Point of Hopes (16 page)

“
I think I saw one of them near the
fair, Nico, but I can’t be sure…. It was a long black robe, but it
might have had a badge, I just couldn’t see.” That was Lennar,
speaking slowly, carefully. A couple of the others were nodding,
Asheri included.

“
Have any of them approached any of
you?” he asked and was relieved to see them all shake their heads
definitively. “Right, then. It’s probably nothing, they probably
just don’t want to pay the temple bond for casting horoscopes. But
thanks for letting me know. And what I said before, I meant—be
careful.”

There were shrugs, looks of
bravado, but these kids were smart, they wouldn’t take any risks,
they’d do as they were told. And that, Rathe told himself, was the
best he could do, wishing that there
were
some sort of charm to protect
them from danger.

Eslingen leaned against the bar of the Old Brown Dog,
letting his gaze roam over the crowd filling the main room. It was
smaller than the night before’s, and that had been smaller than the
crowd the night before that: Devynck’s regular customers had been
dwindling visibly for the past week. First it had been the
butchers’ journeymen and junior masters, the ones who had passed
their masterships but not yet established their own businesses, who
had vanished from the tap, then it had been the rest of the locals,
so that Devynck was back to her original customers, soldiers and
the few transplanted Leaguers who lived within walking distance in
either Point of Hopes or Point of Dreams. And there were fewer of
the latter every night. Eslingen looked around again, searching for
familiar faces. Marrija Vandeale, who ran the brewery that supplied
the Dog, was still there, holding court under the garden window,
but her carter was missing, and Eslingen guessed it would only be a
matter of time before Vandeale took her drinking elsewhere.

There were still a sizable number of soldiers in
attendance, the half dozen who lodged with Devynck and a dozen or
so others who had found rooms in the neighborhood, and Eslingen
wasn’t surprised to see a familiar face at the corner table. Flory
Jasanten had lost a leg in the League Wars, though no one knew
which side he’d served—probably both, Eslingen thought, without
malice—and had turned to recruiting to make his way. At the moment,
he was contracting for a company of pioneers that had lost a third
of their men in a series of skirmishes along the border between
Chadron and the League, a thankless job at the best of times, but
particularly difficult in the summer, when the risk of disease was
greatest. And given the pioneers’ captain, a man generally
acknowledged to be competent, but whose unlucky stars were almost
legendary…. Eslingen shook his head, and looked again toward
Jasanten’s table. Jasanten would be lucky to get anyone with
experience to sign on.

As he’d expected, there was only a single figure at
the table, a gangly blond youth with a defiant wisp of beard that
only managed to make him look younger than his twenty years. As he
watched, the young man nodded, and reached across the table to draw
a careful monogram on the Articles of Enlistment. Well, one down,
Eslingen thought, and Jasanten looked up then, meeting his eyes.
Eslingen lifted his almost empty tankard in silent congratulations;
Jasanten smiled, mouth crooked, and then frowned as a slim figure
leaned over the table to speak to him. It was a boy, Eslingen
realized, looked maybe fourteen or fifteen—just past
apprentice-age, at any rate—and felt himself scowl. That was all
Devynck needed, to have kids that age using the Old Brown Dog to
run away to be soldiers, and he pushed himself away from the bar,
intending to tell Jasanten exactly that. Before he could reach that
table, however, the older man shook his head, first with regret,
and then more firmly, and the boy stalked away toward the kitchen
door.

Eslingen allowed himself a sigh of relief—he didn’t
really want to alienate any of Devynck’s few remaining
customers—but seated himself on the stool opposite Jasanten
anyway.

“
You’re not looking for work,”
Jasanten said, but smiled again.

“
Not with Quetien Filipon,”
Eslingen agreed. “Besides, I had my fill of pioneering by the time
I was nineteen.”

Jasanten grunted. “I wish you’d tell that one that.”
He tipped his head sideways, and Eslingen glanced casually in the
direction of the miniscule gesture. The boy was back, carrying a
half pint tankard, and hovering on the edge of a table of soldiers,
three men and a woman who’d been paid off from de Razis’ Royal
Auxiliaries the same day that Coindarel’s Dragons had been
disbanded. The tallest of the men saw him, and grinned, edged over
to make a place for him at the table.

“
Who is he?” Eslingen asked. He was
well dressed, for one thing, that jerkin was good linen, and the
embroidery at his collar and cuffs—black and red, to hide the
dirt—had cost a few seillings even second hand. Some mother had
paid well for her son’s keep, and would not take kindly to his
hanging about here listening to soldiers’ tales, or
worse.

“
He said his name’s Arry LaNoy,”
Jasanten answered, “but I doubt it. He wanted to sign on—hells, he
wanted to sign on with me last season, and I told him then he
needed to grow. So he’s back this year, and he’s not much
bigger.”

“
I doubt he took kindly to
that.”

“
No more did he.” Jasanten made a
noise that was almost a chuckle. “And I’m not unaware of what’s
going on in Astreiant, either.”

“
You’d have to be deaf and blind
not to be,” Eslingen muttered.

“
Just so. So I told him he’d need
his mother’s permission to sign on, Filipon wasn’t taking drummers
or runners without it, and he swore me blind he was an
orphan.”

“
Not in that shirt, he’s
not.”

“
I’m not blind,” Jasanten answered.
“And I told him so, so he stalked off in a sulk.” He nodded to the
table of soldiers. “My guess is, he’s trying to talk them into
taking him on, and he won’t be particular about what he offers
them.”

Eslingen sighed. “That’s all we need.”

“
That’s rather what I thought,”
Jasanten said, and leaned back to summon a passing waiter. “And
seeing as you’re Aagte’s knife—”

“
It’s my business to deal with it,”
Eslingen finished for him. “Thanks, Flor, I won’t forget
it.”

Jasenten smiled, and the younger man pushed himself
to his feet, one eye still on the table where the soldiers and the
boy were talking. By the look of them, it would be a while before
the boy could get around to making his request; he could tell from
the way the three exchanged looks that they were just showing off,
enjoying an audience that wasn’t all that much younger than the
youngest of them. And they might have the sense not to listen—the
woman, certainly, had a commonsense grace to her—but at the moment
Devynck couldn’t afford to take the chance.

Eslingen reached across the bar to catch Loret’s
shirt as the big man worked the tap of the biggest barrel. “Is
Adriana in the kitchen?”

“
Yes.” Loret barely paused in his
work. “You want her?”

“
Yes. Or Aagte.”

“
I’ll tell them,” the other waiter,
Hulet, said, from behind him, and disappeared through the kitchen
door. Eslingen leaned his weight against the heavy wooden counter,
resisting the desire to look back at the boy—LaNoy, or whatever his
name really was—to be sure he was still sitting with the soldiers.
At last the door opened, and Adriana came out, wiping her hands on
her apron.

“
What is it? Mother’s
busy.”

“
Trouble in potential,” Eslingen
answered. “You see the table there, the three from de Razis’
Auxiliaries? Do you know the boy with them?”

Adriana sighed the air hissing through her teeth.
“Oh, I know him, all right. Felis Lucenan, his name is, his
mother’s an apothecary down by the river. Mother told him he wasn’t
welcome here anymore.”

“
Shall I throw him out?” Eslingen
asked. “Or, better yet, take him home myself.”

The kitchen door opened again before she could
answer, and Devynck herself came out. “Trouble, Philip?”

“
Felis Lucenan’s back,” Adriana
said.

“
Areton’s—” Devynck broke off,
shaking her head. “The little bastard’s more trouble than he’s
worth.”

“
I’ll take him home,” Eslingen
offered and Devynck shook her head again.

“
You will not. I don’t want you
accused of child-theft. No, I’ll send a runner to his mother, tell
her to come and retrieve him. You just keep him here.” She smiled
then, bitterly. “And maybe I’ll post a complaint at Point of Hopes,
make her keep her spawn at home.”

“
Good luck,” Adriana muttered and
Devynck glared at her.

“
You go, then, tell Anfelis he’s
here and I don’t want him. Get on with it, it’ll take you a
quarter-hour to get to the shop, and then you’ll have to wake the
woman.”

“
Yes, mother.” Adriana stripped off
her apron, bundling it under the bar.

“
And as for you—” Devynck turned
her gaze on Eslingen. “See that he doesn’t get away—and doesn’t
sign on to anything we’ll regret later.”

“
Right, sergeant,” Eslingen
answered automatically. Devynck nodded, turned back to the kitchen.
Eslingen rested his elbows on the bar, let his gaze wander over the
crowd again, though he kept half an eye on the boy, still sitting
at the table, leaning forward eagerly to hear the soldiers’
stories. A quarter of an hour to his mother’s shop, Devynck had
said and the same back again, plus whatever time it took to wake
the apothecary—say three-quarters of an hour, if not an hour, he
thought, and heard the tower clock strike half past ten. The
winter-sun would be setting soon, and he hoped Adriana walked
carefully. Astreiant’s streets were as safe as any, better than
many as long as the winter-sun shone, and besides, he told himself,
Devynck’s daughter would know how to use the knife she carried at
her belt. Still, he wished it had been him, or one of the waiters,
to go, though that would probably have warned the boy that
something was up.

He sighed, shifted his elbows to a more comfortable
position on the scarred counter. At the moment, he wanted nothing
more than to go lay a hand on the brat, make sure he couldn’t get
away before his mother arrived to claim him, but the thought of the
boy’s probable reaction was enough to keep him where he was. All he
would need was for the brat to accuse of him of being the
child-thief, and even the other soldiers would be inclined to
believe it, if only to defend themselves from similar accusations.
Better to wait, he told himself, do nothing unless the boy tries to
leave, at least not until his mother’s here.

Luckily, the boy seemed engrossed in the trio’s
stories. Eslingen made himself relax, stay still, counting the
minutes until the clock struck again. Not long now, he thought, and
in the same moment, heard the clatter of hooves and the rattle of a
low-flyer drawing up outside the door. The boy heard it, too, and
looked up, the color draining from his face. No one took a carriage
to the Old Brown Dog, and he guessed instantly what it must be. He
started up from the table, the soldiers staring after him, heading
for the back door, but Eslingen stepped smoothly into his way,
caught him by the shoulder.

“
Hold on, son, what’s your
hurry?”

Behind them, the inn’s main door opened, and
Eslingen felt the boy slump under his hand.

“
Philip?” Adriana called, from the
doorway, and Eslingen turned in time to see a stocky woman sweep
past her.

“
Felis! How many times have I told
you, I won’t have you coming down here like this.”

The boy rolled his eyes, and allowed himself to be
transferred to her hold. Eslingen felt a sudden, sneaking sympathy
for him, and suppressed it, ruthlessly. The stocky woman—Lucenan,
her name was, he remembered—looked him up and down, and gave him a
stem nod.

“
I’m grateful for your
intervention, sir.”

The “sir,” Eslingen knew, was more a response to the
cut of his coat than to his service. He said easily, “I doubt you
had anything to be concerned with, madame, no one’s hiring boys
this late in the season.”

“
It wasn’t the hiring I was worried
about,” Lucenan said, grimly.

Eslingen nodded. “A word in your ear, madame,” he
said, and eased her toward the door. She went willingly, though her
hand on her son’s shoulder showed white knuckles, and the boy
winced at her grip. “If the boy’s this determined—there’ll be
places after the fall balance, for the winter campaigns, good
places for a boy to start. Let him sign on then, till the spring.
He may not like the taste of it.”

“
No son of mine,” Lucenan began,
and then visibly remembered to whom, or what, she was speaking.
“Thanks for your concern, sir, but Felis—what he does when he comes
of age, well, I can’t stop him, but until then, I won’t help him
get himself killed.”

Eslingen sighed, recognizing a familiar attitude,
and held the door for her. As he’d expected, the low-flyer was
waiting, the driver keenly interested in the proceedings. He handed
them into the coach—the woman seemed surprised and pleased by the
gesture, though the boy rolled his eyes when he thought she wasn’t
looking, and earned a slap for his presumption—and stepped back to
watch it roll away.