Havenstar

by Glenda Larke

  And yet even then she had not rebelled. How could one rebel when there was nowhere to rebel to? Every other stability obeyed the same Rule, had the same prejudices. And love created its own ties anyway, even stronger than those of convention. She loved her parents. Both of them. She respected them. Love made it impossible to rebel.

  ‘Keris? Sorry to bother you dear, but could I have a cup of water?’

  Her mother again.

  She went through into the kitchen, thinking how hard it must be for a woman like Sheyli Kaylen to come to this, unable even to get herself something to drink with any ease. Mother and daughter had often clashed. They were both too strong-willed for it ever to be otherwise, but there was also respect there. Sheyli had spent six months in every year alone, as was the fate of a mapmaker’s wife. It had been she who’d run the shop every autumn and every spring and raised two children while doing it, knowing there was a good likelihood that one day her husband would not return from one of his trips. It was she who’d softened Piers’ rough edges with her gentleness, who’d given the children something beyond the outlook of an Unstabler to think about.

  It was seeing her father’s courage that had taught Keris to be strong; it was her mother’s lively curiosity that had taught her to question. Sheyli had never intended her example should stir rebellion and an unhealthy desire to experiment, but that is what had happened. She’d encouraged her daughter’s development, realising too late she’d nurtured a bird too big for the nest.

  ‘Stubborn,’ Piers had once growled in the direction of his daughter. ‘Stubborn as a dung beetle trying to get too large a ball of dung into his hole.’

  She handed her mother the water she’d pulled from the kitchen pump. ‘There you are. Is there anything else I can get you?’

  ‘No— Ah, is that Thirl I can hear?’

  ‘That’s him,’ she agreed, hearing the sound of her brother’s boots crossing the back yard to the door.

  He came in as he always did, full of bonhomie and expecting to be the centre of the world. He washed under the pump at the sink, splashing water and discarding the towel on to the floor, dispensing village gossip all the while.

  Thirl Kaylen was a small man who compensated for his small size and the ordinariness of his features with an overpowering personality. People always knew when Thirl Kaylen entered a room just as they were always aware of when he left it. He was listened to with deference, not because he was particularly astute or wise, but because when he spoke, such was his assurance, the sheer vigour of his character, that it was difficult not to listen.

  ‘Mistress Pottle was asking after you, Ma,’ he was saying. ‘She said she’d look in on you later. I met Harin down in the square. He’s asked me to join him over in Upper Kibble this evening. I’ll need some money, Keris. Have you made any sales so far today?’ He gave her a peck on the cheek, and smiled.

  It was a fond smile, the smile of a man for a loved younger sister, and it almost swayed her. Almost. ‘No,’ she lied, shaking off the temptation to trust that smile, to bend before him, as wheat before the wind. Harin’s father owned the tavern in Upper Kibbleberry and she didn’t want Thirl spending all they had on drink. ‘It’s too early in the season to be expecting many pilgrims, and the Unstablers won’t come until they know the new maps are ready, you know that.’

  ‘Damn. Then give me a silver out of the caddy, Sis. I need it.’

  ‘That’s the housekeeping money.’

  ‘So? I shan’t be in for supper. You will save the price of a meal.’

  ‘A home-cooked meal doesn’t cost a silver. Nor does a tavern one,’ she said sourly, even though she knew her mother would nod her acquiescence—as indeed she did. Keris hid a sigh. ‘You can have a quarter silver, Thirl. That’s all we can spare.’

  She went to get it. The caddy, black with age and made of a metal that no one could identify, stood on the mantel over the fireplace. It had been the repository of Kaylen housekeeping money for as long as anyone could remember, and she handled it carefully. Family legend said it dated back to the days before the Rending, that it had come from lands across the sea. Brazis, perhaps. Or the isles of Quay Linden. She didn’t know whether she believed that, and she was rather vague as to what a sea was anyway, but she did not want to be the one that dropped and dented so ancient an heirloom.

  ‘Harin was asking about you,’ Thirl said to her. ‘He said he might drop by this week.’

  ‘Tell him not to bother.’

  ‘I’ll do no such thing.’ He took the money from her. ‘Don’t be impolite. Thanks, Sis. I’ll see you both later.’

  ‘You’re going already?’ Sheyli asked, disappointed and trying not to show it.

  ‘Ay, why not? Nothing to do around here, is there? As Keris said, it’s too early in the season for much business yet and we all know Keris drafts better maps than I do—and enjoys it more.’ He bent to kiss his mother on the cheek and was gone before either of them could protest further.

  Keris gritted her teeth. ‘He didn’t ask after you,’ she muttered, picking up the towel.

  Sheyli smiled gently. ‘Come now, perhaps he wanted to take my mind off my ill-health. Anyway, you can hardly expect a healthy man like that to be wanting to talk about illness. Thirl’s young. He wants to enjoy himself and why not?’

  I’m young too, she thought resentfully. And why the Chaos should we always be excusing him because he’s a man?

  Piers had not taken his son into the Unstable this trip because of Sheyli’s illness. Thirl had been supposed to stay at home and help out, yet all he did was breeze in, cheer Sheyli with ten minutes of gossip and jokes, then breeze out again. He hadn’t touched ink and map pen in three months and he’d hardly ever taken a turn in the shop either.

  He only ever comes back to the house when he is hungry, or sleepy, or in need of money. But what’s the use of saying any of it? It never makes any difference and it never will. He could make Sheyli laugh and forget her illness; she could not. He was Sheyli’s son and she forgave him everything. She was Sheyli’s daughter and as much as Sheyli might have loved her, she also took her for granted.

  ‘Is Harin Markle interested in you?’ Sheyli asked suddenly.

  Keris was diverted. ‘Ley-life, I hope not! He’s a gutter-minded sharpster, just like his father.’ She went to stir the hotpot that had been slowly cooking on the hob all day.

  ‘Is he? He’s always seemed polite and attentive when I’ve spoken to him.’

  ‘Attentive? Oily’s the word you’re looking for. Slippery, like greased pork just lifted from the pan.’

  Sheyli gave the faintest of shrugs and stirred uncomfortably on the couch. ‘Perhaps. But you ought to be looking over the young men, Keris. You have to marry soon.’

  She turned to her mother, but the sharp words on her tongue died unspoken. Sheyli was only worried about her daughter’s future because she was— She stopped the thought right there. It was hard to admit, even inside the privacy of her mind, that her mother was dying. ‘Not Harin,’ she said at last. ‘Anyone but Harin.’

  ‘Then perhaps a mapmaker, or a courier or a trader or a guide. It’s not such a bad life for an independent woman,’ Sheyli continued tentatively. ‘An Unstabler, Keris. Chantry likes the children of an Unstabler to marry one.’

  ‘Is that why you married Father?’ she asked. ‘Because he wasn’t around all that much to curb your independence?’

  Sheyli did not get a chance to reply. The bell on the shop door tinkled, indicating another customer. ‘Business is brisk today,’ she said with mild surprise.

  Keris replaced the pot lid and turned to go back into the shop.

  ‘Shut the door, dear,’ Sheyli said, suddenly losing interest. ‘I think I will sleep for a while.’

  She walked through into the shop and pulled the door to after her. There was no one there but she could hear sounds outside at the hitching rail and someone had propped the door open. She looked out into the yard.

  And her heart skitte
red.

  Two of the crossings-horses there were undoubtedly her father’s, but of Piers Kaylen there was no sign. The man now untying packs from the back of one of them was a courier. She had known him for years.

  Blue Ketter came to Kaylen the Mapmaker’s to buy charts because he regularly worked the area north of the Wide. He was good at his job, known—as indeed most couriers were—for his reliability and honesty. He was an ugly man, short and squat with hands the size of fire bellows and a twist of blueish scar tissue across the centre of his face like some bizarre mask made by a child at play. A ley line had been responsible for that on his first ley-crossing. He’d been called Blue ever since.

  Like most couriers, he preferred his own company to anyone else’s, and spent as little time as possible within the boundaries of any stability. He appeared in the First every few months, where with a minimum of conversation he bought new supplies and perhaps a new map or two, made his deliveries within the First Stability and collected new letters and packages for other stabilities before riding back into the Unstable.

  Keris stood stock still, hand on the counter, and knew she was not going to like what she was about to hear.

  He came into the shop slowly, refusing to meet her gaze. The subdued kinesis he made was one used for occasions of sorrow. ‘Maid Kaylen,’ he said. ‘Your brother about?’

  ‘No, Master Ketter, he’s not. And my mother is ill. You had better tell me what’s happened.’

  He untied his kerchief, mopped the back of his neck with it and then twisted it through his fingers, stalling for time while he decided what to say.

  Sick in the pit of her stomach, unable to wait even to hear what she did not want to know, she helped him out. ‘Is he—? He can’t be— He’s—he’s dead, isn’t he?’

  Bleakly, Ketter nodded. ‘Sorry.’

  And even then part of her would not believe it. Piers? Piers Kaylen? Never! Not her father, with his slow smile and lightning quick reflexes, not Piers Kaylen, with his rough tongue and decent heart. She did not move, but instinctively lowered her voice to be sure her mother would not hear. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Pickle’s Halt. He was attacked. Died right away.’

  She stared at him, still unable to accept that Piers was dead, and certainly not comprehending what she was hearing. She’d never been into the Unstable, but she knew enough to know that halts were generally the safest of places anywhere outside a stability. ‘He died in a halt?’

  He nodded. ‘Sorry, lass,’ he mumbled. ‘Now I got to go. Got deliveries to make. Brought back his horses. And his things, what was left of them. Pretty torn up, they were.’

  Still stupefied, she repeated the words without understanding them. ‘Torn up?’

  He nodded. ‘Got to go. Got packages for the Rule House in Kt Beogor. And letters for Drumlin. Perfumes for the Margrave’s daughter there from the son of the Domain Lord of Salient Meadows. Courting her, they say.’

  She stared at him, unable to believe he was passing on gossip about Tricians when all she was interested in was what had happened to her father.

  ‘What killed him?’ she asked. Piers? Dead?

  ‘Uh—a pet, I heard. Had to have been. The way he was ripped up, you see. Crushed. Never had a chance.’

  A pet? She did not want to hear—yet she said, ‘Can’t you be more—more specific? About how it came about, I mean.’

  ‘Wasn’t there,’ he said simply. ‘Lass, better not to ask. He’s dead. Chaos got him in the end. Happens out there. Piers was one of the best, but even the best get caught sometimes. Got to go. I’ll unload the horses and put them in the barn for you.’ He left the room, scarcely concealing his relief.

  None of it made sense. A pet? Died in a halt? Pets did not enter halts. She took a deep breath, tried to control the enmeshing grief that threatened her calm—and failed. She cried noiselessly, helplessly; cried for a man who had been many things to her: mentor and inspiration; detractor and disparager, friend and advisor. Piers Kaylen, master mapmaker, was dead. The best of fathers, sometimes. And an indifferent parent too, often. Always away, or too busy, skilled at leaving discipline problems to Sheyli, or ignoring what he did not want to see. But still her father. Living, he could have been more to her; dead, he could only be loved for being exactly what he had been.

  By the time Blue Ketter returned carrying her father’s packs, she was composed again, sitting quietly in the shop with her hands folded in her lap. The sun had retreated; her skirt covered her legs, but still she felt cold.

  ‘Thank you, Master Ketter,’ she said politely. ‘Doubtless we owe you something—’

  ‘Nay, lass,’ he said in deep embarrassment. ‘Couldn’t charge Piers’ family for a service, not with him gone. Wouldn’t be right. Besides, Pickle of the Halt gave me a bit for my trouble. Not that it was a trouble really,’ he added hastily. ‘Glad to do it. Good man, your Dad.’ He took a deep breath and plunged on. ‘Best maps in the business, you know. Accurate. And clear. Last few years, well, they’ve been better than ever. Coloured, you know. Better than before. Easier to follow, better drawn. He was improving all the time. Not often you get a mapmaker like that. Best maps of all, Piers Kaylen’s. Everyone knows them, you know.’

  She looked up at him, and her tear-streaked face betrayed her doubt. He said, ‘True. Wouldn’t say that just cos he’s dead. Piers Kaylen made the finest maps in all the stabs and it’ll be a long time before we see his like again.’

  Bitter laughter bubbled up from within her, coupling with an ambivalent grief. Piers Kaylen had not drawn a map in almost five years. She had been the draughtsman in the family. He had given her his sketches and his notes, the cross-staff and theodolite and compass readings, and from them she had created the maps to scale, even as he had concealed her talent. ‘No one will buy a map if they know it was drawn by a woman,’ he had said. ‘Don’t ever let anyone see you working at a chart, or we’ll be out of business, there’s a good girl.’ They had been a good team, each complementing the other, but no one outside the Kaylen family knew the truth of it.

  Now he was dead, and his daughter laughed and grieved and—in the deepest recesses of her heart—hated, just a little, the father she had also loved, because he had hidden her talent from the world, because he had used her but never publicly acknowledged his debt, because he had never truly admitted her potential even in private.

  Piers Kaylen, Master Mapmaker.

  ~~~~~~~

  Chapter Three

  And all this was displeasing to Lord Carasma, so he looked for ways to unravel what the Maker had ravelled, until he found what he sought: the imperfection of humankind’s greed was in the warp just as human goodness was in the weft.

  And so it was that when Goodperson prayed for an end to the Chaos that ate Malinawar, the Maker replied: ‘I gave you choice, but some of you chose the Unstable. Therefore has Chaos cut a hole in the fabric of my Creation and torn the weave of your world asunder.’

  —The Rending I: 1: 10-12

  Two days later, when the immediate shock of Piers’ death had subsided to a vague awareness of loss, a sort of grumbling pain that would not ever quite go away, Keris was sitting in the main room beside her mother’s bed. She had the cat sitting on her lap and was searching absently through its fur for fleas. Yerrie submitted, unprotesting. Thirl, polishing his boots on the other side of the room, occasionally glanced at his sister with disapproving eyes. Only the presence of an outsider, a village woman called Helda Pottle, stopped him from telling Keris exactly what bothered him.

  Mistress Pottle was folding the washing, and prattling. The first she did because she was paid to help with the housework now that Sheyli was ill; the prattle was freely bestowed and habitual. ‘Well, Sheyli, I must say I enjoy those frill flowers you got planted around your washhouse, but I shudder to think what’d happen if old Mistress Quint saw them! She’d be off to tell the Rule Office, sure as her face is as sour as a green plum. Mean-spirited old bag, she’d be sure to notice you�
��ve changed the garden there. ‘S’posed to be cabbages along the washhouse, right? Oh, and that reminds me, Adarn Morl—you know him, Sheyli? That hulking farm labourer who got himself wed to Chickee Oster? Well, their son’s got hisself tainted, they say. He’s excluded, and Chickee was howling fit to bust her laces. Went for the Chantor at evening Prostration, saying it was all Chantry’s fault!’

  The woman flapped creases out of the sheet and slapped it down on the table as she spoke. The loose furls of fat on her upper arms wobbled in sympathy. ‘Dunno what the world’s coming to, meself. What with mountains disappearing and so many not coming back from the Unstable. Your Piers, Adarn and Chickee’s son, that lass over Upper Kibble way—’ She shook her head. ‘They say a live Wild turned up in the Flow last month near Drumlin city. A water monster. The Defenders slew it, but Chantry’s none too popular for letting that one in, you can be sure. And then right here in Kibbleberry the rule-chantors came and took one of Maree’s twins last week, just like they done to your Aurin, Sheyli, all those years back. T’ain’t right.’

  Sheyli shivered and turned her face to the wall.

  ‘Watch your tongue, Mistress Pottle,’ Thirl said. ‘That kind of talk doesn’t do, you know.’

  ‘Ah, bah! Which one of you lot’s going to tell on me? Chantor Nebuthnar knows what I think, anyways. I tell him to his face, the silly old chook. Let me tell you, Master Thirl, if Chantry wants us to follow the Rule, then they ought to make sure they give us summat in return. But mountains disappear from right on our doorstep, and lasses and lads get tainted, and they take our children, and monsters come down the river. What’s the Stability coming to, eh? Things like that never used to happen when I was a gel, let me tell you.’

  She gave a self-satisfied grunt, as if her youth had once been responsible for keeping the Unstable at bay. ‘Nowadays, all Chantry seems good for is spiriting away bairns, and making life difficult. Why, only last week they were telling my nevvy that he can’t put plain glass in his window, cos it’s allus been bottle glass, and that even though the window was shattered by a runaway cart last week. And there was old Marcun the Cooper wanting to root up his apple tree cos it ain’t had an apple on it for two seasons, and plant a pear instead, and they was saying the Rule won’t allow it. Pah!’ She took a breath and regarded the clean laundry. ‘Anyways, there’s the washing folded, and I’ll be on my way for today.’ She undid her pinafore and went to the door. ‘Be seeing you all tomorrow, then.’