The Lost Steersman (Steerswoman Series) (5 page)

When she returned to the Annex she found that Gwen and Steffie were already present, discussing in subdued voices whether it was late enough to go upstairs to wake the steerswoman.

“How long have you been up?” Gwen asked when she had mastered her surprise.

“Since dawn,” Rowan replied. She unslung her sword and laid it on the table, then shifted it to hang on the back of her chair as Steffie began bringing plates of food. “I was taking a stroll by the mulberries.” There were warm rolls, dried apples, bacon, and gruel. “I expect that I keep earlier hours than Mira must have. I don’t often sleep past dawn.”

“At least you don’t need Gwen helping you dress,” Steffie commented.

Breakfast proceeded, with Gwen and Steffie chatting desultorily to each other, Rowan lost in her own thoughts. Eventually, in a lull in the conversation, Steffie addressed her directly. “Well, what’s on for today, then?”

Rowan had a ready list of necessary chores already in the back of her mind, and she found herself reciting it with only a fraction of her attention. She was halfway through it when she realized, in retrospect, that Steffie had jumped just a bit after speaking, apparently because Gwen had kicked him under the table. Rowan stopped in mid-sentence, recovered her balance. “Or you could do whatever you usually do— or whatever you please . . .”

“Market day,” Gwen pointed out.

“Fine.” She paused again. “How did Mira handle the money?”

“Generally,” Steffie put in, “if we say it’s for the steerswoman, people just let us have it. They know us. But if it’s a lot we’re getting, Mira gives us coin to pay. Sometimes people will take it.”

Rowan opened her mouth to ask, but Gwen guessed the question. “Money’s in the jar,” and she indicated with her head a blue-and-brown pottery jar with a lid, resting on the mantel.

Mira’s trust had apparently been complete; Rowan decided she would act no differently and allow Mira’s permanent replacement to deal with any possible pilfering. “Very well. And since the people don’t know me, why don’t you take whatever you think will cover the cost of everything— if there’s enough.”

“They’ll give it,” Gwen replied, offhand, then passed her empty plate to Steffie, who seemed inclined to linger over his meal. He took the hint, stuffed a heel of bread in his mouth, and stood to clear the table.

Rowan did not watch as Gwen went to the jar, but rose to attend to the books.

She paused one step away from the center aisle, feeling like a diver about to enter a pool whose water was of dubious quality.

Such an immense job.

She found herself wishing she could go outside again and simply walk, observing. She would make notes: bits and pieces of this town, this area of the world. Perhaps she would see something missed by the other steerswomen who had passed this way, perhaps discover something new, some new object or way or idea. Adding, incrementally, to the body of all knowledge.

That was the proper work of a traveling steerswoman: to discover, to chart, to explore . . .

Time enough later, to stay in one place. Time enough, when she was elderly, or when injury ended her traveling days. And even then there would be exploration, delving by thought and reason into the deeper questions of the world. With decades of experience behind her, with knowledge she had gained for herself, and more knowledge waiting in the ordered volumes at the Steerswoman’s Archives.

Instead—

Stay here. Find Slado. Look for the clues of magic in these books.

And these books were all in chaos.

The steerswoman sighed and forced herself to enter the dusty stacks.

She sorted by decade. When the piles became waist high, she shifted them to the floors of other aisles, assigning the row nearest the front window as the most recent. Lunch, announced by Gwen, came and went; Rowan ate but hardly noticed.

In the afternoon, she did come across two logbooks covering the relevant period; and unable to restrain herself, she sat down on the low stepladder to scan through them.

The first was written by Helen, whom Rowan had met briefly at the Archives, and it began with Helen’s embarkation on a sailing ship bound for Southport.

Rowan had herself originally planned to go to Southport, to “lay low,” as Bel had put it. But laying low could be accomplished in Alemeth as well as in Southport; and Southport had nothing like the Annex.

Helen had sighted dolphins on her journey, which intrigued Rowan. Dolphins were rare enough to be considered legendary by most common folk. But such an event was hardly magical.

Rowan passed those pages by.

Once in Southport, Helen’s entries continued in the standard steerswoman’s fashion: descriptions of the local plant life; Helen’s surprise that the only wild animals present were feral descendants of escaped domestic animals and imported pests, especially cats and rodents . . .

Not relevant. Move on.

Rowan heard the door open. She hesitated, hearing friendly greetings and conversation.

Mira had been a popular figure. Likely the residents of Alemeth were accustomed to dropping by.

“I’m not Mira,” Rowan muttered, and she read on.

Helen’s notes continued with detailed observations of the clearing of some land for a new home at the southernmost edge of the town. The process included the removal of a patch of bushes that clearly, and startlingly, were a form of tanglebrush— a plant Rowan had thought existed only in the Outskirts. How odd . . .

Out in the room, the conversation abruptly moderated to whispers. The visitor had apparently been told that the steerswoman was absorbed in work, and he or she was politely attempting to be unobtrusive. Rowan felt a twinge of guilt but continued to read.

Helen’s sketches showed other plants and three insects, all of which Rowan recognized as native to the Outskirts. And Southport marked the southernmost known human habitation . . .

The whispers were continuing.

Rowan suppressed a sigh. The visitor intended to stay. A guest was being inconvenienced. Rowan, as host, was behaving rudely. Carrying Helen’s book in one hand, Rowan emerged from the stacks and made her way to the hearth.

“And there she is! Good afternoon to you, lady.” The speaker was a woman of middle age, with the lively face and youthful eyes of an avid gossipmonger.

They had been introduced briefly the previous day. “Good afternoon”— Rowan sought and found the name— “Lorraine.”

Pot and teacups were arrayed on the worktable. Steffie lifted the lid, peered inside. “Tea’s up,” he announced and set to pouring and passing.

The largest and most comfortable of the chairs had been left empty. Rowan took the cue; she draped her sword belt over the wing chair’s back, took a cup from Steffie, and sat, book in one hand, cup in the other. The permanent depression in the seat cushion left by decades of contact with Mira’s bottom in no way matched Rowan’s own bottom. She shifted awkwardly from edge to edge, her teacup rattling. Eventually she brought her feet up onto the wide seat and sat cross-legged; the pose immediately reminded her of Bel, who habitually sat on chairs exactly as she sat on the ground, if the seats were large enough.

Rowan wished Bel were here.

Whatever conversation had been ensuing during Rowan’s absence now ceased in her presence. She suspected that the subject had been herself.

Lorraine rearranged herself in her creaking wicker chair, adopting a waiting expression of cheerful interest. Steffie handed Gwen a cup, then hunkered down by the hearth, sitting on his heels, blowing across his teacup. All were quiet for a long moment that began to teeter on the edge of becoming an awkward silence.

The steerswoman was expected to take the lead; Rowan quickly tried to think of something to say. “And how are you today, Lorraine?”

“Oh, busy as always, and isn’t that the way when you’ve got such a family? I’ve been baking to feed a year’s famine, and would you believe I’ll do the same tomorrow? Now, if I hadn’t set this aside— ” she reached to the floor for a large wooden bowl covered with a cloth and offered it to Rowan. “As I was working anyway, then, I thought to myself, wouldn’t them over at the Annex like some of this for their dinner afters?”

Rowan tucked her book between one knee and the chair arm, reached down to set her cup on the floor, and accepted the bowl. It proved to contain a number of small fancy pastries. “Thank you, that’s very thoughtful.” Rowan smiled a bit uncomfortably. Despite her years in the order, she always felt faintly embarrassed by the largesse customarily granted to steerswomen.

“My pleasure.” Lorraine subsided again, smiling and nodding. Gwen quietly sipped her tea. Steffie rocked on his heels musingly.

The subject was spent. Rowan cast about for something that might interest this woman. She looked at the bowl in her lap. “Perhaps you’d like one of these with your tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“Gwen? Steffie?”

“None for me.”

“Later, maybe.”

A pause.

“These cups are rather nice.”

“Been here forever. Don’t know where they came from.”

“I see”

Quiet.

“Steffie, I don’t believe I’ve asked you— what is your real name?”

“Real name?”

“Well . . . ‘Steffie’ is a nickname, isn’t it?”

“No . . .”

“He’s always been just ‘Steffie.’ ”

“Oh.”

Silence.

Rowan’s mind ranged wildly. She was required to be entertaining. Half a dozen fascinating events from her personal experience occurred to her, but she found herself unable to baldly trot them out, like boasts. She wished someone would ask a question or express an opinion. She found she was gritting her teeth. “This morning I noticed that they’re stripping the leaves in one of the mulberry groves,” she said at random.

Success.

Lorraine’s mouth dropped to become an open O; Steffie hooted a laugh and cried, “Lasker!”; and Gwen declared with delight, “He’s mad!”

“Thinks he’ll get the jump on us all,” Steffie said.

“The jump on Karin, more like.”

“It’s his pride, that’s what it is,” Lorraine put in, leaning forward, her bright eyes wide with scandal. “He’ll make not a penny extra, cause himself grief with hard work, but he’ll have sales before Karin has promises, and that’s what he’s thinking of.”

“What a fool.” Steffie grinned. “More work than people when the season comes— why hurry it up?”

Gwen turned to him. “He’ll want workers quick— you should tell your cousin.”

“What, him? He gets fed, try to make him lift a finger past that— ”

The door opened to admit an elderly man with a little girl in tow. Before he could speak, Gwen announced, “Spring silk!”

“Lasker,” he said immediately, and everyone laughed.

Lorraine relinquished her seat to him. “It’s a chill spring. Now, who’s got the firewood for him, after that winter we had?”

The man snorted. “Everyone. Wrap ourselves in blankets and gloat over the coins he’ll give us.”

“I’m not freezing for Lasker’s worms,” Gwen said.

Steffie nudged her. “Saw you eyeing that frock in Tarry’s shop.”

She tossed her head. “Figuring the making. I can do as well myself . . .”

“And you can use spring silk!”

More visitors arrived, singly and in pairs. Each was told the tale of Lasker’s conceit, each expressed an opinion, and the conversation continued under its own impetus.

At the end of two hours, the little parlor area held eleven persons, standing and sitting, and had gone through three more pots of tea. Looking around, Rowan realized that this was what the room must have been like while Mira lived: an open gathering place, for news and entertainment, with Mira in her stuffed chair with the sagging seat, the source and controlling center of it all.

But in Mira’s place sat Rowan, quiet, attempting to listen politely and wishing that she could return to her work.

Rowan was perfectly capable of enjoying cheerful company and idle conversation. But she had an ominous feeling that she was going to be required to enjoy it, exactly like this, every single day.

She realized that the talk had died down, and she wondered if she absolutely must get it moving again or if there were any polite way to clear so many friendly people out of the Annex.

The problem was solved by Steffie. As if on cue, he slapped his knees, rose, and said, “Well, who’s for a few, then?”

Some took up the idea; others declined. But all, blessedly, dispersed to their homes or to the taverns, bidding the steerswoman a polite good-bye— after making absolutely certain that she definitely did not wish to join them at the Mizzen or at Brewer’s. Their expressions of puzzlement as they left told Rowan that Mira would have behaved very differently.

“I’m not Mira,” Rowan informed the empty room.

There were teacups in every corner; Rowan gathered and washed them. Six different varieties of pastry, each with one bite taken, were discovered beneath various articles of furniture; the little girl had tested each and found them wanting. Rowan cleared them away, placed the bowl with its single remaining custard tart on the worktable next to her sword, wiped her hands on a cloth, and looked around.