Rosemary Kirstein - Steerswoman 04 (9 page)

The steerswoman found the tale more than simply amusing. It
was not safe to have pit-style outhouses anywhere near wells or other
underground water sources; contamination could pass through the ground into the
water, especially in a damp environment. The well water would be foul at the
least, and a source of disease at the worst.

Kieran had done the city a kindness. And interestingly, he
had done it in a way that provided amusement to the residents, a tale to tell
to others—long past the wizard’s own demise. It seemed almost an intentional
augmentation of the wizard’s personal legend. “Do you think,” Rowan asked,
“that people in Donner tend to remember Kieran kindly rather than otherwise?”

“I don’t know … some do, certainly. I expect, if he’d
lived longer, we all might have come to.” And it seemed that this thought had
not occurred to him before, and he gave it some consideration.

Rowan said cautiously: “How did he die?”

“How? Old age, or so we were told. He seemed elderly.”

“Can you remember whether Jannik appeared in town before,
after, or at the same time as Kieran’s death?” If Kieran’s death had not been
natural, Jannik, as the next master of this holding, seemed a likely suspect.

“Jannik? Oh, after. Hard to pin down, but I’d say, at least
a month, maybe two.”

Rowan was taken aback. “So long a gap? How did you deal with
the dragons, with no wizard to keep them in check?”

“Oh, there was no problem with the dragons, none at all.”

“I find that rather interesting …”

“Still,” Marel said, “I expect they were never completely uncontrolled,
really. I have to assume the apprentice took care of that.”

“Apprentice?” Rowan asked. Wizard’s apprentices were, if
possible, even more mysterious than their masters. They appeared, apparently
from nowhere, served and studied for a length of time, and then vanished. Some
resurfaced as wizards elsewhere, years or decades later; most were never heard
from again. But she had not heard of Kieran possessing an apprentice …

Her puzzling stopped short; she felt cold. “Apprentice?” she
said again.

“Oh, yes,” Marel continued. “In fact, we’d assumed that he would
stay on; but when Jannik showed up, there was no argument at all—”

“—What was his name?”

Marel waved his son over again. “Reeder, I can’t recall;
what was the name of Kieran’s apprentice? You spoke to him a few times, didn’t
you?”

Reeder flicked his pale, bland gaze from his father’s face
to the steerswoman’s, and Rowan thought: No. It cannot
possibly be this
easy.

But it was.

“Yes,” Reeder said. “You mean Slado.”

Marel maintained an apartment on the third floor of the building
and among the chambers, a private study: small, slant-ceilinged, comfortably
appointed. The single unshuttered dormer window faced west, where now the
yellow-brown roof tiles of the city of Donner were tinged red where they faced
the sunset, smoky blue in the shadows. The window threw a glowing orange rectangle
up onto the opposite wall, like a tilted doorway composed of insubstantial
light.

Marel sat behind an old mahogany desk. Reeder slouched in a
red leather armchair to the left of the window. The steerswoman paced.

He had been here, in Donner: the man she sought, the one behind
all the new troubles of the world. Secretive, immensely powerful, casually
murderous, evil. Here, at exactly the moment when it all had begun, with the
falling of the unknown Guidestar.

The steerswoman had hoped for more small clues and hints as
to his plans, his goals, his nature; she had found instead the man himself.

But only in the past. “I need to know everything you can remember
about Slado.”

Reeder steepled his fingers, regarded them with lifted
brows. “That’s rather an open-ended request,” he said, seeming to ad—

dress his hands. “One hardly knows where to begin—or how to
end, for that matter.”

The steerswoman stopped, turned to him. Where could one begin?

And because it was suddenly important to her, she asked,
“What color are his eyes?”

“Gray.” Reeder tilted his head a fraction, as if studying
her for comparison. “More gray than yours. Less blue.”

“Hair?”

“Reddish brown. Auburn, really. He wore it to his
shoulders.”

“How old?”

Reeder gazed at the ceiling, in an affected show of thought.
“My age, perhaps, or a bit younger,” he said, indifferently. “Eighteen,
nineteen … He looked younger still, from wearing no beard.”

So young. And merely an apprentice.

To bring a Guidestar down from the sky must require very powerful
magic indeed. Could an apprentice do such a thing?

“How long had Slado been in Kieran’s service before the old
wizard died?” How much time had he had to learn his craft?

There was a pause. It was Marel who answered. “I don’t know.
It seemed not long. Reeder?”

A longer pause. “Hardly any time. It was less than a year,
I’m certain. More than six months, perhaps. But, really, so long ago—I’m afraid
it’s difficult to be clear.”

“And Slado did not stay on, once Jannik arrived?”

“I don’t know that they ever met at all. I never saw them together.
Jannik arrived, and Slado was never seen again. One has to assume he left some
time before …”

Rowan discovered herself facing the wall, and realized that
she had begun pacing again. A habit of hers when agitated. She composed herself
and turned back.

If Reeder had himself met Slado, then others had, as well,
perhaps some who would remember more clearly. “Did Slado make any friends among
the common folk?” she asked. Someone to whom he might have said good-bye, and
to whom he might have mentioned something of his future plans. Eighteen years
old? “Perhaps he had a sweetheart?”

The pause was considerably longer. Both men were regarding
Rowan dubiously. “I’m sorry.” With her pacing, and her unexplained intensity,
she must seem very peculiar to these men. “But this is important. Was there
anyone Slado might have been close to?”

Reeder replied, “It’s hard to remember, lady. I do know that
there were girls who looked on him with some interest, but I don’t know if he
ever returned it. As for friends … No one close that I saw. I spoke to him
fairly regularly, but not at any length.”

Rowan was instantly, sharply attentive. “On what subjects
did you speak?”

Reeder made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “The sorts
of things fellows that age say, when they have nothing in particular to say.
Insulting observations of the passersby, for the most part.” Something occurred
to him. “He didn’t like Kieran,” he said, seeming surprised at the memory.

“Did he say why?”

“Well … I believe that he thought he was soft.”

Rowan found Reeder’s expression interesting. “And you
agreed.”

He shifted uncomfortably, seeming puzzled; then glanced at
her sharply, as if remembering her presence. His pale green gaze again became
masked, indifferent, impenetrable. “I suppose it seemed rather silly to me at
the time. Cozying up to people, when you have so much power—why bother? He was
a wizard. He needed no one’s approval. He could do as he pleased.”

“And Slado didn’t bother to ‘cozy up’?”

“No. And it was clear he found Kieran’s behavior annoying.
But Slado was only an apprentice. He didn’t cross his master.”

Marel took up the other side of tradition’s privilege. “Tell
me, lady,” he said, in the formal way, “why so great an interest in a wizard’s
apprentice from so very long ago?”

The steerswoman turned to him. “Because,” she said, “Slado
is now the most powerful, dangerous, and evil man in the world. Because the
harm he is causing with his magic is far worse than anything we ever thought
possible.” She paused. “And because something must be done about him.”

The implications of this last statement took time to sink
in; then both men grew disturbed, Marel slowly sitting upright behind his desk,
Reeder, blank-faced, pressing himself back in his armchair.

Marel said, “That’s … not the sort of thing one generally
hears from a steerswoman.”

“Yes.”

“And exactly what do you intend—”

“No!” Reeder had risen. Rowan, startled, stepped back a
pace. Reeder said to his father, vehemently: “No! We do not want to know about
this!” He turned to Rowan, fists clenched at his sides, and spoke through his
teeth. “Steerswoman—get out of here!”

“Reeder!” Marel’s tone was sharp.

“We want nothing from the wizards, and nothing to do with
them. If you’re planning to actually cross one—then get far away from us, and
keep us out of it!”

Marel thumped the top of his desk. “My home,” he declared,
his bright green eyes now sharp on his son. “My office. And if I may remind
you, Reeder, my business. If you do not like the company I keep, if you cannot
speak politely to a guest in my home, then it’s you who should—politely—excuse
yourself.”

“Father—”

“Merchant’s honor, Reeder. Value rendered for value
received. I cannot count the number of times this business has benefited from
information that ultimately came, directly or indirectly, by short route or
long, from the Steerswomen.” Marel folded his hands, composed himself; but he
still held Reeder’s gaze, and the son seemed locked in its grip. “Now, this
woman is asking questions,” Marel said tightly, “and for the sake of everything
we’ve gained from the Steerswomen’s knowledge, we must reply to the best of our
ability—or declare ourselves hypocrites and swindlers!”

Reeder hissed once through clenched teeth. He said, “There
has been trouble enough from wizards lately—”

“Lately?” Rowan was taken aback. “What trouble has there
been lately?”

Marel released Reeder from his glare; the son stepped back
loose-kneed, as if the release had been physical.

The old merchant replied, “No trouble in Donner itself, lady—although
if events continue, perhaps we can expect some difficulties.” Reeder made an
abortive gesture, perhaps of protest, then spun away and threw himself back
into his seat. Marel went on: “I find that several of my smaller competitors
upriver have been run out of business. Jannik has been commandeering materials,
whether or not the suppliers and merchants can afford to lose them. Certain staple
foods, grain for the most part; cloth and thread; ores—not the sort you’d
expect, not the precious metals. Tin, copper, some iron. The raw stuff, not
worked.”

Rowan considered. “How odd,” she said.

“Those who protest are dealt with rather more harshly than has
been Jannik’s habit. And interestingly, a similar thing seems to be happening
in Olin’s holding—where there is less local organization to draw on. He has
been commandeering people as well as materials.”

Rowan grew more disturbed. “Is Olin gathering an army?”

“If so, an odd sort of army. Two towns by the Salt Bog have
been completely emptied, with their citizens, children included, sent somewhere
north, for no reason anyone knows.”

The steerswoman cast about in her mind, seeking patterns, explanations,
and discovering none. She emerged from her ruminations to find both men
watching her: Marel speculatively, Reeder with suppressed anger.

Marel, Rowan believed, would gladly help her, if he could.
But it seemed to her that Reeder knew far more than he was saying, and he, in
fact, could help her—if he wished.

But his dislike of her went beyond this room, and this
moment. It was personal.

Steerswomen and sailors were said to be immune to certain
types of spells. On Morgan’s
Chance
the
boy who had traveled with Reeder had watched from hiding while a navigator demonstrated
to Rowan that this was true. The navigator, and then Rowan, had touched a magic
trunk carried in the hold, one being shipped to a wizard. No harm had come to
them.

But later, all alone, the boy had attempted the same act.
The guard-spell had killed him.

Rowan crossed the room to Reeder’s chair and stood before
him, looking down. She wished that she could sit as well, wished she did not
have to loom over him so. “I’m sorry about what happened to your young friend.
It broke my heart when I heard of it. But Reeder—I didn’t do it. He died by the
hand of a wizard.”

He looked up at her. His gaze narrowed fractionally. “Which
one?”

“I don’t know,” she said. The chest could easily have been
Slado’s, but: “I’m sorry, but I don’t know and can’t guess.” She drew and
released a breath. “It’s not common knowledge, but the wizards do have one
authority over them all, one person whom even they must obey. They fight
amongst themselves—who knows why? They work their magics at whim, and they do
not care how it touches us, whether for good or evil. We have no choice. We
have no say. Each wizard seems a law unto himself, beyond control or command.”

And because she suddenly could no longer continue looking
down at Reeder, Rowan dropped to one knee, resting her folded hands on the
other. She looked up, into pale green eyes the color of sunlit seawater. “But I
know, and now you know, that the wizards have over them a single master. His
name is Slado. Will you help me?” Whom do you hate more: the wizards, or me?

His gaze had become unreadable, impenetrable. He studied her
from the distance that lay behind his eyes. It took some time.

At last he said, “Are you capable of acting with …
discretion?”

“If necessary.”

“As condition for my assistance.”

“Reeder.” Marel’s tone was warning; Reeder ignored him.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” Rowan said.

And as she watched, the man’s facade reassembled itself: the
shuttered gaze, the supercilious tilt of the head, a shift in his body as he
regained balance, and dignity. Rowan found it rather an interesting
performance.

“I am referring,” he said, “to casual, innocent
conversation. Without pointed questions, dire revelations, or talk of
interfering in wizards’ business.”