He sighed and turned his attention to the station daybook that lay open on the heavy work table in front of him, skimming through the neat listing of the previous day’s occurrences. Nothing much, or at least nothing out of the ordinary: this was the fair season, coming up on the great Midsummer Fair itself, and there were the usual complaints of false weight and measure, and of tainted or misrepresented goods. And, of course, the runaways. There were always runaways in the rising summer, when the winter‑sun shone until midnight, and the roads were clear and open and crowded enough with other travelers to present at least the illusion of safety. And the Silklanders and Leaguers were hiring all through the summer fairs, looking for unskilled hands to man their boats and their caravans, and everyone knew of the merchants–maybe half a dozen over three generations, men and women with shops in the Mercandry now, and gold in their strongboxes, people who counted their wealth in great crowns–who’d begun their careers running off to sea or to the highways.
Rathe sighed again, and flipped back through the book, checking the list. Eight runaways reported so far, two apprentices–both with the brewers, no surprises there; the work was hard and their particular master notoriously strict–and the rest laborers from the neighborhoods around Point of Hopes, Point of Knives, Docks’ Point, even Coper’s Point to the south. Most of them had worked for their own kin, which might explain a lot–but still, Rathe thought, they’re starting early this year. It lacked a week of Midsummer; usually the largest number took off during the Midsummer Fair itself.
A bell sounded from the gate that led into the stable yard, and then another from above the main door, which lay open to the yard. Rathe looked up, and the room went dark as a shape briefly filled the doorway. The man stepped inside, and stood for a moment blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light. He was big, tall, and heavy‑bellied beneath a workingman’s half‑coat, but the material was good, as was the shirt beneath it, and as he turned, Rathe saw the badge of a guildmaster in the big man’s cap.
“Help you, master?” he asked, and the big man turned, still blinking in the relative darkness.
“Pointsman?” He took a few steps toward the table. “I’m here to report a missing apprentice.”
Rathe nodded, repressing his automatic response, and kicked a stool away from the table. “Have a seat, master, and tell me all about it.”
The big man sat down cautiously. Up close, he looked even bigger, with a jowled, heat‑reddened face and lines that could mean temper or self‑importance bracketing his mouth and creasing his forehead. Rathe looked him over dispassionately, ready to dismiss this as another case of an apprentice seizing the chance to get out of an unsatisfactory contract, when he saw the emblem on the badge pinned to the man’s close‑fitting cap. Toncarle, son of Metenere, strode crude but unmistakable across the silver oval, knives upheld: the man was a butcher, and that changed everything. The Butchers’ Guild wasn’t the richest guild in Astreiant, but it was affiliated with the Herbalists and the scholar‑priests of Metenere, and that meant its apprentices learned more than just their craft. An apprentice would have to be a fool–or badly mistreated–to leave that place.
The big man had seen the change of expression, faint as it was, and a wry smile crossed his face. “Ay, I’m with the Butchers, pointsman. Bonfais Mailet.”
“Nicolas Rathe. Adjunct point,” Rathe answered automatically. He should have known, or guessed, he thought. They weren’t far from the Street of Knives, and that was named for the dozen or so butcher’s halls that dominated the neighborhood. “You said you were missing an apprentice, Master Mailet?”
Mailet nodded. “Her name’s Herisse Robion. She’s been my prentice for three years now.”
“That makes her, what, twelve, thirteen?” Rathe asked, scribbling the name into the daybook. “Herisse–that’s a Chadroni name, isn’t it?”
“Twelve,” Mailet answered. “And yes, the name’s Chadroni, but she’s city‑born and bred. I think her mother’s kin were from the north, but that’s a long time back.”
“So she wouldn’t have been running to them?” Rathe asked, and added the age.
“I doubt it.” Mailet leaned forward, planting both elbows on the table. A faint smell rose from his clothes, not unpleasant, but naggingly familiar. Rathe frowned slightly, trying to place it, and then remembered: fresh‑cut peppers and summer gourds, the cool green tang of the sliced flesh. It was harvest time for those crops, and butchers all across the city would be carving them for the magists to preserve. He shook the thought away, and drew a sheet of paper from the writing box.
“Tell me what happened.”
“She’s gone.” Mailet spread his hands. “She was there last night at bedtime, or so Sabadie–that’s my journeyman, one of them, anyway, the one in charge of the girl‑prentices–so Sabadie swears to me. And then this morning, when they went to the benches, I saw hers was empty. The other girls admitted she wasn’t at breakfast, and her bed was made before they were up, but Herisse was always an early riser, so none of them said anything, to me or to Sabadie. But when she wasn’t at her bench, well… I came to you.”
Rathe eyed him warily, wondering how best to phrase his question. “She’s only been gone a few hours,” he began at last, “not even a full day. Are–is it possible she went out to meet someone, and somehow was delayed?”
Mailet nodded. “And I think she’s hurt, or otherwise in trouble. My wife and I, after we got the prentices to work, we went up and searched her things. All her clothes are there, and her books. She wasn’t planning to be gone so long, of that I’m certain. She knows the work we had to do today, she wouldn’t have missed it without sending us word if she could.”
Rathe nodded back, impressed in spite of himself. Even if Mailet were as choleric as he looked, a place in the Butchers’ Guild–an apprenticeship that taught you reading and ciphering and the use of an almanac, and set you on the road to a prosperous mastership–wasn’t to be given up because of a little temper. “Had she friends outside your house?” he asked, and set the paper aside. “Or family, maybe?” He pushed himself up out of his chair and Mailet copied him, his movements oddly helpless for such a big man.
“An aunt paid her fees,” Mailet said, “but I heard she was dead this past winter. The rest of them–well, I’d call them useless, and Herisse didn’t seem particularly fond of them.”
Rathe crossed to the wall where his jerkin hung with the rest of the station’s equipment, and shrugged himself into the stiff leather. His truncheon hung beneath it, and he belted it into place, running his thumb idly over the crowned tower at its top. “Do you know where they live?”
“Point of Sighs, somewhere,” Mailet answered. “Sabadie might know, or one of the girls.”
“I’ll ask them, then,” Rathe said. “Gaucelm!”
There was a little pause, and then the younger of the station’s two apprentices appeared in the doorway. “Master Nico?”
“Is Asheri about, or is it just you?”
“She’s by the stable.”
Asheri was one of half a dozen neighborhood children, now growing into gawky adolescence, who ran errands for the point station. “I’m off with Master Mailet here, about a missing apprentice–not a runaway, it looks like. I’m sending Asheri for Ranazy, you’ll man the station until he gets here.”
Gaucelm’s eyes widened–he was young still, and hadn’t stood a nightwatch, much less handled the day shift alone–but he managed a creditably offhand nod. “Yes, Master Nico.”
Rathe nodded back, and turned to Mailet. “Then let me talk to Asheri, Master Mailet, and we’ll go.”