Havenstar by Glenda Larke

artwork to you.’
    Sheyli roused
herself enough to endorse Thirl’s suggestion. ‘Your father gave his
life to gather the necessary information,’ she said, her fingers
fluttering over the bed covers like the fragile wings of an injured
butterfly. ‘The maps must be made. Don’t let his death be a waste,
Keris. He gave his life to serve Unstablers and the
Pilgrimage.’
    Not quite
right, that, she thought. Her father had died not because he
dreamed of a life of service, but because he couldn’t keep away
from the Unstable. It drew him to his death, just as he had drawn
him to live dangerously for thirty years. The moth, finally
consumed by the flame.
    Thirl nodded.
‘The Unstablers will be coming in to buy the new maps as usual;
they’ll expect them to have been done.’
    She tried to
maintain a stolid complacency. ‘That’s right. They will expect you to have done them.’ Her faint emphasis on ‘you’ lingered
on into the silence.
    Thirl changed
the angle of his argument. ‘People will die out there if accurate
maps are not available. From the gossip I’ve been hearing from
pilgrims, there’s been considerable changes in the ley lines since
the autumn surveying.’
    Mother’s aged,
Keris thought inconsequentially. She looks a hundred, yet she’s
only forty-four. Her illness, knowing father’s dead—she looks
desiccated, sucked dry of life. She dragged her thoughts back to
mapmaking. Thirl was right, blast him. ‘Yes, all right. I’ll start
on them.’ And then, just so he knew she saw through his righteous
reasoning, ‘Although I doubt if your motives, Thirl, are as pure as
you would have me believe.’
    ‘So we need
the money,’ he said. ‘There, does that please you?’
    She gave him a
level look.
    ‘Have you
found Father’s notes?’ he asked.
    ‘I haven’t
unpacked his things yet.’ I haven’t had the heart —
    ‘Do it today.
Harin Markle is coming to see you later on, by the way.’
    She bent back
to her task. ‘Whatever for?’ She found a flea and chased it through
Yerrie’s fur with a dab of lard on her finger ready to smother
it.
    Thirl waved an
exasperated hand at her. ‘Because he’s interested in you, that’s
why. Disorder be damned, Keris, do I have to spell it out for
you?’
    ‘No.’ She
flattened the flea with grease then looked up at him. ‘But maybe I
have to spell it out for you, Thirl. I. Am. Not. Interested. In.
Harin. Markle.’ She put the cat down on the floor and went to wash
her hands under the sink pump.
    ‘Well, you had
better get interested,’ he said harshly.
    She turned to
face him, expression blank. ‘Pardon?’
    ‘I am
promoting his suit.’
    ‘Promoting his
suit? What is this? Your brains are tainted, Thirl Kaylen!
Have you forgotten that I still have a living parent? I may be
legally under your protection in some respects, but Mother heads
this family now. It is none of your business whom I choose to have
court me and I can’t imagine why you have developed this sudden
interest in having me wed. Nor can I imagine why Harin is
interested anyway. He never used to even like me.’
    Thirl flushed
slightly under the intensity of her gaze.
    ‘I’ll be
tainted,’ she whispered finally. ‘You’ve told him I have a proper
dowry, haven’t you?’ Fifty golds, saved by her parents over the
years, to provide for her. Sheyli had insisted on it, even though
other girls in the village normally brought no more than the
mandatory two golds to their marriage in addition to a trousseau of
the practical items listed in the Rule.
    She glanced at
her mother, wishing this conversation was not taking place. Sheyli
was tired and seemed swamped by her grief and the pain of her
illness. That casual remark from Mistress Pottle about the baby
she’d been forced to surrender to Chantry had not helped either.
She was having to make an effort to listen and pearly drops of
sweat glistened across her forehead.
    Thirl was
belligerent. ‘So what if I have mentioned it to