8
The first sign of the approach to Wulfshaven was not a view of the mainland itself, but of one and then a series of small islands that swept south from the still-distant mouth of the great river Wulf. The islands were mostly unclaimed, bare earth and rock, but as the Morgan’s Chance neared the port itself, there were more signs of human hands. Occasionally an island would actually be inhabited, usually by a lone fisherman feeding the land by the offal of his or her trade. More often one of the regularly planned dumps of garbage or a deposit of other fertilizing substances had brought to life some still-deserted island, creating isolated spots of green, lonely but promising.
Rowan and Bel found a place on the poop, out of the way of the increasing activity. Bel sat comfortably on the deck with her back against the aft railing. She had donned her shaggy boots and cloak, to ward off the chill sweeping down from the windy gray sky.
The previous day Rowan had made her farewells with Tyson. After the death of Reeder’s boy, he had become ever more distant and solitary, shunning Rowan and conversing with the captain and crew only at need. Rowan could find no comfortable way to approach him, no way to learn why the child’s death had affected him so personally. They parted as strangers.
Now Rowan stood near Bel, watching the maneuvers with interest. Although Morgan strode about the deck with an air of nonchalance, his glance was sharp, and his orders quick and precise. The heavy ship wallowed with all the grace he could muster and, in one lovely, astonishing move, sidled up to the wharf, its sails luffing the instant it barely nudged the dock. Morgan allowed himself a small smile, then turned away as if the matter concerned him not at all.
Wulfshaven was a deep harbor, and unloading and disembarking was a far simpler affair than at Donner. A railed gangplank bridged the shifting gap between the wharf and the ship’s starboard side. With no luggage to unload, Rowan and Bel simply walked across the plank, and so arrived at last in Wulfshaven.
The steerswoman led the way, skirting a small crowd consisting of a well-dressed portly man leading a nattering group of less elegant fellows: a merchant, with clerks in tow. A number of smaller vessels were docked along the length of the wharf, some of them sailboats in such bad repair that their status had clearly been shifted from transportation to permanent abode. Children hooted and chattered and clattered past to investigate the Morgan’s Chance.
The wind picked up briefly as they reached the end of the wharf. Rowan had returned Tyson’s cloak; she shivered.
“Do you want my cloak?” Bel offered.
“And leave you with just that blouse? No, I’ll get another soon enough.” She led Bel left, along a broad, weather-beaten esplanade.
“How soon? Are we going somewhere in particular?”
“I have friends here. We’ll spend the night with one of them, Maranne, a healer. I lodged with her during my training. I think you’ll like her.” Shops lined the shore side of the esplanade. They passed a chandlery, a sail loft, and a rope-walk.
“I thought the Archives were north of here.”
“They are. One doesn’t train at the Archives.” Rowan stopped suddenly beside a filigreed iron pole. “What’s this?” The pole stood twice as tall as a man and was surmounted by a translucent white sphere. Bel paused while the steerswoman circled, studying it.
Rowan pulled aside a passerby, a fisherman by his dress, and put a question to him. He replied with surprise. “You’re new here? That’s a lamp. They’re all along the harbor.”
Rowan looked down the street and saw another at the next corner, and the next; they lined the business street along the harbor, clustering around the open square that fronted the Trap and Net tavern farther down. “But there’s no opening,” she said. “How can they light the wicks?”
The fisherman beamed with an air of civic pride. “No wicks. They’re magic. A gift from Corvus.” He hurried on his way. “Come see them at night!” he called back. “There’s nothing like it!” The women watched as he continued down to the Trap and Net, where he noisily greeted a crowd of cronies outside.
“Corvus?” Bel asked.
“The local wizard,” Rowan said, turning back to the lamp. “Blue. Though he was Red when I was here last.” Abandoning her inspection, she led the Outskirter down the street, brooding. “Why would Corvus give Wulfshaven such a gift?”
“Out of friendship?” Bel’s gait had naturally acquired a bit of a roll during their voyage, and she weaved slightly as she tried to compensate for nonexistent waves. “I know the steerswomen don’t like wizards, but surely the wizards do a great deal of good? This Corvus, doesn’t he help the town at all?”
Rain sprinkled the street briefly, then stopped. A woman pushing a pastry cart paused and viewed the shifting sky with annoyance. “Yes,” Rowan admitted, angling around the cart. “He’ll predict the weather, sometimes, and always if there’s a heavy gale. And if the fishing is poor, he’ll give advice that’s always true. Still— “ Spotting something ahead, she walked faster to the next corner.
A small man was working at the next lamppost, stooping down to deal with something at its base. On the ground beside him lay a leather shoulder satchel, and he periodically removed and replaced items in it with an air of confidence and satisfaction.
Rowan spoke as she approached him, but he cut her off cheerfully. “Hold on a bit, now, this won’t take a moment,” he said, and continued with his work. Rowan could see that he had opened a small panel, disguised by the filigree, and was involved with something inside.
“There.” He shut the panel and locked it with a tiny key dangling by a cord from his wrist. Looking up, he appraised the two women. “Now, how can I help you?”
“I’m wondering about these new lamps,” Rowan began.
“Lovely, aren’t they?” He slapped the pole familiarly. “You must be strangers.” He gave Bel’s clothing a second, squint-eyed inspection.
“We just arrived by ship,” Bel explained. “From Donner.”
“Donner, is it?” His face lit up. He stood and dusted his hands on his trouser legs. “Well, I have family in Donner. My little niece, of course she’s not so little now, she married a fellow who—”
Rowan interrupted. “I’m sorry, I’ll be glad to give you any news I have from Donner, but first I’d like to ask you about these lamps.”
“Well, Corvus, that’s our wizard, he gave them—”
“Specifically,” Rowan continued, “I’d like to know how they work.”
“Oh, no.” He clicked his tongue. “I can’t help you there. Guild rules, you see.”
“Guild? What guild is that?”
“Why, the new Lamplighters Guild. See, when Corvus gave them, he had to teach us the spells to make them work. All very secret, sworn to secrecy, every one of us—” His eyes caught the glint of her gold chain, and his speech ended with a trailing “Er . . .” He sent a confirming glance toward the silver ring on her left hand, then winced. “I’m sorry, lady, truly I am. But I can’t tell you.”
Rowan gazed at him for a long moment. At last she said, “As I don’t have much time to spare, you needn’t go into detail. The general idea will suffice.” And she waited, suddenly quite still.
The man agonized. “I just can’t.”
Rowan simply stood, silent. Bel looked from her face to the lamplighter’s in perplexity. Finally Rowan turned without a word and began to walk away.
“Lady, please, wait a moment—”
She stopped, then slowly turned around, but did not approach. “I need to know something—” he began.
“No.”
Understanding dawned on Bel’s face, and she watched the man with interest.
“Not for myself,” he continued, “but for the Guild. I, that is, they ought to know, is your ban now just on me, or will it hold for the whole Guild?”
Rowan took her time replying. “The ban holds for any individual who refuses questions.” She made to turn away again, but Bel called to her.
The Outskirte
r was viewing the lamplighter with concern. “Rowan, this man has family in Donner.” Rowan said nothing, and Bel went on. “They might have been in the fire at the inn—”
“A fire?” He said in shock, “My niece, she works in an inn. And her son, too—”
“Do you know the name?” Bel asked.
“No, no I don’t.” His face showed agony. “But I know the street, Tilemaker’s Street.” He looked helplessly at the steerswoman, who waited patiently for Bel, saying nothing.
At last Bel said, “Rowan, do you know if Saranna’s Inn was on Tilemaker’s Street?”
“Yes, I do know,” Rowan replied. “I’ll wait for you at the next corner.”
Down the street she found a street vendor’s stall and interested herself in a display of bone flutes and pipes. They were of remarkable workmanship. Rowan tested a flute but lacked the skill to produce any sound at all. She had better luck with the pipes, managing to elicit a mellow hoot from the low register.
Eventually Bel joined her, and Rowan led them along a cobbled street that climbed and twisted up one of the hills above the harbor. They walked in silence, and when Rowan glanced at her, she saw that the Outskirter was deep in angry thought. Finally Bel said only, “Family is important. Rowan, that was cruel!”
They turned up a side street so narrow that the overhanging second stories sometimes had planks laid from one window to the opposite neighbor’s. Some were decorated with bright flower boxes. “Bel,” Rowan said carefully. “Suppose you discovered that another tribe had stolen half your herd and refused to give you what was yours?”
Bel stopped in outrage. “We’d kill them!”
Rowan turned back to her. “Kill them? How cruel.” And she continued on her way, leaving Bel to catch up.
The street doubled back on itself, and when they rounded one last corner, suddenly the area before them opened up. The sea was visible, patched with light and dark by the heavy clouds that moved above. Before them, the roofs of Wulfshaven were a confusion of green-tiled shapes sweeping down to the harbor below.
Rowan stopped before a house on the corner, a haphazard construction of whitewashed brick. Suddenly all the previous unpleasantness was swept away in a river of bright memories. The handful of years in the life of a taciturn farm girl from the northlands, years of struggle and confusion lanced with sudden comprehension and delight, years that ended with the arrival at the Archives of a young woman of confidence, depth, and inner strength—those years were contained in this town, these streets, and one little attic room in this very house.
“Are we going in?”
Rowan smiled. “Give me a moment,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”
Inside, the ceiling was festooned with tied bundles of dried herbs sending out dozens of evocative odors. The room was dark, the shutters pulled to against the coming rain, and a small fire flickered in the hearth. A heavyset blond woman approached them. “How may I help you?”
Rowan quelled her disappointment. “Is Maranne about? I’m an old friend.”
“No, she’s off in the east quarter. Pulling a tooth and delivering some coltsfoot tea. I’m afraid she’ll be quite late.”
“Do you mind if we wait and sit by the fire? There’s rain on the way.”
The blond woman looked at the pair uncertainly: one slightly damp woman, not dressed for the weather, and another in outlandish garb.
“Rowan used to live here,” Bel said.
The woman brightened. “Rowan? Maranne speaks of you often—you’re that steerswoman. Come, I’ll make us some tea.” She closed the door against the distant clatter of hooves on the cobbles and led them to the fire. Chairs were drawn and a kettle hung. The blond woman scanned the ceiling for likely candidates. “I don’t remember you, but I remember when the Academy was here. Oh, that was a time! People from all over, all those teachers, and experts in this and that. It takes the strangest mix to make a batch of steerswomen.” She found some peppermint hanging by the window, then added a tiny sprig of comfrey.
“I remember you,” Rowan said. “You’re Joslyn. Your father was the cooper.”
Joslyn was pleased. “There’s an example of steerswoman’s memory.” The sound of hooves outside became audible again, and with it a shouting voice. “Now, what’s that?” She opened the window.
The sound stopped, and an instant later the door slammed open and a large form filled the doorway. “Rowan! I knew it!”
The man crossed the room, and suddenly Rowan found herself engulfed in strong arms and the sweep of his cloak. Joslyn said faintly, “My word, it’s the duke!”
Rowan tried to extract herself. His hug was no comradely embrace, as he had often given her, nor even a lover’s embrace, but something full of desperate relief. “I knew it couldn’t be true!” he railed. “Damn Corvus and his scrying!”
“Artos!” She managed to pull away. “What is this?”
Bel eyed them from her chair. “You know this duke, then?”
He spun aside and pounded a nearby table violently. “That lowborn bastard! How could he tell me such a thing?”
“Tell you what? Artos, calm down,” Rowan pleaded, knowing well that the duke was one man who could never be calm.
But he did stop, all his native energy held still for a moment while he looked at her and said in a smaller voice, “He said you were dead.”
She was astonished. “Corvus?”
“Yes!” He spun away and paced, more quickly than a man his size ought to in so small a room. “He said that he was scrying and saw that you’d been killed. In Donner, by dragons! He said, ‘I’m sorry to tell you, but your pet steerswoman is dead.’ ” Artos stopped and held up his hands to ward off a reaction. “I know, I understand, you’re nobody’s pet. Those were his words, not mine. But it looks like his scry-stone was mistaken.” He paused, then smiled. “Did I mention how glad I am to see you?”
Rowan laughed happily. “Yes, I’m glad to see you, too.”
Bel spoke from her place by the fire. “The scry-stone was not far off, at that. We very nearly were killed by dragons.”
Artos turned to her, seeing her for the first time. He took in her clothing, her sword, and the piebald cloak draped on the chair behind her, with a speculating gaze. “This is Bel, my friend, an Outskirter,” Rowan explained. She turned to Bel. “You should stand when the duke enters.”
“He’s no duke of mine, and he’s already entered.” Bel did stand, but it was to swing the bubbling kettle out of the fire. “Perhaps this duke would like some tea?”
Joslyn recovered some of her composure and nervously sidled over to deal with it.
Bel approached. “Well, I’d like to know how to address a duke, and also, how he knew where to find us, and when.” She looked up at him.
“I came as soon as I heard there was a ship arrived from Donner, with a steerswoman. If it was Rowan, I knew she would come here; she couldn’t be in Wulfshaven and not visit Maranne.” He paused. “And the proper address is ‘my lord.’ ”
Bel considered, then shook her head. “That won’t do.”
“Bel—” Rowan began.
“Outskirter,” the duke mused. He had finally placed the term. “That’s a warrior, a barbarian.”
“True.”
“You’re small for a warrior.”
Bel acknowledged it. “I’m closer to the ground, and harder to knock over.”
“That’s a large sword for so small a woman.”
“I swing it two-handed.”
He nodded, his wariness tempered by interest. He leaned back against the table. “That’s good. But then you can’t carry a shield.”
“Ha. My sword is my shield.”
“Bel has been traveling with me,” Rowan said. “She’s an honorable person and has given her word not to lay waste to the Inner Lands while she’s in my company.”
The duke laughed. He had a huge laugh, as big as his person, honest and uninhibited. “Then you’d best not separate. I believe this woman co
uld do more damage than her size might suggest. Let’s sit by the fire and wait for Maranne, and you can tell me the story.” He looked around and found Joslyn standing uncertainly by the fire. He dropped into graciousness easily. “I hope this is no inconvenience to you. Pour some tea, and please sit with us.”
Joslyn complied, hesitantly, and pulled up a stool, but Rowan noted that the herbalist kept a bit of distance between herself and the visitors. Joslyn found the situation uncomfortable, and Rowan realized with regret that at some point in the past Artos had ceased to be a frequent casual visitor to Maranne’s house.
But Bel was completely at ease and settled into a chair, tucking up both legs as if she were seated on the ground. “I’ve heard something about these dukes and barons and squires you have in the Inner Lands,” she said. “How is it that a steerswoman knows one so well? Are you all of the same class?”
Artos gave a half smile. “They say that the steerswomen are the only aristocracy open to the common folk.”
“That’s not true at all, and it’s a bad saying,” Rowan put in with some vehemence. “We come from all classes before we join, and belong to no class when we’re accepted.”
“You’re certainly well treated by the people,” the duke pointed out. “And they defer to you, grant you certain privileges . . .”
“The people treat us well of their own accord. There’s no law that compels them.”
“Custom can have the force of a law.”
“Not at all. There’s no punishment, no soldiery involved—”
He held up a hand. “Now, let’s not get into one of our discussions. We’ll be at it all night.”
Remembering, Rowan laughed. “Talking until dawn . . .”
“Often, right by this very fire . .”
Joslyn looked about the room in wonderment. Rowan said to Bel, “The Academy’s not a place, it’s an event, and the year I trained it was held here in Wulfshaven. Artos was forever haunting our classes.”
Steerswoman Page 9
