“Sergeant!”
“Lieutenant,” Eslingen corrected, without much hope, and Baeker continued as though he hadn’t heard.
“Back so soon? I heard Coindarel was disbanded.”
Eslingen nodded. “Paid off this noon.”
Baeker’s expression brightened, though he didn’t quite smile openly. “Pity that. Should you find yourself in need of funds, of course–”
“Not at the moment,” Eslingen answered. “Tell me, do you know a tavern in Point of Hopes, called the Old Brown Dog?”
Baeker nodded. “I do. Aagte Devynck’s house, that is, and I heard she needs a knife, this close to Midsummer and the fairs.”
“I was looking for lodging,” Eslingen said, a little stiffly–knife to a tavernkeeper, bodyguard, and bouncer all in one, was hardly a job to which he aspired. “A friend recommended it.”
“Well, she rents rooms,” Baeker said, with a shrug. “Do you need the direction?”
“All I know is it’s in Point of Hopes.”
“Which it is, but that won’t get you there,” Baeker said. “Take the Hopes‑point Bridge, and when the road forks at its foot, take the left‑hand road. Then it’s no distance at all to the Knives’ Road–that’s the Butchers’ quarter, you’ll know it by the signs–”
“And the smell,” Eslingen said.
Baeker grinned. “It’s mostly vegetables this time of year. Autumn, now… But the first road to the right off that, take it to the end, and the Old Brown Dog’s the last house. You’ll see the sign.”
Eslingen nodded. “Thanks.”
“Give my regards to Aagte,” Baeker answered. “And keep me in mind, sergeant. Should you need coin…” He let his voice trail off, and Eslingen sighed.
“I’ll keep you in mind.”
He turned toward the door, drew back as it swung open almost in his face. A thin, sharp‑faced woman in a drab green suit of skirt and bodice–better material than it looked at first glance, Eslingen thought, but cut for use, not show–stepped past with a nod of apology. The candlelight glinted from the gargoyle‑and‑snake pinned to her neat cap, and Eslingen glanced curiously after her. The vagabond professions were traditionally men’s, and the Merchants‑Venturer were more vagabond than most–but then, enough women had masculine stars and followed mannish professions, just as there were any number of men who claimed feminine stars and worked at the fixed professions. He watched her as she made her way to the door of the central counting room–the longdistance traders generally changed their money and letters through the temple networks; letters on the temples of Areton were good throughout the world–and then went on out into the sunlight of the Temple Fair.
Baeker’s directions were better than he’d expected, after all. He crossed the River Sier by the Hopes‑point Bridge, dodging the two‑wheeled barrows that seemed to carry most of Astreiant’s goods, and followed the left‑forking road toward the Butchers’ quarter. Southriver was busier than the northriver districts, the streets crowded not with neatly dressed apprentices and their seniors, guild badges bright against their blue coats, but shopwives and carpenters and boatmen and sailors and members of a dozen other unguessable trades, all in aprons or working smocks over ordinary clothes. It was louder southriver, too, voices raised over the rumble of carts and the shriek of unoiled wheels from the docks, the shrill southriver accent sharpening their words. The smell of kitchens and shop fires warred with the stink of garbage. If anything, it reminded him of the back streets of Esling where he’d been born, and he found himself walking a little faster, unsure if he liked the memories.
At the corner of the next street, a crowd had gathered–largely children just at apprentice‑age and younger, but there were some adults with them, too, and Eslingen paused, curious, to look over the bobbing heads into the manufactory yard. It was a glassblowers’, he realized at once, and the pit furnace was lit in the center of the open yard, waves of heat rolling off it toward the open gates. A young woman, her hair tucked under a leather cap, skirts and bodice protected by a thick leather apron that reached almost to her ankles, leather gauntlets to her elbows, spun a length of pipe in the flames, coaxing the blob of glass into an egg and then a sphere before she began to shape it with her breath. He had seen glassblowers at work before, but stared anyway, fascinated, as the sphere began to swell into a bubble, and the woman spun it deftly against a shaping block, turning it into a pale green bowl like the top of a wineglass. One had to be born under fire signs to work that easily among the flames; he himself had been born under air and water, and knew better than to try. He became aware then that another woman, an older woman, also in the leather apron but with her gauntlets tucked through the doubled ties at her waist, was watching him from the side of the yard. Her face was without expression, but the young man in the doorway of the shed was scowling openly. There were still plenty of people in Astreiant who thought of the League as the enemy, for all that that war had ended twenty‑five years earlier; Eslingen touched his hat, not quite respectfully, and moved on.
Knives’ Road was as busy as the other streets, and narrowed by the midden barrels that stood in ranks beside each butcher’s hall. Outside one hall, a barrel had overflowed, and gargoyles scratched and scrabbled in the spilled parings, quarreling over the scraps. Eslingen gave it a wide berth, as did most of the passersby, but as he drew abreast of the hall a boy barely at apprenticeship came slouching out with a broom to clean up the mess. The gargoyles exploded away, shrieking their displeasure, some scrambling up the corner stones of the hall, the rest lifting reluctantly on their batlike wings. Eslingen ducked as a fat gargoyle flew straight at him; it dodged at the last minute, swept up to a protruding beam and sat scolding as though it was his fault. The creatures were sacred to Bonfortune, the many‑faced, many‑named god of travelers and traders, but if they weren’t an amusing nuisance, Eslingen thought, someone would have found justification for getting rid of them centuries ago. Their chatter followed him as he turned onto the street Baeker had mentioned.
The Old Brown Dog stood at its end, completely blocking the street. It was a prosperous‑looking place, three, maybe four stories tall, if there were servants’ rooms under the eaves. The sign–a sleeping dog, brown with a grey muzzle–was newly painted, and the bush that marked the house as Leaguer tavern was a live and flourishing redberry in a blue and white pot. A gargoyle was rooting among the dropped fruit but took itself off with a shriek as he got closer. The benches to either side of the door were empty, but the main room seemed busy enough for mid afternoon, half a dozen tables filled and a waiter sweating as he hauled a barrel up through a trap from the cellar. Light poured in from an open door on the opposite side of the room– a door that gave onto a garden, he realized. The air smelled of beer and pungent greenery and the first savory whiffs of the night’s dinner.