Mapping Winter

by Marta Randall

  “Did he make me to be stolen? Is he trying to kill me, too?”

  She took a deep breath and did not know what to say. After a moment, “I don’t know,” she said again. “I think if someone means harm to you, it is to harm me through you. But there’s so much that I don’t know.” She sat up, hands deep in the vines. “We need to go.”

  At the cave’s far side they used tumbled gargoyles as handholds, climbing down to the corridor.

  For a moment she thought of taking him into the Voice of the Dead, but the sky was darkening and it was already well past noon. The map of Old City scrolled through her memory. At a break in the corridor she stepped again through the walls. They headed down along the dry twisting beds of ancient water courses, through gaping windows and collapsing rooms, snaking and curling and falling through the layers of Old City.

  * * * *

  A cold wind poured through Palisade Square. Vendors hunched against it, folding their tents. One stopped to sell Kieve cold meat wrapped in a fold of bread. They ate while they walked the margins of the Square until she found the Inn of the Boar.

  Kieve gave one of the ubiquitous street urchins a coin to go inside, find Sadik Sheepherder, and tell him that a woman had found his wallet and he must come into the Square to identify it. Moments later he followed the girl out of the Inn.

  “You have my money?” he demanded of Kieve, who had pulled her hood forward.

  “Hush. Not in public,” she said, and led him to a narrow, deserted alley. He refused to go in.

  “If you are an honest woman, you will give me my wallet here,” he said.

  “If you were an honest man, you’d admit you hadn’t lost a wallet,” she said. “We need to talk privately.”

  The sheepherder looked at her with suspicion. “Why?”

  She pulled Pyrs’ cap away. His golden hair shone in the light.

  “Pyrs?” Sadik said. He followed her down the alley. Midway along it, where she could see both ends, she stopped. Sadik beckoned Pyrs over.

  “Has she harmed you?” he said.

  Pyrs turned away but Sadik caught his wrist and pulled him back.

  “Answer me. Are you—”

  “I’m all right,” the boy muttered. “Let me go.”

  “What about Unig’s horse?” the shepherd said.

  “Sheepherder—”

  “Unig says that you stole the horse from him too, and he wants to cry justice for it, and for the boy, and—”

  “Quiet.”

  Sadik’s mouth closed.

  “Good,” Kieve said. “My name is Kieve. I’m Lord Cadoc’s Herald Rider. For reasons you don’t need to know Pyrs is in danger, and as long as he’s near the castle I’m in danger, too. You must take him back to Minst.” She took a breath. “Now you can talk.”

  Sadik turned to the boy. “Is this true?”

  “Someone stole me last night. And someone followed us today, a man with a blue cap.” He paused. “I don’t want to go back.”

  “You want to stay with her?” Sadik said, incredulous. Pyrs refused to answer.

  Kieve spread her hands. “He doesn’t believe he could be hurt or killed.”

  “Ah.” Sadik crossed his arms. “You want me to help you.”

  “I want you to take him back to Minst,” Kieve said.

  “For how long?”

  “Forever, damn you. I have his bond, I will sign it back to Unig Innkeeper. But he must leave the city.” The shepherd hesitated. The wind pushed bits of garbage down the alley. “Shepherd, we don’t have much time. You’ll take him?”

  “Yes,” Sadik said. “Yes, of course. We’ll leave as soon as the council is done.”

  “Council!” She slammed her palms against the wall. “He has to leave now, this minute, it can’t wait.”

  “But Rider, be reasonable. If I go now Minst won’t be represented and they’ll cut off our trade. I came alone, there’s no one else here from the village, no one to take my place. I can’t do it.” He paused and pushed a strand of hair from his eyes and smiled, being charming. “Unless there’s some news from up castle I don’t know. Unless Cadoc isn’t going to die soon. Is he, Rider? Is there time to ride to Minst and back before the lord dies?”

  “I don’t know,” she said after a moment. “I don’t think so.”

  “I could hide him here.”

  “If I can’t protect him up castle, you surely can’t protect him here.”

  “From whom?” Sadik demanded. “If I take him, how can I keep him safe if I don’t even know who to keep him safe from?”

  “Travel overland,” Kieve said immediately. “Take the route I took, directly over the mountains. Pyrs knows the way and I can draw—but you’re not going, are you? Not until after council.” She pulled her hood up. “Shepherd, forget you saw us.”

  “But I want to help you,” Sadik said.

  “You can’t. You last saw Pyrs in Minst. That’s all you know.”

  “There must be something—”

  “There isn’t.” She pulled Pyrs’ cap over his hair. She couldn’t read his expression. “Don’t follow me, shepherd. I know where you stay.”

  They left him in the alley and walked into Palisade Square again. Dark clouds filled the sky. Most of the tents were gone, folded out of the storm’s reach. Stallholders hurried to store their goods. The wind grabbed an awning and threw it into the air. Its poles clattered down like spears.

  “Kieve?” The boy skipped to keep up with her. “If there’s no safe way to get me out, I’ll have to stay with you, won’t I?”

  She shook her head and led the way from the square. They weren’t followed.

  * * * *

  The private room Kieve hired above a wine shop was quiet and shabby and warm. She ordered wine and some ink and paper. Pyrs slouched about the room in miserable silence while she scribbled a note, sealed it, and sent it off with the barmaid’s younger brother. The boy stared in awe at the coin Kieve dropped in his dirty palm and scampered out of the room. She watered some wine for Pyrs, filled her own cup, and stared into it. Wind muttered around the chimneypots. She tried to make a picture for a small boy, but Pyrs’ face kept slipping over it and sliding away, try as she might to pen it behind a door in her mind. After a while she took the boy’s bond and the map he had made and spread them out on the bench beside her. She rested her palm on them and stared into the fire.

  Her wine was still untouched when the door opened and Bredda came in. The old woman’s eyebrows rose when she saw Pyrs. She dropped a large sack on the table, covered it with her cloak, and came to sit beside Kieve at the fire.

  “Going to storm tonight,” she said. “What did you try to do?”

  “Give him to the Minst guildspeaker. I thought he would have a companion, someone to stay while he went. Or go while he stayed.”

  Bredda grunted. “What happened?”

  Kieve told her about Sadik. Bredda, listening, rubbed at her stump. When Kieve finished she sat back in the chair. “So.” Bredda sipped from Kieve’s winecup. “Horrible stuff, I serve much better. Pyrs, fetch my bag. I’ll take him.”

  Kieve looked at her. “Where?”

  “You don’t need to know that. Or when, or how.” Pyrs put the sack beside her and sat at their feet, facing the fire. “I may not get him back to Minst, but he’ll be safe, I promise you.”

  “As a bondslave.”

  Bredda raised her eyebrows. Kieve looked away. Her glance stopped at Pyrs’ head. His curls looked almost red in the firelight. “I’ll find a safe place in the city,” she muttered. “The supply boat’s due to leave tomorrow. I’ll—”

  “Nothing will sail in this storm,” Bredda said. She pulled Kieve’s guild cloak from the sack and held it in her lap for a moment. “You were willing to send him back to Minst, to never see him again. Why is this any different?”

  “At least I’d know where he was,” Kieve muttered. Pyrs’ shoulders moved and were still again. She looked away, caught Bredda’s glance, and looked away fro
m that, too. She picked up the papers and put them on the table.

  “Your horse is stabled next door,” the old woman said. “You’ll have to pay the stableboy. Give me my shortcoat back. Don’t forget your patch.”

  “Wait,” Kieve said. “Pyrs, listen. I must burn your map.” She took up the map and knelt beside him in front of the fire. “It is not legal to map a castle, even a tiny part of it. Because it might fall into the hands of enemies.” She looked at him, holding the paper to the flame. He stared at it. “I’m sorry. Maps are like weapons, some times. That’s why there is a law.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “You can make other maps,” she said. The flame licked at her fingertips. She dropped the paper and watched the last of it burn. After a moment she sat at the table and drew his deed of bond to her.

  “This is your debt. This means that you owe me money, twenty capits and a half, and when that is paid off you are free.”

  He looked at her. Bredda shifted a little on the bench.

  Kieve dipped the pen in ink and bent over the deed, writing in her clear, rapid hand underneath the selling signed by Unig Innkeeper. She carefully removed a page from her notebook and wrote on it, too. When she was done she re-read both papers, blew them dry, and pushed the deed toward Bredda. Bredda read it and raised her eyebrows.

  “You’re sure?” she said. “How will you find the money for this?”

  Kieve gave her the second paper. “My word bond, for the money. He should keep it together with the deed.” She handed Bredda the pen and the innkeeper witnessed them both. “You’ll help him? Find a sponsor for him?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Kieve gestured this away. “And you will sell the horse for me?”

  Bredda blew on her signatures. “Is it my pay from the Guild? No, of course not. I suppose I must.”

  “I need it,” Kieve said.

  “To pay for this.” Bredda tapped the paper. “Kieve, you know the guild will shoulder your debts, if it must.”

  “If I die. Is that a course you recommend?”

  “No. No, I did not mean that.”

  Kieve took the papers back and held them out to the boy.

  “You’re free,” she said. “I forgive your debt.”

  He stared at her.

  “You’re not a bondslave anymore. Bredda will help to find you a place to live, a guild to take you in and apprentice you. I owe it to you, for what I have done to you.”

  “But you never paid Unig—”

  “That is not your concern,” she said. “That was my debt before and it’s still my debt, not yours. That’s what this second paper says. Your debt is paid. Damn it, take them!”

  She shoved the deed into his hand and stood. She stuffed her belongings haphazardly into the pockets of the cloak.

  “I’ll stop at City House and record it,” she said. She pulled her cloak closed and left. The dim corridor was filled with the rumor of wind until, behind her, Pyrs shouted her name. She stopped, her back to him. His footsteps approached, slowing as he neared her. When she turned he stood a pace away, eyes bright and hands busy under his shirt. He brought them out and closed the small space between them.

  “Keep this for me,” he said unevenly, “until you come for me.”

  “Pyrs, I can’t—I won’t be—”

  “It’s not yours,” he said. “It’s mine. It’s a loan.” His voice broke. He pressed something into her palm and bolted back into the room, slamming the door. Kieve opened her fingers and saw the necklet he had braided from horse hairs, Traveler’s and Myla’s, still warm from the boy’s skin.

  * * * *

  Wind howled up the avenue, tugging at bare trees. Magician, dancers, musicians, vendors, and shoppers were all gone, stores closed, windows shuttered tight. The light had turned a nasty yellow-grey and the bell in City House tower tolled two hours past noon.

  The shutters on City House were closed behind wooden bars. The heavy front door didn’t move when she shook it. Cursing, she pushed through the wind back to Traveler and rode toward the quay.

  Traveler fidgeted. A gust lifted his mane and she shook her head hard. Pyrs still had her Rider’s token, deep in his pocket or, maybe, dangling about his neck. The thought made a tight, hard bolus in her chest.

  The constables at the wharf said the ferrymen would make one last run before they, too, hid from the storm, but she had to wait for the boat. She spent the time staring at the frozen Morat and cursing methodically and monotonously. The gleam from a passing lantern caught at a scrap of cloth, bright as a boy’s hair.

  * * * *

  Riding up the narrow road from the quay, she inventoried the contents of her room. Little enough there, but she could sell the crystal and porcelain and the lamp. She drew in her breath. Taryn had admired Hovath’s Compendium. Perhaps he would pay enough for it to cover the cost of a small boy. It was, she though, the least that he owed her. She could leave the funds with Isbael’s steward, who would convey them to Unig Innkeeper to satisfy the debt. Twenty capits and a half for the boy, and another twenty for the horse. Bredda might get eighteen for Myla, or even more once the Passing was complete and all those guildspeakers had to make their ways home, but it couldn’t be counted on. She owed a total of forty and a half. The law said that if she didn’t pay her debt, Unig would be within his rights to reclaim the boy. The matter was of some urgency: she could not leave Dalmorat Province with the debt unpaid, not if Pyrs was to be free. She had nine saved up and another two from the last ride: so twenty-nine and a half to make up. The Compendium wasn’t worth that much.

  A freezing rain began to fall just before she reached the first curtain. Traveler put his head down and she shrank back inside her hood. At the wagon gate the shadi held a lantern to her face, motioned her through, and retreated to the shelter of the gatehouse. Traveler trudged the path between the fields. Storm shutters covered the windows of the village houses, the shops were closed and dark, the castle a looming presence behind them. It, too, retreated behind dark walls as she crossed the glacis. Rain fell and froze, and already the path grew slippery. At the gate two figures emerged from the barbican, one swinging a lantern. She reined Traveler to a halt.

  “Rider.” The figure with the lantern threw back his hood. She frowned down at the lined face of Heron, Taryn’s Chancellor. He was a good man, a plodding, thorough man with no evil to his name or history save that he was one of Cadoc’s many bastards. Wind snatched his words away. He pulled his hood back up. She leaned down.

  “My lady Isbael desires your presence,” Heron shouted. “Lud will take your horse.”

  She dismounted but kept the reins in her fist, reluctant to talk to the woman Taryn would marry. “Why?”

  Heron shook his head. Isbael couldn’t command her but it would be impolitic to refuse.

  “Lord Taryn?”

  “He is with her,” Heron shouted. “Please, Rider. Before we freeze.”

  She scowled and handed the reins to Lud. Heron pulled his hood up, tucked his chin down, and led her through the Snake. The alley funneled the wind to gale force. She bent her shoulders against it. Most likely Bredda would take him out of the city. They were probably gone already. South, perhaps. Traveling in the storm.

  Heron ducked through an arch. She followed him up a curved, semi-enclosed stone stairway. A bundled servant took torches from their brackets, dunked them in a bucket of water, and put them back in the supports. Night seemed to climb the stairs in his wake. The deserted wing behind Lord’s Walk was still black with soot where, a century earlier, high winds had flung a lit torch against a wooden wall. The servant pressed against the wall to let them pass.

  The stairs became an angled passageway, the passageway became a corridor where torches burned calmly along the walls. Heron opened his lantern and pinched out the flame. Kieve dropped the hood of her cloak, brushing ice from the fur.

  “What time is it?” she said.

  “The third hour past noon, mistress.”
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br />   She put her hands through the cloak and into the pockets of her breeches, tangling her fingers in Pyrs’ necklet. Her thigh muscles flexed against her hands as she walked. Bredda would have given him some warm clothes. If they found a solid way-lodge outside the city, they could ride out the storm in relative comfort and the storm itself would protect them. It would be cold there.

  She expected to be led to the Marubin section of the castle but Heron took her instead to Taryn’s chambers, behind the White Tower and snug against the dark stone of Sterk, at the castle’s highest level. Hangings covered the rock walls. The flag above the door showed Isbael’s single curving black stroke against russet and dark blue. Taryn’s own flag had been moved to a smaller door further along the hallway. Heron conferred with two servants in Isbael’s colors. After a moment the carved wooden doors swung open. In the entry hall, another of Isbael’s servants took their cloaks. They entered Taryn’s guest hall, where his delicate, comfortable furniture had been moved to focus attention on a plain, un-cushioned chair by the fireplace. The room was empty. Heron led her to another carved door set behind hangings. Kieve took a deep breath as he opened the door, bowed, and gestured her inside.

  “My Lady Isbael, Lady Esylk, the Rider Kieve,” Heron said. Kieve dropped to one knee.

  Esylk smiled, tucking her hands into her sleeves. Isbael Marubin, like her father, was stocky and big-boned, square of hand and face, with heavy lids and thick, sensuous lips. Her eyes, like her father’s, were a flat black that gave away nothing. Wings of grey highlighted her thick black hair. At her gesture Kieve rose and stood while Isbael inspected her.

  “I thank you for coming.” Isbael’s voice was low and smooth. “I thought it time we met, Rider. The Lord of Myned tells me that you are old friends.”

  “I am honored to be so called,” Kieve said.

  “You must be frozen,” Esylk said. “Lady, may she sit?”

  “Of course, and close to the fire. Heron, a posset for the Rider, then you may leave us.”

  He bowed and withdrew, leaving the three women alone. Kieve bowed to Isbael and took the offered seat beside the fireplace. Esylk smiled. Isbael smiled. Kieve smiled, and didn’t trust either of them. Heron brought the posset on a little enameled tray and set it by her side and left. Everybody smiled again.