“But wasn’t it Slado who told you that Kieran was gone?”
They shook their heads, the movements almost synchronized. “No,” Lorren said. “That was Jannik.”
“And Kieran had already been gone some time, I think.”
“Six weeks, at least,” Eamer said. “Less than seven.”
“Now, how do you remember that?” Lorren inquired, pretending disbelief.
A smile. “Six paydays with no wages. I was counting.”
“But he might have been off with his dragons for part of that. . .”
“Can you give me the range of dates for those six weeks?” Rowan asked.
Surprise, and long thought, with much blinking on Eamer’s part, and hm’s from Lorren.
“It was summer . . .”
“Pruning the cherry tree . . .”
“But I think we had to do that twice, that year . . .”
“What about the day Kieran first paid you?”
They looked at her, and in perfect unison recited year, season, month, day, and day of the week. They laughed, and Eamer added: “Around five o’clock in the morning.”
“We’re not likely to forget that!”
“Nor to forget the wizard himself. It’s interesting . . . fifteen years of rudeness, arrogance, and even sometimes cruelty, and only two of kindness. But it’s the kind wizard we remember best, in the end. That’s a lesson for us all, I think.”
Lorren nodded. “Yes. Hearts can change. Even the heart of a wizard.”
Rowan found it interesting, as well. Given more time, possibly everyone would have come to feel as fondly as the old gardeners did toward the wizard of Donner. “And when he died,” Rowan prompted, “it was Jannik himself who gave you the news.”
Lorren sighed. “Yes. We came to work one morning, and found some things had already been done . . .”
“The flats of tulip bulbs we’d left there the previous morning. Some of them were gone . . .”
“Planted. So we started on the rest. . .”
“And after a bit, I noticed there was someone behind me. I thought it might be Slado, because his shadow was too small for Kieran . . .”
“But it was a stranger.”
“A little round man, with a pointy beard—” Eamer’s hand pantomimed the shape, knuckles to chin, fingers moving stiffly. “—dressed in green. And he told us that our services were no longer required.”
“Because he liked to keep the garden himself.”
“And he does, too. Not as well as we did, of course . . .”
“But you’ve got to respect a man who likes to keep a garden.”
“You do. All the magic he wants, but he just gets right down on his knees and puts his own fingers into the dirt. Got to respect that.”
“And he specifically said that Kieran had died of natural causes?”
“That’s right. ‘The old wizard has finally passed on.’ ”
Apparently Jannik himself did consider Kieran to be old enough to simply pass away—or at least, in front of the gardeners, made a show of seeming to think so. “How did Slado react to Jannik’s presence?”
“We never saw that.”
“Hadn’t seen the young fellow at all, for a couple of days . . .”
“And we never saw him again.”
“But you did have opportunity to watch Slado and Kieran interact, earlier?” Indications in the affirmative. “How did they seem toward each other?”
Further conversation, and the picture began to emerge.
On Slado’s arrival, Kieran had made a point of introducing Lorren and Eamer (“ ‘The finest gardeners in the Inner Lands!’—and he should know, being a wizard, so it must be true . . .”), to which simple social nicety Slado reacted with perplexity, and glances askance at the old wizard.
During the first few months, when the two were seen together in the garden or about the city, it seemed that the master regarded the apprentice with a kindly interest. There was no comradeship displayed, but neither was there evidence of the sort of close discipline that sometimes was enacted by masters of more common professions—although what conditions prevailed when both were out of sight, during Slado’s actual instruction and training, no one ever saw. Still, Kieran seemed not to dislike his apprentice.
Somewhat later, the gardeners on occasion noticed Kieran observing Slado, from a distance, with an expression of vague disappointment.
On Slado’s part, there was first careful respect, then a respect rather more hesitantly granted; then one both carefully formal and emotionally neutral—when the master was looking. Behind Kieran’s back, or in his absence, when the wizard was mentioned in conversation: a clear and unmasked disdain.
One summer afternoon when Kieran was taking his tea in the garden, as was his habit on fine days, Eamer, working alone, observed the wizard deep in thought. Whatever subject Kieran was considering, it was one that disturbed and saddened him; and his tea grew cold in the pot, and the sweet-cakes that he so enjoyed were entirely ignored.
Young Slado wandered out of the house, book in hand, to sit on the stone bench under the cherry tree. As he passed into Kieran’s view, the wizard glanced at him, once, then looked away; but during that glance and after, as Eamer noticed, Kieran’s expression did not alter in the slightest. The gardener could not help but think that the subject of Kieran’s contemplation had been Slado himself.
Then followed a period when Slado was never seen in public without Kieran being present. The master kept the apprentice close by his side during every sort of casual interaction or activity that Kieran routinely engaged in—which Slado seemed to endure, but never enjoy.
At one point the two were observed—not by the gardeners, but by an acquaintance who reported it to them—outside Saranna’s Inn, where a celebration was in progress. They were at some distance from the crowd, and Kieran, who was facing the observer, was speaking to Slado at length: very sternly, but calmly, and with no apparent rancor.
“It was after that that Slado told us the roses were lovely,” Eamer said.
Lorren nodded. “Kieran was telling Slado that it doesn’t hurt to be nice.”
“A possibility,” Rowan admitted.
Some time after that Slado’s free time became his own again. And Kieran continued as before, benevolent, cheerful, seeming happy with the world in general, conducting his star parties for the children.
“I assume those only started after Kieran’s personality altered?” Rowan asked.
“That’s right. After that, but before Slado turned up.”
Then came the period with only the apprentice on hand, seeming to go about his days as usual; then Slado was absent; and then Jannik appeared.
“But, you know,” Lorren said to Eamer, “there was one day, before then, when Kieran came out in the morning again.”
“He always came out in the morning, to bid us good day.”
“Yes, but this was early, like that first time, when he gave us the money. I remember, because I was worried he was going to change back.”
“Did he look like he’d been up all night?” Rowan asked.
Lorren thought, but came to no clear conclusion. “If he had, it wasn’t a hard night, not like that first time. He looked happy enough . . . no, more like pleased. Like he was pleased about something, some particular thing.”
“I don’t remember that. . .”
“It was early. All the stars were still out, but he had that magic lamp lit in the garden, the red one, so I saw him well enough. He lifted his hand hello, but I thought he wanted to be alone, so I waved back, but didn’t say anything. I think . . . I think it was close to the end, then. Close to when he passed on . . .”
“Was that the last time you saw him?”
Lorren indicated in the negative. “There was a puppet show in town, and I saw him handing out some coppers to a group of children, so they could go. That was the last time, for me.”
“What about you, Eamer?”
“The last time?
Can’t pin it down. Might have been right in the garden, him taking his tea one of those afternoons. Or maybe at Saranna’s Inn. He’d go there, now and then, just for the beer and the hearthlight.”
The three sat quietly, contemplating the gentle final years of the wizard of Donner. And perhaps, Rowan thought, perhaps it was merely this that had piqued Latitia’s curiosity: a good man, where there had been a bad one. The heart of a wizard, changing.
Changing suddenly. Changing overnight.
“Do you have any idea,” Rowan said, and she sounded to herself almost pleading, “can you even guess, why Kieran did change, what happened the night before that one particular morning?”
Both the ancient gardeners shook their heads. But: “Thoughts, I suppose,” Eamer said. “A lot of hard thinking goes on in the dead of night. All your sins catch up with you, and he had more sins, and worse, than the common folk get.”
“Ammi’s murder,” Rowan supplied, musingly.
“And others,” Lorren said. “And that war.”
“The one when Kieran first came here,” Eamer said. “A lot of trouble over that; we had the wizard Olin’s troops, right in sight of the city. Just a child, I was, but I remember it well. Standing right at the end of Old Water Street, gaping across the river, smoke on the other side, and fire, and soldiers in blue, trying to cross in boats . . . I lost two uncles and an aunt in that war.”
Rowan could hardly believe that she was actually speaking to persons with firsthand experience of so ancient an event. “Wars are usual, when a new wizard is first established . . . but there was none when Jannik came.”
“No . . .”
“None.”
“How odd . . . Fortunate, but odd.” She wondered if this were significant, but could come to no conclusion. “I’m also interested in the doings of a steerswoman, whom perhaps you might have met. A dark woman; her name was Latitia.”
“No . . . You’re the only steerswoman I’ve ever met at all. Lorren?”
“No . . . But I heard about another.” Lorren squinted in thought. “Hm . . . was that the one who died?”
“What?” Rowan sat up. “Are you sure?” But no: Latitia’s Donner logbook at the Annex continued for at least six months after her leaving the city . . .
“Yes, now that I think of it, I did hear . . . Oh”— a sigh of exasperation—“it’s the recent years that run together . . .”
“Recent?”
“Yes . . . Ah, that’s right: the fire. Dragons got into town, and Saranna’s Inn was burned to the ground. My niece told me about it. There was a steerswoman among the guests. They never found her . . .”
“Actually,” Rowan said, oddly embarrassed, “I believe that was me.”
They regarded her with new interest. Then Eamer turned to Lorren. “See? We’ve been sitting here all this time, talking to a ghost.”
“Ah! That means we’ve finally crossed over!”
“And we did it together. How clever of us!”
Rowan laughed. “I’m pleased to inform you that we are all three still in the land of the living.”
Rowan was sorry to take her leave of them. She made them a gift of Ona’s drawing, which gesture delighted them far out of proportion to the act. Rowan wondered how often they had visitors, and considered that perhaps the greater gifts to them had been merely her presence, and the conversation.
As she paused by the door, and because she suddenly simply had to know, and because she had finally discovered a question that might serve to satisfy her curiosity while remaining open to alternate interpretation, Rowan asked: “Are you married?”
“Ah!” Lorren said. “Oh, my . . . must be more than seventy years now . . .”
“Every day a treasure,” Eamer said, reaching across the white tablecloth to take Lorren’s hand.
“Every day.”
“I saw her,” Eamer said, turning to Rowan, “one spring morning, kneeling in the turnip patch. Felt like I’d been hit on the head with a shovel, and the only thought I had was: That’s got to be the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“And I saw her,” Lorren said, “standing in the road, and all I could think was: That is the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen in my life”—she laughed and turned back to Eamer, her faded eyes shining—“but I do like the way she’s looking at me!”
Outside on Old Water Street, the steerswoman paused.
The blue house before her was tall, clean, dripping with bright white trim as ornate as a party cake. Comfortable, and prosperous, courtesy of the kind Kieran’s generous wages.
Old Water Street was in the north quarter, tucked up against the curving arm of Greyriver. The street ran to the riverside, where decaying docks, some reduced to pilings and rubble, pointed out to the opposite bank.
Rowan gazed down the street at the water. There, nearly a century before, the little girl who had been Eamer had stood watching the fire and destruction of Kieran’s personal war.
The steerswoman turned away, and slowly made her way up Old Water Street, lost in thought.
At the intersection she paused, crossed two streets over, and continued east, away from the river. Eventually, she reached a small open square, where a pair of boys were working a crank to draw a bucket of water from a wood-roofed stone well. The boys regarded her suspiciously, then filled their two smaller buckets from the larger one and carried them off, grunting and staggering at the effort.
Rowan approached the well, considered it, sat on its edge.
East Well.
She imagined the kindly, white-haired man from Ona’s drawing; imagined him real, and standing before her. A gentle face, a smile and coppers for the children, so that they might attend a puppet show.
Rowan imagined him walking down this street, walking up to this well, where waited, all around, a silent crowd of people. Walking, empty-eyed, and dragging by its hair the corpse of little Ammi.
Although perhaps Kieran had not yet been white-haired. Rowan wondered, vaguely.
Before her, one empty gap between two fenced house yards: a pocket garden, now gone to weeds and bramble. There, Kieran had first spoken to Lorren and Eamer, had simply informed them that they now worked for him.
The steerswoman looked left.
The street curved up and slightly right, with houses more widely spaced. Two intersections ahead, half obscured by the last home on the right: Jannik’s house.
She rose, walked up the street with as much nonchalance as she could manage.
The house was brick, three storeys, and its decoration far more modest than was the Donner norm. The windows were small on the ground floor, and shuttered, larger on the upper storeys, with glass panes glaring white where sunlight reflected, pitch-black where it did not. There was no porch, but a small shingled portico shaded the front door. The roofline and peak of the house were edged with pigeon-chasers, rendered in decorative spikes. Half hidden by the roof peak, part of a curved object was visible, gray, like stone or old ceramic.
The house stood alone on its corner lot, with no others adjacent. In the next yard over, a wreck of grayed timber and the tumbled remnants of brick walls suggested previous neighbors, long departed.
Keeping to the far side of the street, Rowan strolled casually on. Jannik’s backyard was walled, but not to any great height. The bricks stood only as high as Rowan’s waist, and the garden was easily visible.
It was huge, occupying the equivalent of four of the neighboring lots. Sections of lawn fell and rose gently, their borders outlined with white stones. Fieldstone paths wound among flower beds, between ornamental bushes and under a lattice arbor, where climbing roses, past blooming, cheerfully displayed bright rose hips. At the far end of the garden, a fair-sized shed stood, with a red wheelbarrow nearby, half tilted on its side.
Most attention had been paid to the areas nearby the house. Only chrysanthemums still bloomed, but these were bright and abundant. Still, their arrangement and brilliance felt regimented to Rowan, and over-controlled, oddly steri
le. Not at all the exuberant opulence shown in Ona’s drawing. Lorren’s and Eamer’s talents were missed.
As Rowan continued down the street bordering the garden wall, more details were revealed. An ornamental iron lamp with glass panels stood on a pedestal directly in the center of one flower bed. One would need to step on the flowers to light it—but Lorren mentioned a magic lamp, red. To be lit, perhaps, by a word or a mystic gesture.
In a section of lawn unnaturally bright green in the autumn landscape, a cherry tree stood. Beneath this, a curved stone bench.
There, Rowan thought: there he had sat, Slado himself, reading his book, studying his craft. Plotting, perhaps, the murder of the one good wizard in the world.
Rowan found that she had stopped, and was gazing steadily. She hoped, belatedly, that she did not appear suspicious; but Jannik was not at home.
The steerswoman glanced back at the house, captured the view in memory, and studied it after she turned away, walking on.
Only two entrances to the house. Probably the back door, in the garden, would be best. Less chance of being noticed.
Larger windows upstairs: rooms most often used, perhaps. More important rooms, away from street-level prying eyes.
The shape of the house, arrangement of windows, the roofline: these gave her a general idea of internal layout.
And that ornament on the roof, stone or ceramic: Rowan’s glance had caught its shape clearly. A birdbath, perhaps, but neglected and out of use, tilted badly out of skew. Or a sundial: the small central spike would cast an adequate shadow.
But there were no doors or landings on the roof. And it was not visible from any window.
Regardless: if a birdbath, the birds were out of luck; if a sun-dial, it was useless, as it was oriented incorrectly. It was tilted to the east-southeast.
Facing, she suddenly realized, exactly toward the Eastern Guidestar.
Wizards spoke to the Guidestars, commanded them. The Guidestars obeyed, possibly even replied . . .
A voice, then, to speak to the sky; and the bowl, like hands cupped around an ear, to listen to the distant answer of magic.
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