Rosemary Kirstein - Steerswoman 04 (5 page)

“Always mistakes me for some old sweetheart or another,” the
female stevedore put in. “Most of them dead thirty, forty years now.”

“Ask him a question, he’ll answer what he thought you’ve
said instead of what you said.”

Rowan sighed. “Do any of you happen to know of any people
near Nid’s age who have lived in Donner all their lives, and
can
think clearly?” Some discussion, and a
joint reply in the negative. “And have any of you lived here since you were
children?”

Again in the negative, with several attempts to amplify and
discuss at length. Rowan managed to extract herself from the premises before
having to sit through anyone’s entire life story.

When she reached the street, she spotted Bel seated on a
doorstep halfway down the street. The Outskirter was conversing cheerfully with
two little girls, who examined with shy fascination the sword Bel had
unsheathed to display to them.

Rowan turned away and passed down the street. With Nid apparently
useless as an informant, Rowan found herself briefly at a loss. Strolling with
no particular goal in mind, she stepped into a provisioner’s and acquired a
small loaf of black bread and some cheese for her lunch, taking the opportunity
to question the proprietors. Both were in their forties, the man a recent
immigrant, the woman a longtime resident who nonetheless could recall no mention
of a wizard named Kieran.

Outside, the sun was finally dispersing the high mist. The
sky lightened to a pale blue, and Rowan wandered toward the docks, planning to
eat her lunch by the water; but on impulse she turned aside at Tilemaker’s
Street.

The workers whom Rowan had seen from the tower the pre—

vious day were present again. They were now taking their own
lunches, dining out of buckets and satchels they had brought with them,
ostentatiously ignoring a lone, disgruntled entrepreneur who had established
himself and his steaming cook-cart at the completed end of the plaza.

Rowan considered the layout of the streets, the surrounding
buildings, matching them against memory.

There had, in fact, been a cobbled square here five years
ago, but much smaller, and with many businesses crowded around it. Rowan and
Bel had sat at the old watering trough, conversing, watching the stars; later,
they had pushed through a bucket line leading from the well, as they fled from
the burning inn.

Now Saranna’s Inn and at least seven of the surrounding buildings
were entirely gone. The ground there was two-thirds bare earth and one-third
brick cobbles, of the pleasant yellow-brown of the native clay. The well was unharmed,
although its stone edges were blackened, but the watering trough was new.

Rowan abruptly recalled a young woman, whose name she had
never learned; who, wakened from sleep, wearing only a night shift, armed only
with a splintered board, had stood side by side with the steerswoman, the two
of them trying to fend off a swarm of Jannik’s dragon hatchlings while Bel and
another stranger created an escape route.

Fire, all around, and collapsing walls, and falling debris.
And then the woman, caught in the breath of a dragon, was wearing new clothes,
bright clothes, clothes of flame

And how many others had died that night?

Rowan hoped desperately that Saranna—strong, dignified,
kindly Saranna—had, at the least, met a quicker end.

All this, Jannik’s doing, at Slado’s command. All this,
merely to rid the world of one inconvenient steerswoman. It seemed to Rowan
that wizards had no greater regard for the lives of the folk than they did for
the lives of insects.

She must be cautious. Even with Jannik out of town, he might
have minions among the townsfolk.

And it was for exactly this reason that Bel must continue to
follow Rowan. If the steerswoman’s actions attracted surreptitious scrutiny,
Bel would notice, and they could leave Donner.

Assuming, that is, that the matter of Kieran and Latitia was
of any significance at all. In fact, Rowan did not yet know.

She settled herself on the edge of the new watering trough
and unwrapped her lunch. She made to take a bite of the bread; but then she
paused, set it down again, and thoughtfully pulled out her logbook and a
pencil.

She reversed the logbook and opened it from the back: a method
steerswomen sometimes used to keep scratch notes separate from more finished
records. On an empty page, she drew a horizontal line, and labeled the right
end PRESENT. She divided the line into increments:—10,—20,—30 … back to—100.

At the point representing –42, Rowan wrote: KIERAN DIES. On
the basis of the undercook’s information, Rowan counted back twenty-five years
from that point and added: GIRL MURDERED. Between the two, hovering above the
line, with no date indication: STAR PARTIES.

Hugo, an elderly steersman living at the Archives, had been
the Steerswomen’s expert on the nature and history of the wizards. From old
conversations with him, Rowan knew to add
KIERAN
ARRIVES IN DONNER
at approximately –95.

Rowan wished she could consult Hugo now; unfortunately, he
had passed away a year and a half earlier. The steerswoman Sarah had taken over
his work. What had once been an obscure area of study was now a subject of
continual and urgent importance.

Weeks or months from now, when Rowan’s new letter com—

pleted its journey from the harbormaster’s office to the Archives,
Sarah would begin an analysis similar to Rowan’s. She would have Hugo’s own
notes, and the wealth of the Archives itself to aid her.

Or, quite possibly, Sarah’s task would begin and end by
simply removing from a shelf one of Latitia’s many original logbooks, and there
find recorded, toward the end, plainly stated, the reason a steerswoman became
interested in a wizard.

A shout. Rowan looked up.

The brickworkers were waving her over, enthusiastically. She
had been recognized as a steerswoman. They wished her to join them.

Rowan waved back, took bread and cheese in one hand, clumsily,
and stood. But before she slipped her logbook and pencil back in her satchel
she took a moment to quickly notate, in the same year as Kieran’s death:
GUIDESTAR FALLS.

The workers had a bucket of beer, and invited Rowan to partake.
She accepted, and politely offered in return a portion of her hard cheese—and
suddenly found herself in the midst of a very lively trading session,
apparently a daily ritual. When the flurry was over, her lunch now consisted of:
half a cold pastry filled with smoked fish; a sweet red plum; slices of her own
black bread, spread thick with goose grease; and a handful of fresh string
beans, to be crunched raw, like candy. The group settled down to eat, Rowan
companionably accepted among them.

Two of the workers were middle-aged, and Rowan wasted no
time. “Do you remember the wizard Kieran?”

The woman of the pair immediately indicated eagerness to
speak, but she had just taken a very large bite of pastry, and had to deal with
it before she could talk clearly. Her workmate had the leisure to consider
before replying. “I remember the par—

ties,” he said. “Kieran used to hold parties, just for the
children, out by the Tea Shop, where it’s all so open. He told us the names of
the constellations, and stories of how they were named. And how to tell time by
the Guidestars.”

“Who’s Kieran?” one of the others asked.

The woman had cleared her mouth to speak. “Wizard. Used to
live here. It was before your time.”

“Before yours, as well,” the man put in.

“Not at all! I was just a tiny thing, but I can remember
him.” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “He was tall and thin, and his beard
was like a great white cloud.” Her eyes shone with remembered delight. “He had
the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, a really deep, dark blue. He could make fire
come from his fingertips. And smoke came out of his mouth!”

“That was a pipe he was smoking.”

“Well, it was magic to me.” She took another, more manageable
bite of pastry. “I don’t remember much else. Just that it was fun, and
mysterious, and a little scary, to be with a wizard. And he served cake, I
liked the cake.”

“I remember the star-names …” The man acquired a look of
concentration. “The Hero, that was named for the strongest man who ever lived.
And the Hunter, he was the best hunter. The Hound was his dog. The Lion … I
don’t remember what the Lion was, other than a lion …”

“The stars are distant suns,” the woman added, addressing
the comment to the group as a whole, with an air of self-satisfied superiority.
“Did you know that?” In fact, Rowan did, as did all the workers, who indicated
so by means of deprecating noises and gestures. The statement was common
knowledge throughout the Inner Lands. Although it could not be proven,
steerswomen treated it as fact; it was hardly possible to imagine what else
stars might be.

“Were there no adults at the parties?”

Both Rowan’s informants paused to think, and shook their
heads. “None that I ever saw,” the woman said.

“It was only for children, is what I heard,” the man put in.
“He liked children.”

Another member of the group, a bony woman with her hair in
many braids, made a long and unpleasant noise with her mouth. A few of the
other workers laughed.

The noise carried no meaning for Rowan, but the man defended
the wizard. “No, not at all, nothing of the kind,” he insisted.

The older woman confirmed: “He acted just like a grandfather
to us. He was spooky, but he was nice. I think he gave those parties, and
talked to us, just because he enjoyed it. He was just a nice old man who liked
children, and happened to be a wizard.”

Rowan said: “But I heard that he killed a girl.”

The woman gaped. “Never! Someone told you wrong, lady!”

“Perhaps that’s the case,” Rowan conceded—then caught the
expression on the man’s face.

The man’s co-workers caught it, too, and they turned to him
with interest. He noticed their attention, and dipped another cup of beer for
himself. He took the time to drink deep, then nodded to the crowd at large.
“It’s true. Long before the star parties. In fact”—he drank again—“it was my
own dad’s sister.” Excited murmurs from the workers.

“Kieran killed your aunt?” Rowan asked the man. “That’s
right.”

“And you were allowed, later, to go to his parties?”

“Well, I wasn’t allowed, not at all. In fact, I was exactly
forbidden to go. I slipped out on my own. My dad never caught me. But he told
me, plenty of times, how it happened with his sister.”

People edged closer, settled in, eager for the story that
would surely follow. Rowan said, before the tale could begin: “My information
places the event about twenty-five years before Kieran died.”

“That’s about right.”

“Come on, tell it!” someone called.

“Well.” He passed his cup for refilling. “My dad always told
it to say, Don’t
be too curious, because
you
might
not
like
what
you
find. Seems his sister was a wild and lively girl, and liked to poke
about. Always into some sort of trouble or other.

“One day, Ammi—that was her name—she tells all her little
friends that she wants to see some magic, and she’s going to go look in the
windows of the wizard’s house, and come back and tell them about it. Brave and
wild, she was, and that was the bravest and wildest thing she could think of
doing, what with everyone so scared of the wizard—”

“Wait,” Rowan put in, “everyone was afraid of him?”

“That’s how my dad said it.”

“But surely she knew he was fond of children.”

This took some thought. “I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t, back
then. But when Dad told the story, it was always Everyone
was afraid of
the
wizard. And when those star parties started up, he told me, You keep away, that
wizard is
a dangerous
man. Because of what happened.”

The listeners disliked Rowan’s interruptions, and the
steerswoman allowed the tale to proceed.

“So, one day when Kieran was off tending to his dragons at the
mud flats, Ammi slips away from her playmates after lunch. “And dinnertime
comes, and she’s not home.

“And bedtime comes, and that’s when the family went asking
at her friends’ houses—and they hear what she had planned to do. My dad’s older
brother—he was a grown man, nearly—

he was all wild to go and fetch her back, but the family
stopped him—”

“Because everyone was afraid of Kieran,” Rowan said, annoying
the listeners again.

“That’s right.”

She leaned forward. “Why?”

The man shrugged. “Sensible to keep clear of wizards, isn’t
it?”

And it was, as Rowan knew well. But wizards who lived in a
town within their holding generally had some interaction with the townspeople.
This could hardly be sustained if the people were in continual fear. Perhaps
events even earlier had given them reason—some contemporary of N id’s might
have the answer.

She found the workers gazing at her with disgruntlement.
“I’m sorry, do go on.”

The tale-teller continued. “Next day, someone comes to the
house around noon, saying Kieran’s back from the mud flats. And the whole
family goes over, not to the wizard’s house, but near. That little plaza around
East Well. You can see the house from there. And they all wait, watching the
house.

“It goes past lunch, and it goes into the afternoon, and
more and more people show up as the word gets around. And just before dinner,
the wizard comes out of his house.” Little stirrings among the crowd as the man
paused to drink more beer. “And he’s dragging Ammi’s body behind him.”
Appreciative shivers from the listeners. “By her hair.” Soft cries of delighted
horror.

“And he drags Ammi along, right down the street, right up to
East Well, with all the people gone quiet and watching. And when he got there
he let go of her … my father was right there, and he saw it. He said he remembered
how it sounded when his sister’s head hit the ground, and he cried because he
thought it must hurt … but she was already dead.