“I know,” Monteia said. “And you know why you had to do it. Now, come on.” She swept through the door without waiting for an answer.

Rathe followed, aware of the unfamiliar weight of the coat’s skirts around his legs. They hampered his knife hand, got in the way of his reach either for purse or tablets, but he had to admit that the beer brown wool looked good against his skin, and against the decent linen of his shirts. It might be nice to have a coat like this, for best–he put the thought firmly aside. The coat might look well enough now, but after a month of his wearing, it would be as shapeless as any other he owned. Monteia had a nice eye for clothes on a man–but then, she had a son just reaching apprenticeship, and the vanities that went with it.

They crossed the Hopes‑point Bridge, squinting in the morning light that glinted from the river. The sun was still low in the sky, the shadows long, the winter‑sun not yet risen, and there was dew on the grass as they crossed the gardens of the Maternite. It would be hot later, Rathe thought, and made a face at the irrelevance of the concern.

The only heat he needed to worry about would come from the council.

The regents met at All‑Guilds at the heart of the Mercandry. The massive building dominated the little square, four stories high, new halls built against the walls of the original until the walls rose like stairsteps to the point of the roof. The old‑style carvings above the arch of the main entrance showed Heira presiding over a banquet of the various craft deities. Rathe recognized Didonae and Hesion and a few of the deities invoked by the lesser guilds, but there were a good half dozen he couldn’t place at once. Which wasn’t that surprising, he added silently: each craft was its own mystery, and had its own rites and special patrons. No one could know them all, not even the university specialists. Only Bonfortune was missing: the god of the longdistance traders had no place in this gathering of Merchants Resident.

One of the four doors was open, and Monteia led the way into the sudden shadow. Inside, the hall was startlingly cool, the heavy stones still holding a faint chill from the winter’s cold. The people hurrying past–young women, mostly, the long blue robes of guild affiliation thrown casually over brighter skirts and bodices, clutching ledgers and tablets–barely seemed to notice their existence, or no more than was necessary to avoid running into them. Rathe made a face, but knew enough to keep his mouth shut, and followed Monteia to the foot of the main staircase. There was a guard there, a greying man in council livery and polished back‑and‑breast, half‑pike in hand: more symbolic than anything, Rathe thought, but it wasn’t a symbol he much liked.

“Chief Point Monteia, Point of Hopes,” Monteia said. “And Adjunct Point Rathe.”

The soldier nodded gravely. “Down the hall to your left, Chief Point. Madame Gausaron is waiting.”

Monteia nodded back, and turned away. Sunlight striped the stones of the hall, falling through windows cut into the wall above the roof of the building’s latest addition, and Rathe was grateful for its intermittent warmth. Another young woman in the blue guilds’‑coat was waiting by a carved door; as they got closer, he could see the council’s badge, a stylized version of Heira’s Banquet, embroidered above her left breast. She bowed her head slightly at their approach, and said, “Chief Point. Monteia?”

“Yes.” Only the twitch of Monteia’s lips betrayed any emotion at all. “And Adjunct Point Rathe. For the grande bourgeoise.”

The woman nodded again, and swung the door open for them. “Chief Point Monteia and Adjunct Point Rathe.”

The room was very bright, startlingly so after the shadows of the entrance and the intermittent sunlight of the hallway. Two of the four walls were fretted stone, a pattern of flowers filled in with orbs of colored glass, so that they looked out into the garden behind All‑Guilds through another garden made of light and shade. Rathe blinked, dazzled, and brought himself to attention at Monteia’s side. He had never been this far into All‑Guilds–never been this close to any of the guild mistresses who controlled the city’s day‑to‑day government–but he refused to show his ignorance.

“So. What the devil is going on southriver, Surintendant, that your people can’t keep control of a tavern fight?” The speaker was a tall woman in the expensive respectable black of a merchant whose family had kept shop on the Mercandry for a hundred years. There was fine lace at her collar and cuffs, and on her cap, forming a incongruously delicate frame for her long, heavy‑fleshed face. She looked, Rathe thought, with sudden, inward delight, rather like Monteia would, if the chief point were fattened for a season or three.

“Madame, the situation is hardly normal,” the surintendant began, and Gausaron waved a hand that glinted with gold leaf.

“No, Surintendant, it’s all too normal. The points do nothing–for what reason I don’t know, and make no judgment, yet–until the situation is past bearing. And then a man, an honest journeyman‑butcher, is shot dead in the street.”

“This is not a question of fees–” Monteia began, and the surintendant cut in hastily.

“Madame, the people who attacked the tavern were and are concerned for their missing children, but they were still outside the law.”

“We’re all concerned about the missing children.” The voice came from the shadows behind the grande bourgeoise’s desk, a cool, pleasant voice that somehow suggested a smile. The speaker–she had been sitting in the shadows all the while, Rathe realized–rose slowly and came around the edge of the desk, skirts rustling with the unmistakable sound of silk. The metropolitan of Astreiant, the queen’s half‑niece and one of the stronger candidates for the throne, leaned back against the desk, and smiled benevolently over the gathering. “And I know some of the actions the points have already taken, thanks to you, Surintendant. But I’d like to hear from you, Chief Point, what happened last night. And from the beginning, if you please.”

“Your Grace.” Monteia took a deep breath, and launched into an account of the trouble, beginning with the Old Brown Dog and its history, through the complaints that Devynck was hiding the missing children and her own search of the premises, to the violence of the night before. Her voice was remote, almost stilted, faltering only slightly when she came to Paas’s death. Rathe, who had heard her speak a hundred times before, watched Astreiant instead. She looked no older than himself, tall and strongly built, with the body of someone who faced active sports and the table with equal pleasure. She wore her hair loose, the thick tarnished‑brass curls caught back under a brimless cap. The style flattered her handsome features–lucky for her that’s the latest fashion, Rathe thought, and only then thought to wonder if she’d started it.

“And you’re certain this Devynck has nothing to do with these missing children,” Astreiant said, and Rathe recalled himself to the business at hand.

“Absolutely certain, Your Grace,” Monteia answered.

The grande bourgeoise made a soft noise through her teeth, and Astreiant darted an amused glance in her direction. “I think what Madame is too polite to say is that you’ve taken Devynck’s fees.”

“I have,” Monteia answered. “And I’ve taken fees from every other shopkeeper and guildmistress and tavernkeeper in Point of Hopes, too. It’d be more to the point, Madame, Your Grace, to say I’m Aagte Devynck’s friend, because I am, and I make no secret of it. But it’s because I know her, because I’m her friend and I know what she will and won’t sell, that I can tell you she would never be involved in something like this. I’m as sure of that as I’m sure of my own stars.”

Astreiant nodded gravely. “Will the rest of Point of Hopes believe it, though? I’m as concerned as Madame Gausaron with keeping the peace southriver.”