Havenstar (4 page)

‘My wife
doesn’t want to go back,’ the man said bleakly.

‘The guide’ll
have new maps by the time you are due to return, and you’re
unlikely to be tainted on a return journey anyway,’ Keris said. ‘It
usually happens the first time you cross a ley line, or not at
all.’

‘That’s what
they say,’ the woman said. ‘But I’ve heard it can happen.’

‘It can. But
rarely.’

‘I don’t want
to go back. And it doesn’t matter if we don’t, does it? I mean, the
pilgrimage is still valid, isn’t it?’

‘Now Cosey,’
the man said with patronising patience, ‘you know you’d be
hankering after your Ma and sister within a few weeks. We got to go
back.’ He turned to Keris. ‘We need a map of Drumlin City,
maid.’

Keris
indicated a map pinned to the wall behind her. ‘We have ones like
that. They show all the hostelries for pilgrims, and all the holy
sites you’re supposed to visit within the city. And we have this
one too.’ She spread out another chart on the counter. ‘This one is
of the whole of the First Stab, showing the most convenient route
from shrine to shrine. See? They are numbered, and the paths are
marked. The obligatory shrines are shown in red; the minor ones in
blue. The names are written beside them.’

Cosey looked
at it doubtfully. ‘I dunno that we can understand maps. We’re just
farming folk—’ Her husband gave an embarrassed nod of
agreement.

‘There’s
nothing to it really,’ Keris said. ‘Imagine you’re a bird, flying
up in the air, and you’re looking down on the ground. Well, this is
what it would look like. Everything tiny, looking a bit odd because
you’re looking at it from above. See here, that’s a wood, and this
is a road. And there you have a village. See the houses? And here’s
a stream—’

‘Oh—! And
look, Jax, there’s a water mill!’

‘That’s right.
So if you were on this path and wanted to go to this shrine here,
you would turn right at the crossroads where the water mill
is.’

‘Why, that’s
easy! Jax, do you see? If we had a map, we really don’t have to pay
a guide.’

‘It’s
certainly cheaper,’ Keris agreed. ‘And you can always ask the way
as well, once you have studied the map and decided where you want
to go.’

‘How much is
it?’ Jax asked.

‘A silver for
a vellum one. A parchment one is cheaper, only half a silver. But
then you really need a leather map case for it, and that costs
twenty coppers.’

‘A silver
doesn’t sound much for a chart,’ Cosey said, surprised. ‘I thought
maps were expensive. We were wondering if maybe a guide would be
cheaper.’

‘Charts of the
Unstable
are
expensive. Mapmakers like my father risk their
lives six months in every year to map the Unstable. But these
stability maps hardly need much updating because of the Rule. Look,
if you’d like some advice, I’ll tell you what I think. Don’t go
direct to Drumlin. Go to Kte Marlede’s Shrine first. That’s just
about an hour’s walk off the main road, and you turn off just forty
minutes or so from Kibbleberry.’ Keris pointed to the shrine on the
map. ‘Here, see? It’s an obligatory one. There’s a chantist
hostelry there if you want it, or you can camp in the field for a
small fee. It’s where the Knighte begged forgiveness from the Maker
for her previous disbelief. She wasn’t a sworn Knighte of Chantry
then of course. You can still see the melted rocks where the Maker
sent down His warning… It’s a beautiful place with a river, just
the place to rest after your journey, to make your peace with the
Maker for your past sins. What better way to start a
pilgrimage?’

Cosey sighed.
‘It sounds lovely. I’m so tired.’

‘Drumlin, on
the other hand, is a day and a half’s ride from Kibbleberry,’ Keris
added. ‘If you go to Kte Marlede’s instead, then you can go on to
the second obligatory shrine, here. That’s Kt Gallico’s. And then
the third here. After that, you have to decide whether to take this
route here—’ her finger traced a pathway across the map ‘—which
takes in five minor shrines, all in Taggart’s Wood, or stay on the
main route to Kte Felmina’s. The deviation rejoins the main path
here. There are several other detours like that further on.
Eventually you will arrive in Drumlin from the north. It’s the
route most pilgrims take.’

Cosey turned
to her husband. ‘Jax, let’s do that.’

He squared his
shoulders. ‘All right. We’ll take this map. I dunno about the
other, though.’

Keris smiled.
‘Look, I shouldn’t say this, but you’ll be able to buy a used one
in the city for a few coppers from a pilgrim about to return to his
or her own stability. You may even be able to sell this one just
before you leave, although that may be more difficult because most
people will already have bought it here on their way into the
stab.’

The man began
to look happier. ‘That’s a good idea.’ He dug into the pouch around
his neck and produced a silver.

Keris rolled
up the map and fastened it with its attached ribbon. ‘There you go.
May the peace of Creation be yours on your journey.’ She signed a
kinesis of farewell.

‘Thank you,’
Cosey said, as her hands fluttered the reply. ‘You are nice—I feel
better about being on pilgrimage already.’

She watched
them from the doorway while they remounted and rode away, then
turned to pick up the coin from the counter. She hesitated a
moment, then slipped the silver into her apron pocket.

From the next
room a weak voice asked, ‘Have they gone?’

‘Yes, Mama,
they’ve gone.’ She went into the main room of the house, the
kitchen, where her mother was lying on a bed under the window, well
wrapped in spite of the day’s warmth. Only her face, tired and
pale, and her thin white hands moving restlessly on the
much-patched cover, were visible.

‘Your father
would say you threw away the sale of the second map.’

She nodded,
unrepentant. ‘They were farming people without much money. We don’t
need their silver.’ She made an impatient gesture with one hand.
‘Riding their plough horses, poor souls. They won’t get their knees
together for a year once they’ve got home. And—obedient to the
Rule—the wife has already changed back into a skirt which can’t be
comfortable to wear while riding such a beast.’

‘Now,
Keris—’

She didn’t let
her mother finish. ‘It’s nonsense that they’re here anyway, risking
their lives crossing the Unstable. For what?’

‘For the good
of their souls, dear.’

‘But why
should it be good for their souls? What’s the matter with devotions
at shrines in their own stability? Why should we all have to make
this truly ridiculous journey once in our lifetimes, or risk dying
unhallowed and destined for the Hell of Disorder no matter how
knightly a life we’ve led? The whole thing is just a way Chantry
has of fleecing the population!’

‘Nonsense,
dear, and you know it. They could fleece us quite adequately at our
local shrines if need be. We do this because the Maker requires it
of us, to show that at least once in our lives we put Him first
before our personal desires and indeed before our personal
safety.’

‘Is He so…so
petty
? It’s not right, Mother. People die out there in the
Unstable. Or are terribly tainted and then excluded, unable to ever
return. Is that fair?’

Her mother’s
expression was that of someone who had heard it all before from the
same source, and often. She said quietly, ‘Those who die are
received directly into Heaven’s Order. You would be more tolerant
of your faith and the Rule if you were older and closer to death,
child.’

She winced.
The words struck too close to home. Her mother’s illness was
worsening as the strange lump that grew inside Sheyli Kaylen sucked
her life away while it swelled and groped its way through her body.
She was frail now. Even her hair, once luxuriantly abundant, seemed
as fragile as the delicate lacework woven on to the neck of her
nightdress. An illegal frippery that, but it showed Sheyli had once
been a woman of spirit prepared to defy the Rule, even if she did
keep the rebellion hidden on her nightwear. Keris said with
unaccustomed gentleness, ‘Father will be home soon. Perhaps even
today.’

‘Perhaps. But
Keris, you heard what that Cosey woman just said: four uncharted
ley lines on their route. Your father will have had much to do. Did
you put their silver in the till?’

Keris shook
her head and took the money out of her pocket. ‘For Thirl to drink
or gamble away? No. This will buy you some more sleeping medicine
for a start, and still leave more than enough to pay what we owe to
Master Ferit for the yams and onions he bought us at the Daltoner
Market last week. Thirl needn’t know about it.’

Her mother
sighed. ‘I don’t—’ she began, but whatever she was going to say was
obliterated by the sudden desperate howling of a cat.

‘Yerrie?’
Keris looked up in astonishment and went back into the shop to see
whatever was alarming the normally placid animal.

It was another
customer, a man just dismounting out in the yard.

‘Hush up,’ she
hissed at Yerrie. It backed over into a corner, lashing its tail
angrily. She stared out of the door, thinking the visitor must have
a dog, but she couldn’t see one. He did have a pair of matched
crossings-horses that could have been twins they were so alike.
Short, with stumpy necks, stiff manes and thick legs, striped all
over with brown and black and dirty grey, crossings-horses were
unprepossessing beasts, much ridiculed by those who did not ride
them. Their value lay in their stamina—they could run for hours
carrying heavy loads—and their ability to leap, not heights, but
widths. Their hindquarters and back legs had the hidden power of
coiled springs, while their narrow backs, well-padded with fat,
made them comfortable to ride, even though they were bad-tempered
and impatient. Unstablers, those ley-lit who lived in stabilities
yet worked the Unstable for a living, would ride nothing else, and
traditionally resented anyone else owning or using one.

Even if she
had not seen the horses, she would have soon known their owner was
an Unstabler. He had the aura of assurance and the lack of
conformity that was commonplace among those who chose to work
outside the stabilities. Couriers, guides, mapmakers, traders,
tinkers, peddlers—such men, leading dangerous and often solitary
lives, rarely followed convention, and while some were uncouth and
tongue-tied in any kind of town society, most displayed the same
sort of quiet confidence this man had. He was dressed all in brown
and his clothes were of Trician quality, but they seemed to conform
to the dictates of the Rule only loosely. At a guess, she’d have
said he was dressed more for comfort than any desire to please
rule-chantors. His age she thought to be about thirty-five or
forty. When he swung himself out of the saddle with an easy animal
grace, she saw there was a long whip coiled at the side of his
saddle. She’d seen such before: the plaited hide of it would be
impregnated with slivers of glass. Not a weapon for the squeamish,
and her immediate thought was,
A tough man
. His eyes were
chips of black obsidian; the gaze he gave her as he crossed the
yard to the shop door was one of total disinterest. He had looked
and seen nothing that merited the slightest curiosity on his part
and his gaze ranged on to look past her into the shop.

She turned
away, humbled and riled, and went to stand behind the counter
top.

He stopped in
the doorway for a moment to look around. Even as he made the
greeting kinesis he scarcely seemed to notice her. When he spoke,
he was looking at the maps on the wall, not at her, and he had a
voice like a slide of gravel down a hillslope, all rough edges and
conflict. ‘Is Piers around?’ he asked. The tone was polite enough;
it was just the voice that was extraordinary. The cat backed up
against the wall in the far corner, its whole body shivering with
fear, all its fur on end, its teeth bared. She blinked in
astonishment. She’d never seen the animal in such a state before.
Whoever this man was, he’d reduced Yerrie to a mass of trembling
terror just by his presence.

‘I’m sorry,’
she said, eyes still on the cat. ‘He’s not here. How can I help
you?’ She wrenched her gaze away from Yerrie to look at the man. He
wore throwing knives. She’d never seen anyone but her father wear
those—to use them required a skill not many bothered to master.

‘I need to see
Piers. It is important. Where is he?’ He looked at her then, still
without much interest. He obviously did not intend to explain any
further.

‘He’s away on
a surveying trip. He’s expected back any day now.’

‘Ah. Then I
shall have to come again.’ He sketched a farewell kinesis and
swivelled on his heel.

‘Can I give
him a message?’ she asked, coldly polite. Some perverse part of her
wanted to detain him, wanted to have him really see her as a
person, instead of having his eyes flick over her as if she was
part of the furnishing, and a rather shabby part at that.

He turned back
in the doorway. ‘It’s up-to-date maps I want, child, and you can
hardly supply those if Piers is still out on his surveying trip.’
The tone was still mild, but the ‘child’ rankled.

Bastard, she
thought. In her mind she savoured the word forbidden by convention
to her tongue. In the corner, Yerrie spat.

He heard and
turned his gaze on the cat, noticing it for the first time. The
animal’s back rose, fur hackled, and it snarled, a low growling in
the back of the throat.

The effect on
the man was extraordinary. He stood stock still while a slow flush
spread from the back of his neck to his face, suffusing his
sun-tanned skin with colour. It wasn’t embarrassment, she realised,
it was shame. The man was ashamed, like a lad caught peeping in a
girl’s bedroom window as she undressed. For a moment he seemed at a
loss. Twice he made as if to speak, but closed his mouth each time
as if he could not trust himself. She gaped at him as he turned his
look back to her. A competent, whip-wielding, knife-throwing
Unstabler who blushed like a schoolboy? It was ridiculous. ‘Has
anyone else been asking for Piers lately?’ he asked finally. The
gravel-slide voice was explosively harsh and she almost jumped.