Point of Hopes p-1

by Melissa Scott

  “You’ll forgive me if I go on making ready,” she said, “but I’m more than willing to answer any questions.”

  “Thanks,” Rathe said. Her hands were painted, he saw without surprise, saw too the graceful movements with which she opened the tiny vials and began repairing blemished spots with the touch of a tiny brush. He had known forgers less deft, but then, Foucquet was always careful of her appearance.

  “I would have thought you’d gotten the case from Point of Hearts,” Foucquet went on, and added a dot of gold leaf to the painted arabesques coiling across her right hand. “I told them what I thought when they were here.”

  Rathe shook his head. “Haven’t had the chance, Excellency. The surintendant only told me last night you wanted me to handle this.”

  Foucquet looked up sharply, her brush, laden this time with a drop of red paint bright as blood, poised in midair. “I—?” She broke off, touched the brush to its proper place in the design. “I didn’t make any such request, Nico. I know how jealous the points are of their territories. Besides, as I told Hearts, I have a shrewd idea where the boy’s gone.”

  “You didn’t ask the sur to have me take the case?” Rathe asked.

  “No.” Foucquet’s eyes narrowed, deepening the lines at their outer corners. “What’s he up to, Nico?”

  “I wish I knew.” Rathe frowned. It was hard to see what Fourie might gain from assigning him to this particular case—if he’d wanted me to look into Caiazzo’s maybe-connection to all of this, he could’ve just told me to do it, he added, with a feeling of genuine grievance. Or was he worried that someone would find out what I was supposed to be doing? If there’s a political dimension to all of this, which he seems certain there is, then maybe he’s wise to treat it this way. He put those concerns aside for later consideration, looked back at Foucquet. “You say you think you know what happened to the boy?”

  Foucquet smiled, a rueful expression. “Albe’s theater-mad—and talented, too, though his mother won’t see it. I think he ran away to join one of the companies. It’s not a bad time of year for it, they always need extra help for the fair.”

  That was true enough, and Rathe nodded. “How would he know where to run, though? The players aren’t quite a closed guild, but they tend to stick together.” And they don’t much like northriver kids coming in and taking places away from their own, he added silently.

  Foucquet sighed, stared for a moment at the paint now drying on her hands. “I have been—seeing—someone recently. An actress in Savatier’s troupe.”

  “Her name?” Rathe reached for his tablets.

  “Anjesine bes’Hallen. She lives in Point of Dreams.”

  “Chadroni, by her name.” Rathe didn’t bother commenting on her residence; most players lived where they worked.

  Foucquet nodded. “Born there, yes, but she’s lived here a long time.” She looked away again. “She was here the night Albe ran, he might have gone with her.”

  “And you haven’t asked her?” Rathe knew he sounded incredulous, and Foucquet made a face.

  “We’ve parted ways, and not entirely happily, either. And with Albe’s mother as set against it as she is, I didn’t want to cause her trouble. I confess, I’m not sorry to see you handling this, even if I didn’t ask for it.”

  Rathe nodded. “What did you tell them at Hearts, about bes’Hallen?”

  “That she and I were, or had been, friends,” Foucquet answered. “And I told them the boy wanted to be a player.”

  “Well, that should give them plenty to work with,” Rathe said. “I’ll make a few inquiries of my own, if you’d like, though.”

  “I’d be grateful,” Foucquet answered. “I’m afraid Hearts will be too blinded by these other children to look closely at Albe. And he’s still well under age, I suppose it’s his mother’s right to say what she’ll have him do.”

  “I suppose,” Rathe said, with less conviction. He had met too many mothers, and fathers, too, who seemed determined to set their children’s feet on the wrong paths to agree easily with the judge-advocate. “I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thank you,” Foucquet said. “And, Nico. Do let me know what happens, whatever the hour. I won’t forgive myself if he’s not at the theaters.”

  Rathe nodded, and Foucquet reached for a bell to summon one of her servants. The younger clerk appeared almost at once, quickly enough that Rathe half suspected her of listening outside the double doors. She said nothing, however, and let him out into the rising warmth of the morning with quick courtesy.

  Rathe squinted at the sky, but there was no point visiting either theaters or actors until the second sunrise, and he was unlikely to get real sense from anyone until late afternoon. That left Caiazzo and the unlicensed printers on his book: the Pantheon was closer, and more or less on his way, and he knew one or two stall-keepers in Temple Fair who should be able to give him some of the information he needed. He sighed, and started back toward the Horsegate.

  It wasn’t a long walk to Temple Fair. Rathe made his way across the open square, dodging travellers and the usual crowd of idlers, and climbed the three steps to the gallery that surrounded the Pantheon itself. There, he leaned against the sun-warmed stone, one booted foot braced against the wall, and tried to pretend that he was reading the crudely printed broadsheet nailed to the pillar in front of him. It was typical of its kind, obscure astrology married to bad poetry, embellished with an illustration of Areton in full armor confronting Dis-Aidones across a shield marked with a device that might have been intended to be a map of the kingdom. The dozen-plus-three couplets analyzed the position of the Areton-star in the heavens, and concluded that Chenedolle must stand adamant against unspecified enemies. It also predicted earthquakes at the equinox, but more as an afterthought. Rathe glanced automatically for the imprimatur, and found it—but then, he thought, either the printer or the astrologer had been careful to leave no grounds for refusal. Areton was a neutral god, patron of soldiers and sportsmen, and giver of courage; his worship was either specialized or cut across class and national boundaries, and his temples served as strongboxes for longdistance traders worldwide. If it had shown Seidos standing against the Starsmith, or one of the Seideian Heroes, or even Seidos’s Horse, then it would have been political: Seidos was the protector of the Ile’nord and of the nobility, and the Ile’norders had been vociferous in their support for Marselion. But Areton was safe.

  He let his eyes range out between the pillars, squinting a little into the sunlight of the Temple Fair. Beyond the steps that led up into the Pantheon, the flat grey flagstones were drifted with dust and debris. The booksellers’ apprentices had swept it into tidy piles beside the shopfronts, but in the center of the fair the dust lay pale as straw against the bluestone flags, swirled into patterns by passing feet. Of all Astreiant’s fairgrounds, only Temple Fair was paved; the horses’ hooves rang loud on the stones, and the horsebrats were busy, their shrill cries— Horse, ma’am, hold your horse?—greeting the passing riders. Even this early, the fair was busy, a crowd of shopkeepers and their servants clustering beneath the booksellers’ bright red awnings, their bright finery shadowed here and there with the solid black of a student’s gown. Another pair of scholars, thin, serious women in their dusty gowns, arms weighted with books, crossed the fair by the most direct route, heedless of the traffic: heading for the college, Rathe guessed, and an early class. A young man with a parasol, finely dressed, with painted hands and face, paused to listen to the ballad-singer on her platform in the fair’s southeastern curve, joining for a moment an audience of two chubby boys and a barefoot servant girl. The woman’s voice, and the fiddler’s scratching accompaniment, blended into the hum of the crowd, barely audible above that general noise. The ballad sellers weren’t doing their usual business, despite the singer’s best efforts. Most of the customers were clustered at the line of makeshift stalls between the Queen’s-road and the northern Highway where the vendors of prophecies plied their trade. Rathe let his eyes sl
ide along the line of tables, picking out familiar faces—Ponset de Ruyr, whose wife owned two presses and a brothel southriver; the Leaguer Greitje vaan Brijx, red-faced and sweating under her wide-brimmed hat; a thin-faced boy who had to be the son of Saissana Peire, minding the store while his mother was serving her latest two months for unbonded printing; and, finally, the man he was looking for, a big man, sweating freely in the heat, his thinning hair hanging lank around his heavy face. Gallabet Lebrune had gone grey since he got his bond, Rathe noted, with a certain satisfaction, and pushed himself away from the wall.

  Lebrune was doing a brisk business, and enjoying himself at it. His big hands moved deftly among the piled sheets of his stock, selecting and rolling each chosen prophecy into a tidy cylinder to be handed across the table in exchange for a demming or two quickly pocketed, as though it was beneath his and his customers’ dignity to notice the exchange of coin. And I’d wager he makes a tiny sum shortchanging them that way, too, Rathe thought, and couldn’t quite suppress a smile. Lebrune was a petty thief and a liar, but he had a style about him that you couldn’t help admiring.

  Copies of the various prophecies were tacked to the tabletop; three more, the newest or the most popular, were pinned to an upright board, and Rathe joined the crowd waiting to read them, insinuating himself neatly into the group behind a pair of blue-coated apprentices who should have known better. He peered past a feathered hat at the smeared lines of verse—Lebrune’s printing skills hadn’t improved, at any rate—and a crude woodcut of an astrologer hunched over a writing desk, and a woman jostled him, turning instantly in apology.

  “Sorry—”

  The rest of whatever she would have said died on her lips as she saw the jerkin and the crowned truncheon tucked into Rathe’s belt. She smiled nervously, licked her lips, and turned quickly away. The nearer apprentice saw her abrupt departure, and glanced up and back, eyes widening as he took in the pointsman’s uniform. He nudged his friend, not subtly. The second boy looked back, scowling, and the first one said, “Come on.”

  The second apprentice’s eyes widened almost comically, and his friend grabbed him by the elbow, dragging him away. “Pardon, pointsman—”

  That word was enough to turn heads all along the tabletop. A young gentleman—would-be gentleman, Rathe amended, with an inward grin—paused in the act of handing his demmings to Lebrune, but then drew himself up to complete the transaction with outward composure. He accepted the neatly rolled papers, and stalked quickly away, flicking open his parasol to put its shield between himself and the pointsman.

  “You’re bloody bad for business, you’re poison, you are,” Lebrune snarled, watching his customers vanish. “What do you want?”

  Rathe took an idle step closer, still looking at the prophecies pinned to the standing board. “Paid your bond yet?”

  “You know I have, pointsman, so I take it poorly you frightening away my customers.”

  Rathe shrugged, unpinned one of the sheets to look at it more closely. “If you’re bonded, Lebrune, what reason did they have to be afraid of me?”

  “Maybe they think you’re stealing children,” Lebrune muttered. Rathe dropped the sheet and reached across the table to seize Lebrune by his jerkin collar.

  “That’s not funny at the best of time. If you’ve got reason to believe there are pointsmen behind these disappearances, you tell me.”

  “I don’t, Rathe, it’s nothing more than you’ll hear in half a dozen taverns!”

  Rathe released the man with an oath. “North or southriver?”

  “North. ’Course, southriver, they think it’s northriver merchants. When it’s not Leaguers. But it’s all pretty ugly, and the, um, independent printers are having a field day with it.” Lebrune spoke with the contempt of the recently legitimized, and Rathe acknowledged it with a sour smile.

  “Caiazzo used to fee you, didn’t he? Who’s he fielding these days?” Rathe asked, overriding the other’s inarticulate protest.

  “I’m bonded, Rathe, how should I know who’s printing under Caiazzo’s coin?”

  Rathe just looked at the other man, eyes hooded. After a moment, he said, “Just what kind of a fool do you take me for, Lebrune? No, I’m curious.” He put his hands down on the table edge and leaned forward. The wood creaked slightly, and Lebrune grimaced.

  “I’ve heard,” he said, with delicate emphasis that suited oddly with his oversize frame, “that he’s supporting a number of free-readers who are doubtless printing their findings.”

  “A name?” Rathe asked gently.

  Lebrune gave him a fulminating look, but said, “One I know of is Agere. You’ll probably find her working the Horsefair these days. Or she may have moved to the New Fair by now, she usually works there at Midsummer.”

  “So which is it?”

  “How would I—?”

  “Oh, Lebrune,” Rathe said, and the printer sighed.

  “New Fair, probably. Certainly.”

  Rathe nodded and straightened his back. “Thanks, Lebrune. Have a busy day.”

  Lebrune’s response was profane. Rathe grinned and turned away.

  It made sense, he thought, as he joined the traffic heading east along the Fairs’ Road. The fair didn’t officially open for another three days, but there were always a few dozen merchants who managed to get permission to open their stalls a day or two early in exchange for an early closing, and there were even more Astreianters eager to get a start on the semiholiday. What better place to sell unlicensed broadsheets than in the middle of that confusion?

  He found the row of printers’ stalls easily enough, set into the shade of a stable on the western end of the New Fair itself. At the moment, they were encroaching on the spaces generally held by the painter-stainers, but that guild’s representatives had yet to make their appearance, and the fairkeepers were currently more concerned with dividing the prime space at the center of the fair to everyone’s satisfaction. Administering the fair was a thankless task, falling to each of the major guilds in turn, and not for the first time Rathe was glad there was no pointsman’s guild. They had enough to do to keep the peace without having to administer the fair as well.

  Unfortunately, it was early enough that the broadsheet sellers hadn’t collected many browsers, and Rathe was conspicuous in his jerkin and truncheon. For a moment, he considered trying to hide at least the truncheon, but put that aside as impractical. Agere, and any of the others who were printing without a bond, would be watching for just that kind of trouble; better to keep out of sight, and think of something better. Before he could think just what, however, a voice called his name.

  “Rathe! I hope you’re not poaching, my son.”

  Rathe turned to see a stocky man, his truncheon thrust into a belt that strained over his barrel-shaped body. His jerkin, white leather, not the usual brown or black, was stamped with a floral pattern that sat rather oddly on his bulk. “Chief Point,” he answered, warily. Anything that brought Guillen Claes to the fair in his own person had to be of significance; Claes preferred to leave the fairgrounds to his subordinates, and concentrate his attention on the rest of Fairs’ Point.

  “So, if you’re not poaching, what possessed Monteia to give you a day off so early in the fair season?” Claes went on.

  “It’s not poaching,” Rathe answered. “We’ve had some problems with illegal broadsheets being sold in Point of Hopes; I’ve traced one of the printers here.”

  “You think,” Claes said, and Rathe grinned.

  “I think. But I’m pretty sure.”

  “Who?”

  “The name I have is Agere,” Rathe said.

  “Franteijn Agere,” Claes repeated. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I’ve also heard that she’s printing under Caiazzo’s coin,” Rathe went on, and the other man snorted.

  “Also wouldn’t surprise me. But I’d be astonished if you proved a point on him.”

  “Frankly, so would I,” Rathe answered. He glanced around, seeing only
the usual early fair-goers, mostly merchants, small and large, buying their goods before the general crowd. He thought he caught a glimpse of a black robe—one of the runners’ astrologers?—but it whisked out of sight behind a stall before he could be sure. He sighed and lowered his voice before going on. “I came here mostly to see what she was printing, see if she is the one we’re after, but there’s not enough of a crowd. And I’m a little conspicuous to do my own shopping. I was going to send one of our runners, but, seeing as you’re here, I wonder if I might borrow one of yours. We’d be willing to split the point.”

  Claes nodded, appeased. “I trust you’ll remember that when the time comes.” He lifted a hand, and a skinny boy seemed to appear out of thin air. He was barefoot, toes caked with dirt, and shirt and breeches were well faded, imperfectly patched. He looked like any one of the dozens of urchins who gathered to run errands at the fairs, and Rathe nodded in appreciation of the disguise. The boy grinned back at him, showing better teeth than Rathe would have expected, but the eyes he fixed on Claes were wary.

  “This is Guillot,” Claes said. “He’s one of our runners—not the best, not the worst.”

  Rathe nodded, and fished in his purse for a couple of demmings. “I’m looking for a broadsheet, printed without license, and I think you’ll find it at Agere’s stall. That’s the one with the three gargoyles for its sign.”

  The boy nodded. “I know Agere. Was it a particular sheet, or will any one do?”

  “The one I want shows a horse and rider, a woman rider, and a tree behind her that’s full of fruit. I think they’re supposed to be apples.” Rathe held out the demmings, and Guillot took them eagerly. “Pick up any others that look interesting.”

  Guillot nodded again, and scurried away, to disappear between a pair of canvas-walled stalls. Claes watched him go, turned back to face the younger man only when he was out of sight. “How are things in Point of Hopes?”

  “Nothing new,” Rathe answered. There was no point in pretending to misunderstand. “Our missing ones are still missing, and the locals are blaming a Leaguer tavern.”