Steerswoman

by Kirstein, Rosemary

  The Outskirter eyed her. “Have you never seen a dead person?”

  “Yes, I have. But I never so nearly was one. Had you not been here—but I think he was counting on that. He didn’t know we were traveling together. He left before we did.”

  “You’re sure he was there?”

  She nodded. “He was one of the five soldiers. He was wearing red then.”

  Bel looked back. “Well, he’s wearing red now.”

  4

  It was the sea at last.

  They had spent the last two days trudging along the damp road that traced the edge of the mud flats, and when the road turned in and became too undependable they found rides on various rafts and flat barges that wandered among the estuaries. Those waterways widened imperceptibly until it finally became clear that the travelers had reached the shallows of the Inland Sea.

  Rowan found herself standing taller, looser, her legs prepared to adjust to changes in footing, even though there were yet no perceptible waves. She was home. She had never been to this port before, knew of it only from her maps. It did not matter; she was home, as the sea was the home of every steerswoman.

  The sea had shaped the order, defining the necessary nature of Steersmanship by its own variable nature. The need of precision in knowledge, adaptability in action, clarity in thought, and always the need to know more, to complete one’s understanding—all these grew from the dangers of the changing sea, and from the endless sky. They lodged in the hearts of the steerswomen and stayed however long they might travel dusty inland roads. Rowan herself, born on flat dry farmland on the edge of the Red Desert, on the far northern limit of every map drawn—Rowan, who never saw the sea for the first eighteen years of her life—still knew it as her home, the home of her heart and mind.

  Bel sat quietly on a bale of wool, carefully erect and unmoving. She watched the wide spaces around the barge as if they might sprout enemies; not nervously, but warily. Rowan could not tell how much of the scene the barbarian was assimilating. Finally they rounded a curve of the shoreline, and the wharves and buildings of Donner came into view.

  Donner made a poor port, but it was a necessary one. The Greyriver was a natural road to the sea, allowing easier and cheaper shipment than the caravans provided. But there was no deep harbor there, and the ships anchored far out from the river’s mouth. Barges shifted cargo and people from the town to the sailing vessels, providing ample though intermittent local employment, and a certain amount of congestion on the water. The barges competed for greatest speed and capacity, so that as their boat neared the docks, Rowan and Bel found themselves surrounded by great masses hurtling in every direction. The air was full of voices clamoring warnings, curses and demands of right-of-way. The cause of all the turmoil, a mere three ships, stood off in the distance, calm and almost disdainful.

  Ashore, Rowan wove through the busy longshoremen. Bel followed in her wake, watching everything with cheerful caution.

  They made their way into the thickest part of the crowd and found there a short squat woman directing the action with sharp shouts. She carried a slate that she consulted and marked regularly.

  Rowan called to her. “What ships are those?”

  “Go away, I’m busy!”

  “I’m a steerswoman.”

  “Damn! Wait, then.” Rowan and Bel waited as the woman laboriously simplified a complex set of orders for a blank-faced trio of beefy men, all the while making marks with a black crayon on various boxes and crates carried to and from the place where she stood. The three men wandered off dubiously, and she wrote on her slate.

  Without slackening her activity, she spoke to the two women. “That’s the Beria, out of Southport, for one—and their navigator jumped ship; you’ll be welcome there.”

  “Where bound?”

  “Southport again. Then The Crags.”

  “By way of the Islands?”

  “No.” She spared an instant to eye the steerswoman. “Sailing west from Southport. Wizard on board; he promises protection. I wouldn’t risk it.”

  For a moment Rowan’s heart cried to take that trip; to travel, protected, into that small corner of the sea from which few ships returned.

  “Is this wizard Red?” Bel asked.

  As she remembered the Red soldiers at the inn, and the attack of the night that followed, Rowan’s dreams froze in midflight. “Blue. Our wizard, Jannik, he’s Blue. Someone saw him talking to this fellow.”

  Rowan nodded. The Crags had been Blue for as long as anyone remembered. Still, where wizards were concerned, that was no guarantee of permanence.

  She called to the woman again. “We’re looking to get to WuIfshaven.”

  “The Morgan’s Chance. And calling at no other ports on the way. They’ll be heavy laden, and the cabins all booked.”

  “Who’s the captain?”

  “Morgan. At the Tea Shop.” She pointed without looking up.

  They found the establishment overlooking a weedy estuary, the patrons dining and socializing on a broad veranda with dark-stained rails, under the hazy off-white skies. The noise of the distant docks was a faint clamor, and sea gulls swooped above, alert for opportunities for poaching. The clientele was cheerful and chatted quietly over the music of a lap harp played by a tinker who occasionally raked his audience with a gaze of infinite disdain. His opinion went completely unnoticed.

  Rowan asked a few quiet questions, and presently she and the Outskirter found themselves standing before a table where two men were poring over a navigational chart. Beside that stood two mugs, a pot of peppermint tea, and a small pottery carafe labeled “Brandy” in fanciful script.

  The man seated on the left examined the women dubiously. He was lean, almost gaunt, with glossy black hair and sea-blue eyes. He and his mate were relaxed, comfortable, and dressed in clean clothes. By contrast the two women were travel-worn and somewhat bedraggled, and more than somewhat unscrubbed. They still carried their packs and wore their swords. When Morgan noticed the silver steerswoman’s ring Rowan wore on her left hand, he smiled and pulled two wicker chairs from a nearby table. The women seated themselves. “How can I be of assistance?”

  Rowan drew a breath. “We need passage to Wulfshaven.”

  He raised his eyebrows and looked off across the water. “My ship is booked. Possibly I can ask one of my officers to shift in with another.” The other man winced; evidently one of those officers would be himself.

  Rowan gestured negatively. “I don’t want to inconvenience anyone. Perhaps there’s room to sling another hammock among the crew members?”

  “You wouldn’t be offended?”

  She laughed. “Not in the least.”

  “There are some who would be.” He rubbed the side of his nose, still gazing into the distance. “We’ll do well on this trip, but I have some debts,” he said carefully. “I can’t afford at this point to lose any money. I’ll have to ask you to pay for your food, or bring your own.”

  Rowan made a rapid calculation involving the prevailing winds, the local weather patterns, and the size of Morgan’s ship. She compared the resulting length of voyage to the number of coins in her pocket, with a guess at Donner’s market prices. “That’s not a problem.”

  “Good. If you can bring food that doesn’t need preparation, all the better. Our cook’s shorthanded as it is. We’ve never had so many passengers.”

  “Spring,” his companion suggested. “Wanderlust.”

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

  “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 generou
sly 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 bu
ndled 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.