The Steerswoman's Road (14 page)

Crossing to it, she entered the map room. The room was tall
and long, slanting at an angle away from the entrance where she stood. Cool,
clean air circulated freely through the tall open windows. Morning sunlight
fell on the three ranks of long tables, whose surfaces tilted up to take
advantage of the illumination.

On two walls, between the windows, the stones had been plastered,
then papered and transformed into huge maps. One was a rough working chart,
drawn as accurately as current information permitted, but hastily, with much
amendment and many hand-scrawled notes. The opposite wall was currently blank,
freshly papered; it served as an alternate when the first needed to be redrawn
more concisely. Usage switched between the two with predictable regularity.

But it was the great master chart at the far end of the room
that drew Rowan. Her eyes went to it as she approached, passing between the
worktables.

The map ran from floor to ceiling. The wall there was curved
concave, so that a person standing at a certain point could see all the map’s
expanse without the distortion of visual foreshortening. The point of best
vantage was outlined on the stone floor in a brass rectangle.

The floor was slightly raised in the area before the master
chart. Rowan climbed the three steps and moved to the rectangle.

In a single glance, she saw the areas of change: positions
corrected, details where none had been before. For a moment she felt an
internal shift, as if she were on a deck that tilted to a wave too small to
change her direction but large enough to alter her perspective. “What do you
see?”

She turned. Below her was a woman twice her age,
dark-haired, dark-skinned, blue-eyed. Keridwen, the chartmistress.

Rowan laughed happily. “I see lakes in the mountains. A
stream runs from one—that contributes to the Wulf. Another fjord south of The
Crags.”

“And three new towns on the Shore Road.” Keridwen climbed
the steps. “You’re not due back until next year, Rowan. Is there trouble?”

“Perhaps,” she replied. “But I’ve found something. I need to
talk to the Prime.”

“She heard you were in. Someone was sent to wake you.”

“I woke before she arrived. Or perhaps I missed her in the
corridors. Unless it was a wood gnome that was sent?”

Keridwen laughed. “They returned early this year. A very
mild winter.”

“Not where I was traveling.” Her mind returned to Bel. “But
I’m looking for a friend of mine, who woke before me.”

“I’ve seen no strangers today. Perhaps she found the
kitchen, and breakfast?”

“Or upstairs?” There was a high, bright chamber above the
map room, used in fair weather to copy charts for storage.

“I came from there.”

“I’d better continue, then. She may find this place ...
strange.”

Rowan left by the door opposite to the one she entered. It
gave onto a short passage whose right wall held tall doors. She swung them open
and looked out; the courtyard revealed was empty.

Rowan found herself pausing, struck by a feeling that had
been growing, unnoticed, in her. She stepped into the courtyard and then
realized: it was familiarity. She felt like a person returning to a place of
her childhood, finding it familiar yet strangely altered. But the place was the
same, and some subtle change was in herself.

It had been well over three years since last she had been at
the Archives. She had traveled long and mostly alone, over lands unknown to
her when she met them, then well known to her through scrupulous observation.
Her logbooks had returned to the Archives by other hands, and news of the place
had reached her through the words of others. And yet, across that distance, she
knew where every room lay, knew the names of all who dwelt there. She could
walk into the Greater Library and place her hand immediately on the shelf where
her own writings were stored.

This small courtyard had been a particular favorite of hers.
It was cool even in high summer, and always sheltered on windy days. She
remembered bringing old logbooks there to study, and reading them with
fascination; then, sensing a presence behind her, turning to see the smiling
wrinkled face of the very steerswoman who wrote them. She remembered an evening
celebration not long after the arrival of herself and her fellow trainees from
Wulfshaven; nine of them gathered in the courtyard, Janus playing flute,
herself talentlessly struggling with a mandolin, Ingrud plying her squeeze-box
with gusto; others laughing and conversing, sound echoing off the ancient walls
...

On an adjacent side another door opened, then another, and
the passage on that wall was transformed into a veranda on the courtyard. A
woman peered at her, then approached: Berry, tall and dark-haired, recognizing
her nearsightedly. “Rowan, is it? The Prime is looking for you.”

Rowan smiled at her. “Fine greeting. You’re looking well.
Yes, I want to see her too, but first, have you noticed an Outskirter going by,
or perhaps in the libraries?”

“An Outskirter? What, a shaggy barbarian here?”

“Not too shaggy; she’s a woman. Well, shaggy perhaps, if you
consider her clothes. But you haven’t noticed her, then.”

“Hardly! Is she dangerous?”

Rowan considered. “Under certain circumstances.”

She left by the doors Berry had opened and looked down the
passages. The one on the right led to the Prime’s study and residence. After a
moment’s consideration, Rowan went left.

She passed a study and paused to check inside. Two women and
a stocky man of middle age were gathered around a worktable. Graphs, some of
startling configuration, were pinned up haphazardly around the walls of the
room.

Rowan made to leave, but the man caught sight of her. “Rowan!
You’re back before your time. Come, take a look at this.”

“I’m sorry, Arian, I’m looking for a friend who may be lost
in the passages.” But she found herself intrigued and stepped inside. “Are you
making progress?”

“None to speak of. Still, surprises keep coming up.” One of
the steerswomen with him looked up suddenly, as if remembering something. “Henra
is looking for you,” she told Rowan.

“Yes, I’ve been told.” But she suddenly recalled the calculations
she had made on the road to Donner. “Wait, I have something.” She came to the
table and found a blank sheet of parchment. “Look at this.” Sketching quickly,
she briefly explained the problem of the dispersal of the jewels.

Arian tapped the rough chart. “With an area that wide, your
imaginary giant would have to stand very far back.”

“And be very tall indeed,” one of the steerswomen noted. Rowan
laid a straightedge across the scales, indicated a number. “That’s too tall,”
Arian said.

The other steerswomen spoke up. “The ground would never support
him, do you see? He’d sink in. He couldn’t eat enough to live.”

Rowan was annoyed at the digression. “It needn’t be a giant,
a tower will do. It’s a giant for the purposes of the problem.” She turned back
to the chart. “So. He stands this far away, he’s this tall, and throws parallel
to the ground. The area his throw covers, assuming, shall we say, twenty
objects in his hand ...” She read off two numbers from the right-hand scale and
made a simple calculation.

Arian looked at the result. “Straightforward enough.”

Rowan held up an index finger. “But.” Turning over the
sheet, she redrew the chart with greater precision—and with its elements at
slightly different aspect to each other. “He throws again, this time—” She paused
significantly. “Angling upward.” She handed the straightedge to the steersman.

He laid it on the chart. “The area covered ...” He looked
up. “But the path doesn’t intersect with the ground.”

“Look at the time it takes to fall.”

The straightedge swept across the scales. “Infinite?”

“Look again.”

A shift. “Zero?”

“The objects never come down.”

He leaned back. “That’s impossible. They have to come down.”

“Of course it’s impossible,” Rowan said. “Of course they
have to come down. Do you see? I’ve found a situation where our usual methods
fail.”

Squinting in thought, Arian studied. “No,” he said at last. “It’s
not the method that’s at fault. It’s the problem. You’ve set up an impossible
situation.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Impossible giants—”

“Or very possible towers!”

The second steerswoman spoke again. “Be hard to build a
tower that high.”

Rowan threw up her hands. “But we’re not concerned with the
difficulty here—”

“You can’t ignore crucial elements,” Arian put in.

“That’s hardly crucial—”

“There is obviously,” he stated carefully, “something wrong
with the problem. We know that the techniques work, but we’re getting an
impossible answer. It can’t be our method that’s at fault, so it must be the
problem itself.”

Rowan drew back. “Arian, that is backward reasoning, and you
know it well. You mustn’t deny information simply because it differs from what
you expect. You’re not thinking like a steersman—”

He interrupted, his voice stony. “Rowan, I do not need your
instruction in how to think like a steersman.”

She stopped short, curbed her temper, then began again. “We
know that the approaches handed down to us always seem to work, but we can’t
always see why—”

“Exactly what I’ve been working on these years, with my ‘backward
reasoning’—”

“But there may be different ways to look at it. You’ve been
working from the inside out; but if we can—” She sought an analogy. “If we can
map the edges we may be better able to see the whole. We may be able to work
from the outside in.”

The other steerswomen exchanged glances. One shook her head
minutely, but the other tilted her head in Rowan’s direction. She obviously
agreed but was unwilling to enter the argument.

Rowan prepared to speak again but was interrupted by an arrival
at the door. “Rowan? Do you know the Prime is waiting for you?”

She grit her teeth, unwilling to leave battle. “Arian, you
must excuse me,” she said. She exited with exaggerated dignity.

As she turned toward the Prime’s offices, the messenger
tapped her shoulder, then pointed in the opposite direction. “The garden,” the
woman corrected, then disappeared on further errands.

When Rowan arrived at the herb garden, the fact of the season’s
change asserted itself, the blooms of late spring already giving way to those
of early summer. A tall patch of knapweed raised shaggy purple heads by the
door; the rosemary beside it was past flowering.

In the distance Rowan heard not conversation but music. Surprised,
she threaded her way on the flagstone paths to the garden’s center.

There stood, among the plots of herbs and flowers, four pear
trees, set each in a corner of a patch of marigold. The path between was
widened there and curved. At the intersection of the crossing paths stood two
low stone benches.

Henra, the Prime, sat on one. Beside her sat Bel the barbarian.
They were singing together.

Rowan approached slowly, fascinated.

They were singing an ancient song about a knight lost in a
magic forest. Both sang the melody, though Bel added an occasional ornate turn
that pleasantly countered Henra’s steady note. They reached a point where their
words and melody diverged. The Prime interrupted, saying, “I learned that part
differently. Teach me how you know it.” Bel sang on alone. Her voice was strong
and mobile, not deep, but with a husky dark edge to the tone.

Henra then sang her version in a voice clear and pure as
fresh water. When she reached a familiar section, Bel joined her again, eyes
closed, head tilted back.

As Rowan reached the benches, the song ended. Bel opened her
eyes and spotted something among the branches of the pear tree. “Ha! There’s
one of them!” She leaped up, then scrabbled among the loose stones by the walk.
Above her, a wood gnome began flinging down poorly aimed bits of twig, hooting
and jeering.

Rowan restrained her. “There’s no need to worry. They’re
harmless.”

“Harmless, ha! Look at those teeth!” These the gnome bared
yellowly.

Henra was signaling up to him. “Stop, stop. Woman not hurt
you. You come down now.”

“No. Bad woman, dirty.” He spoke in broad emphatic gestures,
then hugged himself to a branch, rocking.

“This woman my friend,” the Prime told him, but he shrieked
fury. The sound attracted the attention of another gnome, who abandoned his
inspection of the rain gutter to investigate.

“The gnomes are friendly,” Rowan told Bel, but the
Outskirter shouted “Ha!” and struggled to aim her stone. A steerswoman on the
other side of the garden noticed the ruckus and began to approach.

Henra caught one of the gnome’s hands and shook her index
finger in his face admonishingly. Rowan clutched at Bel’s throwing arm and
stepped in front of her, blocking her aim. Outskirter and wood gnome uttered
near-identical sounds of frustration.

Abruptly, Rowan and the Prime stopped and looked at each
other. Henra began laughing, then Rowan joined her. “I think we’re doing
similar jobs,” Rowan noted. They released their respective charges and
helplessly dropped to the bench.

Bel glowered down at them. The gnome leaped to the ground
and escaped.

Wiping tears from her eyes, Henra leaned back at last and examined
Rowan. The Prime was a small woman, shorter than Bel, and fine-boned and
delicate. She had a grace and presence beyond her size, and Rowan, at average
height, had always felt huge and clumsy beside her. She seemed half-magical,
like an elf out of song, with angular features and long green eyes. Her face
was a lined map of wisdom, but age had neither grayed nor grizzled her
waist-length hair. Instead, it was laced with silver; no longer plain brown, it
was the exact color of smooth sunlit water pouring over dark earth.