The Language of Power

by Rosemary Kirstein

  And how many others had died that night?

  Rowan hoped desperately that Saranna—strong, dignified, kindly Saranna—had, at the least, met a quicker end.

  All this, Jannik’s doing, at Slado’s command. All this, merely to rid the world of one inconvenient steerswoman. It seemed to Rowan that wizards had no greater regard for the lives of the folk than they did for the lives of insects.

  She must be cautious. Even with Jannik out of town, he might have minions among the townsfolk.

  And it was for exactly this reason that Bel must continue to follow Rowan. If the steerswoman’s actions attracted surreptitious scrutiny, Bel would notice, and they could leave Donner.

  Assuming, that is, that the matter of Kieran and Latitia was of any significance at all. In fact, Rowan did not yet know.

  She settled herself on the edge of the new watering trough and unwrapped her lunch. She made to take a bite of the bread; but then she paused, set it down again, and thoughtfully pulled out her logbook and a pencil.

  She reversed the logbook and opened it from the back: a method steerswomen sometimes used to keep scratch notes separate from more finished records. On an empty page, she drew a horizontal line, and labeled the right end present. She divided the line into increments: -10, -20, -30 . . . back to -100.

  At the point representing -42, Rowan wrote: Kieran dies. On the basis of the under-cook’s information, Rowan counted back twenty-five years from that point and added: Girl murdered. Between the two, hovering above the line, with no date indication: Star parties.

  Hugo, an elderly steersman living at the Archives, had been the Steerswomen’s expert on the nature and history of the wizards. From old conversations with him, Rowan knew to add Kieran arrives in Donner at approximately -95.

  Rowan wished she could consult Hugo now; unfortunately, he had passed away a year and a half earlier. The steerswoman Sarah had taken over his work. What had once been an obscure area of study was now a subject of continual and urgent importance.

  Weeks or months from now, when Rowan’s new letter completed its journey from the harbormaster’s office to the Archives, Sarah would begin an analysis similar to Rowan’s. She would have Hugo’s own notes, and the wealth of the Archives itself to aid her.

  Or, quite possibly, Sarah’s task would begin and end by simply removing from a shelf one of Latitia’s many original logbooks, and there find recorded, toward the end, plainly stated, the reason a steerswoman became interested in a wizard.

  A shout. Rowan looked up.

  The brickworkers were waving her over, enthusiastically. She had been recognized as a steerswoman. They wished her to join them.

  Rowan waved back, took bread and cheese in one hand, clumsily, and stood. But before she slipped her logbook and pencil back in her satchel she took a moment to quickly notate, in the same year as Kieran’s death: Guidestar falls.

  The workers had a bucket of beer, and invited Rowan to partake. She accepted, and politely offered in return a portion of her hard cheese—and suddenly found herself in the midst of a very lively trading session, apparently a daily ritual. When the flurry was over, her lunch now consisted of: half a cold pastry filled with smoked fish; a sweet red plum; slices of her own black bread, spread thick with goose grease; and a handful of fresh string beans, to be crunched raw, like candy. The group settled down to eat, Rowan companionably accepted among them.

  Two of the workers were middle-aged, and Rowan wasted no time. “Do you remember the wizard Kieran?”

  The woman of the pair immediately indicated eagerness to speak, but she had just taken a very large bite of pastry, and had to deal with it before she could talk clearly. Her workmate had the leisure to consider before replying. “I remember the parties,” he said. “Kieran used to hold parties, just for the children, out by the Tea Shop, where it’s all so open. He told us the names of the constellations, and stories of how they were named. And how to tell time by the Guidestars.”

  “Who’s Kieran?” one of the others asked.

  The woman had cleared her mouth to speak. “Wizard. Used to live here. It was before your time.”

  “Before yours, as well,” the man put in.

  “Not at all! I was just a tiny thing, but I can remember him.” She wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “He was tall and thin, and his beard was like a great white cloud.” Her eyes shone with remembered delight. “He had the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, a really deep, dark blue. He could make fire come from his fingertips. And smoke came out of his mouth!”

  “That was a pipe he was smoking.”

  “Well, it was magic to me.” She took another, more manageable bite of pastry. “I don’t remember much else. Just that it was fun, and mysterious, and a little scary, to be with a wizard. And he served cake, I liked the cake.”

  “I remember the star-names . . The man acquired a look of concentration. “The Hero, that was named for the strongest man who ever lived. And the Hunter, he was the best hunter. The Hound was his dog. The Lion . . . I don’t remember what the Lion was, other than a lion . . .”

  “The stars are distant suns,” the woman added, addressing the comment to the group as a whole, with an air of self-satisfied superiority. “Did you know that?” In fact, Rowan did, as did all the workers, who indicated so by means of deprecating noises and gestures. The statement was common knowledge throughout the Inner Lands. Although it could not be proven, steerswomen treated it as fact; it was hardly possible to imagine what else stars might be.

  “Were there no adults at the parties?”

  Both Rowan’s informants paused to think, and shook their heads. “None that I ever saw,” the woman said.

  “It was only for children, is what I heard,” the man put in. “He liked children.”

  Another member of the group, a bony woman with her hair in many braids, made a long and unpleasant noise with her mouth. A few of the other workers laughed.

  The noise carried no meaning for Rowan, but the man defended the wizard. “No, not at all, nothing of the kind,” he insisted.

  The older woman confirmed: “He acted just like a grandfather to us. He was spooky, but he was nice. I think he gave those parties, and talked to us, just because he enjoyed it. He was just a nice old man who liked children, and happened to be a wizard.”

  Rowan said: “But I heard that he killed a girl.”

  The woman gaped. “Never! Someone told you wrong, lady!”

  “Perhaps that’s the case,” Rowan conceded—then caught the expression on the man’s face.

  The man’s co-workers caught it, too, and they turned to him with interest. He noticed their attention, and dipped another cup of beer for himself. He took the time to drink deep, then nodded to the crowd at large. “It’s true. Long before the star parties. In fact”—he drank again—“it was my own dad’s sister.” Excited murmurs from the workers.

  “Kieran killed your aunt?” Rowan asked the man.

  “That’s right.”

  “And you were allowed, later, to go to his parties?”

  “Well, I wasn’t allowed, not at all. In fact, I was exactly forbidden to go. I slipped out on my own. My dad never caught me. But he told me, plenty of times, how it happened with his sister.”

  People edged closer, settled in, eager for the story that would surely follow. Rowan said, before the tale could begin: “My information places the event about twenty-five years before Kieran died.”

  “That’s about right.”

  “Come on, tell it!” someone called.

  “Well.” He passed his cup for refilling. “My dad always told it to say, Don’t be too curious, because you might not like what you find. Seems his sister was a wild and lively girl, and liked to poke about. Always into some sort of trouble or other.

  “One day, Ammi—that was her name—she tells all her little friends that she wants to see some magic, and she’s going to go look in the windows of the wizard’s house, and come back and tell them about it. Brave and wild, she
was, and that was the bravest and wildest thing she could think of doing, what with everyone so scared of the wizard—”

  “Wait,” Rowan put in, “everyone was afraid of him?”

  “That’s how my dad said it.”

  “But surely she knew he was fond of children.”

  This took some thought. “I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t, back then. But when Dad told the story, it was always Everyone was afraid of the wizard. And when those star parties started up, he told me, You keep away, that wizard is a dangerous man. Because of what happened.”

  The listeners disliked Rowan’s interruptions, and the steerswoman allowed the tale to proceed.

  “So, one day when Kieran was off tending to his dragons at the mud flats, Ammi slips away from her playmates after lunch.

  “And dinnertime comes, and she’s not home.

  “And bedtime comes, and that’s when the family went asking at her friends’ houses—and they hear what she had planned to do. My dad’s older brother—he was a grown man, nearly— he was all wild to go and fetch her back, but the family stopped him—”

  “Because everyone was afraid of Kieran,” Rowan said, annoying the listeners again.

  “That’s right.”

  She leaned forward. “Why?"

  The man shrugged. “Sensible to keep clear of wizards, isn’t it?”

  And it was, as Rowan knew well. But wizards who lived in a town within their holding generally had some interaction with the townspeople. This could hardly be sustained if the people were in continual fear. Perhaps events even earlier had given them reason—some contemporary of Nid’s might have the answer.

  She found the workers gazing at her with disgruntlement. “I’m sorry, do go on.”

  The tale-teller continued. “Next day, someone comes to the house around noon, saying Kieran’s back from the mud flats. And the whole family goes over, not to the wizard’s house, but near. That little plaza around East Well. You can see the house from there. And they all wait, watching the house.

  “It goes past lunch, and it goes into the afternoon, and more and more people show up as the word gets around. And just before dinner, the wizard comes out of his house.” Little stirrings among the crowd as the man paused to drink more beer. “And he’s dragging Ammi’s body behind him.” Appreciative shivers from the listeners. “By her hair.” Soft cries of delighted horror.

  “And he drags Ammi along, right down the street, right up to East Well, with all the people gone quiet and watching. And when he got there he let go of her . . . my father was right there, and he saw it. He said he remembered how it sounded when his sister’s head hit the ground, and he cried because he thought it must hurt. . . but she was already dead.

  “And Kieran looked around at all the people . . . My father said he never saw anyone look like that, like there was nothing at all behind his eyes . . . Just looked at the people, all around the square . . . and then walked away.”

  The crowd sighed appreciatively, and relaxed, satisfied by the eerie tale—but there was more. “And here’s the thing,” the storyteller said, leaning forward. “When they were laying Ammi out to bury, they could tell she wasn’t just fresh dead. She was a day dead, at least. That Kieran, he had killed her from miles away, with magic.”

  The people returned to their lunches, commenting to each other on the excellence of the tale. The bony, braid-wearing woman spoke up. “Maybe it was the house itself killed her. A magic house.”

  “Could be.” The story-teller bit into a plum, leaning forward to let the juice drip on the ground.

  “Were there any visible injuries on the girl’s body?” Rowan asked.

  The man nodded as he swallowed. “Holes.” He indicated on his own torso, using his fist to show size. “Each about so big.”

  Rowan could not help commenting: “You don’t seem very distressed by the death of your aunt.”

  He shrugged. “It’s stupid, isn’t it, messing with a wizard’s house? Everyone knows that. Anyway, I never knew her.”

  “And after hearing this harrowing tale from your father, you slipped away yourself, to attend the murderer’s parties?”

  The man could not miss her accusatory tone. “That happened ages ago,” he said, annoyed. “And the girl brought it on herself, didn’t she? But being asked by a wizard to go look at the stars, and hear stories—well, that’s something wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “He invited you personally?”

  The man nodded, caught the eye of the woman who had also attended the parties; she nodded as well.

  “Both of you specifically? Did he invite only particular children?”

  “No,” the woman said. “I was with a crowd of my friends, under the veranda at the tea shop, playing in the mud. He looked down over the edge, and he asked us all to come. I remember it well, I was so surprised and excited.”

  “Same for me. I was playing soldier with some cousins, by East Well. He passed by and asked us all, too.”

  The workers continued their lunch, contemplatively; Rowan did the same.

  Across the plaza, the cook-cart had acquired a customer: Bel, who passed a coin over and received a cone of brown paper, steam rising from its top. She peered into it with interest as she ambled over to the watering trough.

  Rowan said to the workers, “Do any of you know how Kieran died?”

  “Old age is what I heard,” the story-teller said. “No surprise, I suppose. He looked about a thousand years old to me.”

  Some in the crowd chuckled, but Rowan knew that wizards aged differently from the common folk, and could not help wondering at Kieran’s true age. “How many star parties were there? They ended when he died; but when did they begin?”

  Neither of her informants could identify a specific date. “I was so little,” the woman said. “Days just ran into each other.”

  The man was no more helpful. “Once a month, they were, but how many months altogether? I don’t know.”

  The proprietor of the cook-cart had another visitor, one far less welcome: a tall man, wide-shouldered but otherwise thin, his clothing many layers of rags, his white hair a wild tangle. One hand held a bamboo rod, too long and slim for a supporting cane, and there seemed to be a bandage wrapped around his head. The proprietor was attempting to shoo him off. A beggar, apparently.

  Rowan needed clearer information. She turned back to the story-teller. “Is your father still living?”

  “No.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She married again. They moved upriver, he has a farm somewhere.”

  Unfortunate. But other adult family members would certainly hold a grudge against Kieran, and perhaps would have watched him carefully for the rest of his life. “You mentioned an uncle, your father’s older brother. Is he still alive?”

  Nods all around: success. “And where might I find him?”

  “Rose Street. Just off Ambleway. You can’t miss it, there’s a big pot of geraniums right in front of the door.”

  Rowan sighed. “Nid?”

  “Nid,” the bony woman said, before the man could speak, and the workers cheerfully took it up: “Nid.” “Nid.” “Nid.”

  “Nid,” the man himself confirmed.

  The steerswoman sighed again. “Your father had no other siblings?”

  “No.”

  She asked the older woman. “Is either of your parents living?”

  “Both, I suppose, but where? I couldn’t say, other than west. They bought out a caravan captain ages ago, they travel all over.”

  Across the plaza: protests growing more vehement from the area of the cook-cart. The workers craned their necks. A handful of passersby paused to watch. One of these continued on, crossing toward the workers.

  The story-teller noticed. “That’s it, then, let’s go,” he announced, rising to his feet with an authoritative air.

  The response from the group was largely hoots and jeers. No one budged from their seats, save one muscular woman who pointedly made hers
elf even more comfortable, lounging full length on the ground.

  “Come on, if Jenny’s coming back, then old Sam’s not far behind.” The workers grudgingly and grumblingly conceded the truth of this, and slowly began to collect themselves.

  “How old is old Sam?” Rowan asked.

  “Younger than me,” the bony woman informed her, as she upended her lunch bucket to shake out the crumbs; she was about Rowan’s age. “He’s just in charge, that’s all. It’s a joke. Why did you ask about that dead wizard?”

  “I’m interested in the events during a particular time in Donner’s history,” Rowan told her. “Do you know of anyone still living who was an adult, or close to it, during that time? Someone perhaps fifty-five years old, or older?”

  The worker gave the matter some thought. “There’s my gran . . . no, she moved the family here from upriver, that must have been after that wizard died. But seems like I see a lot of oldsters about . . . just ask around, I suppose.” She strode off, back to the uncobbled edge of the plaza; but halfway there an idea struck her, and she called back: “Ask my gran! Oldsters like each other’s company, she knows everyone her age. She’ll know who to talk to.”

  This was an excellent idea. Rowan quickly got directions, and headed off toward the street. But before she reached it, her steps slowed; she paused and turned.

  A small crowd had collected around the cook-cart, watching as the beggar, half stumbling, backed away from the cook’s continuing curses.

  Rowan strode over, brushed through the crowd, interrupted the cook’s performance. “One portion, please.”

  “Of course!” A glance at her ring and chain identified her as a steerswoman, and he cheerfully waved away the coin Rowan held out.

  She took the steaming paper cone in one hand, and forced payment on the man. “It’s not for me,” she explained, and turned to the beggar.

  The reason for the cart cook’s displeasure was already obvious: the beggar stood in the midst of an acrid stench so strong Rowan felt it ought to be visible, like some sort of foul cocoon. The combination of this with the scent of fish and fried potatoes was far from appetizing. The beggar’s various layers of clothing seemed extremely well used, possibly by several different persons previous to him, and apparently never cleaned between owners. The light cloth bandage around his head covered his eyes.