“The guard spell stopped working after I opened it.”
That was interesting. “You opened it? How’d you manage that?” Steffie couldn’t use the bench to sit, so he ended up in Mira’s big chair. He had to squirm to make it fit decently.
“It was the boots,” Rowan said, which was just like her when she was like this, answering exactly what was asked and no more. Steffie wouldn’t have minded hearing a better explanation, but there she was, all wrapped up in writing things, and thinking hard, so he figured he’d wait.
Dinner was chicken stew; not fancy, but it smelled wonderful. He had the first spoonful halfway to his mouth, when Gwen took it right out of his hand, and the bowl, too, and took his elbow and dragged him straight out the front door.
It was a little chilly outside, the houses across the street making shade, with the sun so far down. Steffie opened his mouth to say something to Gwen, like Hold up or What do you think you’re doing?— but the time to say that was when she was dragging him out, and that was over, so it was too late. So he closed his mouth again.
Gwen leaned up against the wall of the Annex, and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s it, then.”
“What’s it, then? What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?”
“Well, that’s what I’m asking, isn’t it? Wouldn’t ask if I knew.”
Gwen twisted her mouth. “What do you think she’s doing in there?”
Which made no sense, because you only had to look to see what Rowan was doing. “Studying it. Like she studied the demon, and her books. Magic box, and all— you don’t think she’d want to study it?”
Gwen reached out and pinched him on the arm, sort of to make her point. “But she couldn’t touch it before.”
“Ow.”
“And now she can?”
“Well, yes. Seems like.”
“But how?”
This was starting to feel bad. “Something about the boots, she said,” he said carefully.
“Makes no sense.”
“It might if you asked her. Go on; you know she’s got to answer.”
“And you think she’ll tell the truth?”
It took Steffie a moment or so to grab hold of that— and once he got it, he didn’t like it at all. “You’re thinking that she maybe wouldn’t?”
“Steffie, you’re dense. When’d I last tell you you were dense?”
“You want time of day, or day of week?”
Gwen knit her brows, thinking hard. Usually Steffie liked it when he saw her think like that, because it meant something interesting was about to happen. But this time he had the feeling that he wasn’t going to like where she was headed.
And he was right, because the next thing Gwen said was, “She says she’s a steerswoman, but who’s to say otherwise? Mira’s gone. Who else would know?”
Steffie had never heard of such a thing in his life. “Of course Rowan’s a steerswoman. Who’s being dense now? She opened that box, didn’t she?”
“Says you. And says her. But you and me, we didn’t see it happen, did we? We just saw a box that bit and then a busted box that didn’t.”
“She took it apart after.”
“She says.”
“But— ” This was just mad. “Why would she say she was a steerswoman if she wasn’t?”
“Well, there’s a free place to live, isn’t there? And people giving her things without her paying? And you and me doing her cooking and cleaning— ”
“She does it, too, herself— ”
“— but it’s mostly just you and me, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but she’s working, see— ”
“And what’s that all about, then? Mira never done that.”
“But that was wrong!” And he was going to go on, but they were talking pretty loud, which he suddenly noticed. The neighbors were all busy with their own dinners, but it wouldn’t do to let some late passerby get an earful of this nonsense.
So he took her elbow himself, and got them both around the corner to the blind side of the house. “That’s just foolish,” he said to her, but quiet-like. “You shouldn’t go saying bad things about a person unless you know for sure.” But it did start him wondering, not about Rowan, but about other people, and wouldn’t it be easy for just anyone to say she was a steerswoman? “Is this talk doing anything? Because I don’t see any reason for it. Sounds to me like trouble for trouble’s sake, and what’s the good of that?”
She poked him on the chest. “I don’t like being made a fool of,” she said, as if he did, which made him mad.
“Well, no one’s making a fool out of me, and you’d know that if you spent more time paying attention to what Rowan was doing, instead of what she’s not doing, which is everything Mira did, which she ought not to have done anyway!”
“Mira treated us better than Rowan does!”
“Didn’t she just make us dinner? Twice? Mira never done that even once! And have we lifted a finger at the Annex since the worms came out? Mira’d still have you dragging her out of bed in the morning and tucking her in at night.”
“But it’s all wrong. She’s not acting normal!”
He couldn’t think what to say back. “Well,” he started, then didn’t know where to go. “Well,” he tried again; but it was basically true, so what could you say to that? “Well, so what? Not everyone’s normal, and what’s wrong with that?”
Gwen talked right into his face. “She’s fake. She’s using us. That’s just like stealing, and it’s wrong.”
And it would be, if Rowan wasn’t a steerswoman. He tried to set it up that way in his head, just to see how it stood.
And it did stand, in a way, but only if you left out a lot of things, things Gwen didn’t know, or didn’t pay attention to, or maybe didn’t matter to her. And it was funny, because all those things were still there to see or find out, if you tried, but Gwen just hadn’t, and he couldn’t figure why.
He was going to tell her that, but the whole idea was sort of slippery and kept oozing away. And it was hard to find a nice way to say it, because as soon as he was about to try, he could see it was going to come out that there was nothing wrong with Rowan, but there was something wrong with Gwen.
So he hemmed and hawed and ummed, until Gwen got tired of waiting and took herself back into the Annex.
When he got in himself, she was already in her chair, tucking into that stew, watching Rowan sharp-like. Steffie didn’t much feel like sitting by her, not right then.
So he took his own spoon and bowl, put one of those flat breads in it, then stood there with no place to go.
The steerswoman looked like she hadn’t even noticed that they’d gone and come back, like she hadn’t once stopped what she was doing.
She’d set each piece of the box on its own bit of paper, and each one had some word or sentence written by it. She had her own logbook open, too, and a separate paper, and was writing on them both in turns like she was writing the same thing on each.
Steffie wandered over. “What was in the box?”
“A message.”
Everything there looked like it was written by her. “What, from a wizard?” And what wizard would send her messages?
“Yes.”
“Steerswomen don’t deal with wizards,” Gwen put in from the hearth. “Everyone knows that. Wizards are all under the ban.”
“Groups can’t be put under ban, only individual persons.” He could see that the answer-making part of Rowan was talking all on its own, while the figuring-out part kept busy with the box bits. Steffie wondered what that was like from the inside, to have two parts of you both knowing what to do and doing them at the same time.
“Never heard of that,” Gwen said.
“It’s true.” Rowan picked up a round thing, like a fat coin, and shifted it to catch the light better. “But as it happens,” her answering-part went on, “the only wizard not currently under ban is Olin.” She put the coin down and picked up a bit
of string, except maybe it wasn’t string, because it looked too stiff. “The last I heard, that is.”
“What about Slado?” Steffie asked.
Rowan looked up at him, surprised; and he could see the two parts come right together, making all of her be in one place. The difference between her in two parts and her in one was sort of shocking. It came to Steffie that when Rowan was all there, she was more there than anyone he ever saw. “That’s very interesting,” she said. “It never occurred to me. If Slado happens never to have met a steerswoman, then he can’t have lied or withheld information from one. So, no, he would not be under ban.” She looked like the idea didn’t please her much.
“Then who is the message from?” Gwen asked casually, but it was easy to tell it was a fake casual.
Maybe it was because Rowan was all in one place again, but she noticed it; Steffie could tell right away. She looked at Gwen with a this-is-odd look on her face. “From Corvus, the wizard in Wulfshaven,” she said, and it seemed like she was watching to see how Gwen would act next.
Gwen was putting butter on her bread and pretending she was only paying attention to that. “Then he’s one of the ones under ban. And you can’t talk to him, and he can’t talk to you. I guess that means messages, too.” She bit the bread.
“No,” Rowan began, talking slow and careful, “it means that I can’t answer any question he might ask. It’s perfectly possible to have a conversation with someone under ban, if both parties are willing. The person under ban would simply not ask questions, and the steerswoman would simply not reply to any question asked.”
“Never heard of that,” Gwen said; and Steffie had to admit it sounded strange. It’d make for a pretty odd conversation—
And it was a funny thing, because right then he heard in his own head a conversation exactly like that, and he tried to remember where and when he’d heard it, because it must have been a while ago; then he sort of looked around to see where it was going on, and he saw that it had been right in the middle of Brewer’s Tavern—
Rowan was saying something to Gwen, but Steffie spoke right up anyway, because the sentence was in his head, and if he didn’t say it, there wouldn’t be room for anything else. “Is Janus under ban?”
Rowan stopped talking to look at him, and Gwen sat there with her jaw dropped. “As a matter of fact,” the steerswoman said, “he is.”
Gwen got hold of herself again. “Never!”
“Its true.”
“Janus was up here all the time when Mira was alive, and they talked back and forth, with questions and everything, and if he was under ban she couldn’t do that, could she?”
“You’re assuming that she knew he was under ban— ”
Sort of all by themselves, Steffie’s legs took him over to the mantelpiece, and his hand reached up, and his legs brought him back again; and he said, even though both the women were still talking, “Are there men steerswomen?”
And they both stopped again. Gwen got over it first. “That again? Steffie, don’t be foolish— ”
But Rowan made her go quiet, and did it by just raising one finger at her, not even looking at her. It was Steffie who had all of Rowan’s attention. “Yes,” she said, and watched him, like there was something else he might say and she was waiting for it.
“Can you be a man steerswoman and be under ban at the same time?”
“We call them ‘steersmen.’ And, no, you can’t.”
Steffie set down what he’d brought from the mantel. “I guess you only looked in there and never took them out.” It was Mira’s old trinket box, sitting on the table among the broken bits of the wizard’s magical box. “But they’re not Mira’s. The ring’s too big.”
Rowan lifted up the lid of the trinket box— and a shabby old thing it looked, lying next to the beautiful carved top of the wizard’s box— and looked inside.
Gwen found something to complain about again. “Of course they’re not. Mira wouldn’t do a thing like that, put aside her own ring and chain, and we buried her with them— ” And she stopped in the middle, probably because she got what Steffie was about to say next— so he didn’t bother saying it.
Rowan had poured the gold and silver into her palm and was sitting there just looking at them.
She kept quiet for a long time. When she spoke again, what she said was, “He did tell her.”
12
The boat moved awkwardly.
It was not the best-sized vessel for singlehanded sailing, and it required a lot of activity from its sailor. Today, the wind was light but steady from the east, not perfect for entry into Alemeth harbor but simple enough for a lively seaman. Nevertheless, the boat was making too much leeway, and tacks were too long, executed sloppily and clumsily.
As the steerswoman watched the approach, she considered that a tow by rowers might be needed. But a clever and risky last-minute jibe placed the boat in a more favorable position; and at the last it gently slid up to its dock, sails luffing.
Rowan walked down the shabby wharf as the boat was being secured. She stopped two thirds of the way, where the stable boards ran out and splintery gaps appeared, and waited.
Janus noticed her as he finished tying off the stern line, glancing up twice, the second time with a tired smile of recognition. “I hadn’t hoped to have someone actually on hand to welcome me.” When he used a boat hook to snag the piling, she saw that his soft gray gloves had been replaced by a bulkier canvas pair. Walking sideways along the starboard side, he pulled the bow closer in. “You know, I could use some help with this.” She neither replied nor moved. His next two glances were curious, then speculative. He finished his work, then stood in the bow, watching her, unable to ask a question.
The steerswoman held out one fist before her, then opened it. The silver ring fell, to hang dangling from the end of the gold chain wound around her fingers.
He blinked but showed no great surprise. “I see you found them.”
“Mira had them.” He did not reply, but began making his way back to the stern. “Did you give them to her?” Rowan asked.
“Yes. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“You told me she didn’t know that you used to be a steersman.”
“I told you that I’d never told her so. Whatever she reasoned out by herself, she never discussed with me. Excuse me.” He reached the companionway hatch, and clambered down into the hold.
Rowan waited. Presently he returned, clumsily hauling up a canvas duffel bag, its strap looped around one elbow. Once on deck, he shifted the bag, managing to maneuver the strap over one shoulder without using his hands.
Rowan had not moved. Janus studied her. “That’s not a proper knot at the end of the chain. If you wiggle it too hard, the ring will slip right off.” She gathered them up with her other hand; he made the jump to the wharf. “Oof.”
“Janus, are you telling me that you actually handed Mira a steerswoman’s ring and chain and she never asked you how you had come by them?”
“I didn’t hand her a ring and a chain.” He was a moment regaining his balance. “I handed her a silk handkerchief with something tied up inside. I asked her to keep it safe for me.”
“She didn’t open it?”
“Not that I saw.”
“And she never asked what was inside or why you gave it to her?”
“No.” He thought, taking rather a long time about it. “Mira did get a sly look on her face. I’d thought that she planned to open it later, and I kept expecting questions. But they never came.” He shifted the duffel bag on his shoulder uncomfortably. “Eventually I assumed that she’d set it aside somewhere in that junk pile of a house, and forgotten about it.” He weaved a bit in place. “Rowan, I’m sorry I didn’t mention it before, and I hope you don’t think I was hiding anything from you. I know the facts don’t sound very likely, but that’s just the way Mira was— and I was not about to volunteer information she didn’t ask for. Now I need to get my bag back to my room”— and it sl
id from his shoulder, to thump on the wharf— “and frankly, I could use a little help.”
The steerswoman considered; then she put the ring and chain into her pocket, then picked up the bag. She found it not particularly heavy. “Where is your room?”
“Dan’s been letting me use an old storeroom above his shop. Cold in winter, hot in summer, breezy when the wind blows, and stuffy when it doesn’t. All the comforts of home, assuming you were raised in a shipping crate.”
She made a noise, a half-laugh in the back of her throat, and saw the bright smile flash in his dark face. “That’s better.”
They made their way up the wharf and to Harbor Road. Janus paused when they reached it. “I ought to pay Jilly a visit.” Rowan was a moment recalling that this was the healer. “And out of courtesy to her, if not to you, I really ought to bathe first.”
“Perhaps if you used your hands less hard, they’d have a chance to get better.”
“Well. Try making a living at unskilled labor without using your hands; it can’t be done.” He raised one hand to forestall a possible comment by her. “I know; sitting in the Annex and working with pen and paper would solve the whole problem. And I can’t ask you if you’ve received a reply to your proposal, but I assume you’d have told me right away if you had.” He sighed. “Rowan, if I could impose on you further, it would help a lot if you’d be so kind as to haul that bag up to my room— just leave it on the landing outside. I’m afraid that if I have to climb all those stairs just now, I’ll just fall flat on the floor when I reach the top and sleep for the rest of the day. And never make it to the bathhouse.”
“Of course. You go ahead.”
“Thank you.” He had gone a few steps away before he stopped and turned, to stand regarding her with a trace of puzzlement.
It must be, she thought, the very stillness of her demeanor that he was noticing. She never was able to feign emotions, and was very bad at keeping them concealed. Blankness was the best she could manage.
“Rowan, I’m sorry you thought I’d been dishonest— although why I ever would be to you, I can’t imagine.”
The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) Page 15
