Havenstar (10 page)

Deep inside,
she knew that above all else she wanted to learn how to fashion
such a map herself. It was the ultimate challenge to a mapmaker,
and equally deep inside her she knew she was indeed a mapmaker, not
a woman destined to be just somebody’s wife. Nor yet a woman
destined to be a holy Knighte.
I am a mapmaker.

She grew more
and more restless and unhappy, knowing herself to be balanced on
the edge of a precipice in her life, yet not knowing what would
happen when she plunged over the edge. The trompleri map with its
continually altering face symbolized the flux of her own existence.
The mystery mirrored the mystery of her father’s death.

Her pragmatism
told her there was no possibility she could ever be a master
mapmaker. True, she could use a theodolite, take readings and draft
accurate maps. True, she could ride a horse and defend herself with
a bow and arrow. True, she had accompanied her father on surveying
trips within the First Stability and had learnt much of his skills
on such trips. But she had never been into the Unstable and would
not have known how to survive there. However often she heard its
oddities and its dangers discussed, she was unfamiliar with them in
practice. She was doubtful if a woman alone could survive long at
the best of times. When the Wild and the Minions of Chaos were
abroad, surely brute strength could mean the difference between
life and death?

And finally no
one would buy the maps of a woman, because no one would have faith
in them. Women were midwives and bakers, herbalists and tailors,
barbers and weavers, dairymaids and button-makers, but they were
never blacksmiths or chantists or tavern keepers or carpenters—or
mapmakers. The Rule decided such things, and the Rule must be kept.
A woman who tried a profession denied to her by the Rule would have
been scorned and reviled, her business ignored, and that would be
enough. There would have been no need of other punishment; society
had already devised a perfect one.

Order must be
kept, and a woman who disobeyed the Rule threatened Order and would
find no sympathy.

The most she
could hope for was to do what she had done for her father and was
now doing for Thirl: work at the creation of a map and step back to
see a man take the praise. Perhaps she could find someone who would
accept her talent and take her on as a copyist.

Better the
dregs at the bottom of the glass than no drink at all.

Perhaps.

~~~~~~~

One evening,
just at sunset, she was alerted by Yerrie to the arrival of a
visitor. She had already put up the shutters, but she opened the
door and peered out. It was a strange time for a customer, or even
a village friend, but she was more curious than frightened. They
had no problems with thieves or bandits in Kibbleberry.

A man was
standing beside the horse trough outside, looking at the water as
if trying to make up his mind whether to drink it or not. He was
middle-aged and tired; the face he turned to her sagged with
weariness. He appeared to have no mount, and his clothes were
shabby.

As he moved
towards her she saw that his left cheek was scarred with the ritual
disfigurement of the convicted criminal, two bars and a crescent
moon. Two convictions then, and the crescent moon meant a minor
theft without violence. Her eyes dropped to his left hand. As if in
answer he raised it for her to see: he had two fingers that had
been broken and allowed to mend crookedly. Another mark of the
thief. Anything worse than petty theft would have merited exclusion
to the Unstable, of course, and thus a man who had been convicted
of a greater crime would not have been standing before her.

She said, ‘The
nearest Chantry-hostelry is at Kte Marlede’s.’

‘I’ve walked
from Hopen Grat,’ he said. ‘Mistress, please, I can’t get to Kte
Marlede’s tonight. I’m tired and hungry and thirsty.’ His eyes
dropped once more to the water trough.

‘Don’t drink
that,’ she said automatically. ‘I’ll get you clean water.’

‘Food?’ he
pleaded. ‘And a place in your barn for the night, maybe?’

‘That’s
against the Rule.’ A criminal who had no property of his own was
not permitted to sleep in inhabited areas, except at religious
chanteries or Chantry-run hostels, and even then he was never
permitted to stay more than two consecutive nights. It was also
forbidden for unencoloured people to give such a person food. He
was supposed to be totally dependent on Chantry aid.

‘The Rule says
many things. And sometimes a man just doesn’t have what it takes to
obey the Rule. I’m weary, maid.’ He sat down on the edge of the
trough, and he did indeed look exhausted.

Damn the
Rule,
she thought.
I’m sick of it too.
‘All right. Come
this way.’ She led him around the side of the house to the barn.
‘But be careful, my brother will not be charitable if he finds you.
You had best hide yourself in the hayloft. I’ll bring you out some
water and food and a blanket.’

He looked
grateful. And relieved.

‘Don’t touch
the horses,’ she warned.

‘I won’t steal
them.’

‘I know that.
They’d never let you. I was thinking more in terms of not going
near them at all. They are crossings-horses, apt to snap at
strangers. And they have sharp incisors, so be warned.’ She left
him then and went back to the house.

Fortunately
Sheyli was asleep and Thirl, who was courting the carpenter’s
daughter Fressie, had walked into the village, so it was easy to
take out the water and the blankets, then to prepare a plate of
food without anyone wanting to know what she was doing.

The man fell
on the meal hungrily and she had to refill the jug of water because
he finished it so quickly. They didn’t talk much; he seemed
disinclined to chat and she was not sure she wanted to hear what he
had to say anyway. She could guess at the kind of life he lived and
she could guess at the bitterness he harboured inside himself. He
could lead the life of a wanderer, forever condemned by his facial
scars and crooked fingers, surviving on Chantry charity, hassled by
Defenders and upright citizens alike. Or he could elect to be
encoloured as a chantor. Or he could leave the Stability and live
in the Unstable. It was not much of a choice. If he was encoloured,
he could only be a kinesis-chantor, nothing else, condemned to
spend most of his waking hours performing kinesis devotions within
the kinesis chain. As an inhabitant of the Unstable on the other
hand, he would be condemned by the unwritten code that existed
there to wander with other more vicious excluded criminals. His
life expectancy would probably be short.

You don’t
have much more choice than I do,
she thought, and pitied
him.

She left him
to finish his meal in peace.

Next morning
he was gone before she went to the barn. There were suspiciously
few eggs under the hens, but nothing else was missing.

She returned
to the kitchen with the only egg she’d found to see Sheyli was
sitting up in bed, which should have been a good sign, but she felt
a lurch of fear just to look at her. Her mother’s eyes glittered
with an unnatural brightness; her skin was patchily flushed.

Keris sat on
the edge of the bed and took her hand. ‘Do you want something,
Mother?’

She nodded.
‘Yes. I’ve been thinking and thinking…’ She was silent for a
moment. ‘About many things. About little Aurin, sometimes. Do you
remember him, Keri?’

She nodded,
although in truth her memory of her little brother was vague. She’d
been only four when he was born, and he’d disappeared two days
later.

‘They
shouldn’t have taken him,’ Sheyli whispered. ‘Tessy kept her two
sons and her daughter. And so did that drayman over in Upper
Kibble. They make exceptions sometimes, but they wouldn’t for us.
It was because Piers was an Unstabler, you know, and they don’t
like Unstablers. Well, they’ll pay for it now. There won’t be a
proper mapmaker in the First anymore, and they’ll suffer for that.
They shouldn’t have taken Aurin…it wasn’t right. There’s not been a
day, not a single solitary day in the past twenty years that I’ve
not remembered him.’

The tragedy of
her words caught in Keris’s throat and she started guiltily,
knowing that she’d hardly ever given Aurin a thought.

‘Ah,’ Sheyli
said, ‘sometimes I think the whole world is falling apart around
us.’

‘Nonsense,
Mother.’ She was shaken. Sheyli had never criticized the basic
rightness of the Rule and Chantry before. In her shock, her protest
lacked conviction so she added, ‘You’re being fanciful, and that’s
not at all like you.’

‘Keri, it’s
not going to be much longer. A day or two only. I can feel myself
going.’ Keris opened her mouth to protest again, but Sheyli rushed
on feverishly, giving her no chance. ‘Before I go, I want to know
that you’re looked after. I want you to take the dowry money and
leave.’

‘But—where
would I go?’

‘To my
brother. Your Uncle Fergrand in the Second Stability. You could
make your lifetime pilgrimage at the same time.’

‘That money is
not mine.’

‘Your father
worked hard for it. He did intend it for you, for your husband, to
take into your marriage. Not for Thirl. Thirl was to have the
business and the house, you were to have the money. I intend to see
that Piers’ wishes are carried out. Take the money before Thirl
spends it on his wretched tavern.’

Keris thought
of the thief she had sheltered in the barn. Of a scarred face,
crippled fingers, a vagabond’s life. To take the dowry money would
be to commit a crime. ‘Mother, the Rule—’

‘Firstly, you
can only be charged with a crime in the same stab the crime was
committed in. Once you’re in the Second, you’ll be safe. It would
be too much trouble to have you brought back over such a trifle.
Quite apart from that, I shall tell Thirl that if he charges you,
I’ll cloud the issue by denying there was ever any dowry money to
start with. It will be Thirl’s word against the word of a dying
woman. Who will be believed? I shall tell Mistress Pottle so that
there will be someone else to stand witness.’

Keris
swallowed. Crooked fingers, scarred face… It was as if she had been
warned. As if the thief had been sent to her as a sign that she
shouldn’t put herself beyond the law.
Don’t be ridiculous. It
was just a coincidence, nothing more
. Aloud she said, knowing
she was right, ‘Thirl will follow me to get the money back.’

‘As long as he
doesn’t catch up with you before you reach the Unstable, you will
be safe. Believe me, he’s not going to follow you across the
kinesis chain. He’s made it quite clear how much he fears
instability. And I don’t think he’d turn you in to a Chantry Court
or the Defenders anyway. He is your brother.’

‘Mother—’

‘Please, Keri.
Please, so I can die happy. Creation, child, you always were the
hard-headed one, clinging to an idea and never giving up, arguing
and kicking every inch of the way, but now’s not the time to be
stubborn. I’m asking you to do this for me. Do you understand? For
me
.’

‘I don’t know
Uncle Fergrand and—’

‘—and I
haven’t seen him for twenty years. Yes, I know. But he was always a
good man. And your father met him from time to time in Salient. He
was still alive in autumn of last year, and in good health. I’m
sure he’ll give you a home and help you to find a husband.’

She opened her
mouth to protest that she didn’t know why everyone thought it was
so necessary for her to have a husband, but thought better of the
remark. Her mother needed to be reassured, not upset.

Sheyli
continued, ‘Thirl is going to Middle Kt Beogor tomorrow morning, in
Harin’s cart. Something about deliveries of mead or beer. He won’t
be back until after dark. You leave while he’s away.’

She was
horrified. ‘I can’t do that! Not before—’ She stopped,
flustered.

Sheyli gave
the faintest of smiles. ‘Not before I die? Keri, dearest, if you
are gone I can die in peace. Please do as I ask. This is not the
time to be contrary, not now.’

Her mother was
tempting her with a way out and she lacked the will to resist. She
began to cry, not in noisy sobs, but with silent tears. She knew
she was saying goodbye, not only to her mother but to the last
remnants of her childhood and innocence, and the grief she felt for
an impending loss was mingled with fear for her future, with guilt
at the knowledge that she would leave while her mother still lived,
with despair that Sheyli must die without her daughter by her
bedside. Her mother desperately needed her now and yet also needed
to know she had a future.

‘Will you go?’
her mother asked.

She nodded
helplessly. She told herself she did it for her mother, but knew
that the truth was she would do it just as much for herself. It was
a selfish decision that shamed her, that would probably shame her
all her life—yet it was a solution and she was not going to turn
her back on it. She couldn’t.

She prepared
her packs that day while Thirl was gone. That night she dozed by
her mother’s bedside, Sheyli’s hand held in her own. She left the
next morning.

She didn’t
look back. Her eyes were too tear-filled to see anyway.

~~~~~~~

And great was
the punishment inflicted on the world because a few followed the
ways of wickedness. Humankind asked in despair: ‘What barrier is
there to Lord Carasma when ley lends him strength, when Minions do
his bidding? He will take all the land that was the
Margravate.’

Goodperson
rose to find that his land, assaulted by ley, was as coast shaped
anew with each tide, and his animals were as beasts of the forest.
Yet he said, ‘Fear not. Turn from the Unmaker for before him you
will grovel for all eternity. Be of good cheer, for the Maker has
handed down to you the Rule that shall be your protection.’