Rosemary Kirstein - Steerswoman 04 (19 page)

“What about you, Earner?”

“The last time? Can’t pin it down. Might have been right in
the garden, him taking his tea one of those afternoons. Or maybe at Saranna’s
Inn. He’d go there, now and then, just for the beer and the hearthlight.”

The three sat quietly, contemplating the gentle final years
of the wizard of Donner. And perhaps, Rowan thought, perhaps it was merely this
that had piqued Latitia’s curiosity: a good man, where there had been a bad
one. The heart of a wizard, changing.

Changing suddenly. Changing overnight.

“Do you have any idea,” Rowan said, and she sounded to herself
almost pleading, “can you even guess, why Kieran did change, what happened the
night before that one particular morning?”

Both the ancient gardeners shook their heads. But:
“Thoughts, I suppose,” Eamer said. “A lot of hard thinking goes on in the dead
of night. All your sins catch up with you, and he had more sins, and worse,
than the common folk get.”

“Ammi’s murder,” Rowan supplied, musingly.

“And others,” Lorren said. “And that war.”

“The one when Kieran first came here,” Earner said. “A lot
of trouble over that; we had the wizard Olin’s troops, right in sight of the
city. Just a child, I was, but I remember it well. Standing right at the end of
Old Water Street, gaping across the river, smoke on the other side, and fire,
and soldiers in blue, trying to cross in boats … I lost two uncles and an
aunt in that war.”

Rowan could hardly believe that she was actually speaking to
persons with firsthand experience of so ancient an event. “Wars are usual, when
a new wizard is first established … but there was none when Jannik came.”

“No …”

“None.”

“How odd … Fortunate, but odd.” She wondered if this were
significant, but could come to no conclusion. “I’m also interested in the
doings of a steerswoman, whom perhaps you might have met. A dark woman; her
name was Latitia.”

“No … You’re the only steerswoman I’ve ever met at all. Lorren?”

“No … But I heard about another.” Lorren squinted in
thought. “Hm … was that the one who died?”

“What?” Rowan sat up. “Are you sure?” But no: Latitia’s
Donner logbook at the Annex continued for at least six months after her leaving
the city …

“Yes, now that I think of it, I did hear … Oh”—a sigh of
exasperation—“it’s the recent years that run together …”

“Recent?”

“Yes … Ah, that’s right: the fire. Dragons got into town,
and Saranna’s Inn was burned to the ground. My niece told me about it. There
was a steerswoman among the guests. They never found her …”

“Actually,” Rowan said, oddly embarrassed, “I believe that
was me.”

They regarded her with new interest. Then Eamer turned to
Lorren. “See? We’ve been sitting here all this time, talking to a ghost.”

“Ah! That means we’ve finally crossed over!”

“And we did it together. How clever of us!”

Rowan laughed. “I’m pleased to inform you that we are all
three still in the land of the living.”

Rowan was sorry to take her leave of them. She made them a
gift of Ona’s drawing, which gesture delighted them far out of proportion to
the act. Rowan wondered how often they had visitors, and considered that
perhaps the greater gifts to them had been merely her presence, and the
conversation.

As she paused by the door, and because she suddenly simply
had to know, and because she had finally discovered a question that might serve
to satisfy her curiosity while remaining open to alternate interpretation,
Rowan asked: “Are you married?”

“Ah!” Lorren said. “Oh, my … must be more than seventy
years now …”

“Every day a treasure,” Earner said, reaching across the
white tablecloth to take Lorren’s hand.

“Every day.”

“I saw her,” Eamer said, turning to Rowan, “one spring morning,
kneeling in the turnip patch. Felt like I’d been hit on the head with a shovel,
and the only thought I had was: That’s got to be the most beautiful woman in
the world.”

“And I saw her,” Lorren said, “standing in the road, and all
I could think was: That is the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen in my life”—she
laughed and turned back to Eamer, her faded eyes shining—“but I
do
like
the way she’s looking at me!”

Outside on Old Water Street, the steerswoman paused.

The blue house before her was tall, clean, dripping with
bright white trim as ornate as a party cake. Comfortable, and prosperous,
courtesy of the kind Kieran’s generous wages.

Old Water Street was in the north quarter, tucked up against
the curving arm of Greyriver. The street ran to the riverside, where decaying
docks, some reduced to pilings and rubble, pointed out to the opposite bank.

Rowan gazed down the street at the water. There, nearly a century
before, the little girl who had been Eamer had stood watching the fire and
destruction of Kieran’s personal war.

The steerswoman turned away, and slowly made her way up Old
Water Street, lost in thought.

At the intersection she paused, crossed two streets over,
and continued east, away from the river. Eventually, she reached a small open
square, where a pair of boys were working a crank to draw a bucket of water
from a wood-roofed stone well. The boys regarded her suspiciously, then filled
their two smaller buckets from the larger one and carried them off, grunting
and staggering at the effort.

Rowan approached the well, considered it, sat on its edge.
East Well.

She imagined the kindly, white-haired man from Ona’s drawing;
imagined him real, and standing before her. A gentle face, a smile and coppers
for the children, so that they might attend a puppet show.

Rowan imagined him walking down this street, walking up to
this well, where waited, all around, a silent crowd of people. Walking,
empty-eyed, and dragging by its hair the corpse of little Ammi.

Although perhaps Kieran had not yet been white-haired. Rowan
wondered, vaguely.

Before her, one empty gap between two fenced house yards: a
pocket garden, now gone to weeds and bramble. There, Kieran had first spoken to
Lorren and Earner, had simply informed them that they now worked for him.

The steerswoman looked left.

The street curved up and slightly right, with houses more
widely spaced. Two intersections ahead, half obscured by the last home on the
right: Jannik’s house.

She rose, walked up the street with as much nonchalance as
she could manage.

The house was brick, three storeys, and its decoration far
more modest than was the Donner norm. The windows were small on the ground
floor, and shuttered, larger on the upper storeys, with glass panes glaring
white where sunlight reflected, pitch black where it did not. There was no porch,
but a small shingled portico shaded the front door. The roofline and peak of
the house were edged with pigeon-chasers, rendered in decorative spikes. Half
hidden by the roof peak, part of a curved object was visible, gray, like stone
or old ceramic.

The house stood alone on its corner lot, with no others adjacent.
In the next yard over, a wreck of grayed timber and the tumbled remnants of
brick walls suggested previous neighbors, long departed.

Keeping to the far side of the street, Rowan strolled casually
on. Jannik’s backyard was walled, but not to any great height. The bricks stood
only as high as Rowan’s waist, and the garden was easily visible.

It was huge, occupying the equivalent of four of the neighboring
lots. Sections of lawn fell and rose gently, their borders outlined with white
stones. Fieldstone paths wound among flower beds, between ornamental bushes and
under a lattice arbor, where climbing roses, past blooming, cheerfully
displayed bright rose hips. At the far end of the garden, a fair-sized shed
stood, with a red wheelbarrow nearby, half tilted on its side.

Most attention had been paid to the areas nearby the house.
Only chrysanthemums still bloomed, but these were bright and abundant. Still,
their arrangement and brilliance felt regimented to Rowan, and overcontrolled,
oddly sterile. Not at all the exuberant opulence shown in Ona’s drawing.
Lorren’s and Eamer’s talents were missed.

As Rowan continued down the street bordering the garden
wall, more details were revealed. An ornamental iron lamp with glass panels
stood on a pedestal directly in the center of one flower bed. One would need to
step on the flowers to light it—but Lorren mentioned a magic lamp, red. To be
lit, perhaps, by a word or a mystic gesture.

In a section of lawn unnaturally bright green in the autumn
landscape, a cherry tree stood. Beneath this, a curved stone bench.

There, Rowan thought: there he had sat, Slado himself,
reading his book, studying his craft. Plotting, perhaps, the murder of the one
good wizard in the world.

Rowan found that she had stopped, and was gazing steadily.
She hoped, belatedly, that she did not appear suspicious; but Jannik was not at
home.

The steerswoman glanced back at the house, captured the view
in memory, and studied it after she turned away, walking on.

Only two entrances to the house. Probably the back door, in
the garden, would be best. Less chance of being noticed.

Larger windows upstairs: rooms most often used, perhaps.
More important rooms, away from street-level prying eyes.

The shape of the house, arrangement of windows, the
roofline: these gave her a general idea of internal layout.

And that ornament on the roof, stone or ceramic: Rowan’s
glance had caught its shape clearly. A birdbath, perhaps, but neglected and out
of use, tilted badly out of skew. Or a sundial: the small central spike would
cast an adequate shadow.

But there were no doors or landings on the roof. And it was
not visible from any window.

Regardless: if a birdbath, the birds were out of luck; if a
sundial, it was useless, as it was oriented incorrectly. It was tilted to the
east-southeast.

Facing, she suddenly realized, exactly toward the Eastern Guidestar.

Wizards spoke to the Guidestars, commanded them. The Guidestars
obeyed, possibly even replied …

A voice, then, to speak to the sky; and the bowl, like hands
cupped around an ear, to listen to the distant answer of magic.

At the Dolphin, Ruffo had moved half a dozen small tables
out onto the small cobbled square before the glass-windowed sitting room. All
tables were in use, by locals and a handful of sailors whom Rowan recognized
from
Graceful Days,
all enjoying lunch or tea out in the pleasantly warm
autumn day. Some customers were observing with blatant interest a lone patron
of the gracious parlor, who sat twirling a glass of wine in his hand,
pretending not to notice the scrutiny.

One of the outside tables was occupied by Bel.

Rowan sought for and failed to find another chair: all had
been confiscated for adjacent tables. The Outskirter considerately relinquished
her own seat, and perched herself on the low brick window ledge nearby. “Were
the gardeners useful?”

“Extremely,” Rowan said, and prepared to relate her experiences,
but asked first, “Is Will still asleep?”

“No. He’s gone off to retrieve his gear.” Bel shifted. “I
think it’s a good thing he met up with us. I’m not sure he’s safe traveling
alone.”

Rowan became disturbed. “Was there more trouble?” Someone
appeared at her elbow: the handkerchief boy, with a fistful of cutlery, which
he shyly placed in front of Rowan, in no particular configuration. At the
common room door, Beck stood watching in parody of stem supervision.

Bel waited until the boy had departed. “No. But he’s hard to
wake up. I tripped over him twice, on my way to and from the outhouse, and he
never stirred.”

Rowan had been arranging the cutlery; now she hesitated.
“You tripped over him?”

Bel nodded. “He slept on the floor. He absolutely refused to
share the bed. I think he’s secretly a prude.”

Will had also slept on the floor in Rowan’s room, but that
bed was hardly large enough for one person. “Perhaps he simply prefers
privacy.”

“Maybe. But if he slept that hard on the road, then he was
lucky. Any thief or bandit could have made off with his possessions, or even
cut his throat, and he’d never have noticed at

“Then he probably slept lightly, for all that time.” The boy
arrived again, with a single plate that he placed before Rowan with an air of
ceremony. The act so delighted him that he stood for a moment, regarding the
result with a sort of gleeful self-satisfaction, and then departed. “And,”
Rowan continued, “now that Wiliam is finally someplace safe, his body is
probably catching up on what it’s missed.”

Bel made a noncommittal sound. “And he has nightmares.”
Rowan stopped short. “Really?”

The Outskirter nodded again, thoughtful. “Not the sort where
you wake up screaming. But did he make enough noise to wake me.”

The steerswoman leaned back in her chair. “Well,” she said,
“I do hope that you tried to wake him.”

“Yes, but not very hard. When I shook him the first time, he
didn’t wake, but he did settle down, so I let him go on sleeping. The next time
it happened I noticed that all I had to do was rest my hand on his shoulder. He
went quiet right away.”

Rowan found that this small detail saddened her deeply. Bel
went on: “I asked him later, but he wouldn’t talk about it.

He changed the subject.” She glanced about cautiously: no
one was attending the conversation, but Bel leaned closer to Rowan, to speak
more quietly. “He’s worried about that woman he killed.”

Rowan was immediately concerned. “Is he expecting some repercussions?”
she asked. “Does he think that—” She was stopped by a look from Bel.

“No,” Bel said. “He’s sorry that he did it, and it’s
weighing on his mind. He wonders if she had family.” Rowan was suddenly
ashamed; she had dismissed both the woman and the man, she now realized, as
merely a problem solved. Even wizard’s minions did not deserve such
indifference. “And he wishes there had been some other way to handle it,” the
Outskirter continued. “He agrees that it’s probably safer that she’s dead. But
it still bothers him.”