Fairs' Point by Melissa Scott Read Free Book Online Page B

charged you what it was worth.” He sighed. “If you’re serious—you could maybe use my name with Maewes DeVoss. One of her assistants is by way of owing me a favor just now, too. She’s an odd bird, but a good trainer, if DeVoss has kept her.”
    “ I’ll take that and thank you,” Eslingen said.
    They spent the rest of the evening making arrangement for the dog—the weaver who had the old stables offered her daughter to exercise it during the day, for a suitable fee, and in the walled courtyard Eslingen felt it was reasonably safe.
    “And if you were at the Court,” the weaver said cheerfully, once the price was settled at a demming each walk, and not more than three per day, “you can tell me, maybe. Is it true the judges paid Gaeten Solveert’s debt in corms bought last winter?”
    Rathe snickered, and Eslingen shook his head. “I don’t know, I left as soon as I was given the dog. And what’s so funny about that?” Even as he asked the question, though, he understood. The goods that passed through the court were valued at what de Calior had paid for them, and corms bought at the height of last winter’s folly would have cost ten or twenty times their real value. “And why does the court hate this Solveert?”
    “ It’s not really him they’d like to punish,” the weaver said cheerfully, “it’s his sister. She gave countenance to the de Caliors, sister and brother, and there’s a whisper that she encouraged Malfiliatre to repudiate the boy’s debts. Though he’s old enough to know better, I’d say.”
    “ Definitely,” Rathe agreed. He glanced at Eslingen. “Ariealle Solveert’s just been elected a Regent, too, so there’s not much the judiciary can do to her. But they can send a message by way of her brother.”
    “ Hard on him, if he had nothing to do with it,” Eslingen said. He had no siblings that he knew of, though he supposed there might be a sister somewhere, or a brother, if his mother had kept trying for the heir she wanted, and he felt that Astreianters sometimes overvalued those ties.
    “ He contributed,” the weaver said, and Rathe nodded.
    “ All the Solveerts gave them countenance—I think they were the first to back them, and I heard that Ariealle got all her friends to fund them, too. She has some things to answer for.”
    “ But—” Eslingen stopped, shaking his head, and Rathe touched his shoulder.
    “ It won’t hurt him, except maybe his pride. He’s the Patent Administrator this year. Second year in a row, too.”
    “ And what’s that mean?” It was happening less often, but now and then Eslingen was sharply reminded that he was still a foreigner.
    “ He’s the Administrator of the Royal Patent for Non-Veterinary Horoscopes,” the weaver began, and Rathe cut in.
    “ He’s one of the two people who runs the Dog Moon races, him and the Racing Secretary, and of the two, Solveert’s the important one.” He shook his head. “At least he’s being a little less demanding than he was last year—it seemed like every time you turned around, there was another circular from the Patent Administrator demanding the points put a stop to some astrologer or other. He and Aardre Beier had a broadsheet feud to rival anything Aconin ever wrote, and if Beier is missing, I’d be inclined to look hard at Solveert.”
    “ Is that true, then?” the weaver asked. “Beier’s missing?”
    “ His friends say so,” Rathe answered. “And there’s been a circular posted. And now you know everything I do, dame.”
    The weaver grinned, unabashed. “More likely Solveert bought him off for the season. Which would be too bad. His horoscopes were better than most, and mostly honest, too.”
    “ Which is why I don’t think he’d let himself be bought,” Rathe said later, after they and the dog were all fed. “It would go against the grain.”
    It was past second sunset by then, and Sunflower retreated to his basket to mumble over the lamb shank they’d bought him.