The Steerswoman's Road (53 page)

Looking up at him, Rowan recalled some of Bel’s instruction
on proper Outskirter society: Mertutials were persons whom age or injury had
rendered unable to serve as warriors. Nearly all mertutials had once been
warriors. This man had survived hard life in the wilderness to serve the tribe
in a second role, and possessed the same degree of honor as he had had in the
first—quite a different situation from the way of the degenerated raider tribe.

“Thank you,” Rowan said to him, taking her cup; and looking
up at him, she paused, wondering suddenly what strange dangers, what solitudes,
what wild and furious battles he had passed through in his long years to live
to this day, when sustenance itself rested in his hands, passing from his to
the outstretched hands of younger comrades.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, and she saw in his eyes that despite
her strange clothing, he took her to be a warrior: that to him, hers was now
the defense, the strength, and the violence, all for the sake of her tribe.

A warrior never thanked a warrior, nor a mertutial a
mertutial; but across the line that demarcated their roles, gratitude was always
recognized, and rendered.

Then the old man was gone, leaving Rowan with a cup in one
hand and a meat-filled biscuit in the other. She spoke to her companion. “Bel,”
she said, “I like your people very much.”

On further consideration, Rowan declined to partake of the breakfast;
she had yet to experience the illness Bel had predicted, and she still
hypothesized that she might delay its onset by delaying the ingestion of
tribe-cooked food.

Seeing the steerswoman place cup and biscuit on the carpet,
Bel asked for explanation, and was annoyed when she received it. “It won’t
work. You ate that goat we took. You’ve been eating it for two days.”

“Nevertheless.”

Bel shook her head at Rowan’s stubbornness, then ate the
steers-woman’s breakfast as well as her own.

It was dysentery, Rowan discovered one hour later; and it did
not last one day, but three.

By evening she was unable to reach the cessfield unassisted,
to the discomfiture of her guard. Other provisions were made, which duty Bel
handled, until she was struck with the illness herself the following morning.
Rowan recalled very little of that day, except the constant presence of a
silent child, of indeterminate gender, who urged her by gesture to drink as
much water as she could hold.

On the third morning, Rowan found herself alone, vaguely
aware that she had slept uninterrupted through the night. She shakily dressed
and made her way out of the hot, goat-smelling tent, compelled by a bleary
desire to sit out in the breeze. The view briefly confounded her:
incomprehensible colors, sky too bright, earth shuddering and roiling in waves
of red and brown. She dealt with the problem instinctively by taking four staggering
steps away from the tent’s entrance and dropping to a seat on the ground, facing
the tents instead of the open veldt.

Bel approached, in the company of a mertutial, an old woman
whose hair, a complexity of tiny plaits interwoven into a single fat braid,
reached nearly to her knees. Her face, with its squat, broken nose and tiny
blue eyes, was weirdly compelling; Rowan vaguely felt that she should know it.

They settled beside her, the woman displaying a distinctly
proprietary air. “You’re right,” she said to Bel. “She’s up at last.”

Rowan attempted to concentrate. She seemed to recognize the
woman without actually remembering her. It was an interesting phenomenon.

The woman reached for Rowan’s wrist, and Rowan found that
she accepted this action without question; it was familiar.

“How do you feel?” Bel asked. Rowan had forgotten that she
was there.

The steerswoman considered long, during which period she
briefly lost the question, then recovered it. “Tired,” she replied at last. “And
very stupid.”

The old woman laid a hand on Rowan’s face, directing her
gaze into her own. “Well. Not surprising.” She peered at Rowan’s eyes.

And Rowan remembered: the woman had visited her before. She
was the tribal healer. Rowan recalled the intelligent, concerned gaze, and with
sudden embarrassment recalled her own behavior. She had become possessed of the
idea that the woman harbored secrets, and had responded to her constant
inability to answer questions with the patient argument “I’m a steerswoman, you
know.”

“I’m sorry,” Rowan said.

The healer understood perfectly. “No need,” she replied, patting
Rowan’s cheek in a motherly fashion. Rowan wondered how many people this woman
had killed when she was a warrior.

The healer turned to Bel. “She’ll be fine. I’ve never seen it
strike anyone this hard before, but she’s past it now. Make sure she keeps getting
plenty of water.”

Bel nodded. “Good. We’re sorry to be so much trouble. I know
people have been waiting to speak to us.”

The healer gestured another mertutial over and instructed
him to bring a light meal. “You’ll feel better tomorrow,” she told Rowan. Then
to Bel: “You’ll need to travel carefully for a few days, not too hard, but I
think you’ll manage.”

“Is the tribe going to be moving?” Rowan managed to ask. The
woman refused the question with an apologetic glance, and Rowan suppressed an
urge to add, “I’m a steerswoman, you know.”

The healer had learned something of the ways of steerswomen
during Rowan’s illness. “Your ban won’t serve you here. If you know I can’t
answer, don’t ask the question. You’ll speak to the seyoh tomorrow afternoon.”

Rowan found that the scene around her was rapidly becoming
more precise, though maintaining a translucent, airy quality. Without changing,
the breeze was suddenly very cool and refreshing.

“That’s good,” Rowan said. “We have a lot to say.” Somewhere
at the back of her mind, a part of herself was independently reviewing the
information she planned to present. She watched it at work, with a detached
pride.

The healer departed, and the food arrived: broth and bread.
It was delicious.

As she drank and ate, she began to notice the sounds of the
camp. The hiss and rattle of the veldt was unending, but from the center of the
camp wafted voices, music, and intriguing clatters that she finally recognized
as two fighters training with metal-edged tanglewood swords.

She heard Bel sigh, and turned to her, finding she had to
move her entire body to effectively redirect her gaze. “Is there a problem?”
She was aware of a brief flurry of thought, just below full awareness, as
dozens of possibilities for potential problems shuffled and sorted themselves.

Bel looked disgruntled. “We’ve been refused.”

Rowan sat very still as the shuffling proceeded, caught the
answer as it flickered by. “The seyoh. Not the seyoh and the council.”

“Yes. It takes the entire council to decide to accept us.
The seyoh can reject us alone.”

The tent was open on two sides; Rowan and Bel sat in cool
sun—light, the seyoh half in shadow, her loose, white hair like a streamer of
cloud hanging down her body. “It is a fine knife,” she said, turning it over in
her narrow hands, testing its edge expertly with one thin thumb. “And worth
more than the goat.” She set it down on the patterned fabric carpeting the
floor and turned dark, calm eyes to the travelers. “We will give you food for
your journey, to even the score. You may leave now.”

Rowan sighed. She was still tired, and had to remind herself
to sit straight. “We had hoped,” she told the seyoh, “that we might remain with
your tribe and travel in your company for some time, if your route goes east.”

The old woman shook her head; a broad, sweeping motion, very
similar to Bel’s own characteristic negative. “We don’t want you. I see that
you are no danger to us, and your passing through our pastures has not cost us.
But we don’t need you, especially one like you who is so unfamiliar with our
ways.”

“I learn very quickly,” Rowan began.

Bel spoke up. “The steerswoman has things to say that you
need to hear. Even if you still decide to have us go. It’s important.”

Rowan doubted that the Guidestar and the actions of distant
wizards might be considered important to Outskirters; she wished that Bel
would not overstate their case, however it might aid them. Nevertheless, she
organized her thoughts. “It has to do with the Guidestars,” she said, “and the
fact that one of them has fallen. There are more Guidestars than the two of you
can see in the sky. We are trying to cross deep into the Outskirts, to a place
where one of the other Guidestars has fallen—”

“I don’t care where you are going. You may not do so with my
people.”

“But we hope,” Rowan continued, and tried to compact her
tale, to tell it quickly and compellingly, “we hope to find out why it fell. If
one Guidestar can fall—”

“And I hope you discover your reason. I wish you well. We
have cared for you while you were ill because you did us no harm, and approached
us honestly, and did not steal from our flocks. But now we are done with you.”

Rowan made to continue, but Bel gestured the steerswoman to
let her take over. She leaned forward. “This means more than you think,” she
told the seyoh seriously, and Rowan wondered at the trace of urgency in her
voice. “It doesn’t seem so to you, because everything you know has stayed the
same—”

Holding Bel’s gaze, the seyoh lifted her chin fractionally.
The movement held some meaning for Bel; instantly, without protest, she ceased
to speak, relaxed her posture, and waited.

The seyoh nodded an acknowledgment. “Take what supplies you
need. The knife is a good tool and weapon, and will serve us well.” She settled
back, gestured. “Now leave.”

Bel made to rise, but Rowan wavered, disbelieving they were
being dismissed without a full hearing. She wanted to try again; somewhere, she
was certain, were the right words to convince this woman to take in the travelers.

Bel read her intent, forestalled it with a hand on Rowan’s
arm. She spoke to the seyoh. “Thank you. The help you gave us is worth more
than the food we gained, and the knife we traded.” What followed seemed a
formal statement. “My birth-tribe is far east of here. Its seyoh is Serrann,
Marsheson, Liev.” It was a gift. Should this tribe encounter Bel’s, possession
of the names would constitute an introduction, and might prevent hostilities.

The seyoh’s eyes warmed with a smile that worked its way
past her dignity to reach her mouth. “Thank you,” she said. “Good luck, and
travel carefully.”

Rowan waded waist-deep through dry grass that clutched at
her clothing and scratched at her boots. The world was a swirl of red and
brown, shifting and shuddering, and the air was awash with sound: an endless
hissing and a patternless pattering chatter that filled her ears completely and
overflowed, taking up residence in her buzzing skull. The blue overhead seemed unlikely,
not to be trusted; she half expected it to curl down and twist in among the
reeds, to open chasms of sky beneath her feet

“Rowan, wait!”

She came to a stop like a ship at sea and turned into the
wind, sails luffing. She rocked against nonexistent swells. Instinct made her
plant her feet wide and shift her weight against a wave that was a tussock that
refused to move to her expectations. Unbalanced, she fell to a seat among the
grass.

Bel appeared, and hunched down beside her. “Are you all
right?”

The tall reeds defined a little room around the two of them,
and the grass sounds were intimate and comprehensible. “Yes,” Rowan said,
perplexed.

“Why did you go ahead like that?”

“I’m not sure.” She recalled a vague impression that it was
possible to outpace the scenery.

The Outskirter studied her, and Rowan studied herself, both
with equal suspicion. “Can you stand?” Bel asked.

“Yes.” She did not much want to. Instead, she reached out
and plucked a shaft of redgrass, turned it over in her hands. The stem was
resonantly hollow, the diameter of her smallest finger; the nodes were wide,
the sheaths loosely wrapped, and the blades emerged in a three-ranked pattern,
instead of the two-ranked that greengrass followed.

Bel became impatient. “You’ve seen that already.”

“A moment.” A weed, nothing more; uncommon in the Inner
Lands, but not unknown. Leaves brown on one side, red on the other. “All right.”
She accepted a hand up, keeping the stalk in her other hand.

Shuddering colors all around her. Motion, to the limit of
the horizon in the north, motion breaking around a solid line of black to the
south, motion rising and falling in a series of slopes ahead to the east. The
breeze was in her face, speeding wild lines of brown and red directly toward
her; it was sinister, threatening. The colors seemed to hover, sourceless,
ineffable.

She looked at the reed in her hand. Leaves brown on one
side, red on the other. It was just the wind. “Let’s go.”

Bel said dubiously, “Stay close, and stay behind.”

The grass growth hid the shape of the land beneath, and some
of Rowan’s steps jarred against sudden rises, or dropped sickeningly into dips.
Bel was having no such problem. “How can you tell how to step?”

“Watch the grass tops.”

The idea was not attractive. Rowan recalled a similar
situation, when she had been trying to teach Bel to overcome seasickness.

“Watch the waves,” she had told Bel, advising her to act
exactly opposite to instinct’s inclination.

Rowan wished it would rain; wished the colors to gray, the
grass to dampen and silence. She watched the grass tops dizzily and stumbled
along behind the Outskirter.

They had been traveling for one day and the greater part of a
second. The tribe was out of sight; the tents, people, goats—familiar visual anchors—were
gone. There was only the rolling veldt: unpredictable color shimmering across
her eyes, fragmenting her vision. Rowan had walked that day as though blind,
had slept that night as though still walking, dreaming incomprehensible patterns
of flailing light and dark, and roaring voices. She awoke exhausted.