Point of Hopes (23 page)

b’Estorr nodded. “I thought that was it. Have you
eaten?”

Rathe glanced automatically at the sunstick in the
window, saw with some surprise that it was well past noon. “Not
since this morning, no.” And that had been a bite or two of bread
and cheese at the Old Brown Dog.

“
Then why don’t you join me?”
b’Estorr said, and leaned out the door to call for a servant
without waiting for the other’s answer. When the servant appeared—a
girl in a student’s gown, Rathe saw without surprise—b’Estorr gave
quick orders for a meal, and closed the door again. “There’s wine
in the jug, help yourself.”

Rathe nodded, but made no move. b’Estorr smiled
again, and poured himself a glass. It was blown glass, pale blue
streaked with an orange pink, not one of the pottery cups Rathe
himself used at home, and he wondered if they were university
privilege, or like b’Estorr survivors of the court of Chadron. He
could not quite, he realized, imagine b’Estorr drinking from
pottery.

“
So what can I do for you?”
b’Estorr asked, and lowered himself into one of the carved chairs,
stretching his feet into the patch of sunlight.

Rathe seated himself as well, aware of an eddy of
cold air that seemed to shy away from him as he moved. One of
b’Estorr’s ghosts? he wondered and shook the thought away. “As you
said the missing children. I don’t suppose you’ve seen—sorry,
touched—any of them, or any unusual ghosts at all, these past three
weeks?”

b’Estorr shook his head. “I doubt it’s much comfort,
but no. I haven’t, and neither has anyone I know.”

“
Oh, it’s a comfort, I suppose,”
Rathe said. “It’s just not a lot of help.” He winced at what he’d
said. “I didn’t mean that, of course—”

“
But it would be easier if you had
something to work with,” b’Estorr finished. “Don’t worry, I won’t
repeat it.”

“
Thanks,” Rathe said. He ran a hand
through his hair. “It’s just that these disappearances are
so—absolute. People are talking about children being stolen off the
streets, but if it were that, gods, we’d have an easier time of
it.”

b’Estorr tilted his head. “But they are being
stolen, surely.”

“
Apparently, but there’s not a
woman, or man, who can say they’ve actually seen a child being
stolen. And you can be sure there’d be trouble if they did. We
nearly had a riot over in Hopes, in the Street of the Apothecaries,
no less, when a journeyman tried to drag home one of his
apprentices, and people thought he was stealing the child.” Rathe
sighed. “No, no one’s stealing them, Istre, at least not in the
usual way. They just—disappear. They leave good situations, bad
situations, no situations at all. They’re not runaways, that I’m
sure of, not with what some of them—hells, most of them, all of
them—leave behind. So, they don’t go willingly. But they’re not
being seized off the streets. And we don’t know what is happening
to them.”

“
Some of them are legitimate
runaways?” b’Estorr asked.

Rathe nodded. “We’ve found some of those, but it’s
harder than ever to tell this year, since of course every parent,
guildmaster, or guardian who loses a child would rather think
they’ve been taken than that the child would want to run. So I’m
getting less honest answers than usual, I think, from some
quarters.” Like the surintendant, he added silently. Why he wants
me concentrating on Caiazzo when there are plenty of more likely
possibilities…but there weren’t any, that was the problem, and he
pushed the thought aside. “But the upshot of it all is, Monteia,
and I, are checking even the most outlandish possibilities.”

“
Which brings you to me?” b’Estorr
asked.

The tilt of his eyebrow surprised a grin from Rathe.
“Not quite the way that sounded, but yes, sort of. First, is it
possible that the children are dead even though no one’s reported
touching their ghosts? Could somebody be binding them, or could
they have been taken far enough away, and killed there?” b’Estorr
was shaking his head, and Rathe stopped abruptly.

“
It’s all possible, but not very
likely,” the necromancer said. “What do you know about
ghosts?”

“
What everyone does, I suppose,”
Rathe answered. He could smell, quite suddenly, baking bread, but
the air that brought that scent was unreasonably cold. “They’re the
spirits of the untimely dead, they can remember everything they
knew in life except the day they died, and you can’t use their
testimony before the judiciary unless two necromancers agree and
there’s physical evidence to support their word.”

b’Estorr grinned. “I doubt everybody knows that
last.”

Rathe snorted. “They know it by heart in the Court
of the Thirty-two Knives. I’ve had bravos caught
red-handed—literally—and tell me that.”

This time, b’Estorr laughed aloud. “I can’t imagine
it would do much good, under those circumstances.”

“
It depends on how large a fee they
can manage,” Rathe answered.

“
Ah.” b’Estorr’s smile faded. “The
thing that matters, Nico, is the whys of all that. A ghost can’t
remember the specifics of her or his death because—in effect—the
murderer has established a geas over her that prevents her
speaking. It’s possible, with effort and preparation—true malice
aforethought—to extend that geas either to silence the ghost
completely, or, more commonly, to bind her to the precise spot
where she was killed. If you do it right, the odds that a
necromancer, or even a sensitive, would stumble on that spot are
vanishingly low. But I doubt that’s what’s happening. It takes too
much time and effort to arrange, and if you’re missing, what, fifty
children?”

“
Eighty-four,” Rathe answered.
“That’s from the entire city.”

b’Estorr’s eyes widened. “Gods, I didn’t realize.”
He shook his head. “There is one other possibility, though, that
you may need to consider. Have you ever given any thought to the
meaning of ‘untimely’ death?”

Rathe looked at him. “I assume it means ‘dead before
your time,’ though I dare say you’re going to tell me
otherwise.”

“
It’s the question of who defines
your time,” b’Estorr answered.

Rathe paused. “Your stars?”

“
Stars can tell the manner and
sometimes the place,” b’Estorr answered. “Not the time. No, the
person who defines ‘untimely’ is ultimately the ghost herself.
That’s why you’ll see ghosts of people who’ve died of plague or
sudden illness, they simply weren’t willing to acknowledge it was
time for them to die. That’s also why you don’t see many ghosts of
the very old, no matter how they die—and why you don’t see ghosts
of those who die in battle or in duel. In each case, those people
had accepted the possibility of their death, and accepted it when
it happened. Now some people, a very few, even though their deaths
would be reckoned timely by any normal measure, simply won’t accept
it, and they, too, become ghosts.”

“
You mean they just say, ‘no, I’m
not dead yet,’ and they’re not?” Rathe demanded.

“
Not exactly, but close enough.
It’s a question of how strong a life force they have, and what
incentives they have to live, or, more precisely, not to die.”
b’Estorr’s face grew somber, the blue eyes sliding away to fix on
something out of sight over Rathe’s left shoulder. “The reverse is
also true. There are people who simply don’t know when they should
die, or don’t care, and whose deaths, even by bare murder, don’t
seem to matter. They don’t become ghosts because they seem to
accept that any death, from whatever cause, is fated.”

“
Temple priests, and such?” Rathe
asked. He couldn’t keep from sounding skeptical, and wasn’t
surprised to see b’Estorr’s mouth twist in answer.

“
Well, the ones that are
contemplative, and there aren’t many of them left, these days. But
the main group this covers is children.”

“
Oh.” Rathe leaned back in his
chair, aware again of the warm breeze drifting in from the yard,
carrying with it a strong smell of dust and greenery. b’Estorr’s
ghosts seemed to have moved off; he could feel the sunlight
creeping across the toes of his boots, heating his feet beneath the
leather. It made sense, painfully so: children weren’t experienced,
didn’t know what they could and couldn’t expect from the world;
they might well accept death as their lot, especially the ones born
and bred southriver, where life was cheap. He shook his head,
rejecting the thought. “Not all of them,” he said. “They can’t all
have, I don’t know, given up? And some of them were old enough to
know, and to be angry.”

b’Estorr nodded. “I agree. It’s usually the youngest
children, anyway, much younger than apprentice-age, that this
applies to. And even then, you occasionally run into someone who’s
clever enough, strong enough—loved enough, sometimes—to know they
shouldn’t be dead.” For an instant, his voice sounded distinctly
fond, and Rathe wondered just what dead child he was remembering.
And then the moment was gone, and he was back to business. “And in
a group this large of older children—I doubt this is what’s
happening. But I thought I should at least mention it, even as a
remote possibility.”

“
Thanks,” Rathe said.

“
Thank me when I do something
useful,” b’Estorr answered. There was a knock at the door, and he
added, “Come in.”

The girl student pushed the door open with a hunched
shoulder, her hands busy with a covered tray. At b’Estorr’s nod,
she set it on the worktable, and disappeared again. b’Estorr lifted
the covers, releasing a fragrance of onions and oil, and Rathe
realized with a start that he was hungry.

“
Help yourself,” b’Estorr said, and
Rathe reached for a spoon and bowl. There was bread as well as the
wedge of soft cheese and the bowl of noodles and onions, and he
balanced a chunk of each on the edge of his bowl.

“
There was one other thing Monteia
wanted,” he said, around a mouthful of noodles, and b’Estorr lifted
an eyebrow.

“
I might have known.” His smile
robbed the words of any offense.

“
Yeah, well, she was wanting to
have horoscopes cast for our missing kids, for the days of
disappearance when we know them, see if anything useful showed up
that way,” Rathe said. “So I was wondering if you could tell me who
would be best for the job.”

“
I could do it myself, if you’d
like,” b’Estorr answered. “Or there’s Cathala, she’s very
skilled.”

“
I’d rather you did it,” Rathe
answered “and thanks.”

“
All I’ll need are the nativities,
the best you can get me,” b’Estorr answered. “You must be hard up
for information if you’re trying that.”

“
We’ve damn all but rumors, and
those dangerous ones,” Rathe said. “For us, a lot of suspicion is
falling on a Leaguer who runs a tavern on the border with Point of
Dreams. And yes, it’s a soldiers’ haunt, and yes, a lot of
recruiting goes on there. But the people there are adamant that no
commander’s going to be taking children at this time of year, when
he could have his choice from the royal regiments that were just
paid off”

“
There’s a great deal of sense to
that,” b’Estorr said.

Rathe nodded. “Certainly, but it’s not what anyone
wants to hear. They just want their kids back.”

b’Estorr smiled in agreement. “No theories,
then?”

“
Oh, everyone has a favorite
theory, we’ve a glut of them.” Rathe counted them off on his
fingers. “The surintendant favors Hanselin Caiazzo, though the gods
alone know what he’d do with eighty-four children. The chief at
City Point is looking askance at the manufactories, Temple Point
has asked all of us southriver to check the brothels—which we’ve
done, at least once—and in the meantime most of southriver is
blaming northriver merchants. Exactly how, they’re not sure, but
they’re positive it’s the rich who are doing it to them somehow.
Leveller voices are being heard again. Oh, yes, and they’re not too
sure the points aren’t involved somehow or other.”

“
I don’t quite see that,” b’Estorr
said.

“
At the very least, we’ve been
fee’d to look the other way.”

“
Oh. Of course.” There was a smile
behind the necromancer’s voice, and Rathe smiled in
reply.

“
So what are the rumors up here,
magist? What theories have the students and masters come up
with?”

b’Estorr gave him a bland stare. “Do you think we
have time to waste on idle gossip?”

“
Yes.”

“
Well, you’re not wrong. There’s a
lot of talk about the star-change, of course—you’ve probably heard
variations on that theme as well. And when you add politics to the
mix, people are in a mood to borrow trouble. Among the juniors
there’s talk of dark maneuverings by one or more of the potential
claimants.” b’Estorr frowned slightly, more pensive than annoyed.
“Marselion seems to be high on everyone’s list—why is that,
Nico?”

Rathe grinned. He had seen the Palatine Marselion
and her train on her last visit to Astreiant, for the Fall Balance
and its associated session of the Great Council. She had carried
herself like a queen, and snubbed the city—even the northriver
merchants, who had been prepared to welcome her—except for her
distributions of alms. “She’s been too blatant in her ambition. She
thinks it’s sewn up, or she acts like it is, and the people don’t
like that.”

“
Not that they have much say in the
matter.” b’Estorr’s voice held a faint note of distaste, and
Rathe’s grin widened fractionally. Chadron was, technically, an
elective kingship, which contributed greatly to the death rate
among its monarchs.