The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series)

by Rosemary Kirstein

  Rowan paused again, stood perfectly still, and closed her eyes.

  The light breeze brushed her throat and forearms, bearing a hint of the coolness of water, brought up from the harbor. The air moved toward her in a smooth sweep, with no little gusts and eddies. No one was in front of her for a distance of at least twelve feet.

  Behind her, heat rose from the sun-warmed cobblestones. No shadow blocked thar warmth, and there were no rustlings of clothing, no hiss or motion of air from a person’s breathing. No one stood behind her.

  There was a still, cool area on her right, and she snapped her fingers once. The sound was sharp and immediate; no human body stood between her and the shadowed brick walls of the row houses six feet away.

  To her left, a small, silken flutter, but high up: a banner, constructed, as she had seen before, of silk scraps, pole-hung over the door of the fragrant bakery. Voices escaped from its open door: a small, clear discussion of weevils found in a sack of wheat. No one stood between Rowan and the conversation.

  Further off: the sound of children playing, squeals and giggles thin with distance, almost ghostly; up and behind her, a door quietly thumped, slammed in some upper storey. More distantly: a jingle of harness, a clang of hammer on anvil. And at the threshold of hearing: rattles, splashes.

  There was no one nearby.

  The steerswoman opened her eyes to sun dazzle and went on, following Old High Street on its canted run down to the harbor.

  She wished Bel were here. She very much wished that Bel were here

  She and the Outskirter had parted nearly a year before. Bel had her own work to do among the Outskirters. Bel knew her people, knew how to approach the tribes safely, knew what to say, knew how to convince them of the present and coming threat to their way of life.

  But more important, Bel knew what to be. The Outskirters had no knowledge of steerswomen and cared nothing for Inner Landers. Only a warrior could unify the warriors.

  Rowan found herself grateful, deeply grateful, that she was not herself, and would never be, a great leader.

  Bel had her job, and Rowan had her own: Locate Slado, discover his plans, learn how to stop him. Everything depended on this.

  But how do you find a man?

  By logic.

  For a wizard, look for magic. And for a wizard whose very existence was secret, look for any magic that could be attributed to no other source.

  And no need to go hunting the wide world for some sign or rumor of magic; Rowan had, at her fingertips, the lives of the steerswomen. If one of them had seen magic, or heard of its use, there would be record of it.

  But the contents of the Annex had no index.

  The earliest event that Rowan could connect to Slado’s plans was the fall of a Guidestar, not one of the two that stood apparently motionless in the night sky, familiar even to children, but a distant, secret Guidestar, unseen from the Inner Lands, hanging over a far and unknown part of the world.

  The Guidestar had fallen some forty years ago, and magic must have been involved in that event. So, look in the logbooks dating from that time. But the books in the Annex were not in chronological order. And there were thousands of them.

  It might take months to locate even one useful logbook— and all the while, Slado’s plans, whatever they might be, would continue to advance to their unknown end.

  Mira had a great deal to answer for. Fortunate that the old woman had already passed away; feeling as she did right now, Rowan suspected she might slay the woman on sight, for so stupidly placing the entire human race in danger.

  Old High Street stopped at the waterside, and Rowan turned left onto Harbor Road. Here, warehouses and offices and provisioners crowded shoulder to shoulder, facing a line of huge, old trees standing between the edge of the road and a narrow, rock-riddled beach.

  Half the trees had lost their smaller branches. Six were splintered down their lengths. A jagged stump showed where one had been lost entirely.

  Rowan considered the damage silently.

  At a half-tumbled building nearby, a crew of burly men and women were hauling wreckage onto a horse-drawn wagon. Scaffolds were under construction, rising beside pale new walls. Pine resin scented the air.

  A man and a woman stood by a stack of fresh lumber, the man holding forth with gusty authority, the woman listening with visibly patronizing patience. Rowan decided that one of them, at least, would not mind being interrupted.

  “Excuse me.” Both turned. “I was wondering, is this damage from two autumns ago?”

  They stood regarding her; then the man said cautiously, “Planning to kill someone?”

  “What?” She followed the direction of their gazes. “Oh.” Her sword. “A habit. I’ve been traveling in dangerous lands.” They were reassured, and she repeated her question.

  “Year and a half ago, yes,” the man replied. “A run of nasty weather and high seas. Smashed up the docks, waves halfway up New High Street, made a mess of everything. We lost two buildings and most of this one.” Behind him, the woman had taken the opportunity to call over several workers and give out detailed instructions.

  The man, tall, blocky, and oddly graceful for his size, arranged his features in an amiable expression. “Now, haven’t seen you around. Off the Beria, then? Ho!” This as he noticed Rowan’s chain and ring. “A steerswoman, is it? That’s right, I heard you’d come to town. Just passing through? Old Mira will be glad to see you— no, wait, old Mira’s gone now. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

  Rowan put up a hand to slow him down. “I was planning to pass through, but it seems I’ll be staying for a while, possibly until the Archives sends a replacement for Mira.”

  “Oh.” Then a two-toned, “O-oh.” He scanned her, the nature of his speculation noticeably altering. “Well, you’re an improvement, I’ll say

  “Actually, I have some business to tend to at the moment— ”

  He took this in stride. “Just as well, really; I’d best be keeping an eye on this lot— Here, you two! That over there, and that one goes up. But hang about”— this to Rowan— “let’s say later, then, about sundown?” Behind his back, the forewoman, by gesture only, exactly reversed his instructions.

  Rowan moved back a step. “In fact,” she said, “I expect to be busy in the Annex well into the night; there’s a lot that needs to be done there.”

  “At the Annex?” The idea surpised him. “Can’t say I ever saw Mira do a thing there.”

  “I’m not much like Mira-”

  “But you eat.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He cocked his head. “You must have your dinner sometime. Now, there’s a fine place right harborside, the Mizzen, it’s called. Best food in town, and quiet tonight with the Beria heading out at noon.”

  “Another time, perhaps.”

  “But you’ll keep it in mind?”

  “Yes, I’ll do that …” She managed another step back. “But if the Beria is leaving so soon, I really must get to the harbor.”

  “Of course— wouldn’t want to hold you up. Come by the shop one day or ask for me at the Mizzen of an evening. I’m there most nights, with the other bosses … Dan the cooper, that’s me.”

  “Rowan,” she supplied. “I’m certain we’ll run into each other again.” It would surely be impossible to avoid him entirely.

  When she turned away, she was facing the water— and abruptly, it caught her again. She stood, all else forgotten, her heart filled only with light, motion, and joy.

  Out past the harbor, on the far horizon, the sea glittered with sunshine, like diamonds cast on liquid silver; she felt the motion of the waves and the mass of the water below like a pull on her bones. The air was thick with damp; rich with the scent of salt and wrack and sea grass; alive with the slap of water, the call of gulls, and the wind from the wide, clear skies.

  After so long in lands far away from the sea, the steerswoman found that she could hardly believe its beauty.

  Rowan had been rais
ed in flat farmlands at the edge of the Red Desert, far from sight or sound of the Inland Sea. But she had met the sea in the course of her training, learned how to mark her course across its open face, learned the beat and flow of its elegant logics, struggled against the turn of its whims.

  In the end, she had come to know the sea as the home of her spirit: free, open in all directions, the widest road that a steerswoman could travel …

  She took two steps forward, half dreaming, and rested her hand on something nearby—

  The oak stump. She drew back her hand.

  Waves halfway up New High Street … even here, so far from the Outskirts, Slado’s spell had had an effect …

  On the weather. The air connects everything to everything else. Really, she ought to give more study to weather.

  She turned away from the bright sea, returned to the dusty road, and made her way toward the docks.

  Alemeth’s harbor was modest, merely a pair of piers and five wharves. Only one cargo ship was present, large enough that its draught kept it out in the deeper water. A barge was being loaded at the second pier; Rowan hurried to catch it.

  She called to the small, wiry woman who appeared to be in charge. “Is that your ship?”

  The woman slapped her tally board on her leg and looked up, eyes crinkled. “Captain Carlin’s. But still, mine, too. My home. For now.”

  Rowan placed her accent. “Are you going straight back to Southport?”

  “Just come from there. Donner next, send these clothes up the caravans. After that, don’t know.”

  “Can you take this?” Rowan passed the package down to her, quelling a brief urge to snatch it back, to clutch the paper-wrapped box protectively.

  The woman pursed her lips. “Need to see the mate for the charges … hm …” She read the address. “ ‘Archives— ’ ” And she looked up at Rowan again, taking in the ring and chain. “You’re a steerswoman?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Good enough.” No ship would charge a carrying fee to any steerswoman. “Someone at Donner’ll hold these for a ship to Wulfshaven, if Beria doesn’t head there herself.” Rowan grit her teeth at the thought of fragments of the shattered, fallen Guidestar sitting untended in some Harbormaster’s office.

  The crewmember ticked off crates on her board. “If you’ve got time, navigator’d be glad to see you.” Ship’s navigators always welcomed the opportunity to have a steerswoman update their charts.

  Rowan shook her head. “I’d be no use, I’m afraid; I’ll have nothing new to add. I’ve been away from the sea and the Inner Lands for two years.”

  “Away from the sea?” The woman seemed to find the idea incomprehensible. “And the Inner Lands? Where else is there?”

  “Well, there’s the Outskirts.”

  She squinted in thought. “No sea there?”

  “None that I found.”

  While they conversed, a sailboat rounded a woody spit, moving fast and light. By the time the barge pushed off, the sailboat had neared enough that its master was visible in the distance: a dark-skinned figure in a loose white shirt, a broad straw hat keeping off the sunlight. Rowan shaded her eyes to watch his nimble movements, appreciating his skill as he rounded the harbor buoys.

  The sailor paused his work, then suddenly swept one arm back and forth in a broad, exaggerated wave. Without thinking, Rowan smiled, started to lift her own hand to wave reply.

  But a small commotion burst out behind her; she turned to find that two fishing children had abandoned their poles and catch, and were shrieking happy giggles, flapping their hands wildly at the returning sailor. Then they thumped away, shuddering the pier with their footsteps, laughing a breathlessly incoherent conversation.

  A small arrival, Rowan thought; a large event. A single person returning. The sailor had family or a lover or friends who would be glad at the news the children would bring.

  Perhaps there would be a celebration, a gathering of laughter and greetings; and all the small events of the separated and now reunited lives would be brought out and displayed, remarked upon. They would be traded, each to each other, like small pieces of gold: treasured and cherished, then stored away safe in the hoard of favored memories.

  It all could come to an end in a moment.

  Slado could as easily target Alemeth as the distant Outskirts.

  Instead of being overrun by hungry warrior nomads, this town, these people, could be destroyed directly, immediately, by magic.

  She had to find Slado.

  How do you find a man?

  The steerswoman turned back, turned away from the clean, wide sea that she loved, and slowly made her way toward the dark and squalid chaos of the Annex.

  3

  The next morning, as she was walking by the mulberry groves, a man attacked her with a hoe.

  Her parry gouged the haft through half its thickness. The man pulled back immediately and gaped at the handle. “Look what you’ve done!”

  “Yes,” Rowan said, bemused. “Fortunately, my sword isn’t damaged.”

  “Who are you?” he demanded; Rowan explained. “What are you doing here?” She explained further. He was astonished. “Walking? What for?”

  “Because I thought I would enjoy it.”

  He shook his head. “A walking steerswoman …”

  Rowan was affronted. “Steerswomen spend most of their lives walking. We’re rarely comfortable staying still for long.”

  His dubiousness was extreme. “Well …” He winced. “Well, I’m sorry, lady, but I took you for some hireling of Karin’s. That’s next plantation over.” He indicated direction with a jerk of his head. “She’s always at me one way or another, checking my progress and all. Wouldn’t put it past her to do some harm, and that’s what I was thinking, then, when I saw you.”

  Rowan laughed a bit, sheathed her weapon. “I understand. Competition must be fierce. But I assure you, I’m utterly harmless. Good morning to you.” And she stepped around him, to continue on her way.

  He called after her. “Here, lady; are you going to be coming by here often?”

  She turned back, one brow raised. “Every morning, I expect.”

  He shook his head in dissatisfaction. “Mira never did that,” he said, turning away.

  “I’m not Mira,” she told his departing back.

  It was a statement she would make often in the coming days.

  When she returned to the Annex she found that Gwen and Steffie were already present, discussing in subdued voices whether it was late enough to go upstairs to wake the steerswoman.

  “How long have you been up?” Gwen asked when she had mastered her surprise.

  “Since dawn,” Rowan replied. She unslung her sword and laid it on the table, then shifted it to hang on the back of her chair as Steffie began bringing plates of food. “I was taking a stroll by the mulberries.” There were warm rolls, dried apples, bacon, and gruel. “I expect that I keep earlier hours than Mira must have. I don’t often sleep past dawn.”

  “At least you don’t need Gwen helping you dress,” Steffie commented.

  Breakfast proceeded, with Gwen and Steffie chatting desultorily to each other, Rowan lost in her own thoughts. Eventually, in a lull in the conversation, Steffie addressed her directly. “Well, what’s on for today, then?”

  Rowan had a ready list of necessary chores already in the back of her mind, and she found herself reciting it with only a fraction of her attention. She was halfway through it when she realized, in retrospect, that Steffie had jumped just a bit after speaking, apparently because Gwen had kicked him under the table. Rowan stopped in mid-sentence, recovered her balance. “Or you could do whatever you usually do— or whatever you please …”

  “Market day,” Gwen pointed out.

  “Fine.” She paused again. “How did Mira handle the money?”

  “Generally,” Steffie put in, “if we say it’s for the steerswoman, people just let us have it. They know us. But if it’s a lot we’re getting,
Mira gives us coin to pay. Sometimes people will take it.”

  Rowan opened her mouth to ask, but Gwen guessed the question. “Money’s in the jar,” and she indicated with her head a blue-and-brown pottery jar with a lid, resting on the mantel.

  Mira’s trust had apparently been complete; Rowan decided she would act no differently and allow Mira’s permanent replacement to deal with any possible pilfering. “Very well. And since the people don’t know me, why don’t you take whatever you think will cover the cost of everything— if there’s enough.”

  “They’ll give it,” Gwen replied, offhand, then passed her empty plate to Steffie, who seemed inclined to linger over his meal. He took the hint, stuffed a heel of bread in his mouth, and stood to clear the table.

  Rowan did not watch as Gwen went to the jar, but rose to attend to the books.

  She paused one step away from the center aisle, feeling like a diver about to enter a pool whose water was of dubious quality.

  Such an immense job.

  She found herself wishing she could go outside again and simply walk, observing. She would make notes: bits and pieces of this town, this area of the world. Perhaps she would see something missed by the other steerswomen who had passed this way, perhaps discover something new, some new object or way or idea. Adding, incrementally, to the body of all knowledge.

  That was the proper work of a traveling steerswoman: to discover, to chart, to explore …

  Time enough later, to stay in one place. Time enough, when she was elderly, or when injury ended her traveling days. And even then there would be exploration, delving by thought and reason into the deeper questions of the world. With decades of experience behind her, with knowledge she had gained for herself, and more knowledge waiting in the ordered volumes at the Steerswoman’s Archives.

  Instead—

  Stay here. Find Slado. Look for the clues of magic in these books.

  And these books were all in chaos.

  The steerswoman sighed and forced herself to enter the dusty stacks.

  She sorted by decade. When the piles became waist high, she shifted them to the floors of other aisles, assigning the row nearest the front window as the most recent. Lunch, announced by Gwen, came and went; Rowan ate but hardly noticed.