Rosemary Kirstein - Steerswoman 04 by The Language of Power

dark-haired
woman who, by the loud conversation Rowan overheard, had a business interest in
a lumber mill upriver. Music began, and when Rowan’s plates were cleared away,
she joined a group of locals at a long table. None was old enough to have been
an adult when Kieran had passed away, and the steerswoman passed the evening in
more casual conversation.
    The music was as excellent as the food, but the tinkers, typically,
ignored all applause and sneered at requests. However, they accepted tips.
    Eventually, Bel separated herself from her dinner companions
and went to stand alone to one side of the room, as if to gain a better view of
the musicians. She had chosen a likely spot, and Rowan felt that anyone might
sensibly do the same; so she did so herself.
    Bel indicated the musicians with her mug of ale, as though
about to remark on their skill, but said: “Don’t stay by me too long. If you
are being watched, the watcher is here now.”
    “Really?” A twinge of tension in Rowan’s stomach; she covered
any outward sign by sipping at her ale. “I’m surprised Ruffo let him inside,
considering the smell.”
    Bel did not turn to Rowan, but her brows knit. “Him? No,
her.”
    Rowan blinked, permitted a verse to pass before saying:
“Who?”
    “The stout woman sitting in the corner, at our five,” Bel
said, using Outskirter orientation.
    Rowan did not look, but from memory reconstructed the room
behind her, and its occupants. At the back, to Rowan’s right: a strong-bodied,
gray-haired woman, drinking alone. “Interesting. Not the beggar?”
    It was Bel’s turn to be surprised. She hid it well, changing
a suppressed impulse to turn to Rowan into a sideways motion, repeated, as if
rocking a bit to the music. Another stanza passed. “If they’re working
together, that would explain why neither one of them was always there.”
    Rowan drained her ale. “I’m going to my room.” And she nodded
politely to Bel, waved at her drinking companions as she passed, handed her
empty mug to a passing server, and left through the front door.
    Around the side of the building, past the kitchen door—but
Rowan was stopped short by a very distinctive smell.
    No one was in the yard. The steerswoman cautiously followed
her nose, and discovered the beggar in the stables, asleep in the straw in the
far corner of an empty stall. Rowan backed out silently and continued to her
room.
    Bel was already there, standing by the table. “Can you tell
if anyone’s been looking through your things?”
    “Yes.” A glance told the tale. “The maid has cleaned, and
made the bed. My pack’s been moved, but it wasn’t opened. The papers on the
table haven’t been disturbed.”
    Bel looked dissatisfied, pulled out the chair, sat.
    Rowan took the bed. “Was either the beggar or the stout woman
always with me?”
    Bel wove slightly, side to side: a movement typical in her
of calculation. “The woman wasn’t. I saw the beggar twice, but I wasn’t really
watching out for him.”
    “You didn’t notice that he’s not blind?”
    A disgruntled sound. “No. And he couldn’t find you if he
were. It’s got to be him, or both of them.”
    “Not necessarily.” Rowan rubbed her leg, purely out of
habit; thankfully, it had given her no trouble today. “He might be a confidence
trickster, who’s simply identified me as an easy mark he plans to hit again.”
    “I wonder where he is now?”
    “Asleep in the stables.”
    “I don’t like that.”
    “Stables are common dossing places for vagrants.” Silence.
    “How many times did you notice the woman?”
    “She was at the plaza, in that group of people watching when
you gave the beggar lunch. She was outside the first house you went into, but
she left before you came out.”
    “Which way did she go?”
    “Northwest. Don’t ask me the street name.”
    “She might have thought I was going to the orchards.”
    “She was gone for a while. But she was looking in a shop window
when you came out