Daenet shrugged this away. “The Smiths contracted with the Riders two years ago for the maps and some say that the Mapmakers will split from the Riders to become their own guild. In any event, there are enough of them and they have their own apprentices.”
Kieve took a deep breath. “The Explorers,” she said. “Mapping the Outlands. They are barely begun.”
“Oh, Kieve,” Daenet said. “Outlander. They’ll never let you out of Cherek. You know that.”
She turned her face from him. After a moment, he said, “The guild can support only so many of them, you know, the intrepid souls who go forth to freeze their asses. How will all those frozen butts be paid for, with the Riders gone? How will the Mapmakers buy their inks and parchments? Who will fund the wine for the guild hall, and the roasts, and the firewood, and the bread? Um? Shall I tell you, outlander?”
She turned back to him and waited, and he said cheerfully, “Why, it will all be funded by the Riders, of course. Oathed to provincial lords. Riding at their lords’ behest the length and breadth of Cherek. Just—” he poked at her shoulder with one long finger, “just as you do now. And for the same reasons.”
You’ll stay for my son. I’ve never done anything against the rules of my guild. You’ll stay for Gadyn. I can have you killed. And, in the voice of her own thoughts, the only visible symbol of the entire filthy thing.
It was no surprise. She could not oath to Gadyn Marubin, not while his father lived. But she could pledge her oath to him, and by doing so she would symbolize the continuity of the entire filthy thing, ferrets and network, the hidden role of the Guard, and Kieve Rider herself, the executioner’s errand-boy in Dalmorat. If she did, the lords of Cherek’s other impoverished border provinces would note it, and perhaps begin to shape their own provinces to Dalmorat’s image.
When she didn’t respond, he shook his head. “You used to chatter like a bird,” he said. “That evil old man stole your voice, too.”
* * * *
When they came into the main ward the sun had moved down the western curve of sky and the air chilled further. Daenet held the edges of his hood and pulled his head back, burying his face in shadows. “Vile, vile cold,” he said, but instead of going into the hall he looked at the huge ceremonial door. “I don’t suppose you know where Master Jenci is, do you?”
Kieve shook her head. “I haven’t seen him. Bredda said that there is a problem between you?”
He snorted. “You could say that. He ordered me to come as a gesture of respect to his dying Lordship of Dalmorat. And my Lord of Kyst thought to come with me, for the glory of it, he said.”
After a moment, Kieve said, “Did Jenci say why you were to come?”
“Well it must be obvious,” he said. “Reprimands can be delivered by note, but to drum someone from the Guild requires a personal interview. Or so I’m told.”
“Surely not—”
“Surely so,” he retorted. “And so, like some naughty child, I try to make myself scarce. Master Jenci has not demanded my presence and as long as he doesn’t and I do not stumble across him, I am safe.”
They stood quiet for a moment. Kieve said, “Why, Daenet?”
He laughed. “I don’t know, Kieve. I don’t do the work of the Guild, but in that I follow my Lord’s orders, and I am oathed to obey him. There have been other Riders and Lords who were—close. There have been other Riders who drank. There have been other Riders who were never given the chance to carry messages, or announce wars and births and deaths, or map.” He was still for a moment. “Perhaps my great sin is that all of these are true of me together and at once. But this is speculation, Kieve. I do not know.” He stamped his feet. “I am freezing in this place!” he cried. “Damn these frigid Northern airs.”
He hurried toward the Great Hall. Kieve watched him until he entered the shadows of the Hall’s deep doorway. Then she made her way through the wards and passages of Sterk and, putting her hand to the door of her room, froze, listening to a buzz of voices. The high, eager voice belonged to Pyrs; the other was a deep, comfortable rumble with sharp undertones. Her heart jumped. She touched the collar of her cloak and pushed the door open.
Jenci sat before the woodstove with the boy beside him. A scroll map covered their laps and fell to the floor on either side. A map of the Morat, for Kieve recognized the profile of the cliffs south of Koerstadt. Fantastical animals crowded the border of the map; in one corner she saw Jenci’s elaborate compass rose, centered on the feathered serpent of time eating its own tail. Jenci’s huge, booted feet rested on the stove’s legs, his thighs and buttocks overflowing the chair seat. Tight grey braids fell over his shoulders. One beaded braid-end twitched on the pile of his discarded cloak as he turned toward the door, grumbling about interruptions. The grumbling faded and a huge smile took its place.
“Kieve,” he said. “You look better with half your face hidden. Come in.”
She closed the door with one hip and tossed her cloak over the cloak rack.
“Master,” she said, and went to one knee before him. Jenci grabbed her hair, dragged her face forward, and kissed her.
“Brat child,” he said, grinning. “You’ve grown. Great Mother, you’re taller than I am, aren’t you?” He stood up. The boy snatched at the scroll map, moving it out of harm’s way. “Pyrs, stand on a chair and measure us!”
“Boy, sit down.”
The boy looked from one Rider to the other, then busied himself rolling the map. Jenci laughed and hugged Kieve and let her go and sat again.
“Pyrs, fetch this bad-tempered person a cup.” Jenci’s pale eyes sparkled and three of his braids fell across his large belly. “Sit, ikume. The fire’s warm and the apato’s excellent.”
The boy stood and staggered a little. He looked flushed. Two of her best goblets rested by the bottle. “Jenci, you’ve fed him apato?”
“Just a sip.” Jenci’s intricately tattooed hand enveloped his cup. “And if I’m not mistaken, at his age you were swallowing fermented goat’s milk at a staggering rate.”
“You forget where I was,” she said. “And it was krath. Don’t exaggerate.” The boy gave her a clean cup and a wide-eyed look, and retreated. She caught his sleeve and pulled him closer.
“Are you feeling all right?”
He nodded, his lips pressed tight. Kieve let him go and he sat on the rug before the stove, staring at the adults. She took his chair and Jenci filled her cup.
“I’d have been here earlier,” she said, “but Cadoc wanted to see me.”
“Yes? How is he?”
“Dying. How was your trip?”
“Long,” he said. “Long and cold, like every trip north. I took the iron machine as far as Lund. Very noisy it was, and it shakes too much. I didn’t care for it. The ride around the Falls of the Morat was even worse.”
She shrugged. “They keep Dalmorat in, for which the rest of Cherek should be grateful. How long did it take you?”
“Three days by the wagon road before we came to the Morat again—I didn’t want to take the Falls trail. You took forever getting here. Tell me about your own trip.”
She rested her boots on the stove’s skirt and told him, editing as she went. All Riders held a limited mapping brief, to expand and correct that which was known, and so she told him that much and no more. When she told him about Minst and Pyrs he frowned and looked down. The boy had fallen asleep, head pillowed on crossed arms, face rosy with firelight and apato.
“Do you plan to sell him?”
She shook her head.
After a moment, Jenci said, “I can see why you took him, ikume, but I wonder if you do. Did you talk to Bredda about this?”
Kieve stretched her legs. “She wants me to send him home.”
“And will you?”
“He wants to enter a guild. I promised I would help in this.” She turned the cup around in her fingers, watching the apato tilt and fall.
“He is only a bondslave. What will you do if no guild will take him?�
��
“I don’t know.” The boy’s eyelashes, she noticed now, were pale brown and lay in crescents against his cheeks. He looked very young.
“Master?” she said. “Did I do the right thing?”
Jenci widened his eyes. “Mother Above! You’re asking my approval for something?”
“Jenci—”
He put his hand up. “I can’t tell you that. If he cannot find a guild, you could apprentice him. As I did you.”
“Against his wishes? He hates Riders. Did he tell you?”
“I had to convince him that I wouldn’t eat him alive, and then he had to convince me.”
For a moment she thought to ask if the boy had repeated what she had told him, in the snow above Minst, then turned the thought aside.
“He has a sharp tongue for a child of ten,” Jenci said.
“He has a quick mind,” she said.
“He reminds me very much of you.”
Kieve looked at him and looked away again. After a moment she said, “When Cadoc dies, I don’t want to oath to another lord.”
Jenci shook his head. “Nonsense. I have another position for you, ikume. Somewhere more civilized, and warmer. You’ll go as soon as Cadoc dies.”
“But—”
“Of course you’ll ride his death to Koerstadt first. We can go together, I’ll enjoy that. And after, you will continue to your new post.” He smiled at her, anticipating her pleasure. “The coast lands, Kieve. A province by the sea.”
“But I don’t want it, Jenci,” she said. “I’m sorry, I know you must have called in favors to get it for me, but—but I want mountains, Master. Outlands.” She took a deep breath. “I want to join the Explorers.”
Jenci sighed, settling his massive shoulders into the chair. “You don’t give up, do you? It’s not open to discussion. Look, I brought a present for you.” He reached for the scroll map and re-furled it with quick, competent gestures, correcting what Pyrs had done.
She refused to be distracted. “I won’t work for a lord again.”
“I made it myself,” he continued, ignoring her. “The Morat Valley from Koerstadt to the sea. Based on last year’s Survey.” His tattooed hands cradled the map before pressing it into her lap.
“Jenci. Listen to me.”
He sighed again. “Not every lord in Cherek is like Cadoc,” he said. “And Cadoc’s not the first tyrant in Cherek and he won’t be the last. Constain sold his own peasants as slaves in the Koerstadt markets, before turning to warfare—”
“I know that—”
“We survived Constain and we’ll survive Cadoc too.”
“The world has changed—”
“Ikume. You still see the world in terms of absolutes, absolute good or absolute evil. Cadoc’s no more absolutely evil than I am.”
“Don’t tempt me to agree,” she muttered, and put the map aside. Jenci ignored her.
“Before Cadoc there was no trade between Dalmorat and Koerstadt, and little with Moel or Brodveld.”
“There is almost none now.”
“He stabilized the exchange rates in Abermorat,” Jenci continued. “He brought the semaphore telegraphs into the province.”
“That was years ago,” she said with some heat. “And since that time—”
“Since that time he has run his province as well as any Lord. It is his province, Kieve, and it is not within our brief to second guess the decisions he makes. Granted some of them may seem—extreme. I do not care for this system of spies, these—ferrets? Yes. But these choices are his to make, not ours. And,” Jenci said, raising a hand to forestall another interruption, “and he does not propose to turn his back on this Guild. You may not understand the value of that, but in time you will. You ride for a Lord. There are few of you in Cherek, Kieve, at that level. It is an honored position.”
“Only if one rides for an honorable lord,” she said.
“I will not debate this,” he said, in the voice he used to end discussions. Kieve couldn’t breathe. In that moment Jenci put his anger behind him and smiled and gestured toward his cloak. “I have appointments to keep, and you haven’t thanked me for the gift, or asked me my news yet.”
Kieve put her own anger in a small mental room and slammed doors on it, one after another after another. She had done it so often with Cadoc that it took only an instant; that she did it now, with Jenci, made her ache.
“Master, it is an honor.” She opened the scroll a little. The land icons were so tiny and precise that they looked like the pencraft of small insects, running alongside the spines of hills or the sinuous waves of the Morat. “It is beautiful,” she said. “Surely it is not for me.”
“Surely it is,” he said. “For all that you are an evil-tempered, disputatious child. In token of my affection.”
“Jenci.”
“Hush.” He nodded over his shoulder. “Time presses. Will you hear the news?”
Obeying his gesture, she leaned to his cloak and picked it up. “What news? You had time in the midst of your mapmaking to...Jenci,” she said. “Where did you get this?” She stared at the insignia on the cloak’s left breast.
“Where? Before the Riders Council, of course. Three weeks ago. I sent word by the telegraph but you’d already left Sterk.”
“You’re Rider Guildmaster?”
He grinned, enjoying her astonishment. “You think I shouldn’t be? I was fairly elected.”
“I’m—I’m speechless.”
He laughed and hauled himself out of the chair. “I haven’t changed, you know. I don’t walk on air or sweat perfume or any of that other superstitious nonsense. If you start treating me with respect I’ll die of the shock.”
She draped the cloak over his shoulders. He fastened it under his collection of chins. His fingers rested on the red and black emblem, circled now in gold.
“I thought it would never be mine,” he said, serious. “And I will not have it said that during my Mastership, the Riders Guild declined. We are a guild of ancient lineage, Kieve. Reforms are needed, yes, but we are not dying, and we will not torture ourselves into some modern guise.”
It sounded like a speech, Kieve thought as he went toward the door. One he had given often.
“Jenci, master, listen. When something doesn’t have a place, it becomes a tool for whoever sets their hand to it. You came on the Iron Road, you’ve seen the spread of the semaphore, you must know about the talking wire—we are come to Mapmakers and Explorers, and the Riders, people like me, there will be no place for us. If we do not disappear, we will become a tool. As we are a tool in Dalmorat. Others see what we are in this province, what has happened—”
“Enough,” Jenci said. “I hoped you’d outgrown this need to argue with me. I will not hear this, Kieve. Do you think I am blind? I see more clearly than you, but I see no such dangers to this Guild.” He frowned at her. “There will always be need of formalities, and people to effect them. Without Riders there can be no calling of war or of peace, no intermediaries between Lord and Lord. It is diplomacy, it is what we will become, and I see no shame in it.” She opened her mouth but he waved her to silence. “I was asked to take this Mastership, and I will not see the Riders lessened under my hand.” He paused at the door to look at her, then beyond her to the boy’s sleeping shape. “You don’t respect me, and he doesn’t respect you, I think. You two have much in common, Kieve. You should think about that.”
She tightened her lips and watched him walk out and close the door, with care so as not to waken the child. After a moment she sat and let her breath huff out.
I was asked. Of course he’d been asked. He would have been the perfect middle choice: affable, neither radical nor reactionary, insular, not much concerned with anything that could not fit within the borders of a map.
The coast lands, he had said. A province by the sea. It came to her that he meant Kyst, that he meant her to have Daenet’s place. And he would not have had to call in any favors at all. He was the Guildmaster and, within the
guild, his word was law.
She closed her eyes and put her head against the seat back and held the scroll map. Her shoulders hurt.
* * * *
The boy slept through the remainder of the afternoon, through the time when she worked on her accounting and through her accompanying curses. He was still asleep when she finished eating. She had covered him with a quilt before the meal, and now pulled it down to his chin. He had a smudge of dirt his cheek. He mumbled and pulled the quilt back over his ears. She went out, instructing Gaura to heat water and make sure the boy bathed. Gaura, her hands full of dishes, nodded and waddled from the room. Kieve pulled the cloak around her shoulders as she walked onto the portico above the yard. The yard was silent except for the distant noises from the Great Hall. The moon sat in the dark sky, looking still a little fuzzy, but she thought her vision was improving. It had to be.
Children in Cherek saw a rabbit in the face of the moon; the Inguruki said that Raven made the moon, but Snow Wolf made the stains upon it. It happened in the days when all the Deathless lived together in one land, and the land was flat from sky to sky.
Raven and Bear were great friends, and so Snow Wolf was jealous. He dug a great hole in Bear’s path. Bear tumbled into it and Snow Wolf taunted him. Bear grew as his anger grew, until he burst up from the trap, scooped up Snow Wolf, ate him whole, and went home.
Raven found Snow Wolf’s blood on the snow. She took it up and breathed on it, and it told her what had happened. Life was peaceful without Snow Wolf’s blustering and strutting so for a while she did nothing, until her lust grew on her as it always did. She went to Bear’s house and said, “This will not do, brother. I need Snow Wolf and you must give him back.”
Bear said, “I won’t do it until he promises to leave me alone.” Inside Bear’s stomach, Snow Wolf laughed.
Raven said, “If I give you something so that you can see Snow Wolf’s night tricks, will you give him back?”
Mapping Winter Page 11