Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott Page A

boy apprentice. She
looked up sharply at his approach, hope warring with fear in her
pale face, and Rathe shook his head. “No word,” he said and she
gave a visible sigh.
    “ Enas, finish what you’re doing and
run tell Master Mailet that the pointsman’s here.” She forced a
smile, painfully too bright, to Rathe’s eyes, and passed a neatly
wrapped package across the countertop. “There you are, Marritgen,
that’ll be a spider and a half.”
    The woman—she had the look of a householder, gravely
dressed—fumbled beneath her apron and finally produced a handful of
demmings. She counted out five of them, Grosejl watching narrowly,
and slid them across the countertop. Grosejl took them, gave a
little half bow.
    “ Thanks, Marritgen. Metenere go
with you.”
    The woman muttered something in answer, and slipped
out through the door. The other customers had vanished, too, and
Grosejl made a face.
    “ They’ll be back,” Rathe said. He
was used to the effect he had on even honest folk, but the
journeyman shook her head.
    “ It’s a sad thing, pointsman, when
they’re half blaming us for Herisse vanishing. There’s regular
customers who won’t come near us, like it was a disease, or
something.”
    There was nothing Rathe could say to that, and
Grosejl seemed to realize it, looked away. “I’m sorry. There’s
still nothing?”
    “ Nothing of use,” Rathe answered,
as gently as he could. “We’re still looking.”
    “ No body, though,” she said, with
an attempt at a smile, and Mailet spoke from the
doorway.
    “ That just means they haven’t found
it. Well, pointsman, what do you want this time?”
    “ I need some more information from
you,” Rathe said, and took a tight hold of his temper. “And for
what it’s worth, which is quite a lot, in actual fact, we don’t
have ghosts, either. Which means they’re probably not
dead.”
    “ They?” Grosejl said.
    Mailet grunted. “Hadn’t you heard, girl? We’re not
the only ones suffering. There’re children missing all over this
city.” He looked at Rathe without particular fondness. “Come on
back, if you want to talk. My records are within.”
    “ Thanks,” Rathe said and followed
him through the narrow door into the main part of the hall. This
time, Mailet led him into the counting room, tucked in between the
main workroom and the stairs that led to the living quarters on the
upper floors. It was a comfortable, well-lit space, with
diamond-paned windows that gave onto the narrow garden—not much of
a garden, Rathe thought, just a few kitchen herbs and a
ragged-looking stand of save-all, but then, a dozen apprentices
would tend to beat down all but the most determinedly defended
plants. There were candles as thick as a woman’s ankle on sturdy
tripod dishes, unlit now but ready for the failing light, and an
abacus and a counting board lay on the main table. A ledger was
propped on the slanting lectern, and there were more books, heavy
plain-bound account books and ledgers, locked in the cabinet beside
the door.
    “ You said you wanted information,”
Mailet said and lowered himself with a grunt into the chair behind
the table. An embroidered pillow, incongruously bright, lay against
the chair’s back, and the butcher adjusted it with an absent
grimace, tucking it into the hollow of his spine. A bad back, Rathe
guessed an occupational hazard leaning over the chopping blocks all
day.
    “ That’s right,” he said aloud. “My
chief wants to know if you have Herisse’s nativity in your
records.”
    Mailet’s head lifted, more than ever like a baited
bull. Rathe met his gaze squarely, and saw the master swallow his
temper with a visible effort. “I have it,” he said at last. “I take
it this means you don’t have the faintest idea what’s
happened.”
    “ I’ve found two people who might
have seen her,” Rathe said and took tight hold of his own temper in
his turn. “But their stories don’t match, and I don’t have a way