“After that,” Cijntien went on, “we take it by easy stages down the imperial roads to Tchalindor. My principal’s factor is there. And then we come back by sea.”

And that, Eslingen thought, was the rub. It would be a glorious journey, certainly, but it would take the rest of the year and well into the next spring to reach Tchalindor–the land bridge was only passable in the winter, when the rivers were full–and by the time he could get a ship back to Chenedolle or the League, the best captains would have filled their companies for the spring campaigns. Still, if the pay was good enough, he could afford to wait for the winter season… “What’s your principal offering?”

“Two pillars a lunar month, paid at Tchalindor, plus bonuses. And of course food, mounts, and shot and powder are his business–and weapons, too, if you don’t want to bring your own.”

Which wasn’t enough, not even if he skimped–and besides, Eslingen told himself firmly, he’d always been a soldier, not some caravan guard. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Dausset. I can’t afford it.”

“Can you afford to have your head blown off, somewhere up in the Ile’nord? Or your throat slit some dark night, more likely?”

Eslingen laughed. “But I’m good, Dausset. Besides, if it’s in my stars, it’s in my stars. By all accounts, you can get your throat cut just as neatly on the caravan roads.”

Cijntien shook his head, the smile fading from his lips. “I wish you’d come with me, Philip. This is not a good time for Leaguers in Astreiant.”

“What do you mean?” Eslingen reached for the pitcher, found it empty, and lifted a hand to signal the nearest waiter. The room had definitely filled while they’d been talking, a mix of Leaguers, marked by their lighter skin and hair and the wide hats they wore even in the tavern, and soldiers and former soldiers, equally marked by their boots and the various scars. But there was a small knot of people whom he couldn’t identify immediately sitting close together at the tables by the door, and another larger group–this one with the leather aprons and pewter Toncarle badges of the Butcher’s Guild–at the big table closest to the bar. Locals, all of them, and they didn’t look particularly happy. The waiter–not Loret, this time–brought a second pitcher, and Eslingen paid, waving away Cijntien’s perfunctory and insincere offer of coin. “So what do you mean, this is a bad time for Leaguers?”

“Haven’t you heard?”

“I got into the city two days ago,” Eslingen answered. “Not even Astreiant proper, the camps out along the Horse Road. And I wasn’t paid off until this morning. So whatever it is, no, I haven’t heard.”

Cijntien leaned forward again, lowering his voice. “There’s something very wrong in this city, Philip, let me tell you that. And the Astreianters are being very quick to blame everybody else before they’ll look in their own stars.”

Eslingen made a noncommittal noise.

“Their children are disappearing,” Cijntien said, leaning forward even further. “Lots of them, just vanishing, no one knows where or why. They say–” He jerked his head toward the doorway, the city beyond it. “–they say it’s Leaguers, or maybe the caravaners and Silklanders, needing hands for the road. But I say it’s a judgment on herself, for being childless.”

Eslingen caught his breath at that, barely kept himself from looking over his shoulder. “Have a care, Dausset.”

“Well, she should have an heiress by now,” Cijntien said, stubbornly. Neither man needed to say who he meant: the Queen of Chenedolle’s childless state had been the subject of speculation for years. “Or have named one. The Starsmith is moving, it’ll enter the Charioteer within the year–”

“Or next year, or the year after,” Eslingen interrupted, his voice equally firm. Anyone in Chenedolle–in the known world–knew what that meant: the Starsmith was the brightest of the moving stars, the ruler of death, monarchs, and magists, and its passage from one sign to the next signaled upheavals at the highest levels. The current queen’s grandmother had died during such a transit, and the transit before that had been marked by civil war; it was not unreasonable to fear this passage, when the current queen was no longer young, and childless. But the tertiary zodiac, the one in which the Starsmith moved, as opposed to the zodiacs of the sun and winter‑sun, was still poorly defined, its boundaries the subject of debate even within Astreiant’s university. The Starsmith might well pass from the Shell to the Charioteer this year, or not for another four or five years; it all depended on who you asked.

“At least you don’t say never,” Cijntien muttered. “Like some godless Chadroni.”

“Whatever else you may say about me, you can’t call me that.”

“Godless?”

“Chadroni.”

Cijntien laughed. “I have missed you, Philip, and I don’t deny it’d be good to have you along this trip if only for the company. But I mean it, this is not a good time to be Leaguer here.”

“Because of missing children,” Eslingen said. “Missing, you said, not dead?”

“No one’s found bodies, at any rate,” Cijntien answered.

“So how many of them have just decided to take to the roads?” Eslingen asked. “It’s Midsummer, or nearly, fair season–hiring season. When did you leave home, Dausset, or did you start out a soldier?”

“As it happened, yes, and I left home at the spring balance,” Cijntien said. “But that’s not what’s happening, or so they say. It’s the wrong children, not the southriver rats and rabble, but the merchants’ brats from north of the river. Those children don’t run away, Philip. They’ve got too much to stay for.”

Eslingen made a face, still skeptical, but unwilling to argue further. In his experience, the merchant classes were as likely to run as any other, depending on their stars and circumstances–he’d served with enough of them in various companies, even with a few who had taken to soldiering like ducks to water. “Still, there’s no reason to blame us. It’s past the campaign season–gods, if I couldn’t find a company hiring, how will some half‑trained butcher’s brat? If they’re looking to blame someone, let them blame the ship captains.”

“Oh, they’re doing that,” Cijntien began, and a hand slammed down onto the table.

“And what do you know about butcher’s brats, Leaguer?”

Eslingen swallowed a curse, more at his own unruly tongue than at the stranger, looked up to see one of the butchers staring down at them. He was a young man, probably only a journeyman yet, but he held onto the table as though he needed its support. Which he probably does, Eslingen added silently, wrinkling his nose at the smell of neat spirit that hung about him. Drunk, and probably contentious– there’s no point in being too polite with him, but I don’t want a fight, either.

“Little enough,” he said aloud, and gave the youth his best blank smile, the one he’d copied from the Ile’norder lieutenants, sixteen quarterings and not a demming in his pocket. “A–figure of speech, I think it’s called, an example, a part standing for the whole.”

“There’s a butcher’s brat gone missing,” the journeyman went on, as though he hadn’t heard a word the other had said, and Eslingen was suddenly very aware of the quiet spreading out from them as people turned to look and listen. “This morning–last night maybe. And I want to know what you know about it, soldier.”

“This morning,” Eslingen said, speaking not so much to the drunken boy in front of him but the listeners beyond, the ones who were still sober and could cause real trouble, “I was with my troop at the Horse Road camps, being paid off by Her Majesty’s intendants– and I was there the night before, too, for that matter, making ready for it. There’s a hundred men who’ll witness for me.” He could feel the tension relax–he wasn’t likely quarry anyway, was too new to the city to be the real cause–and pushed himself easily to his feet. “But no harm done, my son, let me buy you a drink.”