The Outskirter's Secret (10 page)

Bel instructed Rowan to dig a pit, then
occupied herself with cutting squares in the cropped turf with her
knife. She lifted the small blocks, brushed off the dirt in the
dead roots of the upper layer, and demonstrated them to be a type
of peat. The women built their fire in the pit and covered it with
the tarp, one end propped up with the now-useless wood sword, and
so prepared their first fresh meal in four days.

"I should warn you," Bel said as they settled
to dinner, "that you're going to be sick."

Rowan stopped with the first bite partway to
her mouth. "You told me that the goat wasn't ill."

"It wasn't." Bel continued slicing cooked
segments from the carcass, wrapping them in oiled cloth for
packing. "It's nothing to do with that. If someone from the Inner
Lands eats Outskirter food, she'll be ill, for a while. It always
happens."

In most cases, Rowan knew, it was water that
carried diseases, in the crowded sections of cities, or in villages
where unsanitary conditions prevailed. She and Bel had been
drinking local water throughout their journey thus far, to no ill
effect; certainly, Rowan reasoned, the problem Bel referred to must
result only from food prepared in a tribal camp, under possibly
primitive standards of cleanliness. She considered that it might
not be polite to point this out to Bel.

She shrugged, and began to eat. "How ill, and
for how long?"

"Perhaps a day. Then you'll be fine, and you
won't have any problems with the food again. It will affect me,
too. Outskirters who leave the Outskirts for any length of time
have the same problem." She considered the chunk of fresh roasted
meat in her left hand with open longing, then shook her head. "I
should wait a day. Then we won't be sick at the same time, and can
take care of each other." She left her work and brought some dried
beef strips and hardbread from her pack.

"What's it like, this disease?" Rowan
asked.

The Outskirter gave a short laugh. "Many
trips to the cessfield."

It was unlikely that Rowan would be able
single-handedly to alter the established cooking habits of an
entire Outskirter tribe; at some point it would be necessary for
her to pass through what seemed from Bel's description to be a
transient adaptive malady. She sighed. "Charming. I shall look
forward to it." She continued to eat. "How long after eating
Outskirter food does one begin to feel ill?"

Bel was tearing with her teeth at the tough
strip. "About two days," she said, chewing stolidly. "Although
that's usual for returning Outskirters. Perhaps you'll take less
time."

"Perhaps it won't affect me at all."

The reply was muffled. "Ha."

"
H
ow do we do
this?"

It was two days later; two days of trudging
through gloom and showers across the endlessness of dead and
rotting redgrass stubble that marked the tribe's trail. Bel scanned
the barren land and the scattered tanglebrush, then looked up at
the lone figure on the hill. "We walk directly to him, always
choosing an open path. He mustn't think we have friends waiting in
ambush."

The warrior began to move, angling away to
the left. "When he sees how we approach, he'll know we want to
meet. If he keeps moving away from us, we must stop, and make it
clear that we won't follow, or he'll think we're hostile." She led
the way down the slope, and the figure paused again, watching.

After long days traveling alone with Bel, the
addition of another human being was oddly disturbing. The sudden
presence of the distant figure seemed inexplicable, its upright
stance incongruous, its motion peculiar, and its possession of an
intelligent mind unlikely. Rowan found herself regarding it as a
strange animal, unpredictable and possibly dangerous. But when they
came within fifteen yards, it proved to be only a man in Outskirter
garb, shaggy-haired, bearded, watching them with shadowed eyes.

As they approached, Bel spoke quietly to
Rowan. "Something's wrong."

Rowan studied the figure. She could see
nothing that might have prompted Bel's comment, but took the fact
as given. "He's from the tribe that lost the goat?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps he thinks we stole it."

"We did steal it. Until we strike a trade for
it, it's considered stolen. But that's not it."

They continued to approach the man. "You said
the tribe left quickly."

"Yes." Bel's gait became more easy and
natural, a danger signal to Rowan.

The steerswoman considered. "The tribe
encountered some trouble. He thinks we might be involved."

"Yes."

Possibly the trouble had taken the form of an
attack by a hostile tribe; perhaps the man was overcautious after a
lost battle. "How can we reassure him?"

"We can't. And it's too late for us to back
off. We'll just have to be exactly what we are, and hope he sees it
soon enough."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Fight. Or run. Whichever we can manage."

At a distance of fifteen feet, Bel stopped,
Rowan pausing beside her, and they stood facing the man quietly for
some moments. There was no gesture from him, no word and no signal.
He held himself completely still, and Rowan was abruptly certain
that there were other warriors near, whose existence and location
this man was trying not to betray by unconscious behavior.

She glanced about: no one else was
visible.

At the moment Rowan decided that he was never
going to move at all, he did, slowly. Reaching over his shoulder,
he pulled a black, metal-edged sword from its sheath and stood with
its hilt in his right hand, the flat of its blade resting across a
bare left forearm. A motion of his shoulders threw back the damp
patchwork cloak, leaving both arms clear and in sight, showing a
black, shaggy vest thong-tied over a wide expanse of chest.

Bel drew her own sword, and the man's eyes
widened at the gleam of bright metal. She laid it on the ground
before her, hilt to the right, then stepped back a pace. Rowan made
to imitate her, but was quietly told, "No. Keep your sword in hand,
and stand with your back to me. I'm unarmed; you watch behind.
Don't look over your shoulder at him, he'll take it as a
threat."

Rowan complied; and, not knowing what to look
for, she looked at nothing, carefully, intently: the wide, empty
land, the bare undulating hills, the textureless gray skies. She
listened in a widening circle, hearing Bel's gear creak behind her,
a crunch in the wet stubble as the man adjusted his stance.

As Bel was about to speak, Rowan noticed
something. "There's movement in front of me, at an angle to my
left, just past the second rise." The motion stopped, then began
again, crested the low hill, and revealed itself. Rowan relaxed.
"Goats, two of them."

Bel spoke up to the man. "Two goats, at ten
by you," she announced. Rowan wondered at the turn of phrase.

She heard the stranger reply. "And a warrior,
at five by you." In the far, windless distance something moved,
colorless against the dead ground, visible only by its motion. It
traced a slow arc to Rowan's right, then paused, as if
watching.

Rowan stared at it, deeply disturbed. It was
a person, she knew, but had she not been alerted to its presence,
she would never have seen it, could barely see it even now. It came
to her that the world around her was alive with information, none
of it recognizable or comprehensible to her. Her trusted senses,
her dependable intellect were inadequate here, and the fact made
her feel more helplessly unarmed than if she were naked and without
a sword.

"We took a goat yesterday," Bel told her man.
"If it's yours, trade is due you."

There was a long silence. The distant,
half-seen object apallingly sprouted recognizable human arms, made
broad gestures: signals, certainly, to the man behind Rowan,
possibly replies to similar silent signals from him. Rowan wished
she could face the nearer stranger. He was close by, he was
undisguised, but she could not read his face, she could not
interpret his reactions, she could not see what he was doing.

Bel was facing the closer enemy; it was
fitting. Bel was the better fighter, Bel was the native. Rowan's
job was to guard their backs, and she set to her job with a
grimmer, more intense concentration.

The far warrior was signaling again, and
reinterpreting the distortion of distance, the steerswoman saw that
he had turned around and was gesturing to someone past him, someone
beyond sight. Rowan suddenly surmised a relay formation, and
understood that there might be dozens of warriors nearby, spread
invisibly across the landscape, moving to surround the travelers.
Her stance had shifted, of itself, in unconscious preparation for
sudden action. She now reviewed the path that she and Bel had used
to approach this area, tried to guess if it was still clear, and
began planning a retreat.

Bel and the near warrior had been conversing;
in retrospect Rowan understood that he had asked to see what she
was offering. Bel said to the steerswoman, "Stand as you are, I'm
shifting." Rowan felt her friend step forward; she heard her slip
off her pack, and the slap of thongs as it was opened.

Rowan saw a motion to her left and was about
to speak when Bel's warrior said, "Warrior at three."

"I see him," the steerswoman confirmed to
Bel; to her eyes, it was merely a spot of variegated brown,
difficult to focus on, moving with suspicious purpose.

Bel was fussing with the pack's contents.
"Check nine," she said quietly.

"What?"

"Is there anyone to your right?"

Rowan scanned the area. "I don't think
so."

She heard Bel step forward again, heard the
warrior come to meet her, and realized that Bel had walked past her
own sword and was now face-to-face with the warrior, completely
unarmed. Rowan found that she hated the idea, and strained to keep
herself from turning around.

There was silence behind; then the man spoke.
"How many goats did you take?"

"One."

"This is too much."

"I know. It's what we have. It's yours."

The man in front of Rowan was signaling
again, this time to Rowan's right.

"Someone's coming," Rowan said. "They're
going to close us off."

Bel said to the warrior, "We'd like to meet
your seyoh."

"Where's your tribe?"

"We have no tribe. We're traveling. Perhaps
we can travel with you."

He made a negative sound, then amended,
reluctantly, "It's not for me to decide. Let's have a look at your
friend."

Bel called to her. "Rowan, set down your
sword and come here."

"Put it down?" She could hardly believe the
order.

"Yes. Do it."

With the greatest reluctance, Rowan set her
weapon down onto the rotted stubble, finding she had to clench her
empty hands into fists to keep them from clutching for it
again.

Bel and the stranger were five feet apart,
Bel standing with the blatant ease that told Rowan she was ready
for instant action; the man studied Rowan with a mild-mannered calm
that she recognized as his version of the same preparedness.

"This is Rowan," Bel said. "She only has one
name. And I'm Bel, Margasdotter, Chanly."

The names were volunteered, and the warrior
was under no obligation to offer his own. His bright black gaze
puzzled over the steerswoman. "You have no family?" He was holding
the handleless knife blade that Bel had offered him, one of eight
that Bel and Rowan carried as trade items.

The steerswoman found herself reluctant to
speak more than was necessary. "I have family."

"She's from the Inner Lands," Bel
supplied.

"You're a long way from your farm." He turned
the blade over in his hands, enjoying its gleam, its balance.

"I'm not a farmer, I'm a steerswoman."

He shook his head; the word was meaningless
to him. "Warrior, at nine by you," he said then.

Rowan spun left and saw an Outskirter,
clearly visible, perfectly recognizable in a bold piebald cloak.
The person was signaling. Bel put a reassuring hand on Rowan's
shoulder. Rowan turned back. "We're surrounded."

"Yes." Bel spoke to the man. "What's your
answer?"

He studied the women. His hair was shaggy
black to his shoulders, his beard unevenly trimmed, his face a
sunburned brown with black chips of eyes. Rowan saw that his sword
was now sheathed.

He slipped the knife blade into his
waistband, then abruptly stepped back and gestured widely to his
comrades. Rowan startled at the suddenness, wondered what he was
saying. A finger of sunlight broke through the clouds, and
indicated a gully past the warrior, as if it had tried to find the
trio, and missed. It vanished, and a light rain began.

"Get your weapons. It's a long walk to
camp."

Bel slapped Rowan's shoulder with a delighted
"Ha!" They retrieved the swords, and when she held her weapon again
the steerswoman felt a shade more proper, more fit. They were still
surrounded.

"Are we accepted?" Rowan asked. She wiped the
blade on her sleeve, made to sheathe it, but discovered that her
hand and arm did not want her to do so.

"Not yet. But we have a chance to explain our
case. If we can convince them we're not enemies, they might take us
in."

"We don't know that they're going in our
direction."

"Yes, we do." Bel shouldered her pack. "There
isn't any grass left to the west. They've been there. They have to
go east, or at least easterly." She turned to the man, who had
approached again and was waiting for them. "Can we make camp by
nightfall?"

He scanned the flat, sprinkling sky,
calculating. Sudden as buckets, the downpour recommenced, and the
distances closed in and vanished into rattling, roaring gray. Rowan
hastily sheathed her sword and drew up her hood.