Fairs' Point by Melissa Scott Page A

is why he didn’t turn up missing before this.”
    “ He’s more pleasant in person,” Rathe said. Beier’s image rose before him, a big man, barrel-bellied, standing hand on hips in an inn yard deciphering horoscopes for free just to annoy that year’s Patent Administrator. He’d done it with a wink and a grin, a kiss on the hand and a pat on the cheek, and all other payment virtuously declined until Rathe had thought the Patent Administrator would fall into an apoplexy. And then Beier had winked at him and taken himself off, professing a dinner engagement. It was infuriating, but done with style.
    “ One would hope,” Eslingen said.
    “ What were the printers saying?” Rathe asked, after a moment.
    “ Pointing fingers at each other, mostly,” Eslingen answered. “Or at the women who fee them, though I did not hear Caiazzo’s name bandied about in that regard.”
    “ He was backing Beier, I think,” Rathe said. “And anyway, would you take Hanse’s name in vain?”
    “ Not I, thank you.” Eslingen’s smile faded. “Is it true that Beier’s a Fellow of the University? Used to hold a chair or some such?”
    “ Oh, yes, it’s true, all right,” Rathe said. “The University hates him, too. Istre says every few years the Senior Astrologer tries to find a way to disrobe him, but once you’re a Fellow, you’re a Fellow for life. They didn’t get the chair back either when they kicked him out.”
    “ They give you an actual chair?” Eslingen’s eyebrows rose.
    “ It’s symbolic, but, yes. It’s a chair. Istre says it’s not the only feudal hangover at the University, but it’s one of the odder.” Something flickered across Eslingen’s face at the necromancer’s name, and Rathe wished he’d kept his mouth shut. It definitely would have been better not to mention Istre, for all that b’Estorr and he were merely friends. “Very fancy cabinetry, I understand, inlaid and gilded and worth a petty-crown at least. So it matters if you have to have another one made—the donor’s not likely to pay twice, after all.”
    “ Couldn’t they chase it through the courts?” Eslingen asked.
    “ Not without explaining how he came to have it, and allowing Beier to wash some very dirty linen in public,” Rathe said. “I gather they’ve been reduced to watching to see if he pawns it in the off-season, but so far it hasn’t happened.”
    “ And here I thought scholars were supposed to be unworldly dreamers, their eyes on the stars and their feet not quite touching the ground. I’m shattered.”
    “ You’ve been here a year, and you haven’t noticed how very many, and how very political, the pies are that they get their fingers into?”
    “ I wasn’t here six weeks when I got good proof of that,” Eslingen answered. “Not that I minded.”
    Rathe grinned, remembering a shared evening spent watc hing for members of the University, and Eslingen went on more thoughtfully.
    “ But this would be why the printers were saying the Patent Administrator hated Beier? Opinion is about evenly divided as to whether he’s had him murdered or if he’s bought him off.”
    “ Beier wouldn’t take the money,” Rathe said. “Not from Solveert.”
    “ What I heard was that he’d been offered his Fellowship again,” Eslingen said. “A man might do a great deal he wouldn’t otherwise, to get his living back.”
    Rathe shook his head. “Solveert’s not important enough to make it happen, and Beier knows it as well as I do. What are they saying at the Fairs?”
    “ I didn’t hear,” Eslingen said. “I wasn’t there that long.”
    There was something odd in his tone, and Rathe gave him a sharp glance. Eslingen had his eyes firmly fixed on the pa mphlet again, and Rathe decided not to pursue it. “Do me a favor,” he said, and Eslingen looked up at once, smiling.
    “ Of course.”
    “ Keep your ears open, and if you do hear anything—”
    “ I’ll let you know,” Eslingen