Текст книги "Point of Dreams"

Автор книги: Melissa Scott

Соавторы: Lisa Barnett
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

The watchman shook his head, seemingly struck speechless, and it was Duca’s turn to sigh.

“All right, let’s get him sobered up and out of here, and then we can get to work. Siredy, you and Eslingen see to that, the rest of you, see if you can find where the damned carters left our gear.”

“It was onstage when I left last night,” Rieux protested, but let herself be drawn away with the others.

Eslingen looked at Siredy. “Does this happen often?”

Siredy made a face. “Only for the masque, really. A lot of the players don’t take it all that seriously. And Tyrseis knows, they’ve cause not to. Ah, hells, let’s get it over with.”

Eslingen nodded, reluctantly, fearing what they’d find on the stage. But the new boy always got the nasty jobs, and at least he didn’t smell anything yet. He followed Siredy down the long side aisle, and waited while the other dragged a set of steps from beneath the stage and set it into place, fitting hooks into brass fittings on the edge of the stage itself. It wasn’t that tall, only about to a man’s waist, but it would make it easier to move the drunk once they were in place.

“And that’s something else that should have been done already,” Siredy said. “I wonder if this is our sceneryman.”

“If it is, I hope the theatre docks his pay.” Eslingen followed the other man onto the stage, suddenly aware of the empty seats looming behind him. He had seen dozens of plays so far, but he’d never really imagined being onstage, at the center of that concentrated attention, and it took an effort of will to turn and look up into the galleries, across the empty pit. He tried to imagine those seats filled, a thousand faces and more staring down at him, at them, Siredy and the drunken sceneryman and himself, and felt a thrill that was at once fear and excitement. Someone had told him once that he was never happier than when he was at the center of attention. Well, this was that center with a vengeance, and he made himself turn away again, focusing on the sceneryman still sprawled unmoving in the center of the stage.

“Come along,” Siredy said, moving toward him, and Eslingen froze. That was no sceneryman, there was lace at his cuff, shrouding the limp hand, and the hair that fell so heavily, hiding his face, was an expensive wig.

“Wait.”

Siredy glanced over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, then drawn down into a frown as he read the other man’s expression. “What is it?”

“I’m–not sure.” Eslingen reached Siredy’s side in two strides. A third brought him to the fallen man, and he knelt cautiously, aware of a nasty smell that wasn’t vomit. “I think–” He reached for the man’s shoulder as he spoke, felt the flesh hard as wood under his hand. He rolled it toward him, and the body moved all of a piece, stiff and ugly, unmistakably some hours’ dead.

“Sweet Tyrseis,” Siredy said, his thin face gone suddenly sallow, and Eslingen had to swallow hard himself. The man’s face was vaguely familiar, someone he’d seen around the theatre, but the clothes were too good, too new, for this to be some player or fencer or sceneryman. “He’s dead.”

Eslingen nodded. “And stiff.” There were no marks on the front of his body, linen unstained except where bladder and bowels had let go, and the strong high‑boned face was curiously expressionless. Definitely someone he’d seen at the theatre, Eslingen thought again. “Siredy–”

“It’s the landseur de Raзan,” Siredy said, almost in the same moment, and Eslingen let his breath out sharply. One of the noble chorus, one of the names the chamberlain had called out during the interminable introductions.

“How?” Siredy dropped to his knees beside the body, and Eslingen let it fall back again. The wig fell away, revealing close‑cut fair hair, and Siredy automatically reached for it, started to put it back, but Eslingen caught his hand.

“Wait.” There were no marks on de Raзan’s back, either, the well‑cut coat undamaged, and stifling his revulsion, Eslingen ran his hand lightly over the dead man’s skull. The bone seemed solid enough, no suspiciously soft spots, and he rocked back on his heels again. “I don’t know, there’s no mark on him–”

Siredy laid the wig carefully beside the dead man’s head. “An apoplexy, maybe? He’s young for that–”

“Or died of drink or sickness?” Eslingen shook his head. “He’s a landseur, he could afford to die in his bed.”

“Tyrseis,” Siredy said again, and this time it sounded like a prayer.

Eslingen shook himself, stood up, shading his eyes against the mage‑light, and thought he saw the girl Mersine moving at the top of one of the ramps. “You–Mersine, is it?”

“Yes, master.” The girl came eagerly down the length of the aisle, and Eslingen waved for her to stop, moved by some obscure idea of protecting her.

“Go fetch Master Duca, tell him it’s urgent. And then–” He hesitated, but made himself go on. “Then run to the station at Point of Dreams and bring back a pointsman–Adjunct Point Rathe, if he can be spared.”

“The points?” Siredy said, rising, and scrubbed his hands on his breeches. “Are you sure about that? Master Duca–”

“Will surely see reason,” Eslingen said. “Verre, there’s no other choice. What else are we going to do, dump the body out the back door and hope someone else deals with him?”

From the look on Siredy’s face, the thought had crossed his mind, and Eslingen was suddenly glad he’d taken matters into his own hands. “Go on,” he said to the girl, and she darted back up the aisle, visibly delighted to be the bearer of such exciting news.

Rathe had left Eslingen still asleep, mildly bemused at the man’s capacity for it, and spent the first hours of the morning at the Sofian temple, again working doggedly through the rolls. The stoves were empty still, and his hands and feet were like ice when he was done, despite the secretary’s mitts and the extra stockings he’d brought to warm them. Still, he thought, huddling himself under his winter cloak as he walked toward Dreams, it had been a profitable morning’s work. All the connections were there, only one a sibling, but the rest cousins and nieces and all the collateral kin. The most distant was a second cousin, and he had to admit it made sense even as he cursed the situation. These were the right degrees of kinship to create discreet hostages, the kind that might not ever be noticed–might, Seidos willing, never need to be noticed–and he had to admire the queen’s, or Astreiant’s, cleverness.

Aliez Sohier was the duty point, one of his private favorites, and he smiled in answer to her cheerful greeting, unwinding himself from cloak and jerkin.

“Any news in the markets?” she asked, and he looked up, startled, balancing on one foot as he started to strip off the extra stockings.

“About?”

She shrugged. “Scandals, mayhem. Earthquakes at the solstice?”

She was as fond of the broadsheets as Eslingen, and Rathe sighed. “Predictions of a harsher winter than normal, that’s all I noticed.”

“After last year?” Sohier made a face.

The previous year’s almanacs had predicted a mild winter. In fact, the Sier had frozen, and there had been reports of wolves not far outside the city, but Astreiant had carried on as usual. It was winter, the old dames said, when the less hardy grumbled. Of course it was cold. And that, Rathe thought, scuffling his feet back into the heavy shoes, was the typical Astreianter reaction. Not building towers on the ice. He balled the stockings into his pocket along with the mitts, and crossed to the desk. Sohier pushed the daybook toward him, and he paged through the previous night’s entries. Voillemin had gone to Little Chain, he saw with pleasure, but had made no note of what he’d found. And maybe it was nothing–probably was nothing–but it did no one any good to ignore the obvious.

The door slammed open, bouncing back against the wall, and Rathe spun to face it, hearing Sohier curse behind him. A skinny girl, no more than twelve, stood there, coatless, trying to catch her breath, her face and eyes alight with excitement. “Well?” Sohier demanded.

“Sorry, dame,” the girl said, and bobbed a kind of a curtsy. “The masters sent me, for a pointsman. There’s a body on the stage at the Tyrseia, and one of the masters insisted we send for the points, and the theatre was locked up last night, same as always–oh, and please, if he’s here, it’s someone named Rathe they’re wanting.”

Rathe looked at Sohier, knowing the shock on her face matched his own. “Get Falasca and Leenderts to take over, I want you with me.”

She nodded, already shouting for a runner, and Falasca came scurrying, fastening her coat, to take the other woman’s place at the table.

“Tell Trijn as soon as she arrives,” Rathe said, and reached into his pocket, fingers closing on the folded sheets of paper that held his notes. The Tyrseia, he thought. Sweet Astree. All the chorus there– all the hostages there–and already a dead man, and–But it wouldn’t be Eslingen, he told himself. A master who had insisted on sending for the points, who had asked for him by name, that could only be the Leaguer.

“Please, sir,” the girl said, “they wanted a Master Rathe–”

“That’s me,” Rathe said, and shook himself back to the moment, managed what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He had to leave the papers, couldn’t risk losing them, and he took the stairs two at a time, already groping in his pocket for the key to his seldom‑used lockbox. It was, inevitably, buried under a stack of broadsheets and flimsy editions of the Alphabet, but he brushed them aside, slid the list into the otherwise empty container. He’d almost never had to use it before, except for holding found monies or other negotiables, and it seemed strange to use it now, for politics. He shook the thought away, locked the box again, and headed back to the main room.

Leenderts had arrived, was nodding as Sohier explained the situation. Someone had brought the girl to one of the stoves, Rathe saw with approval, and found a patched shawl to throw over her shoulders for the return journey.

“Do we know who it is?” Leenderts asked, and Rathe shook his head even as he glanced at the girl.

“They wouldn’t let me see,” she said, and sounded vaguely aggrieved. “And nobody said anything except fetch the points.”

Rathe spread his hands in answer and reached for his own cloak. The extra stockings were still in his pocket, and he wished he had time to pull them on. “Keep things quiet,” he said to Leenderts, and the other man nodded in perfect comprehension.

“I’ll do that, Adjunct Point.”

Not that there was much chance of it, Rathe thought as he and Sohier hurried through the drying streets, the girl bouncing between them. Even cloaked as they were, they were recognizably pointsmen, and he was all too aware of the eyes following them as they made their way toward the theatre. At least the open square in front of it was all but empty, the petty merchants who crowded the surrounding arcade on open days busy at the other theatres, too wise to waste their merchandise on starving actors. Only the tavern was unshuttered, and it was very quiet, its door dark and only the smell of wood smoke drifting from its chimney. That might help, Rathe thought, but then he saw the serving girl, skirts shortened to show bright red stockings, hovering just inside the doorway. She ducked back, seeing him looking, and in spite of himself, his mouth tightened. There was nothing to do about it, though, and he turned his head away, scanning the Tyrseia’s imposing facade. All the doors were closed, the windows shuttered, but a cloaked figure was waiting beside one of the barred stairways, arms wrapped around his body to keep the heat in.

“Adjunct Point Rathe?” he asked, and Rathe nodded.

“That’s me. And you are?”

“Verre Siredy, Adjunct Point. Of the Guild of Defense.”

Eslingen had mentioned the name, and Rathe nodded. “The girl said there was a death.”

“This way.” Siredy pointed to the door beneath the stairway– the players’ entrance, Rathe realized–and they ducked past the staring doorman into a tunnel that sloped up toward the floor of the pit. The masters were waiting there, huddled in groups among the benches, but the crumpled shape, stage center, drew every eye. At least they’d had the sense not to move it, Rathe thought, and guessed he could thank Eslingen for that. He looked around, searching for the person in charge, and Siredy cleared his throat.

“Master Duca.”

A big man, florid faced and as brightly dressed, swung away from his low‑voiced conversation with a stocky woman. “At last. So you’re the pointsman.”

“Adjunct Point,” Siredy murmured, and the big man waved the words away. “And this is Master Duca, senior master of the Guild.”

“Points–Adjunct Point, we have a rehearsal called for noon, and Gasquine’s crew should be here before then, and what are we to do about this?” Duca waved to the stage, his voice scaling up before he had it under control.

Oh, that’s all we need. Rathe swallowed the words, turned to Sohier. “Tell the doorman to keep them out–or, wait, ask Mathiee to step in to me, but keep the rest of them outside. I’ll tell her myself she’ll have to rehearse elsewhere today.”

Sohier nodded and swung away, but Duca burst out, appalled, “You can’t do that–” He broke off, as though he’d realized what he said, and Rathe managed a rueful smile.

“I have some idea of what I’m asking, master, believe me. And if there’s any way I can give the house back to you, I will. But there’s a man dead who needs his rights.”

Duca nodded, jerkily. “You’re right, of course. My apologies, Adjunct Point. It’s just–Seidos’s balls, why did it have to be one of them?”

“ ‘Them’?” Rathe repeated, the word curdling in his belly.

Duca swept off his hat to run his hand through his hair. “The chorus, damn them all.”

And that’s all we need to make this a perfect day. Rathe lifted his hand, forestalling anything else the big man would have said. “We’ll get to that, master,” he said in his most commanding voice, and glanced over his shoulder to see Sohier picking her way between the benches. “Sohier. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

There was a short staircase hooked to the side of the stage, and he climbed gingerly up onto the empty platform, weirdly aware of the empty seats as well as the staring masters. He glanced back once, saw Eslingen among them, then made himself concentrate on the body. It lay on its back, arms outspread, not a young man, but not old, tall, fair‑haired beneath the disordered wig, and well built. The clothes were definitely too good to belong to any of the actors–not that the actors didn’t dress as well as they could afford, but this was the kind of quality that didn’t count the cost. For a moment, he regretted the list he’d left locked away at the station. Somewhere on it, he’d listed this man and his connections, had been studying him just this morning, most likely.

He shook the thought away, and knelt by the body, touched it gently. The skin was cold, and more than that, clammy, almost damp. In the mage‑light, he could see that the skin had an odd tinge, almost a softness to it, and under the man’s head was a small puddle of water. He’d expected to see blood, or worse, and ran his hands over the skull, probing for breaks in the arched bone. He found none, and nothing in the neck, either, or farther down the body, no wound, no sign of a blow, nothing to explain the death. Except for the puddle. Cautiously, he touched a finger to it, brought it to his nose, more carefully to his tongue. Nothing. He rocked back on his heels, looking up at Sohier, and saw the same puzzlement in her face. She saw him looking, and started to speak, but he held up a hand, silencing her.

“First things first,” he said, and saw her confusion deepen, but he ignored it, looked past her into the pit. It was only the masters here, luckily; if the dead man was in fact a member of the chorus, they would only have known him for a day or two, if that, and so were not in a position to make the formal identification required by law. And today may be the day I need that bit of formality, Rathe thought, and hoped he was borrowing trouble.

He pushed himself to his feet. “All right. Do any of you recognize him?”

The masters exchanged glances, and then, reluctantly, Siredy stepped out from among the group.

“It’s the landseur de Raзan, Adjunct Point.”

“And who found the body?”

“We all saw it,” Siredy answered, sounding faintly defensive, “but it was me and Lieutenant vaan Esling who saw he was dead.”

In spite of himself, Rathe glanced at Eslingen, saw the Leaguer look faintly embarrassed at his new name. “And you know the landseur, Master Siredy?”

“Yes.”

There was something in the single syllable, and Rathe’s eyes narrowed, surprising a faint blush in the other man. There was something there, more than just the masque, but he couldn’t afford to pursue it now, not if what he suspected was true. He looked down at the stage, at the tiny puddle, already shrinking. He needed the alchemists, needed their verdict on the death, and if he allowed the man to be named, formally and in law, he’d need the permission of the next of kin, whoever and wherever they might be. And may the Good Counsellor pardon me, he thought, but I don’t have time for that. He looked around for the girl who’d come for them, found her peeping out from behind the broad‑bodied woman’s skirts. “You– what’s your name, child?”

“Mersine.”

She seemed remarkably unaffected by the presence of the dead, but then, Rathe thought, she’d grown up in Astreiant’s theatres. “Are you the only runner here?”

“Not anymore.” She shook her head for emphasis. “Tilly’s here, too, with Master Cann.”

“Good. I need you both to run two errands for me.” He fished in his pocket for his purse, came up with a couple of seillings that he flipped to her. She caught them expertly, grinning now, and Rathe went on. “I need one of you to go to Point of Dreams and bring back the duty watch. I need the other to go to the deadhouse in University Point–take a low‑flyer, they’ll know the way–and tell them we have a body that needs transporting. And I need you both to hurry. Understand?”

Mersine nodded. “I’ll go to the deadhouse,” she said. “Tilly wouldn’t dare.” She darted away, skirts flying, and Duca stepped forward to close his hands on the edge of the stage.

“Adjunct Point.” His voice was barely under control, and instinctively Rathe crouched beside him, hoping to defuse the anger. “Didn’t you hear–don’t you understand? Siredy knows him. That”–he pointed to the body–“is a landseur. You don’t send their bodies off to the deadhouse, you send them to the priests of the Good Counsellor–”

“The law requires a formal identification, someone who knew him for more than your, what, two days, three days?” Rathe said, with as much patience as he could muster.

Duca waved his hand, brushing the words aside. “I’m not a fool, Adjunct Point, I’ve seen the formalities dispensed with before this.”

“There’s something very wrong with this death,” Rathe said softly. “We need to know how he died.”

Duca blinked at that, the words sinking home, and then he shook his head. “Sickness?” he asked, without much hope.

“Possibly,” Rathe said. “Rut there’s not a mark on him, Master Duca, not injury or illness, and before I call this an apoplexy, I want to be sure I know the truth.”

“Tyrseis.” Duca pushed himself away from the stage, his heavy face drained of color. “What will this do to the masque?”

That was a thought that hadn’t occurred to Rathe, but it was a good question. If the masque and the realm’s health were intimately bound, then there was all the more need to know everything possible about this death. “That’s why I can’t wait on his family’s pleasure,” he said aloud, and Duca nodded, jerkily.

“Of course, Adjunct Point. I don’t mean to tell you your business.”

“Thank you,” Rathe said, and rose to his feet again, beckoning to Sohier. “Mathiee’s people will be along any minute now, if I’m any judge, and I’ll have to deal with her. I want you to walk the stage floor, see if you can spot any tubs, barrels, troughs, anything like that. You know what we’re looking for.”

She nodded, but her voice was a whisper of protest. “Nico, he can’t have… drowned.”

“What signs do you see?” Rathe asked, and her eyes fell.

“Yes, but–how can a man drown here?”

“Maybe not here,” Rathe said, though from the sprawl of the body he doubted it had been moved far from where it lay. “That’s the alchemists’ business. But I want to rule out whatever we can. Now go.”

“Right,” Sohier said, pale but determined, and hurried away.

There was still no word from the door, and Rathe followed his own advice, moving along the opposite side of the stagehouse. The boards sounded hollow beneath his feet, and he stooped, to see the shallow troughs that held the carved waves of The Drowned Island’seffects. That looked promising, but when he levered up the nearest trap, he saw that the trough was pierced through with tiny holes. He let the trap fall again, frowning, and scanned the area around him. He was between two of the massive set towers, the versatiles, Eslingen had called them when he’d come home babbling of the machinery, but beyond them was a maze of more familiar gear, ropes and tables and a three‑legged chair propped against the wall for mending. There was a large barrel, too, and he stepped over to it, lifting the lid. It was half full of ash, and he let the lid fall back with a thud that raised a puff of grey dust. There were half barrels, too, three of sawdust and one of sand, and a cracked leather bucket that looked as though it hadn’t held water since the last queen’s reign, but there was nothing, nothing in sight that held enough water to drown a man. Sohier will find something, he told himself, and didn’t believe his own words. He looked back at the stage, hoping to see another answer from this different angle, saw only the sprawl of the body. The dead man’s face rose in his mind. Drowning was a common death in Astreiant, the Sier took its share of the foolish and the unlucky every year; like most folk southriver born, he’d learned the signs of drowning even before he’d joined the points. And this was a drowned man, the slack, soft skin and, most of all, the telltale pool of water, all proclaimed him drowned, and it was up to Fanier, the best of the alchemists, to tell him how it had come about.

He looked up then, tracing the length of a versatile, saw above it the edge of the great carved wave that hung above the stage. In the soft mage‑light, it was hard to tell, but he thought its shadow fell across the huddled body, and he looked away with a gasp, to see the second wave looming between the next pair of versatiles. Oh, there was water on the stage, carved and painted water in plenty, but surely, surely no mere effect could drown a man on dry land. The idea was mad, but he pulled his tablets from his pocket, began listing the scenery he saw around him, sketching it quickly and as best he could. He didn’t look up as Sohier joined him, folding the wooden halves back over each other.

“Anything?”

“Nothing so far,” she said stubbornly. “But there has to be–”

She broke off at the shout from the stage door, and Rathe turned to see Mathiee Gasquine pause for an instant at the top of the tunnel before sweeping down into the pit. The masters scattered before her, and behind her the watchman hovered helplessly, hands raised. Rathe took a breath, bracing himself, and she lifted her skirts to climb easily onto the stage.

“Adjunct Point–” She broke off, seeing the body perhaps for the first time, and Rathe came forward quickly, not to turn her away, she’d never submit to that, but to stand between her and the evidence.

“Mistress Gasquine.” He gave her title for title.

“So it’s true, then,” she said, and Rathe blinked.

“Did you think I’d leave you that word for a joke?”

That surprised a quick grin from her, but she shook her head. “Hoped, maybe. Nico, I understand you need the theatre for a little while, need to search, do whatever you must, but this is the first day we’ve been able to work here, and I, my people, desperately need to work on the real stage, the one we’re going to use. How soon can we have it back?”

Rathe shook his head in genuine apology. “Not today, Mathiee, I’m truly sorry.”

“Not today?” Gasquine’s voice rose, ringing effortlessly through the theatre, and behind her in the pit the masters drew together to watch. “Nico, The Drowned Islandplays again tomorrow, I’ve no use of the place for two days more, and I don’t have the time to waste. We need to work here.”

“And so do I.” Rathe knew better than to match her tone, let his own voice fall a little, become confidential. “There is–potentially– something very odd about this death–”

“Well, there would be,” Gasquine snapped, “de Raзan dead on my stage.”

Rathe winced. That killed any real pretense he had that the body hadn’t been identified, but he went on as though she hadn’t spoken. “And, there being something odd about it, it’s my responsibility– given the place and the circumstances–and the masque itself–to make very sure what happened before I turn the place back to you. For this or The Drowned Island.”

“You don’t mean it.” Gasquine’s voice had lost its theatrical ring.

“Can and do,” Rathe answered. “If we’re not done, The Drowned Islandwon’t play. Besides…” He paused. “You won’t like this, either, Mathiee, but I’d say, if the death’s not natural, the chamberlains may want to bring in a magist, perform, I don’t know, some cleansing, to make sure it doesn’t affect the masque.”

“Oh, gods, they might,” Gasquine said. “They would. Sweet Oriane, preserve me from the chamberlains.” She took a breath. “All right. You’ve made your point, Nico, and I’ll stand it. Master Duca, will you set one of your people to redirect mine, and I’ll return to the Bells and roust out the rest of my people there.”

“Thank you, mistress,” Rathe said, bowing, and Duca came forward, offering his hand to the actress as she descended from the stage. She turned back, looking up at Rathe, her heart‑shaped face set into an expression more regal than most queens’.

“But I will hold you to your promise, Adjunct Point. I want my stage again.”

“As soon as may be, mistress,” Rathe answered, and was grateful when she swept away.

The reinforcements from Point of Dreams arrived within the hour, and Rathe set them to a thorough search of the theatre, hoping they would find what he knew had to be there. The carters from the deadhouse were only a few minutes behind them, arriving with cart and boards just as Duca’s men were turning away the first of the actors. The chorus would be along shortly, Rathe knew, and wondered how they would react to the news. Time enough for that after the body was dealt with, though, and he nodded to the strapping woman in a shabby blue coat who led the group.

She nodded back, already unfastening its buttons, tossed it to one of the men behind her. “Can we take something for you, Adjunct Point?”

He gestured to the body, and wondered if the actors were corrupting him. “I’d appreciate it if you’d confirm my suspicions.”

The woman nodded briskly, rolling back her sleeves to reveal a stylized version of the Starsmith’s badge tattooed into her forearm. She knelt by the body, automatically folding her short skirts well out of the way, ran her hands over it once, feeling for any signs of life. She sat back, reaching into her jerkin for a pair of brass‑framed spectacles, and peered up at him over the top of the frame.

“You suspect he’s dead?”

Among other things. “Something like that,” he said aloud, and she nodded.

“He’s dead. We’ll take him along to Fanier for you.”

“Wait.” Rathe hesitated, then put aside his first question, not wanting to bias her with his own suspicions, said instead, “Can you tell if the body’s been moved?”

Her eyebrows rose, but she turned back to the body willingly enough, hands moving over it again. This time, she tested limbs– loosening from the rigor, by the look of them, Rathe thought, and winced as she tugged the landseur’s shirt free to examine his torso. “All things are possible,” she said at last, “but by the look and feel of him, I’d say not. I’d say he dropped dead here.”

And not a tub, barrel, or useful bucket anywhere in sight. Rathe glanced up at the overhanging wave, and saw the woman’s eyes following his, suddenly widening as she realized what she’d seen. Then she shook herself with an exclamation of disgust and waved to her fellows. “All right, you lot, bring him along. You’re welcome to ride with us, Adjunct Point.”

That was not something he relished, a ride on the dead cart with apprentice alchemists and their very peculiar sense of right and wrong, but there was no help for it. “Thanks,” he said. “Sohier!”

The pointswoman straightened from her examination of yet another trapdoor, and came to join him. “Sir?”

“I want your report as soon as you can get it. You know what you’re looking for.”

Sohier nodded, still pale, and Rathe sighed.

“Pray Sofia you find it.”

The deadhouse lay in University Point, set discreetly away from the main quadrangle and the towering dome of the library in a tangled neighborhood of chairmakers and leatherworkers and the occasional chemist. By rights, of course, Rathe thought, trying to ignore the story the junior apprentice was recounting about someone supposedly eaten by a giant fish, it should be in City Point, but that area was far too grand for the homely business of examining the dead. It was a long, low building, much like the petty manufactories surrounding it, except that its walls were stone rather than timber, and the glassed‑in windows glowed with mage‑light instead of the warmer lamplight. To his relief, the apprentices dropped him at the main door instead of bringing him in with the body, and he took a breath, bracing himself before pushing through into the narrow lobby. He had been to the deadhouse dozens of times, but he still couldn’t be easy about it, no matter how often he’d been there. The place was impeccably clean, floors and walls scrubbed, so scrupulously free of odors that it was almost impossible not to think about what wasn’t there. Even the sharp stink of daybane would have been preferable.