Rosemary Kirstein - Steerswoman 04 (8 page)

But she could not resist, as she passed the open shop front,
glancing inside. Dan was in some discussion with the shopkeeper; Bel leaned
back against the counter, as if idly gazing out into the street. Rowan caught
her eye, as was apparently Bel’s plan, and the Outskirter leaned slightly
forward, so that her face could not be seen by the shopkeeper. So swiftly that
it would have been easy to miss, Bel’s face showed a knit-browed half squint of
uncertain suspicion, and her right hand flashed three fingers. Then she turned
away and joined Dan’s conversation.

Rowan passed on by.

Three. Maybe.

A third watcher?

It was a busy street, with shops and shabby residences
crowded against each other. Many people were about. Rowan mentally subtracted
the obvious residents: half a dozen children; the tinsmith lounging outside his
own shop front; the woman who came out to berate him, apparently his wife;
three men and a woman absorbed in decorating a horse cart with festoons of
flowers and ribbons, for what reason Rowan did not know; and a young woman of obvious
mental deficiency, sitting half sprawled on a doorstep beside a disgruntled
young man of about eighteen, who was feeding her soup.

Rowan cataloged the remaining persons; she would know if she
saw one of them again.

At the next house Rowan found herself trapped for the better
part of two hours. The old couple who lived there answered her questions
cheerfully, but provided no new information; and then they began questioning
her in turn.

As a steerswoman, Rowan was required to answer. Apparently
the couple’s many children and grandchildren had dispersed themselves across
the entire Inner Lands, and after determining that Rowan had not actually met
any of them, the pair interrogated the steerswoman as to details of the areas
in which they had settled.

Eventually, she managed to extricate herself. At least, the
tea had been good this time.

The last address provided by the bricklayer’s grannie
brought the steerswoman to the harborside, and Rowan arrived at a prosperous-looking
three-storey building, clumsily and ostentatiously decorated in the native
Donner style. She climbed the front stairs and entered, leaning aside to allow
three ledger-carrying clerks to brush pass, nattering numbers at each other.

Inside: a murmur of quiet voices, an air of constrained
bustle. The first floor was a single large room, with counters and open storage
areas to the right, cabinets and worktables to the left. Rowan sidled past
persons obviously intent on their duties, trying to sight someone who seemed to
have a spare moment.

The person she found proved to be a secretary. When Rowan
asked after Marel, he led her behind a rank of tall filing racks that obscured
the rear of the room, their pigeonholes bristling bits of colored paper.

Beyond: more light, from broad, unshuttered windows at the
back of the building. A huge open yard was visible outside, with a warehouse
behind. Horse carts were being loaded with new-made crates, the wood
yellow-fresh.

Marel occupied a corner of the main room, with open win—

dows to both sides behind him. He had three tables for his
work, set up on three sides of him with ledgers, loose sheets of figures, and
on one table a bamboo box with many compartments, all empty.

The old man divided his attention among three different
tasks, turning from table to table and back again, and work seemed to progress
at equal speed on each. Rowan and the secretary stood quietly, waiting for him
to take notice of them.

“I hope I’m not interrupting something important,” Rowan
said after introductions were made and the secretary had retired. “I could as
easily come back later, or tomorrow, if that’s better.”

“Not at all.” Marel was bone-thin, but moved with crisp efficiency.
His scalp was bare and pale, and, it seemed, a bit dusty. Nose and eyebrows
jutted; green eyes in which the squint of hard thinking had become a permanent
feature now showed pleasure and interest. “I do it all by rote. Five minutes
after you’ve gone, I’ll have caught up again, without a moment’s strain. I
hardly have to pay attention to myself at all.”

Rowan liked him immediately. “Your business seems to be
doing well,” she commented; the secretary returned with a tall stool, and Rowan
perched herself on it, leaning her cane against the central worktable. “I’ve
just come from Alemeth; I can’t help wondering if the silk that rode with me is
coming through your offices?”

“Silk.” He blinked twice, then became animated. “No, more’s
the pity! Dunmartin’s got it, I’ve heard, and it’ll caravan up the Long North
Road.”

She nodded. “I’d like to ask you about some events that occurred
in Donner some years ago.”

He spread his hands. “If it’s after eighty years ago and
before today, I’ll know about it! Although, I admit, I’m a bit hazy on the
first three years …”

“The wizard Kieran.”

His brows rose. He leaned back in his chair, steepling his
fingers. “Strange for a man to change like that,” he said.

Rowan leaned forward, hands on her knees. “Did he change?”
she asked intently.

“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Never saw the like. When I was a lad,
one steered clear of Kieran. A strange, grim man, as I recall. But just before
he died …”

“Star parties for the little children.”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t people think it odd? After what happened to Nid’s sister?”

The old man’s brows rose higher; he whistled silently. “Now,
that is going very far back indeed. I was just a lad myself. Just turned
thirteen, and Nid a year or two older.”

“I’m surprised anyone permitted their children to associate
with Kieran at all.”

“That’s the thing, do you see? We were all so very young
when Ammi died, and later, when Kieran started being friendly … well, most of
us hadn’t seen the business personally, just heard about it. I hardly knew the
girl myself. But Nid was my friend, so perhaps it stayed with me more.”

“Did you keep your own children away from Kieran’s parties?”

He scratched his ear. “No, they were grown by the time those
started. My youngest was eighteen, nineteen. They weren’t invited to the sky
parties.”

“Did Kieran actively keep them away?”

“I don’t think so … Here, boy!” He called across the room,
and gestured someone over.

The “boy” addressed was a tall and angular man in his
fifties. Marel continued when he arrived: “Now, those old star parties that
Kieran the wizard hosted; your lot never went to them yourselves, did you?”

“No. We weren’t invited.” He turned an uninterested pale
green gaze on the steerswoman, then back on his father. “Stupid, really, to bother
a wizard uninvited.”

“It was only the little children he asked, then?”

The son considered. “He would make a great show of performing
formal and gracious invitations. But as I recall, any little child could show
up, anytime, whether she’d been asked

or not.

Rowan nodded. “We’ve met,” she said suddenly.

“Excuse me?”

“Reeder, isn’t it?”

His gaze remained impassive. “Yes.”

“I was on
Morgan’s Chance
with you, six years ago,
traveling from here to Wulfshaven.” His expression became even more blank, and
intentionally so. Rowan instantly regretted reminding Reeder of the
circumstances of their meeting, but found she could not gracefully exit the
conversation without some further, more formal comment. “I was sorry when I
learned what had happened to that boy who traveled with you. He wasn’t your
son, I hope.”

He paused before replying. “No. The son of a friend.” And he
departed without another word.

Rowan watched him cross the room to return to his own work,
and turned back to find Marel studying her sadly. “A lively lad, and quite a
handful,” he said; and she was a moment realizing that he was not referring to
Reeder. “We thought to bring him into the business; no one else in the family
seems interested in the daily running. His dad and my son were very close.”

She nodded, but chose not to mention how near she had been
to the events that caused the boy’s death. She was quiet for a long moment;
Marel sat watching her, patiently. In the pause, a stocky, disheveled woman
hurried up to Marel, an open ledger with two bookmarks clutched across her
breast, a sheet of paper filled with close writing in one hand, and a bolt of
cloth jammed awkwardly under one arm; Marel gestured the clerk away without
shifting his gaze.

When the steerswoman completed her own train of thought, she
returned her attention to Marel, but he spoke before she did. “And now that’s
twice we’ve talked about children being killed by magic, I can’t help noticing.
Is that coincidence?”

“Nothing else,” she informed him. “In fact, such things are
common enough to make me wonder why Kieran suddenly became the exception. I
can’t help but wonder at his sudden interest in children.”

Marel mused, pursing his lips. “Age, perhaps. When you can
see the end of your own days coming, you become more interested in the young.
There’s an impulse, I think, when you know that you won’t see the future
yourself, to start recruiting ambassadors …” Rowan made a sound of amusement;
Marel put up a hand. “But no,” he went on, “it wasn’t only children, really. He
became … nicer, in general. Took more of an interest in people …”

“Suddenly, or slowly?”

He puzzled, blinked, shook his head. “Not easy to answer. I
noticed it suddenly, myself; but maybe some others noticed little things, slow
trends, earlier. As for me, he came right here one day, asked to talk to me,
confidentially. He told me that I should get ready to absorb some losses,
because a shipment of embroidery and glassware from The Crags had just gone
down in a storm.”

“And it had, I assume.”

“Oh, yes indeed. With the warning, I was able to do some creative
borrowing, invested here and there … by the time the news reached Donner in
the normal way, I’d even managed to turn it to my advantage.” The thoughtful
squint appeared. “And I couldn’t help wondering: What’s in it for him?”

She twitched a smile. “Spoken like a merchant. Perhaps, nothing
more than the pleasure of doing a good turn?”

He smiled himself, broadly and with deep insincerity. “And
you believe that?”

“I do not,” she assured him.

“Nor I.” He became intent. “Lady, in my experience, there
are very few people in the world who do things out of pure goodwill. Maybe he
was one. Probably not.”

What does one gain from acts of general goodwill? What does
one gain from kindness to children?

Nothing tangible. Friendship? Amusement, perhaps? Admiration?
Loyalty? “Perhaps he felt regret at murdering Nid’s sister, and was trying to
… atone, somehow?”

“Twenty-five years later?”

“That does seem rather long.”

“A man of slow conscience, perhaps. Still, I first noticed
the change when he did something nice for me personally.”

“And did he continue to do you favors?”

“Oh, no. Not directly, that is. When the East Well went dry,
he set it going again, but that was good for everyone. And he suggested we dig
another, right outside Saranna’s old inn. Pulling up old cobbles, quite a job;
but we did it.” He squinted again. “And he had us, that is, he
male
us change over all the outhouses
around Tilemaker’s Street. From pit-style to pot-style.” He was suddenly
amused. “Old Greydon—he’s dead twenty years now—he decided that he wasn’t going
to do it.”

Disobeying a wizard—but Rowan was reassured by the humor in
Marel’s green eyes. She gave an anticipatory wry smile. “And what happened?”

The green twinkled. “Greydon gets a knock on his door one
day, and he opens it up—and it’s the wizard himself. And Kieran just pushes by
him, walks straight into the house, straight through it, straight out the
back—by now the whole family’s following behind—and straight to the outhouse.

“He gets in; he shuts the door.

“A few minutes go by. Then the wizard comes out, and looking
neither left nor right, walks straight through the family to the back door and
out the front again. But he says to Greydon as he passes by: ‘Don’t go in
there.’”

Marel chuckled. “And they all just stood there in the back
yard, staring at the outhouse … and then—”

He clapped his hands suddenly, causing Rowan to startle.
“The whole thing went straight up in the air! Over the rooftops, and flying in
a hundred pieces!” He laughed openly now, and Rowan could not help but do the
same. “What a mess! Everyone in the neighborhood was a week cleaning it all off
the roofs! We had a few words to say to Greydon, I’ll tell you! Oh, and we
never let him forget it, either; for years after, we all would show up on his
doorstep on the anniversary of the date, and force a celebration on him,
willy-nilly. ‘Flying Turd Day,’ we called it.” He gave himself over to
laughter, eventually pulling a neat white handkerchief from a drawer to wipe
his eyes. “Ah, me.”