Point of Hopes (25 page)

“
Nothing here either,” a pointsman
announced and Monteia straightened, one hand going to the small of
her back.

“
Devynck’s office,” she said. “And
then upstairs.”

Monteia herself went through Devynck’s office,
though she disdained to touch the locked strongbox that sat beneath
the work table. Huviet looked as though she would protest, seeing
that, but Monteia fixed her with a cold stare, and the little woman
subsided. At the chief point’s gesture, Eslingen led the way into
the garden and up the outside stair, then stood back while the
pointsmen went into each of the lodgers’ rooms.

“
I’ve four people staying with me
now,” Devynck said, from the top of the stairs, “all known to me,
Monteia, except Eslingen, and he came recommended by a woman I’d
trust with my life. So that’s four rooms out of six, and the others
are all empty. But see for yourself.”

“
We will,” Monteia said, without
particular emphasis, and Devynck snorted, and climbed down the
stairs again, her shoes loud on the wood. The chief point made a
face, and nodded to her people. “All right, get on with it—and
remember what I said.”

Eslingen leaned against the wall, the suns’ light
hot on his back. At least the other lodgers were away, either at
their jobs, or, like Jasanten, at the Temple of Areton, and he made
a face at the thought of explaining the searches to some of his
more truculent neighbors. Still, he would deal with that later, if
anyone noticed. So far, though, the pointsmen had been remarkably
tidy in their work. He was just glad Rathe wasn’t among the group,
and couldn’t have said precisely why.

He straightened as Huviet started to follow a
pointswoman into one of the rooms, and touched Monteia’s shoulder.
“Chief Point, I’ve no objection to her going into the untenanted
rooms, but that woman has no status here, and I won’t have her in
the lodgers’ rooms.” He left the accusation hanging, delicately,
and saw Monteia suppress a grin.

“
Mistress Huviet, you will have to
stay outside.”

Huviet drew herself up. “You keep taking their part,
Chief Point. One would think you were on their side.”

“
I’m here to act for the city’s
laws,” Monteia said. “This search is at your behest, mistress,
that’s all you have a right to.”

Huviet looked as though she was going to say
something else, but as visibly swallowed her words. She turned on
her heel, and moved down the hall, to stand ostentatiously in the
doorway of the next room. “Be sure and check the walls for hidden
panels.”

Monteia rolled her eyes, then looked at Eslingen.
“So you’re the new knife. Rathe spoke to you?”

“
Yes.” Eslingen kept his eyes on
the city woman, moving on to the doorway of the next
room.

“
Good.” Monteia nodded. “He speaks
well of you, at least on first acquaintance. I hope you’ll keep his
advice in mind.”

“
Send to Point of Hopes if we have
trouble, he said.” Eslingen tilted his head at the pointsmen
filling the hallway. “And who do we send to for this, Chief
Point?”

Monteia looked at him. “There are a lot of other
things I could be doing, Eslingen, things that would close the
Brown Dog for good. And that might be simplest right now, seeing
that there are plenty of people who’d like to see it closed, just
because Devynck’s a Leaguer and a soldier when it’s a bad time to
be either.”

Eslingen looked away, acknowledging that she had the
right of it. “People are scared,” he said, after a moment, not
knowing how to apologize.

“
I know it,” Monteia said, flatly,
and then shook her head. “I’d have to be deaf not to hear what’s
being said, and I’ve been offered coin to be blind, too, for that
matter. To close my eyes and not see, what did she call it, events
taking their course.”

“
Fire?” Eslingen asked, instantly,
and as quickly shook his head. “Surely not, not in a neighborhood
like this, everything cheek by jowl—”

Monteia gave a twisted smile. “You think like a
soldier. I doubt anyone hereabouts would destroy real property,
they’ve had to work too hard to get it. But that’s why I’m here,
and that’s why I’m offending the hells out of an old friend.”

Eslingen nodded. It was like war, a little, or more
like taking a city. You saved what you could through whatever
methods were necessary. You didn’t make friends, you usually lost
some, but you kept some part of yourself intact. He doubted Monteia
would appreciate the analogy, however, said only, “If we get any
further trouble, Chief Point, I promise we’ll send to you.”

“
Good.”

“
We’re finished here, ma’am,” one
of the pointsmen said. “Still nothing.”

Monteia nodded briskly. “Right. Downstairs, then.”
Eslingen stood aside with an automatic half bow, and the chief
point grinned. “Served with Coindarel, did you? He always was one
for a pretty man with good manners.”

“
And I was beginning to like you,
Chief Point,” Eslingen muttered.

He followed her down into the garden, well aware
that Devynck was waiting, hands on hips, beside the fence that
marked the edge of the kitchen garden. She fixed him and the chief
point with an impartial glare, and said “Find anyone, Monteia? My
keys, Philip.”

Eslingen handed her the knot of metal, and she
restored it to its place at her belt, still staring at Monteia.

The chief point shook her head. “No. Nor, for the
record did I expect to, and so I told Mistress Huviet when she made
her complaint.”

“
They’ve just been moved” Huviet
said. “She had warning, they took the children away before we could
get here.”

“
Do you have any proof of that?”
one of the other pointswomen snapped and Monteia held up her hand
silencing both of them.

“
My people have been in and out of
the Old Brown Dog half a dozen times since the children started
disappearing—easily half of those since Herisse Robion vanished—and
all without warning. There’s been no sign of children, or are you
calling me a liar, mistress?” Huviet said nothing, and Monteia
nodded in satisfaction. “If anything, Devynck’s been discouraging
the local youth from coming here. I will take it very ill if
there’s any further disturbance in this neighborhood.”

“
It won’t be us who causes a
disturbance, Chief Point,” Huviet said stiffly.

Before Monteia could say anything to that, Loret
appeared in the doorway, one hand in the waistband of his breeches
where he stashed his cudgel. “Eslingen—”

“
Trouble?” Devynck asked eyes
narrowing.

“
There’s people here, ma’am, they
say they know the points are here, and they want to make sure
everything’s all right.”

And I wish I thought that meant they were on our
side, Eslingen thought. He said, “I’ll deal with it.”

“
Not alone,” Monteia said and fixed
her eyes on Huviet. “If this is your doing, mistress—” She broke
off, gestured for Eslingen to precede her into the tavern. To his
relief, a pair of pointsmen followed, drawing their
truncheons.

The main door was closed and barred, but Eslingen
could see blurred shapes moving outside the windows, and could hear
the dull buzz of voices. Not angry, not yet, not calling for blood,
but the potential was there, clear in the note of the crowd.
Monteia’s frown deepened, and she looked at Eslingen. “Go ahead and
open it. I’ll talk to them.”

Eslingen’s eyebrows rose at that—he lacked the chief
point’s confidence in her powers of persuasion—but, reluctantly, he
slid back the bar. Monteia flung the door open, and stepped out
into the sunlit street.

“
What’s all this, then?”

The pointsmen stepped up to the door, but did not
follow her into the street. Looking past them, Eslingen had to
admit he admired their restraint. A group of maybe a dozen
journeymen, all in butchers’ leather aprons, were gathered outside
the door, and beyond them the respectable matrons of the
neighborhood had gathered, too, along with a couple of master
butchers. They looked less certain of the situation, torn between
disapproval of the tavern and disapproval of the journeymen’s
protest, but they made no move to haul their juniors home. Scanning
their faces, Eslingen thought he recognized the woman whose son
he’d sent home, and wondered whose side she would be on.

“
Well?” Monteia demanded, and a
familiar figure stepped out from among the journeymen.

“
Have you taken the child-thief?”
Paas demanded. “Bring her out, let us see her.”

“
There are no children here,”
Monteia said; and pitched her voice to carry to the edges of the
crowd. She ticked her next words off on her fingers, a grand
gesture, calculated to impress. “There are no children, no sign
that any children were here, no secret rooms, no suspicious
anything. Nothing but a woman trying to go about her business like
the rest of us. I have been through this building from cellar to
attic, and there’s nothing here that shouldn’t be. And unless you,
Paas Huviet, have more evidence than your mother did, I’ll thank
you to keep your mouth closed. If you didn’t drink too much, you
wouldn’t be thrown out of taverns.”

That shot told, Eslingen saw, and hid a grin. Paas
hesitated, obviously not appeased, but unable to think of anything
to say.

In the silence, a bulky man in a butcher’s apron
stepped forward. “You give us your word on that, Chief Point? It’s
my apprentice who’s missing.”

“
Among others,” Monteia said, not
ungently. “You have my word, Mailet. The girl’s not
here.”

The man nodded, not entirely convinced, but
reluctant to challenge her directly. “Very well.” He waded into the
crowd of journeymen, caught one by the collar. “You, Eysi, who gave
you permission to leave your work? Get on home with you, and don’t
disgrace me further.”

The rest of the crowd began to disperse with him,
the journeymen in particular looking sheepish and glad to get out
from under the chief point’s eye, but one woman held her ground,
then walked slowly across the dirty street until she was standing
face to face with the chief point. It was the boy’s mother,
Eslingen realized, with a sinking feeling, what was her name,
Lucenan.

“
So what are you going to do about
this place, Monteia?” she asked.

“
Do about it?”

“
A Leaguer tavern, frequented by
soldiers, in and out of work—times like these, we don’t need them
in our midst.”

“
Children have disappeared from
every point in Astreiant,” Monteia said. “Closing one tavern’s not
going to stop that.”

“
I’ve nothing against Leaguers,”
Lucenan said, “but these people fill children’s heads with the most
amazing nonsense about a soldier’s life. Running after soldiers,
who knows what our children might stumble into, even if it’s not
the soldiers who are stealing them? It’s a risk having them
here.”

Monteia nodded slowly. “I know you, mistress. And
your son. He’s of an age where he will go off and explore, and if
he’s soldier-mad, gods know how you’ll stop him, without you tie
him to your doorpost. And you’re frightened, and I wish I could say
it was without cause. I’m frightened, too—I’ve a son his age
myself, and a daughter not much younger. But you know as well as I
that Devynck doesn’t encourage him—she sent him home to you, didn’t
she, and she’ll probably have to do it again.” She smiled suddenly.
“Admit it, Anfelis, you’re mostly annoyed that Devynck’s complained
against him.”

Lucenan blinked, on the verge of affront, and then,
slowly, smiled. “I’m not best pleased about that, Ters, no. But
that’s not what’s behind this. I am worried—I’m more than worried,
I’m frankly terrified. I don’t want to lose Felis.”

“
I know,” Monteia said. “All I can
tell you is, the child-thief isn’t here—Felis is probably as safe
here as he is at home. Given the complaints between the two of you,
the boy will be as well looked after as if he was Aagte’s
own.”

That surprised another rueful smile from Lucenan,
but she sobered quickly. “It’s the streets in between I’m worried
about, as much as anything.”

“
We’re doing what we can,” Monteia
answered and the other woman shook her head.

“
It’s not enough, Chief Point.” She
turned away before Monteia could answer.

“
And don’t I know it,” Monteia
muttered and stepped back into the tavern. “Well, you heard that,
Eslingen. I don’t think you’ll have a lot to worry about, barring
something new. It’s mostly the Huviets who are causing the trouble,
and they’re not well loved here.”

“
I hope you’re right,” Eslingen
answered.

“
And if I’m not—hells, if you have
any troubles,” Monteia began, and Eslingen finished for
her.

“
I’ll send to Point of Hopes. I
assure you, you’ll be the first to hear.”

Business was slow that night, and Eslingen, watching
the sparse gathering from his usual corner, didn’t know whether it
was a good or a bad sign. Among the broadsheets he had bought that
morning was a plain diviner, listing the planetary positions for
the week, with brief comments, the sort of thing senior students at
the university cobbled together to raise drinking money, but
nevertheless he slipped it out of his cuff and scanned it yet
again. It was the night of the new moon—if the astrologer at the
fairgrounds had been correct, he was due to change his job soon. He
smiled. He suspected that the astrologer’s timing was off: he had a
new job, related to his work, already. And in any case, it was the
general readings he was interested in. The sun and the moon both
lay square to the winter-sun; the first was normal, defined the
time of year, but the second added to the tension between the
mundane and the supernatural. He shook his head, thinking of the
missing children—one more indication that there was something
dreadfully wrong—and scanned the list of aspects again. The
moveable stars lay mostly in squares, particularly Areton, ruler of
strife and discord, squaring Argent—and there go the merchants’
profits, Eslingen added silently—and the Homestar and Heira. More
tension there, for home and society, and with Areton in the Scales
and Sickle, there was a real promise of trouble. He made a face,
and refolded the paper, tucking it back into the wide cuff of his
coat. It was showing signs of wear, and he grimaced again, looked
out across the almost empty room.