Point of Hopes p-1

by Melissa Scott

  “I had reached that decision myself,” Rathe said, with dignity. “I suppose I’d better get some dinner if I’m not to insult one of your— what, Silklands vintages?”

  Wicked shook her head. “Believe it or not, Chadroni. Istre tells me their beer is vile. Maybe there’s hope for the regicidal bastards.” She tugged the cork free with a grunt of effort, set bottle and cork in front of him with a flourish.

  Rathe spread his hands. “If you say so, Wicked, I have to believe it. And I’ll have whatever’s going from the kitchen tonight.”

  “You’ll have what I give you,” Wicked answered, and pushed herself up from the table. “I’ve lasanon with cheese and herbs that’ll be better with that than a custard pie.”

  “Thank you,” Rathe said, knowing better than to argue, and the innkeeper turned away. Rathe leaned back in his chair, and reached for the papers folded into his pocket. He pulled them out, eight sheets, each with their neatly inked circles and the symbols of the planets set in their places, looking for some connection, however tenuous, between the eight. Approximate age was all they had in common, certainly not background, and that was what had the city in an uproar. And he didn’t see anything in these papers to change that.

  He made a face, and turned them facedown on the scarred table, wishing b’Estorr would arrive. The door was still open to the evening breeze, a southern breeze, warm, but without the river’s damp. He could hear the sounds of the businesses around Wicked’s closing up for the day, tables and carts pulled in, shutters down or across, the clank of iron as locks and chains were snugged home. First sunset was definitely past; over in Point of Dreams, the day-shows would be well over, and the playhouses sweeping up, getting ready for the night-show. It had been weeks—a moon-month, he realized, guiltily—since he had seen a play, even a night-show farce. The actors who shared the garret above his own lodgings had seemed cold lately; he would have to make amends, when he had the time. And he would need to make time, he realized. They if anyone could help him with Foucquet’s missing apprentice, especially if the boy wasn’t missing at all…

  “So how do you like the wine?”

  Rathe looked up, and pushed the papers aside. “Don’t know. Haven’t dared try it yet. I thought, being Chadroni, it might come ready mixed with its own poison.” b’Estorr looked thoughtful. “I don’t think it’s from the royal cellars.”

  “How’d you know I’d need it?”

  “Poison or a drink?” b’Estorr asked, and seated himself opposite the other man.

  Rathe gave him a sour look, but conceded the point. “The drink.”

  “These days, don’t we all,” b’Estorr answered, and filled both glasses. Rathe took one, lifted it in silent toast, and sipped curiously at the amber liquid. It was good, very good, but not astonishing. He had been in the mood for something astonishing, and he set the glass down again with a vague sense of disappointment. b’Estorr went on, as if he hadn’t noticed, “I heard about the trouble at Devynck’s—I had cause to go to All-Guilds today, the clerks were talking about nothing else.”

  “And blaming the points, I daresay,” Rathe muttered.

  “Among others,” b’Estorr answered.

  Rathe looked at him. “Strange to say, though, you people are the only ones I haven’t heard suspected.”

  “Well, who’d dare?” b’Estorr returned. “I take it you mean magists, and not Chadroni.”

  Rathe smiled in spite of himself. “I think that people feel if Chadroni were involved, it wouldn’t be this… disguised. Good straightforward people, the Chadroni, if a little bloodthirsty.”

  b’Estorr twirled the stem of his wine glass between his fingers. “That’s true enough.” He smiled, not pleasantly. “The only reason they didn’t latch onto me as the guilty party when the old Fre was murdered was that they’d’ve been insulted at the thought of any but their own class murdering the king. In Chenedolle, in any of the League cities— in the Silklands, for Astree’s sake—I’d’ve been dragged off to execution without a second thought. But in Chadron, murder is the province of the high nobility.”

  “Fun place to set up a points station,” Rathe said, and b’Estorr nearly choked on his wine. Rathe grinned—that had evened the score for the remark about poison—but sobered quickly. Something he’d said himself hadn’t quite rung true… “But I’m wrong, aren’t I, there’s one group of magists people do suspect.”

  b’Estorr lifted an eyebrow.

  “Those hedge-astrologers, the freelances, the ones the Three Nations have been complaining about.”

  “Magists are generally astrologers,” b’Estorr said, with dignity, “but few astrologers are magists.”

  “I’m not sure most people make that distinction.” Rathe frowned suddenly, impatient with the game. “Seriously, Istre, have you heard anything more about them?”

  b’Estorr shrugged. “Not much more than before, I’m afraid. They’re still around—and they don’t charge nearly enough for what they’re doing. The students are pissed, of course, and the arbiters have promised to do what they can, but every time they get close to one of them, they seem to fade away.”

  “Well, joy of it to me, we need to keep an eye on them, too,” Rathe said.

  “I’d have thought that was the arbiters’ business,” b’Estorr said.

  “And also ours.” Rathe glanced toward the open door, hearing sudden loud voices, and then relaxed slightly, recognizing the tone if not the speakers. They sounded light, for a change, almost happy, and Rathe realized for the first time just how tense he had become. Then a knot of people—actors all, Rathe knew, and his upstairs neighbor Gavi Jhirassi at their center—burst through the open door.

  “They can threaten to close us down, but they know right now there’d be riots if they tried it. And that’s just what Astreiant wants to avoid, so they won’t. And meanwhile, it’s marvelous business for us.”

  “Still, it’s a risky piece, Gavi, and Aconin should mind his pen.” That was a rangy woman in a plumed cap, her eyes still smudged with the paint she wore on stage.

  Jhirassi made a moue, and his eyes lighted on Rathe. “Nico! Have they actually let you out? We were beginning to think you were working all hours.”

  b’Estorr glanced at Rathe, eyes amused. Rathe shook his head. “Gavi’s my upstairs neighbor. And an actor, though I probably don’t need to tell you that. Quite a good one, really.”

  “You’re too kind,” Jhirassi said, and leaned on the back of the empty chair.

  Rathe sighed. “Gavi Jhirassi, Istre b’Estorr, Istre’s at the university.”

  “Not a student,” Jhirassi said. “A master, then?”

  “Join us, why don’t you, Gavi?” Rathe said, and the actor spun the chair dexterously away from the table. “I wanted to talk to you anyway, and this saves me a trip to the theaters, since we’re never home the same hours these days.”

  Jhirassi nodded. “It has been a while since we’ve seen you, Nico. Not that I can blame you, with what’s been on recently, I mean, really, The Seven Seekers? It’s not particularly subtle, and this staging isn’t particularly inventive. At least Aconin doesn’t write me ingenue parts—” He broke off, looking at Rathe. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  Rathe allowed himself a wry smile, and quickly retold Foucquet’s story of her missing clerk-apprentice. Jhirassi’s face grew more intent as he listened, and for once he didn’t interrupt. When Rathe had finished, he said, “And you’re afraid he’s become one of the missing, obviously, for all you’re saying everything else. Well, we’ve not had any new brats—sorry, children—” The correction was patently insincere. “—hanging about, but you said he might have gone to Savatier’s.” He tipped his head to one side, considering, then shrugged. “It’s possible. I’ll ask there tomorrow, if you’d like.”

  “Please,” Rathe said.

  “And if I find him?”

  “Let me know, and I’ll let Foucquet know. She can handle it from there, sort it out with t
he boy’s mother.”

  “If Savatier has him,” Jhirassi said, “if she’s taken him on, he’s likely to be good, Nico. It could be a shame to force him back into the judiciary.”

  “I know,” Rathe answered. “But his mother has a right to know if he hasn’t gone missing. Who knows, she might be so delighted to hear he’s with Savatier, and not disappeared, she might let him stay on.” He didn’t sound terribly convincing, and knew it, and so, from the look on the actor’s face, did Jhirassi. The judiciary was a good career, and a rich one, ideal for those who had the proper stars, and that range was broadly defined. Clerkships like the one Albe Cytel had held were as jealously guarded as any guild apprenticeship, and for the same reasons: their holders had an advantage over the hundreds of others who tried to make their living in the trade, and that advantage could be passed from mother to child. Cytel’s mother would be reluctant to lose that, no matter what the boy’s stars said, and there would be ambition and expectation involved as well. Sometimes it was hard to make the parent’s desires give way to sidereal sense. He himself had been lucky, Rathe thought. He might have been an apothecary, or an herbalist, given his parents’ occupations, but it had been clear from his stars that Metenere’s service was not for him, and they had made no protest. He looked again at the sheaf of papers with their scribbled nativities. There had been nothing in common among those children’s stars, or at least nothing that he could see, not even a common like or dislike of their present circumstances.

  “I’ll ask at Savatier’s,” Jhirassi said again. “But I can’t promise anything.”

  “I appreciate it,” Rathe answered.

  Jhirassi nodded, mischief glinting in his eyes, but then common sense reasserted itself. He rose gracefully from the table, smiled at b’Estorr, and crossed to the corner table where the rest of the actors were sitting. Rathe watched him go, but his mind wasn’t on the slim figure.

  “That sounds—interesting,” b’Estorr said, and Rathe rolled his eyes.

  “In other circumstances, yes. It might almost be amusing, but not just at the moment, thank you. Not with people—respectable guildfolk, mind you—trying to do our jobs for us.”

  “Is it true someone was killed last night?” b’Estorr asked.

  Rathe nodded. “A journeyman butcher, name of Paas Huviet. He was threatening to attack the inn, and when he wouldn’t heed the warnings, Eslingen—he was Devynck’s knife—shot him dead.” He managed a crooked smile. “Which I don’t think comes under your purview, Istre.”

  “I would think not,” the magist agreed. “So what happened to him, the knife, I mean?”

  Rathe grimaced. “Oh, gods, that was a mess. We had to call the point on him, if only to keep the rest of the crowd quiet, but of course it was disallowed. It had to be, really, he’d only fired in self-defense and in defense of real property. But Devynck let him go, since she didn’t want there to be more trouble because of him. So I… I got him a position in Caiazzo’s household.”

  b’Estorr stared at Rathe, then laughed. “What possessed you to lodge him with Caiazzo, of all people? I take it you don’t much like this knife—Eslingen, was it?”

  Rathe looked faintly embarrassed. “Yeah, that’s his name. And, no, in actual fact, I like him, he’s a good sort, clever—”

  “So why, in the Good Counsellor’s name, stick him with Caiazzo?” b’Estorr paused. “Or do I have it turned around?”

  Rathe hesitated, but there were few men he trusted more than the Chadroni. And besides, he added silently, I wouldn’t mind having someone tell me I’d done the right thing. “I need someone in Caiazzo’s household,” he said, lowering his voice. “The sur thinks he might be involved with the missing children somehow, but I’ve got my hands too full investigating the disappearances themselves to waste time on something I don’t think is very likely. It seemed a natural conjunction.”

  b’Estorr shook his head. “Gods, Nico, remind me never to call in any favors from you, you have the most backhanded way of returning them. He agreed?”

  “He agreed. I didn’t exactly hold a knife to his throat, either, Istre,” Rathe said.

  “It’s not a bad idea, though,” b’Estorr said, thoughtfully. “As long as Caiazzo doesn’t find out, that is.”

  That was something Rathe did not particularly want to think about. He reached for the pieces of paper instead, slid them across the table toward b’Estorr. “Here. These are for you. We’ve managed to gather some more information on the children missing from Hopes—I think you have all the nativities now. I don’t know, maybe if you look at them in line with Herisse’s, or something, maybe the days of their disappearance, you’ll find something we’ve missed.”

  b’Estorr set down his glass and spread the papers out on the table, studying each in turn. Rathe watched him, absurdly fearful that he would see some dire pattern just glancing at them, something the points could and should have seen. And that’s just being ridiculous, he told himself firmly, hearing more than an echo of his mother in his mind. But the papers looked pathetic, lives in limbo, reduced to so many numbers and calculations. He wasn’t an astrologer, at least no more so than most people in Astreiant, possessing a rudimentary knowledge of the mathegistry that defined their lives. b’Estorr could read the figures Rathe had given him as easily as Rathe could read the broadsheets, and Rathe wondered what picture the nativities conjured up for the magist. Could he see these children, get a sense for who they were—are, he corrected firmly—what their dreams, hopes, futures might be? He shook his head, at himself this time, and took another swallow of his wine, never taking his eyes from b’Estorr. Finally, the magist rolled up the papers and placed them carefully in his leather pocket case. He smiled a little sheepishly at Rathe.

  “Sorry. There’s little enough I can do right now, but I get caught up. It’s interesting, but I’m not seeing any obvious patterns off the top of it. No common positions, bar the gross solar position of the winter-sun and its satellites for most of them. And of course the Starsmith.”

  Rathe nodded. The winter-sun and its three kindred stars stayed in each of the solar signs for about fourteen years; everyone born within that period shared those signs. The Starsmith took even longer to move through its unique zodiac. “That hardly counts, though, right?”

  “Right. And not all of them were born with the winter-sun in the Anvil, either, some of them are young enough that it was in the first degrees of the Seabull.” b’Estorr shook his head again. “For that matter, they weren’t even all of them born in Astreiant.”

  “That we had noticed,” Rathe said. “It’s almost as though there’s less of a pattern than there should be, and where you expect to find one, no matter how meaningless—I expected, we reasonably could have expected, all the kids to have been born here—it’s not there. It’s the kind of negative pattern you couldn’t create if you tried, you’d be bound to slip up somewhere.”

  “That’s an interesting thought,” b’Estorr said, and this time it was Rathe who shook his head.

  “It could just be frustration speaking. Damn it, there has to be some pattern there, somewhere.”

  b’Estorr nodded. “And the absence of pattern would be meaningful, too. Don’t give up hope yet, Nico.”

  Rathe smiled ruefully, leaned back in his chair as a waiter appeared with his dinner—the promised lasanon, he saw without surprise, smelling strongly of the garlic and summer herbs layered with the cheese and the strips of noodle dough. Wicked was right, the wine would complement that, or vice versa, and for the first time that evening, felt his mood begin to lift. “I’m not. It’s just—”

  “Eat,” b’Estorr said, firmly.

  “You sound like my mother,” Rathe complained, but did as he was told. A string of cheese clung to his chin, and he wiped it away, enjoying the rich taste.

  “I sound like my mother,” b’Estorr answered, “and they were both right.”

  Rathe smiled again, genuine affection this time, and turned his attention to
his plate. b’Estorr was right, they were doing all they could, and it was still too early to give up hope.

  They pushed the missing children from their minds for the rest of dinner, talking idly of other things. Rathe found himself relaxing at last, though he couldn’t be sure how much of that was the excellent wine. He drained the last swallow left in his glass, and set it carefully back on the table.

  “Time I was getting home,” he said aloud, and the chime of a clock merged with his last word. He frowned slightly at that—he hadn’t thought it was that late—and saw the same confusion on b’Estorr’s face.

  “That’s odd,” the necromancer began, and a second clock struck, not the quarter hour, as the first had done, but repeatedly, a steady chiming. In the distance, Rathe could hear another clock join in, and then a third and a fourth.

  “What in the name of all the gods?” he began, but he was already pushing himself up out of his seat. All across the long room, people were standing, faces pale in the lamplight, and Wicked herself appeared in the kitchen doorway, broad face drawn into a scowl. It sounded like the earthquake, though the ground had never moved, the way all the bells and chimes had sounded, shaken into voice by the tremor, and he shoved his way to the door, and out into the narrow yard.

  The chimes were still sounding, and Rathe had lost count of the number, knew only that it was more than twelve, more than there ever should be. The shopgirls were on their feet, too, one with her hand on her belt knife as though she faced a physical threat, another pair shoulder to shoulder, steadying each other against an earthquake that hadn’t happened. The nearest clock was at the end of the Hopes-point Bridge, and he turned toward it, searching the darkening sky for its white-painted face and the massive bronze hands. It was hard to see in the winter-sun’s twilight, but for an instant he thought he saw the hands spinning aimlessly against the pale disk. Then the chimes stopped, as abruptly as they had begun, and the hands settled, frozen, proclaiming the hour to be six. And that was impossible, that time had passed a good six hours ago, or wouldn’t come for another six. Rathe’s mouth thinned, and he looked back toward the tavern to see b’Estorr there, Wicked framed in the door behind him. As though the silence had released some spell, voices rose in the tavern, high, excited, and afraid.