Mapping Winter

by Marta Randall

  The hunting was good that winter. They feasted and sang through the night, praising the spirits of the animals for their pelts and their food. Her father had taken a leopard that afternoon, working alone amid the tumbled seracs in the low cirque east of the camp; its deep black pelt lay in the curing tent and its pungent meat enriched their dinner. They ate it reverently, hoping for a transmigration of the cat’s fierce, swift soul.

  Kieve sat with the cubs and watched her father with pride. Leopard so ruled Uruk that he did not need pale fur in winter. To capture and kill him was a mark of grace and distinction, and had bought for Kieve and her father a full admission to the Inguruki world. Tomorrow they would move to a kamak nearer the center of the camp, and in the spring he would be allowed to marry. Spring was a moon-turn away. These lower valleys would warm to slush and wildflowers but by then the tribe would be far north in the broad river valleys, fishing and gathering and telling summer stories, away from Myned’s dangerous borders. In the summer her real apprenticeship would begin, away from the camp for weeks at a time. She yearned for it, but even more she yearned to walk even further north, over the edge of the world. Beyond the northern mountains, the Inguruki said, the land tumbled into a sea the color of a cold green dawn, the great North Water. She dreamed of tasting its water. The drowsy heat of krath and fire eased her into sleep.

  When her father woke her the fire had burned to embers. He smelled of smoke and krath and sex. They pulled on their furs and crawled through the tunnel into the night. She held his hand as they walked through the sleeping camp and he hummed under his breath, as he always did when he’d been with a woman.

  The shadeen came the next morning. It was over swiftly, the harsh crackling of harquebus fire and a rain of bullets through the dawn light, followed by screams and battle shouts. Her father took a bullet in the chest, a fast kill, dying before he could defend himself, before he saw the yelling soldiers, before he could say goodbye. She stood frozen, unable to believe him dead, while Myned’s soldiers screamed into the camp, horses skidding in plumes of snow, swords raised and plunging. One thundered toward her father’s body and the rage of battle overcame her; she grabbed her father’s spear and stood over his body, shouting and jabbing at the soldiers. She wounded two before they overpowered her and dragged her away, still fighting. Someone hit her and she doubled over, unable to breathe, while they bound her and a huge man took her onto his saddle and turned his horse from the fight.

  “You’re lucky you curse in a civilized tongue,” he said. “Where did they take you from, child?”

  She clamped her lips tight and refused to open them, save to eat, for the next three months. Jenci was patient, Esylk amused, and the Master of Apprentices in Koerstadt Guild Hall rolled his eyes and set about civilizing her. And her father lay dead in a cold mountain meadow with a bullet in his chest.

  The Inguruki would have seen to her father, cleaning his wounds and leaving him in peace on a high rock. Now Kieve moved around Jenci’s body, tending to him in compliance with Cherek’s customs while she sifted through her memories as the Inguruki required, building the web of images that would keep Jenci alive in her mind. Together she and Daenet stripped him and washed him. Kieve remembered panniers of maps and food, his patience only partially disguised by his temper, his ribald jokes, his stubbornness, his warmth. Daenet’s hands moved in rhythm with hers. Kieve wondered if Daenet, a Cheran, thought about Jenci’s spirit sliding into The Mountain, standing for judgment before the Flail of Truth, seeking admission into the afterlife. Kieve, raised an Inguruk, knew that death was a harbinger only of itself, that beyond the first life there is no other. And that Jenci’s spirit had been given over to the keeping of her own mind and memories, the only immortality that she or the Inguruki would accept.

  They dressed him in his best tunic. She wiped blood from his cloak and held it up, shaking it a little. In the pockets she found a linen square, his own compass in its metal case, four Koerstadt stivers and one quent with something sticky on it, a twist of paper around an ancient sweet, and a splinter of bone as long as her middle finger. She put the other items back and looked at the bone while Daenet finished braiding Jenci’s hair. It wasn’t like her old teacher to keep such oddities. Daenet pressed the grey braids over the guildmaster’s shoulders.

  “Kieve,” he said. She put the bone in her pocket and looked where he pointed. “Someone has cut one of the braids.” The wiry hair stuck out an inch or so from his scalp.

  “I’ll tell Ilach,” she said.

  She spread the cloak over his ruined body. She found a dark scarf in his trunk and bound his face with it, closing his jaw. What remained of his features seemed to float above the black fur. She brushed her fingers across her dry lips and laid them on his, pulled the hood of the cloak over his face, put away the wet and bloody cloths, and left the room. Daenet, coming after her, let the curtains down. They rustled in the silence.

  A small fire burned in the woodstove. Lady Esylk sat before it, her hands folded motionless in her lap. Four of her men-at-arms stood against the walls, hands on sword hilts. Behind them, the windows were dark with storm.

  “Lady,” Kieve said, inclining her head.

  Esylk rose. “They spoke of an accident.”

  “No accident.”

  The lady’s pale skin was splotched with crying. “May I see him?”

  Kieve raised the curtain and stepped back. Esylk walked into Jenci’s room and stood by the bed while her soldiers came behind. Kieve put her hands in her sleeves; her fingers felt cold against her elbows. Esylk moved the cloak’s hood from Jenci’s face and looked at him.

  “There’s no doubt?”

  “I saw the guildmark, Lady.”

  “Ah.” She traced the curve of eyebrow. “In the arms of the Mother,” she murmured. She bent to kiss the ruined lips. The soldiers moved behind her, rising on tiptoe to see. Esylk straightened. “Tell me,” she said.

  Kieve told her about Lapsi and Gaura, about the wind and cold on Lord’s Walk. She showed Jenci’s token, his mutilated hand, the finger resting in its bloody box.

  “Why?” Esylk said when she was done.

  “I think to force my pledge, lady. They hurt him to reach me, and when they could not reach me, they killed him.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, Lady, whose hands did this. I’ll learn.”

  “And then?”

  Kieve closed the wooden box and put it back in her cloak. “What did you do, Lady, when your father died?”

  The lady nodded and laid the hood over Jenci’s broken face.

  * * * *

  Ilach led them up the stairs of Cadoc’s tower. The stairs and hallway were crowded and people grumbled as they pressed against the walls, then silenced as they saw Ilach’s entourage. Under their cloaks, Kieve and Daenet wore the full uniform of the Riders Guild, the deep black of tunic and breeches hemmed by crimson piping, high supple black boots, the guildmark in gold glowing on the left breast. Ilach had also dressed formally in the red and grey and blue and brown of his guild in Dalmorat. Esylk, in contrast, wore simple white.

  The guards watched them coming and dropped their spears, crossed, to bar the way. One banged his heel against the door as they stopped. It opened and Endres emerged. He closed the door and rested his large hands on his hips, regarding Ilach.

  “Commander Ilach Shadi, on business of the province to my master, the Lord of Dalmorat,” Ilach said.

  Endres nodded. “I have heard your sad news, commander. Lord Cadoc does not wish to be interrupted—”

  “He has no choice,” Ilach said. “A guildmaster has been murdered in his castle.” Voices rustled behind him and died again. “This is not something he can put aside.”

  “Endres,” Kieve said. “Let us in.”

  He hesitated a moment longer, then turned and threw open the doors.

  The antechamber was warm and stuffy and no physicians huddled here now. Instead the advisors and retainers of the four heirs crow
ded the rooms, strictly kept spaces separating each group from the others. Their buzzing conversation halted. Some bowed or knelt to Lady Esylk, who ignored them. The flock of seminarians, invisible behind the advisors, banged and chanted and sang, desperate to attract the attention of the gods. At Endres’ gesture the massive inner doors opened. Kieve followed Ilach through them into Cadoc’s room.

  The heirs had been shouting, gathered around the old man’s bed, but they jerked around to stare at the door. Isbael bent forward over the bed, fists braced against the bedclothes as she yelled at her brother. She straightened and put her hands in her sleeves. He, red faced, leaned toward her from the other side of the bed. His mouth snapped shut as he moved back and glared at the newcomers. Isbael nodded at Esylk. Drysi’s fingers pressed against her lips under wide eyes. She left them there, blinking over her fingernails like an owl. Cairun frowned, his gaze flickering from one to the next and spending no more time on Kieve than on Daenet or Esylk. Kieve made her obeisance to Lord Cadoc’s skeletal form. He lifted his hand a little. Ilach and his companions rose.

  “Commander,” the lord whispered. “What news?”

  “Grave news, my Lord,” Ilach said, and told the story as if he did not know that Cadoc already knew it, as if he did not know that this gathering of heirs had been driven by precisely that news. They heard him out in silence. Kieve watched Cadoc over Ilach’s shoulder. The old man stared at his commander, black eyes hard and sharp in his ravaged face. She had given Ilach Jenci’s guild token and his finger in its box. He laid them on the cover, over Cadoc’s lap. When he was done the old man touched the guild token and stared into the bloody box. Drysi stuffed her fingers into her mouth. Cairun stared across the bed at Kieve and Isbael stared at Gadyn, who looked away from her, lips tight.

  “Busy, busy, busy,” Isbael said.

  Her brother turned on her. “What are you implying, sister? You have something to say to me?”

  She raised her hands, palms up, the picture of innocence. Gadyn spat at the floor and turned toward the bed.

  “Father, this is ridiculous. The old man got drunk and went into the storm and fell. Obviously. Who would want to kill a guildmaster?” He looked around the room and said it again: “Who here would be so foolish as to kill a guildmaster?”

  “With respect, Lord Gadyn,” Ilach said, “the person who was so foolish as to torture a guildmaster would kill him to hide the first crime with a greater one.”

  Cairun’s jaw tightened but he said nothing. Neither did Isbael, and a brief silence settled over the room. Into it, Cadoc coughed.

  “The Guildmaster did not. Cut off his. Own finger,” the old man said. “Only a madman. Would do that. Only an idiot. Would. Do it for him. An idiot.” He coughed again. Isbael, who stood nearest to it, took a cloth from the table to wipe his face, but he jerked his head away from her. She dropped the cloth on the coverlet and put her hands back into her sleeves.

  “There was a Trapper shout,” Drysi said suddenly, moving her fingers from her mouth. “We all heard it. A Trapper shout, just a few nights before this. A Trapper. It must have been.”

  “Yes.” Gadyn nodded. “No Cheran would do this deed, this foul deed. Not to murder a guildmaster.”

  Kieve felt Esylk shift behind her.

  “A guildmaster’s life is sacred,” Cairun said, agreeing. Gadyn glanced at him obliquely.

  “Why?” Isbael said. “How benefits a Trapper, to kill the Rider Guildmaster?”

  “Commander?” Cadoc said.

  Ilach shook his head a little. “A Trapper cry was reported five nights ago. I investigated but found no sign of Trappers on Sterk. I believe it was a prank, probably played by someone who spent some time on the border.”

  Daenet moved a little beside Kieve and stilled.

  “I do not believe there is a Trapper on Sterk, my lord,” the commander said.

  “But one could be hiding anywhere,” Drysi said. “Anywhere. This castle is full of hiding places, old places, tunnels, old rooms, forgotten places, hidden ones, a Trapper could hide anywhere and who would know? Who would know where he was, sneaking into the castle to kill people?”

  “Lady Drysi,” Ilach said sharply enough to get her attention. “My lady, there is nothing to fear. My shadeen would have found a Trapper on Sterk, or Endres’ guard would see him. You must not spread such rumors, my lady.” She stared at him, eyes wide, as though he was speaking nonsense.

  “Drysi,” Esylk’s calm voice said. “Trapper rumors will panic the people. They are our responsibility. We must not let them be worried needlessly.”

  Drysi blinked and nodded slowly. “I—I renounce,” she said. “A guildmaster’s death. No. There was not—nobody was supposed to die. I don’t—I renounce.” She turned to Cadoc. “Do you hear me, uncle? I renounce my claim. To the sword.”

  A small silence followed, broken by Gadyn’s snort of satisfaction.

  “Shut up,” Cadoc said to him.

  “We will increase our vigilance,” Ilach said. “Believe me, lady, if there is a Trapper on Sterk he will be found.”

  “But no one has explained,” Isbael said, “why a Trapper would chop off the Guildmaster’s finger and send it to the Rider in a little wooden box.” She turned her wide black gaze toward Kieve. “Perhaps the Rider would care to speculate?”

  They all looked at her then, save for Ilach in front of her. His shoulders moved a little. Kieve thought for a moment, then said, “With all respect, lady, I think that speculation will not help us. As Lady Esylk has said, rumors will panic the people. The storm continues, there is no way off Sterk. Whoever killed my Guildmaster will be here for a while at least. The Commander will find him.”

  “Your faith in a provincial commander is touching.” A flat edge of anger rode Isbael’s voice.

  “My commander,” Cadoc said from his pillows. He was looking at Kieve. She couldn’t read his expression under the mask of his illness. “My commander will. Find the killer. Ilach will. Begin an. Investigation. Once I am. Well again.”

  “My Lord!” Kieve said. “This is not a game.”

  “Am I gaming? I can’t do. Justice with. One foot. On the Mountain. And this is. Justice. For a lord. To do.” His expression resolved to one of malicious amusement. “This lord or. The next. It makes little. Difference.”

  “The Koerstadt Council—” she said.

  “A lord will. Sit justice. On this,” Cadoc said. “Swear it. All of you. Whoever takes. The sword. Sits. Justice. On this. Guildmaster’s. Death. Swear it now.”

  They gave their oaths, Isbael gravely, Cairun’s oath flat and almost angry, Gadyn Marubin with exaggerated formality. Drysi refused. Kieve turned away, furious.

  “Rider! Did I give. Leave. To leave?”

  Kieve’s shoulders stiffened. She turned back. Lord Cadoc leaned against his pillows, grinning.

  “Go then. Little bitch. Go and. Go and go.”

  She forced herself to kneel to her master, forced herself to wait until Ilach led them from the room. The crowd in the antechamber shied away, as did the crowd in the hallway. Kieve concentrated on Ilach’s shape ahead of her, pushing the anger down, and down, and inside.

  “Kieve?” Daenet said as they went down the stairs, but she ignored him.

  At the foot of the stairs Ilach raised his hand and they stopped. A small knot of shadeen came to surround them.

  “My lady,” Ilach said to Esylk. “I thank you for bearing witness.”

  She nodded and left, followed by two shadeen at a respectful distance. An escort, Kieve thought. Wise of him. Ilach turned to Daenet.

  “Rider, I cannot command you, but I would like to talk with you. In my barracks, I think. Will you come?”

  Daenet hesitated, then shrugged. “If you wish,” he said.

  The commander turned to Kieve. For a moment she didn’t understand his cold gaze, until she remembered Braith and the rumors of Kieve’s promised allegiance. She put her shoulders back, but Ilach said only, “You might gather the
Guildmaster’s belongings. His apprentice—can you keep the boy?”

  Kieve nodded but said, “I want to work with you.”

  “I am not working—you heard our master. I am forbidden to investigate this death.” He said it calmly, but the corners of his mouth were white. He glanced at the gathered soldiers. “Puwan, Glyn, go with the Rider.”

  “I don’t need an escort,” Kieve said as two soldiers came to stand beside her. One of them was the big, red-haired soldier who had shown Pyrs how to fight with a cheese knife. The other, a small, round man, was unfamiliar to her.

  “It’s not an escort,” Ilach said. “It’s a bodyguard.” He put his hand on Daenet’s arm and turned him into the remaining soldiers. Daenet sent one long, undecipherable look over his shoulder at Kieve and allowed himself to be led away. Kieve, fuming, led her two soldiers down the hall toward Jenci’s rooms.

  * * * *

  By midnight Jenci’s trunks were locked into one of Adwyr’s storerooms. The soldiers sat in Kieve’s outer room on either side of the door and Lapsi lay on Pyrs’ pallet, having cried himself to sleep. She had left Jenci in his bed, the fire quenched and the windows opened to admit the preserving cold, and an honor guard of castle soldiers with him. Kieve cradled a cup of apato between her palms and thought about him, trying to find a place for his death in her mind. Did Inguruki souls disappear like smoke, and Cheran souls find their way into the Mountain? Would Jenci’s soul meet bewildered Inguruki who had expected finality and now found themselves awake in an afterlife they didn’t believe in? Or was Jenci gone, as finally as her father was gone, leaving nothing behind but meat and bones to be returned to the world?