“A couple of reasons,” Rathe answered, and nodded toward one of the tables by the garden windows. “I asked Adriana if I could get a bite while I’m here, you want to join me?”

“Why not?” Eslingen settled himself on the nearest of the well worn stools, tilting it so that his back rested against the cool plaster of the wall. At the moment, the sun was pleasant on his booted feet, but he knew that within an hour or two it would be uncomfortably hot. And I should find a cobbler as well as a seamstress, he added, and shook the thought away. With things as uncertain as they were in Astreiant right now, it seemed foolish to spend money on things he didn’t really need.

Rathe perched gracelessly on the stool opposite him, resting his elbows on the tabletop. “First, I wanted to ask you if you’d seen or heard anything that might have a bearing on these missing children.”

“Why ask me?” Eslingen demanded, and let his stool fall forward with a thump as Adriana appeared from the kitchen.

“Bread and cheese and a good pot of tea,” she announced. “That’s all we’ve got at the moment.”

“It looks lovely,” Eslingen said, and meant it.

Rathe nodded his agreement, and, to Eslingen’s surprise, reached into his pocket for his purse, came out with a handful of copper. “How much?”

Adriana waved away the proffered coins. “No charge–and not a fee, either.”

“Aagte’s not going to like it,” Rathe said.

“It’s on me, not the house,” Adriana answered, and winked at Eslingen. “And I won’t say who for.”

“Fair enough,” Rathe said, to her departing back, and slipped the coins back into his purse. He seemed about to say something more, reached instead for the fat teapot and the nearer of the cups. “Why ask you–lieutenant, right?”

“Right.” Eslingen accepted the cup of tea, wrapped his hands around the warming pottery. “I’m practically a stranger here, Rathe.”

“That’s partly why,” Rathe said, indistinctly, his mouth full of bread. He swallowed, said, more clearly, “There’s a chance you might notice something a local might not–someone acting odd, say, when it’s a change that’s happened slowly enough tьat everyone else has just gotten used to it.”

For a wild moment, Eslingen considered blaming the butcher’s journeyman Paas, but put the thought aside instantly. “Not a thing, and I wish I had. The neighbors are starting to look sideways at us, and I can’t find a laundress I’d trust for love nor money.”

Rathe grinned at that. “I didn’t really tьink you had, but it was worth asking.”

“Then it’s true what they’re saying–” Eslingen broke off, tardily aware of what he had been about to say. What the neighborhood gossips were saying was that the points didn’t have any more idea than anyone else of what was happening to the children.

“That we don’t have a clue what’s happening?” Rathe finished, and Eslingen saw with some relief that he didn’t seem offended. “It’s no secret. Kids’ve gone missing from all over the city, and no, there’s nothing in common among them, and no one’s found a body or seen a child being stolen, for all the talk of child‑thieves. Which brings me to the other reason I’m here. You’ve heard the rumor that the kids are being taken by recruiters?”

Eslingen snorted, swallowed a mouthful of bread and cheese. “Yeah, I’ve heard it. I’ve heard a lot of other tales, too.”

“I’m not accusing you or any soldier,” Rathe said, mildly, and Eslingen grimaced at his own haste.

“Sorry. It’s a sore point.”

Rathe nodded. “I daresay. But my question for you is, all right, if it’s not recruiters, why not?”

Eslingen stared at him for a minute, wondering where to begin, and Rathe held up a hand.

“I’ve never been a soldier, and we don’t get much soldiers’ business in Point of Hopes. Aagte’s is about the only tavern that caters to your custom. Now, in other businesses I know of, children are cheap, cheaper than adults, but not for you, it seems.”

“It takes strength to trail a pike,” Eslingen said, “and height helps, too. The same for a piece, to stand the recoil. You want a man grown, or woman, or something close to it.”

“How old were you when you signed on?” Rathe asked, and Eslingen made a face.

“Fourteen, but I joined as a sergeant’s runner. And, yes, you don’t need much skill or size–or anything–for that, but you don’t want dozens of them, either.” He took a breath. “Besides, there were three royal regiments paid off a week ago, and the recruiters can have their pick of them. No one wants kids.” That wasn’t quite true–there were regiments, like the pioneers Jasanten was recruiting for, that had a bad reputation, or lacked any reputation at all, that wouldn’t attract any but the most desperate veterans. Even the most spendthrift wouldn’t need money yet. He met Rathe’s eyes squarely, and hoped the pointsman would believe him.

“There must be jobs an experienced man wouldn’t take,” Rathe said, and Eslingen swore under his breath. “What about them?”

“Why don’t you ask Flory, there?” he asked, and heard himself turn sharp and irritable. “He’s recruiting for a company like that–and it was him who turned the Lucenan boy down flat, pointsman.”

“I will,” Rathe answered, imperturbably. “If you’ll introduce me.”

Eslingen sighed, let the stool fall again. “Come on.”

Rathe followed him easily, still carrying his cup of tea, and Eslingen wished for a moment he’d had the sense to do that himself. But it made Rathe look as though he rarely got a decent meal–the crumpled coat, worn to shapelessness over the pointsman’s leather jerkin, added to that impression–and Eslingen refused to show himself that needy. Even when he had been close to starving, years back, he had known better than to betray himself that way.

Jasanten looked up at their approach, narrowed eyes flicking from Rathe to Eslingen and then back again, taking in the royal monogram on the truncheon tucked into Rathe’s belt. He didn’t move, and Eslingen said, hastily, “Flor, this is Nicolas Rathe, he’s a pointsman–sorry, adjunct point–at Point of Hopes. Flory Jasanten.”

Jasanten nodded, still distant, and Eslingen wished he’d kept his own mouth shut. It was too late for that, though, and he contented himself with saying, “Rathe’s all right, Flor.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rathe give him a quick glance, though whether it was startled or grateful he couldn’t be sure, and then Jasanten grunted, and used his crutch to push a couple of stools away from his table.

“Sit down, then, why don’t you.”

Rathe did as he was told, his expression cheerfully neutral, but Eslingen wished suddenly that he knew what the other was thinking behind that mask. “I heard you had a bit of trouble, last night.”

Jasanten snorted, looked at Eslingen. “You, too, Philip, I may want a witness of my own.”

“And will you need one?” Rathe murmured. His voice was still just as neutral, but Eslingen could almost feel him snap to inward attention.

“It’s all right, Flor,” he said again, and settled himself on the second stool. I hope, he added silently. But Aagte seems to trust him.

Jasanten nodded once, looked back at Rathe. “I saw you talking to Aagte. If you talked to her, you know what happened, and you know I’m not hiring children. So what do you want with me?”

“The same thing I wanted with Eslingen–the same thing I want with anyone here,” Rathe answered. “First, anything you might know about these kids–someone who might be recruiting them, or claim to be recruiting, anything you’ve heard.” He paused then, and Eslingen glanced sideways to see the grey eyes narrowed slightly under the bird’s‑wing brows, as though the pointsman was searching for something in the distance. “The lad who’s gone missing from the Knives Road–you’ll have heard about that, that’s the case that’s got this neighborhood up in arms. She’s twelve, got no family to speak of, just walked out of a good apprenticeship–left everything she owned sitting in her chest, and she was a girl who appreciated her things–and all I’ve got to go on is a drunk journeyman who says he might’ve seen her going south from the street, and a laundress who says she might’ve seen her, too, but going north. Now, you know as well as I do what this could mean, some madman killing or hurting for the sake of it, though so far we haven’t found bodies, and no necromancer has reported a new ghost.”