Fairs' Point (25 page)

Rathe came to join him, saw without surprised that two more bits of silver protruded from the mortar that edged the chimney. One was another seilling, and he pried it loose. The other was smaller, looked more like a quarter-pillar, just a corner showing above the crumbling mortar. He tried to grasp it, got thumb and forefinger on it on the second try, and wiggled gently. The coin gave a little, but then stuck fast. He drew his knife again, and Eslingen stiffened.

“Nico.”

Rathe glanced over his shoulder, and swore under his breath. A figure was moving briskly across the open ground, lantern in hand: one of Claes’s patrols, no doubt, just when she wasn’t wanted.
“Move.”

Eslingen snapped the shutter closed, and they retreated further i
nto the alley’s shadow. Eslingen would have kept going, but Rathe pulled him into the dubious shelter of the chimney breast.

“
I want that coin.”

“
Let’s not be greedy—” Eslingen bit off the rest of his words as the pointsman came closer, lantern spilling a great fan of light before him, obviously heading for the alley.

Rathe cursed again. Of course Claes’s people had heard the same stories, and of course they’d managed to get a copy of Albe’s a
lmanac, or some equivalent: most of them were venal, not stupid. The chimney would conceal them from a casual glance from the alley’s mouth, but not from a closer look. They needed a distraction. He glanced at the ground, found nothing but dirt and crushed vegetables, reached into his purse to come up with a couple of demmings. “Ready,” he said, and saw Eslingen nod.

He flung the demmings with all his strength toward the alley’s mouth, heard one strike the dirt and the other hit something more substantial, a solid clink of metal on metal. The pointsman turned instinctively, the lantern tilting away, and Rathe pushed Eslingen toward the alley’s exit. Eslingen darted ahead, fast and silent, and Rathe followed, ducking out into the space between silent kennels.

“Hey! Who’s there?”

“
That way,” Rathe said, pointing to the wider opening between the closest kennel and the back of what he thought he recognized as the Yellow Dog, but Eslingen ignored him, fumbling for a moment in the pocket of his coat.

“
No, here.” He caught Rathe’s sleeve with his free hand, dragged him into the space beside the kennel, pressing something through the gap in the first set of shutters as they went. A dog barked, and the rest of the kennel took up the cry, answered instantly by the dogs in the buildings to either side.

Rathe flinched, but kept running, following Eslingen down the next short alley and out into the narrow streets that ran beside the Fair. Eslingen pulled himself to a stop, looking over his shoulder with a fair assumption of startled curiosity, and Rathe caught a whiff of liver.

“You put a biscuit through the window.”

“
It got their attention, didn’t it?” Eslingen opened his lantern all the way, an innocent man heading home late at night. “Let’s not hang about.”

“
You’ve got your coin?” Rathe couldn’t help looking over his shoulder, but there was no sign of the other pointsman. Probably caught up with the dogs and their angry boxholders, he thought, and heaved a sigh of relief.

“
Yes.”

“
Let’s go, then.”

The silver coins lay in a spot of sunlight in the middle of the deadhouse table, the horsehead stamp on the faces blurred with use. Utterly ordinary, Eslingen thought, as common as the slates underfoot or the vine putting out new leaves just outside the low window. Not something you’d expect to find embedded in the wall of a Fairs’ Point tavern. He looked at Rathe, who gave a tiny shrug, and looked in turn at Fanier and b’Estorr, who had their heads together at the other empty table. After a moment, the necromancer spread his hands and turned back to the coin, while Fanier returned his glasses to his nose and for good measure collected a thick brass-rimmed glass, which he held over the coin.

“
Nothing,” he said, after a moment, and set the glass down carefully out of the sun.

Outside in the hall, the clock struck eleven, and Eslingen gr
imaced. They’d been at it for two hours, ever since Rathe sent a runner to fetch b’Estorr from the University, and for that entire two hours the coin had lain there unmoving, unaffected, looking more and more ordinary with each pass of hand or tool, each pinch or drop of chemical, each drift of smoke or ash.

“
I’m damned if I can think of anything else to test for,” b’Estorr said.

Fanier took of his glasses, lodged them in his mane of gray hair, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.
“No sign of alchemical change, no residue of magistical power, no signs of intent, no traces of any working I can think of, including Chadroni will-o-ways—”

“
Which I told you wouldn’t work on silver,” b’Estorr murmured. He’d spent a fraught few years in the Chadroni court, the first and last necromancer employed there, Eslingen remembered. Since the Chadroni throne tended to change hands often and with violence, he couldn’t say he was surprised.

“
—In fact, nothing at all.” Fanier looked at Rathe. “Sorry, Nico. I’ve got nothing.”

“
There has to be something,” Rathe said. “Coins don’t just sprout out of walls.”

“
Or get stuck in them,” Eslingen said, in spite of himself.

Rathe glanced at him.
“You think the coins were driven in, not poking out?”

“
I don’t know—couldn’t tell,” Eslingen answered. “I figure we can’t rule it out.”

“
Nor we can’t,” Rathe agreed. “Either way, though, it’s not a natural process.”

“
And yet,” b’Estorr said. “We’re not finding anything.”

“
But you’d find if there were natural changes, right?” Rathe said, to Fanier, who nodded.

“
Yeah. And I’m not seeing anything like that, either. It’s just sitting there. It’s not even unnaturally shiny.”

b’Estorr lifted his head.
“Of course, it is silver.”

“
What’s that supposed to mean?” Rathe asked.

“
What you said before,” Eslingen said, in almost the same instant, and b’Estorr nodded to both of them.

“
Yes, that. Silver doesn’t like magistry—it’s a pragmatic metal, like lead, just about inert when it comes to magists’ work. That’s why it’s used for working more active metals, just as lead is. So I suppose it’s possible that we’re not finding any traces of magistry because the silver’s already shed it? Rid itself of whatever was used on it?”

“
How, then?” Fanier asked. “I don’t say it’s impossible, mind, but—how?”

“
I have no idea,” b’Estorr said. “But I wonder if those walls mightn’t hold more trace than the silver itself.”

“
That’s a thought,” Fanier said.

Rathe sighed.
“Except that means going into Fairs’ Point, and I don’t have any standing there, Istre. I’ve been ordered to keep out.”

“
I could go on my own,” b’Estorr began, and Eslingen cleared his throat.

“
Why don’t you come with me? Not only can I show you exactly where we found this one, but everyone expects me to be at the races.”

He glanced at Rathe as he spoke, hoping he hadn’t overstepped, and was pleased to see him nodding.
“That’s a good idea. And I can sit blamelessly in Dreams—or, more likely, spend the rest of the day chasing unlicensed astrologers and book-writers—and no one can claim I had anything to do with it.”

“
Just two gentlemen of leisure enjoying a day at the races,” Eslingen said, and Rathe grinned.

“
In the meantime,” Fanier said, “can I keep this, Nico? I think Istre might be onto something about it shedding magic. I’d like to see if I can make it do that, and how long it takes.”

“
Go ahead,” Rathe said. “I’ll need it back sometime, though.”

“
Intact and unchanged,” Fanier promised.

“
Testing that will take a lot of energy,” b’Estorr began, and Fanier gave a sharp smile.

“
That’s what we have apprentices for, isn’t it?”

“
On your head be it,” b’Estorr said, and looked at Eslingen. “Fairs’ Point, Lieutenant?”

“
Off to the races,” Eslingen answered, and held the door like the gentleman he wasn’t.

They took a low-flyer most of the way to Fairs’ Point, abando
ning it only when the crowds got thick enough to slow their progress. Eslingen led the way toward the New Fair, and glanced back to see the Chadroni wincing at the noise.

“
I’m not all that fond of dogs,” he said.

“
I rather like them,” Eslingen answered, and quickly smiled to take away any inadvertent insult. “And the races are good.”

“
In Chadron we race horses.” b’Estorr looked a bit like a horse himself, wide-eyed and ready to spook, and Eslingen wondered if the man simply didn’t like crowds. It took some people badly to be around so many others.

“
Over here,” he said, and caught b’Estorr’s sleeve, pulling him into a quieter corner of the grounds. b’Estorr gave him a nod of thanks, but made no offer of an explanation, and Eslingen went on as though he hadn’t noticed. “We races horses in the League, too, but over jumps. Point to point, too. But there’s no room for that sort of thing in the city.”

“
No,” b’Estorr agreed. There was color in his face again, and he gave a crooked smile. “Sorry. The ghost tide’s coming, and when there are this many people together—there can be rather a lot of ghosts all at once.”

In the excitement of the races, Eslingen had more or less forgo
tten the impending ghost-tide. He grimaced and nodded, and b’Estorr went on, “Not to mention I’ve been—less than fond—of crowds since the old king was murdered.”

“
At a festival?” Eslingen hazarded, remembering vague tales, and b’Estorr nodded.

“
At a family feast, which is how things are done in Chadron.”

“
Sounds like you’re well out of it.” Eslingen had avoided most of the Chadroni wars for very much that reason.

“
Well. It was interesting work,” b’Estorr answered. “But after that I couldn’t stay.”

He didn’t say it was home, Eslingen noted. But that was more than he could ask, no matter how curious he was about the man.
“We can go round about,” he offered. “Skip the morning races and go straight to the taverns, if you’d rather.”

“
If you wouldn’t mind.” b’Estorr gave another small smile. “I should have thought.”

Eslingen led them around the edge of the Fair, came out at last by Mama Moon’s bower. It was less crowded this early in the day, and he claimed a table, drawing b’Estorr to sit beside him, their backs to the tavern walls. The waiter brought tea and cakes and a pitcher of lemon water for b’Estorr, but Eslingen waited until he was sure the necromancer was settled before he spoke again.

“The alley’s on the other side—it cuts through to a pack of kennels, and half the boxholders use it as a necessary.”

“
Lovely.” b’Estorr took a long drink of his lemon water.

“
It’s a reason to go there,” Eslingen pointed out, and b’Estorr lifted an eyebrow.

“
But hardly conducive to privacy.”

“
I never look,” Eslingen said virtuously, unable to stop himself, and to his surprise the necromancer laughed.

“
What, not even if you saw sparks?”

“
I might steal a glance,” Eslingen conceded. “To see such prodigious endowment.”

“
Not really comfortable, though,” b’Estorr said, the lines at the corners of his eyes tight with laughter. Eslingen grinned back, newly aware of just why Rathe liked the man. For once the thought was free of the usual sting of jealousy, and he downed the last of his tea, not sure what to do with the feeling.

“
Once the races start in earnest, things should be quieter. The real money’s in the afternoon.”

“
Quiet enough?” b’Estorr looked doubtful, and Eslingen shrugged.

“
We can only try.”

Both the tavern and the bower were emptying rapidly, but E
slingen waited until the sudden explosion of barks and shouting signaled the start of the first race. He paid the waiter, and they moved toward the alley like men in search of quick relief.

The shadowed street was empty, smelling of garbage and urine, and Eslingen grimaced in spite of himself. It was even less attra
ctive by daylight, and from b’Estorr’s expression, he agreed completely. Eslingen moved along the wall, stepping carefully over puddles and rotting vegetables, and found the second spot first, a deep gouge in the plaster at the chimney’s edge. There was no coin in it, of course—probably the other pointsman had collected it after they’d made their escape—but he ran his finger over the plaster anyway.

“
Here’s one.”

b’Estorr stepped up beside him, crooking his fingers into an odd shape. There was a flicker of light, pale blue in the shadow.
“Interesting.”

“
I daresay,” Eslingen said, and b’Estorr shook himself.

“
Sorry. There’s been magistry at work somewhere around here, all right, and it’s left a residue in the wall.”

“
That’s not all,” Eslingen muttered, looking at the stained plaster, and b’Estorr looked quickly over his shoulder. He took a step back, and waved both hands in a broader gesture. There was another flash of light, this one from the other side of the chimney, just about where they’d found the first coin, and one, maybe two fainter flashes from further into the alley.

“
It’s fading fast, though,” b’Estorr said. “I can’t get much sense of it, except that it’s—attached to? associated with?—this tavern.”

“
Mama Moon’s?” Eslingen couldn’t help sounded doubtful—Mama Moon’s had a reputation as a sober and quiet house, as taverns went—and b’Estorr shrugged.

“
It doesn’t make sense, I know. But that’s what it feels like. Someone did some working here, or possibly inside. But if it was big enough to draw silver—”

He broke off, and Eslingen turned, letting his face fall into his most bland and unthreatening smile.

“What’s this, then?” The pointswoman scowled at them from the entrance to the alley, and Eslingen let his expression slip further into drunken cheer. “What are you two playing at?”