Point of Dreams

Duca swore under his breath, and spun to examine the racks himself. “Nothing missing,” he said after a moment, and de Vicheau nodded in agreement.

“But they’re players’ weapons,” Siredy said. “Dulled and bated. Why would anyone bother with them?”

No one answered, and Eslingen looked past them into the darkness of the stagehouse. Something else was different, too, he thought, something teasing at the edge of memory–something not quite the way it had been the last time he’d seen it. The machinery loomed overhead, the versatiles locked in their first position, the ropes that held the traps and hanging scenery all taut and perfect–except one. One of the lilies was out of place, missing altogether, and he reached out to grab Siredy’s shoulder.

“The machines,” he said, and the other master’s eyes went wide.

“Tyrseis, not that.”

“Get the trap,” Duca ordered, and de Vicheau bent to lift the narrow door. It was dark below, but a mage‑fire lantern hung ready, and de Vicheau lit it with the touch of his hand, his face very pale.

“There are more below,” he said, but made no move to descend the narrow ladder.

“We’ll all go,” Duca said grimly, and swung himself down into the pit.

Eslingen followed more cautiously, found another of the mage‑lights hanging ready on the nearest pillar, and fumbled with the smoothly polished ring until it sprang to light. Siredy did the same, and the doubled sphere of light spread to fill the low‑ceilinged space. It looked much the same as it had before, Eslingen thought, or at least as it had the one time he’d been shown the machines. The windlass stood immobile, and beyond it, the massive gears that lifted the bannerdame’s towers were dark with new oil. Except there was something bright caught between the lower teeth, the merest rag of white, and Eslingen took a careful breath, fighting nausea; The rest of it was red‑tinged brown, the thick rusty shade of drying blood, and the white thing was the watchman’s stockinged leg.

“Master Duca,” he said, dry‑mouthed, and heard the big man swallow hard.

“I see it. The poor bastard.”

“It must be an accident,” Siredy said, his voice too high, and Eslingen made a face. This was worse than cannon fire, worse even than a sappers’ accident because there was more left to see, the legs all but severed from the crushed torso, the head invisible on the far side of the gear, only the one arm and the stocky legs holding a semblance of human shape. He choked, glad he had eaten lightly, cleared his throat with an effort.

“It is the watch, isn’t it?”

Duca nodded, though he made no move to look more closely. “Yes–at least, I’m almost certain. That’s his coat.”

“Mathiee told him to keep a better eye out these nights,” de Vicheau said. “Poor Artinou.”

“The rope must have given way,” Siredy said. “Gods, if it had been a performance…”

He let his voice trail off, but there was no need to finish the sentence. If it had happened during a performance, not only might a sceneryman have been killed, caught like the watchman in the suddenly moving gears, but the actors on the tower would have been brought down abruptly, perhaps thrown off the set piece into the mechanism as well. Eslingen shook his head, trying to banish the picture, and Duca said hoarsely, “And was it an accident?”

The master was looking at him, Eslingen realized, and he took a careful breath. “I don’t know,” he began, knowing what the other wanted to hear, and then shook himself. He had been around Rathe long enough to know what questions the pointsman might ask, knew what questions he’d ask himself. “If it was an accident, master, why are there no lights in sight? He wouldn’t come down here in the dark, surely. And the trap was closed, too.”

“He might have done that himself,” de Vicheau said, but the objection was halfhearted.

“But not without lights,” Duca said, and made a face as though he wanted to spit. “Sweet Tyrseis. What a way to kill a man.”

There aren’t many good ways to die, Eslingen thought, but this one is particularly ugly. “Leave him for now,” he said, and thought he saw Siredy give him a look of gratitude. “And send to Point of Dreams. It’s in their hands now.”

“The house was just purified,” Duca began, and shook himself to silence. “Right. Back onstage with all of you, and make sure no one comes down here.”

“And that the other trap isn’t open,” Siredy said.

Duca gave him a look. “Good thought. See to it, Verre. And you, Janne, send to Point of Dreams. I want Rathe, and don’t take no for an answer.”

They found the second trap closed as well, and Duca straightened from it, breathing heavily through his mouth. “This is hard on Mathiee,” he said, and winced as the tower clock struck the half hour. “And she should be along any minute now, with her keys to let us in. Sofia, what a welcome.”

“You found the man?” The voice came from the pit, and Eslingen stepped back out onto the stage to see Aubine looking up from the pit. He was surrounded by tubs of plants, at least half a dozen half barrels packed full of greenery and blooms, too bright after the darkness below the stage. From the look in Duca’s eyes, the other master was thinking the same thing, and Siredy turned away with a muffled curse, leaning hard against the nearest versatile.

“I’m afraid so, my lord,” Eslingen said.

“Dead, then?” Aubine sounded more surprised than anything. “Oh, surely not.”

“Caught in the machinery,” Duca said, and cleared his throat hard. “The biggest of the lifts.”

Aubine said nothing for a long moment, his face very still, and then, slowly, he shook his head. “I’ve only seen the machines once, Master Duca, but they struck me then as treacherous things. What a terrible accident.”

“If it is an accident,” Eslingen said, in spite of himself, and Aubine frowned.

“Surely you’re not–oh, no, not again.”

The landseur looked genuinely horrified, and Duca lifted both hands placatingly. “It may not be, my lord, but we have to be sure.”

“What will it do to the masque?” Aubine asked. “A second death, so soon–practically on the heels of poor de Raзan–if it is untimely, and I pray it is not, Seidos, will they allow us to continue?”

There was no answer to that, the same question the other masters had to have been asking themselves, and Eslingen glanced over his shoulder at the sound of women’s voices from the tunnel.

“So you got in all right without me, I see.” Gasquine was wrapped in a serviceable‑looking cloak of grey wool, her thick hair untidy beneath a linen cap. “What in the name of all the gods is going on? And where’s Artinou?”

“Dead,” Duca answered, and the actor stopped as though she had been struck.

“Dead?”

Duca nodded. “In the gears, below stage. It’s not pretty.”

Gasquine paused, her foot on the first step leading up to the stage. “Tyrseis. The Starsmith forge his soul anew.”

Duca touched his forehead in respect, and Eslingen, belatedly, copied him.

“Did a rope break?” Gasquine began, and answered her own question. “No, the cordage is new–and what was he doing down there anyway?”

“We don’t know,” Duca said. “But it may not be an accident, Mathiee. We’ve sent for the points.”

For a second, Gasquine looked old and tired, but then she straightened, pulling herself back together with an effort of will. “Good,” she said, and sounded as though she was trying to convince herself.

Rathe arrived within the half hour, flanked by a pair Eslingen recognized from the Dreams station. He quickly commandeered Gasquine’s replacement watchman, setting him to guard the single open door, then made his way onto the stage. He hardly looked as though he belonged there, Eslingen thought, a wiry, unexceptional man in a badly battered coat under the pointsman’s leather jerkin, but then he nodded to Gasquine, the gesture drawing all eyes, and Eslingen couldn’t repress a smile.

“Mathiee.” Although he spoke directly to the actress, Rathe was careful to let his voice carry, taking in the other authority, Duca’s and Aubine’s, as well. “I’m sorry to see you again, at least like this.”

Gasquine managed a wan smile. “As are we all, Nico. Gerrat says he doubts it was an accident, and I’m afraid so do I.”

Rathe nodded. “Who found the body?”

“Master Duca and his people. They were to have the stage early this morning.”

So much for that plan, Eslingen thought. As things were, they’d be lucky to get any work done at all today– and I suppose I should feel guilty for thinking it, but Seidos knows, there’s work enough to be done. Rathe’s eyes slid over him without acknowledgment, but then, as the pointsman turned back to face Gasquine, Eslingen thought he saw the hint of a smile.

“All right. Let’s get it over with. I take it the body’s below stage– and who found it, anyway?”

“We did,” Siredy said. “All of us together. Philip saw that a rope was missing, so naturally we looked to the machinery, and–”

He stopped abruptly, grimacing, and Eslingen said, “The body’s caught in the gears. It’s not nice.”

Rathe made a face as well, but nodded. “Show me.”

Duca pointed to the trapdoor, and de Vicheau, still pale, lifted the heavy boards. Rathe slid down easily enough, stood for a moment in the dark before Eslingen followed with a lantern. Rathe took it with a nod and moved forward into the shadows. Eslingen hung back, not wanting to see again, heard Rathe swear as he found the mangled body. There was a little silence then, Eslingen careful not to see, and then a scuffling sound, and Rathe came back, bringing the light with him. His expression, in the mage‑light, was unreadable, but he was rubbing one hand convulsively on the edge of his jerkin.

“Did someone identify the man?”

“Master Duca said he recognized him,” Eslingen said. “From the clothes.”

“Not from the face, by the look of him,” Rathe answered. He took a deep breath. “Was it like this when you found him?”

Eslingen nodded. “We didn’t touch anything, just came down to look, found him, and came away.”

“No lights?” Rathe asked, and Eslingen felt a perverse thrill of pride at having guessed the right question.

“None. The lanterns were hanging by the ladder.”

“And the trap was closed,” Rathe said.

“Both of them,” Eslingen answered.

Rathe sighed. “Are any of the scenerymen around?”

“I don’t think so,” Eslingen answered. “Unless Mathiee’s sent for them already.”

“She’d better,” Rathe said, and motioned toward the ladder. “Come on, let’s get back up. They’ll need help to get him out of there.”

Eslingen made a face at the all‑too‑vivid image, and heard one of the other pointsmen choke. He hadn’t realized they’d come down behind him until then.

“And we’ll want to know if the ropes gave way,” Rathe went on, as though he hadn’t heard, “or if anything else is wrong. Len, find something heavy and block off the other trap–these are the only two ways down, right, Philip?”

“As far as I know,” Eslingen answered, and pulled himself up onto the stage again.

“And then watch this one yourself,” Rathe went on. “Sohier, I want you to wait for the people from the deadhouse, see if you can slip them in discreetly–”

The pointswoman shook her head, the braided lovelock flying. “It’s not going to happen, Nico, I’m sorry. There’s already a crowd gathering, and the Five Rings is open for business.”

Rathe swore again. “I’ve a mind to call a point on them for contributing to the disturbance. All right, do what you can. Let’s hope they hurry.”

Gasquine had sent for her sceneryman already, and he arrived with the deadhouse carters and a knot of actors, the group swirling down the tunnel into the pit in a confusion of voices. Rathe straightened from his examination of the loosened rope, and bit back an exclamation of disgust. The apprentice alchemist–the same woman who’d collected de Raзan’s body, he saw without surprise–matched him stare for stare, but he ignored her, beckoned to Gasquine instead.

“Mathiee. Get your people under control, please–and now that they’re here, they can stay until I’ve had a word with them. Keep them here in the pit, and I’ll get to them as soon as I can.”

Gasquine nodded, turned away to give her own orders, and Rathe went on without a pause. “Leenderts, you watch the door. Make sure no one else gets in without my or Mathiee’s say‑so–”

“Adjunct Point!” That was the new watchman, hesitating at the head of the tunnel, and Rathe bit back another curse. “Adjunct Point, the chorus is here, or some of them, and what am I to tell them?”

“Tell them–” Rathe stopped, looking at the meager man, and swallowed what he would have said. “Sohier, hold the alchemists here, and wait for me. There’s a sceneryman to help with the machine.”

The alchemist nodded, clambering up the stairs behind the sceneryman.

“Right, Nico,” Sohier answered, and Rathe climbed back down to the pit. There were at least a dozen actors there, he saw, plus the masters and of course Aubine, standing among his flowers like a man bereft. I’ll deal with them later, he thought, and started back up the tunnel, only to stop short, seeing Eslingen and the younger master, Siredy, already standing in the now‑open door.

“My compliments to the vidame,” Eslingen was saying, his voice so polite as to be almost a parody, “and the rehearsal plans have changed again. If she’d be so good as to continue on to the Bells, the rehearsal will take place there instead.”

Someone–a woman in coachman’s livery, Rathe saw, her whip tucked up over her shoulder–asked a question, and Eslingen drew himself up to his full height.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m sure all your questions will be answered at the Bells.”

He stepped back, swinging the door closed almost in the coachman’s face, and looked back over his shoulder with a wry grin. “Sorry. The watch didn’t seem able to cope.”

Rathe nodded. “Thanks. Are they listening?”

“Reluctantly,” Eslingen answered. “They all want to know what’s going on.”

Rathe stooped to peer through the scratched and bubbled window that ran parallel to the doorway. As Sohier had warned, the tavern across the plaza was already open for business–two hours before its regular time, Rathe thought, and grimaced, seeing another serving girl scurry in the kitchen door. Clearly, the theatre murders were starting to rival The Drowned Islandin the popular imagination.

The long, low windows were crowded with staring faces, and there were still more people gathered along the edges of the square to stare and gossip. The alchemists’ cart stood ready, a flat‑faced man slouching on the tongue, shaking his head at a thin man in a torn coat. “So does everybody, it seems,” he said aloud, and waved the watchman forward. “Can you keep the door, Master–”

“Pelegrim.” The watchman touched his forehead again. “I’m doing my best, sir, honestly–”

“I’ll stay with him,” Eslingen offered. “Between us, we can keep things quiet.”

Rathe shook his head. “Actually, I may need you. But if you’d be willing to help Leenderts, Master Siredy…”

“Of course,” the other man said with a sweet smile, and the watchman ducked his head again.

“I’m doing my best, masters, all I can do.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Leenderts said, and Rathe nodded.

“I do my job,” the watchman said again, and Leenderts’s eyes met Rathe’s over the man’s shoulder.

Rathe nodded– the man’s been up to something, watch him– but there was no time to pursue the question as another knock sounded at the door. Pelegrim moved to answer it, Siredy at his back, and he waved Eslingen back toward the main house. “I’m sorry to do this, Philip,” he said aloud, “but there’s still the body to deal with.”

Eslingen grimaced, but nodded. “I’m at your disposal,” he said, and the tone was warmer than the formal words.

Sohier had collected both the sceneryman and the alchemists at the unblocked trap, saw them return with undisguised relief. “Nico–”

“The sooner you let us at the body, the sooner you’ll have your answers,” the alchemist said, riding over anything the pointswoman would have said, and Rathe took a breath, controlling his annoyance with an effort.

“Take them down, Sohier,” he said, and nodded to the sceneryman. “Master–?”

“Basa,” the sceneryman answered. He was an older man, easily a grandfather, with big hands marked by heavy, swollen joints. Retired from the river, maybe? Rathe guessed, when the winters got too hard to bear. “Pointsman, they tell me the machinery gave way, but I don’t see how. All the cordage, that’s all new, not two weeks old, we change all the ropes once a fortnight.”

“Expensive,” Eslingen said, and the sceneryman scowled.

“Cheaper than new actors.”

“Show me the rope that failed,” Rathe said, and the sceneryman pointed into the shadows.

“There’s not much to see, pointsman, that’s where that cable should be.”

“We noticed it was missing as soon as we looked,” Eslingen said.

Rathe nodded. “Show me,” he said again, and Basa hunched his shoulders.

“Over here.”

Rathe followed him into the wings, stepping carefully over cleats that held other ropes stretched taut, stopped as Basa crouched beside an opening in the floor. There was no sign of a rope there, but looking up, Rathe thought he could see the end of one dangling somewhere in the gloom overhead.

“Now, then,” the sceneryman said, and straightened, reaching for a pole that hung on the nearest pillar. It had a hook at one end, like a boathook, Rathe saw, and ducked as Basa reached up to catch a loop of leather that had been hanging, invisible, among the ropes. There was a rattle of metal, and then a length of rope dropped to the stage floor. Basa prodded at it, still scowling, then stooped again to hold it out like an accusation.

“Now, see there. That was in the brake.”

Rathe took it gingerly, not quite knowing what he was looking for. It was new cable, all right, still bright and barely scarred, five finger‑thick strands wound tight on each other. One end was bound with bright red cording, and the other hung loose, just starting to unwind from its tight twist.

“That’s not frayed,” Basa said. “And it’s not been cut, either. I’d stake my reputation on that.”

“So what then?” Rathe asked, and handed the length back to him. “A fault in the mechanism?”

Basa didn’t answer immediately, reversing the hook to probe through the hole in the stage floor, came up at last with a second length of rope. This one was still attached somewhere below, but the sceneryman caught it before it could slither back out of sight, laying it flat on the boards and pinning it with his hook.

“And that’s the other end.” He glared at it. “Not the mechanism, pointsman, but the splice, or at least that’s what someone wants you to think. But no line I mend gives way, not like this. There’s been murder done, pointsman, and I want it solved.”

Rathe stared at the new length of cable. It didn’t look that different from the first one, the same bright new rope, one end a little more frayed than the first one had been, and he looked back at Basa. “You’re saying that this was, what, unraveled?”

“See there?” Basa pointed with his toe, keeping the hook firmly on the length of line. Rathe squinted, thought he saw a length of thinner rope among the heavy strands. “The binding, there, see? The rope was spliced and the join bound off to make it stronger, that’s the way we always do it here. But someone’s unbound it, to make you think the rope failed.”

Rathe nodded slowly. “And you’re telling me–forgive me, Master Basa, but are you saying that the rope couldn’t have failed? That this join couldn’t have given way?”

Basa’s eyes flickered, and he shrugged one shoulder. “All right, I’ll never say never could happen. But I’ve never seen it done before.”

“What if the brake gave way?” Rathe asked again, and Basa shook his head.

“If the brake had let go, you’d find the whole coil down below, not just a part of it.”

Not that I expected anything different, not the way things have been going. Rathe took a deep breath, and Sohier appeared in the opening of the trap. Her face was very pale, but she had her voice well under control.

“Excuse me, Nico, but the alchemists would like a word with you. And with the sceneryman, if you please.”

Rathe nodded, glanced at Basa. “I’m sorry to do this, but–I think they’ll need your help getting the body free of the machinery.”

Basa made a face. “Oh, yeah. But I’ll need some backs to work the windlass, with the brake off.”

“How many?” Rathe asked.

“Three, at least,” Basa answered. “Four’s better.”

“Sohier and me,” Rathe said, and Eslingen’s head rose.

“And me, if you’d like.”

“Thanks,” Rathe said, and looked at Basa. “Enough?”

“It’ll do.”

They climbed back down into the understage, and Rathe was grateful for the overwhelming smell of the oil that coated the gears and the massive turnshaft. The alchemists were clustered around the body, mage‑lights poised to cast as much light as possible, and Rathe looked away from the too‑vivid picture. The woman apprentice– Ursine, Fanier had named her–looked over her shoulder at their approach, and came to join them, wiping her hands on her leather apron. There were new smears on it already, Rathe saw, and swallowed hard.

“You don’t deal in the common run of deaths, do you?” Ursine shook her head. “Dis Aidones, what a mess.”

And for an alchemist to say so… Rathe killed the thought, said, “What can you tell me?”

“Well, he’s dead for sure,” Ursine said with a fleeting smile. “But I’m not happy about this one, Adjunct Point. He–well, Master Fanier can say for sure, but I’d lay money he didn’t die where he’s lying.”

“Seidos’s Horse,” Eslingen said, and Rathe grimaced.

“You mean he died, or was killed, somewhere else, and then put into the machine?”

Ursine nodded, rubbing her hands on her apron again. “That would be my guess, Adjunct Point. But, as I say, Master Fanier can say for sure.”

“That’s an ugly thought,” Eslingen said, and Rathe nodded. It wasn’t hard to guess why someone would do it–the gears had crushed the man’s torso, would hide even a stab wound or a bullet hole, and without the alchemists’ testimony, there was a good chance that it would be taken for an accident–but it argued a colder heart than he’d thought they were dealing with. And it’s exactly the opposite of de Raзan’s death, he thought suddenly. He was found dead without apparent cause, with no chance of it being an accident, while what killed the watchman is almost too obvious, and almost too obviously an accident.

“I want to know as soon as possible,” he said aloud, and Ursine nodded again.

“We’ve done as much as we can here,” she said. “But I’m not sure of the best way to get him out of there.”

“I can help.” That was Basa, his voice cracking, and he cleared his throat. “Give me a minute, sir, dame, and I’ll get the machines switched over.”

He was as good as his word, pulling levers to move heavy bands of leather from one shaft to the next, careful to check each length of rope before he finally took his place at the main controls. “If you’ll take the windlass, pointsman–no, the other way–and just take up the strain…”

Rathe took his place at one of the long poles, saw Sohier and Eslingen do the same. He leaned his weight against the length of wood, felt the others doing the same, and then, slowly, the windlass moved, easily at first, and then more stiffly. The enormous shaft that ran the length of the understage turned with it, and there was a sigh of metal on metal as the great gears trembled behind them.

“Ready?” Basa called, and one of the alchemists lifted a hand.

“We’re ready.”

“Stay clear of the gears,” Basa warned, and Rathe bit down on unhappy laughter. Not that anyone should need that warning, with that object lesson staring them in the face.

“Clear,” the alchemist answered, and Basa dropped his hand.

“Go.”

Rathe threw his weight against the lever. There was a moment of resistance, and then it turned, more easily than he would have expected. The shaft turned, smooth and silent, and there was a muffled exclamation as the gears turned backward.

“Stop.”

Basa jerked two levers even as he spoke, and Rathe felt the windlass freeze under his hand. He straightened, catching a glimpse of the alchemists bending over the hunched body, and saw Basa, his face averted, adjusting levers and belts to hold everything in its place again.

“We’ll get on this one right away,” Ursine said, jerking her head toward the body, and Rathe nodded.

“I’d appreciate it,” he said, and Basa turned toward him.

“Pointsman–Adjunct Point. How soon can we–when can I bring my people down here, clean this up? The blood… I don’t want rats.”

Rathe swallowed hard, saw both Sohier and Eslingen flinch at the image. “We’re done,” he said aloud. “So the rest of it’s up to Mathiee.”

“Thank you,” Basa said, and shook his head. “Sweet Tyrseis, what a–the poor bastard.”

“Did you know him?” Rathe asked, almost on impulse, and the sceneryman shrugged.

“Not well. The actors would know him better. Who’d want to kill a man like him?”

“Like what?” Rathe asked, but the sceneryman was already out of earshot, scrambling back up the ladder to the stage itself. Rathe sighed, and looked at Sohier. “I’ll want an answer to that question. Let’s go.”

Gasquine was waiting on the stage, talking in an undervoice to the playwright. Aconin had changed his dark wig for one as pale as summer wine, and for once he looked genuinely worried. Rathe made a face–the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with Aconin– and beckoned to Sohier.

“You start with the actors, and any of the stagehouse staff. You know what I want, anything that might tell us why the man was killed. And I’ll talk to Mathiee.”

“He was the watchman,” Sohier said, and nodded. “You never know what he might have seen.”

Rathe nodded in agreement, and moved toward the company manager. She saw him coming, and broke off her conversation with Aconin, came toward him with a hand outstretched. “Is it–”

She broke off, as though she didn’t want to put it into words, and over her shoulder Aconin made a face.

“What else could it be, Mathiee?”

“An accident.” Gasquine frowned at him, but the playwright seemed not to see.

“What an ugly irony it would be if the man died for actually doing his duty. You couldn’t use it in a play.”

“ ‘Doing his duty’?” Rathe repeated, and looked at Gasquine. “I’m sorry, Mathiee, it’s most likely that this wasn’t an accident, so I’ll need to know anything you can tell me about him.”

“Tyrseis,” Gasquine said, and shook her head. “He’s been–he had been one of my watchmen for, oh, I suppose it’s been five years now. His father was an actor, comic parts, before your time, I think, but talented.”

“You gave him the job for his father’s sake?” Rathe asked, and Gasquine shrugged.

“Partly, I suppose. And I know his sister, too, she’s a seamstress–he lived with her and her man. So when I needed a watchman, and heard he was looking for work, it seemed to be a good match. He was willing enough.”

“So you’re saying he had no enemies that you know of,” Rathe said, though he thought he already knew the answer.

Gasquine shook her head again. “None, and I can’t imagine any. There are men who are born to be uncles, Nico, you know the sort, big sweet men who don’t want a household of their own, but live to indulge your own children. That was Artinou to the life, and he treated the actors all the same way. He was always doing them favors, carrying notes and flowers, that sort of thing.”

“And being well paid for it, too,” Aconin said.

Gasquine rounded on him with a frown. “And you, Master Aconite, can mind your tongue when you speak of the dead.”

“I don’t say he didn’t mean well,” Aconin said. “I believe he did. But be fair, Mathiee. He took coin for his pains, as much as any watchman did.”

“Master Aconin,” Rathe said. “What was it you meant about Artinou doing his duty for once?”

For the first time, the playwright looked uneasy. “Mathiee can tell you better than I can.”

“There’s no point in bringing that up,” Gasquine said, through clenched teeth.

Rathe suppressed a sigh. He’d seen this reaction a hundred times before, the grief that wanted only to see the best in the dead, and he made his voice as gentle as he could. “It could be important, Mathiee, you know that–might explain something.”

Gasquine grimaced, but nodded. “I had to speak to him yesterday. Some of the actors–not the chorus, just the actors–came to me and said things had been moved about in the dressing rooms.”

“Stolen?” Rathe asked, and Gasquine shook her head.

“No, that was the odd thing. I mean, theft’s a constant problem, there’s always someone new to the city who doesn’t know the jewels are paste–I can’t count the number of times we’ve redeemed Anfelis’s Crown from pawn, we’ve practically got an account with the old woman.” She broke off with an apologetic smile. “And actors are careless, they leave things about that they shouldn’t. But, no, nothing was stolen, just–moved around, or so the actors told me. And from what they said, it seemed it must have happened overnight. So I told Artinou to take special care to make sure the house–all of it, stage and backstage and understage and the house, too–was locked tight and no one was there who shouldn’t be.”

“And then he was found dead,” Rathe said.

Gasquine looked stricken. “Oh, Tyrseis. I wish I hadn’t said anything.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Aconin said. “You had to say something.”

“Did you know about these–disturbances?” Rathe asked, and the playwright hesitated, then shook his head in turn.

“Not I. By hearsay only. You’d have to talk to the actors about that.”

“I’ll do that,” Rathe answered, and looked back at Gasquine. “With your permission, of course, Mathiee.”

“Of course.” Gasquine took a deep breath. “Oh, Nico, I so wish this hadn’t happened.”

And not just for the sake of the play, either, Rathe thought, though that had to be looming in her mind. The company owner seemed genuinely distressed. He murmured what he hoped was a soothing response, and glanced at the knot of actors gathered now in the pit. Sohier was talking to one of them, a tall, lanky woman whom Rathe had always seen playing the heroine’s best friend, and the rest seemed to be trying to listen without actually being caught eavesdropping. Guis Forveijl was among them, carefully not meeting Rathe’s eye, but also Gavi Jhirassi, and in spite of himself, Rathe’s mood lifted. Jhirassi was as keen an observer as any actor, and more to the point, he could be trusted.

“Gavi,” he called, and the younger man turned at once. His hair had been cropped short for The Drowned Island, to accommodate the young hero’s massive wigs, and the short curls set off the sharp bones of his face, made him look like a Silklands carving. “Over here, if you would.”

Jhirassi moved to join him, and Rathe climbed down the short stairs into the pit, moving him away from the other actors. He was aware of Forveijl’s eyes following them, and did his best to ignore it, took a deep breath of air that smelled suddenly and strongly of Aubine’s plants.

“What’s all this about things being–disturbed–in the dressing rooms?”

Jhirassi raised his eyebrows, spread both hands in a gesture that was gracefully uncertain. “What about it? A bunch of us complained to Mathiee–you don’t mean that’s why poor Artinou was killed?”

“I don’t know,” Rathe answered. “And, frankly, Gavi, I don’t even know exactly what happened, so…”

He let his voice trail off, and Jhirassi gave a wincing smile. “Sorry. We’re all a bit–unsettled–today.” He took a breath, visibly collecting his thoughts. “Sorry. What happened. Well, it wasn’t much, really, but it was disturbing, thinking someone had been in the dressing rooms. It was like someone had been through everything, all our goods and clothes–”

“Looking for something, do you think?” Rathe asked.

Jhirassi gestured helplessly. “I don’t think so? I don’t know. There was enough for the taking, Tyrseis knows, I’d left a nice gilt chain by mistake, but it was there, just moved from one hook to another. And some clothes were taken out of the press, Guis’s coat was dropped in a corner–”

“That could have been Guis,” Rathe said, in spite of himself, remembering Forveijl’s habits, and Jhirassi grinned.

“No, I saw him hang it up this time. The wardrobe mistress was going to fine him if he didn’t take better care of it, and she did charge him a demming anyway.” His smile vanished. “And there was more. All the paint pots were moved around–one was broken, Anjesine’s best rouge–and she had a posy for her throat, tea herbs, and they’d been pulled apart and rearranged.” He paused. “I think that was the strangest thing, someone bothering to rearrange a bunch of herbs.”

Rathe nodded. “Tell me about Artinou.”

“What’s to tell?” Jhirassi made a face. “I’m sorry, that sounds terrible, but he was the watchman. I didn’t know him very well.”

“Aconin says he ran errands for people, carried notes and such.”

“So do all the watchmen,” Jhirassi answered. “If anything, Artinou had more sense than most–he could remember who you wanted to see, and who was being hinted away.”

“A useful talent,” Rathe said. And potentially a dangerous one, if the watchman had remembered more than he should. He took the actor through the rest of his questions without learning more than he’d already heard from Gasquine, and when he’d finished stood for a moment, hands on hips, trying to decide who to question next. Sohier was working her way through the actors; maybe he should leave them to her, he thought, and concentrate on the masters. Even as he thought that, Eslingen stepped into his line of sight.

“Excuse me, Adjunct Point?”

Rathe frowned at the formal address, and Eslingen took a step closer.

“If I could have a word?”

Rathe’s frown deepened, but he nodded, stepping back out of earshot of the group still gathered in the pit.

“I think there’s someone here who doesn’t belong,” Eslingen said. “He’s not one of the actors, or a master–I thought he was Aubine’s man, but his lordship says not.”

“Where?” It took all of Rathe’s self‑control not to turn and stare. It had been known to happen, murderers returning compulsively to the scene of their crimes, particularly when a madman was involved…

“Toward the back of the pit,” Eslingen answered. “On the edge of the group of actors–by the biggest tub of plants. He’s an older man, brown coat, brown hair.”

Rathe nodded, letting his eyes drift sideways, scanning the crowd. The edges of the pit were in shadow, the sunlight that filtered through the canvas roof not adding much to the mage‑lights, but he found the man at last, leaning on the edge of the handcart that had carried Aubine’s plants. And that was probably how he’d gotten in, Rathe guessed, offering to help carry pots and then staying after Aubine had paid him off. No one would have noticed him, just another laborer.

“You know him,” Eslingen said, eyes narrowing, and Rathe nodded.

“Oh, yeah. All too well. That’s Master Eyes himself, come to see the scandal.”

“Master Eyes.” From the look on Eslingen’s face, he recognized the name– and well he should, considering how many broadsheets came from the bastard’s pen, Rathe thought. Not that Eyes wrote them himself, or not all of them, but his name, and his too‑astute observations, filled reams of paper. “What do we do about him?”

Rathe sighed. “He doesn’t have any right to be here, and I’m sure Mathiee would be glad to see his back, if she knew he was here. So I’ll do her a favor, kick him out myself–if you’ll help.”

“Of course.”

Rathe smiled lopsidedly. “Bear in mind that he has a lot to say about actors, and the Masters of Defense, for that matter.”

“I’m hardly important enough to catch Master Eyes’s notice, surely,” Eslingen answered. “What do you want me to do?”

It was hardly that simple, Rathe knew, but he didn’t have time to warn Sohier. Eyes would be gone at the first hint of trouble, fading back into the shadows where he could lose himself, where he could stay hidden until the theatre was cleared. “Get between him and the stairs–casually, like you’re looking for a place to catch a nap.”

“The Masters of Defense,” Eslingen said with dignity, “do not take naps during rehearsal.”

Rathe grinned in spite of himself. “For a tryst, then, or whatever it is the masters do allow themselves to do. Then I’ll flush him out.”

Eslingen nodded. “I’m at your service, Adjunct Point.”

He turned away, threading his way between the benches, and Rathe reached for his tablets, made a minor show of opening them, carving letters into the stiff wax. Not for the first time, he felt foolish, playacting in front of actors, but no one seemed to notice. Sohier was talking to another woman now, one of the masters, Rathe thought, and behind them he saw Eyes moving closer, easing toward them in hopes of catching a word or two. He ducked his head over the tablets again, not wanting to alarm the man, a part of his mind wondering if Eyes could have anything to do with these murders, or at least with Artinou’s death. By his previous record, there wasn’t much Eyes wouldn’t do to find a scandal he could sell to the printers–but then, Rathe amended, on his previous record, Eyes was more likely to invent scandal than to create it himself. He was not notably a man of his hands, preferred to let his pen do his fighting for him. Rather like Aconin in that, Rathe thought, and glanced up at the stage. The playwright was still there, standing a little apart from the others, arms folded across his chest as though he was cold. He was looking at something in the middle distance, Rathe realized, and frowning slightly, let his eyes follow the playwright’s gaze, found himself looking at the landseur Aubine, fussing over an uncovered tub of flowers. They were beautiful, brought to bloom only a few months early, the vivid blue stars of spring greeters bright even in the dimly lit theatre. He had a bank of them himself, tucked into a sheltered corner of his shared garden–they grew from corms, too, though far humbler than anything sold at market–had told himself it was for the bulb, good against fever, but the truth of it was, the bright flowers always lifted his spirits. They bloomed always in the last weeks of the Spider Moon, shoving up through snow if necessary, a full two weeks before the hardiest spring flowers showed their heads. They seemed an odd choice for the masque, there was no magistical significance that he knew of, but then, the color was certainly bright enough to show well in the theatre.

Eslingen was in position, leaning into a swordsman’s stretch that brought him between Eyes and the nearest staircase, and Sohier, Rathe saw, was between him and the tunnel that led to the door. He folded his tablets, trying to look casual, and took a careful step toward the group of actors. Eyes stayed where he was, still shadowed, then, as Rathe came closer, took a slow step backward, putting another tub of plants between himself and the approaching pointsman. Rathe kept coming, hurrying now, and Eyes took another backward step, almost tripping over a bench. Rathe allowed himself a grin, and the other man turned to run, stepping up onto and over the nearest bench. Eslingen straightened to attention, and Rathe shouted, “Hold him!”

Eyes darted sideways, floundering in the narrow space, and Eslingen lunged, caught him by the collar of his coat. The broadsheet writer writhed in his grip, trying to shed it, but Eslingen had him by the shirt as well, dragged him back and around until he could catch one arm and bend it backward.

“Is this your murderer, Adjunct Point?”

The guileless voice carried clearly, and actors and masters alike turned to stare. Rathe hid a grin– trust Philip to carry through–and managed a sober shake of the head. “No, I don’t believe so. But he doesn’t have any business here that I know of.”

“Master Eyes!”

The exclamation came from the actors, quickly stifled, and Rathe looked up at the stage, to see Gasquine staring down at them, something like horror filling her face. “He’s not part of your company, is he, Mathiee? Or yours, Master Duca?”

Gasquine shook her head warily. “Not of my company, no…”

“Nor mine,” Duca said, voice grim, and behind the writer’s shoulder Eslingen showed teeth in a cheerful smile.

“Then maybe he is your murderer.”

“Don’t think I don’t know who you are,” Master Eyes said. His voice was clear, tinged with a southriver accent. “And I know what you are to him, so don’t play games.”

“The only thing Orian ever murdered was a reputation,” Aconin said, from the stage. “But he has slain a few of those.”

“Master Eyes,” Rathe said, and felt the attention focus again on him, actors and masters alike. This must be something like what it felt like to be onstage, he thought, and wondered vaguely how they stood it. “You’re not of this company–of either company. I will have to ask you to leave.”

Eyes smiled with easy contempt. He was, Rathe thought remotely, surprisingly handsome, a pleasant face under brown hair just starting to show threads of grey, not at all what one would expect from his acid writing. “I’ll leave if I must, Adjunct Point. But don’t think I haven’t seen and heard more than enough to fill a dozen broadsheets.”

“I daresay you have,” Rathe answered. “But bear in mind you are talking about the masque. There’s a printer’s ban on the details, so I’d be very careful what I said, if I were you.”

Eyes laughed. “A good try, Adjunct Point, but it won’t wear. Besides, everyone is much more interested in the details of these deaths. The masque itself pales in comparison–no criticism meant of Master Aconite.”

It was true enough, and Rathe sighed. “Bring him, please, Lieutenant.”

Eslingen nodded, increasing the pressure on Eyes’s wrist until the writer gasped and took an involuntary step forward. Eslingen smiled, quite sweetly, and edged the man toward the tunnel. Rathe followed, taking a savage pleasure in the writer’s discomfort. He’d earned it, Sofia knew–but of course Eyes probably counted it as one of the hazards of his profession. Leenderts was still with the watchman and Siredy, the door barred behind them, and Rathe paused, beckoning to the other pointsman.

“Len. I need to make someone known to you.”

Leenderts nodded, his expression questioning, and Rathe smiled. “This is Orian Fiormi, better known to all of us as Master Eyes.”

Leenderts’s eyes widened almost comically, and Eyes swore under his breath. Anonymity was his stock in trade, Rathe knew, and allowed his smile to widen in turn. “Remember him,” he said, and Leenderts nodded.

“Absolutely, Adjunct Point. I won’t forget.”

“Good.” Rathe nodded to the doorkeeper. “Master Eyes was leaving.”

The doorkeeper nodded, scrambling to unfasten the bar and turn the heavy lock, and Eslingen eased his grip on the writer. Eyes straightened his shoulders, shrugging his coat back into place, looked from one to the other.

“You can’t stop the stories,” he said. “And Mathiee might have liked to have some say in them.”

“You can take that up with Mathiee,” Rathe answered. “Though I doubt you would have, frankly, offered her the chance. It’s so much easier to make things up out of whole cloth than to have to fit in unaccommodating things like facts. But this is a points matter, and you have no business with it.”

The door was open at last, and he nodded toward it. Eyes swept him a mocking bow, and stalked away, the skirts of his coat billowing in the breeze.

“Tyrseis,” Siredy said. “He’ll quarter us for that.”

“I hope not,” Rathe answered. “Or at least maybe he’ll put the blame where it belongs.”

“Master Eyes is never fair,” Siredy said.

That was all too true, and Rathe sighed. Eyes had seen the shrouded body carried out, had heard at least some of the actors’ gossip, knew as much and probably more than anyone except the murderer about de Raзan’s death… No, this was not going to make him friends in Dreams, and Trijn in particular was going to be livid. Keep things out of the broadsheets as long as possible, she had said, and if anyone could spot the political implications of the chorus, it would be Master Eyes. He shook himself then. That was borrowing trouble; still, the best thing to do would be to go straight to Trijn, and tell her what had happened.

He made it back to Dreams station in record time, but Trijn herself had gone out. Rathe stared down at the daybook, flipping back through the pages to hide his relief. He could leave her a note, then, and spare himself the lecture– or, more likely, put it off until tomorrow. Still, it was a reprieve of sorts, and he flipped back through another day’s entries, wondering if he should go to the deadhouse himself. Fanier would do the job as quickly and efficiently if he wasn’t there, but a part of him felt as though he should be present, somehow help shepherd the body through the alchemist’s rites. And that was foolish, he knew, and turned another page. Voillemin had been to Little Chain, he saw, and frowned as he read the brief notation. Spoke with stallholder, who had a story about flowers bought according to the Alphabet. Misadventure?

“What do you know about this?” he asked, and the duty point– Falasca again–looked up quickly.

“Not much. He’s been working on a report for a couple of days now.”

“Do you know if he ever spoke to Holles?” Rathe saw the woman shrug, and said, “Leussi’s leman. The one who found the body.”

“Oh.” Falasca shook her head. “I don’t think so–but of course I could be wrong. I think, my impression is, that he thinks this wraps up the case. He said something about the matter being resolved.”

“Resolved.” It was an odd word, not one that went with murder, and Rathe had to take a careful breath to control his anger. “Do you know what he found?”

“No,” Falasca answered. “I’m sorry.”

“Is Voillemin in?” Even as he asked, Rathe knew it was a forlorn hope, and Falasca shook her head again.

“He has the night watch, sir, he won’t be in until after second sunrise.”

Another four hours. Rathe looked back at the daybook, at Voillemin’s neat, well‑schooled handwriting. If he really had found information that would allow him to–resolve–the investigation surely he would have made his report by now; if the information wasn’t good enough, surely he would have spoken to Holles. Which meant that his fears, and Holles’s, were coming true: Voillemin was looking for a way to brush the case aside. He shook himself, frowning now at his own suspicions. It was just as possible that Voillemin was being conscientious, was making sure his conclusions could be justified, before he committed his opinion to a report–but if that were the case, why hadn’t he talked to Holles yet? Rathe hesitated, then reached for his daybook to copy the name and direction of the stallholder who claimed to know so much. It wasn’t his business to check up on Voillemin, and the regents would have a fit if they ever found out, but he couldn’t not follow up on this, if only for Leussi’s sake. With any luck, he’d simply confirm what Voillemin had found, and everyone could rest easier.

He crossed the Sier at the landings beside the Chain Tower, where in generations past the first watch towers had protected the city against attack from the west. The city had spread beyond the towers now, and it had been at least a hundred years since queen or regents had ordered chain strung from jetty to jetty to foul enemy ships, but the massive links were still stacked ready, greased and rewound twice a year by the Pontoises, the company of boatmen responsible for law on the river. Today a pack of children, too young even to work as runners, were playing tag around the pile of iron, their cries carrying like riverbirds’ in the cold air. The boatman was surly, sunk into a triple layer of heavy jerseys, fingers wrapped in wool beneath the leather palms, and Rathe was glad to pay him his fee, resolving to walk back to the Hopes‑point Bridge before he ventured on the water again.

Voillemin’s note had said that the woman was a stallholder in the Little Chain market, but a single glance at the stall, well painted and double‑sized, with cressets already lit against the gathering dusk and a banner of a star and bell, was enough to make Rathe swear under his breath. Whatever else Levee Estines was, she was more than a mere stallholder, and Voillemin should have known better than to take her that lightly. The woman herself was not at the stall, but the man who tended it, busy among jars and baskets of dried herbs and flowers, pointed him willingly enough to his mistress’s house. The house itself was neat and well kept, new plaster bright between the beams, and a glasshouse leaned against the southern wall where it could take the sunlight. The glass was fogged now, and in spite of everything Rathe felt a slight pang of envy. Glasshouses were expensive to build, even more expensive to heat through Astreiant’s long winter; his mother had always wanted one, and in the same breath called them a waste of coin and effort. This one was small, just a lean‑to, really, so that even a small woman would have to crouch to tend the plants on the lowest shelves, but he could see greenery through the clouded glass, and knew it was doing its job.

The maidservant who answered his knock seemed unsurprised to find a pointsman on their doorstep, and ushered him into what at second glance had to be a buyer’s receiving room. It faced away from the glasshouse, the single window giving onto what in the summer had to be an uncommonly pretty garden, and Rathe took a step toward it anyway, admiring the shapes of the empty beds. Half a dozen corms stood ready in forcing jars, already sending up vigorous green shoots, and he wondered again exactly what Estines’s trade was. Herbs and flowers, from her stall, but did she also trade in medicines, or perfumes, or even food, or just in the raw materials?

“Adjunct Point?” The voice broke off. “Oh. You’re not who I expected.”

Rathe turned to see a round woman frowning at him from the doorway. Her hair was caught up under a lace cap, her only concession to fashion, and as though she’d guessed his thought she shook her skirts down from where they’d been caught up for work.

“My name’s Nicolas Rathe, mistress, from Point of Dreams. I understood you wanted to speak to someone from our station.”

“But I spoke to someone.” Her voice was wary, and Rathe made himself smile. This was one of the reasons that checking up on a fellow pointsman was difficult.

“I know. To Adjunct Point Voillemin, right?”

“Yes.” Estines drew the word out into two syllables.

“I have some reason to believe that this case is connected to one of mine,” Rathe lied. “So I wondered if you could spare me a few moments to talk to me as well.”

“Connected?” Estines’s eyes grew very round. “Oh, surely not. That would be–” She checked herself and repeated, “Surely not.”

Damn Voillemin for not putting in his reports on time. Rathe said, “Oh? Why do you say that?”

Estines looked as though she wished she hadn’t spoken. “I don’t want to tell you your business, I know nothing of points’ affairs–”

Rathe smiled again, tried for his most soothing voice. “You sent to us, said you had information on the intendant Leussi’s death. What was that?”

“But I told the other man,” Estines said.

“I’d like to hear it again, from you.” It was one of the oldest tricks in the book, but Estines nodded slowly.

“Please, Adjunct Point, sit down,” she said, and seated herself in the chair closest to the hearth. A fire had been laid there some hours ago, by the look of the embers, but Rathe seated himself opposite her, grateful for the steady warmth. Estines folded her hands together, setting them on her knees like a schoolgirl. “I sent for you because the intendant had been a customer of mine, for flowers and such–I grow flowers for half the houses in Hearts, Adjunct Point, and herbs for the midwives, too.”

“I saw your stall,” Rathe said, “and your garden.”

Estines allowed herself a shy smile. “Thank you.”

“And the intendant?” Rathe prompted, when she seemed disinclined to continue, and Estines made a face.

“As I said, a customer of mine. And he came to me two weeks before he died–or at least I think it was then he died, the other pointsman wouldn’t tell me when, exactly, as if I’d sell it to the printers. But he came to me to buy flowers out of season–I have a glasshouse, and I make that a specialty of mine, I pride myself that I can have any flower all year long. At any rate, to make the story short, he came to me with a list of flowers that he wanted, and I had them all. But what struck me–you must understand, my dearest friend is a printer in University Point, she’s just done an edition of the Alphabet, a licensed edition–he was reading from a list, just like one of the posies the book calls for. I’m sure he was making a posy, and–” She broke off, ducked her head, her fingers tightening on each other. “I was afraid it might somehow have harmed him.”

“A posy from the Alphabet,” Rathe said. “Not your friend’s book?”

“Oh, no.” Estines shook her head for emphasis. “Not that edition. But there are so many, and I thought… Of course, I don’t know it was the Alphabet, but it seemed so odd, the choices, and so with the play and everything, I thought that had to be it. The other pointsman seemed to think so.”

Voillemin would, Rathe thought. No wonder he’d said “resolved” and “misadventure.” This was the perfect excuse, some experiment that went wrong and could be safely brushed aside, smoothed over to the content of the regents– and I suppose it could be that. Except I think Holles would have known. He said, “Does that mean you remember what the flowers were, mistress?”

“Oh, yes.” Estines smiled again. “That was what struck me so oddly then, and later, too. They don’t–I don’t know if you know flowers, Adjunct Point?”

“A little.”

Estines nodded. “Moonwort and trisil and trumpet flower and red star‑vine, bound with lemon leaves and demnis fern.”

Rathe’s eyebrows rose. The flowers were individually pretty, and the trisil was strongly fragrant, but its sweetness would be buried under the still stronger scent of the lemon leaves, just as the moonwort would be lost under the showier blooms of the trumpet flower. And the demnis fern was just the wrong shade of green to match the others.

Estines nodded again, harder this time. “You see. Not a posy for looks, or for any herbal use I know. So of course I thought of the Alphabet.”

And Leussi had a copy, Rathe remembered suddenly, a copy that’s locked in my own strongbox even now. Is that why Holles gave it to me? He shook the thought away–Holles was not the sort to play games, at least in their short acquaintance–and reached for his tablets again. “You’re sure of that list, mistress?”

“Completely sure,” Estines answered. “It’s my trade.”

That was unanswerable, and Rathe quickly jotted down the names. “Had he ever bought bunches like that before?”

“Never. Usually he liked seasonal flowers, small things, posies for a gift and the like.” Estines sighed. “He said once his leman didn’t like flowers, so he bought them for other people. I thought that was sad, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Rathe said. And it was sad, though not just for Leussi’s sake, meant that Holles would be unlikely to know anything about his leman’s research. But Voillemin still should have questioned him, he thought, and folded his tablets again. “Mistress, I thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

“You’re welcome.” Estines stood stiffly, easing her back. “Adjunct Point, I wonder. I understand you can’t tell me when he died, that would be improper, I was told, but I did wonder–I would hate to think my flowers had anything to do with his death.”

Rathe gave her a sharp look, but saw only honest ‑grief in her round face. “I don’t know, mistress. On the face of it, it seems unlikely.”

“But the Alphabet…” Estines let her voice trail off, and Rathe shook his head.

“I’ve yet to see a copy that can be said to be effective, and we– not just Dreams, but all the stations–have examined forty or fifty copies. So far, it looks like just another midwinter madness.”

“Like The Drowned Island,” Estines said, nodding. “Well, one can hope. I’m sorry to have troubled you, if it’s nothing.”

“No trouble at all,” Rathe answered, and followed her to the door. She let him out into the sharp chill herself, the air smelling strongly of a hundred fires, and he stood for a moment, trying to catch his breath and order his thoughts. If it were any other pointsman, he wouldn’t distrust the findings, would be willing to wait for the report, to see what other evidence could be mustered to support death by misadventure, but Voillemin was too eager to see this put aside. He would have to see Holles, he decided, ask about flowers, but first, he’d need to see if that posy was listed in Leussi’s edition of the Alphabet, and what it was supposed to do.

7

« ^ »

rathe made sure he was early to Point of Dreams, stirred up the fire in the workroom stove even as the tower clock struck nine, and reached for his tablets, unfolding them to reveal the list of flowers. Moonwort, trisil, trumpet flower, red star‑vine, bound with lemon leaves and demnis fern: not a common posy, he thought again, and fumbled for the key of the lockbox. If it was listed in Leussi’s copy of the Alphabet, he would have to talk to Holles, find out if Leussi had said anything about testing the formulae–though if he had, surely Holles would have mentioned it–and then… He shook his head unhappily. He still wouldn’t have positive proof that Voillemin was failing in his job, failing the points, might only have proved that Leussi’s death was after all misadventure–except for the bound ghost. That was the work of an enemy–or could it be some bizarre side effect of the flowers? It seemed unlikely, but b’Estorr might know, or would know who could tell him, if the posy was in the Alphabet. And he had been told not to pursue the matter. The best thing might be to take the whole thing to Trijn, and let her sort it out. She was the chief point, after all; Voillemin was her responsibility, and it was her responsibility to sort out what was really happening here. He made a face, wishing it was his case, that he didn’t have to sneak around the edges to try to make sure the job got done, and there was a knock at the door. He looked up as the door opened, and a runner peered through the opening.

“Sorry, sir, but this just came. It looked important.”

Rathe nodded, beckoned her inside. Whatever it was, it dripped with ribbon and seals, and he held out his hand. “Who brought it?”

“It was a runner from All‑Guilds,” the girl answered. “Stuck‑up little prig.”

All‑Guilds. From the regents? Rathe turned the letter over, his frown deepening as he recognized the symbols on the seals. It was from the regents, all right, and he could guess what it was about. “Is she waiting for a reply?”

“No, sir.” The runner shook her head. “Said she had other business. Silly cow.”

“Mind your manners,” Rathe said without heat. “All right, that’ll be all for now.”

“Yes, sir,” the girl answered, and backed away, pulling the door closed again behind her.

Rathe glared at the letter, then abruptly broke the seals. The broad pen strokes filled the page, a sprawling clerk’s hand ordering him to appear before the regents at half past ten, to answer for unwarranted interference in a matter he had already been forbidden to handle. He swore under his breath, wondering how Voillemin had found out– Falasca, of course; she would still have been on duty when he arrived the night before–and swore again, wondering which of the regents was acting as Voillemin’s patronne. The clock struck half past nine then, and he shoved his keys back into his pocket, carefully refolded the letter, and headed for Trijn’s workroom.

She greeted him with a preoccupied smile, but the expression faded as he shoved the regents’ letter under her nose. “What’s this?”

“Read it, please, Chief.”

She made a face, but skimmed the brief paragraph, finally leaning back in her chair to lift an eyebrow. “And what’s brought this on? Have you been meddling?”

Rathe grimaced. “Yes and no, Chief.”

“I’d have preferred a simple no.”

“Nothing’s ever that simple,” Rathe answered. He reached for the chair that stood beside her desk, seated himself at her nod. “First, Kurin Holles came to me to complain that Voillemin hadn’t talked to him at all–and it was Holles who found the body, never mind anything else. I told Holles I couldn’t interfere, but I’d speak to Voillemin, which I did, to tell him that he shouldn’t worry about hurting Holles’s feelings, he was more than willing to speak to the points.”

“And?” Trijn asked.

“At the same time, I saw someone had come from Little Chain saying she had information about the death, but Voillemin had written it off–said it was just a printer trying to get details for a broadsheet.” Rathe took a breath. “So I told him I thought he should speak to the woman.”

“It’s possible,” Trijn murmured, “but he should have gone. All right. Go on.”

“Then yesterday, after I dealt with another body at the Tyrseia– you did get my report on that matter?”

“I did,” Trijn said. “There are too damn many of them, Rathe. I suppose we’re still waiting for the alchemists’ report?”

Rathe nodded.

“Then I can assume you went to Little Chain yourself to talk to this woman.”

Rathe sighed. Put like that, he was at fault–he’d been warned off the case by the regents, for one thing, and for another, he had no right to interfere in another pointsman’s case without gross evidence of neglect. “I did,” he said, and Trijn made a face.

“Damn it, Nico, I thought better of you.”

“Chief.” Rathe took a careful breath. “I had cause–I had reason to think it was important. And I believe I was proved right. The woman who sent to us is a flower‑seller, she sold the intendant the makings of a bouquet that she believes came from an edition of the Alphabet, and which she feared might have harmed him.”

“That sounds like misadventure to me,” Trijn said.

Rathe shook his head. “The ghost was bound,” he reminded her, and she swore.

“So it was. Could it have been the Alphabet that bound him?”

“Chief, I don’t know. But I don’t think it can be written off until we find out.”

“Damn the man for a fool.” Trijn glared at the summons, then shoved it back across the tabletop. “And this–this is outside of enough. I’m not best pleased with you, Nico, you should have come to me, not handled it on your own, but Voillemin has overstepped himself. I’ll deal with him later, but in the meantime…” She lifted an eyebrow. “I’m glad you brought this to me. I’d half had you written down as the sort of hero who’d try to face them down by yourself.”

Rathe laughed, and knew Trijn heard the anger in it. “I’m not that much of a fool, Chief.”

“Then let’s be on our way.” Trijn rose gracefully to her feet, reaching for a fur‑trimmed cloak. “If they’re in such a hurry, they can deal with us in our working clothes.”

Rathe glanced down at his own coat, well aware that he’d worn it to shapelessness. Trijn, on the other hand, was almost as neat as a regent, though her wine‑red skirts were brighter. He looked even more common by contrast, wondered if it was fully wise to provoke the regents even further, but Trijn seemed unaware of any potential problem. “We’ll take a low‑flyer,” she said, and swept out of the narrow room.

They were early to All‑Guilds, thanks to a wall‑eyed coachman who took the bridge at a speed to make the apprentices curse him, but Trijn paid him off with a look almost of satisfaction. She led the way into the hall, moving through the chill passages with an unsettling familiarity, finally paused in the doorway of a clerks’ room to beckon the woman nearest the door. The blue‑robed woman, barely out of girlhood, rose with alacrity, smoothing her gown over her skirts, and bobbed a curtsy.

“Can I help you, madame?”

“Tell their mightinesses the regents that Chief Point Trijn–and Adjunct Point Rathe–are here now, and wish to see them.”

The clerk’s eyes widened, and for an instant Rathe thought she would protest, but Trijn raised an eyebrow. The clerk swallowed whatever she would have said, and bobbed another, deeper curtsy. “I’ll tell them, madame,” she said, and hurried off, her skirts billowing.

Trijn nodded with satisfaction, and Rathe’s eyes narrowed. If it had been left to him, he would have looked for a doorman, not a clerk, certainly wouldn’t have invaded the clerks’ working space even though that seemed to be the correct procedure. “You’re known here,” he said aloud, and Trijn gave a weary nod.

“I suppose it would out at some point. Yes, I’m known.” She forced a wry smile. “Most people have relations they would prefer not to claim. My burden is my sister. Madame Gausaron.”

“The grand bourgeoise,” Rathe said, and knew he sounded breathless.

“Herself.”

Rathe started to say something, then closed his mouth over the words. “I’m so sorry.”

Trijn choked back a laugh as the clerk reappeared, but there was no mistaking the amusement in her eyes.

“The regents will see you, madame,” the clerk said with another curtsy. “And sir.”

“Good,” Trijn answered, and the clerk flung open the heavy doors.

“Chief Point Trijn and Adjunct Point Rathe, of Point of Dreams.”

“You’re very peremptory, Chief Point,” Gausaron said from her place at the center of the dais, and Trijn shook her head. Even knowing they were kin, Rathe could see no similarity between them, wondered if they had perhaps had a different father.

“You have overstepped yourself, madame,” Trijn said. “What do you mean by summoning one of my people without notifying me? Courtesy alone would have required it, procedure demands it. If you have fault to find with my adjunct point, I expect to be notified of it first. It is my place to correct my people, not yours.”

“Adjunct Point Rathe has intervened in the matter of the Leussi death,” another regent said. She was a thin woman, with deep lines bracketing the corners of her mouth, the pallor of her skin set off by the deep, true black of her high‑necked gown. “As he was expressly forbidden to do. This was brought to our attention. If you cannot rectify the situation on your own, Chief Point, you must not be surprised when we are asked to intercede.”

Neat, Rathe thought. If Trijn says she didn’t know I’d interfered, that she didn’t know Voillemin was unhappy with it, they can accuse her of not keeping enough of an eye on her own affairs. He bit his tongue, knowing he had to keep silent as long as possible. He was his own worst enemy here– let Trijn handle it, he told himself, and clasped his hands behind his back, tightening his grip until his joints ached.

“The matter was brought to my attention this morning,” Trijn answered, “as it should have been, by the man whose concern it most is. The matter was brought to your attention because Voillemin is your spy in my point–and I will not tolerate that, madame, not a day longer. If you have a complaint, and I’m sure you have, you can address it to me now, as you should have done from the beginning.”

Gausaron’s mouth thinned. “As you well know, not only was the matter assigned to another, but Adjunct Point Rathe was explicitly ordered to keep his distance from it. And he has not done so.”

“The death of a royal intendant is a grave and delicate matter,” a third woman said. “We were certain you, Chief Point, would understand this.”

“It cannot be handled like a southriver tavern brawl,” Gausaron continued. “It must not bring embarrassment upon the family, who have suffered quite enough by this loss. Rathe’s–Adjunct Point Rathe’s actions threaten to bring offense to a very important family.”

“And those were?” Trijn asked.

Gausaron blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“What has Rathe done to bring offense to the family?” Trijn said. She spread her hands. “We are here at the request of the intendant’s leman–”

“His kin,” the thinfaced regent said. “His sister. By rights, she should have had the final say in this, it’s indulgence enough that we allowed it reopened without consulting her.”

That was true enough, and Rathe winced, hoping the regents didn’t see. A leman’s rights were limited in law; without a wife, Leussi’s legal kin would be the women of his mother’s family.

“There was a risk that this would all end up in the broadsheets,” the third regent said. She had a bright, high voice like a singing bird’s. “That would have been grave offense indeed.”

“And this is what Voillemin told you,” Trijn said, “that Leussi’s sister was afraid of the broadsheets.”

“She is a woman of probity and discretion,” Gausaron said. “One can hardly blame her for her fears.”

Trijn looked at Rathe. “Has this been noted in the daybook, Adjunct Point?”

Rathe shook his head. “No, Chief.”

“Then I must speak with Voillemin as well.” Trijn favored the regents with a bleak smile. “If such a warning is not posted, then it cannot be obeyed. You should be grateful that it was Rathe who spoke to the flower‑seller, not some excitable junior.”

“He should not have spoken to anyone concerned with this matter,” Gausaron snapped. “No one at all.”

“Adjunct Point Rathe came to me this morning to say that he had stumbled across evidence that Adjunct Point Voillemin had failed to fully follow–evidence that came to him in the course of other cases, and which, at this moment, seems to suggest misadventure rather than murder–and to ask me to take further action. Rathe is my senior adjunct, it is his right and duty to oversee the actions of the other pointswomen and ‑men under my authority.” Trijn glared at the regents, moderated her tone with an effort. “It is my considered opinion that he has behaved properly in this matter, and my very grave concern that Adjunct Point Voillemin has not. You yourselves would dismiss any clerk caught doing what he’s done.”

That was a home truth, Rathe thought, seeing heads nod almost involuntarily along the line of regents.

Gausaron frowned. “Adjunct Point Rathe acted against our express orders–”

“To do his duty,” Trijn countered. “And he has put the matter in my hands. Isn’t that right, Adjunct Point?”

“Yes, Chief,” Rathe said, his mouth suddenly dry. I’ve been manipulated just as neatly as the regents. I just hope I can trust her to carry through. But Trijn understood the issues, he told himself, understood why it might still be murder, would still be murder unless the plants had somehow also bound the dead man’s ghost. She wouldn’t let it go to appease a complaint that might never have happened.

Gausaron sat back in her chair, her face without expression. “Very well, Chief Point, we will accept your explanation. But if this comes before us again, we will recommend to the Surintendant of Points that he look to his stations with a more careful eye.”

Trijn’s gaze flickered at that, but she managed a court‑deep curtsy, her skirts almost puddling on the floor. Rathe bowed, knowing better than to copy her irony, and followed her from the room.

She did not speak again until they reached the main hall, where the cold air seeped in from the main doors to turn the floors to ice. Rathe held the smaller winter‑door open for her, and she swept past him into the sunlight of the open square. She stopped there, squinting against the sudden brightness, and shook her head.

“She’s going to go to Fourie, and expect him to listen to that?”

“He might not have a choice,” Rathe answered. Of course, with Fourie, he might advance Trijn to chief at Temple Point just to infuriate the regents: one could never predict how the surintendant might react.

“Fourie always has a choice,” Trijn answered. “That’s how he’s gotten as far as he has.” She took a breath. “I’ve backed you this far, Nico, and I expect you to help me now. Find me this formula, this recipe for a posy, and I’ll see it gets to the proper authorities at the university. I’m well aware it may still be murder, I won’t let myself be talked out of it to convenience the sister–if she even exists.”

“And Voillemin?” Rathe asked.

“Leave him to me.” Trijn gave a grim smile. “I will keep my eye on him, and on his handling of this matter–I’ll have him reporting to me on the hour like an apprentice, if I have to. But if the regents decide they have reason to summon you again, I may not be able to protect you.”

Rathe nodded. He’d been lucky to get away with this much, he knew, knew, too, that he would do it again. “I’ll be careful,” he said, and Trijn’s eyes narrowed as though she would comment on the ambiguity.

“See that you are,” she said after a moment, and lifted her hand to summon a hovering low‑flyer.

They made it back to Point of Dreams in less than record time, and Rathe resettled himself in his workroom to retrieve Leussi’s copy of the Alphabet of Desire. It looked like most of the others, a simple octavo volume with a formula in verse on the recto and a woodcut of the finished posy on the facing page. The woodcuts were better than most of the editions he’d seen, however, good enough that he could actually recognize most of the plants in the illustrations, and he paged slowly through it, looking for the bright spikes of the trumpet flowers. They appeared in perhaps a third of the woodcuts, he saw–in fact, the corms predominated, perhaps because they could be forced in all seasons–but finally he found the page for which he was looking. The posy was labeled “for Concord” and he made a face at the irony. If a posy intended to bring peace had somehow killed… Poor Leussi, he thought, and poor Holles. He reached for a scrap of paper, began copying out the formula while he thought out what he would say. He would send it to b’Estorr, he decided–well, he’d ask Trijn to send it to b’Estorr, but there was no reason he couldn’t write the query himself. Trijn would give him that much leeway. He finished copying the formula, added a quick note asking b’Estorr either to analyze it himself or to recommend a magist who could, and took the sheets along to Trijn’s office. She scanned them without comment, but nodded, scrawling her own name below his, and added the station’s seal.

“I’ll see this is sent,” she said. “Now, what about the theatre murders?”

“Still waiting for Fanier’s report,” Rathe answered, and retreated to his workroom.

The runner arrived a little after noon, not the deadhouse runner he’d been expecting, but a skinny boy on the edge of apprenticehood, his hair cut short except for the one long lovelock that aped the consorts of the bannerdames of The Drowned Island. Even if he hadn’t been wearing a badge identifying him as belonging to Point of Knives, the hair would have betrayed him, and Rathe eyed him without favor. No one among the points liked the idea that the inhabitants of the Court of the Thirty‑two Knives might take new pride in their disreputable past.

“Well?”

“Sorry, sir, but the chief–Head Point Mirremay thought you should be informed.”

The boy held out a folded scrap of paper–torn from an old broadsheet, Rathe saw, unfolding it, and he flattened it deliberately on his table before he scanned the flamboyant penmanship. Flamboyant and hard to read, he amended, squinting at letters scrawled with a pen that definitely needed mending, and looked up at the boy. “And?”

The boy seemed used to the question–as well he might be, if he had to deliver writings like this one on a daily basis, Rathe thought. He shifted his feet, hands clasped behind his back in a loose‑jointed parody of a soldier’s stance, and said, “Please, Adjunct Point, the– Head Point Mirremay says you might be interested in this complaint of Master Aconin’s.”

Rathe glanced at the note again. With that broad hint, he could make out the gist of the note, which was that Chresta Aconin had come to Point of Knives less than an hour ago with the complaint of a theft from his rooms. Someone–he couldn’t make out the name– had been dispatched to document the complaint, and what she had found had sent her pelting back to Mirremay. And Mirremay had sent for him. He looked back at the boy. “Tell me about it.”

The boy didn’t seem to need much encouragement, but then, runners rarely did. He bounced forward on his toes, then seemed to remember where he was, clasping his hands behind his back again. “Please, Adjunct Point, they say it was a mess, the worst anyone’s ever seen. Everything spoiled, and all his papers burned, and his coats cut up, and–” He stopped abruptly, as though remembering his dignity. “And the chief says she’d take it kindly if you’d lend a hand, seeing as you’re already dealing with the theatres.”

“Does she think they’re connected?” Rathe asked, but he was already on his feet, reaching for his coat.

“He’s the playwright.” The boy shrugged. “And the chief says she’d swear he knows what’s going on, but he says he doesn’t. And he doesn’t want you called in, I heard him arguing about it.”

Sofia forgive me, but that would probably make me go even if I didn’t already think it was important. Rathe shrugged on his jerkin, grateful for the extra layer, and slipped his truncheon into his belt. “All right, my boy, let’s get on with it.”

Point of Knives was exactly as he remembered it, a blocky, foursquare building that had once been an armory. It had been rebuilt since then, and the neighborhood’s clock perched awkwardly in an afterthought of a gable, but it still turned windowless walls to the street on three sides. The windows that faced the open market Square were little more than slits along the second floor. Dark and cheerless for any pointsman who lodged there, Rathe thought, with sympathy, and noisy, with the clock gears ticking and grinding overhead night and day. I’ll lay money Mirremay lodges elsewhere.

The doorway was thick and defensible, with old firing points hastily boarded over to keep out the chill, but it opened into a surprisingly pleasant day room smelling of herbs and only incidentally of dinner. There were a dozen mage‑lights spaced along the walls, supplemented in this cold weather by a hanging chandelier, and a pair of runners kicked their heels on a bench by the stove, each one at an end to make room for the dice and counters spread between them. A pointsman in a cracked jerkin was polishing his truncheon by the enormous empty fireplace, and a woman in last summer’s fashionable brimless cap looked up at their approach.

“Good, you found him. Thank you for coming, Adjunct Point, the chief will be glad to see you.”

“It sounded–intriguing,” Rathe said, and the man in the cracked jerkin looked up quickly.

“That’s one word for it–”

“If you’ll come with me?” the woman interrupted smoothly, and Rathe allowed himself a quick glance over his shoulder as he followed her. The pointsman’s head was down over his truncheon, and Rathe wondered what he would have said.

Mirremay’s workroom was on the second floor, almost at the head of the narrow stairs. It wasn’t at all as he had suspected it would be like, was, instead, a comfortable room, dominated by one of the narrow windows, and Rathe cocked his head, trying to hear the dull tick of the clock through the ceiling. Mirremay herself leaned one hip on the edge of her worktable, frowning at Aconin in the visitor’s chair. She was a short, round woman, with a heart‑shaped face and knowing amber eyes, and Rathe hid a frown, remembering too late what gossip said of her. Mirremay had been the name of one of the thirty‑two knives, and before that of a bannerdame; in joining the points, Mirremay had been re‑creating a family fiefdom here on the edges of the Court. Perhaps that was the reason that the surintendant had been so reluctant to advance Point of Knives to the status of a full station: no one wanted to make a Mirremay chief point of anything, least of all Point of Knives.

“Thanks for coming, Rathe,” she said, and Rathe nodded, grateful that she’d decided to let him avoid the awkward question of her rank.

“I’m grateful you sent for me.”

“Well, I’m not.” That was Aconin, still lounging in the visitor’s chair. A decorative pose, Rathe thought, but the playwright couldn’t hide the tension in his muscles. “Honestly, Mirremay, this isn’t worth his time. It’s just another theft, that’s all.”

“And what, then, is missing?” Mirremay asked, mildly enough, but Aconin frowned.

“How can I tell that, when you won’t let me look?”

Rathe lifted an eyebrow, and Mirremay smiled. “Oh, yes, that’s what we have here, just another housebreaking in the Court. Except that Master Aconin can’t tell me what was stolen.”

“I have valuables,” Aconin said. “The place was such a mess that I couldn’t tell if they were there or not.”

“Still, it seems odd that so many things should be happening to the people involved in this thrice‑damned masque,” Mirremay said. “And I say it’s Dreams’s problem as much as mine.”

She gave Rathe a challenging look, and the other spread his hands, automatic suspicion rising in him. No chief point, and she was that in stature if not in name, gave away cases, unless they were likely to cause more trouble than they were worth. “I couldn’t take it out of your hands, Mirremay, not without Trijn’s approval, but I am glad you called me.”

Mirremay smiled again. “Wait till you see the rooms before you say that. And, speaking of it–”

“Mirremay–” Aconin began, and the round woman held up her hand.

“Don’t bother. He’s coming with us.”

Aconin subsided at that, straightening his wig as he rose, and Mirremay reached for her own full coat. “Let’s go.”

Aconin lived on the edges of the Court–even he hadn’t dared to move into the rookery at the center, the decayed mansion, now broken up into a hundred or more one‑room flats, where the thirty‑two knives had held their macabre reign. The pointsman Rathe had seen in the day room–Sentalen, his name was–tapped at a lower door and, when it opened a crack, spoke briefly to someone hidden in the shadows. Then she vanished again, the edge of a dark blue skirt whisking back out of sight, and Sentalen turned to Mirremay.

“Same as before, Chief. No one’s been in or out–she says.”

Aconin rolled his eyes, but Mirremay smiled, and started up the outside stairs. It would be a nasty climb at midwinter, Rathe thought, stepping carefully, and wondered why the playwright chose to live in this neighborhood. Probably to keep his enemies at bay, he thought, and glanced over his shoulder to see Aconin hesitating at the bottom of the stairs. That was unlike him–to give him his due, Aconin never feared the results of his attacks–and in the same instant, the playwright started after them, so quickly that Rathe wondered if he’d imagined the hesitation. But it had been real, he decided, seeing the tension in Aconin’s body, in the tightness of his hands on the narrow rail. Mirremay was right, this was no ordinary theft.

At the top of the stairs, Mirremay paused, looked over her shoulder, and Sentalen handed up an old‑fashioned iron key. Rathe shook his head. Whoever had broken into the playwright’s room had broken the locks already–kicked it in, he guessed, from the way the frame had splintered. Mirremay worked the lock, her shoulders bunching with the effort, and the door fell open under her touch. It had been the lock itself that had been holding it, and only barely, the iron striker wedged awkwardly back into place. Mirremay caught the door as it swung on twisted hinges, then stepped back to let Rathe join her on the landing.

The runner’s description hadn’t done it justice. Aconin’s single well‑lit room had been a pleasant enough place, but it would take days of effort just to make it habitable again. Clothes lay strewn across the floor, linings ripped out muddy, sleeves torn away, the press itself kicked in, so that the painted panel hung in splinters, and there were footprints visible on some of the better fabrics, as though whoever had done this had deliberately wiped his boots on the best the playwright owned. Both windows had been broken, the glass punched out into the street below, and the mirror–a large one, in an expensive frame–had been smashed against the bedpost, so that the torn bedclothes were strewn with broken glass. Paint pots and perfume bottles, a good dozen of them, had been emptied onto the bed as well, the containers trampled into the floorboards, and the room smelled of musk and sweetgrass. A larger paint pot, or maybe an inkwell, had been thrown to smash against the far wall, leaving a fan of black across the whitewash. One chair had been overturned and broken; the other stood forlorn beside the table, where a spray of flowers stood in an untouched vase, wilting a little, as though the destruction had shocked them. Beyond the table, the door of the stove lay open, a drift of half‑burned paper scattered across the hearth, and Rathe crossed to that, knelt to examine what was left of the writing. Some of it looked familiar, scenes from the Alphabet, and he glanced over his shoulder, to see Aconin framed in the doorway.

“Was it like this when you found it, or did you pull it out?”

“I pulled it out,” Aconin said. Beneath the remnants of his paint, he looked very pale. “They’d overfilled it, the damper shut down, so it was just smoldering.”

“Lucky,” Mirremay murmured. She had come a little farther into the room, careful not to step on spilled paint or torn clothing, stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the damage with a disapproving air. She wore her skirts short, well above her ankle, and her stockings were expensively clocked.

Rathe nodded, turning the papers over. Aconin used the crabbed university script, all abbreviations, harder to follow even than Mirremay’s scrawl, but from the crossed‑out lines and words, and the notes scribbled in the margins, these had to be rough drafts of Aconin’s work. “This was personal,” he said, and set the papers carefully back where he’d found them.

“I’d’ve said business,” Mirremay said.

Rathe glanced at her as he pushed himself to his feet, brushing the ash off his fingers, and the head point met the look guilelessly. “Burning these papers, Aconin’s work, surely that’s a personal thing.”

“I told you,” Aconin said wearily. “None of my enemies would do something like this.”

“I thought better of your enemies,” Rathe said, and to his surprise, Aconin managed a short laugh.

“So did I.”

Rathe took a deep breath, willing himself to remember that this was a point, that he had a job to do no matter how he felt about Aconin. “Aconin. Less than a week ago, someone took a shot at you– did you think Philip wouldn’t tell me, when he was there? And now this. Who have you offended this time?”

“I wish I knew.” Aconin spread his painted hands, a gesture that should have dripped sincerity. “As far as I know, this was theft, at least an attempt at it. I won’t know that until you let me see what’s missing.”

“Not that much,” Mirremay said. She reached out with one pointed shoe, lifted the torn collar of a lavender coat. An enameled medallion tumbled free, not expensive, but certainly salable; she kicked the coat a little harder, exposing a scattering of gilt embroidery at the skirt. “Now, I grant you, that wasn’t worth much, and it might have taken too much time to cut that gold thread free, but those buttons would fetch a few demmings, and that’s just one stroke of the knife. And there’s not a thief in this city who’d smash a pretty clock like that one, not with the fences paying two or three pillars for a piece like that.”

She nodded to her right, where the attacker–Rathe was more than ever inclined to agree that this was no thief–had swept a single shelf clear of all its ornaments. Dishes lay broken beneath it, spoons and a dinner knife scattered, but someone had taken the time to stamp on the carriage‑clock that had stood with them. Its case lay broken, the mechanism crushed, and in spite of himself, Rathe winced at the sight.

“Damn it, Aconin, this is personal. Whoever did this, whoever had it done, that’s someone who wants you harmed, or worse.”

“I can’t think who,” Aconin said flatly. He had moved into the room, was staring now at the untouched vase of flowers, and out of the corner of his eye, Rathe saw Mirremay nod thoughtfully.

“Or it’s a warning, maybe. There’s the altar, too.”

Rathe turned to look where she’d pointed. Aconin had kept his altar in a scholar’s cabinet, with a double‑doored shrine at the top and a drawer for supplies above a set of shelves. Books had been emptied from the shelves, leaves torn out and crumpled; one lay forlorn, facedown, the binding snapped and scarred as though someone had stamped on it. The drawer had been pulled out and tossed aside, its contents scattered, and each of the little figures had been roughly beheaded. The candle that served as Hearth had been cut into two pieces–one more bit of proof, Rathe thought, if we’d needed it, that this wasn’t an ordinary thieving–and the incense burner had been flattened. Cheap metal, Rathe thought, irrelevantly, not like the clock, and stepped closer to examine the shrine itself. There was no sign of blood, on the altar or on the floor around it, and he looked back at Mirremay.

“I think we should have a necromancer in, just in case.” The surest way to curse a person was to kill something in their household space or, worse still, on the altar itself, and at this level of destruction, he wanted to be sure that more ethereal means weren’t being employed against the playwright.

“Oh, for Sofia’s sake,” Aconin said. He pulled a flower from the vase, tossed it accurately through the broken window. “To what end?”

Mirremay nodded as though the playwright hadn’t spoken. “Sentalen. Send a runner to the university.”

“There’s no blood,” Aconin said. “Nothing’s been killed.”

“You’re very sure of that,” Rathe said.

Aconin paused, another flower dangling broken‑stemmed between his fingers. It was out of season, Rathe saw, forced to bloom in some expensive glasshouse: the posy was no ordinary gift, and he wondered briefly if that was why it had been spared.

“There’s no blood,” Aconin said again, and dropped this flower after the other.

“Dead doesn’t need blood,” Mirremay said.

“Chief Point–” Aconin began, and the woman shook her head.

“Whatever troubles you’ve brought on yourself, Aconin, I’m not having this loose in my district. Send for a necromancer, Sentalen.”

“Ask for Istre b’Estorr,” Rathe interjected, and looked at Mirremay. “He’s one of the best.”

“Which we want,” Mirremay agreed, and nodded to the pointsman still hovering in the doorway. He backed away, and Rathe looked down at the broken figures that had stood on Aconin’s altar. One had been hooded Sofia, no surprise there, and another the Starsmith, but the other two were less obvious, the Winter‑Son, god of wine, ecstasy, and suffering, and Jaan, the northern god of doorways and borders. Not that odd a choice, when you consider he comes from Esling, but still. He frowned then, a memory teasing him. Something Eslingen had said, some story about his days with Coindarel–about partisan raids along the borders, breaking into the leaders’ houses to smash the altars. It had meant something very specific, a deliberate message, but he couldn’t remember what. He shook his head then, seeing Aconin drop a third flower, and then a fourth, through the broken glass. He would ask Eslingen, of course, but he doubted it meant anything. It wasn’t likely that Astreianter bravos would know a Leaguer code.

“Chief Point,” Aconin said again. “I need to start cleaning…”

His voice trailed off, contemplating the chaos, and Mirremay’s voice was almost gentle. “When the necromancer’s done his work. It won’t get any worse, my boy.”

Aconin managed the ghost of a smile, but pitched the last of the flowers through the window with extra force. The clock struck then, the neighborhood clock perched in the station’s gable, and the playwright looked up, startled. “Tyrseis, I’m late–Mathiee wanted me today. Chief Point, do you need me anymore?”

Mirremay shook her head, looking almost indulgent, and the playwright wiped damp fingers on the skirt of his coat. He backed toward the door, and Rathe heard his footsteps recede down the stairs. He waited until he couldn’t hear them anymore, and smiled at Mirremay.

“Now why do I not believe that?”

“He’s done better on the stage,” Mirremay agreed.

The clock struck twice more before Sentalen’s runner reappeared, announcing that the magist was on his way, and the half hour was past before b’Estorr himself mounted the narrow stairs. He paused in the doorway, frowning at the destruction, and Rathe put aside the stack of half‑burned papers. He had been sure that there would be some clue, some explanation, if not in the drafts of the Alphabet then in some broadsheet, but so far he’d seen nothing that should provoke this level of hostility. Mirremay rose gracefully to her feet, another expensive chain dangling in her hand–the fourth piece of decent jewelry she’d found untouched in the wreckage–amber eyes taking in the Starsmith’s badge pinned to b’Estorr’s sleeve.

“So this is your magist, Rathe?”

b’Estorr’s mouth twitched at that, and Rathe nodded. “Istre b’Estorr, necromancer and scholar–Head Point Mirremay, of Point of Knives.”

Mirremay looked briefly annoyed by the demotion, but b’Estorr’s bow was flawless, unobjectionable, and she pulled herself up. “Then I certify your arrival, and acknowledge his presence, but I can leave the rest of it to you, Rathe. I’ll want a proper report, of course.”

“Of course,” Rathe said.

“And I’ll send a runner with lanterns.” Mirremay glanced toward the windows. “It’ll be dark soon, with the clouds this low.”

And no one, particularly not a stranger, wanted to be caught even on the edges of the Court after dark with no lights. “Thanks,” Rathe said, and b’Estorr echoed him.

“It’s shaping to be an unpleasant night.”

Rathe glanced at the window, seeing the clouds dropping low over the housetops, moving faster as the rising wind caught them. He could smell a cold rain in the air that swirled through the broken glass, shivered in spite of himself at the thought. As chill as the nights had been lately, rain would turn to sleet before the second sunrise, and the winter‑sun’s light would do little to melt the ice.

“And I intend to be home and snug before then,” Mirremay said. “I meant it about the report, Rathe.”

“You’ll have it,” Rathe said, and the head point nodded. She pushed the broken door closed again behind her, not bothering to force it closed, and b’Estorr shook his head, surveying the devastation.

“This was not kindly meant.”

“No.” Rathe grinned in spite of himself at the understatement.

“Who does Aconin blame for it?” b’Estorr took a few steps farther into the room, picking his way cautiously through the debris, stopped with a frown as he saw the broken clock.

“No one,” Rathe said. “None of his enemies would do this, he says.”

b’Estorr nodded thoughtfully. “There’s truth in that.”

“Yeah. I thought so.” Rathe paused. “He also says he has no idea why it happened.”

“There’s the lie.” b’Estorr stooped to finger a torn piece of cloth, a shirtsleeve or perhaps the remains of a handkerchief. “You can practically smell the fear, but it’s not fear of the unknown, but of something he knows all too well.”

“I heard it when he was telling me,” Rathe said. “I didn’t know if he was actually lying, or just not telling me everything.”

b’Estorr smiled without humor. “With Aconin–it’s safer to assume he’s lying.” He stood again, surveying the room, his pale hair almost luminous in the gathering dusk. He was silent for a long moment, and in the distance Rathe heard a clock chime the quarter hour.

“This was business,” b’Estorr said at last, softly. “Hirelings’ work–at least two of them, maybe more. But a personal cause at the heart of it.”

“They burned his work,” Rathe said. “Drafts of at least the Alphabet–”

b’Estorr gave him a startled glance, and this time it was Rathe who laughed.

“The play, I mean, not the book. Though, come to think of it, I should see if he has a copy anywhere, he must have had something to base his play on.”

“Worth a look,” b’Estorr agreed.

But not until we have light. Rathe shook the thought away, glanced around the room again. “But burning the papers–your average bravo wouldn’t think of that. Not here in the Court.”

“They could have been instructed,” b’Estorr answered. “Were instructed, I would imagine, because I think your point’s well taken. But I’m sure there were hirelings here, and a single, personal hate at the back of it.” He paused, and a sudden smile flickered across his face. “That was what you wanted from me, yes?”

Rathe smiled back. “Part of it.” He heard footsteps on the stairs again, and reached for his truncheon in spite of himself. The door swung open at the runner’s touch, and the boy came awkwardly into the room, balancing a lit storm lantern and a trio of candle lamps.

“Excuse me, Adjunct Point, but the chief says, here’s a light, and I borrowed the rest from the lady downstairs. She says will you be sure to put them out before you go.”

“Of course,” Rathe answered, seeing b’Estorr’s amusement out of the corner of his eye, and took the heavy lantern, setting it on the table beside the empty vase. The runner nodded, already backing away.

“If there’s anything else?”

Rathe shook his head, and the boy was gone again, clattering back down the stairs. Rathe sighed, and moved to close the door behind him.

“Well, at least there’s light,” b’Estorr said, and carefully lifted two of the three shutters, turning the lantern so that the wind couldn’t blow out the flame. He lit the candles as well, set one on the shell and the other, with only the slightest hesitation, on the defiled altar. Even with the blown‑glass shields, the rising wind stirred the flames, making the shadows swell and vanish, and Rathe shivered again, wishing he were back at Point of Dreams. “So what was the other thing you wanted?”

“I want to be sure nothing was killed here,” Rathe answered.

b’Estorr nodded, unsurprised. “I don’t think so, but it’s as well to be certain.” He looked at the broken figures on the altar, reached for the nearest, gazing abstractedly at the beheaded Winter‑Son.

“What?” Rathe asked.

“This one just seems an odd choice. He’s a playwright, so why not Tyrseis? He’d be more appropriate.”

“Well…” Rathe joined him, peered over his shoulder at the little statue. Like the others, it was decently made, not expensive, but chosen for its style. “He didn’t want you here–didn’t want us to call a necromancer, I mean, not you personally, but I don’t know if that means anything. Of course, I don’t know a single actor who doesn’t include Tyrseis on their altars, but maybe it’s not the same for playwrights.” He shrugged. “I suppose there’d be something to surprise me on everyone’s altar–including yours.”

“You’ve seen mine,” b’Estorr said absently. He laid the statue carefully beside the lantern. “Propitiating, maybe?”

“Maybe.”

b’Estorr nodded, his mind clearly elsewhere, and Rathe retreated again, leaning against the table. In the hectic light, b’Estorr’s hair glowed like silver gilt, and the badge of the Starsmith was dark on his cuff. He stooped to collect the rest of the headless figures, laying them carefully beside the Winter‑Son, then reached into his pocket to produce a lump of chalk. Carefully, he drew a circle on the altar’s flat surface, then sketched symbols around and within it, frowning lightly now in concentration. Suddenly the air in the room was perceptibly warmer, and Rathe was briefly, keenly aware of b’Estorr’s ghosts, could almost–could see them, as he never had before. It had to be the ghost‑tide, of course, even now that it was waning, the moon would pass out of the Maiden in the next day or so, but he’d never seen b’Estorr perform a ritual under these stars. There were three ghosts, he’d known that from the beginning: the old Fre whom b’Estorr had served in Chadron before the king had met the fate of so many Chadroni rulers, the other two figures from an older time, a king and his favorite whose deaths had been lost, forgotten until the only necromancer to be favored by a Chadroni king had touched their ghosts and uncovered the truth of their death, part of the violent cycle of succession in the putatively elective kingdom. But there were more ghosts, too, Rathe realized, not as clear, but still there, too many of them, drawn by the circle, by the ritual, like summer moths to a candle flame. The Court was full of ghosts, decades of them–centuries of them, perhaps, the Court was almost as old as Astreiant itself; of course they would come when a necromancer called, particularly at this time of year. He shook himself, made himself pick up the crumpled papers, deliberately turning his back on the other man as he began to sort through the half‑burned sheets, looking for any hint of Aconin’s copy of the Alphabet. There were plenty of sheets that belonged to the play, but nothing more, except for a sheet that seemed to be notes of flower combinations. That I’ll keep, he thought, and glanced up just as b’Estorr swept his hand across the chalked circle, obliterating it. The room was suddenly chill again, and empty, the ghosts swept away with the same gesture, and Rathe shook himself back to normal.

“Was there anything?”

b’Estorr shook his head, his face bleached and tired in the uncertain lamplight. “Nothing–well, not nothing, you felt them, this is a populous neighborhood for the dead, but nothing recent, and nothing that belongs to Aconin.” He stopped then, tilting his head to one side. “That may not be strictly true, I could have sworn I felt almost– a ghost of a ghost, but there was no blood behind it.” He shook his head, dismissing the thought. “Someone, probably, close to him, who simply wouldn’t accept death. It happens.”

Rathe nodded. “But nothing killed?”

“Nothing,” b’Estorr said again. He paused, absently straightening the figures on the altar. “What made you think there might be?”

Rathe paused, remembering Aconin’s behavior. “I’m not sure. He was–very outspoken that he didn’t want me involved, or anyone from Point of Dreams, and then that he didn’t want a necromancer. And then he made damn sure he was gone before you got here.”

“We don’t get along,” b’Estorr said, mildly, and Rathe grinned in spite of himself.

“No.” He sobered quickly. “I suppose the main thing was how determined he was to downplay–all this, when I’d expect anyone to be screaming murder and crying vengeance on whoever did it. I wondered what he knew that he wasn’t telling.”

“It wasn’t a curse,” b’Estorr said positively. “A warning, I suppose?”

That was the second time someone had suggested that, and it still didn’t feel right. Rathe shook his head, less in disagreement than in puzzlement. “I suppose. But he didn’t seem frightened, either, just stood there dropping flowers out the window.”

“What?” b’Estorr’s attention sharpened visibly.

“There was a vase of them,” Rathe said. “On the table. They were wilted, and he tossed them out the window.”

“All at once, or one at a time?” b’Estorr asked.

“One at a time.” Rathe frowned. “All right, what am I missing?”

b’Estorr shook his head in turn, looking almost embarrassed. “I may be seeing too much in it, but–a vase of flowers, untouched in this mess? A posy he had to take apart flower by flower? It sounds like something out of the Alphabet to me.”

“A spell, you mean.” Rathe frowned, thinking of Leussi’s Alphabet, the flowers that might have caused his death. “Istre, did you get any message from Trijn today?”

The necromancer shook his head. “Should I have? I was in classes until the runner from Knives found me.”

“You will hear,” Rathe said grimly. “There’s another copy of the Alphabet that needs to be examined.”

“There are phytomancers I’d trust with it,” b’Estorr said.

Rathe made a face, looking back at the empty vase. “So that would be the counter to a posy? Taking it apart like that?”

b’Estorr nodded. “If the Alphabet exists, if you even suspect it exists and that it might work, that would be one way to counteract an arrangement, taking it apart. If, of course, you assume it works. And if it works, assuming it’s not too strong a spell.”

“Yeah.” Rathe glanced at the sheet of paper he’d separated from the rest, folded it carefully and tucked it into his daybook. Another list of flowers to give to the phytomancers, he thought, and to check against Leussi’s Alphabet. “And if anyone seems likely to make that assumption, Aconin would be the one. It didn’t feel like a spell, Istre.”

“It’s the university’s considered opinion that the Alphabet is a fraud,” b’Estorr answered, with a smile that showed teeth. “For what that’s worth, considering they’ve never seen a copy. But even if you knew that, would you take the chance?”

“Not when I was looking at this mess,” Rathe answered, and nodded: “I’ll have words with him, believe me. But in the meantime, I don’t see much reason to stay.”

“Nor do I,” b’Estorr answered, and stooped to blow out the first of the lamps. Rathe collected the lantern, adjusting its shutters so that it cast a welcome beam, while the other man doused the remaining candles.

“I’ll walk you to the bridge,” he said aloud. “And return this with my report.”

They headed back through Point of Knives toward Point of Dreams, leaving the unquiet darkness of the Court behind them, crossing the more respectable neighborhoods where most people were already at their dinners, behind shuttered windows and locked doors. Many had small lanterns burning, either at the doors or in a front window, honoring the ancestors who returned during the ghost‑tide. Rathe felt something brush his calf; at any other time of the year he would have swiped at a rat or a gargoyle and cursed but tonight, out of the corner of his eye, he caught the memory of the small rag‑eared, wire‑coated dog who had been his constant companion from boyhood into apprenticeship. He started to click his fingers to call it, then looked at b’Estorr, inexplicably embarrassed. b’Estorr smiled.

“It wouldn’t be ghost‑tide without Mud, Nico. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in so constant a ghost.”

Rathe laughed softly. “I’ve lost kin, Istre, and friends, but who do I see? My dog.”

“And I’ve got a really difficult ancient king of Chadron, and his favorite, and I’m no kin and had nothing to do with their deaths. We don’t choose our ghosts, Nico.”

Rathe nodded. They had reached the edge of a market square, where cressets burned in front of a well‑appointed tavern, and the smell of a tavern dinner, savory pie and hot wine, hung heavy for a moment in the cold air before the wind and the smoke drowned it again. They turned onto the wider avenue that led to the Hopes‑point Bridge, and Rathe felt himself relax a little, grateful to be away from the Court of the Thirty‑two Knives. Even in daylight, and even known as he was, and today brought in by Mirremay herself, it was a chancy place; the streets here, between Hopes and Dreams, were far safer, even with only the lantern to light their way.

Even as he thought that, he heard the sound of footsteps, running hard up the side street that led away from the river, looked sharply into the darkness as the cry followed them. He saw nothing, maybe the suggestion of a movement, a shadow shifting against the lesser dark where the street joined Beck’s Way, but he knew what he’d heard, couldn’t mistake the choked, wet sound of it, and dove into the darkness, flipping the lantern’s cover as wide as it would go. b’Estorr followed, metal sliding softly against leather as he drew his long knife, and Rathe swore, seeing the crumpled shape lying against the windowless wall of the nearest building. It looked more like a pile of discarded clothes than a man, but b’Estorr dropped instantly to his knees, sliding the knife back into its sheath, and reached to probe for a wound. Rathe stood still, the lantern still held high, tilting his head to listen for any further movement. Whoever had attacked the man was long gone, he was sure of it, had been the running footsteps they had first heard, but he stood watching anyway, not wanting to be taken by surprise. The street–it wasn’t much more than an alley, its central gutter rimed with ice and mud, the walls to either side broken only by a pair of carters’ gates, both closed and barred against the night–was empty, nothing moving in the lantern’s uncertain light, and he turned slowly, letting the wedge of light sweep behind them as well.

“Nico,” b’Estorr said, and at the urgency in his voice, Rathe lowered the lantern again, spilling its light over the wounded man.

“How is he?”

“Not good, but I can’t tell how bad.”

Rathe knelt beside him, wincing as he saw the blood still flowing hard over b’Estorr’s fingers. The wounded man looked serene enough, eyes closed, heedless of the sleet that splashed his face and hair. Not a good sign, Rathe thought, and set the lantern carefully on the cobbles, turning it so that the light fell strongly across the wounded man. The blood was still flowing, despite b’Estorr’s hand pressed hard on the wound–too low for the heart, but high enough to kill–and he reached for his stock, unwinding the length of linen.

“Let me,” he said, and b’Estorr nodded, shifting sideways so that Rathe could press the new pad into the wound. The blood slowed a little, or perhaps the man had simply bled as much as he was going to. “See if you can find a surgeon hereabouts, there must be someone. If not, I guess you’d better send for Fanier.”

“They’ll know at the tavern,” b’Estorr answered, and pushed himself to his feet.

Rathe nodded, keeping his hand pressed tight against the wound. The bleeding was definitely slowing, he thought, and tried to tell himself it was a hopeful sign. The man’s face was waxen in the lamplight, and he grimaced, knowing their efforts were likely to go for nothing, that it would be Fanier, not a doctor, who would be needed.

He looked at the assortment of garments covering the wounded man–a threadbare coat, shirt with sleeves too short, patched jerkin and breeches, castoffs, all of them, or temple handouts–and shrugged himself awkwardly out of his own coat, not taking his hand from the wound. He laid it over the stranger, knowing it was probably a futile gesture, and looked away, examining the cobbles for any signs left by the attackers. The sleet was heavier now, the ice collecting in the gaps between the stones, threatening to wash away any indication of what had happened. And there was precious little, he thought, not even a footprint in the mud of the gutter. Whoever had attacked the man was too clever to make that mistake. There was a dark stain on the wall above his head, probably where the man had fallen against it, and Rathe sighed, looked back at the man’s face. There was something familiar about it, an image teasing at the edge of memory, and then from somewhere he caught a whiff of evergreen, and he knew. Grener Ogier had been his parents’ friend, his mother’s in particular, they were both gardeners, had worked together more than once when he was a child at the dame school. But they’d drifted apart, not unfriendly, but on different paths, led by different stars, and the city had swallowed Ogier, spat him back now possibly dying, and Rathe shivered, knowing it was more than the sleet. A talented gardener, his mother had said, she who was always so sparing of her praise, a man under whose hands the most unlikely plots flourished.

He dipped his head, swallowing tears, and saw Ogier’s eyes flicker open. The pupils were huge, unfocused, probably sightless, but still he made a sound, as though he was trying to speak. Rathe leaned closer, trying to shield him from the worst of the sleet, and heard footsteps from the head of the alley. He turned, free hand reaching for his truncheon, relaxed as he saw b’Estorr, a woman in a carter’s longcoat trailing at his heels. Rathe frowned, but then he saw the apothecary’s badge on the cuff of her close‑buttoned coat. She knelt beside him, shifting the lantern a fraction to give better light, and nodded for him to move aside, her hand sliding briefly over his as she reached for the wound. Rathe relinquished it gladly, wiping his hands on his breeches before he’d thought, swore under his breath at the thought of the laundress’s bill.

The apothecary murmured something, probing, and Rathe caught a whiff of tobacco and sweetherb clinging to her hair and coat. Still, her hands were steady enough, and she moved with the ease of experience to probe the wound. The blood was still flowing, but sluggishly, and she sat back on her heels, shaking her head.

“Not even a surgeon could help him, masters, but damnation, this was a bungled job.”

“What do you mean?” Rathe asked. He was shivering now, without his coat, and wrapped his arms tightly around his body, tucking his hands into his armpits.

The woman shook her head. “He can’t live, but he’s likely to be a while yet dying, poor bastard.” She looked up at him, then her wide face suddenly, unhappily alive. “Maybe it’s a clue, pointsman. Find the one soul in this city who doesn’t know how to wield a knife properly, and you’ll have his murderer.”

Rathe bit back an angry retort, recognizing the reaction, and b’Estorr said, “Is there anything we can do?”

“You could finish the job–you’d do it for a horse or a dog.” The apothecary shook her head, her hair falling forward to hide her eyes. She swept it back with an angry hand, scowled at the coat covering the body. “Keeping him warm was a kindly thought. I don’t suppose you know his stars?”

b’Estorr shook his head, but Rathe said, “He was a gardener. And had the stars for it, I was told.”

The necromancer gave him a startled glance. “You know him?”

“From a long time ago,” Rathe answered. “He’s a friend of my mother’s.”

“A gardener,” the apothecary said. “Metenere, then, most likely.” She reached into her bag, brought out a jar marked with symbols that Rathe didn’t recognize.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and the woman looked up at him.

“A last chance, pointsman, to name his killer. Something his ghost can’t do.”

Rathe dropped to his knees beside her, heedless of the icy rime. “Will it hurt him?”

The apothecary shook her head. “He’s beyond pain.” She nodded to the bandage, so soaked in blood now that it was almost invisible. “Hold that.”

Rathe did as he was told, wincing as he felt the feeble pulse, and the apothecary uncorked her jar, waved it under Ogier’s nose. For a long moment, nothing happened, and then, suddenly, the man’s eyes flickered open again, blinked and focused.

“Who–”

Rathe shifted so that Ogier could see him clearly, if he could see at all. “Who did this, Ogier? It’s Nico Rathe, remember me? Do you know who did this?”

He broke off as Ogier’s eyes widened, and one hand lifted, fumbling at his sleeve. “Nico.”

Rathe caught the hand, ice‑cold, ice damp, held it tight. “Who did this?”

It was an awkward position, one hand still on the bandage, the other holding Ogier’s, and the apothecary made a soft noise, moved to take the bandage. Rathe sat back on his heels, grateful for the relief, and Ogier’s head moved slowly from side to side.

“Madness,” he whispered. “You remember. I was good. Too good…”

“One of the best,” Rathe said. “My mother said so. Who would do this? Why?”

Even as he spoke, Ogier’s eyes closed, the clasp of his fingers relaxing. Rathe tightened his own grip, but the hand in his was slack, falling into death.

The apothecary shook her head, released her hold on the bandage to touch wrist and mouth, then touched the closed eyes, the gesture more ritual than useful. “Well, that was quicker than I expected. I suppose the weather helped.”

“Why do you bother?” Rathe demanded, and her eyes fell.

“Did you want the poor bastard to linger?”

“And if easing his passing was the most important thing to you,” Rathe snapped, “why did you raise him long enough to speak?”

“I–” The apothecary made a face. “I hate waste. I hate deaths like this. You’re the pointsman, you can do something. Easing his death–that would be an office for his friends. If he had any.”

Rathe sighed, the anger draining from him. “He had friends. I know he did, at least once.”

“The Starsmith give him ease,” the apothecary said. She found a rag in her kit, scrubbed her hands. “Will you find his killer?”

“I don’t know,” Rathe said. “I will try.” He closed his eyes for a moment, still kneeling on the cold stones. There were too many deaths, first the landseur–no, first Leussi– and then de Raзan, and the watchman, and now Ogier, who had nothing to do with any of that, who had no enemies that he could imagine. But obviously he had had one enemy, and that was what he had to find. He pushed himself to his feet, aware for the first time that his breeches and stockings were soaked through, that his hair was dripping on his shoulders.

“I’ve got a cart,” the apothecary said. “You can use that, if you’d like.”

To deliver the body, Rathe knew she meant, either to Fanier directly or to Dreams. To Dreams, he decided, he’d had enough of the deadhouse lately to last a lifetime, and nodded. “Thank you. I’d appreciate it.”

She nodded, straightening. “I’m just a couple of streets over. I won’t be long.”

Rathe nodded again, too tired to speak, and she turned away, the carter’s coat shedding the worst of the sleet. Rathe shivered again, feeling the touch of ice on his scalp, and beside him b’Estorr shook his head.

“The poor man. What she did, it’s technically forbidden, but the gods know, it’ll do no harm in this case.” The necromancer paused. “So you knew him, then?”

Rathe nodded. He should search the body, he knew, but for the moment it was beyond him. “He was a friend of my mother’s–both my parents’, in actual fact, but he was a gardener, too, like her.”

He was babbling, he knew, and shook himself, made himself kneel again on the freezing stones. There was nothing in the coat pockets, and only a worn leather purse in the pocket of Ogier’s breeches–not much coin, only a few seillings, but if robbery had been the intent, the thief would surely have made certain of them. There was a sprig of some dried herb, a twisted branch of short, spiky leaves, and Rathe sniffed curiously at it, but could detect no aroma. It was new to him, whatever it was, and he tucked it back into the purse, slid that into his own pocket. He checked the cuffs of the coat then, thinking of Eslingen, but Ogier hadn’t shared the soldier’s habit of sliding odd bits of paper into them. There was only another scrap of greenery, a flower not quite out of the bud, faded and dried. It had probably fallen there while Ogier was working, Rathe thought– but if he was working, why was he dressed so badly? Ogier had always been a tidy man, not one to spend unnecessary money on his clothes, but these garments looked more like temple handouts even than working gear. Had he fallen out of favor, lost all his employment, to leave him so shabbily dressed with winter coming on? He’d never been one to tie himself to any one house, and he’d been good enough that he’d never had to, had always had the rich, merchants and even the city‑living landames, vying for his services. Maybe they’d all finally tired of the dance? Rathe shook his head, and sat back on his heels. There was no telling, though he’d make it his business to find out, “Maybe if he’d had a patronne, he’d still be alive.”

“Or maybe he did find one,” b’Estorr murmured, and Rathe looked sharply at him.

“What do you mean?”

b’Estorr shook his head. “Sorry, that’s a Chadroni thought. A patronne protects, yes, but–” He shrugged. “They’re also notoriously chancy.”

There was a sound of wheels and, miraculously, the slow clop of horse’s hooves, and Rathe pushed himself to his feet. The apothecary had been better than her word: not just a cart, but a small, shaggy, city‑bred pony in its harness. It snorted, smelling the blood, and b’Estorr went instantly to its head, turning it upwind of the body. The apothecary nodded her thanks, and stooped to help lift the body into the cart.

“Do you want your coat? It won’t do him any good.”

No more would it, Rathe thought, but shook his head. He was wet through already, and there was blood already on his clothes. “No, let him keep it. But can I get your name and direction?”

The woman made a face. “Madelen de Braemer. You can find me at the Grapes.”

That would be the tavern they had passed. Rathe nodded, not bothering to reach for his tablets. It was too cold, he was too wet, and besides, he was unlikely to forget the incongruously aristocratic name. “Thank you, dame.”

The apothecary was already moving away, but stopped as though a thought had struck her. “And where do I send for my horse, anyway? The deadhouse?”

“No, Point of Dreams,” Rathe answered. “He’ll go to the deadhouse from there.”

“Easier on the old boy anyway,” the apothecary said, and Rathe realized she meant the pony. “I’ll come by in the morning.”

“I’ll leave your name, if I’m not there,” Rathe answered, and she turned away.

“Shall I walk with you?” b’Estorr asked softly, and Rathe gave him a grateful glance.

“I’d take it kindly.” It wouldn’t be that long a walk, he thought, but it would be easier with live company.

By the time Rathe had written cursory reports, and sent a request to the Temple to handle the notification of any kin of Ogier’s, it was after midnight, and he was grateful for the idle escort of a junior pointsman, patrolling that way, to take him partway home. The winter‑sun was risen, at least, dispelling the worst of the darkness, and the sleet had ended, a few stars showing through the breaking clouds, but he was glad to come to his own gate. There were no lights in the weaver’s rooms as he crossed the courtyard–too late–and none in the actors’ rooms under the garrets–too early, probably– but lamplight shone in his own windows, a welcome that was still unexpected, and he climbed the stairs with more haste than he would have thought possible.

Eslingen was sitting at the narrow table, the lamp set to put the best light on a sheaf of broadsheets, chin resting on his cupped hands as he studied the awkward printing. His hair was loose, for once, falling forward to hide his face, but he looked up as the door opened, shaking it back again. The lazy smile faded as he took in the condition of the other’s clothes, the dark eyes flicking from vital spot to vital spot, and Rathe smothered a tired laugh, seeing him relax again.

“That had better not be your blood,” Eslingen said.

“No.” Rathe shook his head, looked down at the stains as though he hadn’t seen them before. He would owe Ardelis for the cleaning of the station’s spare coat as well as his own laundress’s bill, that was obvious. “No, it’s not. I doubt I’d be standing here talking to you if I had this much outside me.”

“Maybe you’re a ghost,” Eslingen said. He could practically feel the cold radiating off the other man, knew shock when he heard it, and swung himself gracefully up from his place at the table. Watching him, Rathe bit back another laugh, thinking it would play well onstage. Then Eslingen embraced him, pulled back to study his face, frowning in spite of his carefully light tone.

“Not a ghost, there never was a ghost this cold. Seidos’s Horse, what were they thinking of, to let you go like this?”

“That the senior adjunct wanted to go home,” Rathe answered. “I’m not hurt, Philip.”

A flicker of relief crossed the taller man’s face, but he said only, “Just chilled to the bone, it seems. Get your clothes off.”

Rathe obeyed, shrugging out of the borrowed coat, and instantly Eslingen was there to help, the gentle hand belying the rough words.

“You’ll never wear those again,” Eslingen said, and tossed the bloodied shirt into a corner.

“I don’t know.” Rathe shivered, left in his smallclothes, and Eslingen stripped the top blanket from the bed. “My laundress is very skilled–”

“With blood,” Eslingen said, and wound the blanket around the other’s shoulders. “What interesting people you know, Adjunct Point. Did you find this in the line of business?”

Rathe smiled in spite of himself, let himself be turned and settled on the edge of the mattress. He drew his feet up under him, worked them under the sheets–cold linen, but warming to his touch–and hunched his shoulders under the blanket. “This doesn’t often happen–”

“So you tell me.” Eslingen’s voice was remote, his back to the bed as he fiddled with something on the stove. “So what was it this time?”

Rathe took a breath, feeling creeping back into his toes. His fingers were better already, and he worked his shoulders against the rough wool. He was desperately tired, painfully sad, but knew he wouldn’t sleep now, that trying would only make him wearier in the morning, worn out with the effort. Better to stay awake, let the thoughts and memories die–share them, since he could, he thought, and cleared his throat. At the station, sure, tell all to his fellow points and let them comfort him just by knowing, but Eslingen–Eslingen was somehow different.

“There was a man killed today. Istre and I found him. In an alley between Hopes and Dreams. Only I knew him. He was a gardener– not a physick gardener like my mother, but she knew him, and I remembered him being around when I was a boy. One of the best, she always said. Could make anything bloom, anytime, knew all the right conditions, how to create them as best as possible–Metenere was better aspected in his stars than anyone she’d ever known, she said.” Rathe shook his head. “He didn’t die immediately. There wasn’t anything we could do…”

Eslingen nodded, still stirring, not surprised or shocked– and of course he does know a lot of it, Rathe thought. He was a soldier, he knows about dead men, dying men and no help for them; if he doesn’t know about the failure of justice, the points’ failure, my failure, come down to it, well, at least he knows this much. Eslingen turned away from the stove, then held out a stoneware cup.

“Your mother, I daresay, would concoct something infinitely more salubrious, but this can only help.”

Rathe sniffed it, expecting beer, blinked at the smell of wine. He took a sip, and then a longer swallow, the liquid ropy with spices and sugar, let it burn its way down his throat, warming him.

“So it wasn’t a fight, then,” Eslingen said, and Rathe shook his head. “Any idea who might have done it?”

Rathe wrapped both hands around the cup, his knuckles reddening now as feeling returned. “Not a clue. It makes no sense whatsoever. I may know more in the morning, when Fanier tells me what he’s found–if that’s anything. I mean, there’s no doubt it was murder, a bloody great wound and no knife to be found. Istre was there, I didn’t think to ask him about the ghost–”

He broke off, shaking his head–one more thing to take care of in the morning–and Eslingen kicked off his shoes, settled himself on the far end of the bed, resting his back against the cold plaster of the wall. “What was he like?”

Rathe shrugged, the wine cup still hot between his hands. “A gardener, and a good one. He was unusual–he had the stars, when most men possess the stars to be groundskeepers, he had the stars to create, not just to maintain. He was in demand, I know that. Worked for a number of great houses, never stayed with one, never let one noble or another put her livery on him. It wasn’t arrogance– or maybe it was, but he always demanded the freedom to work for whomever he pleased. And it was better to get him for part of a season than not at all, so…”

“So everyone took what they could,” Eslingen said.

Rathe nodded. “And so that’s where I have to start in the morning. After I talk to Istre.”

“You really think you’re dealing with someone jealous of their gardener’s attention to a rival–plant?” Eslingen asked, and Rathe smiled in spite of himself.

“You’ve been working with the chorus these weeks, and you think it’s unlikely?”

Eslingen shook his head, grinning, and Rathe sighed, the moment’s good humor fading.

“I don’t know. It makes no sense, but it’s the only place to start. Only–”

“Nico, you have got to start finishing sentences.”

Rathe ignored him, staring past him into the shadows that gathered in the corners of the room. The lamplight spread only so far; they sat in pleasant shadow, and the edges of the room were dark, the shutters closed against the night air and the winter‑sun. A coal snapped in the stove, sparks flaring behind the grill, and he looked back at the other man. “Except that–Ogier was never really well dressed, he wasn’t fashionable, it didn’t make sense when you were working in the earth all the time, but he did know how to choose clothes and fabric, he did know how to be–presentable.”

“Unlike certain pointsmen we could mention,” Eslingen murmured.

Rathe waved the words away, intent on the memory. “But from what I could see, his clothes were old, worn–mismatched. Like Temple handouts.”

Eslingen blinked, frowned. “So they were old clothes. Maybe he’d been working today.”

“It’s nearly winter, Philip, most gardens have been put to bed weeks since.”

“Do you think he’d fallen out of favor?” Eslingen’s voice was soft now, intent, and Rathe gave him a grateful look.

“I don’t know. I’d lost track of him. I know who will know, however.”

“Your mother?”

Rathe nodded grimly. “And I’m not looking forward to telling her her old friend is dead–is murdered.”

“No.” Eslingen gave him a sidelong glance, as though gauging his recovery. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him, and he laced his fingers together around one knee. “Apparently Chresta had some excitement today, too.”

Rathe swore. Eslingen lifted an eyebrow, and the other man shook his head. “No, how were you to know? Oh, yes, he had plenty of excitement.”

“He said it was a theft, he was late because of it–but surely that would be a matter for Point of Knives?”

“He said that to us. And he’s still saying it.” Rathe shook his head, unreasonably angry with Aconin yet again. “Mirremay–she’s head point at Knives, head point, not chief point, because it’s not a full station, and no one wants a member of that family being chief of anything, not in the Court–” He broke off, took a breath. “She called me in, because it was Aconin, and because of–everything. And it wasn’t theft, Philip, no matter what Aconin’s saying. It was total destruction, and there were plenty of goods there for the taking.” He was warming, finally, and hitched himself round on the bed, holding out the cup of wine. Eslingen took it with a nod of thanks, and Rathe frowned again. “Didn’t you once tell me about smashing an altar being a kind of warning in the League?”

Eslingen’s face went very still. “Oh, yes, it’s a kind of warning.”

Rathe cocked his head at him. “What does it mean?”

“It’s the last warning. It means no quarter.”

8

« ^ »

eslingen leaned against the locked versatile, its sides painted now to create a mountain pass, the palatine’s palace, and de Galhac’s stronghold. To his untutored eyes, the rehearsal seemed to be going unusually well, even the chorus keeping its place for once, and he let himself relax, his eyes straying from the tidy lines to the wing where Aubine was arranging yet another of his massive bouquets. This one was the most spectacular he’d seen so far, at least a dozen of the red and white streaked, cup‑shaped blossoms vivid against a background of smaller yellow flowers. Rathe would know all their names, of course; he himself recognized only that both grew from corms. Aubine would be happy to explain, of course, there seemed to be nothing he enjoyed more than discussing his plants, as proud of them as he would be of a promising daughter, but there was always the danger that idle conversation would lead to exactly the questions Eslingen wanted to avoid.

Onstage, Gasquine clapped her hands, bringing her scene to an abrupt end just before Forveijl’s set speech. For a moment, Eslingen thought the actor was going to protest, but Gasquine smiled, shaking her head, and Forveijl seemed to relax again. He had been getting better, Eslingen admitted–maybe Aconin had had words with him, since they seemed to still be intimate. Or at least intimate enough that Aconin could still seek sanctuary with the actor, which implied that they were still lovers. Aconin’s ex‑lovers generally thought less kindly of him, though maybe that had changed since Aconin had come to Astreiant.

“Five minutes,” Gasquine called, and nodded to the bookholder, who hastened to turn a massive minute glass in its polished stand. “Five minutes, all, and then we go through the high battle scene. Swordplay first, and then scene eight.”

There was a sudden surge of voices as actors and chorus relaxed into conversation, and Eslingen looked around for the duelists. Five of them were already in sight, young de Besselin laughing with a fair girl almost his own age, while the landseur Simar idly toyed with another of his flamboyant posies. Aubine had spoken to him again about it, Eslingen thought, remembering the two men standing with their heads together at the beginning of the rehearsal, and wondered if Simar was trying to impress the other man. The horse‑faced landame, Jarielle, straddled one of the benches in the pit, rolling a pair of dice between her palms, smiling at the pile of coin lying between her and one of the scenerymen. Now, if she’d been the one to be found dead, I wouldn’t be surprised, Eslingen thought–Jarielle was a chronic gambler and a gossip to boot–but so far, at least, she’d lost enough to keep her opponents sweet. One of the remaining landseurs was watching her, soberly, Eslingen thought, until he saw the money change hands. He looked around for the remaining three, and saw Siredy and the banneret d’Yres crossing the stage toward them. They parted smiling, d’Yres climbing down into the pit to watch the dice game, and Siredy moved to join the other master, his smile fading as he saw Eslingen’s expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen our missing landames?” Eslingen asked, and Siredy turned instantly to survey the pit.

“Oh, Tyrseis, we’re not missing Txi and de Vannevaux, are we?”

Eslingen nodded. “I think the points would look very poorly on another death, even with the excuse of a hundred‑year feud.”

“Five hundred years,” Siredy said, “or at least that’s what Txi told me. I take your point. Out back, do you think?”

It was the logical place to go, if the women wanted to settle the quarrel privately, and Eslingen nodded. “I’ll look there,” he said. “You check the dressing rooms.”

Siredy nodded, shot a quick look at the minute glass just as the bookholder turned it. “Three minutes,” he said, and turned away.

Eslingen made his way through the tangle of machinery, found the passage that led to the courtyard, and felt his way up it, blinded by the sudden darkness. No one had bothered to put mage‑lights here, since no one was supposed to be using the courtyard, and he hoped the landames hadn’t gone too far. At least there were no real swords in the theatre, unless, of course, they’d brought their own. He grimaced at the thought–Rathe would call a point on them if they had, dueling swords were by definition well over the legal limit for a knife blade carried inside the city limits–and unbarred the narrow door.

To his surprise, the courtyard was empty, without even a discarded bottle or a crumpled broadsheet, and he stood for a second, staring, before he shook himself back to life. If the two weren’t trying to kill each other, where were they? Probably not working out a solution to the feud, Eslingen thought bitterly, setting the bar back in its socket, and turned back into the theatre. There was nowhere else in the Tyrseia suitable for a duel, and to be fair, he doubted either woman would consent to anything less than a fair fight. Maybe the second tier, where the props from The Drowned Islandwere stored? It was the only other space that might remotely be considered large enough, and it had the added advantage of being off‑limits to everyone but the scenerymen. Or at least that was the theory, Eslingen thought, and swung himself up the narrow ladder. There was nothing to keep out a determined malefactor except Gasquine’s orders.

The second tier was quiet and crowded, all sound muffled by the heavy canvas drapes that covered the various set pieces and props. In the faint light that seeped in from the stage, the space seemed filled to capacity, crowded with pale shapes that only vaguely resembled the objects beneath the coverings. Like snow sculptures, Eslingen thought, dredging up a long‑forgotten memory, a too‑warm midwinter in Esling, snow sculptures melting on a sunny day. There was less room than he had thought, certainly not enough to fight a duel no matter how determined the participants might be. He had turned to slide back down the ladder when he heard the muffled cry.

He swung back at once, straining his eyes to see through the gloom, caught the hint of movement among the scenery stored toward the back of the tier. He took a breath and moved toward it, wishing he had his halberd, or even his bated sword, and the sound came again. It was coming from behind the tallest of the shrouded pieces, and he stepped carefully around it, trying to move silently on the hollow floor. Mage‑light startled him, a lantern turned low and carefully set to throw light on a property couch–part of d’Auriens’s furniture, from The Drowned Island, Eslingen realized, and stifled a laugh–that had been carefully freed of its wrappings, and on that couch the two landames were locked in a passionate embrace. Txi’s hair was falling loose from its elaborate knot, her eyes closed in delight as de Vannevaux buried her face between the other woman’s breasts. Txi’s own hands were under de Vannevaux’s skirts, and Eslingen took a quick step backward, embarrassed and embarrassingly aroused. He took another step, and then a third, deliberately scuffing his shoes on the hollow floor, and heard another muffled exclamation.

“Maseigne de Vannevaux?” he called. “Are you there?”

This time he was sure he heard a curse, and then a rustling, before de Vannevaux’s breathless answer. “Yes. Who–what is it?”

“Lieutenant vaan Esling. You’re wanted onstage, maseigne, the duel scene is about to begin.” Eslingen heard more scuffling, and then de Vannevaux appeared from behind the nearest shrouded set piece. Her clothes were in order, but she shook out her skirts anyway, scowling, and Eslingen succumbed to temptation. “Have you by any chance seen Maseigne Txi? She’s missing, too.”

The color swept up the young woman’s face, but she answered steadily enough. “I’m sure she’ll be along, Lieutenant. Shall we go?”

Eslingen waved toward the ladder, let her climb down ahead of him. “Mistress Gasquine won’t be happy if she finds out you’ve been up here.”

De Vannevaux looked up at him. “I assure you, it won’t happen again.”

And that, Eslingen thought, would almost be too bad. “Just take care,” he said aloud, and the woman nodded. “Now, if you please, join the others.”

For a moment, he thought she would protest, but then she nodded again, jerkily, and swept across the stage, head up. One strand of hair had worked itself loose, and was trailing free of her neat cap, falling almost to her waist. Siredy, standing in the wings opposite, saw her coming, and looked past her to meet Eslingen’s eyes, his eyebrows rising in silent question. Eslingen shook his head, waved for the other man to wait. Siredy’s mouth tightened, and he pointed to the minute glass in silent warning. Eslingen nodded, lifting both hands in what he hoped was a placating gesture, and in the same moment, he heard a noise from the ladder. He stepped back quickly, and saw Txi climbing down. She’d done her best to tidy herself, but there was no way she could repair her elaborate hairstyle without the assistance of a maid. She’d rewound the heavy strands into a passable knot, and refastened corset and bodice–except, Eslingen saw, suppressing a grin, she’d managed to misbutton the bodice.

“Maseigne,” he said softly, and she turned to glare at him.

“What do you want?”

“Your bodice,” he said, and Txi blushed even more deeply than de Vannevaux had done.

“Oh, Seidos’s balls.” She reached for the buttons, hastily rearranging them, and Eslingen looked away quickly as the bookholder called time. Txi swore again, and darted away, taking her place hurriedly in the forming ranks.

“And what,” a familiar voice asked, “was that all about?”

Eslingen turned without haste to see Aconin standing in the shadow of the nearest versatile.

“No,” the playwright went on, “don’t tell me. The landames have decided to settle their feud, and in the most decisive way possible.”

Eslingen hesitated–the last thing he should do was betray the women to Aconin, of all people, but they’d been a monumental trouble ever since he’d met them. Besides, he told himself, the story will be all over the theatre in a matter of hours. And it’s too good to keep. “What a good guess,” he said. “Is it what you would have written?”

Aconin’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking.”

“Not at all.” Eslingen shook his head. “I don’t know if the feud is over, but the current generation has at least found a way around it.”

Aconin blinked once, a slow smile spreading over his face. “Tyrseis. No, I don’t think I could write it, it would be too unlikely. But, oh, I wish I could.”

“I’m sure you will,” Eslingen answered, and the playwright laughed softly.

“You’re probably right. But not until the landames are safely out of town.”

“I never thought you’d be afraid of their reprisals,” Eslingen said.

To his surprise, Aconin seemed to flinch at that. “Not exactly. But why court trouble?”

Because you’ve made a career of it, by all accounts. Eslingen frowned. “First a warning shot, and then no quarter,” he said slowly. “You’ve angered somebody, Chresta. Can I help?”

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 succession 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.

“If you’ll come with me, Adjunct Point. The landseur is busy in the succession houses, and asked if you’d join him there.”

Rathe nodded, not at all sorry to have the chance to see them, and followed her through the house to a narrow stone‑floored hall that led to a shallow courtyard. The greenhouses lay beyond, four long, glass‑walled houses, smoke rising from their narrow chimneys, the rippled glass fogged by the warmth inside. They were easily the largest Rathe had ever seen, made Estines’s little house look like a child’s toy, and he shook his head, amazed. The girl led him to the one at the far end, opened the door and hurried him inside, careful to close the door again behind her before she spoke.

“Adjunct Point Rathe, maseigneur.”

Rathe had been expecting warmth, but not the heat of summer. The reddened light poured through the glass, and for a second he could almost believe that it was a summer sun that set beyond the walls. But the winter‑sun hadn’t risen, no pinpoint of brilliance standing high in the sky, and he shook himself back to the present, impressed again. Aubine stood at a gardener’s bench, coat and waistcoat discarded on a form, his shirtsleeves rolled back and a dozen plants standing unpotted, ready for his hand. All around him, the shelves were crowded with summer plants, most of them close to blooming, and that, Rathe realized, was part of the disorientation. The glasshouse smelled of summer, flowers and dirt and heat, and even the smoke from the stove couldn’t quite destroy the illusion.

“Adjunct Point,” Aubine said. “It’s a surprise to see you away from the theatre.” He lifted a heavy, short‑bladed knife, gestured apologetically with it, scattering dirt. “Forgive me for receiving you like this, but as you know, it’s a busy time for me.”

“Not at all,” Rathe answered. He thought for a second of saying how glad he was to have a chance to see the succession houses, but decided against it. Let the man assume he knew less than he did; if Aubine wanted to lie, this would be a chance to catch him. “I’m pleased to find you here, actually. I was afraid you might be at the theatre.”

Aubine smiled, tipping a plant into a pot that stood ready for him. The girl reached instantly for a bucket that stood nearby, sloshed water over the new dirt. “Ah. Thank you, Bice. I would love to be there, but if the flowers are to be ready for the masque, well, there’s still much work to be done. Bice tells me you have news of Ogier?”

“Some questions, first, if I may,” Rathe said, and realized Aubine was staring at him. “Sir?”

Aubine shook himself. “Of course. Ask what you must.”

“When did you last see Ogier?”

“Ah.” Aubine blinked, eyes focusing on something in the invisible distance. “That would be–what, Bice, one week ago? Two?”

“Almost two weeks ago, sir,” Bice answered. She reached for another pot, but Rathe saw the flicker of distress cross her face. The girl had liked Ogier, that much was obvious, and he winced at the thought of the coming sorrow.

“What happened?” he said aloud. “Did he send word, just not show up one morning?”

“Exactly that, Adjunct Point,” Aubine answered. “He simply didn’t arrive. I thought perhaps he was sick, but then he didn’t come the next day, either, or the day after that. I have no idea where he lives, or I would have sent for him–it’s probably just as well I don’t, I don’t think I would have been very moderate in my summons.” He laughed softly, ruefully. “Master Aconin has not made my job easy, I assure you. Only someone utterly unversed in flowers would manage to feature all the most difficult to bring into bloom at the same time. But I wish Ogier had warned me. I need his help, and he knew it, knew I was counting on him. Have you found him?”

“I’m afraid so,” Rathe said reluctantly, and kept his eye on the girl. “He was murdered last night, in Point of Dreams.”

Bice gasped, her face suddenly as white as chalk, and she set the pot hastily on the table. Aubine took it blindly, his expression still uncomprehending.

“We had his name,” Rathe said, “but we had no notion he worked for you until today. My understanding was that he never attached himself to any one household.”

“No,” Aubine said, “no, that’s quite true. But I asked–he had worked for me before–and he graciously agreed to give me a large portion of his time so that we could get the flowers ready for the masque. I think he liked the idea of being involved in that–and of working in my houses, I know he enjoyed that.” He shook himself then, as though Rathe’s words had finally made sense. “But–murdered? How? And where did you say?”

“He was stabbed,” Rathe said. The second question was an odd one, and he watched the landseur closely. “On the border of Hopes and Dreams, in actual fact, an alley there. He died shortly after he was found.”

Aubine dropped his knife, stared at it for a long moment before stooping to pick it up. “This is terrible news. And there I was, talking about my inconveniences, when the poor man was dead. What you must think of me. I hope he didn’t suffer.”

Rathe slanted a glance at the girl, saw her still listening, and gave the same lie he had told Frelise. “Not much, no.”

“Did he name his attacker?” Aubine went on. “Was it robbery? He could be difficult, but–why in Demis’s name would anyone kill him? Why would anyone murder a gardener?”

And that’s the question, isn’t it? Rathe thought. There could be a dozen reasons for asking if Ogier had named his killer, not least among them the desire to see that person punished, but still, there was something about Aubine’s question that raised the hackles on the back of his neck. And that was probably unfair, he told himself, but chose his words carefully. “It’s early days yet, maseigneur, we’re still trying to answer that. But, no, it wasn’t robbery. He had his purse on him, and it was untouched.” He looked down at the nearest plant, a tiny sundew, pretending to study the pattern of the gold‑edged leaves, watching Aubine from under his lashes. “I can’t imagine he would have had anything else of value on him, besides his purse.”

“No,” Aubine said, and shook his head. “I paid him what he was worth, of course, and I think I paid him only a day or so before he disappeared, but–” He broke off, met Rathe’s curious stare wide‑eyed. “This is simply terrible.”

In spite of himself, his eyes moved, taking in the shelves of plants–thinking of the work to be done, Rathe guessed, and all the more difficult without a helper, and he wasn’t surprised to see the landseur’s shoulders sag. But then Aubine straightened, drawing himself up to his full height, and the moment passed.

“Had he family?”

“A sister,” Rathe answered. “She did some of his housekeeping.”

“Bice.”

The girl straightened, face pinched and still, and Rathe hid a grimace of sympathy.

“Tell Jonneau to prepare a gift for–” Aubine looked at Rathe.

“Frelise Ogier.”

“Frelise Ogier,” Aubine repeated. “She mustn’t suffer for her brother’s death. And, please, Adjunct Point, I’d have you do all you can to discover who’s responsible. I will pay any fee you require…”

“I’ll find out who killed him, my lord,” Rathe answered, “but I don’t take fees.”

Aubine’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t? But how do you survive?”

“It is a paid post,” Rathe said dryly.

“Oh, I know, but I’ve read… I’ve heard…” Aubine took a breath. “Forgive me, Adjunct Point. I hope I didn’t offend.”

“It’s a common assumption, and mostly accurate,” Rathe answered. “No offense taken.” He hesitated, remembering the story Eslingen had related. “May I ask you a question?”

“Of course.” Aubine’s expression was controlled, and perfectly courteous.

“I’ve heard stories,” Rathe said, “and forgive me now if I offend, that the points failed to investigate the death of your leman some years back, a death that was very probably, if not certainly, murder. Is that true?”

Aubine fixed his eyes on the plant still waiting on the table, brought the knife down in a single sharp blow, neatly severing the tangled ball of roots. He heeled one half into a trough set ready, set the other into a half‑empty pot, and only then took a careful breath. “I do believe that to be true, Adjunct Point. That my leman was indeed murdered. I don’t blame the points, though, please understand that.” He looked up, managed a wavering smile. “The death was ordered by my grandmother, who, in practice if not in theory, would have been outside their reach, even if he was killed in Astreiant.” He set the knife aside, rested both hands flat on the scarred table. “That’s why it was so important to me to be part of the masque, to give to it, even if it’s just the flowers, and it’s one of the reasons I love, and fear, being there, at the theatre. It’s so easy there, all the orders, all the proprieties of rank and station, they’re all thrown aside, but when the doors close again, you daren’t forget just how real they truly are. It was that way at the university, certainly, and the theatre– so much more so. It hurts, and I know I’m seeing people who are going to do themselves harm–I wonder if that isn’t what happened to poor de Raзan–but they’re all so eager to throw themselves into this, all so fearless. And they should fear, Adjunct Point, I know that so well.”

It was more than he’d expected to hear, and Rathe nodded in sympathy, the easy words dying on his tongue. Aubine was right, and most of the actors knew it, knew how to play by the rules when they had to, and when they could discard them, Siredy had proved that, but one miscalculation, and they could end up as dead as Aubine’s lost love. “Thank you,” he said softly, and cleared his throat. “Maseigneur, I’m sure–I hope you understand that we’ll want to talk to your people as well, at least the ones who knew Ogier.”

The landseur nodded, his hands slowly brushing soil from the table into a bucket, repeating the movement even though he had to know, as Rathe knew, that it was futile. The dirt was worked into the grain of the wood, the table would never be truly free of it, but the gesture looked more like habit, repeated for comfort, like someone stroking a dog. “Of course, Adjunct Point. And if I or anyone remembers anything that might be of use, I shall assuredly let you know.” He smiled then, the expression crooked. “If I remember at the theatre, should I send word by way of Lieutenant vaan Esling?”

So the gossip’s got that far, Rathe thought, not knowing why he felt a chill. “No,” he said, “send word to Point of Dreams. Even if I’m not there, it will reach me.”

“Ah.” Aubine’s smile widened briefly. “I beg your pardon, Adjunct Point. If I remember anything, I will let you know.”

There were lights in his windows again, and as he went up the stairs the smell of food wafted down to meet him. Not Eslingen’s cooking, he guessed–the ex‑soldier’s kitchen skills were limited–and he wasn’t surprised to see a pair of covered iron dishes stamped with the moon and twin stars that was Pires’s tavern’s mark. One was still covered, waiting on the hob to keep warm; the other was simmering gently on the stove itself. Eslingen was sitting at the table in shirt and waistcoat, and Rathe didn’t have to look to know that the man’s coat was hung neatly on its stand behind the door. A tankard of beer sat in front of him, perfuming the air, and Rathe wrinkled his nose.

“Are we celebrating something?”

Eslingen grinned. “There’s a bottle of wine for you, too. In the cold safe.”

“So what are we celebrating?” Rathe pulled off his jerkin, draped it carelessly on its hook, freed himself of coat and truncheon as well. Eslingen kept the little room warmer than he himself would have done, but so far the price of charcoal was good this winter. He lifted the lid on the warming pot, saw and smelled a mix of root vegetables spiced with butter and horseradish, saw, too, a fresh loaf of bread set above the safe.

“The end of a five‑hundred‑year feud,” Eslingen answered, and Rathe blinked.

“What are you talking about?”

“My landames, remember? I told you about them.”

“The ones who were fighting,” Rathe answered, nodding, and reached into the safe for the wine. There was a new wedge of cheese as well, and he shook his head as he tugged open the bottle. “You’ll spoil us both, Philip.”

“Well, they decided to stop fighting today,” Eslingen said. “Or maybe it was before then, I can’t be sure.”

“Try beginning at the beginning,” Rathe suggested, and seated himself opposite the other man. The wine was good, the same cheap flinty wine from Verniens that he always drank, and he took another long swallow, relaxing in spite of himself.

“They were missing when Gasquine called us to rehearse the swordplay,” Eslingen said obligingly. “So of course we, Siredy and I, thought they’d decided to settle the feud once and for all. But when I went looking for them, I found them in the props loft, in–shall we say–a most compromising position.”

“They weren’t,” Rathe said, grinning himself now, and Eslingen nodded.

“Oh, but they were. I’d say the feud was settled.”

“The poor women,” Rathe said. “The story must be all over the theatre by now–how old are they, anyway?”

“Old enough to know how to manage an affair,” Eslingen said. “Honestly, Nico, after all I’ve heard about their thrice‑damned families and their five‑hundred‑year feud, I’m delighted to see them embarrassed. And before you say it, I didn’t have to say anything. Maseigne Txi was foolish enough to wear her hair in an arrangement she couldn’t redo without help.”

In spite of himself, Rathe laughed, the day’s sorrows receding even further. However they’d gotten to this point, it was good to sit here with Eslingen, good to share a drink and dinner and even this joke. “Aconin must have loved it. It’s just the sort of thing he does well.”

Eslingen’s smile faltered, and he leaned forward, resting both elbows on the table. “Aconin… I had a talk with him today, Nico. I think you want to question him.”

“Oh?” Back to business, Rathe thought, but couldn’t resent it. Here in the warmth of his own room, supper waiting on the stove, Eslingen’s easy presence across the table, it was almost like an ordinary profession, the comfortable chat of guild‑mates, not the fraught world of the points. I know it’s serious, deadly serious, but, Sofia, it’s so good to be a little free of it.

“Sorry.” Eslingen smiled regretfully. “But he knows who attacked him, I’m sure of that. You could probably get it out of him, he’s scared enough he might tell you.”

“What did he say?” It wasn’t exactly a surprise, Rathe thought, he’d been sure of it since he saw the playwright in his ransacked room.

Eslingen closed his eyes for a second, as though that would help him remember. “He said he’d made a mistake, taken something that had been promised to him–something he needed, he said. And that was what was behind all this.”

“Nothing more?” Rathe asked.

“No.” Eslingen reached for the pint bucket, ladled himself another tankard of beer. “Some people came up to us–he was afraid of being overheard–and then I was needed onstage. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, that’s more than we had before.” Rathe’s eyes narrowed. “Afraid of being overheard… Do you think it’s someone at the theatre?”

“Well, it has to be, doesn’t it, considering?” Eslingen answered, and Rathe shook his head.

“That wasn’t what I meant, I meant someone at the theatre today, at that moment, in fact.”

Eslingen shook his head in turn. “I’m afraid that doesn’t narrow it down very much. We had the whole chorus there–though not all the actors, not that I ever suspected them particularly. And the staff, and everyone.”

“Was Aubine there?” Rathe asked slowly.

“Yes, fiddling with his damn flowers. The arrangements just keep getting bigger and brighter, they’re going to be spectacular for the performance.” Eslingen paused. “Actually, he was one of the people who came up–you can’t suspect him, Nico.”

“Why not?”

Eslingen spread his hands. “He’s too–polite. Too calm. I just can’t see it.”

“Polite men have committed murder before this, Philip.”

“All right, why, then?”

Rathe stopped, frustrated. “I don’t know. I just…” He let his voice trail off, shook his head again. “I spoke to him today–Ogier worked for him, did I tell you that? Worked on the flowers for the masque, so his death is probably part of all this. But I spoke to Aubine, and… There’s something about him, Philip, makes my hackles rise. As you said–he’s too polite.”

“A landseur treats you with respect, so you suspect him of murder?” Eslingen asked, grinning, and in spite of himself, Rathe smiled back.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. No, I don’t trust the man, and I couldn’t tell you why. Sofia, I’d give a pillar or two to see his stars.”

“Is there someone you can ask?” Eslingen asked, and Rathe shook his head, shaking himself back to reality.

“No, no one. His family aren’t even Astreianter, so there won’t be servants to ask, even if I thought they’d tell me. No, I’ll start with Aconin, that sounds a lot more promising. But–” He hesitated, wishing he could put a finger on the cause of his uncertainty, recalled Aubine’s offer to send word via the Leaguer. “Be careful, Philip.”

Eslingen nodded. “I always am.”

9

« ^ »

for once, Rathe let Eslingen leave before him, biding his time until the clock struck half past nine and he was sure the playwright would be at the Tyrseia. The square in front of the theatre was quiet, the tavern closed, though he was aware of the owner watching from an upstairs window– probably wondering if there was going to be another body, he thought, and smiled in spite of himself. This was probably more excitement than they’d seen since The Drowned Islandclosed and the apprentices went home. As he came around the curve of the building, he saw a familiar carriage, every available space filled with bundled plants, and sighed to realize that Aubine was there before him. In the same moment, the landseur turned, motioning for his coachman to remain where he was, and moved to intercept him.

“Adjunct Point. I hadn’t hoped you would be here this morning, I thought I would have to send for you.”

“I had other business here,” Rathe answered, and knew he sounded wary.

“Unfortunately, I have–business–of my own for you,” Aubine said, and gave a small, sad smile. “Please, over here.”

Rathe followed him over to the carriage, frowning as he saw the torn leather curtain in its single window. Aubine reached through the window to open the door, and Rathe caught his breath. The floor of the carriage was covered with shards of glass, glass and water already freezing into ice, and a bouquet of summer flowers lay wilting on the seat. The warming box was cold to the touch, the coals extinguished, Rathe guessed, by the water that had spilled.

“Someone,” Aubine said, “shot at my carriage this morning.”

Rathe took a breath, shaking himself back to his duty. “When, maseigneur?”

Aubine looked at the coachman, who rolled his eyes almost as nervously as his horse. “I was told to bring the carriage at half past eight,” he said, “and then it took half an hour or more to load the flowers. So a little after nine, then, maseigneur.”

“A little after nine,” Aubine said.

Rathe fingered the torn curtain. It would have been stretched taut to keep out as much of the cold as possible; the hole was small, about the size of his little finger, but the ball had clearly hit the vase with enough force to shatter it, and that would easily have been enough to wound, probably to kill. For a second, he wished Eslingen were there–he didn’t have much experience with firearms himself, the average Astreianter bravo preferred knives–but pushed the thought away. Time enough to ask him later; for now, there were other matters to determine. “And where were you, maseigneur?”

“I was riding on the box.” Aubine looked almost embarrassed. “There were so many flowers, you see, and all of them delicate.”

“So there were more flowers in the coach?” Rathe asked, and leaned in to examine the floor and seats more closely. Sure enough, there was a tear in the far wall, where the ball had ripped through the coach itself. And it had to be a ball, he thought, couldn’t have been a birdbolt or any other projectile. Anything else would have been slowed by the curtain and the glass, and he would have found it somewhere among the broken pieces. And Aubine, sitting on the box with the driver, would have been, was muffled up against the cold like anyone, no one would expect him to be riding outside, or recognize him when he was.