds generally turned a blind eye to the passionate friendships between the apprentices of the same gender. Better barren sex than a hoard of children filling the gui
ldhalls.
Grosejl hesitated, then jerked her head toward a child of six or seven who was sweeping seeds into the piles of rubbish at the center of the hall. “That’s my daughter. There’d have been a place for her, and the child, if she was pregnant. More than there would have been with her family.”
“A bad lot?”
Grosejl shrugged. “Useless, more like. I met them once. The mother’s dead, the father drinks, the other two—boys, both of them, younger than her—run wild. I don’t know where they came up with the indenture money. But Herisse was glad to be away from them, that’s for sure.”
Rathe paused, considering what she’d told him. They all seemed very certain that Herisse Robion was no runaway, and from everything they said, he was beginning to believe it, too. And that was not a pleasant thought. There was no reason to kidnap a butcher’s apprentice— or rather, he amended silently, the only reasons were of the worst kind, madmen’s reasons, someone looking for a child, a girl, to rape, to hurt, maybe to kill. He could see in Grosejl’s eyes that she’d thought of the same things, and forced a smile. “There may be a good explanation,” he said, and knew it sounded lame. “Can I talk to Trijntje now?”
“Trijntje!” Grosejl beckoned widely, and the girl Rathe had picked out before put down her knife and came to join them, wiping furtively at her eyes with the corner of her sleeve. “This is Trijntje Ollre, pointsman. She and Herisse were best friends.”
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