Monteia looked away, looked toward the surintendant as though for reassurance, then back at Astreiant. “Your Grace, I think so. It’s morning, they’re chastened by what they did.” She darted a glance at the grande bourgeoise. “As Madame said, there was a death to no purpose. I think it’s sobered them all down.”

“Yes, the journeyman‑butcher,” Astreiant said. She looked at Gausaron. “I must say, Madame, I think he got what he deserved. Threatening a woman’s property–the knife, what’s‑his‑name, seems to have been within his right.”

“What’s being done with the knife?” Gausaron asked.

“Madame, he was taken to the cells at Point of Sighs,” Monteia answered.

“He’ll be released today,” Rathe said, and heard the challenge in his voice too late. “The point’s bound to be disallowed–it was self‑defense, not just defense of property.”

Astreiant fixed her gaze on him for the first time. Her eyes were very pale, a color between blue and grey, and tilted slightly downward at the outer corners. “It seems a reasonable interpretation,” she said, after a moment, and Rathe wondered what she had been going to say. She looked at Gausaron. “Madame, it’s a dangerous time, and you’re right to be concerned, but I have to say, I think the chief point handled this as well as anyone could have.”

The grand bourgeoise nodded, rather grudgingly. “Though there’d be less to worry about if they’d find out who’s stealing our children.”

“Madame, we are trying,” the surintendant said, through clenched teeth.

“And I would appreciate your keeping me informed of your progress,” Astreiant said, and pushed herself away from Gausaron’s desk. “And in the meantime, I know we’ve taken enough of your time.”

It was unmistakably a dismissal. Rathe bowed, not as reluctantly as sometimes, and followed the other pointsmen from the room. As the door closed behind them, the surintendant touched his shoulder.

“That was well handled, Monteia. I want to borrow Rathe, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m glad Astreiant was there,” Monteia said, and only then seemed to hear the rest of the surintendant’s words. “I’ll need him back, sir, and soon.”

“Only for a moment,” the surintendant answered, and Monteia shook her head, lips tightening.

“Very well, sir. Rathe, I’ll want to talk to you when you get back.” She turned, skirts swirling, walked away down the hall, her low heels ringing on the stones.

“Yes, Chief,” Rathe said, to her departing back, and wondered what was going to happen now. He knew Monteia distrusted Fourie– he shared the feeling himself at times–and found himself, not for the first time, reviewing the list of his most recent behavior.

Fourie’s thin lips were twisted into an ironic smile, as though he’d read the thought. “I may have just made more trouble for you, Rathe. Sorry.”

And if you are, that’s the first time, Rathe thought, but couldn’t muster real resentment. This was the way the surintendant worked; he could accept it or not, but live with it he had to. “What was it you wanted, sir?”

Fourie shook his head, looking around the busy hall. “This is no place to talk. Come with me.”

Rathe followed him through the Clockmakers’ Square and then along the arcaded walk that ran along the southern edge of the Temple Fair, feeling if anything rather like a dog of somewhat dubious breed. Fourie made no comment, never even looked back, until at last he stopped by one of the tall casements that looked out across the dust‑drifted paving. The ballad‑sellers and the printers seemed to be doing their usual brisk business, but there were fewer children than usual among the crowd. Rathe looked again, but saw no sign of black robes or grey, freelance astrologers or students.

“They’re only interested because it’s bad for business,” Fourie said. His tone was conversational, but Rathe wasn’t fooled. The surintendant was angrier than he had let on in the grande bourgeoise’s presence–in Astreiant’s presence–angry that two of his people had been questioned by the regents’s representative, angry that none of them had done anything to find the missing children, angriest of all that he didn’t have any more likely course of action than he had the day the first child had disappeared. And don’t we all feel that way, Rathe thought, but I wish I were elsewhere just now.

“If it weren’t for the fair,” Fourie went on, “they wouldn’t be quite so concerned. Of course, if it were just southriver brats going missing, they wouldn’t even have noticed. Makes me sick. Do your jobs, but expect us to interfere every chance we got, and don’t, whatever you do, let doing your jobs disturb us.”

“Astreiant seems a bit more–reasonable,” Rathe ventured, wondering where this was leading.

The surintendant seemed on the verge of a snort, then shook his head. “No, you’re right about that. Astreiant seems to have a finer understanding of what’s involved in the enforcement of the queen’s law. Gods only know where she got it. It doesn’t seem to run in the nobility.”

“Or the haut bourgeoisie,” Rathe said, unable to stop himself, and Fourie responded with another thin smile.

“Oh, they’re worse. And I daresay you and I could go on like this all day with our grievances, but that would get nothing done. So, Rathe. What have you done about Caiazzo?”

Not precisely the haut bourgeoisie, no longdistance trader is, but close enough, Rathe thought. I might have known where this was leading. “I wasn’t aware, sir, that you precisely wanted me to do anything. I thought my writ was to keep an eye on him, for any possible involvement in these disappearances, and that I’ve done. I’ve spoken with him, mostly on the matter of his printers. And that knife of his I made the point on at the end of the Dog Moon.” He shook his head. “But–I’m sorry, sir–I just don’t see that this is anything Caiazzo would get himself involved in. Where’s the reason behind it, sir? And, more to the point, where’s the profit? Oh, I know what you said about political profit, but that’s never been his style, it’s too–too far down the road. Caiazzo always wants results he can see now as well as make use of later. Sure, he could make use of a political profit later, but where’s the immediate profit?”

Fourie shrugged, a faint frown creasing the space between his eyebrows, and Rathe realized he’d let himself get carried away by his own argument. “Have your investigations turned up something more likely, Adjunct Point?”

“I’ll agree it’s likely the starchange is involved,” Rathe said, stung, and remembered b’Estorr’s account of the rumors circulating at the university. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been wondering about these hedge‑astrologers the Three Nations were complaining about.” He hadn’t meant it, had just been looking for an alternative, but as his own words sank in, he pursued the thought. “Think of it–where have they come from? They don’t claim association with any of the altars, or with the university–and they’ve pissed off the students as a body, which sensible people don’t do–and ostensibly claim no political affiliation. And if you’re not buying that bill of goods for Caiazzo, sir, you can’t buy it from these.”

The surintendant studied him with a jaundiced gaze. “Then I trust the arbiters of the fair, or Fairs’ Point, or University Point, are looking into it, as well as you. But at the same time, I don’t want you ignoring the possibility of Caiazzo’s involvement in favor of your own theories– I very carefully don’t say because you like him. This is too important, Nico. Whatever you think of my feelings toward him, I wouldn’t order you do to something like this if I didn’t think–feel–there was good reason. But I want it done.”

Rathe took a deep breath, held it until his own temper subsided. Fourie had spent more time in the company–the presence–of the grande bourgeoise. If Gausaron had left Monteia, and Rathe himself, a little short‑tempered, it was astonishing that the surintendant had kept his notoriously short temper in check for so long. “I’ll keep an eye on him, sir, though I won’t pretend it’ll be easy.”