Gasquine nodded, turned away to give her own orders, and Rathe went on without a pause. “Leenderts, you watch the door. Make sure no one else gets in without my or Mathiee’s say‑so–”

“Adjunct Point!” That was the new watchman, hesitating at the head of the tunnel, and Rathe bit back another curse. “Adjunct Point, the chorus is here, or some of them, and what am I to tell them?”

“Tell them–” Rathe stopped, looking at the meager man, and swallowed what he would have said. “Sohier, hold the alchemists here, and wait for me. There’s a sceneryman to help with the machine.”

The alchemist nodded, clambering up the stairs behind the sceneryman.

“Right, Nico,” Sohier answered, and Rathe climbed back down to the pit. There were at least a dozen actors there, he saw, plus the masters and of course Aubine, standing among his flowers like a man bereft. I’ll deal with them later, he thought, and started back up the tunnel, only to stop short, seeing Eslingen and the younger master, Siredy, already standing in the now‑open door.

“My compliments to the vidame,” Eslingen was saying, his voice so polite as to be almost a parody, “and the rehearsal plans have changed again. If she’d be so good as to continue on to the Bells, the rehearsal will take place there instead.”

Someone–a woman in coachman’s livery, Rathe saw, her whip tucked up over her shoulder–asked a question, and Eslingen drew himself up to his full height.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m sure all your questions will be answered at the Bells.”

He stepped back, swinging the door closed almost in the coachman’s face, and looked back over his shoulder with a wry grin. “Sorry. The watch didn’t seem able to cope.”

Rathe nodded. “Thanks. Are they listening?”

“Reluctantly,” Eslingen answered. “They all want to know what’s going on.”

Rathe stooped to peer through the scratched and bubbled window that ran parallel to the doorway. As Sohier had warned, the tavern across the plaza was already open for business–two hours before its regular time, Rathe thought, and grimaced, seeing another serving girl scurry in the kitchen door. Clearly, the theatre murders were starting to rival The Drowned Islandin the popular imagination.

The long, low windows were crowded with staring faces, and there were still more people gathered along the edges of the square to stare and gossip. The alchemists’ cart stood ready, a flat‑faced man slouching on the tongue, shaking his head at a thin man in a torn coat. “So does everybody, it seems,” he said aloud, and waved the watchman forward. “Can you keep the door, Master–”

“Pelegrim.” The watchman touched his forehead again. “I’m doing my best, sir, honestly–”

“I’ll stay with him,” Eslingen offered. “Between us, we can keep things quiet.”

Rathe shook his head. “Actually, I may need you. But if you’d be willing to help Leenderts, Master Siredy…”

“Of course,” the other man said with a sweet smile, and the watchman ducked his head again.

“I’m doing my best, masters, all I can do.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Leenderts said, and Rathe nodded.

“I do my job,” the watchman said again, and Leenderts’s eyes met Rathe’s over the man’s shoulder.

Rathe nodded– the man’s been up to something, watch him– but there was no time to pursue the question as another knock sounded at the door. Pelegrim moved to answer it, Siredy at his back, and he waved Eslingen back toward the main house. “I’m sorry to do this, Philip,” he said aloud, “but there’s still the body to deal with.”

Eslingen grimaced, but nodded. “I’m at your disposal,” he said, and the tone was warmer than the formal words.

Sohier had collected both the sceneryman and the alchemists at the unblocked trap, saw them return with undisguised relief. “Nico–”

“The sooner you let us at the body, the sooner you’ll have your answers,” the alchemist said, riding over anything the pointswoman would have said, and Rathe took a breath, controlling his annoyance with an effort.

“Take them down, Sohier,” he said, and nodded to the sceneryman. “Master–?”

“Basa,” the sceneryman answered. He was an older man, easily a grandfather, with big hands marked by heavy, swollen joints. Retired from the river, maybe? Rathe guessed, when the winters got too hard to bear. “Pointsman, they tell me the machinery gave way, but I don’t see how. All the cordage, that’s all new, not two weeks old, we change all the ropes once a fortnight.”

“Expensive,” Eslingen said, and the sceneryman scowled.

“Cheaper than new actors.”

“Show me the rope that failed,” Rathe said, and the sceneryman pointed into the shadows.

“There’s not much to see, pointsman, that’s where that cable should be.”

“We noticed it was missing as soon as we looked,” Eslingen said.

Rathe nodded. “Show me,” he said again, and Basa hunched his shoulders.

“Over here.”

Rathe followed him into the wings, stepping carefully over cleats that held other ropes stretched taut, stopped as Basa crouched beside an opening in the floor. There was no sign of a rope there, but looking up, Rathe thought he could see the end of one dangling somewhere in the gloom overhead.

“Now, then,” the sceneryman said, and straightened, reaching for a pole that hung on the nearest pillar. It had a hook at one end, like a boathook, Rathe saw, and ducked as Basa reached up to catch a loop of leather that had been hanging, invisible, among the ropes. There was a rattle of metal, and then a length of rope dropped to the stage floor. Basa prodded at it, still scowling, then stooped again to hold it out like an accusation.

“Now, see there. That was in the brake.”

Rathe took it gingerly, not quite knowing what he was looking for. It was new cable, all right, still bright and barely scarred, five finger‑thick strands wound tight on each other. One end was bound with bright red cording, and the other hung loose, just starting to unwind from its tight twist.

“That’s not frayed,” Basa said. “And it’s not been cut, either. I’d stake my reputation on that.”

“So what then?” Rathe asked, and handed the length back to him. “A fault in the mechanism?”

Basa didn’t answer immediately, reversing the hook to probe through the hole in the stage floor, came up at last with a second length of rope. This one was still attached somewhere below, but the sceneryman caught it before it could slither back out of sight, laying it flat on the boards and pinning it with his hook.

“And that’s the other end.” He glared at it. “Not the mechanism, pointsman, but the splice, or at least that’s what someone wants you to think. But no line I mend gives way, not like this. There’s been murder done, pointsman, and I want it solved.”

Rathe stared at the new length of cable. It didn’t look that different from the first one, the same bright new rope, one end a little more frayed than the first one had been, and he looked back at Basa. “You’re saying that this was, what, unraveled?”

“See there?” Basa pointed with his toe, keeping the hook firmly on the length of line. Rathe squinted, thought he saw a length of thinner rope among the heavy strands. “The binding, there, see? The rope was spliced and the join bound off to make it stronger, that’s the way we always do it here. But someone’s unbound it, to make you think the rope failed.”

Rathe nodded slowly. “And you’re telling me–forgive me, Master Basa, but are you saying that the rope couldn’t have failed? That this join couldn’t have given way?”

Basa’s eyes flickered, and he shrugged one shoulder. “All right, I’ll never say never could happen. But I’ve never seen it done before.”

“What if the brake gave way?” Rathe asked again, and Basa shook his head.

“If the brake had let go, you’d find the whole coil down below, not just a part of it.”

Not that I expected anything different, not the way things have been going. Rathe took a deep breath, and Sohier appeared in the opening of the trap. Her face was very pale, but she had her voice well under control.