The Steerswoman's Road

by Rosemary Kirstein

  19

  “How do we get in?” Bel wondered.

  “The same way every guard gets in.”

  The cliffs were a riot of raw stone and wild levels. It disturbed Rowan; her maps showed the lake as smaller, the cliffs smoother and slightly farther north. This area had been made this way, made recently, and by magic.

  One arm of stone reached out into the lake; its far edge probably marked the limit of the original cliffs. Now, rock rose sheer from the waters to cradle the pale gray walls of the fortress. The perimeter seemed to be constructed of massive single blocks, one for each of the six faces. Rowan could think of no source for such stone, no way to quarry it, and no way to transport it. In the dawn light it seemed more like ceramic than rock.

  Without a doubt, the fortress belonged to Shammer and Dhree.

  Rowan and her companions had tracked the wounded soldier for two days, until a heavy storm had battered the forest. When it had cleared, they found that all traces of his trail had been eradicated. By continuing in his last known direction, they came across indications of the original squad’s outward-bound passage, but no sign that the survivor had returned that way. The three agreed that the man had likely died in his attempt to return home, victim of hunger, weather, and his weak condition; but the trail left by the horses and people of the outgoing squad was still readable. By following it backward, the travelers eventually found a northbound road that finally led them to the lakeshore.

  “Will, we need you to stay here.” His face darkened, but Rowan forestalled his protest. “I’m not trying to exclude you. You’re our last line. If we don’t come out in three days, you have to head back to the Archives. It’s important that the Prime know what’s happened. Will you do it?”

  He nodded reluctantly. “I guess it makes sense. But you had better tell me all about any magic you saw, when you come out. I’ll wait here and keep the horses ready.”

  “Good lad. Do you still have the map?”

  “Yes.” He pulled it from his shirt. “What’s the route to the Archives?”

  She did not look at the map, but kept her eyes on the fortress. “Follow the cliffs along the west shore of the lake until it turns north ...” Rattling the parchment, Willam puzzled over the chart as Rowan continued, reciting the complicated directions precisely, with offhand ease and only half her attention. “.. and when you reach the Wulf you should be able to get passage to the Archives. There’s a landing; most of the rivermen know where to find it.” She turned to him. “Is that clear?”

  He looked a bit bemused. “Yes.”

  She took in his expression, then laughed. “Anise the merchant wasn’t very good with maps, was she?”

  “No.” He made a wry face. “I used to wonder if she wasn’t a bit thick.”

  “I was afraid that if I showed any skill at all, I’d show all of it. I was truly bad at pretending.”

  “And here we go,” Bel said, “into the middle of it, pretending all the way.”

  The two women were dressed in attire removed from the corpses of the soldiers they had slain. The outfits were not truly uniform, save for the leather helmets, cuirasses, and the red surplices. The individuality of the remaining equipment allowed Rowan to risk retaining her gum-soled steerswoman’s boots. To the casual glance they were not remarkable, but they provided better traction than leather soles, and they were silent.

  “I’ve had practice since then,” Rowan said.

  They had been watching the fortress since the previous day, observing the visible movements of guards on the perimeters, and the entry and exit of supplies and personnel.

  From the front entrance, a railed causeway led along the rocky arm to the road at the base of the cliffs. The end of the causeway was closed off by a barred iron gate set in a stone arch. Each party entering was in the company of a soldier. At the gate, the group would pause; the soldier would step up to the right side of the arch and do something unseen from Rowan’s angle, and the iron bars would swing slowly open to admit the party. The bars moved with no visible human intervention.

  Rowan took a moment to review what she knew about the recent war: the cursory tale Artos had given her, and the incidental information gained from Hugo as he outlined the present status and attitudes of the known wizards. With her knowledge of the lands involved, and logic to fill in the blanks, it would have to suffice. She gestured to Bel and began to clamber down the tumbled rocks to the road below.

  The arch of the gate was mortared stone, the iron bars as thick as Rowan’s wrist and completely clear of rust. It was new, as new as the changed landscape.

  Rowan walked to the right of the arch as if familiar with procedure. Temporarily shielded from the sight of the guards at the other end of the causeway, she took a moment to examine the stones.

  At eye level, one block had been replaced by a small square brass door. A turn of the little handle opened it easily. Inside, the back surface was faced with ceramic, with a recessed circle in the center, decorated with a complex pattern of copper lines.

  Rowan sighed, relieved. “Simple enough.” Bel ignored her, occupied with keeping the reactions of the guards at the keep’s entrance under observation, while simultaneously trying to project an air of nonchalance.

  The women had carefully searched the possessions of the soldiers they had slain. Each had carried a small wood-and-copper disk, like a talisman or amulet, embellished with unreadable runes. The steers-woman removed hers from a pocket built into her confiscated sword belt and fit it into the recessed circle.

  There was a quiet sustained tone, a single deep musical note, heard but faintly. Of its own accord, the heavy crossbolt slid aside slowly, and the gate swung inward. Bel froze and stood watching it as a cat might have watched a dog, her lips peeled back from her teeth.

  Rowan came to her side, looking down the causeway. “Expect magic, Bel.”

  A cool updraft from the lake below countered the heat beating down from above. The women walked along the smooth-surfaced road through an atmosphere that seemed to have no temperature, no real presence.

  Four guards manned the entrance to the fortress proper. Three stood in proper soldierly stance, watched by the fourth, who stood at his ease, viewing everything with an overseer’s disgruntled disdain.

  The guards could not be expected to know every single soldier in the wizards’ employ; the purpose of the spell at the magic gate certainly was to prevent entry by unauthorized persons. Rowan gave the men a casual acknowledging nod as she and Bel passed by and turned to the left. “Easy enough,” Bel said under her breath.

  “You there! You two!” They froze.

  The senior guardsman stamped after them in outrage. “Look, you, if you’ve both got the amulets, you’re both supposed to use them. You know that—it throws off the tally.”

  Rowan thought quickly. “She doesn’t have one.” If the amulets were used to get into the fortress, then only people originating from the fortress would have them. “She isn’t from these parts. We pressed her in Logan Falls.”

  “What? Who’s ‘we’?”

  “My squadron. We’re returning from the war.”

  “You two, alone?”

  “We were with Penn’s squadron.”

  “Showing up now?” He stood with fists on hips. “Took your damn time, didn’t you?”

  “I was sick.”

  He grunted disgust, then looked alarmed. “No, Penn’s squadron, that’s the one got in the way of that basilisk, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  He took a half step back. “It’s all right,” Rowan assured him. “It just turned out to be dysentery. Then we got snowed in and had to wait until spring to travel. And then, well ...”

  Bel spoke up. “We got lost.”

  He barked a laugh. “Infantry—don’t know its ass from its earhole. But look, you been mostly mustered out since then, didn’t you hear?”

  “Not a word.” She tried to catch the style of his speech, to mimic it. “No way
to.”

  “Mph. Should’ve headed home instead.”

  “Home where? Mine’s pretty well flattened.”

  “We decided we liked the life,” Bel put in.

  “Liked it?” He found the idea immensely amusing.

  Rowan remembered a comment Artos’s regulars often made. “Could be worse. We could be working for a living.”

  He recognized a standard soldier’s sally. “Well ...” His manner shifted to grudging familiarity. “We’ve gone and lost a few of the standing, lately. Wouldn’t be surprised if you found a place. You look likely, anyhow,” he said to Bel. “Go talk to Druin; he’s took over for Clara.” Rowan nodded as if the statement made sense to her. “Go on.” He made a vague gesture to the left and plodded back to his station, muttering to himself.

  The two women walked away purposefully and presently found themselves in a small interior courtyard with passages in three directions. Pausing, Rowan carefully placed its size, shape, and orientation within the blank hexagon that was her mental floor plan for the fortress.

  “Now where?” Bel wondered.

  “I don’t know.” Rowan’s mouth twitched with amusement. “Do you think we should try to report to Druin for assignment?”

  “He’d just put us to work.”

  “True.” Rowan examined the courtyard, trying to relate the angles of the exits to the shape of the rooftops she had viewed from the cliffs. “That man’s shift has four hours to go.” She knew that from her earlier observations. “He’ll probably go for his dinner after that, and he may or may not meet Druin in the mess and mention us. We have about four hours before we’re suspected.”

  “That’s not a lot of time.” Bel tilted her head. “If we did report to Druin, and he took us in, then we’d have as much time as we want, and good excuses to be wherever we are.”

  Rowan turned back to her friend, amazed and delighted. She laughed, quietly. “Bel, that’s—that’s audacious!”

  The Outskirter acknowledged Rowan’s reaction with a little self-satisfied smile.

  “I would be expected to have some familiarity with the fortress.”

  “We’ll scout around a bit before we show up,” Bel supplied.

  “That’s the answer.” Rowan scanned the three passages, then chose one that seemed likely to keep close to the outer wall. “This way.” It was large and wide and showed signs of the previous passage of horses. They followed it cautiously through a series of interlinked courtyards, each with side doors; it was likely a delivery route for supplies.

  The critical question was: How did the fortress guards normally behave when off-duty? Were their movements circumscribed, and to what degree? Certainly they could not have the free run of the entire keep, but just as certainly they were not simply confined to barracks. Such an existence would be too grim and limited, and the life of the resident guards would be too unpleasant to attract a sizable loyal corps.

  There had to be compensations for the work. The only analogy Rowan had was Artos’s regulars and the house guards at his mansion. The house guards had an easy job with a certain amount of prestige and were an affable lot, as a rule. The regulars were natural soldiers and enjoyed their alternately ordered and chaotic existence. Gratitude from the townspeople, a romantic image, steady employment, and in many cases a general improvement over their previous existence attracted people to the ranks. The pay was not great, but Artos had more volunteers than he could use.

  The house guards were on a wry, friendly basis with the servants and workers, and from that relationship Rowan took her cue. In one courtyard they came across a wagon laden with small oddsized wooden crates, where a burly, disheveled man and a slim, pockmarked woman of middle age were occupied with tediously bringing the cargo into a side door. Rowan paused and turned back. “Need some help?”

  Possibilities were three: servants were considered of superior rank and would refuse to associate with guardswomen; servants were of inferior rank and would be amazed, possibly frightened, at Rowan’s offer; or, questions of rank were inapplicable between the two groups, and the response would be based purely on the freedom of action normal to off-duty guards.

  The man ignored Rowan, but the woman looked up with mild surprise, then smiled. “Thanks.” She tapped her assistant on the shoulder as he made to unload another crate. Pausing in his work, he watched intently as she indicated Bel and Rowan and pointed from the boxes to the door; then he nodded pleasantly at the pair. He was deaf.

  Rowan pulled down one of the crates and hoisted it to her shoulder. It proved to be lighter than it looked. “Where do these go?” she asked. Bel followed her example with an obviously heavier box, behaving as if she considered the work nothing unusual.

  The woman indicated. “Through that door, through the room, up the stairs.” She paused and winced. “No further, I guess. Wouldn’t look good.” Attracting the disheveled man’s attention again, she attempted to give him a more difficult, complicated instruction. Eventually comprehending, he led the way.

  The room was large and long, lined with cupboards and shelves, apparently to store certain nonperishable items, but the crates they were carrying had a different destination. Rowan and Bel were led through a door in the back and up a set of narrow stairs with a landing halfway up, where the direction reversed. At the top was a second landing, and there the man put down his crate, indicated those carried by the women, then indicated the floor. When they complied, he pointed at Rowan and Bel, back down the stairs, pointed at himself, and made a motion toward a short corridor behind him.

  Without thinking, Rowan replied in the wood-gnome language of gestures. “I understand. We go down now.”

  Those particular phrases were simple and obvious, easily comprehensible to an intelligent person; but the formality of the gestures, and the fluid naturalness of their use, surprised him. It was more than pantomime, it was language, and he seemed to recognize something of this.

  With a look of surprise and concentration, he repeated a phrase, pointing at himself, then extending his index finger near his right temple. “I understand.” He said it twice, testing the moves.

  When they reached the lower room again Rowan and Bel found that the pockmarked woman had not been idle. She had carried a number of crates from the wagon to the side door; a simple division of labor was implied that would prevent the workers from jostling each other and speed up the task.

  “I’ll take the stairs,” Rowan volunteered. Bel set herself to shifting crates from the front door and passing them to Rowan at the stairs’ foot.

  When the steerswoman delivered each crate to the top landing, sometimes the deaf man was there, studying her with shy friendliness. Sometimes he was absent, and she began to catch the rhythm of his work and understand how much time had to pass while he brought each crate down the corridor.

  After transferring one crate to his care and pausing until he was out of sight, she dashed down the stairs as quickly as possible. Meeting Bel in the middle of the storeroom, she took the burden from her there. “Try to work a little faster. I need you to be three boxes ahead of me. And see if you can make them light ones.”

  With Rowan and the man working at one pace, and Bel and the woman outside working at another, it did not take many trips before three boxes sat waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Rowan chose the smallest, hurried up to the first landing, and placed the crate in a spot invisible from above. Returning below, she took a second and managed to reach the top with it in time to hand it to the man above.

  Back at the lower landing, she used her knife to pry up the lid of the first crate. The thin wood was held by tacks and offered little resistance. She was able to detach it easily, but temporarily abandoned it to run down for the third box.

  Just as the deaf man came into sight, she placed the third crate on the top landing, waved at him, and turned back down.

  The box she had opened contained a dozen wooden spools, similar in type to those used for thread, but much larger. Wound around each
was a strand of some substance as thick as heavy yarn, in bizarre colors, garishly brilliant. Loosening the end of one strand, she found it strangely stiff. She pulled out a foot-long length and tried to cut it. She was briefly shocked when the knife failed to cut completely through; if she rewound it, the mark would be visible, and suspicious. But a second panicked attempt detached the segment, and she wound it into a tight coil and slipped it into the pocket with her amulet.

  Pounding the lid closed caused a din that prompted Bel to peer up the stairs in surprise. Rowan ignored her, finished the job, and brought the box to the top landing to find the deaf man waiting.

  Back at the bottom, Bel passed along a somewhat heavier crate. “This is the last.” When Rowan delivered it, she could not help speaking to the man again. “Work finished.” Those signals were more abstract, and she amplified them with gestures including the stairs, the box, herself, and the man, and a negative shake of her head.

  He watched in fascination. Then, with the crate precariously tucked under one arm, he replied. “I understand.” He paused, thinking, then hesitantly added, “You go down now.”

  She grinned at him, charmed by his intelligence, and waved a farewell.

  As they left the storeroom behind, Bel asked, “What did you do?”

  “I made a friend and acquired a souvenir.”

  Reassured by their casual acceptance by the woman and her assistant, Bel and Rowan continued their explorations. They encountered storerooms, stables, a smithy, and a woodshop, but no residences. The people they met, though sometimes surprised, never raised protest.

  For this first reconnaissance, the steerswoman selected routes that kept them close to the outside wall, in order to gain a sense of the overall shape and limits of the keep, and seek future options for discreet departure. Of those, they found two.

  The first was nothing more than a low window in the wall itself, but by leaning over the edge, one could see that the cliffs below were a trifle less sheer than elsewhere, with rocky projections down to the surface of the lake. Conceivably, a person with a rope could lower herself down the face of the wall and scramble laboriously to the water. Unfortunately, the window was in a busy area, and an observer standing nearby would have a clear view of the entire descent; further, the escapee would have to swim to the shore. Rowan was not surprised to learn that Bel lacked that skill.