Point of Hopes (39 page)

“
And that’s where it really
counts,” Caiazzo murmured and looked at Rouvalles.

“
If Cijntien speaks well of him,
you’re safe enough.” Rouvalles smiled again, suddenly, with more
than a hint of mischief in his eyes. “After all, I’ve been trusting
him with your business for two years now.”

And that, Eslingen thought, is a score for the
Chadroni. “Right, then,” Caiazzo said. “Thank you, Cijntien.
Rouvalles, I’ll send word as soon as the coin is ready.”

“
I’ll expect to hear from you,”
Rouvalles answered, with a nod, and turned away before Caiazzo
could dismiss him more explicitly. The door closed again behind him
and Cijntien, and Caiazzo looked at Eslingen.

“
As you will have gathered, things
are—complicated—for me at the moment. I can’t afford not to
investigate all the possibilities, especially where my knife’s
concerned.”

It was, Eslingen realized with some surprise, a sort
of apology. He gave another half bow, and said, in his most neutral
voice, “Of course, sir.”

Caiazzo studied him for a moment longer, as though
wondering what lay behind those words, then looked at Denizard.
“Aice, get him settled—find him decent rooms, some better clothes,
make sure he knows what’s expected of him. And send Vianey back
in.”

“
Right,” Denizard answered, and
gestured for Eslingen to precede her from the room. He obeyed,
wondering again just what Rathe had landed him in.

Over the next few days, he began to find a place for
himself in the household. No one mentioned the night of the clocks,
not even in whispers, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or
nervous. The university published an official explanation—the
approach of the Starsmith, it said, had caused the clocks, more
attuned to the ordinary stars, to slip momentarily out of gear—but
few of Caiazzo’s people seemed convinced. Nor, for that matter,
were most Astreianters, if the broadsheets were anything to go by,
Eslingen thought. They blamed evil magists—foreign, of course—and
the changes in society since the old queen’s day, and in general
anything else they could think of. One or two blamed whoever it was
who was stealing the children, or at least called it a punishment
or a warning to find the missing ones before worse happened.

That was something Eslingen could agree with
wholeheartedly, but he had little time for such matters. Caiazzo
required his presence at most meetings, including a second
encounter with the Chadroni caravan-master. There was no money for
him this time, either, and Eslingen was beginning to be certain
there was something very wrong. Clearly, Caiazzo had expected to
have cash in hand by now—even had the trader been inclined to take
that kind of advantage of his business partners, Rouvalles was not
the sort to put up with these delays for more than one season—and
Eslingen found himself wondering if Rathe had been wrong after all,
if the trader was involved with the child-thief. But he could see
no connection between a lack of funds and vanishing children: if
Caiazzo was involved, he decided finally, he would be more likely
to have coin in hand, not to be short of money. Still, he found
himself listening carefully to the dinner gossip—he was eating with
the rest of the middle servants now, the cook and the steward and
the chief clerk Vianey, though not Denizard—and equally carefully
to the sessions in Caiazzo’s counting room.

On the fifth day of his employment, he was leaning
against the casement while Vianey droned through a list of
expenses—mostly relating to the upkeep of the house and boat—when a
knock came at the door. Caiazzo stopped pacing to glare in the
direction of the sound, and Denizard said, “Come in.”

“
I’m sorry, sir.” That was one of
the male servants, a tall man Eslingen knew only by sight. “But he
insisted on seeing you.”

He had a boy by the collar of a thoroughly
disreputable jacket, Eslingen realized, and the boy himself was
even less prepossessing than the clothes, a thin creature with a
missing eye-tooth and the first scattering of what promised to be a
bumper crop of adolescent pimples. Caiazzo eyed him with disfavor,
but, to Eslingen’s surprise, didn’t explode immediately.

“
I’ve a message for you, sir,” the
boy said, and held out a much-folded sheet of paper.

Caiazzo crossed to him in a single stride, took the
paper from him and scanned it quickly, his frown deepening as he
read. “Right. Take him down to the kitchen, see if he wants
anything to eat. Aice, Eslingen, come with me.”

The servant bowed—he had never loosed his hold on
the boy—and backed away, dragging the boy with him. Denizard
frowned too, looking more worried than Eslingen had ever seen, and
reached for the coat she had left over the back of a chair.

“
Where are we going?” Eslingen
asked, and Caiazzo swung to face him.

“
Does it matter?”

“
Yes.” Eslingen spread empty hands.
“‘Your safety’s my business; if you want me to do my job, I need to
know where we’re going. You’re not happy, but that could mean
anything—we could be going to your factor, or anywhere.”

Reluctantly, Caiazzo smiled. “We’re not going to my
factor, no. I—have business, in the Court.”

Eslingen blinked, but then managed the translation.
Even in the few weeks he’d spent in Astreiant, and especially these
last few days in Caiazzo’s house, he’d learned the difference
between business at court, business in the courts, and business in
the Court. And if it was the last…no wonder Caiazzo wanted his
bodyguard along, if he was visiting the Court of the Thirty-two
Knives. He had wheedled the story behind the name out of one of the
maids—it had been the base of a band of knives who had controlled
most of the southriver neighborhoods a century ago, and it had
taken three regiments of Royal Dragons to bring them down—and if
even half the stories about their descendants were true, Rathe’s
and Devynck’s warnings had been restrained. “I’ll fetch my pistol,
then,” he said aloud, and Caiazzo nodded.

“
Do that.”

Denizard looked up sharply. “She won’t like
that.”

“
Then she can come here, next
time,” Caiazzo answered. “Get your pistol, Eslingen, and
hurry.”

They went by river, for all it was a short journey,
just to the public landing north of Point of Graves. The city
gallows stood there, Eslingen knew, and wondered if it was for the
pointsmen’s convenience. He followed Caiazzo and Denizard through
the narrowing streets, aware of the curious and covetous looks,
aware, too, of the way women and men melted out of sight into
doorways and alley mouths. Warning someone? he wondered. Or
themselves warned off by Caiazzo’s presence? Caiazzo didn’t seem to
see, but when Eslingen looked closer, he could see a small line
like a scar twitching to the left of the trader’s mouth. He was
still angry, and Eslingen wondered again just what he was getting
into.

The streets narrowed further, walls springing up
between the buildings themselves, and Eslingen realized with a
small shock that they were in the Court proper. Once, generations
ago, it might have been some noble’s country house, back when the
landames kept their country houses on the south bank of the river,
but it had long since been broken up, first into merchants’ houses,
and then into tenements, until the shells of the once-elegant
building had acquired odd accretions, and rickety lean-tos propped
up the tottering stones of the walls. It would have been a bad
place to attack, Eslingen thought, thinking of the other Royal
Dragons, would still be a bad place to attack, or to be attacked.
He could feel the weight of the pistol in the pocket of his coat,
balanced by the familiar drag of his sword, and was not fully
reassured. They were being watched, more closely than before, and
he risked another glance at Caiazzo. The trader’s mouth was set,
but the scar was no longer twitching, and Eslingen hoped that was a
good sign.

Caiazzo stopped at last in front of a low shopfront,
low enough that he had to bend his head to pass under the broad
lintel. Denizard followed without a backward glance, and Eslingen
went in after her, the skin between his shoulder blades prickling.
If they were attacked inside, the low doorway would make it very
hard to escape. To his surprise, however, the only visible occupant
of the shop was an old woman, neat in a black skirt and bodice, an
embroidered cap covering her grey hair. She sat on a high stool in
front of a writing board, ledger open in front of her, her feet not
quite touching the ground, fixed Caiazzo with an unblinking stare.
There were no goods on the counter, Eslingen realized, no
indication of what—if anything—this shop sold.

“
How’s business, dame?” Caiazzo
asked, and tipped his head in what was almost a bow.

The old woman shook her head, closing the ledger,
and hopped down off her stool. Standing, her head barely reached to
the trader’s armpit, but Eslingen was not deceived. There would be
a bravo, probably more than one, within easy call, and the gods
only knew what other protection.

“
Well enough,” she said. “My
business. But what about yours, Hanselin? That’s less well, by all
accounts. You bring not only your left hand, you bring a new dagger
with you, whom I’ve never seen before. Do you feel the need of a
dagger?”

Caiazzo shrugged, the movement elegant beneath his
dark coat. “Times are uncertain.”

The old woman looked far from convinced, but she
nodded. “Inside.” She turned without waiting for an answer, and
pushed through a door that had been almost invisible in the
paneling. Caiazzo made a face, but moved to follow. Eslingen put a
hand on his arm, all his nerves tingling now.

“
Permit me,” he said, and stepped
in front of the trader to go through the door behind the old woman.
There was no shot, no hiss of drawn steel, and he glanced around
the narrow room, allowing himself a small sigh of relief as he
realized it was empty except for a table and chairs.

The old woman took her place at the head of the
table, fixed Eslingen with a dark stare. “Not what you expected,
eh, knife? Thought it would be more dangerous?”

Eslingen blinked once, decided to risk an answer. “I
see enough danger right here, ma’am. I’ve been a soldier, I know
what old women can do.”

Caiazzo shot him a warning glance, but the woman
laughed. “I dare say you do, soldier. I knew you were one, from
your boots.”

Caiazzo said, “No hurry, dame, but you said it was
important.”

The old woman looked at him. “That’s rude, Hanselin,
and not like you. Business must be bad.”

“
Business, in general, is well
enough,” Caiazzo said, through clenched teeth, “except for the one
small thing that you know about. Somewhere between here and the
Ile’nord something’s breaking down. If it’s here, dame, you’ve got
problems.”

The woman’s stare didn’t waver. “We both have the
same problem, Hanselin. Nothing has come in from the Ile’nord.
Nothing. Not coin, not goods, not word.”

Caiazzo flung himself into the chair opposite her,
swallowing an oath. “It’s your business, too, dame. What’re you
doing about it?”’

She raised an eyebrow, clearly getting close to the
end of her patience, and Eslingen saw Denizard tense fractionally.
The old woman merely folded her hands on the table top, and said,
“The same as you. I sent men north, a few weeks back, when you
first mentioned the problem to me. Yours or mine, one of them will
find out what’s keeping her, Hanselin. She owes us—forgive me, owes
you too much to be playing us foul like this. I expect one or both
of mine back within the next few days.”

“
Mine should be in soon, too,”
Caiazzo said. “But the fair is well underway. I have two seasons of
trade to underwrite. Without that gold, it could be a very cold
winter, and I won’t be the only one feeling the chill.”

The old woman leaned forward, her hands flattening,
palms down, on the smooth wood. “Your knife is new, untested, and
you trust him with knowledge like this?”

Eslingen felt his shoulder blades twitch again,
wondering if Caiazzo had blundered and if he, Eslingen, was going
to be the one to answer for it. The trader barely glanced his
way.

“
Oh, and am I so poor a judge of
character? A fool who’s useful, for channeling the gold—forgive me,
goods—we both need, but not to be trusted in matters of my own
business, my own household?” With a single fluid movement, Caiazzo
pulled a short, wide-bladed knife from beneath his coat, and drove
it into the table between him and the old woman. She didn’t move,
her eyes going first to the knife and the new cut, the first, it
made in the polished wood, and then back to Caiazzo. “I know you,
dame,” Caiazzo went on. “You’ve still got the arm for it. If you
can’t trust me, or worse, think I’m too fatally stupid to be your
associate in this, then do something about it.
Otherwise—”

He let the word hang, and the old woman looked back
at him, cold eyes unchanging. Gods, the man’s mad, Eslingen
thought, and if it’s on his challenge, there’s damn all I can do.
He slipped his hand into the pocket of his coat, wrapping his
fingers cautiously around the butt of his pistol, and, out of the
corner of his eye, he saw Denizard’s hand close on the back of
Caiazzo’s chair, the knuckles white beneath the skin.

The old woman reached out, jerked the knife free
with an expert’s hand, her expression still the same, and Eslingen
thought, gods, if she goes for his heart, I’ll go for hers, and we
can sort it out later. He tilted the pistol, still in his pocket,
hoping the flint would work in the confined space. It would be more
likely to set his coat on fire, if it fired at all, but there
wasn’t room to draw his sword, and his knife was no good at this
range.