The Steerswoman's Road (6 page)

“Perhaps that’s the explanation.” Morgan turned his glance
on Bel. “Can this be done for two?” Rowan asked.

“No.”

“I can pay full fare,” Bel said easily.

“We haven’t the room.”

“I’ll pay full fare for a berth with the crew members.”

“We’ll be crowded enough with the steerswoman.”

Rowan said to Bel, “His cook’s shorthanded.”

The barbarian smiled beatifically. Morgan made to protest,
but Bel spoke up. “And since he can’t afford to lose money, I’ll generously
work for no wages. And I don’t suppose he’ll need the extra help after the
passengers for Wulfshaven leave, so I’ll relieve him of myself at that point.
How lucky for him that we happened by.”

The captain sighed, then raised a finger. “In good weather,
you sleep on deck.”

“Ha. I prefer to. Why crowd in when it’s not necessary?”

“I’ll do so myself,” Rowan said. She had a sudden vision of
nights on deck: warmly wrapped in blankets, cold sweet air on her face,
watching the constellations slowly shift behind one or another Guidestar, the
comforting creak and shift of the ship beneath her. The prospect made her smile.

Morgan regarded the pair speculatively, then nodded,
resigned. “We leave at dawn. You’d best be aboard three hours before, to
settle—” He pointed at Bel. “—and get introduced to your duties. Go along.” He
dismissed them with a wave of the hand and turned back to his charts.

As they wove their way out through the tables, Rowan said, “I
know you can cook for two; you’ll be called on to do so for a great many.”

Bel smiled her small smile. “It’s just a question of
numbers. You can help with the calculations.”

The two women found a public bathhouse down a narrow street,
and Bel made acquaintance with the superiority of hot water over cold for
bathing, and wooden tubs over pools or brooks. Later, on the justification
that she was saving money on her passage, she treated herself and Rowan to an
elaborate meal in a well-appointed inn. Bel gave careful attention to the
different dishes, seeming to study each with interest, and finding none she did
not like.

As they conversed over dinner, Rowan found that the impression
she had gained of Bel on the road proved equally true in more civilized
surroundings. The Outskirter remained both curious and adaptable, her comments
again that intriguing combination of ingenuousness and perspicacity. Rowan
found herself ever more comfortable in Bel’s company, recognizing in the other
not a like mind, but a complementary one.

Their conversation was overheard by a merchant at the table
next to theirs, a long, thin man with a beaked nose and a fastidious expression.
He was accompanied by a pudgy blond boy, about ten years old. When the merchant
discovered that Rowan was a steerswoman, he began to toss her occasional
questions: insignificant details about the port of Donner, other points of
geography, facts about sailing ships. He asked these as asides in his own conversation
with the boy, whenever a convenient point of curiosity arose. He effectively
ignored Rowan when not asking a question, and ignored Bel altogether. Although
he was elaborately polite, beginning each question with “Tell me, lady,” and
responding to her answers with an unctuous “Thank you, lady,” he seemed to care
little when Rowan sometimes did not know an answer. Bel’s annoyance increased
with each interruption. Finally she said in exasperation, “He’s treating you
like a servant!” She made no attempt to conceal her comments from the merchant.

Rowan used her fork to push a bit of bread around in a
dollop of vegetable paste, keeping her gaze carefully on her plate. “Some
people are like that.” She knew that she looked meek and subdued, perhaps a bit
pale. In fact, the paleness was from fury; the merchant’s offhand imperiousness
made her seethe with hatred for the man. She discovered herself wishing him
dead in a thousand unpleasant ways. The force of her anger and her inability to
act fed on each other until she felt dizzy.

“Can’t you refuse to answer?”

Rowan looked up at her, attempting to keep her expression
neutral. “Under certain extreme circumstances, and this is not one. But I’m familiar
with his type. It’s usually easier to go along, or simply to leave.”

The Outskirter studied the steerswoman’s face for a long moment,
and Rowan found that she could read in Bel’s expression all that Bel could read
in hers, through her poor attempts at control. Bel had the look of one seeing a
helpless creature victimized. Rowan was surprised; it had not occurred to her
that her occupation would ever put her in a position of helplessness, but as
soon as she saw it, she realized that it was sometimes true.

But Bel was free to act as she chose. She turned to the merchant.
“You. You’re bothering me. Shut up or I’ll slit your throat.” The man dropped
his fork.

A serving man was at their side in an instant, carefully
polite. “Is there a problem?” Near the entrance to the kitchen, two other
servers exchanged words briefly. One hurried off in one direction, one in another;
the second soon returned with a calm elderly woman who scanned the room with a
proprietary concern. The first came back with a very large young man in tow.
The four then stood quietly on the side, watching.

Rowan put her hand on Bel’s arm and spoke to the serving man
at their side. “We’d like a different table, please.”

Presently they were led through the center of the room to a
table on the other side. The other diners silenced as they passed through,
conversation reviving in their wake, more subdued in volume but livelier in
tone.

The new table, in an alcove off the main room, was quieter,
flanked by a row of low windows. The shutters were open a crack; Rowan pushed
them wider, and the dock noise drifted in faintly. She saw that the haze was
clearing as dusk approached. She wished herself on the Morgan’s
Chance
and
under the stars.

She turned back to find Bel studying her. Rowan smiled
thinly. “It has two sides,” she admitted.

The proprietress appeared with three mugs of wine and seated
herself with them. “My apologies, lady; some people are crass. Reeder always
puts on airs.” With a tilt of her head she indicated the merchant across the
room. “I hope you haven’t a poor opinion of our establishment.”

Rowan sipped her wine. “Not at all.”

“And you, Freewoman?”

Bel made a gesture with her mug, indicating the room and its
contents. “I think the establishment is fine; but I find my sense of honor
affronted by that what passes for civilized behavior in the Inner Lands. If
people had to defend their attitudes, things would be simpler.”

“Perhaps. But think of the violence that would result!”

Bel smiled.

The woman continued. “Stay the night, as my guests. Tomorrow,
you won’t be bothered by Reeder again; he’s leaving at dawn.” Rowan sighed; Bel
narrowed her eyes. “On the
Morgan’s Chance.”

“
Why, yes.”

The two travelers chose to forgo the entertainment in the common
room. A waiter directed them through a door at the end of their alcove, and
they were met on the other side by a chambermaid with an oil lamp, who led them
down the short corridor.

“How long will our trip last?” Bel asked Rowan.

“It depends on the weather. Perhaps five days.”

Bel grimaced. “Five days with that Reeder creature.”

The corridor ended at the foot of a short staircase, leading
up. Instead of ascending, the chambermaid turned left, leading them along a
stone wall with a plastered section in its center. They were in a square open
area, rising three stories to the raftered ceiling, each story presenting a
narrow balcony along its three inner sides. The doors of the guest-chambers
were visible, overlooking the central well.

Out of habit, Rowan oriented herself in an imagined map, the
probable floor plan of the inn. They had entered under one end of the first
balcony, then crossed the well to the opposite end.

Rowan considered the stone wall. “There was a fireplace
here, once?”

“Yes, lady.” The girl had opened a closet and was pulling
out a collection of bed linens. Bel held the lamp. “This used to be the old
common room, I’m told, before business was so good. They added the new dining
room, built extra stories here, and sleeping chambers. The other side of the
hearth still works.”

“The other side being in the kitchen?”

“That’s right.”

Looking up, Rowan saw a wooden chandelier suspended from the
ceiling, unlit and cobwebbed. The arrangement of the building was visually
impressive and extremely inefficient. Like much of Donner, Rowan realized.

Closing the door, the chambermaid bundled the linens under
one arm and accepted the lamp again. There were no stairs to the first floor on
this end, and Bel and Rowan followed her back across the cold open area.

“You shouldn’t worry too much about Reeder,” Rowan told Bel
as they ascended. “Close quarters can be an advantage. He’ll come to see me as
a person, eventually.” But Bel was occupied in peering nervously over the
railings as the three women rose higher.

The room was spacious, the beds warm and comfortable after the
days on the trail, but Rowan found herself waking over and over, as each doze
took the edge off her tiredness. Each time she enjoyed the luxury of sinking
into sleep again, but at last she found herself following her thoughts into
wakefulness.

They were on the third floor, in a corner chamber. One
window faced north, the other east, and the surrounding houses were low-built
on the flat land. There was little to obstruct the view. Rowan turned in her
bed to watch the Eastern Guidestar, shining in one corner of a window, slightly
more than a quarter of the way up from the horizon.

She saw that Bel had pulled the blanket from her own bed and
arranged it haphazardly on the floor. She lay on her stomach, in her usual
sleeping attitude, with her face away from Rowan. She stirred, then turned, and
Rowan saw that she was also awake.

“You’re uncomfortable?”

“A little. It’s so closed-in.” Rowan found the room
luxuriously wide. “And high. I keep feeling I might fall.”

“You’ll have less space on the ship. And it will move, rock.”

Bel made a face in the gloom. “I suppose I’ll adjust. I’ll
have to; I can’t walk away from a ship.”

“There is that.”

The Outskirter sat up. “You’re not sleeping anymore?”

“No. My mind wants to be busy.” A problem was nagging her
for attention.

“I can’t sit still.”

“Let’s walk, then.”

They rose and dressed, Bel donning, instead of her shaggy
vest, a yellow cloth blouse she had purchased in a shop by the bathhouse. If
her change of costume was an attempt to fit her surroundings, it was
immediately negated when she added her cloak and goatskin boots. Both women
buckled on their swords.

Once outside the chamber door, Rowan led Bel to the end of
the landing and down the stairs. Along the way they passed rooms silent with
sleep, or raucous with snores. One room on the ground floor leaked the mutters
of two women in argument, punctuated by an amused masculine rumble.

Seeing no other exit, Rowan found their way through the passage
to the dining area. “It’s like a maze,” Bel remarked, surprised when they
reached the large room. “Your sense of direction is better than mine.”

“Part of my training.”

Outside the night was clear and dusted with stars, the Guidestars
nearly balanced opposite each other, the Eastern slightly higher than the
Western. Stable points in the sky, they told Rowan her exact position by their
angles, and the precise time by the constellations that lay behind them.

Saranna’s Inn fronted on a round court where a decorative
fountain had been erected with much ornamentation and little skill. Beside it, more
prosaic, were a simple well and watering trough, constructed with
straightforward efficiency. Around the court the houses were dark and quiet,
save one flickering candle in a baker’s shop. A breeze replaced the smell of
sea wrack with that of fresh bread.

The two women circled around the fountain and paused on the
far side by the watering trough. Bel leaned back on the edge, regarding the
dwellings. “How can they live so close, for all their lives? They must tread on
each other constantly.”

“You don’t live completely alone in the Outskirts, do you?”

“No, but the tribe, that’s different. It’s one’s own kin,
and comrades. When we cross another tribe, then there may be trouble.”

“The proximity can be useful. People can barter work, or
trade objects ..”

“We trade, when we have something to trade.” Bel jingled the
coins in her pouch.

“Where do you get what you trade? Do you sell part of your
herd?” The Outskirter was outraged. “The herd? Never, the herds are life!”

“For a goldsmith, gold is life.”

Bel considered this.

Rowan moved to sit beside her. The open court pleased her,
its edges crowded with shops, now silent, a pause filled with the imminence of
the next day’s activity. Events to come; movement.

“What is life for a steerswoman?”

Rowan looked at her in surprise. She had never heard the question
posed in that way. Related questions, questions direct and easy to answer, she
had often considered, but she saw that those were only pieces of this one. She
took a long time to think. Bel ventured, “Is it your books? Those charts you
take such care at?”

“No ... The books and charts are just the means to hold on
to what you learn, in a way that makes it easier for others to learn from you.
They’re a way to—” She thought carefully. “To add up learning, to accumulate it
past your own lifetime.”

“The learning itself?” The barbarian watched her with wide
dark eyes, patient and curious.

“No ...” Rowan saw that in some way the things she learned
were also only pieces. She moved her hands, shaping a space between them, tilting
the space as though investigating what lay there. “Facts, ideas fit together.
It’s the fitting, the paths that connect them, that matters. The pieces can
change, but the fitting lies beneath it all. The world is made of such
fittings.” Then she had the answer, but it seemed too large, and it sat
strangely in her mind, like an important childhood memory that explained things
that had seemed not to need explanation. “It’s the world, I suppose.”