The Language of Power

by Rosemary Kirstein

  He shook his head. “No, I never heard anything. It never came up. But I think you must be right. Spells need very precise timing and measurement. Our way is a lot easier to calculate than inches and feet. Outskirters and wizards must have at least met, long ago, if they’re using our measurements.”

  A hush fell over the room, and all eyes turned to the kitchen door, from behind which came a sudden bustle, voices, clatters, and thunks.

  Bel alone seemed uninterested. She turned to Willam. “Their measurements,” she said.

  He looked at her. “What?” The bustle in the kitchen quieted.

  The room was nearly silent. Bel leaned closer. “You said ‘our measurements,’ ” she said quietly. “You mean ‘their.’ You’re not one of them, anymore. And you were never really Krue at all.”

  He blinked. “You’re right.” He gave a small laugh of embarrassment. “I guess I’ve gotten used to thinking like them.”

  “Just try not to think too much like them.”

  “Until two nights from tonight, at”—Rowan internally adjusted her thinking to Outskirter modes—“twenty-three hundred.”

  Across the room, someone gave a plaintive cry. The reason was immediately evident: from beyond the kitchen door, perfectly audible in the near-silence, the sound of stairs creaking as some extremely heavy object was carried upward, accompanied by no less than four sets of ponderous footsteps.

  All listened as the sounds diminished. Then, from somewhere in the distance and upward, a cheer, followed by a rising rhythmic noise, thumpings and voices, resolving into: “The boar! The boar! The boar!”

  Groans of frustration in the common room, and sighs of resignation. Conversation resumed.

  “It seems we’re a bit early after all,” Rowan remarked. “Apparently upstairs gets first choice.”

  Bel eyed the common room, tilted her head. “I like it better down here.”

  Young Beck had been given charge of the proceedings in the common room. He took his assignment very seriously, and attempted graciously to direct the other servers by subtle nods and gestures only. Unfortunately, the new servers were not accustomed to picking up the cues. There was stumbling, and awkwardness, requiring Beck to move quickly here and there, correcting and adjusting as needed. But his calm and persistence were impressive, and Rowan decided that the young man definitely had a bright future in the business.

  Eventually, the food arrived, and the crowd let out a cheer. For a space, there was only appreciative silence, as the portions were dispensed, and then dispatched by the happy diners.

  Roast boar, not the best cuts, but plentiful. Also: buttered beans; cubes of potatoes and turnips cooked together with bacon; a side dish of pickled fruit; and for afters, white-frosted pumpkin cake. The steerswoman’s slice, delivered by Beck personally, arrived decorated with a tiny drizzle of rare chocolate. Dinner was long, and delightful, and conducted in a reverent near-silence.

  When the dishes were cleared, everyone stayed for drink, and for entertainment, which the crowd provided for itself. There was music, but not here: it drifted faintly down from the formal dining room. Occasionally, the melody was recognizable. Whenever this happened the common room crowd dropped all other pursuits and sang along, for as long as the tune was audible. New lyrics were sometimes improvised.

  New arrivals swelled the crowd, and Rowan, Bel, and Willam were required to share their table. Their tablemates were the female bricklayer Rowan had met on the first day; a narrow blond man in his thirties, who by his own cheerful admission possessed neither occupation nor permanent abode; and a squat, muscular young woman with huge callused hands, who served as apprentice to one of the city’s swordsmiths. With the dinner dishes cleared, there remained just enough room on the little table for six mugs of ale, and the occasional pair of elbows.

  With the strangers present, Rowan, Bel, and Willam could no longer discuss their mission. Rowan fell into conversation with the swordsmith’s apprentice concerning the steerswoman’s need for a new weapon. Willam listened to the bricklayer’s bitter tale of bad luck in recent wagers, and expressed his opinion that the rat races were fixed. Bel professed an interest in the underside of city life, and the vagrant became her eager informant.

  Some time later, Rowan noticed Naio descending the main staircase then pausing to scan the crowd. Suspecting that she was herself the subject of his search, Rowan stood and waved him over.

  “Quite a gathering tonight,” he commented, nodding to the others at the table. Rowan could not help noticing that he held a rolled and ribbon-tied paper.

  “Were you dining upstairs?” Rowan asked.

  “Yes. Ona is still there, I’ll go back in a moment.” Finding no empty chair, Naio lowered himself to sit on his heels beside Rowan. “We’ve been going through her old drawings together— and that was an interesting experience, I’ll tell you!” He paused to suppress a grin; it took all his self-control to do so.

  Rowan guessed what inspired the amusement. “Including,” she asked, “the nude studies?”

  “All of them completely from her imagination, of course.” He raised his eyebrows. “She was, let’s say, an extremely innocent girl.”

  “Oh?” Rowan played along. “And was her subject”—she sought a delicate way to phrase it—“imaginatively endowed?” She sipped her beer.

  “Well, that’s the thing. Being so innocent and sheltered, Ona was completely ignorant . . . She ended up depicting the subject in question with, ah, no endowments whatsoever.”

  Caught off-guard, the steerswoman choked and snorted beer up her nose, then succumbed to a coughing fit that required the assistance of Bel, pounding on Rowan’s back, to quell.

  Naio waited for the fit to subside. “On the one hand,” he said, “poor fellow. On the other, serves him right, I say.”

  Rowan gestured weakly toward the paper in his hand. “Please, tell me that isn’t—”

  “Oh! No! No, lady, I wouldn’t do that. This—well, I thought you might find it interesting.”

  Rowan took the paper, untied and unrolled it. She was briefly stymied, then fascinated. “Is this Latitia?”

  “Part of her, at least.”

  In ink: a standing figure seen from behind, only vaguely and rapidly outlined. Young Ona had lavished all her attention on the subject’s thick black hair. Pulled back from Latitia’s face, it was held close to her head by a complicated interweaving of braid, then allowed its freedom past the nape of her neck. It must have been very wiry; it stood out like a small thunder-cloud behind the steerswoman’s shoulders. Of Latitia herself, there was only the suggestion of leanness and grace, and a few draping folds of a steerswoman’s cloak.

  Rowan was delighted. “I’m beginning to feel that I know her.”

  “And I’ve managed to find out where she stayed when she was here.”

  She turned to him, astonished. “Naio, I hardly know how to thank you. I think you’re doing as much work on this question as I am.”

  Her gratitude pleased him. “Well, it’s entertaining. I do love gossip. And gossip from forty years back—that’s a challenge! A steerswoman, a wizard, an evil apprentice—it’s too much to pass up.” He rose, and winced as he stretched cramped legs. “Now, the fellow you want actually used to be mayor here—” He stopped when Rowan’s face fell.

  “Not old Nid?” she asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes—”

  “But, I understand that he’s senile.”

  “So he is. But he also rambles. If you invest a little time, and use a lot of patience, you might be able to get some details from him.”

  It sounded worth the attempt. “Thank you,” Rowan said. “I believe I’ll look Nid up after all.” And there would be plenty of time to devote to the project, tomorrow.

  Naio took his leave, and Rowan returned to casual conversation with her tablemates.

  The steerswoman’s glass was never empty, thanks to Beck’s attentions. The others were required to pay, but Willam drank slowly and lit
tle, and Bel, seeing the vagrant come up short, poured half her own beer into the man’s empty mug, inspiring him to gallantly kiss her hand. Out of sheer good spirits, the entire table adopted him, and followed Bel’s example. The man did not lack for drink for the rest of the night.

  Time passed; the evening grew quieter, but no less convivial. Obeying one of the universal laws of such gatherings, the crowd began, subtly and spontaneously, to grow more unified.

  At the sailors’ table, a wiry young woman, oak brown and blond from the sun, rose and sang “Jamboree,” with her crewmates clapping along and the locals enjoying puzzling over the lyrics—except for Rowan’s table, where, to her own discomfiture, the steerswoman was asked by the swordsmith’s apprentice to translate “Jinny keep your ring-tail warm.”

  Bel rolled her eyes at the explanation; then, as soon as the song ended, and with no warning whatsoever, she rose and stood on her chair.

  She sang. The room grew immediately attentive, then noisy with appreciative laughter.

  It was an Outskirter song, one familiar to Rowan. Called “The Queen of Three-side,” it concerned a she-goat who became so outraged at the inept care rendered by the tribe’s herd-master that she began to berate the man in words. At each new error, she corrected him, at length, in rhyme. The tune was rollicking, the insults hilarious—and the detailed information on the proper raising and care of goats perfectly accurate in every detail.

  Looking up at her friend, listening to Bel’s rich, dark voice made light now by the skittering melody, it came to Rowan, as if she had forgotten: this, too, was a steerswoman’s life.

  For the most part, a steerswoman’s days were equal portions of hard work and hard traveling, with much solitude. But there were interludes such as this one, with warmth, good food, good drink, and the goodwill of strangers.

  Rowan’s life recently had lacked these interludes. But Jannik was occupied with his dragons; no one had been following Rowan after all; Will’s dangerous mission was two nights away. The steerswoman was astonished to find herself with nothing to do but enjoy herself. She gave herself to it.

  When Bel climbed down from her chair, to the applause of the crowd, Rowan amazed her friends by climbing up on it herself. She stood a moment, gazing at the faces around as the crowd quieted; then she sang.

  The tune was “Greenwood Sideyo,” an eerie little song, one of the few well suited to Rowan’s plain voice. The audience was in the mood for it; they shivered in all the right places, and experimented with strange harmonies.

  When it was over and Rowan climbed down, the applause was as enthusiastic as Bel’s had been. Bel clapped her back; Willam laughed; then he thought, shrugged, and rose to his feet.

  He did not sing. Instead, he recited a folktale native to Wulfshaven, concerning two rival Island fishermen, who repeatedly, in alternation, captured and recaptured the same magic fish. Each fisher used the wish granted him to cast some misfortune upon his opposite number, and with each passing day the curses grew more and more unpleasant and bizarre. Eventually, one fisher decided that he would end the cycle by killing and eating the fish; but first, as his final wish, he wished upon his enemy “Perfect misery for the rest of his life.”

  The instant he swallowed the last bite, he discovered that he had been transformed into a woman; that he was now the wife of his enemy; and that they possessed nine venomous children—with one more on the way.

  The tale was familiar to the sailors, but not to the locals, and was a great success. Someone sent the performers a pitcher of beer. They shared it with the whole table.

  A tug at Rowan’s sleeve; she looked down.

  The handkerchief boy, a shy smile on his face, stood by the steerswoman’s elbow, holding out a folded piece of paper.

  Rowan took it from his hand. “Thank you very much,” she said, seriously.

  The boy grinned hugely, and stood wriggling, nearly doubled over in transports of joy. Then he made his departure, stamping his feet with each step, apparently merely for the pleasure of the noise.

  “A message?” Bel asked.

  “Possibly,” the steerswoman said. She unfolded the paper, and everyone present leaned close to see.

  After a long moment, the bricklayer said: “That’s a tree. Got that in one.”

  “Well, yes, several trees. And a number of. . .”

  “Dogs?” Bel guessed.

  “They look . . . dead,” Willam said.

  “I’m not sure they’re dogs,” Rowan said. Apparently the handkerchief boy had noticed that Rowan enjoyed receiving drawings. This was his own contribution.

  They puzzled over the crude depiction. The swordsmith’s apprentice pointed. “What’s them black specks in the air?”

  “Flies,” Willam decided. “For all the dead dogs.”

  “Unpleasant,” Rowan said, with a wince. “But this one animal seems happy enough.” Indeed it did; not only was it the only creature standing, it also sported a toothy human-like grin situated at the very tip of its snout.

  “It’s the victor,” Bel declared. “It’s vanquished all the others.”

  “Perhaps the others are only sleeping.” They were scattered about, stiff-legged; still, the artist was just a child.

  “That would be nicer,” Willam said.

  “I think it’s a horse,” Bel said. “Either that, or it’s standing on four wooden blocks.”

  “And the other horses lying down.” Rowan had it, and laughed. “It’s a night scene! The black specks are stars!”

  “Stars should be white,” the vagrant said.

  “But the paper is white,” Bel said. “White on white wouldn’t show, so he made the stars black.”

  “All the horsies fast asleep,” Willam said, “except for one happy fellow, just enjoying the starry night.”

  “Well. I’m very much relieved; the alternative was just too grim.” The steerswoman carefully refolded the drawing and placed it in her vest pocket.

  “Everyone’s trying to help,” Bel observed.

  Eventually, the evening faded, and the crowd dwindled. The bricklayer departed, then the apprentice. Even the vagrant finally left, with a parting kiss of Bel’s hand; and at last only the evening’s most stubborn revelers remained.

  “Ruffo may throw us all out soon,” Rowan commented.

  “In a city this size, you’d think there would be something to keep us occupied until dawn,” Bel said.

  “There are some gaming rooms,” Will said. “Four of them, but one is illegal, and nasty; you wouldn’t want to know what goes on in there. Two of the others are considered honest.” He raised his brows. “There are also two bawdy-houses, if you’re interested. I’ll pass, if you don’t mind. And there’s one unregistered pub, with only hard liquor. Most of the people who go there are hiding from spiteful spouses.”

  He seemed to know the city well. “How long have you been here?”

  “I was here for two weeks at first, checking out Jannik’s routine, and what the city was like. It’s amazing what you see, when no one thinks that you can see at all. And for some reason they always act as if you’re deaf, too.” He sipped from his mug. “And then, I went to the dragon fields and set my spells. They didn’t start up at once, I used a delay, so I got back here in time to watch Jannik leave.”

  Rowan called over one of the servers to ask the time, and was informed that it had gone past midnight. The friends decided to go to the stables and cache Will’s charms.

  But when they arrived, there was a light inside, and a voice.

  Rowan listened. “It seems to be only one person.” The words, and the tone, were of the sort used when addressing animals.

  “Can you distract him?” Bel asked.

  “I think so,” Rowan said, then smiled. “In fact, I have the perfect excuse.”

  Willam and Bel slipped around to the back of the building; Rowan entered by the open double doors.

  She followed the light and the voice down the rows of stalls, eventually reaching an open s
tall on the left, two-thirds of the way down.

  Inside, a man was at work on a horse, crooning to it in a happy voice. Rowan said, “Hello?”

  “Ho, ha!” He startled, peered at her. “What’s on, then? It’s late!”

  “I’m sorry to bother you . . .” Rowan stepped farther into the light. “I wonder if I might ask you a few questions.”

  “Questions in the middle of the night?”

  “Well, we both seem to be up and about; I thought there’d be few distractions.” She became distracted herself, by the horse. “Oh, that’s a lovely animal!”

  “Yes, she is, isn’t she?” the groom said with deep pride. It was a mare, white-haired but dark-skinned, so that her face seemed tipped in black at the nose, around the eyes, inside the swiveling, curious ears. Her white mane was shot through with black strands, with her tail more black than white. Rowan reached out to stroke the mare’s nose; the horse permitted this, nuzzling her fingers, then her palm, then abruptly biting, hard. “Ow!”

  “Hey, you!” This to the horse. “Now, now, be nice. Sorry,” he said to Rowan. “She’s back home, expects her treat.” He dug in a pocket, inspiring immediate intense interest from the mare, and handed Rowan a lump of sugar. “Here.”

  More cautious now, Rowan placed it carefully in the center of her palm. With gentle delicacy, the mare’s soft lips sought and found the gift. Greatly pleased, the animal then leaned her entire head against Rowan chest, and shoved playfully. The steerswoman laughed, shoved back, stroked the mare’s neck, rubbed her ears.

  “See?” The groom came forward to run his cloth down the mare’s chest. “She likes you. She’s a darling, isn’t she? Give us a kiss.” Rowan was relieved to find that this, too, was addressed to the horse, who turned her head and nibbled sloppily on the man’s nose and chin. The groom wiped his face on his sleeve, and returned to brushing the mare’s flanks. “Questions, you said?”

  “Yes,” Rowan replied. “I’m a steerswoman—” Up and past the man’s shoulder, Rowan noted a shadow shifting, just above the farthest stall. “And I’m interested in some events taking place forty-two years ago—”