Bel was delighted. “Jannik’s horse!”
“But,” Rowan said, “surely you can use her yourself, to hire out? Or sell her?”
“True, I could, but you could sell her later just as well, and don’t tell me a steerswoman couldn’t use a little ready coin every now and again, not to mention Bel, who nobody’s going to feed for free.”
“But—”
The steerswoman staggered at a shove from Bel. “Rowan, say ‘Thank you.’ ”
“Thank you,” Rowan said. She reached up to stroke the mare’s soft nose, amazed and grateful. “I’ll make certain she ends up in a good home.”
“Good enough,” Ruffo said. “The head groom tells me her name is Princess Alabaster of the Golden Cloud-Castle.”
The mare nuzzled Rowan’s palm, then bit her. “Ow!” The steerswoman drew back sharply. “I believe,” she said, shaking the pain from her hand, “that I’ll call her Sugar.”
Beck, who had been securing Willam’s bow to the side of a loaded pannier, stepped forward and held out to Rowan one of the Dolphin’s linen napkins, its ends knotted. Rowan took it, and found it to contain a large number of sugar-lumps. She laughed. “Thank you,” she said.
Beck grinned his huge grin and stepped back. “Be well,” he said. “Stay safe.” And he departed. Rowan gaped after him.
Bel, reaching for a sugar-lump, regarded her curiously. “What?”
“I’ve . . . never heard him speak before,” Rowan said. “I was beginning to wonder if he could.” The young man’s voice was lovely: deep and resonant, seeming four sizes too large for him.
They bid Ruffo farewell, and led Sugar away, up Branner’s Road, and left onto Iron-and-Tin. Somewhat later, they passed Joly, standing on a street corner in quiet conversation with the proprietor of the bawdy-house, and Marel. The three men glanced at the travelers, and Joly lifted one hand slightly, in unobtrusive acknowledgment; then they continued their discussion.
“The cabal is already at work,” Bel noted.
When they reached the river dock, the ferry was already well loaded, with no passengers waiting, but for no apparent reason it had not yet departed. It did so the moment Rowan and Bel convinced Sugar to board, which caused Bel to smile happily, throw Rowan one significant look, and thereafter make a show of cheerful innocence. Rowan sighted the ferry captain, an immense, gray-haired woman who caught her glance, grinned, and surreptitiously winked. It was no one Rowan knew.
The ferry had pulled away from the shore and was halfway across the river-branch when Rowan suddenly recalled something. She made a sound of annoyance. “This sword isn’t mine.”
“Neither was the other one.”
“But—”
Bel spoke aggrievedly. “Rowan, if you go back and try to return it, they’ll just tell you to keep it. You know they will. And don’t forget what Willam gave them. Even taking the sword, and the horse, and all the supplies into account, Donner still comes out ahead.”
“Oh, very well.”
And it was not until much later, in the shivering evening, after a meal by the campfire, with Rowan deep into a detailed description of all the events that had taken place in Jannik’s house; and having reached the point in the telling when Willam used the magic voice-box; and having already reassembled it; and being about to demonstrate its use, as an aid to the telling, that they both heard it:
Two sounds, like distant rumbles of thunder.
They were faint, but crisp in the still, cold air. They echoed and re-echoed, across the river, against the distant hills, and farther on, passing from point to point, moving across the land, and fading at last beyond the limit of hearing.
This, despite the fact that the star-studded sky was perfectly cloudless.
Rowan and Bel exchanged a long look. The sounds had come, unmistakably, from the direction of Donner, and the dragon fields. Willam’s charms were being put to use.
Then the steerswoman picked up from the rough, bare earth the white card marked 1, and she carefully fed it between the little turning wheels of the box. The wheels caught the card, and drew it forward.
From out of the paper cone, the voice of the dead wizard said: “Access.”
END
About the Author
Rosemary Kirstein is the author of the Steerswoman series: The Steerswoman, The Outskirter's Secret, The Lost Steersman, and The Language of Power. Work is underway on Volumes 5 and 6.
Paperback versions of the first four volumes were originally published by Del Rey Books.
Kirstein's short fiction has appeared in Asimov's and in Aboriginal SF. She blogs at www.rosemarykirstein.com, and occasionally tweets random non sequiturs on Twitter as @rkirstein.
The Language of Power Page 36