“Of course,” Karin said. “We’re lucky to have such brave people among us—
“Have you heard that Janus used to be a steersman?”
A pause, but no great astonishment. “That rumor seems to be going around, yes …”
“He resigned. And he would not explain why.” Rowan set her own mug on the floor, leaned forward. “He gave me an explanation, but I don’t believe it anymore. I think it was because he has been doing something, something he won’t admit to, that he feels he must keep secret. I think it has to do with demons.”
Another lengthy pause, with many glances among the Bosses. “Janus has always been a good citizen.”
“Right. Ever since he come here, done nothing but help.”
“Besides, nothing says any more demons will come by …”
“These are wild ideas you have.” This from the spiderwife.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it so, so baldly, myself.” Karin suddenly found her beer fascinating.
“It’s sheer speculation!” The second weaving brother declared; and both nodded stubbornly in unison.
“I assure you,” Rowan said, “a steerswoman does not go about making accusations based on sheer speculation.”
The pause occurred but seemed to get cut short before its natural span. “Even a steerswoman can be mistaken,” Dan said.
“See? That’s true.”
“Nobody’s perfect …”
“We won’t interrogate Janus on your behalf,” Karin said. “We need more than this. We can’t help you.”
“Why do you need my help?”
The steerswoman organized her thoughts, took a breath. “Maysie, I know that Janus knows something about demons, something important but he won’t tell me. He won’t speak to me at all. I thought that if it was you who spoke to him, if you asked him to at least share what he knows, he might listen. Because he cares for you. Because you’re such close friends.”
Maysie sat back on her heels, a conical sun hat, such as the fieldworkers wore, shading her face. “Yes …” She mused, her voice faintly puzzled. “Yes, he does seem to be a friend … now.”
Rowan’s planned speech vanished. “Now? You mean— ” She knelt on the grass beside Maysie. “Do you mean recently? Since— ”
“Since,” Maysie said. As if by itself, her right hand came up to lie against her scarred, twisted cheek. “That’s right. Only since.” She dropped her hand, glanced away, then returned her attention to the flower bed before her. “We knew each other, of course,” she said, plying the hand spade. “Everyone in Alemeth knows each other. And he’s always been very charming, but he’s like that with everyone. But, no, we were never close …”
“But,” Rowan began, wanting to ask: But then why did he rush to your side as soon as he heard? Why did he hold you, comfort you, treat you as dear? But she could not ask it. Because, if nothing else, it had been a kind act, and Maysie did deserve kindness.
“He’s good to me …” Maysie went on. “He runs my errands on the days I can’t face the world. And he comes out with me on the days that I can. It helps.” She set a daffodil bulb into the ground, pushed the earth over it with her hands. “And it helps with the townsfolk, too. I think that seeing Janus treat me well puts a bit of shame in them. Though, I don’t believe that’s his intention …”
“What is his intention?” Rowan immediately realized that the question, so bluntly stated, could not help but imply that Janus’s motives were suspect.
If Maysie noticed the implication, she chose to ignore it. She answered simply, “I don’t know. And I’m usually good at understanding things unspoken. One learns it, to be successful in my sort of work. I can recognize kindness when I see it, and pity, and it’s neither of those.” Maysie noticed an invading weed, pulled it from the bed with an almost apologetic gentleness. “But all I can tell is that, somehow, now, I’ve become … important to him. Precious. Cherished.” She regarded the clods left by the weed, and then carefully patted them back into place. “I know it’s strange. I don’t ask him why. I don’t want to ask. I’m just grateful.”
The steerswoman thought a long time before speaking again. “Can it be guilt?” Maysie turned toward her in surprise. Rowan hurried on. “Maysie, I think this isn’t over, I think more demons will come to Alemeth, and if Janus knows how to help but doesn’t do it— ”
“But he did help. I heard how he went after that last one, all on his own— it was so brave, it terrified me!” Maysie sat up, looked at the steerswoman directly, the undamaged side of her face in shade, the ruined side in light. She composed herself and spoke more formally. “He’s a good man, lady, a kind one, and a brave one. I’m sure that if he knew anything that would make a difference, he would tell us.”
Rowan sat silent. At last she sighed and rose. “Just ask him, Maysie. Please. That’s all.”
“I’ll ask, lady. But I don’t think it will help you.”
“What makes you think I can help?”
The steerswoman sighed. “Actually, I don’t know what you could do. Other than mention it to other people. The more people who know, the better. I think I’ve come to you because I must speak to someone, and you’re someone I respect.”
Sitting beside her on his front steps, Arvin made an amused noise, gazed out at his grubby front yard. Happy sounds tumbled out of the open door behind him: Alyssa and the girls, preparing for dinner. “That happens. People fight together, they think good of each other. So, tell me, lady, are you really sure about all this?”
Perhaps because he presented the question in the formal mode, she took the time to calmly review her evidence. Arvin waited with a patience so complete that it reminded her of Bel. “Yes. I’m certain.”
He took some moments himself, perhaps reviewing his own array of facts. “Steerswomen are good at figuring things out. Trained to do it, they are.”
“That’s true.”
He twisted his mouth at his own thoughts. “So, tell me lady, are you a steerswoman?”
She stopped short, speechless. Then: “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“Makes a little puzzle, that does,” he said, not meeting her eye. “If you are, then you can’t lie; if you’re not, then you would. Either way, you’d say the same thing. Too deep for me.” He slapped his knees, sat straighter, turned to her. “Well. I believe you.”
“Thank you. On what are you basing that?”
He shrugged. “Feel, mostly. Nothing else sits right.”
She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. “No wonder people seem so reluctant to take my word. I suppose I can thank Gwen for that.”
“Gwen and Janus.”
“What?”
“That’s right. Last few days.” She stared at him, gape mouthed, as he went on. “I didn’t hear it from him, but I hear it from people who did. He says he used to live in Wulfshaven, and he met you there, and you weren’t a steerswoman then. Then he meets you here, and you say you are. But there’s something about that big training session, I forget what it’s called— ”
“The Academy,” she provided, sheer habit overcoming her astonishment.
“Right. There wasn’t one between now and then. So, he sort of wonders, just thinking out loud, so I hear, how it is you got to be trained. And people are just adding it up.”
“But this is insane!” She was on her feet, pacing the dirt in Arvin’s front yard. “Why lie, why lie about me, why lie about this?” Her fury was too large to be personal; she felt she was witnessing a crime, a crime against the very concept of the Steerswomen. Rowan’s own membership in that group was irrelevant; it was the concept, the principles, the acts, and the hopes that she loved and believed in.
Nothing equaled her love for that ideal. She thought that, if she had a personality only slightly different, she might even pray to it. And this was like sacrilege.
“What generally happens?”
“What?” It was difficult to draw herself from her outrage.
“When someone says she
’s a steerswoman when she’s not. Got to happen sometimes. What do the steerswomen do?”
“Very little.” The specifics ordered themselves and required themselves to be communicated. “If we know it’s happening, we expose the false steerswoman. But how often it happens, we don’t know; unless a steerswoman witnesses it, or hears about it, no report will reach the Prime.”
“But if you do know, all you do is say so? You don’t punish her?”
And she found, quite suddenly, that she was calm again. “All we have is knowledge,” she said simply. “All we have is truth. That’s what we provide.”
He nodded slowly. “Then, it’s up to the locals to deal with her.”
“That’s right. And local situations vary widely.” She had read of a false steerswoman in The Crags being executed; of one in Donner thrown in prison under a law against confidence artists; others being beaten … “At the very least, the woman is run out of town by the authorities.”
Quite suddenly she recalled that the subject of this conversation was herself.
Arvin had apparently not lost the thread. He was watching her closely. “And how long was it you planned to stay in Alemeth?”
She would not run. She would not. “At least until Mira’s replacement arrives,” she said slowly. And the new steerswoman could verify Rowan’s authority. “But, Arvin, with this demon business going on, I have to stay. I have to help, I have to try to find out— ”
You’re too intelligent. Janus, on the docks, that very first night.
She said out loud, “That’s it. He wants me to leave.”
Try not to think too much about what I said, Janus had said. I wouldn’t want you to understand it too well .
“He knows that I won’t stop until I understand. Telling me to go away doesn’t work, so he’ll make me go away.”
“Would that be so bad?” Arvin put up a hand. “Just for a while. Let the stories run their course and get boring. Let Janus get all comfortable, drop his guard. And when’s this new steerswoman due?”
She counted the weeks since the Prime’s letter. “I suppose we could expect her any time now.”
“Well, no. Unless she hires her own ship. Shipping here goes with the worms. If the worms went up the hill tomorrow, its two, three weeks till there’s enough thread worth coming for. So one ship’s already scheduled, for about a month from now. After that, cloth starts coming out, and two months or so to build up, then it’s a ship a week.”
Rowan could not see the Prime releasing enough funds to hire an entire ship merely to hurry Mira’s replacement. “And … your suggestion is that I find something to occupy myself away from town for the next few weeks?”
“Right. That’s my advice exactly.”
She found herself looking at her own two hands. “It’s hard for me to do nothing. And suppose more demons come?”
“Well, we got two of ’em without you. We’ll get the next ones. And, as for this Janus business … maybe you haven’t noticed, Rowan, but there really isn’t much you can do, is there?”
It certainly seemed not.
But by the time she reached Carter Street, she realized that she might be wrong. There might be a way to learn more.
The steerswoman threaded her way westward along the docks, each in worse condition than the next, finally reaching the point where she had to step widely to avoid gaps in the planking. Water gurgled and plashed below, seaweed swirling deep green and murky to the movement of small waves.
Janus’s boat had been shifted, and was now stern-tied to the splintering wharf, bow-tied to a broken piling. The contrast between ancient neglect and recent small repairs made it a shabby and motley vessel. Sometime long in the past some proud owner had embellished the transom with a name, now evident only from the blistering beneath layers of old paint: a name long and ornate, beginning with an E, ending with DRA, and otherwise illegible. A more recent owner, a simpler soul, had painted it over and replaced it with a single, short word; but even this was now unreadable, mere shadow lettering. Janus’s boat had no name.
Rowan glanced about. This end of the harbor was deserted. Even Harbor Road was empty of everyone but Steffie, whom Rowan had shamelessly recruited to guard her back.
It was one long step from the last plank to the boat. Arrived, Rowan found her feet immediately steadier.
Too steady. The boat was riding heavier than its construction suggested. She was disturbed; there must be stores already aboard. And that meant that Janus planned to leave soon.
A hatch from the cockpit led below. Rowan descended the steep ladder to find herself in a short companionway open to a tiny portside galley. Aft, a door led to a simple cabin, with a bunk, a cabinet, a small stern window, a tilted chart table bolted to the flooring.
No charts were in evidence. The cabinet was empty, as were the storage drawers beneath the bunk.
A small room adjacent to the galley was also empty: used, Rowan guessed from lingering food scents, as a pantry. Apparently Janus had yet to stock it from his main stores.
From the companionway, the forward door led to what was clearly designed to be a second cabin. Scratches on the floor indicated that heavy objects were sometimes brought there; perhaps it was also used for storage, but now it stood empty. A small door forward of the room opened to the sail locker, with its hatch leading up to the deck, now dogged tight.
Back in the companionway, Rowan clambered further down the ladder to the hold, and paused to give her eyes time to adjust to the gloom.
Empty.
Impossible: there must be stores aboard or some kind of cargo. Disbelieving, Rowan paced the length of the hold, ducking under the beams. Nothing.
She leaned on one leg, then the other; the boat’s response was slow.
Odd. Save the anchor, the steerswoman herself was the heaviest single object on board. The boat ought to have reacted more to the displacement of her weight.
She ran her hands across the inside of the hull. Good solid oak, despite its age and neglect; but not heavy enough to explain the boat’s behavior. She pulled up the free floorboards; perhaps something was hidden below. But the bilge held only six inches of water.
Perhaps the hull itself was thicker than she had assumed. She walked the hold again, measuring in her mind, then climbed back above and studied the visible size of the vessel.
The hold matched the deck.
Rowan walked to starboard, back to port, back again. The boat did respond by rocking, but not as easily or quickly as it ought.
“Something lashed to the keel?” she wondered aloud.
This time she did look about; no one was visible nearby. She stripped, then eased herself over the gunwale and into the water. She took a breath and dove.
She came up almost immediately, gasping, deeply regretting her action. The salt water was like fire pouring into the three long scratches the demon had left. Clutching a porthole cowling with her fingers, she waited, jaws clenched, until the pain subsided.
When it did, she dove again. She resurfaced, steadied herself with one hand on the cowling, used the other to confirm what she had seen.
The hull was not bare wood. There were strips, like tin— but tin would quickly corrode in seawater. Tacks held the strips in place. No gleam of metal showed through the water. Rowan’s delicately searching fingers found the place underwater where the black paint of the hull ended, leaving metal bare further down, out of view of the casual eye.
The paint continued above the waterline, for about a foot. Rowan scraped at it with her fingernail.
Copper. The hull was sheathed in copper.
The steerswoman clambered back aboard awkwardly, and lay in the sunlight beside the tiller to dry and to think.
So much copper must have been expensive. It seemed an extravagance. But Janus lived on the edge of poverty. Therefore, it was a necessity.
Rowan felt eyes on her. She sat up, turned.
A boy, perhaps four years old, sat on the edge of an adjacent houseboat, st
udying her with deep curiosity and a degree of astonishment. Rowan felt it rather misplaced: he was as naked as she, and as wet. Possibly he was startled by the appearance of the demon scratches. “Have you been swimming?” she asked him casually. “It’s a lovely day for it.” She squeezed water from her hair, shook her fingers.
“Yes,” he replied, and watched as she stood to dress. He knit his brows. “I think you lost something.”
Rowan stopped to consider. “No,” she informed him, “that’s how I’m constructed.” She resumed dressing. “Does your mother never swim naked?”
“My mother never does anything naked.”
He was not at all intimidated by her; perhaps he was too young to have been among the tricksters she had frightened. “Do you know the man who owns this boat?” Rowan left her sandals off, and found a seat on the gunwale, opposite the boy.
He scanned her, seeming to compare her previous appearance with her present. “Janus. He’s nice. But he likes that scary woman. He brings her here sometimes.”
“Scary woman?”
He demonstrated by screwing up one side of his mouth and using his fingers to push his nose toward his ear, and making noises of disgust.
“That’s not fair,” Rowan said. “Maysie can’t help how she looks. How would you feel if something bad happened to you and people didn’t like you anymore, even though it wasn’t your fault?”
The issue was too complex for him. He gave up the effort and set to winding his bare legs in a complex configuration in and around the gap-spaced uprights of his boat’s railing, one leg in each direction. “I can do this,” he said, half surprised himself.
“So I see,” Rowan replied. An interesting possibility came to her. “Does Janus talk to you very much?”
“Sometimes.” He was suddenly caught by a happy memory. “Oh, oh!” he exclaimed, unwinding his legs. “One time we flew kites, Janus and me, they went way, way up!”
She smiled. “They must have been very good kites.”
“We flew them from that hill.” He leaned far over the railing to indicate. “I was going to let mine fly loose and fly away, but Janus said, he said a kite can’t fly without a string, it’ll just fall right down. He told me all about it.”
The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) Page 20