Fairs' Point (17 page)

“Sorry, go on.”

“
Why don’t you sit down with her and have a chat about this hypothetical problem she might have heard about? Get b’Estorr in on it, for that matter, see if he can make anything of it. And if he does—well, then you’ll have something to take to Trijn.”

Rathe stared at him for a moment, just long enough that Eslingen wondered if he’d misjudged the situation entirely, then shook his head again.
“That’s clever, that is. Will she do it?”

“
I think so. She can afford the loss, but even so…” Eslingen shrugged.

“
No one likes losing a box of silver,” Rathe agreed. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

Eslingen felt himself blush.
“As it happens, I’m at liberty.”

“
Oh?”

“
Duca thought I needed a day off.”

Rathe nodded as though he understood the unspoken—and ma
ybe he did, Eslingen thought. “Well, I can use you, if you’re willing. And if Istre’s available, but he should be, this time of year. Will you talk to Dame Calaon, bring her to a meeting?”

“
I’d be glad to,” Eslingen said.

“
Thanks.”

“
Any time,” Eslingen answered, and hoped this was another step toward Coindarel’s Guard.

Dreams was in an uproar when Rathe arrived, this time over a pirated printing of a popular play. Playwright, company mistress, and the printer were all shouting at each other in the main room—with Gasquine making full use of her resonant, theatre trained voice, though the printer and the playwright were holding their own—while Falasca tried in vain to make sense of the complaint. The juniors on duty were staring slack-jawed, seemingly stunned by the farrago of accusation and invective that spilled from delicately painted lips. That, at least, Rathe could deal with, and he sent both of them back to work blushing before he barricaded himself in his workroom with the most recent circulars. Mercifully, there was nothing more than the usual there—mostly complaints from Fairs’ Point about pickpockets and unlicensed printers, plus the usual long list of illicit horoscopes and suspected astrologers from the Patent Administrator’s office. The Surintendant reminded all stations that nothing had been decided yet about the City Guard, which sounded as though he thought he was losing that battle. A young man was reported missing in Hearts, and found again in Sighs, living with a tea-merchant old enough to be his mother. Rathe wished them both good luck, and worked his way to the bottom of the stack without finding anything else of interest except a rather plaintive reminder from Fairs’ Point that apparently some people did miss Aardre Beier and would like to know his whereabouts. At least someone at the station still had a sense of humor, though Rathe doubted it would survive the meet.

He sent a runner to the University with a note for Istre b’Estorr, asking for unspecified help—he didn’t feel this was something he could explain in writing—and received a scrawled response saying that the necromancer was free any time after his morning lecture. It was coming up on the spring ghost tide, at the Dog full moon, and Rathe suspected b’Estorr would be glad to get away from his co
lleagues for a bit. The University’s necromancers tried to take the ghost tide off, but that meant rushing through extra work in preparation, and b’Estorr was usually out of patience with them by now. Eslingen sent a note as well, promising Calaon’s attendance at any point. Rathe checked the station clock, calculating the time it would take to collect b’Estorr, and sent back a note asking the Leaguer to meet them at the White Horse. It was on the border of the University and Manufactory Point; he was unlikely to attract attention there, and if he did, it was unlikely to be tied to the troubles in Fairs’ Point.

He grabbed jerkin and truncheon from their hooks by the door, was shrugging into the jerkin just as Trijn came up the stairs.

“And where are you going?”

“
Business in University Point, Chief,” Rathe answered promptly, and Trijn groaned.

“
Beier?”

“
No, in point of fact—”

Trijn held up her hand.
“On second thought, don’t tell me. I’m sure it will be a lovely surprise.”

“
Right, Chief,” Rathe said, and escaped before she could change her mind.

The weather had turned cloudy after a week of spring sun, and the air held a distinct chill. Rathe was glad of his leather jerkin as he crossed the exposed center of the Hopes’ Point Bridge. The same breeze was in his face all the way down the river’s north bank, and he was glad finally to turn into the shelter of the streets that surrounded the University.

b’Estorr had left word with the doorkeeper that he was at home to visitors, and Rathe climbed the stairs to the necromancer’s comfortable lodging. The door was propped partway open, as was the University’s custom when a master was at home and available for consultation, but Rathe knocked briskly anyway. b’Estorr opened it promptly, and waved him into a study that smelled of beeswax and a brisk fire.

“
Is it true that someone’s finally murdered Aardre Beier?” he asked.

“
Who told you that?” Rathe shook his head. “I mean, he’s not dead that I know of, so I’m curious.”

“
No one and everyone,” b’Estorr answered. “I was sure that was what you were here for.”

“
Actually, it’s a bit weirder than that,” Rathe said. “Believe it or not. Mind you, we’re being asked about it hypothetically, but I’ve reason to believe it’s real enough.”

“
Well, you certainly have my attention now,” b’Estorr said. He plucked at the front of his long gray gown. “Should I change, or do you need my academic authority?”

“
Change,” Rathe said. “Discretion is today’s watchword.”

“
Do I want to know who you’ve annoyed this time?” b’Estorr disappeared into his bedroom, and Rathe heard the clothes press open and shut.

“
It’s complicated.” Rathe could feel the presence of the necromancer’s ghosts, eddies of cold air unnaturally close to the fire, and moved toward the window. Outside, the Great Clock struck the quarter hour, and b’Estorr emerged in an unremarkable rust-brown coat, his stock discarded for an open collar. “I’ll explain on the way,” Rathe told him.

By the time they reached the White Horse, Rathe had managed to summarize the various cases currently at Dreams and the problems in Fairs’ Point, and as they ducked through the tavern’s narrow door, b’Estorr shook his head.

“The missing boxholder is what strikes me. That’s not reasonable.”

“
I know,” Rathe said. “But there’s nothing I can do, not unless I want to start a feud with Fairs’ Point that will run for decades. Unless there’s something you could do to help?”

“
You know as well as I do that even if he was dead and I did manage to find his ghost, there’s precious little he could tell us of the matter of his death,” b’Estorr answered. “And less than that if it’s murder.”

Rathe nodded. Murder bound a ghost, created a sort of geas that prevented her from naming her killer, or much of anything that would be useful to a pointsman investigating the crime; despite the contortions of playwrights, no ghost yet had ever been able to give testimony that led directly or even indirectly to her killer.

Eslingen and Dame Calaon were there before them, seated at a table in the corner by the painted stove. It was unlit this late in the season, and they had the corner to themselves. Eslingen had already ordered wine and a plate of hard savory cakes, and Rathe poured himself a glass, mildly surprised to find it good.

“
This is Dame Calaon,” Eslingen said, “who as I mentioned has a rather pretty theoretical problem. Dame, I expect you know Adjunct Point Rathe—”

Calaon nodded.
“Honored.”

“
And the other is Istre b’Estorr, of the University.”

“
Their necromancer from the broadsheets?” Calaon cocked her head in amusement, and b’Estorr sighed.

“
Yes, probably. I’m a necromancer, and I’ve worked with them before. But I have more general training as well.”

“
I profoundly hope it won’t come to your specialty,” Calaon said, and b’Estorr murmured something polite and meaningless in answer.

“
I understand this is a purely hypothetical discussion,” Rathe said, and Calaon gave an unhappy smile.

“
Being as it involved unlicensed book-writers for a starting premise, of course it is. No one here is admitting to breaking the Queen’s law, Adjunct Point. Nor do I know anyone who has.”

“
Absolutely not,” Rathe agreed.

“
With that understood,” Calaon went on, and drew a breath. “There’s a tale one hears, about thefts from locked strongboxes—only the silver taken, and no likely thieves in view.” She went carefully through the story that Eslingen had told, with more detail but the same fundamental result: silver coins had been stolen from double-locked strongboxes, and there was no ordinary way to explain the theft.

When she had finished, Rathe shook his head.
“We’d had word from Fairs that there had been thefts from strongboxes, on top of a plague of pickpockets, but they didn’t give us the details. And it’s the detail that makes the difference. I can’t say I’ve heard the like. Not even in the casebooks they made us memorize when I was a journeyman. It sounds like magistry, but I’ve never heard of anything like that, either. Unless you have?”

He looked at b’Estorr, who shook his head.
“Not me. Admittedly, theft isn’t my specialty, but something like this—if it were a known technique, there would be countermeasures, at the very least.”

Calaon nodded.
“The merchant sisterhood would pay solid coin for a counter, certainly. But I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“
So it’s new,” Rathe said. New and disastrous, at least until someone figured out how to prevent it. Though why it wasn’t being used more widely—but, no, a truly clever thief would start like this, small thefts that added up, all from women who couldn’t afford to complain, and hope to make her fortune before someone was finally forced to take it to the points.

B’Estorr was shaking his head, and Rathe frowned.

“You’ve thought of something?”

“
Not exactly.” B’Estorr was frowning, too, a deep line showing between his brows. “What I don’t see is how it could be done at all. It’s hard to move objects by magistry—that’s why you don’t see magists down on the docks shifting cargos. It takes more energy and skill to move anything much bigger than a loaf of bread by magistry than it does just to pick it up yourself, and it’s a lot easier to be sure it ends up where you want it.”

Eslingen stirred.
“I’ve seen sappers place a charge by magistry. Barrels of powder.”

“
Yes, but that’s something you don’t want to do by hand,” b’Estorr said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“
True enough.” Eslingen nodded. “And it took a team of magists to do it, too, which proves your point.”

“
And there’s another factor,” b’Estorr said. “Silver’s not like gold. Gold is magistically active, it doesn’t take much energy to do things with it. Or to it. Aurichalcum is the extreme form, of course.”

“
I’d gathered that,” Rathe said, his voice dry. The summer before, a mad magist had created enough aurichalcum to build an orrery that had been powerful enough to untune the clocks in Astreiant. It was not a thing anyone wanted to see again.

“
Yes, well.” b’Estorr shrugged. “Even ordinary gold is malleable, responsive to magistry. Silver, now… Silver’s exactly the opposite. It’s a pragmatic metal, magistically inert. You have to use an enormous amount of energy just to get it to react at all, and even then it’s hard to predict whether you’ll get the reaction you want, or whether the whole thing will just melt into a big lump. I just can’t see trying to steal silver by magistical means. If it were gold, now—but it’s not.”