The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) (3 page)

“The original is in the Archives,” Rowan went on. “There’s a copy here and another in the Annex in the western mountains. And that is all.” Then she riffled the pages at Gwen. From the middle of the book, all the way to the back, the pages were moldy and bored through with wormholes. “
That’s
what Mira thought of my life.”

She put the book down and rested one hand on it, the hand that had the scars. “Most of the books are in that condition, or worse,” she said, still looking down, like she was talking to the book. “They’re moldering in dust; they’re fused shut with damp. There are entire cratefulls still in the boxes they arrived in. They’re not cleaned, they’re not shelved, and nothing’s been catalogued for what looks like thirty years.”

She looked up at Gwen. “And in return for this service, Mira received a home, a stipend— and apparently a position of some respect in this town. Had Mira not been a steerswoman, I would care not at all how she lived her life. But apparently her work, and her sisters’, meant nothing to her.”

But trust Gwen to give no ground. She tossed her head. “Paper and ink and books aren’t lives. Mira’s life was her own, and she was alive and living it, and that’s more important than dusting and organizing. It’s mostly dead people’s lives in those books, isn’t it? Dead and gone, and who cares what they did?”

The words seemed to surprise Rowan, and she stood with her brows knit, thinking hard. After a while, she said, “Mira was a steerswoman, correct? And if you ask any steerswoman a question, she must answer, isn’t that true?”

Gwen crossed her arms. “She always did.”

“That’s the rule,” Steffie put in. He couldn’t see what Rowan was driving at.

The steerswoman drew in and let out a long breath. “I,” she said, “have questions. I have a great many questions. And, unfortunately, the people I would most like to ask them of ”— and here she threw out her arms suddenly— “happen to be
dead!
” She snatched up one of the other books on the table, held it tight in her two hands. “The steerswoman who wrote this book traveled more in one year, and saw more, than either of you will in your entire lifetimes. Somewhere in here or there”— and she turned back toward the shelves, angry— “someone might have an answer for me, or part of an answer or a clue or even a rumor . . . They’d tell me if they could.”

Dead people, talking; the idea sent a chill up Steffie and down again.

“If the catalog and indexes had been kept up,” Rowan went on, “I might have a chance of finding likely subjects quickly. . . proper abstracts would give me some idea of where at least to begin looking . . . even shelving the books in chronological order would help. Instead”- -and she set the book down with a little slam— “I’ll have to look at every book that comes to hand, one by one, and set them in order myself. A proper search would take years. I’ll be doing Mira’s job at the same time I’m doing my own.”

Dead steerswomen, still answering questions. Like ghost sailors still sailing, ghost blacksmiths still pounding away, invisible. But think of that: imagine liking something so much that you’d keep right on doing it, even after you were dead. “Does Mira have a book in there?”

“Possibly.” The steerswoman did not sound much interested. “Very likely, I suppose. Something from her early career, perhaps. I certainly haven’t found her current logbook about anywhere.”

“Waste of time, if you ask me. Mira had other things to do,” Gwen said. “I never saw her bothering about writing in some old book!” Then she snatched up the kindling carrier from the hearth and stomped straight out the back door.

“And I am not in the least bit surprised!” Rowan snapped back; then she stormed off herself, not down the bookshelves but upstairs. Steffie heard her feet crossing Mira’s room overhead and then some bangs as she shifted something or other, more footsteps, creaks, and then nothing. Leaving Steffie standing alone in the middle of the empty room.

“Right,” he said to no one in particular. Two women arguing; leave it alone. He’d learned that one early on, house full of sisters and all.

That sword had gone upstairs with Rowan, somehow. He didn’t see it happen, but it was gone now. Figured.

He went back to sweeping.

After a while, Gwen came back in with the carrier jammed full of kindling— which they didn’t really need, because there was plenty by the hearth. And she bumped right into Steffie on the way, too, and shoved him aside with her shoulder, even though there was plenty of room to go around him.

Which naturally sent his mind off in a whole other direction, knowing her like he did. As signals go, that one usually worked pretty well, and he started laying out a few plans in his head. Gwen peaceful was nice enough, but Gwen angry could be
really
interesting, if you came at it right.

Of course, Rowan was up in the bedroom. Still, she had to leave it sometime . . .

So Steffie played innocent while Gwen clattered with the kindling, grumbling and sounding like she was making a mess of it, which she never did for real. He let it go on for a while, sort of building up to a nice boiling point, and just when she got to sounding really frustrated, he set his broom aside and made to go over and help her—

Overhead, Rowan started moving again, toward the bedroom door. Good timing, Steffie thought.

But then it came to him that while Mira never minded when he and Gwen slipped upstairs, Rowan might be a whole other matter . . .

Better Not, he decided. So he just stayed put. Which wasn’t easy, now that he’d got his mind set on things, so to speak, but there you are.

Then Rowan came down the stairs, slow, carrying something, and using both hands to do it, even though it was small enough to carry in just one.

“Gwen,” she said, when she got to the worktable, “I’m sorry we argued.” She sounded a bit stiff, but she went on. “It was entirely my fault. Mira’s choice of habit had nothing to do with you. The fact that it makes my own work difficult isn’t your fault or your concern.” She put the thing in her hands down on the table, but carefully, like there was a spider inside. It turned out to be a little, dusty box.

The sword was slung over her arm by its belt; she put it back on the chair. “The Annex seems to be a second home to you, to both of you, and I hope you’ll continue to consider it so. I’m sorry you lost Mira; I hope she was as good a friend to you as you are to her. It was very kind of you to give so much help to an elderly woman.”

It was a pretty speech, but Steffie still wished Rowan was someplace else— out of the house altogether, in fact.

Gwen straightened up from the hearth and eyed her. “Mira was a steerswoman. You’re supposed to help a steerswoman.” Her head tilted, one eyebrow up, and she looked Rowan up and down. “Any steerswoman.”

Steffie could see something go
thump
inside Rowan, and right then he wondered if maybe it was him who should leave the house. Out the back. Fast.

“Yes,” Rowan said, even stiffer than before. “Well.” Then— moving so small and careful that Steffie just knew she really wanted to do something big and wild— she turned the box around so it faced Gwen, and lifted up the lid. “A steerswoman,” she said, “cannot do
that,
” and she pointed inside, “and remain a steerswoman.”

Then, like something inside of her let go, she was moving quickly, snatching something up off the table— a wrapped package— and then she grabbed her sword and was gone, straight out the front door.

Leaving a lot of silence behind. Which went on for a while.

Then Gwen walked wide around him to get to the table, so wide he couldn’t have touched her even if he reached out. “What’s this, then?” she said.

“A box,” Steffie said stupidly, feeling all off balance; but the mood was gone, now, he knew that. He looked again. “A trinket box?”

A cheap-looking one, at that, and little and dusty, though not as dusty as most things in the house. Remembering how Rowan had acted with it, he stayed far back and had to lean way over to look inside . . .

What had Rowan just said? “Does it mean that?” he asked out loud, “if you take them off? That you’re not a steerswoman?”

“Make sense,” Gwen told him, and picked up the box and dumped it out, exactly the way he hadn’t.

There on the tabletop: puddle of gold, twist of silver. A steerswoman’s chain and ring. “Mira took them off,” he said.

“Never. We buried them with her, like we’re supposed. I should know, I helped lay her out.” Gwen picked up the ring, looked at it closer, and made a noise. “Not Mira’s, any fool could tell. it’s too big.” And with a flick she tossed it up in the air toward Steffie.

“Whoa, hup!” He snatched at it, missed it with his right hand, caught it with his left.

But when his hand closed around the ring, it didn’t feel big at all. He opened his hand and looked; and it seemed normal sized, lying on his palm.

Which was funny; so, sort of to prove it to himself, he slipped it on. And, sure enough, it looked just right on his own big hand—

Then he slipped it off again quickly, feeling spooked, like it might be haunted.

Thing was, though, it fit. “Well, that’s a man’s size,” Steffie said. Had to be. Big for almost any woman’s hand; not big for his own.

Gwen laughed out loud. “A
man
steerswoman?”

“Well. Guess not.” But too big for Mira, that was sure.

Then the water was hot, and Gwen rolled up her sleeves and set to work, ignoring Steffie just like he wasn’t there at all. Which put an end to those plans he’d been laying, no doubt about that.

So Steffie gave up, heaved a sigh, and went back to work himself. But first he put that ring and chain back in their box, wiped the dust off the box with his sleeve so he wouldn’t be told to do it later, and put it up on the mantelpiece.

And he forgot all about it, until much later.

2

H
ow do you find a man?

The steerswoman moved quickly down the street, long, angry strides.

How, if you have never seen him, never heard him described, did not know where he lived? How, if he wished not to be found?

And how, most especially, if he were the most powerful wizard in the world?

For all Rowan knew, the wizard Slado might dwell on the opposite side of the world; he might assume any number of disguises; he might render himself invisible or so cloud Rowan’s mind that he could stride down the street at her side, unseen, undetectable—

This thought brought her up short, and she stopped in the middle of the street. She looked about.

On one side of Old High Street, four houses attached each to the other, with four doors in four different, faded colors; on the other, single houses, of plastered brick washed with pale colors.

The street was empty. There was no one else present.

The steerswoman took the moment to set her package on the ground, then carefully strapped on her sword, recovered the package, and resumed walking, somewhat more slowly.

No person could render himself invisible; she was certain of it.

But, magic
, a far corner of her mind reminded her.

To be unseen was to be either absent, blocked from view, or somehow disguised—

But
, it came again,
magic.

For most of her life, Rowan had doubted the very existence of magic. She had been proven wrong, again and again: a tiny statue that moved without life, a room that filled with light at the turn of a wheel, gates that opened in the presence of an amulet—

The great fortress of the wizards Shammer and Dhree, shattered by the touch of a flaming arrow sent by a boy only fourteen years old—

And Slado’s killing heat, pouring down from the sky.

Magic was real. And the steerswoman must believe.

But surely— and Rowan held tightly to this thought— surely even magic must have limits. If an invisible watcher were nearby, his or her presence must still leave some clue.

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.