Point of Hopes (4 page)

He took the long way back to the points station,
along the Customs Road to Horse-Copers’ Street, smelling more than
ever of the stables in this weather, and dodged a dozen people,
mostly women, a couple of men, bargaining for manure at the back
gate of Farenz Hunna’s stableyard. Horse-Copers’ Street formed the
boundary between Point of Hopes and Point of Sighs, though
technically both points stations shared an interest in the old
caravanserai that formed a cul-de-sac just before the intersection
of the Fairs Road and Horse-Copers’. The ’Serry had long ago ceased
to function as a market—or at least as a legal market, Rathe added,
with an inward grin—and the seasonal stables that had served the
caravaners had been transformed into permanent housing for sneak
thieves, low-class fences, laundry thieves, and an entire dynasty
of pickpockets. What the ’Serry didn’t do was trade in blood—they
left that to the hardier souls in Point of Graves—and he turned
into the enclosed space without wishing for back-up. But there had
been trouble of that kind there once before, a child rapist, not
officially dealt with, and he had questions for the people
there.

The ’Serry was as crowded as ever, a good dozen
children chasing each other barefoot through the beaten dust while
their mothers gossiped in the dooryard of the single tavern and the
gargoyles clustered on the low roofs, shrieking at each other.
Below them, the low doors and windows were open to the warm air,
letting in what little light they could. Another group was gathered
around the old horse-pool. Women in worn jerkins and mended skirts
sat on the broad stone lip, talking quietly, while a chubby boy,
maybe three or four summers old, waded solemnly in the shallow
basin, holding the wide legs of his trousers up while he kicked the
water into fans of spray that caught the doubled sun like diamonds.
Rathe recognized at least one of them, Estel Quentier, big, broad
bodied—and, if he was any judge, at least six months gone with
child—and at the same moment heard a shrill whistle from one of the
blank doorways. He didn’t bother to turn, knowing from experience
that he would see no one, and saw heads turn all across the ’Serry.
He was known—the people of the ’Serry knew most of the senior
points by sight—and was not surprised to see several of the women
who had been sitting by the fountain rise quickly and disappear
into the nearest doorways. More faded back into the tavern, but he
pretended not to see, kept walking toward the fountain. Estel
Quentier put her hands on her hips, belly straining her bodice, but
didn’t move, squinted up at him as he approached.

“
And what does Point of Hopes want
with us? This is Point of Sighs.”

“
Just a question or two, Estel,
nothing serious.” He nodded to her belly. “I take it you’re not
working this fair season.”

Quentier made a face, but relaxed slightly. She was
the oldest of the Quentier daughters, all of whom were pickpockets
like their mother and grandmother before them; there was a brother,
too, Rathe remembered, or maybe more than one, also in the family
business. Estel had been effective mistress of the ’Serry since her
mother’s death three years before, and she was a deft pickpocket,
but a pregnant woman was both conspicuous and slow. “I’m an honest
woman, Nico, I have to work to live.”

“
So you’ll sell what they take?”
Rathe asked, and smiled.

Quentier smiled back. “I deal in old clothes, found
goods, all that sort of thing. I’ve my license from the regents,
signed by the metropolitan herself if you want to see it.”

“
If I’d come to check licenses,”
Rathe said with perfect truth, “I’d’ve brought a squad.”

“
So what did you come here for,
Nico?” Quentier leaned back a little, easing her back, and Rathe
was newly aware of the women behind her, not quite out of earshot.
He knew most of them: Quentier’s sister Annet, the third oldest,
called Sofian for her ability to charm or fee the judges; the
dark-haired singer who was Annet’s favorite decoy; Cassia, another
Quentier, thin and wiry; Maurina Tacon, who was either Annet’s or
Cassia’s leman—it was hard to unwind the clan’s tangled
relationships. They were dangerous, certainly, he knew better than
to underestimate them, but if there were a fight, he thought, the
immediate danger would come from the hulking man loitering in the
tavern dooryard. He had a broom in his hand, and he drew it back
and forth through the dirt, but his attention wasn’t on his
job.

“
There’s a girl gone missing, a
butcher’s apprentice over in Point of Hopes,” he said simply, and
was not surprised to see Quentier’s face contort as though she
wanted to spit. Behind her, Cassia—LaSier, they called her, he
remembered suddenly, for the length of her river-dark hair—said
something to her sister, who grinned and did spit.

“
What’s that to me, pointsman?”
Estel Quentier said. “Apprentices run away every year.”

“
She didn’t run,” Rathe answered.
“She didn’t take her clothes or anything with her, and she liked
her work. No cause to run, no place to run to.”

“
So why do you come to me?”
Quentier’s eyes were narrowed, on the verge of anger, and Rathe
chose his words carefully.

“
Because I remember four or five
years ago, in your mother’s time, there was trouble of that sort
out of the ’Serry. We knew who the man was, raped two girls, both
apprentice age or a little older, but when we came to arrest him,
he was gone. Your mother swore he’d been dealt with, was gone, and
we didn’t ask questions, being as we knew your mother. But
now…”

He let his voice trail off, and Quentier nodded
once. “Now you’re asking.”

Rathe nodded back, and waited.

There was a little silence, and then Quentier looked
over her shoulder. “Annet.”

Sofian took a few steps forward, so that she was
standing at her sister’s side. She was a handsome woman—all the
Quentiers were good-looking, dark, and strong-featured, with good
bones—and her clothes were better than they looked. “I remember.
Rancon Paynor, that was. He lodged here, he was Joulet Farine’s
man’s cousin, or something like that. A farmer, said he was running
from a debt he couldn’t pay.”

She looked down at her sister, and seemed to receive
some kind of confirmation. “He’s not your man.”

“
You’re very sure.”

Sofian met his gaze squarely. “I helped carry his
body to the Sier.”

Rathe nodded slowly, not surprised. He remembered
the case all too well, remembered both the victims—both alive and
well now, thank Demis and her Midwives—and the frustration, so
strong they could all almost taste it, when they’d come back to
Point of Sighs empty-handed. It was one of the few times they’d all
agreed the chief point shouldn’t have taken the fee. But when Yolan
Quentier said she’d deal with something, it stayed dealt with, and
they’d all had to be content with that, much as they would have
preferred to make the point and watch Paynor hang. It was good to
know that he wouldn’t be cleaning up an earlier mistake, even if it
meant he was back where he’d started.

“
You’ll be going, then?” Quentier
asked, and Rathe snapped back to the present.

“
I told you, that was my business
here. This time.”

Quentier nodded. “The runaways are starting early
this year, or so they say. Girls running who shouldn’t. Is there
anything we should be watching for, Nico?”

For Quentier to ask for help from a
pointsman, even so obliquely, was unprecedented, and Rathe looked
warily at her. What do you know that you’re not telling me? he
wanted to say, but knew better than to ask that sort of question
without something solid to trade for her answers. It was enough of
an oddity—and maybe a kind of answer—for her to have asked at all.
“Nothing that I know of, Estel. I don’t have anything to go on
right now—the complaint came to me, oh, maybe an hour ago.” He
shrugged. “You know what I know, right now. She walked out of the
hall last night or this morning early, leaving her goods behind,
and she hasn’t come home. Her master’s worried, and her leman’s
distraught, and I don’t think she ran. Until we know more, yeah,
keep an eye on your kids.”

Quentier nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll do that. Will
you let me know if there’s more?”

“
I will if you will,” Rathe
answered, and Quentier grinned.

“
As far as I’m able, Nico.” The
smile vanished. “Anything about the girl, though—what’s her
name?”

“
Herisse Robion, not that that
would help, necessarily. They said she was tall for her age—she’s
just twelve—and still pretty skinny.” He reached into his pocket
and pulled out the tablet where he’d scrawled the description.
“Brown hair, blue eyes, sweet-faced, good teeth, wearing a bottle
green suit, linen, bodice and skirt trimmed to match with darker
green ribbon.”

“
There are a hundred girls like
that in Astreiant,” Sofian said, shaking her head, and Rathe
nodded.

Quentier said, “If I hear anything, I’ll send to
you, Nico.”

“
Thanks.” Rathe tucked his tablet
back into his pocket, then wondered if he should have betrayed its
usual place in this den of pickpockets. But it was too late to do
anything about it; he shrugged inwardly, and turned away, retracing
his steps to Horse-Copers’ Street.

“
Oy, Nico!” That was a new voice,
and he turned to see

LaSier striding after him, her long hair flowing
behind her like a horse’s tail. “Wait a minute.”

Rathe paused, suppressing the instinctive desire to
put his hand on his purse, and LaSier fell into step beside him.
She was younger than he by a year or two, slim and pretty, with a
gait like a dancer.

“
This butcher’s girl,” LaSier
began, “she’s not the only child who’s gone missing who
shouldn’t.”

“
Oh?” Rathe stopped, already
running down the list of missing persons they’d received from Point
of Sighs. Not that that was always reliable, as every station
guarded its prerogatives and points jealously, but he couldn’t
remember anything out of the ordinary. Runaways, certainly, and
more than there should have been, or usually were, but nothing like
Herisse.

LaSier made a face, as though she’d read his
thoughts. “It hasn’t been reported, I don’t think. But there was a
boy here, learning the trade, and he went out to the markets to
watch the crowds and he never came home.”

“
No one made a point on him, then?”
Rathe asked, already knowing the answer—if it were that simple, the
Quentiers wouldn’t be worrying; prison was an occupational hazard
for them—and LaSier spat on the dust at her feet.

“
We checked that first, of course,
though he’d been here just long enough to learn how much he didn’t
know, and I didn’t think he was stupid enough to try lifting
anything on his own. But he’s not in the cells at Point of Sighs or
anywhere southriver. And I’m worried. Estel’s worried.”

There was no need to ask why LaSier or Quentier
hadn’t gone to Point of Sighs with the complaint. The Quentiers had
always kept a school of sorts for pickpockets, their own kin and
the children of friends and neighbors—Rathe sometimes wondered if
there were some secret, hidden guild organization for illegal
crafts—and he wasn’t surprised to hear that Estel was keeping up
that part of the business. But she would have no recourse when one
of her “students” disappeared, not without giving Astarac, the
chief at Point of Sighs, an excuse to search the ’Serry and in
general look too closely into Quentier business. “Are you making an
official complaint to me?”

LaSier shook her head, smiling. “If it were
official, we’d’ve gone to Point of Sighs, they’re the ones with
jurisdiction. But I thought you ought to know. He didn’t have any
place to run, that one. Gavaret Cordiere, his name is, his family’s
from Dhenin.”

“
Would he have run back to them?”
Rathe asked. “If he—forgive my bluntness, Cassia—if he decided he
didn’t like the business after all?”

“
It’s possible,” LaSier answered,
“But I don’t think he did.” She smiled again, a sudden, elfin grin.
“He liked the trade, Nico, and he had the fingers for it. I’d’ve
put him to work soon enough.”

Rathe sighed, and reached into his pocket for his
tablet. “I’ll make inquiries northriver, if you’d like, see if he’s
in cells there. And you might as well give me a description, in
case—anything—turns up.”

A body, he meant, and LaSier grimaced and nodded in
understanding. “He’s fourteen, maybe shoulder height on me,
dark-skinned—not as dark as me, but dark enough—brown hair, brown
eyes. There’s a touch of red in his hair, maybe, and it’s curly. He
cut it short when we came here, he looks like any apprentice.”

“
Your stock in trade,” Rathe
murmured.

“
Exactly.” LaSier squinted, as
though trying to remember, then shook her head. “That’s about all,
Nico. He’s a bright boy, but not memorable looking.”

“
I’ll keep an eye out,” Rathe
answered, and scrawled the last note on the face of the tablet,
stylus digging into the wax. He was running out of room on the
second page: not a good sign, he thought, and folded the tablet
closed on itself. “And I’ll check with the cell keepers northriver.
Would he give his right name?”

LaSier smiled again, wry this time. “He’s a boy,
fourteen. Maybe not.”

“
I’ll get descriptions, too,” Rathe
said.

“
Thanks,” LaSier said. “And, Nico:
I—and Estel—we’ll take this as a favor.”