Rosemary Kirstein - Steerswoman 04 (16 page)

“It’s not enough for us to stop Slado,” Rowan continued. “We
need to correct what he’s done. It will take magic to do that. And I don’t know
how to get it, other than from the wizards themselves. I wish we had a hundred
apprentices, all of the common folk, learning what the wizards know.” A serving
girl arrived at the table, smoothly slid dishes in front of Rowan, departed.

“And what the wizards know best,” Bel said, “is evil. Maybe that’s
what your apprentices would learn from them, in the end.”

“All we would need is for just one of them to stay true.” Rowan
looked down at her meal. “Oh, my.”

Bel regarded the food, amused. “Do you have enemies in the
kitchen?”

“No … Exactly the opposite, or so I thought,” Rowan said.
Before her: a bowl of gruel. She picked up her spoon and hesitantly tested it.

In fact, it was excellent, as gruel went: salted and
buttered, with a hint of some other flavoring that Rowan could not identify.
Upon investigation, the tea pot proved to hold chamomile. The mug standing
beside the tea cup seemed to contain milk.

Rowan tasted. It was watered, tepid, and carried a trace of
vanilla …

She suddenly felt herself back in Alemeth, propped up on pillows,
weakly sipping, from a mug held by a solicitous Zenna, exactly this same flavor

Rowan suppressed sudden laughter, which nevertheless escaped
as a peculiar snort. The noise caused Bel to look at her askance. “I believe,”
the steerswoman said, attempting to control herself, “that the staff think I’m
ill.”

_“Why
r,

Rowan put down the mug, rubbed the side of her face with embarrassment.
“Will spent the night in my room …”

It took Bel a moment to understand; then she laughed, as
well. “The smell!”

“I’m afraid so.”

Will said, as he pulled a chair from an adjacent table, “We
heard a couple of night maids muttering about it outside the door.” He sat.
“And the people at the bathhouse had a few things to say to me, too.”

Bel gaped at him. Eventually, Will said: “… It’s the hair,
isn’t it?”

“That wasn’t a wig?” the Outskirter asked.

“No.” He ran his fingers through it, close to his scalp. The
barber had corrected Rowan’s clumsy work, and Will’s hair was at least all of
one length, but of necessity it was extremely short. Now clean and stark, pure
white, its new texture sent it bristling in every direction. With his copper
eyes and dark brows, the total effect was very unusual indeed.

“What did you see that frightened you?” Bel asked him. Will
repeated the explanation, as Rowan signaled again to the servers.

“Well,” Bel said, “now that you don’t stink, I can greet you
properly.” She rose. “Come on, stand up.”

Will laughed, and did so; Bel flung herself at him, caught
him in a bear-hug, and literally lifted him, briefly, off his feet. “Oof.” Then
Bel switched to back-pounding, which elicited similar sounds. “Cease, woman!”
he cried at last. “I’ll be bruised for days!”

Bel stepped a pace back, grinned up at him. “You’re so
tall!”

“No, I’m not. I’m just taller than you are.”

“My turn.” Rowan rose and gave him a quick hug. He smelled
of rosemary-scented soap. Rowan’s head reached only to the center of his chest;
at their last parting, they had stood nearly eye to eye.

She released him and studied him a moment. He was no longer
dressed in Dan’s spare clothing. He had acquired, from somewhere, a dark green
cotton shirt, secondhand but freshly laundered; gray felt trousers; and a pair
of very old gum-soled sailor’s boots.

“Where is your bow?” Bel asked, as Rowan and Will reclaimed
their seats. “Or don’t you use it anymore?”

“I do,” Will said. “I hid it at the west edge of town, along
with the rest of my gear.” The serving girl arrived and delivered Willam’s
breakfast, watching him sidelong and wide-eyed; then she spared a speculative
glance first for Rowan, then Bel, and then departed.

Rowan watched her go; immediately upon her rejoining the
other servers, the three female members of the group separated from the males
and gathered into a clot to conduct an urgent whispered conversation.

Rowan recognized the signs—as did Bel, apparently. The Outskirter
reached across to poke Will in the ribs. “I think the ladies are finding you
interesting.”

Will’s mouth twitched. “It’s my hair. They’re wondering what
frightened me, too.” He picked up knife and fork.

“Not at all,” Bel said, sitting back to regard him with an
almost proprietary pride. “You’re a handsome man. You should make the most of
it.”

“It’s not always the advantage you might think …” Will
began on his eggs. “And now,” he announced with a determined expression, which
seemed incongruously directed at his breakfast, “since we’ve managed to say
hello properly, we’re going to say good-bye.” He looked up at Bel’s astonished
face. “You can finish your breakfast first.”

Rowan said: “Will and I seem to have a slight disagreement
on this—”

“What we have,” Willam said, “is a complete disagreement. But
it’s no good. You’re both going to leave town, as soon as possible.”

Bel recovered, and her eyes narrowed. “I hope you have a
very good reason for giving me orders. Because I don’t take them well.”

Willam did not flinch in the slightest; and this, Rowan
thought, was a new thing in him. “I know. I understand. But you do have to go.
I’m about to do something fantastically dan—

gerous, and if it goes wrong, neither of you must be
anywhere near me. You can’t be connected with this.”

Rowan glanced about: there were no other diners present, and
the servers were well out of earshot. She said: “Will is going to break into
Jannik’s house.”

Bel showed surprise, then intense interest. “The house that
killed that little girl, when Kieran owned it.”

“Yes.” Willam had heard the story from Rowan. “If she tried
to go inside, she was dead as soon as she entered.”

“But you think you can get in, yourself?”

“I know I can. And once I’m in, I can get out. It’s what
I’ll do in between that’s the problem.”

“And what is that?”

Willam glanced once at Rowan, then returned his attention to
his meal. The steerswoman recounted for Bel the relevant portions of her
conversation with Will the previous night. She was halfway through the
explanation when it occurred to her that she herself had, naturally and without
thought, just taken an order from Willam—albeit an unspoken one.

Bel listened; and when Rowan was finished, she turned to
Will again. “And while you’re in the house, among these secret records—can you
find out where Slado is?”

And Rowan was frankly astonished that this very simple question
had not occurred to her.

It caught Will by surprise, as well, and he immediately lost
the stubborn expression that he had maintained during Rowan’s recitation.

He sat for a moment, jaw dropped. He closed his mouth,
blinked, then discovered his fork, with a sausage slice, still in mid-air. This
he carefully set down on his plate; and he gave himself to thought.

His face passed through a series of evolutions: speculation;
caution; a sudden displeasure at one particularly disturbing idea; a growing
interest as he pursued another; disbelief; tentative reevaluation. At one point
he made to speak, then stopped himself, and seemed to pass through the entire
analysis a second time.

Eventually he came back to his surroundings, looked at Bel,
Rowan, then Bel again, and said, slowly: “I think I can locate the place where
he lives, generally … In fact”—here he showed a disbelieving astonishment
again—“that should be ridiculously easy … But I’m fairly sure that a lot of
people live there, or nearby, so it’s probably a very big place. I can’t tell
you where he is inside it, or even whether or not he’s there at the moment.”

Rowan could hardly believe this turn of luck. “That much by
itself would be immensely helpful,” she said, with feeling.

Bel emitted a satisfied “Ha!” and sat back. “Now tell me how
to kill a wizard.”

Will became serious again. “By surprise,” he said. “It’s the
only way.”

“Good,” Bel said. “That’s my plan, exactly.”

Rowan did not comment; simply killing Slado might not be the
proper solution. It remained to be seen.

Bel went on, “Now tell me what might go wrong when you’re in
Jannik’s house.”

“There will be guard-spells.”

“And those gum-soled boots won’t help?”

Will was surprised. “You know about that?”

“Rowan told me. Sailors and steerswomen. But it’s just the
boots.”

“Well, there’s more than one kind of guard-spell. If I’m not
careful, and clever, anything might happen.”

Bel said: “You could die.”

Will winced, nodded. “And then Jannik comes home to find
Corvus’s runaway apprentice, dead in his house. But even if I do get out, if I
haven’t done everything perfectly, Jannik would know that someone had been
there. And that’s the thing.” He became urgent. “Rowan, you haven’t kept quiet
about being here. By now, half the city probably knows about you. If Jannik
finds that someone was in his house, among his records, at the same time that a
steerswoman was asking questions about Kieran, and about Slado—Specifically,
the steerswoman named Rowan, the one who caused so much trouble six years ago,
the one—” Bel raised one hand slightly, to warn him to moderate his voice. He
continued, very quietly. “—the one who Jannik was ordered to kill, six years
ago. The one he
failed
to kill.”

Silence. Then Rowan said, cautiously: “But when I spoke to
Corvus, after all that, he said that no one was interested in me any longer.”

“That’s right. Because they thought you were some wizard’s
secret minion, and they were more interested in who that might be. But if
you’re in Donner, at exactly the time someone manages to break into Jannik’s
house, then you’re a minion who has too much power. They’ll start looking for
your master again—but they won’t wait to find him. They’ll deal with you right
away. Probably Jannik himself will want to do it. He’ll drop everything else.”

Unfortunately, Rowan could find no flaw in Will’s reasoning.

Bel said: “So, Rowan has to leave town. And she has to do it
before you make your attempt. And she has to do it in plain view of as many
people as possible.”

Will said, “That’s right.”

The Outskirter nodded. “I agree.” She resumed eating. Rowan
sat slack in amazement. “Bell”

“No,” the Outskirter said through a mouthful of sausage,
“he’s right.”

Willam showed immense relief. “Good. It’s really the best
thing—”

“We are not leaving the city!”

“Who said ‘we’?” Bel asked Rowan. “You’re the problem here.
You go, I stay.”

Rowan’s astonishment was complete. “What?”

Willam looked from one to the other. “No, Bel, you ought to
go, too. There’s no reason for you to be involved.”

“Yes, there is.” The Outskirter continued on her breakfast,
nonchalant. “You’re about to do something fantastically dangerous. That means
that you need someone to watch your back. I’ve been watching Rowan’s back for
the last two days. It’s one of the things I’m good at.”

He shook his head. “But Bel, this is magic—”

“I have no intention of leaving here!”

“Your own magic didn’t stop you from being jumped in the
dark,” Bel said to Willam. “Where would you be now if you’d been alone, as
you’d thought?” She indicated him with her knife to make the point. “Dead. Or
being dragged back to Corvus, for who knows what sort of punishment?”

“But once I’m inside, there’s nothing you can do.”

“What about outside the house? What if someone sees you
going in?”

“Bel—” Rowan said.

“Or coming out? How can you tell if some couple hasn’t
ducked into the shadows to play tickle? And won’t they be surprised to see
you?”

“Bel. Willam.”

“Or some lost drunkard hasn’t stopped in the middle of the
street to get his bearings? Who knows who he’d tell?” Will became thoughtful.
“That’s true.”

“If you give me a signal, like a whistle, when you’re ready
to come out, I’ll whistle back when the way is clear—”

“Pardon me—”

“You’re starting to make sense … ,” Will admitted.

“Good. Then it’s settled. The steerswoman goes. In fact,
Graceful
Days
is still in port. If everyone sees Rowan climb on board and sail
away—”

“Excuse
me!” They stopped, turned to Rowan. “I am
definitely not leaving.”

The others traded a glance. “I was hoping she’d be
sensible,” Will said.

“I think you’re asking that of the wrong person.”

They studied her. “I guess dragging her away by force would
be visible enough—”

“That’s true.”

“People might comment, though.”

“And may I point out that I am actually still present in the
room!”

“Do you happen to have some sort of sleeping spell?”

“Not on me. But the apothecary probably has some poppy extract.
That should do just as well.”

“There’s some in her pack.”

“Really? I say, that’s handy.”

“We’ll just slip it in her tea.”

At this last exchange, Rowan’s outrage vanished. She knew
for certain that Bel would never attempt such a thing; the Outskirter’s sense
of honor would forbid it.

The steerswoman composed herself, spoke seriously. “Willam,”
she said, “how sure are you that you can actually enter the house?”

He answered with reluctance, but obvious honesty: “I’m absolutely
sure of that much.”

“Bel, if Willam is going to be rifling through a wizard’s
records, learning something of Slado’s past actions, and possibly his future
plans, not mention the chance of finding out where Slado lives when he’s at
home—I intend to be present.”

“Wonderful. And if he makes a false move, you both die.”

“Will? Is that true? If a guard-spell inside the house
catches you, would it kill us both?”