Point of Knives (2 page)

She made good use of it, that much was clear. The fence was high and new, the privy recently whitewashed, posts ready to hang laundry and a thriving kitchen garden at the back step. Someone, Lulli or her cook, had set cloches over the more delicate herbs, trying to eke out a few more weeks’ harvest before the frosts set in hard. Lulli herself was standing in the doorway, a scarlet wrapper thrown over her shift, blood-bright in the rising light. Her arms were folded across her chest, hugging herself hard even though the air was not so cold, and Rathe gentled his voice as he approached her. It seemed she had been fond of the old man, too.

“Dame Lulli.”

She blinked at him from under her cap, and her frown eased a little. “It’s Rathe, isn’t it? The adjunct?”

“That’s right.” Rathe glanced over his shoulder, saw Baiart squatting by a shapeless lump that must be the body. He’d had the sense to fetch a blanket, covered it against the arrival of the alchemists from the dead-house, and Rathe looked back at the woman. “Dame, I’ll want to talk to you and to the household, but first I need to see the body. If you want to go in and make yourself a cup of tea—” Or something stronger, he added silently. “I won’t need for you a little while yet.”

“Thank you.” From her voice she’d been weeping. “In a bit. Who’d do such a thing?”

“We’ll find out,” Rathe said, and turned to the body.

Baiart came to his feet at Rathe’s approach, and shook his head. “A bad business, sir.”

“Yeah.” Rathe went to his knees, folded back the blanket. “You closed his eyes?”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t touch anything else.”

Rathe nodded. The old man lay all in a heap, legs bent one way, arms outflung, the front of his patched shirt drenched with blood. Stabbed and then searched, Rathe guessed: Grandad’s coat was spread wide, the cuffs and hem slit, and the pockets of his breeches were pulled out. He looked up. “No purse?”

“No. They took his tobacco-pouch, too.” Baiart lifted the lantern, trying to minimize the shadows,and Rathe gave a nod of thanks.

“And his hat, it looks like.” Grandad usually wore a waterman’s knit cap with a long tail, and sailors were known to keep a coin or two knotted in the fabric. “Do we know what he was doing up so early?”

“Dame Lulli says this was his usual time, more or less,” Baiart answered. “He tends the stoves for the house.”

Rathe nodded again, and eased the bloodied shirt open to get a look at the wound. A single stab wound, more or less to the heart—an up-and-under thrust, by the look of it, but not entirely expert. He lifted Grandad’s right hand, cold and already stiffening, and wasn’t surprised to see the knuckles bloodied. “No knife?”

“Not on him,” Baiart said. “Seems to me he usually wore one, but I wouldn’t swear to it. And at home—who knows?”

“He counted this as home?” Rathe rose to his feet again, scanning the beaten earth around the body.

“So Dame Lulli says.”

There was a son, Rathe remembered, vaguely, and maybe a grandson, but he didn’t know any more than that. He didn’t know anything about the mother, but it wasn’t that uncommon for a woman to leave an unintended son with his father rather than raising it herself. Had Grandad said something about that once, or was that just a part of one of his stories?

Another darker spot in the dirt beyond the body caught his eye, and he crouched to touch it warily. “Baiart?”

Baiart brought the lantern, and Rathe wiped his fingers on his handkerchief, unsurprised at the rusty stain. It could always be Grandad’s, he thought, they wouldn’t know for sure until the alchemists arrived, but he had a feeling….

“Give me the light,” he said, and Baiart handed him the lantern. Rathe held it high, looking for more signs. Sure enough, there was a larger pool by the body, but the first spot he’d found was well separated, and there was a scuffed place in the dirt, not quite a footprint. And then he saw a second spot, and a third, leading toward the mews-gate, and he looked back at Baiart. “I’ve got a trail.”

“I’ll go with you,” Baiart said.

Rathe shook his head. “Stay here, wait for whoever the deadhouse sends. I doubt it’ll go far, but….” He squinted at the sky, lightening further as sunrise approached. “I want to get as far as I can before it’s muddled. Tell Dame Lulli I’ll be back to speak with her, though.”

“Yes, sir,” Baiart said.

Rathe let himself out into the narrow mews. It was a short lane, bounded on both sides by high fences, and the ground was soft, rutted from the night-soil carts and the the rag-and-bone women, but he could still pick out the blood trail. It led him out of the mews and and down the side street that ran parallel to Bridge Street, toward the maze of little shops and warehouses that lined the river’s edge. That made it seem even more likely that it was someone who’d believed Grandad’s tales of piracy, and Rathe hoped there would be a simple end to the case. Grandad deserved better than this.

The light was better in the street, a good thing, since the trail was fading. Rathe lifted his lantern again, found the next mark, and then a scuffed place beyond it, as though the person had stumbled. Rathe frowned at that. It looked as though the attacker was worse hurt than he’d thought, and he quickened his step.

A few yards further on, there was a larger spot of blood, and when he looked up, there was a bloody smear on the whitewashed corner of the next building. He swore under his breath and drew his truncheon. The last thing he needed was to trap an injured murderer. But there was no help for it, no time to send for help. He opened the lantern’s slide all the way, and stepped briskly around the corner.

At the end of the little alley, a man knelt beside a heap of old clothes that quickly resolved itself into a body. His hat was tipped to hide his face, but it was obvious that he was about to go through the fallen man’s pockets.

“Hold hard,” Rathe said, but the next words died in his throat as the kneeling man turned. “Eslingen?”

“Oh. Hello, Nico.” Philip Eslingen sounded more sheepish than anything as he pushed himself to his feet. “I might have known it would be you.”

“What are you doing?” Rathe asked. He refused to be distracted by his liking for the man. They had worked well together over the summer, when they’d hunted down the city’s stolen children, and slept together more than once in the heady aftermath of that success, but they served incompatible masters, and had, reluctantly, agreed to part. And that was where the matter had to rest, whether he liked it or not.

“I’ve found a dead man,” Eslingen answered, his voice suddenly sober. “Old Steen’s all the name I know.”

“What?” Rathe checked, startled, then moved in so that the light fell squarely on the body. That was the last thing he’d expected, to come chasing Grandad’s murderer, and find instead his dead son. But it was Old Steen all right, lean and wiry, cap missing and his lank brown hair trailing in the mud. He was a man well known to the points and even better to the pontoises who had jurisdiction over the river, but he’d never been on bad terms with his father, was said to bring him the occasional treat from the Silklands and the Further North.

“Shot with a bird-bolt,” Eslingen said. “And either left to die, or got away.”

“Got away, I think,” Rathe said, the pieces slotting into place. If someone had been after Old Steen—that made more sense, even if it meant that Grandad’s murder was an afterthought, someone covering her tracks. If Old Steen had been visiting his father when he was shot— He shook himself. “Philip, what are you doing here?”

“Caiazzo’s business,” Eslingen answered, and Rathe made a face. Of course it was, Hanselin Caiazzo being master of a lunar dozen businesses of just the sort of questionable legality that would lead to meetings in the dead of night, and it didn’t make it any better that he, Rathe, had been the one to find Eslingen the position as Caiazzo’s knife. It didn’t matter that he’d needed Eslingen’s help then—it had been at the height of the child-thefts, and he’d been desperate for any clue—or that he hadn’t realized then quite how much he’d come to like the Leaguer. He’d made his bed, and would have to lie on it: a pointsman could not afford too close a friendship with Caiazzo’s knife.

Eslingen took his silence for disapproval. “I can’t tell you much, Nico, you know that. I was supposed to meet him at the Bay Tree, but he didn’t show. I waited a bit, and then when it was getting on to sunrise, I came out to see what was what before I went back to Customs Point. And found him here.”

Rathe nodded, unaccountably relieved. “They’ll vouch for you at the Bay Tree, then?”

“They will.” Eslingen didn’t seem offended, thankfully, but then, being Caiazzo’s man had left him inured to suspicion. Or maybe that was just being a soldier in a city notorious for its unmartial attitudes. “But why are you here, Nico? And before anyone’s sent for you.”

“I came from his father’s body,” Rathe said. “Someone stabbed Grandad Steen, and then presumably shot Old Steen—or maybe it was the other way around, but in any case, I followed a blood trail here.” He sighed. “Grandad’s hands were marked. He’d fought, and I hoped I was trailing his killer.”

“The father dead, too?” Eslingen shook his head. “I didn’t know he had one—living, that is, or anyway one he knew. You know what I mean.”

“I do. There were three of them, Grandad and Old Steen, and his boy, Young Steen, all sailors—summer-sailors, according to rumor.”

Eslingen tipped his head in question.

“That’s pirates to you,” Rathe said. “Or so the rumor went. Motherless men, all three of them, but no worse than many.”

“I’m a motherless man myself,” Eslingen said, a little too lightly.

Rathe winced, but it was too late to apologize. “Well,” he said, and knelt beside the body. “Hold the lantern, will you?”

Eslingen did as he was told, opening the shutter and tilting the light so that it fell from the side, minimizing the shadows. The day-sun would be rising by now, but the alley was still deep in shadow. Rathe reached for the edge of Old Steen’s coat—it was fancy, long-skirted, expensive braid still neatly stitched at hem and cuffs—and something growled at him. Beside him, Eslingen swore, and the skirts bunched and shifted, the growl increasing.

“Easy, now,” Rathe said, and a head poked from beneath the cloth, fierce brown eyes above a pointed muzzle, teeth bared. “Easy.”

“What in Seidos’ name?” Eslingen began.

The dog wriggled free of the coat, backed itself between the body and the wall, hackles up and teeth still showing white in the lantern-light. It was tiny, not much bigger than a two-pound loaf of bread, with a shaggy black coat and pointed ears and no tail at all.

“It’s a little-captain,” Rathe said. He extended his hand cautiously, not so far that the dog could bite, but close enough that it could get the scent of him. “They’re a river breed, meant to guard the barges.”

“That’s a guard dog?” Eslingen said, dubiously, and in spite of everything, Rathe grinned.

“Depends on where he latches on, doesn’t it?”

Eslingen shifted, but to his credit didn’t step back. “I’ll assume you just mean ankles.”

“You do that.” Rathe kept his hand extended. “Hello, small dog, Steen’s dog. No one’s going to hurt you, pup.”

The little-captain flung back his head and let out a piercing howl.

Eslingen winced. “I begin to see their uses.”

“Yeah.” Rathe stood, truncheon displayed now as a badge of office, as windows opened all along the alley. “Points business!” he called. “Who’ll earn a demming carrying word to Point of Hopes?”

There was a scuffling from the head of the alley, and a girl appeared. “I’ll go.”

“Ask for Chief Point Monteia,” Rathe said. “Tell her there’s another body, and to send to the dead-house.”

“Another body and send to the dead-house,” the girl repeated. “Yes, sir.”

She scampered off, and Rathe looked as Eslingen.

“I don’t suppose your credit at the Bay Tree extends as far as a collar and leash?”

“I imagine they can provide,” Eslingen answered. “But—favor for favor, Nico? I’d like to be there when you examine the body.”

Rathe hesitated. It was far too easy to fall into old habits, the way they’d worked together over the summer, when they’d rescued the stolen children together—and after, when they’d fit all too well, in bed and out. But whatever was going on now, Caiazzo was up to his neck in it, and the Surintendant of Points had been wanting to call a solid point on him for more than a decade. “One thing first,” he said. “Spread your arms.”

Eslingen paused. “I’m no archer,” he said, but lifted his arms from his side so that his coat fell open over his waistcoat and shirt. Rathe could see there was no standard crossbow concealed beneath the fine wool, but stepped closer anyway, ran his hands along the other man’s ribs. Eslingen caught his breath.

“Now you’re just being—difficult.”

“Don’t you want me to be able to swear you had nothing to do with this?” Rathe glanced quickly around but there was no place in the alley to hide even the smallest of crossbows.

“You can keep looking if you want,” Eslingen offered. “Wouldn’t want to miss anything.”

“Later, maybe,” Rathe said, with a certain amount of regret, and Eslingen shook himself.

“Right, sorry. Leash and a collar, you said?”