Free The Steerswoman's Road by Rosemary Kirstein Page A

brow furrowed. “I have some chart paper you can have. I’ll
buy some new at Wulfshaven. And some old pens I don’t use. Some ink powder ...”
    “You’re very kind.”
    “And look at you, you haven’t even got a cloak. Can’t have
you catching a chill; I’ve a spare you can use.”
    Rowan was taken aback. “You’re too generous.”
    “Nonsense, you’re one of us, and we take care of our own.”
Tyson was referring to the solidarity of spirit that sailors shared with the
steerswomen. He stopped a passing crewman and directed him to bring the items
from the navigator’s cabin, then excused himself to oversee some of the
preparations at hand.
    “A pleasant fellow,” Bel commented. “Perhaps I’ll become a steers-woman,
so that everyone will be nice to me.”
    “Then you’d have to deal with the Reeders of the world.” Bel
made a face. “True. It’s hardly worth it.”
    When the crewman returned with Tyson’s donations, Bel asked
for directions to the galley. Unable to explain clearly enough for the Outskirter,
he finally led her personally. Rowan remained on deck and presently noticed her
crate of provisions being hauled aboard. A few questions to the purser
determined the best place to stow it; Rowan made sure she knew how to find it
again. Then she wandered forward, keeping out of the way of the work being
done.
    A handful of crewwomen jogged past her to clamber up the rigging.
They tugged at the mainsail halyards, readying them for the command to set the
sails. The women waited at their ease, chatting softly to themselves, calling
up to a pair of men working the main sky-sail, all of them visible to Rowan
only as distant forms blocking starlight, shifting against the sky as the ship
rocked slowly.
    Rowan went back amidships, where the passenger barge was
expected.
    The ship’s activities slowly came to a standstill, and crew
members became idle. Morgan regained his composure and sauntered about the
deck, exuding a carefully assumed nonchalance. Tyson watched him with something
like amusement. Eventually the east brightened.
    The light revealed a vertical line of smoke onshore where
the glow had been. Rowan was standing at the starboard railing, facing shore.
Looking around her, she saw that most of the people on deck were on or near the
starboard side: deckhands, a few officers, and three early-boarded passengers.
    Presently a barge separated itself from the general harbor
traffic and poled along toward the Morgan’s Chance. The sun had cleared
the horizon by the time it came alongside.
    The passengers took their time negotiating the rope ladders.
Morgan approached when a purser’s mate clambered aboard; Rowan moved nearer
and joined them.
    “A whole bloody swarm of them dragons, they say,” the purser’s
mate was complaining. “About fifty, tall as your waist, and smaller. Spitting
and hissing, sending fire all over. Never heard of anything like it.”
    “The passengers,” Morgan prompted.
    “Oh. Yes, sir. None lost, sir, just all of them upset,
especially the ones who’d been staying at the inn.”
    The witnesses were easy to identify; they were quiet, and
the purser and purser’s mates had trouble getting their attention. They tended
to gaze around them as if a sailing ship were the strangest wonder in existence,
and death by dragonfire were the usual human fate, escaped from only by luck.
They were filled with what they had seen. Rowan decided to wait to ask them for
the details she wanted—perhaps several days, until they were past their shock.
    She stopped the chief purser as he hurried by. “You’d do
best to tend to the people from Saranna’s Inn first. Get them into their cabins
and comfortable, and most of all, away from each other. They’re standing in a
clot together here, do you see? They’re just feeding each other’s distress.
People can become hysterical in situations like this.”
    He paused, annoyed. Morgan forestalled his protest. “She’s a
steers-woman, and