The Steerswoman's Road (2 page)

“Yes, but wasn’t it closer to one side than the other?” She
tapped the object. “It wasn’t directly in the center, or the pattern of the
grain would run around it in a circle. It was off-center. I need to know in
what direction.”

“Ten years back? Who can tell one side of a tree from
another, ten years back?”

Rowan leaned back in her chair, contemplating a moment. She
was an unprepossessing figure, of average height, and of average build for her
height. Her traveling clothes, a rough linen blouse and trousers, were dusty
and perhaps a bit tattered. Her hair, cut short for convenience, was the color
of dark wet sand, save where the sun had bleached pale streaks. She possessed
no outstanding beauty, and yet her face fascinated, not by any great perfection
of feature but by its intelligent, constantly shifting expression. It seemed
as if the actions of her mind were immediately reflected on her face, giving
her a strange air, part vulnerability, part arrogance. One could not tell if
she was helplessly incapable of guile, or if she simply considered it beneath
her.

“The jewel showed at the first strike of your axe?” she
asked the innkeeper.

“Yes, lady.”

“Which way were you facing? Were there landmarks about? What
did you see?”

“See?” He was blank a moment, searching his memory; then his
face lit up. “I saw the Eastern Guidestar. The sun was just setting, see, the
stars just showing, and as I get ready to swing, I look up and see the Eastern
Guidestar shining through the branches like an omen. I remember thinking that.”

Rowan laughed, slapped her hand down on the table, and rose.
“Does that tell you something, lady?”

“Indeed it does.” She had gone to where her pack lay against
an armchair, and was opening her tubular map case. She pulled out another
chart, smaller than the first, and brought it back to the table. “Here.” She
pushed the lump to one side and spread the new chart on top of the first. “Do
you see that this is a more detailed map of this small area?” She indicated the
land around his finger-smudge.

“Yes ...”

She nodded. “Here’s the river, as you said, and it must have
been around here that you felled the tree.”

He squinted along her finger. “Could be, yes ...”

“Were there any other landmarks? What did you pass on the
way there?”

“We crossed a brook ...

“Could it be this one?” With a series of questions she
narrowed the possibilities until both she and the innkeeper were satisfied. She
marked the position with a small star. Next she questioned him closely about
the terrain and the other types of vegetation nearby, adding symbols and notes.
At last she said, “And you were facing the Eastern Guidestar, which is
southeast from there,” and drew a small arrow by the star, pointing southeast.
The innkeeper saw that there were perhaps a dozen such stars on the map, three
of them accompanied by arrows. All the arrows pointed southeast.

The steerswoman picked up the wooden shape again, giving her
attention not to the jewels but to the wood itself. She ran her fingernail
lightly along the grain. “Did you use the tree that held this in constructing
any part of this building?”

“Why, yes. The great mantelpiece over the fireplace in the
common room.”

She tossed the lump to him. “Show me.” The terse command was
tempered by her evident delight. The innkeeper could not imagine why the
prospect of examining a mantelpiece would please her so. He led her down the
short paneled corridor, passing a wide-eyed chambermaid who hastened to get
out of their way, either out of respect for her master, or for the woman who
followed him.

The common room was a wide low chamber that ran the entire
length of the inn. In the far corner, a door led to the kitchen and service
area, with kegs of various brews and wines nearby. Rowan and the innkeeper
entered from another door in the same wall. A massive fieldstone fireplace
filled the area between the two doors. The opposite wall held the entrance and
a rank of windows, all flung open to admit the weak spring sunlight. As an
attempt to dispel the native gloom of the chamber, this was a failure, and only
served to offset the dark comradely warmth that prevailed.

The confluence of several bands of travelers had provided
the inn with a crowd of surprising size. In one corner, a caravan guide was regaling
a merchant who had three lovely young companions—daughters, by the merchant’s
evident disapproval of their bright-eyed attentiveness. Nearby, some of the
other caravan members were conversing with five soldiers in red surcoats, apparently
in the service of some or another wizard currently aligned with the Red. Close
by the fire, a group of pilgrims were receiving an impromptu lecture from their
leader; a local wag stood close behind his chair, parodying the man’s pontifical
gestures and expressions, while the pilgrims watched in a dumbfounded fascination
that the unknowing leader seemed to attribute to his own rhetorical brilliance.

Far to the left of that group, Rowan identified a band of no
less than a full dozen Outskirters. War-band size, she realized with some
concern. But they seemed, at the moment, cheerful and unthreatening, oblivious
to the ring of silent watchfulness around them, a ring that was slowly being
frayed by the friendly, the brave, and the simply curious.

Seeing that nothing undue was about to transpire, she turned
her attention to the fireplace and the mantelpiece, which was high up, safely
out of casual arm-reach. It held a display of oddments and fancy mugs.

Rowan found a tall stool by the fire. She tested it with a
fingertip, and it wobbled perceptibly. Seeing her intent, a local farmer leaped
up. “Here, lass, I’ll give a hand.” He moved it to where she indicated and patted
the seat, saying, “Up you go, lass, be glad to hold you,” with a grin and an
overly familiar wink.

“A little respect, man. That’s a steerswoman,” the innkeeper
protested. The farmer backed off in surprise.

“It doesn’t mean I couldn’t use a hand,” Rowan said, half annoyed,
half amused. She climbed to the top of the stool while the farmer carefully
steadied it, his friends chortling at some expression on his face, invisible to
Rowan.

Ignoring them, she turned and carefully examined the
squared-off end of the mantel, her face close to the wood, her hands moving
over the grain.

The innkeeper watched in perplexity, then eyed the group
around the fire, as if debating whether to betray his ignorance with a
question. His quandary was solved by a serving girl, who, bustling by, noticed
the steerswoman for the first time. “Here, what are you doing?” she called.

Rowan looked down. “Counting rings,” she said with a grin,
then returned to her work. The innkeeper’s flapping gesture sent the girl back
to the customers, and then he cleared his throat experimentally. His comment
was forestalled by an explosion of loud voices from the near corner, and heads
turned in the direction of the Outskirters.

One of the barbarians, a particularly burly specimen with a
shaggy red beard, had risen and was leaning across the table to reply to a
local who had joined the group. But he spoke with laughter and had leaned
forward to pour more wine into the man’s cup. “Ha! Stories! We’ve tales enough,
and more than enough. I shouldn’t wonder you’d ask, living in these soft lands.
Sit in a tavern with good wine and good ale, and hear someone else’s miserable
adventures.”

The band of Outskirters was becoming more infiltrated as surrounding
people edged a little nearer at the possibility of a story.

“As for us,” the barbarian continued, sitting down, “when we
want something unusual we come to small taverns and sit under dry roofs, drink
wine, and gawk at the local dullards.” He spoke good-naturedly; certainly none
of his comrades seemed to find the present company objectionable. One
Outskirter woman at the end of the table sat shoulder-to-shoulder with a
handsome field hand. He spoke to her in quiet tones; she gave occasional brief
replies, a small smile on her face, eyes looking now to the left, now to the
right.

“We’ll bring a goblin, next time,” a second barbarian volunteered,
speaking around a mouthful of roast venison. “He’ll have stories, or perhaps he’ll
do a clever dance.”

“I’ve seen the goblins dance,” said a farmer with brooding
eyes. “I don’t care to make closer acquaintance.”

“Nasty beasts,” the first Outskirter agreed. “Singly and in
troops. Only last month our tribe was beset by a troop, and at night, too, the
worst time to deal with them. Garryn’s pyre, remember?” His friends nodded. “We
had to bum him at night. Ha, there’s a story—” He received a shove from his
comrade. “What!”

“Let Bel tell it.”

The man was outraged. “I was there!”

“For only part.”

“I never left!”

“You slept.”

“Never! Well, yes, with the help of a goblin’s cudgel ..”
But the cry had been taken up by the other Outskirters. The woman at the end of
the table rocked indecisively a moment, then rolled her eyes and got to her
feet. Somewhat shorter than expected, she climbed to stand on her chair so she
rose above the listeners, her head up near the low rafters.

She gazed up at the air for a while, as if choosing her
words. Though small, she looked strong and able. She kept her balance on the
chair easily, feet planted wide in shaggy goatskin boots which were met at the
top by leather leggings. Her sleeveless shirt was equally shaggy. Her cloak was
made of the unmatched skins of seemingly dozens of very small animals, crudely
stitched together. Rowan wondered if she was not too warm.

With a gesture that commanded instant silence, the barbarian
began to speak.

“Silence and silence; the battle stilled.

The outcome delivered, foes dispersed:

Garryn’s gift. His was the guidance,

Warrior’s wisdom, and heart of wildness.”

Distracted, Rowan returned to her counting. The innkeeper finally
spoke up. “What does it tell you, lady?”

“A moment.” She finished, then gestured for him to pass the
wooden lump. She placed it on the edge of the mantel and turned it this way and
that, comparing it to the beam. “It tells me the age of this tree.”

“The age?”

A grizzled elderly local spoke up. “One ring every year, on
a tree.” He was seated on a stool by the hearth’s edge, his hands busy knitting
a large square of off-white wool. Beside him, in a deeply cushioned armchair,
an even older woman worked at needlepoint, her nearsighted eyes perilously
close to the flashing needle. The old man grunted. “Don’t need a steerswoman
for that. One ring a year.” The woman nodded, her work nodding with her.

“You can see the center of the tree, here. I can count all
the way out to the edge: forty-three rings.” The innkeeper and the farmer
peered up. “And this—” She turned the glittering wood object again. “See how
close the grain is? It came from about this area. Where the tree is perhaps
fifteen years old.”

Across the room, the quiet grew deeper as more people turned
their attention to the Outskirter.

“The sun sank, urging us speed,

For in deep darkness, fire calls to Death,

To furies fouler, more fearsome than Man—”

Goblins were attracted by fire, Rowan remembered, only half
listening. She clambered down from her perch, thanked the farmer, then settled
on a lower stool. “Forty-three years old when it was cut down, ten years ago.
And the jewels appeared at the fifteen-year mark, about.

Roughly, then, thirty-five years ago, these jewels and the
tree came together.”

“Came together? But surely they grew there, magic and all?”

She smiled. “Possibly they grew there. Likely they were put
there, that is, driven into the bark, just at the surface. Later, the tree grew
outward, and the wood engulfed the jewels.”

“The tree didn’t grow them, then?” The farmer spoke up, indicating
the innkeeper with a thumb gesture. “Like he’s always telling?”

Rowan looked apologetic. “I have one, found in a spadeful of
dirt from an irrigation ditch, far from any tree. If trees grow them, then the
earth does, as well.”

The old man spoke to the farmer. “She’s going to find out
about them. That’s what they do, you know. Always asking questions, the
steerswomen.”

“I thought they answered questions.”

“Of course!” He laid a finger aside his nose. “You and me,
we ask the steerswomen. And they ask themselves. Answer themselves, too, they
do, in the end.”

Rowan made to speak to the innkeeper, but found him distracted
by the Outskirter’s poem. Apparently the goblins were attacking:

“The cries of the crazed ones, hefting cudgels,

Driving from darkness, drawn by fire,

Hunting heat, and knowing no hindrance

Of men, matter, arms, or means ...”

The steerswoman went to the innkeeper and got his attention.
“Might I possibly borrow this piece of wood for a time? It would be good if I
could show it to some people at the Archives.”

He was dubious, but reluctant to deny her. “Well, lady,” he
said, “I’d hate to part with it. I mean, how I found it and all ... I’m sure it
must be magic, and as it hasn’t done any harm yet, I suppose it must be doing
some good.”

“I don’t really need it,” she admitted. “But it would be helpful.”
A change in the reciting Outskirter’s voice made Rowan glance her way.

“Faltered finally, felled by this sword—” Bel stood straight
and slapped the hilt with a gesture that tossed back one side of her cloak.

Her movement revealed, below the edge of her shaggy vest, an
eye-catching belt of silver, decorated with flat blue gems.

Rowan handed the jeweled lump back to the innkeeper blindly
and forgot about the man as completely as if he had vanished. Edging her way
through the tables, she approached the crowd around the Outskirter woman.