Fairs' Point (3 page)

DeVoss shook her head. “Not at first glance. Though I wouldn’t know if any of his linen was missing, we weren’t on those terms.”

Rathe nodded and began sorting through the shelves. The books were all old and well-worn, except for this year’s Ephemeris; one was Corsten’s account book, and even the briefest glance told a sad tale of decline. He’d barely made enough to keep his dogs fed— though from the look of things he hadn’t stinted them—and half the sheets stuffed into the shelves were duns. He sorted quickly through them, grimacing as he found the Writ of Distraint, the Regents’ seal dangling on a black ribbon. He held it up so DeVoss could see. “Did you know about this?”

She shook her head again. “No. But I suppose that explains it.”

Rathe was inclined to agree. The Writ gave Corsten six days to pay his debts—almost a crown, with interest—or see his goods seized instead. He sorted quickly through the rest of the papers, finding only broadsheets, mostly astrological and most to do with the upcoming races. It looked almost as though Corsten had been trying to figure out which races to enter, but it was hard to be sure.

In the doorway, Voillemin cleared his throat. “Adjunct Point. Don’t you think you should open the strongbox?”

“I’m getting to that,” Rathe answered, and took his time sorting through the last few pages, aware of DeVoss’s imperfectly concealed smirk. But Voillemin was right, and he pulled the key from his purse. As expected, it fit neatly, and the well-oiled lock turned with a dull click.

The box was nearly empty, and he tilted it so that the others could see, then began lifting out the contents. A moneybag, also nearly empty, the leather worn soft and shiny; a set of ivory tablets, the wax smooth and stiff as though they had never been used, with a silver stylus—a gift, perhaps, too good to use, but cherished for the giver’s sake. The final item was a roll of heavy legal paper, tied neatly with red ribbon and sealed with an awkward blob of wax. He heard DeVoss’s breath catch and gave her a wry smile. “We’ll get to that. Let’s see to the money first. Adjunct Point, if you’d bear wi
tness, too?”

Voillemin moved up closer, and Rathe spilled the coins o
nto the tabletop, then sorted them neatly into piles. There was perhaps a pillar there in mixed coin, and DeVoss shook her head.

“Not enough to feed them for a week. Which might be a
nother reason.”

Rathe nodded, scooping the coins back into their bag, and reached for the rolled paper. “I’ll ask you all to witness it was sealed and tied.”

“Yes,” Voillemin said, reluctantly, and DeVoss nodded briskly.

Rathe snapped the brittle wax and unwound the ribbon, then pinned the single sheet flat with an empty candlestick and Corsten’s salt-dish. It seemed to be a sort of testament, lea
ving the training of any dogs he had in hand to Maewes DeVoss. It was dated two days before the Writ of Distraint, which meant it took precedence, and Rathe looked up, puzzled. Behind him, DeVoss began to laugh.

“Good boy, Jero, that’s done it.” She straightened quickly. “And now I call on you to witness, Adjuncts. I accept the charge laid on me, and I’ll send one of my assistants round to claim the dogs wit
hin the hour.”

“I’m not sure that’s permissible,” Voillemin said. “Not till it’s been proven, anyway, and that’s a matter for the courts. Besides, who’s to say that this isn’t exactly what she was aiming at?”

“Are you accusing me of murder?” DeVoss reached for her stick again, and Rathe stepped between them.

“It was suicide,” he said. “The deadhouse will rule on it, of course, but the journeyman who collected the body was ce
rtain already.” He looked back at DeVoss, who had subsided again. “He did this for the owners, am I right?”

“I’d guess so,” she said. “If their training isn’t part of his belon
gings, then any prizes go to the owners, less the trainer’s share, of course. But if the Writ were in force, then all the winnings would go to pay the debts, even the owners’ share. They’d count as junior creditors, you see.”

“You know a lot about this,” Voillemin said.

DeVoss looked down her nose at him. “I’ve been training dogs in this city for thirty years. I know every trick the law has against us.”

“The law—” Voillemin began, indignant, and Rathe began pu
tting things back into the strongbox.

“Let’s put it to Claes,” he said. “It’s a matter for the chief point anyway.”

Claes found in DeVoss’s favor, as Rathe had known he would, and Rathe left the strongbox and its contents with him and made the long walk back to Point of Dreams. It was past noon already, but he didn’t stop to eat until he was back in Point of Dreams, and could visit one of the taverns favored by the Masters of Defense. To his disappointment, there was no sign of Philip, and he took the last half of his small-loaf back to the station with him.

The rest of the day was spent dealing with the repercussions of Corsten’s death. The trainer DeVoss had sent to the deadhouse identified him, the duty alchemist certified it as a suicide, and Rathe wrote out his own report and handed it off to the station’s clerk to make the requisite fair copies. Trijn approved it, but not before complaining that he hadn’t asked what DeVoss and her fellows know about Beier.

“Presumably Fairs’ Point has already done that,” Rathe said, sta
rtled into more honesty than he’d intended, and she stared at him narrow-eyed through a cloud of smoke.

“Voillemin hasn’t the brains to ask a nursing mother if she has milk, and Claes doesn’t pay nearly enough attention to what his juniors are doing.”

Claes also doesn’t like strangers poaching on his turf
.
Rathe swallowed the words and nodded meekly. “Next time I’m in Fairs’ Point I’ll ask, Chief.”

“Do that. And try to stay out of Voillemin’s way.”

“And how I’m supposed to do both those things at once,” Rathe said that evening, sitting at his own table with the windows open to an unexpectedly soft spring night, “is beyond my meager comprehension.”

Philip Eslingen set a cup of wine in front of him and poured hi
mself another of Leaguer beer. He was fresh from the baths, his long hair still loosed to dry, a block-print dressing gown loose over shirt and breeches. Rathe caught a faint whiff of the musk-scented soap Eslingen favored and couldn’t help smiling.

“Disguise yourself as one of the dogs,” Eslingen suggested. “You’re curly enough.”

“Those are pocket terriers,” Rathe said.

“You’re too big for that.”

“Basket terriers are smooth-coated.”

“How nice for them.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any dinner?”

Eslingen shook his head. “I didn’t fetch any. Though—” He rose in a swirl of skirts and rummaged in the cabinet. “These eggs are fresh. And there’s cheese and that last bite of ham.”

“And spring onions,” Rathe said, suspecting where this was going, and Eslingen dug a little deeper into the basket that usually held the vegetables.

“Right, there they are. Omelet?”

“Suits me,” Rathe answered, and pulled his feet out of the way. Eslingen built up the fire in the stove and began chopping ingredients, working with a brisk economy of motion that always startled Rathe. For a motherless man, haphazardly raised by his hostler father, Eslingen had some surprisingly domestic skills. “Who taught you to cook, then?”

Eslingen looked over his shoulder. “My first sergeant. If you can steal it, I can cook it.”

“That covers a wide range of possibilities,” Rathe said.

“Well. Perhaps it would be better to say that if you’re likely to be able to steal it on the march, I can probably cook it. But that’s long for a motto.”

“And it’s hardly a skill Lieutenant vaan Esling can admit to.” Rathe saw Eslingen flinch, and winced in turn. The Masters of Defense had renamed Eslingen when he joined their number, saddling him with an aristocracy to which he was not in the least entitled, and the point was still a sore one. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Eslingen waved his hand. “Lieutenant vaan Esling would make his leman do the cooking, so you should be grateful.” He turned the omelet out onto a plate, not perfectly, and set it on the table. “You cut.”

Rathe obliged, and Eslingen set wine bottle and beer jug on the table as well.

“You’ve heard the latest news about Malfiliatre?”

Rathe looked up, grateful for the change of subject. “If you mean that she’s repudiated the brother’s debts—yes, I heard that.”

“Oh, there’s more.” Eslingen poured himself more beer. “She had that posted in the Horsefair and at the Pantheon, and as soon as the bills went up, the creditors descended on young de Calior like a dragonnade and the upshot of the matter is that there’s going to be a Court of Redistribution in two days’ time.”

“That’s quick.” Rathe shook his head. “I don’t know what Malfiliatre is thinking. It’s a rich holding, surely she could compound with the creditors. That has to be a better deal than this.”

Eslingen shrugged. “Siredy said that Gavi told him he’d heard that Malfiliatre has a few debts of her own—”

“As well she might. They’ve been here five or six years trying to get this settled.”

“And she’s not particularly fond of the brother anyway, or so Gavi says. Apparently she doesn’t find him to be much use in her greater plans.”

“She could marry him off…” Rathe began, then shook his head. “But not with those debts attached. Right, I see that.”

“I suppose she thinks it’ll teach him a lesson,” Eslingen said.

“It’ll break a lunar dozen merchants if we’re lucky. And set the city on its ear. Are they serious about a Redistribution?”

“The bills aren’t posted, but I’ve seen one.”

Rathe shook his head again. “You know how that works, right?”

“Siredy was telling me,” Eslingen said, “but I’ll admit it didn’t make a great deal of sense.”

“That’s because it doesn’t make sense,” Rathe said. “When a woman can’t pay her debts, and enough creditors are beating on her doors, they can band together to demand a Redistribution. If the Regents allow it, the points and the bailiffs go to the house and seize everything the debtor owns—she keeps the clothes she stands up in, and the tools of her trade, but that’s all. And they haul it all off to the nearest court and a triumvirate of advocates values everything and doles it out to the creditors. What good that does, I don’t know, because the creditors have to turn around and sell what they’ve been given, and they never get a decent price, because everyone knows they have to sell—”

“So you might be owed a few seillings, and get the man’s shirt in exchange,” Eslingen said slowly. There was a note in his voice that made Rathe look sharply at him, and Eslingen shrugged. “I might have an interest in the matter, that’s all.”

“You might.” Rathe controlled his voice with an effort. “Philip, you didn’t extend the man credit? For what?”

“Fencing lessons.” Eslingen was sitting very straight, a sure sign that he was abashed and trying to brazen it out. “And it wasn’t me who started it, Gerrat Duca gave him credit first, and that’s five years ago.”

“But you let him go on?” Rathe couldn’t keep the disapproval from his tone, and Eslingen shrugged.

“I could hardly stop, seeing as how the senior master a
lready approved. And, frankly, I thought he’d pay.”

What in the world would give you that idea
?
Rathe managed to swallow the words. “At least he can’t owe you that much.”

Eslingen looked away. “Actually, I bought his vowals from Soumet.”

“You didn’t.”

Eslingen shrugged. “Soumet needed the cash, and I had it, after the masque. The idea was that it might be easier for a gentleman to get the money out of him, and Soumet’s no ge
ntleman. It seemed like a reasonable investment.”

“How much does he owe you?” Rathe asked, after a m
oment.

“Just under a petty-crown.”

“Astree’s—” Rathe stopped himself again. “That’s a lot of fencing lessons.”

“Five years’ worth, plus extras.” Eslingen took a deep breath. “I’m summoned to the court.”