She met his eyes guilelessly, and Rathe frowned. “You’re sure about that?”

“As sure as one can be.”

“No hints, no mentions, no one wanting to start it up again?”

Gasquine hesitated for a fraction of a second, then shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Rathe said, and jotted that name down as well. He wasn’t fully sure he believed her, but there was no reason yet to push her to an outright lie. “Anyone else?”

“I don’t know–he was a quiet one himself, I didn’t have to notice him.”

“Tell me about him,” Rathe said, and she gave him a look of surprise.

“Not much to tell, as I said.”

“Come on, Mathiee, people are your lifework. How would you play him?”

Gasquine grinned at that. “A good question. He was young, but not as young as he liked to think he looked. He was quiet enough, but not shy, and not especially considerate, I would say. A–watching sort of man. I’d say he was enjoying himself, in some way or another, but he’s another one I was surprised put in for the lottery.” Her grin widened, took on a tinge of malice. “If I were to cast him, Nico, I’d probably use Guis Forveijl.”

Rathe made a face–he’d have to meet his former lover sometime, though he was hoping, cowardly, to put it off as long as possible–but the description was enough to give him some idea of the dead man’s personality. Forveijl had had a careful streak in him, a holding‑back, and a habit of storing incautious words for later reproach. Which might be a cause for murder, he thought, but Guis’s death, not de Raзan’s, unless Mathiee’s speaking clearer than she knows. He filed that thought for later, and looked down at his tablets.

“And your quarter hour’s run,” Gasquine said, echoing his own thought, and Rathe sighed.

“Two favors, then, before I let you go?”

Gasquine nodded, already on her feet.

“The use of a runner, I need to send word to Dreams, and then– would you ask the vidame to step down to me?”

Gasquine stared. “You’re not–do you want me to–fetch her– for you?”

“If you would,” Rathe answered, and kept his expression as bland as possible. Gasquine swore under her breath, and turned away.

She was better than her word, sending two runners, a tall skinny boy in a jacket already too short in the sleeves and a plump girl who looked to be close to formal apprenticeship. She had a flower pinned to her bodice–someone’s castoff, Rathe guessed, seeing it wilted, but clearly she couldn’t resist the flourish of style. She had brought paper and charcoal, and he scrawled a note to Trijn, warning her that they would need more people at the Bells tomorrow, to question the rest of the chorus and company. And that’ll make her happy, he thought, dismissing the girl with a smile, looked up to see Gasquine approaching, a tall, well‑dressed woman in tow. Rathe nodded to the boy.

“Take your stool over there, warn off any eavesdroppers.”

The boy nodded, eyes wide, and scurried away. Rathe rose, hoping DuSorre wouldn’t be one of the ones who was appalled at the idea of the queen’s law being administered by commoners, and applied to the better folk like herself. “Vidame.”

“Adjunct Point.” She was Silklands dark, her ochre wool skirt and bodice chosen to set off her coloring, and she’d taken the time to wipe away the sweat and set herself to rights. “Mistress Gasquine said you wanted to speak with me.”

Rathe nodded, hoping her getting his title right was a good sign. “Yes. Thank you.” He gestured to the stool, and she sat gracefully, her skirts pooling around her. The sleeves of her bodice and chemise were pinned back, showing bare skin, and a fine bracelet of filigree beads banded one wrist.

“About de Raзan?”

Rathe nodded again. “You knew him.”

“Yes.” DuSorre’s voice was perfectly calm.

“And he gave you cause to strike him.”

She gave a rueful smile, and her whole face lightened. “Yes to that, too. Bad as any actor, wasn’t I, to do that?”

“Were you?” Rathe matched the smile, and she ducked her head–hiding laughter, he suspected, rather than embarrassment.

“He made a suggestion that annoyed me, and when he wouldn’t stop making it, I decided to give him a taste of what he was letting himself in for if he didn’t stop.” She paused, considering, and this time he was sure he saw amusement in her eyes. “It just occurred to me, I should have waited for a time when we were drilling. Then I could have taught him a lesson he really wouldn’t have forgotten.” She did laugh, then, an easy, unforced music.

“And did you?” Rathe asked quietly, cutting across the laughter, and she stopped, frowning.

“Did I–do what?”

“Teach him a lesson.”

DuSorre blinked. “You’re asking me whether I killed him.”

Rathe braced himself, expecting anger, defiance, accusations of disrespect, but instead, DuSorre slowly shook her head, the laughter dying from her face.

“And he is dead, isn’t he, and I’m behaving very badly. I’m sorry, I just can’t imagine…” She shook her head again. “No, Adjunct Point, I did not kill him. He wasn’t worth it to me, I’m afraid, though obviously he was to somebody. I think we got on rather better once I put him in his place.”

Which was obviously several ranks below DuSorre, Rathe thought, and couldn’t help admiring her candor. And besides, I think she would have done the same thing if she’d been left a motherless child in Point of Knives. “You said you couldn’t imagine–what?”

“Why anyone would bother killing him,” DuSorre said. She spread her hands. “I’m sorry, Adjunct Point, he simply wasn’t–a person of substance.”

It was a bitter epitaph. “And yet you kept company with him,” he said aloud, and she shrugged.

“He had an idle tongue, could be amusing. And our mothers are friends. I don’t know many of the others, you understand. We only come to Astreiant for the winter‑tide.”

All good reasons, all equally unhelpful. He took her through more questions, all with the same answer–de Raзan was a nonentity, of no importance at all to her–and by the end was fairly sure she was telling the truth. There was simply not enough passion in her response to make her seem a likely murderer. He closed his tablets, sighing.

“Did you see The Drowned Island?” he asked, not knowing precisely why, and to his surprise she blushed.

“Yes. Yes, several times, since we took up residence in the city.”

“And you enjoyed it?”

This time, the blush was more pronounced, though she met his gaze squarely. “Foolish, I know, but there was something about it– not just sad, though it was that. Perhaps it was that it believed in itself?” She smiled again. “Setting it next to Master Aconin’s play, it is rather embarrassing to think how many times I went to see it. Why do you ask?”

Rathe smiled, not quite able to articulate it himself. “The landseur’s body was discovered on the Tyrseia stage,” he answered. “Between two of the scenic machines–the waves.”

DuSorre grimaced. “He wasn’t killed by the machinery, surely?”

“No. It doesn’t appear so.” Rathe paused. “He may have been poisoned.”

“Commonly thought to be a woman’s weapon,” DuSorre said, and he wondered from her voice if she’d finally taken offense. “What more do you need from me?”

“Your whereabouts between second sunrise and first dawn,” Rathe answered.

“At home,” DuSorre answered. “And it’s not so big and busy a household that there won’t be people who can vouch that I was there. My mother hosted a reception last night for the other members of the cast–the chorus,” she corrected, and Rathe nodded at the distinction. “It was well past second sunrise when I went to bed. And my maid can swear that I didn’t leave my bed until long past the second sunset.” She smiled then. “The one similarity between us and the real actors, I imagine, is the hours we keep.”