Cijntien glanced toward Eslingen. “Philip?” he asked, and then looked as though he wanted to recall the word. He looked instead at Rouvalles, who nodded.

“I guess you do, then. Go ahead.”

The troop‑master relaxed slightly. “I know Eslingen, yes, sir. I served with him, oh, seven, eight years. He was a corporal, then a sergeant under me.” He glanced again at Eslingen, then back at Caiazzo. “He’s a good man.”

“Reliable, or clever?” Caiazzo asked. He enjoyed the awkwardness of the situation, Eslingen realized suddenly, not quite out of malice, but more out of temper. Rouvalles had made him uncomfortable; he was perfectly happy to visit the same discomfort on everyone else in reach.

“Both.” This time, Cijntien refused to look at his former subordinate. “Clever enough to lead raiding parties–hells, he was the man I’d pick first for that, over anyone else–but I’d trust him at my side. Or myback.”

“And that’s where it really counts,” Caiazzo murmured, and looked at Rouvalles.

“If Cijntien speaks well of him, you’re safe enough.” Rouvalles smiled again, suddenly, with more than a hint of mischief in his eyes. “After all, I’ve been trusting him with your business for two years now.”

And that, Eslingen thought, is a score for the Chadroni.

“Right, then,” Caiazzo said. “Thank you, Cijntien. Rouvalles, I’ll send word as soon as the coin is ready.”

“I’ll expect to hear from you,” Rouvalles answered, with a nod, and turned away before Caiazzo could dismiss him more explicitly. The door closed again behind him and Cijntien, and Caiazzo looked at Eslingen.

“As you will have gathered, things are–complicated–for me at the moment. I can’t afford not to investigate all the possibilities, especially where my knife’s concerned.”

It was, Eslingen realized with some surprise, a sort of apology. He gave another half bow, and said, in his most neutral voice, “Of course, sir.”

Caiazzo studied him for a moment longer, as though wondering what lay behind those words, then looked at Denizard. “Aice, get him settled–find him decent rooms, some better clothes, make sure he knows what’s expected of him. And send Vianey back in.”

“Right,” Denizard answered, and gestured for Eslingen to precede her from the room. He obeyed, wondering again just what Rathe had landed him in.

Over the next few days, he began to find a place for himself in the household. No one mentioned the night of the clocks, not even in whispers, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or nervous. The university published an official explanation–the approach of the Starsmith, it said, had caused the clocks, more attuned to the ordinary stars, to slip momentarily out of gear–but few of Caiazzo’s people seemed convinced. Nor, for that matter, were most Astreianters, if the broadsheets were anything to go by, Eslingen thought. They blamed evil magists–foreign, of course–and the changes in society since the old queen’s day, and in general anything else they could think of. One or two blamed whoever it was who was stealing the children, or at least called it a punishment or a warning to find the missing ones before worse happened. That was something Eslingen could agree with wholeheartedly, but he had little time for such matters. Caiazzo required his presence at most meetings, including a second encounter with the Chadroni caravan‑master. There was no money for him this time, either, and Eslingen was beginning to be certain there was something very wrong. Clearly, Caiazzo had expected to have cash in hand by now–even had the trader been inclined to take that kind of advantage of his business partners, Rouvalles was not the sort to put up with these delays for more than one season–and Eslingen found himself wondering if Rathe had been wrong after all, if the trader was involved with the child‑thief. But he could see no connection between a lack of funds and vanishing children: if Caiazzo was involved, he decided finally, he would be more likely to have coin in hand, not to be short of money. Still, he found himself listening carefully to the dinner gossip–he was eating with the rest of the middle servants now, the cook and the steward and the chief clerk Vianey, though not Denizard– and equally carefully to the sessions in Caiazzo’s counting room.

On the fifth day of his employment, he was leaning against the casement while Vianey droned through a list of expenses–mostly relating to the upkeep of the house and boat–when a knock came at the door. Caiazzo stopped pacing to glare in the direction of the sound, and Denizard said, “Come in.”

“I’m sorry, sir.” That was one of the male servants, a tall man Eslingen knew only by sight. “But he insisted on seeing you.”

He had a boy by the collar of a thoroughly disreputable jacket, Eslingen realized, and the boy himself was even less prepossessing than the clothes, a thin creature with a missing eye‑tooth and the first scattering of what promised to be a bumper crop of adolescent pimples. Caiazzo eyed him with disfavor, but, to Eslingen’s surprise, didn’t explode immediately.

“I’ve a message for you, sir,” the boy said, and held out a much‑folded sheet of paper.

Caiazzo crossed to him in a single stride, took the paper from him and scanned it quickly, his frown deepening as he read. “Right. Take him down to the kitchen, see if he wants anything to eat. Aice, Eslingen, come with me.”

The servant bowed–he had never loosed his hold on the boy– and backed away, dragging the boy with him. Denizard frowned too, looking more worried than Eslingen had ever seen, and reached for the coat she had left over the back of a chair.

“Where are we going?” Eslingen asked, and Caiazzo swung to face him.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” Eslingen spread empty hands. “Your safety’s my business; if you want me to do my job, I need to know where we’re going. You’re not happy, but that could mean anything–we could be going to your factor, or anywhere.”

Reluctantly, Caiazzo smiled. “We’re not going to my factor, no. I– have business, in the Court.”

Eslingen blinked, but then managed the translation. Even in the few weeks he’d spent in Astreiant, and especially these last few days in Caiazzo’s house, he’d learned the difference between business at court, business in the courts, and business in the Court. And if it was the last… no wonder Caiazzo wanted his bodyguard along, if he was visiting the Court of the Thirty‑two Knives. He had wheedled the story behind the name out of one of the maids–it had been the base of a band of knives who had controlled most of the southriver neighborhoods a century ago, and it had taken three regiments of Royal Dragons to bring them down–and if even half the stories about their descendants were true, Rathe’s and Devynck’s warnings had been restrained. “I’ll fetch my pistol, then,” he said aloud, and Caiazzo nodded.

“Do that.”

Denizard looked up sharply. “She won’t like that.”

“Then she can come here, next time,” Caiazzo answered. “Get your pistol, Eslingen, and hurry.”

They went by river, for all it was a short journey, just to the public landing north of Point of Graves. The city gallows stood there, Eslingen knew, and wondered if it was for the pointsmen’s convenience. He followed Caiazzo and Denizard through the narrowing streets, aware of the curious and covetous looks, aware, too, of the way women and men melted out of sight into doorways and alley mouths. Warning someone? he wondered. Or themselves warned off by Caiazzo’s presence? Caiazzo didn’t seem to see, but when Eslingen looked closer, he could see a small line like a scar twitching to the left of the trader’s mouth. He was still angry, and Eslingen wondered again just what he was getting into.

The streets narrowed further, walls springing up between the buildings themselves, and Eslingen realized with a small shock that they were in the Court proper. Once, generations ago, it might have been some noble’s country house, back when the landames kept their country houses on the south bank of the river, but it had long since been broken up, first into merchants’ houses, and then into tenements, until the shells of the once‑elegant building had acquired odd accretions, and rickety lean‑tos propped up the tottering stones of the walls. It would have been a bad place to attack, Eslingen though, thinking of the other Royal Dragons, would still be a bad place to attack, or to be attacked. He could feel the weight of the pistol in the pocket of his coat, balanced by the familiar drag of his sword, and was not fully reassured. They were being watched, more closely than before, and he risked another glance at Caiazzo. The trader’s mouth was set, but the scar was no longer twitching, and Eslingen hoped that was a good sign.