Mapping Winter

by Marta Randall

  “Gaura?”

  She took a deep breath. “I think it’s started,” she said. It took Kieve a moment to realize that she meant the baby.

  “Do you want to go back to the stables?”

  Gaura shook her head. “No! No child of mine will be born in a stable.”

  They rested for a moment, pulled on their snow-masks, stayed a minute longer waiting for Gaura, then came out of the passageway and into the ward. Lines had been strung along the building. They followed them around the corner and into the face of the wind. Sleet drove at them. Kieve clung to the lines, forcing herself to squint, trying not to remember the pain of ice in her eyes. A gust caught Lapsi and he lost his footing. For a moment it seemed that the storm would take them all, but Glyn grabbed him and pulled him to her. They all strained for a moment, catching their balance, and shoved through the last few feet. They fell through the barracks door. Gaura leaned back against the wall of cloaks, panting, her hands cradling her belly. Kieve pulled her cloak off, shaking ice from its folds.

  “Ah, gifts of the storm.” Kieve put her snow-mask in her cloak’s pocket and turned to find Daenet standing at the door to the great room. He held a cup and looked tired and sardonic and drunk. “Come to add to the festivities?”

  “Not now,” she said. She hung the cloak on the wall. “I need Braith, is she here?”

  “She was here, and being flung about like a sack of cats,” Daenet said. “The commander decided that there’s nothing like a bit of physical mayhem to keep the troops in line, and there they are to the very least of them, busy doing damage to each other. Not to mention the furnishings.” He sipped at the cup. “Another quaint Northern custom you didn’t tell me about. The commander and his second hammered the troops and saw fit to disappear.” Kieve pushed him aside and ushered Gaura into the room.

  The tables and benches had been stacked against the walls, the floor covered with straw. The castle troops were at practice, swords in one corner, staves in another, and in the middle of the floor the supple weave of wrestling and throwing. The practice master, in the midst of it, kept the storm of bodies moving to the beat and rhythm of his voice. Kieve turned aside to search for Braith. Puwan spoke to a cadet and nodded.

  “They’re in quarters. Come.”

  “And Cadoc?”

  Puwan shrugged. They followed the cadet around the edges of the room. Daenet came with them, picking his way among the furniture. Kieve saw Pren and detoured to convey Lud’s request for food. Pren nodded and went back to belaboring someone with a stave. Three separate soldiers barked at Puwan, who made his back straight and would not look toward them.

  “The noise is amazing, isn’t it?” Daenet said when they had reached the relative quiet by the stairs.

  “I thought you’d be back in Kyst’s quarters,” Kieve said.

  “It appears I was inconveniently unseen during certain times yesterday that Commander Ilach assures me are of vital importance. Perhaps your servant Gaura will vouch for me, when she is done doubling. And it was known that Master Jenci intended to sack me.” He stared at Kieve.

  “It is a small island,” she said. “There are no secrets on it.”

  He grunted, unconvinced. “Also, he says, he will not lose another Rider and wants me safely under his wing. Or foot. Or ass.” He snorted. “And so,” he said, following her up the narrow stairs, “I spend my time contemplating the flower of Northern warriorhood, and an amazing and enlightening time it has been.”

  Kieve put her hand to the wall. Perhaps Ilach was investigating despite Cadoc’s orders. The cadet scurried up the stairs ahead of them, her braids bouncing against her shoulders. Gaura leaned on Lapsi’s shoulder and had to stop again when they reached the top of the stairs.

  “I haven’t bought prayers,” she said to Kieve. “All the seminarians were busy with Cadoc. There’s no one to pray for the baby, or me.”

  Kieve cursed. “Give me your money. I’ll find someone.”

  Gaura put her hand in her pocket and brought out a twist of cloth. Kieve transferred it to her own pocket.

  “You won’t forget?” Gaura said, pleading.

  Braith came into the hallway just as Gaura’s water broke.

  “You need a midwife?” she said. “Yes, I see that you do.”

  Within a few moments Gaura had been led into another room. The cadet took Lapsi back down the stairs, under orders to find the boy something to eat and something to drink and something to do. Lapsi looked at Kieve for a moment before he turned his back on her and followed the girl down the stairs.

  She stared after him, then looked at Braith, who was no longer her friend because she believed a rumor. Braith stepped aside to let her into the room she shared with Ilach, who had set a guard on her for reasons that, Kieve knew, were only a little bit about herself. And behind her came Daenet, whose position in their guild had been at risk because Jenci wanted his place for Kieve. Whom Jenci loved and who, according to Lapsi, had been insufficiently loved in return. For a moment the world froze. Ilach, unsmiling, handed her a cup of warm spiced wine.

  Despite his protests, Braith pushed Daenet out and closed the door. A man turned from the fireplace, his presence so unexpected that it took Kieve a moment to recognized him as Endres. He looked at her without smiling.

  “Captain,” she said, nodding at him. His head jerked in return.

  “Why aren’t you in your rooms?” Ilach demanded. “It’s safer there.”

  In answer, Kieve took the Maccus from her pocket and dropped it on his table. “A gift,” she said. “Delivered during the storm and pinned to my door with a kitchen knife.” Ilach stared at it. “Whoever killed my guildmaster has not given up. What are you going to do about it?”

  The commander gestured at Endres. “I am paralyzed in this,” he said to her. “And the captain refuses to help.” Kieve realized she had come into an argument already hot.

  “I did not refuse,” Endres said. “I am forbidden.”

  “I think not,” Ilach said. “I am forbidden from pursuing this matter. No such injunction was laid against you.”

  “It doesn’t need to be.” Endres raked his hand through his curls, which sprang up behind his fingers. “He doesn’t need to forbid me anything, he simply needs not to allow it. Can’t you understand the difference?”

  “All I understand,” Ilach said, “is that a murder has been committed during my watch, in my castle, and I am forbidden by politics from doing my duty. And you, who of anybody should be close to this crime, refuse to help. Great Father, Endres, this is the murder of a guildmaster we face, not the death of minor lordling or petty shopkeeper.”

  “So you have said,” the captain responded. “And I say again, what matter is it to me? The guilds do nothing for the Guards, they make no room for us and hinder us at every turn.” He swept his hand before him. “We are the ones who take the jobs the guilds are too delicate to undertake, we fill the niches the guilds leave empty or do not care to acknowledge. So tell me, Commander Ilach of the Shadeen Guild, why I should give a rat’s ass, even were it not forbidden to me, to help your precious guilds?”

  Ilach’s temples throbbed. Kieve said, “Because Gadyn is a stinking amateur, as you once said. We all know that he is behind this death. If it goes unsolved before Cadoc dies, Gadyn will take the sword. He arranged the death of a guildmaster. Think what will he do to those who do not support his claim.” She put her wine cup down. “You told me you did not want to work for Gadyn. Your oath is to the sword, not to Cadoc. If you will not help the guilds, you should at least help yourself.”

  A moment of silence followed before Endres said, “I cannot. I too am under an oath, as much as any of you. I cannot act in this business unless specifically set to it by my lord. Unless Cadoc tells me to undertake this task, I—can—not—do—it.”

  Ilach cursed and turned his back to them.

  “You gave me my boy back,” Kieve said. “You were not told to do that.”

  “Not the same, and you
know it,” Endres said.

  “Why not?” Kieve demanded.

  “Because Cadoc’s hand was not in it,” Endres said. “Not clearly in it.”

  “And you believe it is in this?”

  Endres put his cup down hard. “Commander, I cannot investigate this for you. I want to, perhaps even more than you do. But I cannot do it.”

  As the door closed behind him Ilach flung his winecup across the room. It shattered against the door, spraying shards of porcelain and red wine.

  “Ilach,” Braith said.

  “What?” he demanded. “Am I to keep my temper? That bastard forces me to break my oath, my prime oath. He throws himself and his odious succession between myself and my duty, as though—as though he supersedes all of it, as though he has the right to control everything, everything, everything.”

  Braith spread her hands. Kieve laughed. Ilach glared at her.

  “Am I to sympathize, Commander? When I was skewered between oath and oath, you chose to believe rumor and turned your back to me. And here you are, skewered as I was.”

  “It is different,” he said with fury.

  “It is not. We each made a prime oath to our guilds and a second one to this lord, and in both cases he subverts the first by exercising the second. Am I to dredge up a pity rag and wring it for you, over this?”

  “You know nothing,” Ilach said. “You have spent four years here feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “As you will spend the next four?” The last of her temper broke. “Gadyn will take the sword, Commander, unless he is stopped. Gadyn will be your Lord, to order as he pleases, unless he dispenses with you entirely. What of your precious prime oath then? How will you keep the peace in Cherek, if you cannot even keep it on Sterk?”

  “You charge me with self-pity? You have just one more year of your oath, even if Cadoc lives. One year only, and you have spent every moment since Cadoc’s illness swearing how quickly you will leave. And well you should, Kieve Rider. If the network falters, even by a little, the people of this province will pull you from your big black horse and rip you apart.”

  “It was not my choice!”

  “You still Took,” he shouted back at her. “You still Took. And if you are Gadyn’s—”

  “I am not,” she yelled. “I am not anyone’s!” She put her hand to the door latch and pushed it open and slammed it closed behind her.

  Her hand stung. She looked down, cursed, and pulled out the bright shard of porcelain that must have clung to the door latch, and been pushed into her palm. She put her hand to her mouth and sucked away the blood.

  “Very exciting in there,” Daenet said. He slumped against the wall nearby. “Screaming and yelling and marchings in and out, and the sound of shattering. A waste of good wine too, I’d imagine.”

  “Get up,” she said. “You disgrace the guild.”

  “Ah, I disgrace the guild,” he said. Puwan and Glyn, who had waited opposite him, grabbed him by the armpits and brought him to his feet. “Mother forbid it, that I should disgrace this guild. Mother forbid.”

  Kieve cursed. “Find yourself a bed, Daenet. Sleep.”

  “But I can’t,” he said. “I am to be made guilty for the death of the guildmaster. I intend to enjoy as much of life as I can before then.”

  “Horse shit.” She started down the narrow staircase. He followed, hands braced on either wall.

  “It’s not a pretty death,” he said, “when they kill you for killing a guildmaster. It last happened, what, over one hundred and fifty years ago? They used iron and fire and rope, I think. Yes, rope too. It took quite a long time.”

  “You will not be punished for anything,” she said. “Unless I do it, for being drunk and stupid.”

  “Yes? The commander can’t spit between being sworn and being sworn, and everyone knows it. So he will keep me close to hand, just in case he needs to prove his devotion to duty by producing a villain in jig time.” Daenet giggled. “A jigging villain. Fit for this jigging, damned province.”

  She cursed again and speeded up. Daenet’s footsteps stumbled behind her, followed and overtaken by the hard knock of boot heels.

  “Rider.”

  She turned at the base of the stairs to look up at Ilach. Puwan and Glyn stood pressed against the stairwell walls behind him. He carried the gong in his hand and, as she watched, he hit it with his sword hilt. The sound boomed into and across the hall. He met its echoes with another great bang.

  He waited until its last reverberations shuddered away, taking all the noise within the hall. Into the silence, he said, “The Lord Cadoc has ordered me, and all under my command, to do nothing to investigate the murder of Jenci, Rider Guildmaster, until Lord Cadoc is well, or until the sword has passed. So it shall be.”

  A low murmur filled the hall. It wasn’t news to them. Ilach waited it out, staring down the stairs at Kieve. She folded her arms and stared back.

  “The Lord Cadoc has not ordered me, or any under my command, to hinder another’s investigation of the Guildmaster’s death.” He came down the steps and pressed something into her hand. She looked down to see Jenci’s guild token and the box that held his finger. Ilach stared at her until she acknowledged his continuing anger, before he turned and went back up the stairs.

  “And what, by the Father’s armpit, is that supposed to mean?” Puwan said, coming around Daenet. Daenet had his hands pressed tight against his ears. His eyes looked wild.

  Kieve didn’t answer. The two soldiers and Daenet trailed her along the margins of the room toward the largest fireplace. As she passed groups of soldiers they stood straight, arms crossed against their chests and hands on shoulders in a sign of respect. For Jenci, she realized. The practice master had called a break and the hall filled with a murmur of voices, calls for water or beer, the scrape of benches dragged away from the walls.

  She came to the fireplace and stood with her back to it, warming herself. Her hand curled around the box and token. After a moment she put them in her pocket. As she did so, her fingers touched the twist with Gaura’s money. She had promised, and this business could not wait. The soldiers had their own seminarian. She wondered where he was.

  Despite the feeling of crowded, moving bodies, less than half the castle’s complement were present. The rest would be in the bulk of the castle, keeping order amid the boredom of the storm. Daenet fell into a pile of clothing beside the hearth and, moments later, passed out. Kieve pulled him upright and set his back against the wall, propping him up. If he threw up, at least he wouldn’t die of it.

  She left him there and went around the hall to the small closet kept aside for worship. The seminarian lay wrapped in blankets, asleep in front of the altar. The little room was dim and chilly and undecorated save for the alter itself, a block of stone incised to look like wood. Above it, the symbol of the Father leaned out from the wall and up, a giant phallus. Kieve kept her face smooth, as she had learned to do in Cherek with all their god-things. The Inguruki believed in no such divine farrago, seeing only spirits within the world and a vast, comforting nothingness after it. Kieve came into the tiny room; Glyn and Puwan hung back, unwilling to enter.

  Kieve put her hand to the seminarian’s shoulder. “Wake up,” she said, shaking him a little. “Wake up.”

  He pushed her away without opening his eyes. She rocked back on her heels.

  “He’s been with Cadoc,” Glyn hissed from the doorway. “All the seminarians—”

  She brought Gaura’s money out of her pocket, emptied it into her hand, and shook it by the seminarian’s ear. This time his eyes opened.

  “What do you want?” he demanded, yawning.

  “There’s a woman upstairs in childbirth. She hasn’t been able to buy prayers. I want you to pray for her.” Kieve rattled the money again.

  The man cursed and sat up. His robes had twisted sideways. “How much?”

  “Twelve stivers.” He sighed and stood, shaking his clothing into place. Kieve dug into her pocket, cursing Chera
n superstition. She added another stiver to the pile and put them into his hand. “See that you do it right,” she said.

  He nodded and took up his box and left the room. She stood alone for a moment, looking at the thorny upright nailed to the wall. Behind it, like a shadow, painted texts crowded together into one dark blur. She walked back into the Great Hall and around to the fireplace.

  Dunun stood nearby, a group of soldiers behind him.

  “Rider,” he said. “We grieve with you, for the death of your guildmaster.”

  She nodded. “I thank you. Shared grief is more easily borne,” she said. The words, his and hers, were ritual.

  “Rider,” Pren said from behind him. “We hear rumors, nothing more.”

  “Right,” Dunun said. “Ilach’s not talking.”

  “With respect, Rider, what happened?”

  They looked at her, curious, attentive, some frowning a little, more crowding together. The narrow stairwell was empty. She took a deep breath and let it out.

  “Will you hear the news?” she said. The ring of quiet spread as the soldiers sat around her, until the hall was silent. She pitched her voice to fill it and told them what she knew of Jenci’s last day. She held Jenci’s guild token before them and opened the box and showed them his severed finger.

  “Who?” one of them said.

  “Who took him to Lord’s Walk, and blinded him, and let him go?” Kieve shrugged. “I don’t know whose hands did this.”

  “The servant,” Pren said. “She would know who sent her with the message.”

  “If I can find her,” Kieve said. “Only Jenci and his apprentice Lapsi saw her, and they do not know the castle’s folk.” She frowned. “But the apothecary may have seen something, she may remember something more.”

  Dunun crossed his arms. “If she does, she won’t tell,” he said. “She died last night.”

  “She died...” Kieve echoed

  “Of what?” Braith said. She had come to listen to Kieve and now stood across the hearth from her. Kieve raised an eyebrow. Braith shrugged. “This is a question of the apothecary’s death,” she said. “I can speak about that.”