Steerswoman - 01 & 02 The Steerswoman's Road

by Rosemary Kirstein

  Rowan had many questions, but only one suggestion. “I suggest,” she said, “that we leave.”

  It was some time after noon that Bel shambled on deck. The ship was well under way, finally past the shallows of Donner and into blue water. Bel lurched a bit on the shifting deck, from unfamiliarity or her obvious weariness. Blinking in the bright light, she found Rowan and dropped herself down to sit on the deck. She leaned back against the rail and closed her eyes, giving herself to the sunlight. She had shed the boots and was still wearing the loose yellow blouse she had purchased in Donner. Barefoot, in shirt and trousers, she could have been any sailor, but for the silver-and-blue belt. She was small and wiry and tan. She looked able, nimble, and not at all dangerous.

  Rowan had spent the morning arranging her matters as best she could. She had taken the large chart papers Tyson had given her, folded them to smaller size, and cut the folds with a knife. After a visit to the sail locker, and the loan of a needle, a sail-maker’s palm, and some cord, she had a pamphlet-sized coverless book of thirty-two pages. Some canvas scraps were transformed into a small shoulder-slung pouch to contain the new book and pens.

  While testing her hastily hung hammock in the women’s crew quarters, she had noticed that the gum soles of her steerswoman’s boots had worn down to the leather. The gum was the same type used by sailors everywhere, to aid in gripping the deck when not working barefoot. She had found the quartermaster, laid down a new surface on the soles, and brought the boots on deck to dry.

  Then she had stopped to talk to a pair of crew members new to the trade, to show them the best way to coil a rope so that it stowed in the least amount of space but payed out easily. She hoped to find several such odd jobs to ease the duties of the officers and make herself useful. Done with her lesson, Rowan sent the two men off and sat next to Bel.

  “How are you taking to your work?”

  The Outskirter opened her eyes, squinting against the sunlight. “Well enough. The food is strange, but interesting. The cook knows his job, but he lacks any sense of adventure. He won’t let me experiment.”

  “His loss. You seem to have an instinct for such things.”

  Bel made a sound of disinterest and closed her eyes again. “Do dragons carry disease?”

  “No. Why do you ask?” Rowan was briefly concerned, then quickly realized Bel’s problem. “Here. Stand up.”

  “No, please ...”

  Rowan pulled her up, against little resistance. “Trust me, it’s better this way. Here.” Rowan positioned her by the railing and demonstrated. “Stand with your side to the rail and hold with one hand, so.” The ship was crossing the swell of the waves obliquely. “No, open your eyes; you need to balance.”

  “I can balance with my eyes closed,” Bel said through her teeth, “when the ground doesn’t move beneath me.”

  “Well, it’s moving now.” Rowan stood facing Bel, with her back to the bow. “Look past me, to the horizon. Unlock your knees ... there. Bend them a little. Have you ever ridden a horse?”

  “How will a horse help me on a ship?”

  “It might be a little easier to explain ... never mind. You have to get rid of the idea that the ship’s deck is the ground; you mustn’t try to align yourself to it. You need to find your own center of balance. Don’t make the mistake of just trying to keep your head level—”

  “I have to keep my head level!”

  “Yes, but don’t bend your neck to do it. Don’t put your head at odds with your body. Use your legs. Bend your knees to compensate for the change in the deck’s position ...” She demonstrated as the approaching swells altered the deck’s angle, exaggeratedly bending her left knee as the ship rose on the wave, then straightening and shifting the flex to her right as they rode over the crest.

  Bel imitated Rowan’s movements stiffly. “That’s better,” Rowan told her. “Keep your body relaxed; keep your head centered over your torso. Look past me at the waves as they approach.”

  Bel kept her eyes grimly on Rowan’s face. “Must I really?”

  “That’s how you can tell what changes to expect.” Bel shifted her gaze, her tan complexion graying. But as Rowan continued her coaching, the Outskirter eventually began to look more comfortable; whether from gained skill or from the distraction of learning the technique, Rowan could not determine. “Weren’t you seasick when you were belowdecks?”

  “I was too busy with the cook. I had too much on my mind to notice.”

  Rowan stopped exaggerating her leg movements and shifted back to her own more natural sea stance. “Then here’s something to occupy your mind: At Saranna’s Inn, what section did the dragon nestlings attack first?”

  Bel attempted to make her own physical adjustments match the subtlety of Rowan’s. “Do you mean, north or south? I lost all my direction, inside the building.”

  “Think about it.”

  “Well ...” Bel loosened her death-grip on the railing and tested her ability to balance without support. “As we entered the guest-room section, the corner they attacked was across from us, diagonally. On the opposite side of the open area.”

  A trio of crew members jogged past aft to where a mate stood, exhorting them to some minor adjustment in the sheets. Rowan prompted Bel, “And?”

  “And up. Toward the roof. The corner where our room was.” Rowan said nothing.

  Bel considered for a long time. “Did we do something to attract them? What sort of thing attracts dragons?”

  “I have no idea. Very little is known about dragons. I don’t know what they like; I don’t even know what they eat.” She looked off to the side, thinking. “But I know that in Donner, the dragons are kept in check by Jannik’s powers.”

  “But sometimes they get loose.”

  “Sometimes. They chose an interesting moment to do so.” Around the two women, the ship’s activity rapidly increased. Without thinking, Rowan noted that the wind had shifted, and a major readjustment of the sails was imminent. More passengers had come on deck, either to enjoy the brilliant sunlight, or to observe the crew’s movements. Rowan stepped closer to Bel and, with a hand on her arm, directed her closer to the rail, away from the action. “And here’s something else to think about: The first night out of Five Corners, we were attacked by a soldier who turned out to be in the service of a wizard.”

  “So you said. But he wasn’t wearing a surplice or a sigil. How could you be sure he belonged to a wizard?”

  “I saw him at the inn at Five Corners, remember, and he wore a Red surcoat then.”

  “Perhaps he just resembled one of the Red soldiers at the inn.”

  “I don’t forget a face.” Rowan saw Bel’s dubious expression. “I don’t,” she stressed. “It’s part of my training. I could sketch his portrait, right now.”

  Morgan himself had come on deck and was sending out a steady stream of shouted directions, relayed by mates to all quarters of the ship and up the rigging. Bel had to raise her voice to be heard. “Can you really think that a wizard is responsible?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “But why would a wizard care about us?”

  “I’ve never attracted one’s attention before. And there’s been only one change in my activities, one new thing that I’m doing.”

  Bel looked at her. “You mean that jewel. Of course, it’s magic—”

  “We don’t know that—”

  “But I’ve had my jewels for years, and no one’s cared. And that innkeeper at Five Corners, he’s never been bothered.”

  “There’s a difference.” Oblivious to the noise around her, Rowan reviewed her speculations in her mind. “Several people have the jewels,” she said, “but I’m the first person trying to find out about them.”

  Bel took a few pacing steps and found she had to grab the railing when the ship hit a sudden uneven swell. She moved cautiously away from the rail and leaned her weight against a vent cowling farther amidships. “Are you certain about this? Is this something ... something your
training tells you?”

  Rowan came out of her reverie. “No, my training tells me not to be certain, not yet.” She smiled. “The steerswomen have a saying: ‘It takes three to know.’”

  “Three of what?”

  “In this case, three instances. In the first instance, it’s possible that the soldier was performing a little independent banditry, for his own profit. In the second instance, the dragon’s attack may have been pure coincidence. But if anything else of the sort occurs ...”

  “Then you’ll be sure.”

  “Exactly.”

  Bel made a derisive sound. “Much good it’ll do, if the third instance kills you.”

  “Being unconvinced is not the same as being foolhardy. The possibility alone is strong enough to make me cautious.”

  Bel’s gaze narrowed as she considered the situation. “I don’t like this. It feels like we’re running away from our enemies. If we stayed in Donner, we could have found out more about that dragon attack. It would have been much simpler.”

  Rowan found herself agreeing. “But I want to get to the Archives, and this is the only ship to Wulfshaven at the moment.”

  “So we sail.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a small burst of activity, a thumping of leather-soled shoes—no sailor hurrying, but Reeder’s boy, dashing to the starboard railing, followed more sedately by a crewwoman. “There!” he cried excitedly. “It was out there!” He pointed. “But I don’t see it anymore.”

  Rowan moved aft, Bel following carefully, unsure of her new sea legs. The crew member, a strong, brown, middle-aged woman, peered out to sea. “Don’t see it.”

  “It was dark-colored, and small. It went up and down, on top of the water.”

  “Hm. Piece of driftwood, maybe.”

  “I think it was a mermaid.”

  The woman suddenly dropped to the boy’s height, grabbed his shoulder with her left hand, and covered his mouth with her right, roughly. “Don’t say that! That’s bad luck on a ship! They’re evil creatures, murderous. Do you want to call one?”

  “The boy spoke in ignorance,” Rowan said gently.

  The sailor looked up at her. “Aye. But you know the saying, lady: ‘What you don’t know, can kill you.’” She released the boy but shook her finger in his face, once, admonishing.

  Rowan looked out to sea, seeing nothing. “Perhaps it was a dolphin.” The sailor brightened. “Aye, perhaps.” She scanned the waves again.

  “Dolphins aren’t real,” the boy said. “They’re ... they’re just heraldic beasts. Like lions.”

  “Dolphins certainly are real,” Rowan told him.

  “Lots of sailor’s tales of dolphins,” the crewwoman added.

  “And the steerswomen have verified it, as well.” Rowan saw that Bel had come closer, listening to the conversation with interest.

  Rowan continued. “More than two centuries ago, a steerswoman went swimming off the bow of a becalmed ship. Dolphins came up to her, pushing her like children at play. They danced on top of the sea, standing on their tails.”

  “It sounds like a wondrous sight,” Bel said. She had found a seat on the roof of the pilothouse. “Lady, what’s a dolphin?”

  Rowan gathered her information. “A fish, large, nearly as long as a man is tall. They leap in the air as they swim along, and have a hole in the top of their heads. They sing through that hole, as you would through your mouth, but their song is like all the different birds of the air. Their tails are flat, opposite to other fish—” She demonstrated the configuration with her hands. “—and they are so strong that they can balance on top of the sea’s surface by moving only that tail in the water. They possess great curiosity, and have never been known to injure a human.”

  “Are they good to eat?”

  The sailor threw her hands in the air. “More bad luck!” she cried.

  Bel spoke quickly. “Sea woman, I beg your pardon. I come from a far land and know nothing of the sea. If there is any ritual or obeisance I should make, please tell me now, so I can fend off the evil of my words. And, please, I ask you to teach me what I should know, so that I will never offend the sea god again.”

  Rowan looked at the Outskirter in admiration. A barbarian in birth but not in attitude—or, again, there seemed to be more to the Outskirters than rumor credited.

  The sailor nodded, mollified. “That was well spoken. Aye, I’ll teach you, if you need it. Between me and the steerswoman, we’ll see you safe.”

  The boy sniffed disdainfully. Rowan looked down at him and recognized trouble on the way. He said, “Tell me, lady, what’s a mermaid?”

  The sailor made a grab for him, but Rowan stopped her with a hand on her chest. The woman wavered, agitated, trapped between two customs of equal force.

  Rowan dropped to her knees in front of the boy and spoke eye-toeye. “Child, I will be glad to answer your question, but first I will give you information for which you did not ask. Sailors live on their ships, care for their ships; a ship is a sailor’s home. The beliefs of the sailors are like a religion. Now, when you’re in a person’s home, it is bad manners, it is inexcusably rude, to scoff at his or her religion, whatever your own beliefs. The person has offered you kindness and protection, and you cannot offer insult in return. It is outrageous, uncivilized—” She thought of Bel and amended her comments. “It is crude. It would be kinder, and inoffensive, to wait until we reach Wulfshaven, when we are in no sailor’s home, to ask that question. So tell me again, boy, do you have a question for me, at this time?”

  The child stared at her, wide-eyed, and the sailor leaned close to his ear. “Say that word again, and I’ll throw you overboard.”

  A voice came from behind them. “What’s this?” Reeder’s boy broke and ran, clattering down a companionway into the ship.

  The crewwoman straightened, startled. “Ah. Sir. You shouldn’t sneak up on one like that.”

  It was Tyson, the navigator. “Now, Marta, I can’t help if my boots are silent. You know I would never sneak up on you.”

  “Aye, sir. Right, sir. Officers never sneak up on the crew.” Bel spoke up. “The boy might have seen a dolphin.”

  Tyson laughed and clapped his hands together. “Then that’s good luck!” He took a few moments to make a methodical examination of the sea off to starboard. Rowan did the same, but neither found any encouraging signs. The sailor, Marta, peered out dubiously; then, with a noncommittal grunt, she returned to her labors.

  “Ah, well.” Tyson turned back, leaving one arm resting along the railing. As he tilted his head back to view the new set of the ship’s sails, Rowan discovered that she rather liked the way his auburn hair looked against the pale sky, how his light eyes contrasted with his broad brown face. She found herself watching herself watching him, a little amused.

  Bel roused out of deep thought. “I like what you said,” she told Rowan. “About respecting other people’s religions. That’s very sensible.”

  Distracted from her distraction, Rowan considered her answer. “I’m sorry, Bel, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t necessarily respect other people’s religions, or any religion. But the people—I respect them, and I give them the honor they deserve, whatever they believe.”

  “And that boy—would you have answered his question?” Bel turned to Tyson. “He was asking about ill-omened creatures,” she explained.

  Rowan leaned back against the railing and studied Tyson’s and Bel’s expressions. “Yes. I would have, had he asked again.”

  Tyson nodded, with the understanding of long association with steerswomen, but Bel shook her head ruefully. “You. I don’t understand you at all, sometimes. Just when you finish saying a hundred things that are incredibly wise, you turn around and act like a plain fool.”

  Rowan felt a flare of anger. In all the Inner Lands, no one spoke to a steerswoman so insultingly. She was about to retort in kind when, by reflex, her training stepped in. Everything she knew about Bel, in all her short experience with the Out
skirter, came to her mind in ordered array: the patterns of Bel’s behavior, what Rowan surmised about Bel’s context of knowledge and habit, the occasional sudden swordlike thrusts of Bel’s quick mind ...

  To everyone’s surprise, including her own, Rowan replied with a laugh. “And you,” she said to Bel. “Just when I’m convinced you’re nothing but a plain fool, you turn around and say something incredibly wise.”

  Bel wavered, uncertain of how to interpret this. At last she said reluctantly, “Then perhaps between the two of us, we make one very clever person.”

  “Perhaps that’s the case.”

  Tyson had watched the exchange with some perplexity. “You’re an odd pair of friends,” he said. “You are friends, aren’t you? Traveling together?”

  “Yes.” Rowan clapped Bel’s shoulder in a consciously overacted gesture of hearty camaraderie. “And very advantageous it’s been, for both of us.”

  Bel caught her mood. She said to Tyson, aside, “She covers for my ignorance, and I cover for her flaws of personality.”

  Tyson smiled. “Flaws of personality?”

  “She’s difficult to convince.”

  “True,” Rowan admitted.

  “She has no gods.”

  “Also true.”

  “She’s too serious.”

  “A matter of opinion.”

  “There’s not enough magic in her soul.”

  “Well, I’m not at all certain about magic,” Rowan admitted.

  Bel dropped her bantering attitude and stopped short. “What can you possibly mean?”

  Rowan regretted the change in mood; nevertheless, she considered carefully before speaking. “The few times I’ve been faced with something called magical, it seemed ... well, simply mysterious. As if there were merely something about it that I didn’t know. Understand, I’m not giving you a steerswoman’s conclusions, here. As a steerswoman, I have to withhold my decision, out of ignorance. But the fact that I can be this unsure ... that seems to indicate something, to me.” She shrugged roughly, uncomfortable with her uncertainty. “Sometimes I feel people call it magic, because they want magic.”