Havenstar (5 page)

‘Everyone asks
for Piers,’ she replied tartly. ‘They don’t seem to think I know
enough about maps to sell one.’

‘I mean,
specifically for him. Someone not interested in buying a map.’

‘You mean,
someone like you?’ She shook her head. ‘No, I can’t say there’s
anyone like that been here lately.’ She stared at him full in the
face, and for the first time he really appeared to see her.

He nodded his
thanks, sketched another farewell, and was gone. Yerrie took the
opportunity to flee into the kitchen.

She remained
standing where she was, unaccountably afraid.

Thinking back,
she tried to place the man. Over the years she’d come to know the
ley-lit who regularly worked the crossings to and from the First
Stability. They all needed maps and Piers Kaylen was the best
mapmaker who charted the land north of the Wide. As a young child
she’d spent hours hidden beneath the counter listening to her
father talk to his customers, hearing the tales of their encounters
with the Wild and the Minions of Chaos, hearing their experiences
with ley lines told and retold. Sometimes she thought she knew as
much about the fickle character of the Wanderer as her father did.
She would see in her mind the brooding expanse of the Wide or the
knotted upheaval that was the Snarled Fist, and she’d dream of the
day when she’d ride out with Piers: Keris Kaylen, apprentice
mapmaker.

But she
couldn’t remember ever hearing or seeing before this man with
obsidian eyes and a voice that would scour burnt stew pots. A man
who was ashamed because he terrified a cat half-way to Chaos…

Perhaps he’d
only recently come north of the Wide. Perhaps he came only
infrequently and she’d happened to miss his visits—for, of course,
as she’d grown older, there had been less opportunity to eavesdrop
and she’d grown too big to fit unnoticed under the counter,
although for a while she had continued to cling to the fanciful
notion that she would one day be her father’s apprentice. It had
seemed so logical, after all. Thirl was not interested in
mapmaking; she was. She loved everything about maps and charts; her
brother did not. She loved poring over them, she was fascinated by
the changes one season to the next; he was bored stupid. She was
always begging Piers, when he was at home, to show her how the
theodolite worked, how to use a compass, how to translate surveying
angles into features drawn on a chart and how to read map
co-ordinates. Thirl could hardly contain his impatience when such
things were mentioned. Surely then, it was obvious she would be the
one to follow in her father’s footsteps.

She had
worried miserably about whether she was one of the ley-lit or not,
because only someone who was ley-lit could possibly map the
Unstable, but it had never occurred to her that the Rule did not
encourage women to be Unstablers. Still less did she dream that her
father did not want her to be a mapmaker. She took his approval for
granted. Then, on the day that a chance remark of hers indicated to
Piers the way she was thinking, he’d thrown back his head and
roared with laughter until tears ran down his face. She’d been
standing there in the shop, dressed in her grey pinafore, her hands
locked behind her back, and she’d listened to that laughter ending
all her dreams, the hurt of the knowledge crushing the dream inside
her with a pain she would remember forever.

Thirl would be
the mapmaker. Thirl who had no wish to see the Unstable, who never
dreamt of crossing the Graven or the Riven.

Worse still
was the reason. The stupid, horrible, unbelievable reason that had
nothing to do with ability or interest or skill. Because she was a
girl and Thirl was a boy. Because she was born to be forever
without any vocation or trade except that of wife. Because of the
Rule
.

The bitter
seeds sown deep inside her that day had rooted and grown. Never
again would she wholly believe that there was some innate goodness
to Order and the Rule. How could there be goodness when she was
condemned to marriage, housework and raising babies, simply because
she was born the daughter of a mapmaker?

And yet even
then she had not rebelled. How could one rebel when there was
nowhere to rebel to? Every other stability obeyed the same Rule,
had the same prejudices. And love created its own ties anyway, even
stronger than those of convention. She loved her parents. Both of
them. She respected them. Love made it impossible to rebel.

‘Keris? Sorry
to bother you dear, but could I have a cup of water?’

Her mother
again.

She went
through into the kitchen, thinking how hard it must be for a woman
like Sheyli Kaylen to come to this, unable even to get herself
something to drink with any ease. Mother and daughter had often
clashed. They were both too strong-willed for it ever to be
otherwise, but there was also respect there. Sheyli had spent six
months in every year alone, as was the fate of a mapmaker’s wife.
It had been she who’d run the shop every autumn and every spring
and raised two children while doing it, knowing there was a good
likelihood that one day her husband would not return from one of
his trips. It was she who’d softened Piers’ rough edges with her
gentleness, who’d given the children something beyond the outlook
of an Unstabler to think about.

It was seeing
her father’s courage that had taught Keris to be strong; it was her
mother’s lively curiosity that had taught her to question. Sheyli
had never intended her example should stir rebellion and an
unhealthy desire to experiment, but that is what had happened.
She’d encouraged her daughter’s development, realising too late
she’d nurtured a bird too big for the nest.

‘Stubborn,’
Piers had once growled in the direction of his daughter. ‘Stubborn
as a dung beetle trying to get too large a ball of dung into his
hole.’

She handed her
mother the water she’d pulled from the kitchen pump. ‘There you
are. Is there anything else I can get you?’

‘No— Ah, is
that Thirl I can hear?’

‘That’s him,’
she agreed, hearing the sound of her brother’s boots crossing the
back yard to the door.

He came in as
he always did, full of bonhomie and expecting to be the centre of
the world. He washed under the pump at the sink, splashing water
and discarding the towel on to the floor, dispensing village gossip
all the while.

Thirl Kaylen
was a small man who compensated for his small size and the
ordinariness of his features with an overpowering personality.
People always knew when Thirl Kaylen entered a room just as they
were always aware of when he left it. He was listened to with
deference, not because he was particularly astute or wise, but
because when he spoke, such was his assurance, the sheer vigour of
his character, that it was difficult not to listen.

‘Mistress
Pottle was asking after you, Ma,’ he was saying. ‘She said she’d
look in on you later. I met Harin down in the square. He’s asked me
to join him over in Upper Kibble this evening. I’ll need some
money, Keris. Have you made any sales so far today?’ He gave her a
peck on the cheek, and smiled.

It was a fond
smile, the smile of a man for a loved younger sister, and it almost
swayed her. Almost. ‘No,’ she lied, shaking off the temptation to
trust that smile, to bend before him, as wheat before the wind.
Harin’s father owned the tavern in Upper Kibbleberry and she didn’t
want Thirl spending all they had on drink. ‘It’s too early in the
season to be expecting many pilgrims, and the Unstablers won’t come
until they know the new maps are ready, you know that.’

‘Damn. Then
give me a silver out of the caddy, Sis. I need it.’

‘That’s the
housekeeping money.’

‘So? I shan’t
be in for supper. You will save the price of a meal.’

‘A home-cooked
meal doesn’t cost a silver. Nor does a tavern one,’ she said
sourly, even though she knew her mother would nod her
acquiescence—as indeed she did. Keris hid a sigh. ‘You can have a
quarter silver, Thirl. That’s all we can spare.’

She went to
get it. The caddy, black with age and made of a metal that no one
could identify, stood on the mantel over the fireplace. It had been
the repository of Kaylen housekeeping money for as long as anyone
could remember, and she handled it carefully. Family legend said it
dated back to the days before the Rending, that it had come from
lands across the sea. Brazis, perhaps. Or the isles of Quay Linden.
She didn’t know whether she believed that, and she was rather vague
as to what a sea was anyway, but she did not want to be the one
that dropped and dented so ancient an heirloom.

‘Harin was
asking about you,’ Thirl said to her. ‘He said he might drop by
this week.’

‘Tell him not
to bother.’

‘I’ll do no
such thing.’ He took the money from her. ‘Don’t be impolite.
Thanks, Sis. I’ll see you both later.’

‘You’re going
already?’ Sheyli asked, disappointed and trying not to show it.

‘Ay, why not?
Nothing to do around here, is there? As Keris said, it’s too early
in the season for much business yet and we all know Keris drafts
better maps than I do—and enjoys it more.’ He bent to kiss his
mother on the cheek and was gone before either of them could
protest further.

Keris gritted
her teeth. ‘He didn’t ask after you,’ she muttered, picking up the
towel.

Sheyli smiled
gently. ‘Come now, perhaps he wanted to take my mind off my
ill-health. Anyway, you can hardly expect a healthy man like that
to be wanting to talk about illness. Thirl’s young. He wants to
enjoy himself and why not?’

I’m young
too,
she thought resentfully.
And why the Chaos should we
always be excusing him because he’s a man?

Piers had not
taken his son into the Unstable this trip because of Sheyli’s
illness. Thirl had been supposed to stay at home and help out, yet
all he did was breeze in, cheer Sheyli with ten minutes of gossip
and jokes, then breeze out again. He hadn’t touched ink and map pen
in three months and he’d hardly ever taken a turn in the shop
either.

He only
ever comes back to the house when he is hungry, or sleepy, or in
need of money. But what’s the use of saying any of it? It never
makes any difference and it never will.
He could make Sheyli
laugh and forget her illness; she could not. He was Sheyli’s son
and she forgave him everything. She was Sheyli’s daughter and as
much as Sheyli might have loved her, she also took her for
granted.

‘Is Harin
Markle interested in you?’ Sheyli asked suddenly.

Keris was
diverted. ‘Ley-life, I hope not! He’s a gutter-minded sharpster,
just like his father.’ She went to stir the hotpot that had been
slowly cooking on the hob all day.

‘Is he? He’s
always seemed polite and attentive when I’ve spoken to him.’

‘Attentive?
Oily’s the word you’re looking for. Slippery, like greased pork
just lifted from the pan.’

Sheyli gave
the faintest of shrugs and stirred uncomfortably on the couch.
‘Perhaps. But you ought to be looking over the young men, Keris.
You have to marry soon.’

She turned to
her mother, but the sharp words on her tongue died unspoken. Sheyli
was only worried about her daughter’s future because she was— She
stopped the thought right there. It was hard to admit, even inside
the privacy of her mind, that her mother was dying. ‘Not Harin,’
she said at last. ‘Anyone but Harin.’

‘Then perhaps
a mapmaker, or a courier or a trader or a guide. It’s not such a
bad life for an independent woman,’ Sheyli continued tentatively.
‘An Unstabler, Keris. Chantry likes the children of an Unstabler to
marry one.’

‘Is that why
you married Father?’ she asked. ‘Because he wasn’t around all that
much to curb your independence?’

Sheyli did not
get a chance to reply. The bell on the shop door tinkled,
indicating another customer. ‘Business is brisk today,’ she said
with mild surprise.

Keris replaced
the pot lid and turned to go back into the shop.

‘Shut the
door, dear,’ Sheyli said, suddenly losing interest. ‘I think I will
sleep for a while.’

She walked
through into the shop and pulled the door to after her. There was
no one there but she could hear sounds outside at the hitching rail
and someone had propped the door open. She looked out into the
yard.

And her heart
skittered.

Two of the
crossings-horses there were undoubtedly her father’s, but of Piers
Kaylen there was no sign. The man now untying packs from the back
of one of them was a courier. She had known him for years.

Blue Ketter
came to Kaylen the Mapmaker’s to buy charts because he regularly
worked the area north of the Wide. He was good at his job, known—as
indeed most couriers were—for his reliability and honesty. He was
an ugly man, short and squat with hands the size of fire bellows
and a twist of blueish scar tissue across the centre of his face
like some bizarre mask made by a child at play. A ley line had been
responsible for that on his first ley-crossing. He’d been called
Blue ever since.

Like most
couriers, he preferred his own company to anyone else’s, and spent
as little time as possible within the boundaries of any stability.
He appeared in the First every few months, where with a minimum of
conversation he bought new supplies and perhaps a new map or two,
made his deliveries within the First Stability and collected new
letters and packages for other stabilities before riding back into
the Unstable.

Keris stood
stock still, hand on the counter, and knew she was not going to
like what she was about to hear.

He came into
the shop slowly, refusing to meet her gaze. The subdued kinesis he
made was one used for occasions of sorrow. ‘Maid Kaylen,’ he said.
‘Your brother about?’