Caiazzo’s eyes flicked to Denizard, who shrugged, and then back to the steward. “Go ahead. It’ll give them something to do besides worry.”
“Sir,” the steward said again, and started toward the kitchen.
Caiazzo looked back at the magist. “As for you, Aice, take Eslingen here and get over to the university. Take my travel clock, and make sure we get the right time.”
Denizard nodded. “You’ll want a clocksmith in for the big one, though.”
“Another damned expense,” Caiazzo muttered, and turned on his heel and stalked away.
Denizard looked at Eslingen, the corners of her mouth turning up in a wry smile. “Well. You heard our orders. Let me dress, and we’ll be on our way.”
The streets were crowded, every crossroads filled with a smouldering balefire, and the Manufactory Bridge was filled with people heading northriver. Toward the university, Eslingen guessed, and wasn’t surprised to see a bigger crowd gathered outside the university gate. A number of them, he saw, carried clocks of one kind or another: not surprising, he thought, and did his best to help Denizard elbow her way to the gate. Most people gave way before her magist’s gown, but the guard on duty at the gate shook his head apologetically.
“I’m sorry, magist, but you’ve come too late. The ceremony’s started—almost finished, by the sound of it.”
Even as he spoke, a bell sounded from inside the compound, a high, sweet sound, and a voice called something. There was a noise like a great sigh of relief, and another voice repeated the words.
“Quarter past one!”
“Quarter past one,” Denizard said, and nodded to the guard. She turned away, shielding Caiazzo’s clock against her body, and adjusted the mechanism. “Well, that finishes that.”
“Does it?” Eslingen asked, involuntarily, and the magist gave him a wry smile.
“Probably not. But that’s all we can do about it now.”
“I suppose.”
“You have a better idea?” Denizard asked, but her smile cut the hardness of her words.
Eslingen smiled back, and shook his head. “No, I admit. But—I just can’t say it feels right.”
“No,” Denizard agreed. “We—you and I in particular, Eslingen— will need to keep a careful eye on things for the next few days, I’d say. This can’t be a good omen.”
Eslingen nodded back, wondering again if he should ever have accepted Rathe’s advice, and fell into step beside her, heading back to Customs Point and Caiazzo’s house.
Another servant, rounder-faced and more cheerful than the woman who’d served him the night before, woke him with breakfast and shaving water the next morning, and the news that Caiazzo would want to see him sometime before noon. “He’ll send for you, though,” she added, “so be ready.”
“Do you know when—?” Eslingen asked, and left a suggestive pause, hoping she’d fill in her name.
The woman shook her head, as much to refuse the unspoken question as in answer. “I’ve no idea, sir.”
“Crushed again,” Eslingen murmured, just loud enough to be heard, and thought her smile widened briefly. But then she was gone, and he turned his attention to the business at hand. He was still on sufferance, obviously, and would be for some time, especially after the events of the night before; the household would be closing ranks against outsiders. All he could do was tolerate the snubs, and look for some way of proving his usefulness.
One of the junior servants—a boy who could have been from either the counting house or the kitchen; there was nothing to betray his rank in the neat breeches and dull jerkin—came for him as the house clock was striking ten. Eslingen, who had been listening to the distant, musical notes, dragged himself away from that further evidence of Caiazzo’s status, and gave his stock a last quick tug before he followed the boy from the room. He was aware of more signs of Caiazzo’s wealth as they moved from the servants’ quarters into the main house— panelling with spare, geometric carvings, glass and silver on the sideboards in the main hall, wax candles in every room—but schooled himself to impassivity. He would lose nothing by seeming familiar with the trappings of wealth, and gain nothing by sneering. Not, he added silently, that there was much to sneer at. Caiazzo’s taste, at least in the public rooms, was impeccable, even a little severe for a man who’d been born a southriver bookbinder’s son.
The boy led him up the front staircase, past a knot of clerks with ledgers and a neatly dressed matron who looked torn between anger and nervousness. The edges of her fingernails were rimmed in black; the remains of paint, he thought at first, and then realized it was ink. One of the printers Rathe had mentioned? he wondered, but knew better than even to think of asking. Caiazzo’s workroom was at the end of the gallery, overlooking the side alley and the next-door garden, and as the boy tapped on the door and announced him, Eslingen took that chance to make a brief survey of the room. It was large, and well lit— only to be expected, for a man who made a sizeable part of his living on paper—and the clerk’s counter that ran the length of one wall was drifted with papers. There was a worktable as well, neater, and a thin woman in a shade of red that didn’t flatter her sallow complexion was flicking the last coins into the hollows of a tallyboard. A status of Bonfortune stood in a niche in the wall behind her, fresh flowers at its feet—propitiation, Eslingen wondered, or just common caution? The magist Denizard leaned against the opposite end of that table, her robe open over a sharply cut skirt and bodice, and Caiazzo himself stood by the tall windows, staring toward the masts that soared above the housetops. He turned at the boy’s appearance, and nodded to the woman in red.
“All right, Vianey, that’s all for now. Bring me the full accounting as soon as you have it.”
“Of course,” the woman answered, sounding vaguely affronted, but covered the board and swept out with it clutched to her breast.
“So, Lieutenant Eslingen,” Caiazzo said, and took his place in the carved chair behind the worktable. Eslingen, with a sudden rush of insight, guessed that the trader rarely used it for work, but often for interviews. “Devynck speaks well of you.”
Decent, under the circumstances, Eslingen thought, but said nothing, managed a half bow instead.
“But you didn’t tell me you know one of my people,” Caiazzo went on. “Dausset Cijntien works for one of my caravan-masters.”
“Does he?” For a moment, Eslingen’s mind was as blank as his face. “I knew he worked for a caravan, but not whose.”
Caiazzo fixed black eyes on him for a moment longer, as though wondering what else he would say, but Eslingen met his stare squarely. He thought he saw the hint of a smile, of approval, flicker across the trader’s face, but then it was gone. “Aice says the other names you gave me speak well of you, too. I’m prepared, despite the otherwise questionable provenance—”Caiazzo lifted a hand, forestalling a comment Eslingen had not been about to make. “—a recommendation from the points, and especially Adjunct Point Rathe, isn’t always the best thing for a member of my household—to put you on my books.” He smiled again, this time more openly. “As I told you yesterday, I do need a knife, and one who looks like a gentleman can only be an improvement over one who thought he was.”
“Thank you,” Eslingen said, though he wasn’t at all sure it was a compliment.
Caiazzo’s smile widened slightly, as though he’d guessed the thought and rather enjoyed it. “Right, then—”
He broke off as the door opened, and a harrassed-looking clerk came in. “I’m very sorry to disturb you, sir, but Rouvalles is here, and he insists on seeing you.”
Caiazzo gave the statue of Bonfortune a reproachful glance, but sighed. “Eslingen, you’ll stay. Show him in, Pradon.”
The clerk bowed, and hurried away, closing the door again behind her.
“I’m not armed,” Eslingen said hastily, “bar my knife—”
Caiazzo waved a dismissive hand. “It won’t come to that.” He looked at Denizard, who straightened, hauling herself off the
end of the table. Eslingen hesitated, then took his place at Gaiazzo’s right. The longdistance trader didn’t say anything, but Eslingen saw the flicker of eyes that acknowledged his presence.
The door opened again, and the clerk stood aside to let a tall, neatly dressed man into the room. He was young, Eslingen realized with some surprise, or at least young to be running Caiazzo’s Silklands caravan, didn’t look any older than Eslingen himself. And he was handsome, too, in a genial, good-fellow sort of way, an open face and an easy smile beneath a ragged mane of wavy hair that was just the color of bronze, but there was something in his pale eyes than belied the easy manner. He checked slightly, seeing Caiazzo in his chair, and Eslingen saw the blue eyes flick left and right, taking in first Denizard and then himself.
“Standing on ceremony, Hanse? You don’t need your knife against me.”
“I was in the process of hiring a new one,” Caiazzo answered, “and I figured he might as well start now.” He nodded toward the soldier. “This is Eslingen, served with Coindarel, and now of my household. I understand one of your own men speaks highly of him.”
The caravan-master—Rouvalles, the clerk had called him, Eslingen remembered—blinked. “One of them may, for all I know. Who?”
“Dausset Cijntien,” Denizard said.
“Then you can ask him yourself, he’s below.”
Caiazzo nodded thoughtfully. “So what was it you wanted, Rouvalles?”
The caravan-master took a deep breath. “Look, I wouldn’t have come myself, except it’s getting late. We need to leave within the week to make this season work, and I still have goods and supplies to buy. I need coin, Hanse, and soon.”
His voice had just the hint of a Chadroni accent, Eslingen realized. He glanced at Caiazzo, but the longdistance trader’s expression was little more than a mask.
“You’ll have to wait,” he said, without inflection.
Rouvalles’s eyes narrowed, and Eslingen caught a glimpse of the cold steel beneath the good humor. Not surprising, he thought, and I’d bet it serves him well both trading and on the road, but he’s not a man I’d like to cross.
“How long?” The caravan-master matched Caiazzo’s tone.
“Two days.”
Eslingen thought he heard a hint of relief beneath the projected boredom, and glanced again at Caiazzo. Rathe had hinted that not all of the longdistance trader’s businesses were legitimate, but the caravan was public enough that it surely had to be—unless it was the source of the coin that was problematic? There had been talk in the kitchen the night before about a ship that had just come in… He shook himself away from that line of thought, and concentrated on the conversation at hand.
Rouvalles hesitated for a moment, but then nodded, showing his easy grin. “Right, we can wait that long, but we’re cutting it very close this year, Hanse.”
“I know it,” Caiazzo answered. “There’ve been some—unexpected events.”
“Like last night?”
“Not like that.”
“What I might call problems, then?” Rouvalles asked, almost cheerfully, but his eyes didn’t match his tone.
Caiazzo nodded once. “You probably would. But it’s nothing that’ll affect you.”
“No more than it already has,” Rouvalles answered.
“Not seriously,” Caiazzo corrected. It looked for a moment as though Rouvalles might protest, but Caiazzo fixed him with a stare, and the younger man spread his hands in silent acceptance.
“There’s one other thing,” Caiazzo went on. “Your troop-master, Cijntien, you said he was here?”
Rouvalles nodded, looking wary.
“You said I could ask him myself,” Caiazzo said. “About Eslingen here. Well, I want to.”
“I’ll send him up,” Rouvalles answered, but Caiazzo shook his head.
“Aice can go.”
The magist showed no sign of annoyance at being asked to do a servant’s job, but slipped almost silently out the door. She returned a few minutes later, Cijntien in tow. The troop-master looked uneasy at being brought upstairs, Eslingen thought, with some sympathy, but kept his own face expressionless.
Caiazzo leaned back in his chair. “I understand you know someone I’ve taken into my household.”
Cijntien glanced toward Eslingen. “Philip?” he asked, and then looked as though he wanted to recall the word. He looked instead at Rouvalles, who nodded.
“I guess you do, then. Go ahead.”
The troop-master relaxed slightly. “I know Eslingen, yes, sir. I served with him, oh, seven, eight years. He was a corporal, then a sergeant under me.” He glanced again at Eslingen, then back at Caiazzo. “He’s a good man.”
“Reliable, or clever?” Caiazzo asked. He enjoyed the awkwardness of the situation, Eslingen realized suddenly, not quite out of malice, but more out of temper. Rouvalles had made him uncomfortable; he was perfectly happy to visit the same discomfort on everyone else in reach.
“Both.” This time, Cijntien refused to look at his former subordinate. “Clever enough to lead raiding parties—hells, he was the man I’d pick first for that, over anyone else—but I’d trust him at my side. Or myback.”
“And that’s where it really counts,” Caiazzo murmured, and looked at Rouvalles.
“If Cijntien speaks well of him, you’re safe enough.” Rouvalles smiled again, suddenly, with more than a hint of mischief in his eyes. “After all, I’ve been trusting him with your business for two years now.”
And that, Eslingen thought, is a score for the Chadroni.
“Right, then,” Caiazzo said. “Thank you, Cijntien. Rouvalles, I’ll send word as soon as the coin is ready.”
“I’ll expect to hear from you,” Rouvalles answered, with a nod, and turned away before Caiazzo could dismiss him more explicitly. The door closed again behind him and Cijntien, and Caiazzo looked at Eslingen.
“As you will have gathered, things are—complicated—for me at the moment. I can’t afford not to investigate all the possibilities, especially where my knife’s concerned.”
It was, Eslingen realized with some surprise, a sort of apology. He gave another half bow, and said, in his most neutral voice, “Of course, sir.”
Caiazzo studied him for a moment longer, as though wondering what lay behind those words, then looked at Denizard. “Aice, get him settled—find him decent rooms, some better clothes, make sure he knows what’s expected of him. And send Vianey back in.”
“Right,” Denizard answered, and gestured for Eslingen to precede her from the room. He obeyed, wondering again just what Rathe had landed him in.
Over the next few days, he began to find a place for himself in the household. No one mentioned the night of the clocks, not even in whispers, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or nervous. The university published an official explanation—the approach of the Starsmith, it said, had caused the clocks, more attuned to the ordinary stars, to slip momentarily out of gear—but few of Caiazzo’s people seemed convinced. Nor, for that matter, were most Astreianters, if the broadsheets were anything to go by, Eslingen thought. They blamed evil magists—foreign, of course—and the changes in society since the old queen’s day, and in general anything else they could think of. One or two blamed whoever it was who was stealing the children, or at least called it a punishment or a warning to find the missing ones before worse happened. That was something Eslingen could agree with wholeheartedly, but he had little time for such matters. Caiazzo required his presence at most meetings, including a second encounter with the Chadroni caravan-master. There was no money for him this time, either, and Eslingen was beginning to be certain there was something very wrong. Clearly, Caiazzo had expected to have cash in hand by now—even had the trader been inclined to take that kind of advantage of his business partners, Rouvalles was not the sort to put up with these delays for more than one season—and Eslingen found himself wondering if Rathe had been wrong after all, if the trader was involved with the child-thief. But he could see
no connection between a lack of funds and vanishing children: if Caiazzo was involved, he decided finally, he would be more likely to have coin in hand, not to be short of money. Still, he found himself listening carefully to the dinner gossip—he was eating with the rest of the middle servants now, the cook and the steward and the chief clerk Vianey, though not Denizard— and equally carefully to the sessions in Caiazzo’s counting room.
On the fifth day of his employment, he was leaning against the casement while Vianey droned through a list of expenses—mostly relating to the upkeep of the house and boat—when a knock came at the door. Caiazzo stopped pacing to glare in the direction of the sound, and Denizard said, “Come in.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” That was one of the male servants, a tall man Eslingen knew only by sight. “But he insisted on seeing you.”
He had a boy by the collar of a thoroughly disreputable jacket, Eslingen realized, and the boy himself was even less prepossessing than the clothes, a thin creature with a missing eye-tooth and the first scattering of what promised to be a bumper crop of adolescent pimples. Caiazzo eyed him with disfavor, but, to Eslingen’s surprise, didn’t explode immediately.
“I’ve a message for you, sir,” the boy said, and held out a much-folded sheet of paper.
Caiazzo crossed to him in a single stride, took the paper from him and scanned it quickly, his frown deepening as he read. “Right. Take him down to the kitchen, see if he wants anything to eat. Aice, Eslingen, come with me.”
The servant bowed—he had never loosed his hold on the boy— and backed away, dragging the boy with him. Denizard frowned too, looking more worried than Eslingen had ever seen, and reached for the coat she had left over the back of a chair.
“Where are we going?” Eslingen asked, and Caiazzo swung to face him.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.” Eslingen spread empty hands. “Your safety’s my business; if you want me to do my job, I need to know where we’re going. You’re not happy, but that could mean anything—we could be going to your factor, or anywhere.”
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