The Steerswoman's Road (59 page)

Jann considered, possibly gauging the importance of the information
against a theoretical betrayal of her tribe’s interests. Then she shrugged. “Every
twenty years, all the tribes that can find each other gather together. Nobody
fights, and nobody steals. We meet, share food and stories, dance ..”

“A celebration?”

“Yes. Sometimes people will change their tribe at that time,
usually because they fall in love; Rendezvous is a good time to do that. Or a
person with an unusual skill might join a new tribe, if he thinks he’ll do
better there.”

“Why every twenty years?”

“It’s always been done that way.”

“What did Bel mean about the weather?”

Jann was dubious. “In songs and stories about the events of
different Rendezvous, the weather is strange. Whenever it’s mentioned at all.

“Strange in what way?”

From the sound, Rowan assumed that Jann had made a descriptive
gesture. “It changes, suddenly. Rain, and then a clear sky. Lightning when you
don’t expect it, tempests ... But you can’t take that as a fact, it’s just an
artistic consideration.”

Rowan’s reaction was delayed by her being taken aback by the
phrase. “Artistic consideration,” she repeated.

“That’s right. It’s symbolic, or a dramatic effect, or a
contrast to the events. It serves the meaning of the story, the truth
inside
it. You can’t assume it really happened.”

Rowan was accustomed to Bel’s conversation revealing unexpected
flashes of intellectual complexity. But it was against common Inner Lands
appraisal of the barbaric tribes to the east, and without being aware of it,
Rowan had come to believe that Bel’s more sophisticated traits were unique to
herself, and not held by Outskirters in general.

The steerswoman had fallen back on the easier explanation.
She was very surprised to discover, first, that she had made such an assumption,
and second, that it was wrong.

Bel heaved an ostentatious sigh and resigned herself to
joining the conversation. “It’s not symbolic, it’s true. My grandmother told me
that in her time, you could tell when to Rendezvous just by the weather.”

“But you only need to count. Twenty years.”

“That works, too.”

“But the weather doesn’t work at all. I’ve been to two
Rendezvous, and the weather was dry.”

“It used to work. Now it doesn’t.”

Rowan spoke up. “Bel, weather can’t he that regular. If
Rendezvous happens every twenty years, one couldn’t possibly count on bad
weather each time. Unless bad weather is normal for the time of year, every
year.”

“No,” Jann said. “Rendezvous comes at the vernal equinox.”
Rowan was again surprised by her choice of words: this time, a technical term
used most often by sailors. “We have rain then, but not like this, and not hail
and snow, as it says in the songs.”

“It’s in
all
the songs,” Bel emphasized. “The weather
used to be peculiar during Rendezvous, and then it changed.”

“Suddenly, or slowly?” Rowan asked. A suspicion began to
form in her mind.

Bel thought. “I don’t know. But no one minded. It’s much
nicer to Rendezvous in fair weather. And the Face People stopped coming, too,
which nobody regrets.”

Jann asked, “Who are the Face People?”

Rowan knew the answer from earlier conversations with Bel. “The
Face People are the last Outskirters, living far in the east. To the best of
anyone’s knowledge, beyond the Face People there are no more human beings at
all.”

“Why are they called the Face People?”

“The Face is their name for the part of the Outskirts they
live in,” Bel told Jann. “You’re too far west for them to Rendezvous with you,
but my tribe was farther out, and the Face People used to come. They’re
primitive. And nasty. And they eat their dead.” Bel adjusted her cloak across
her back again, letting in a brief gust of cold air. She pulled her bedroll
around her legs. “I’m going to sleep now, so if you must talk, do it quietly.”

But Rowan had one more question. “Why did they stop coming?”

“Perhaps they can’t count to twenty.”

Bel slept, and while she slept, in whispers, Rowan told Jann
the tale of the fallen Guidestar.

Rain concealed the dawn.

Rowan was awakened by Averryl. He was attempting to rise,
and had managed to push himself up to knees and one hand, then remained so,
muttering unintelligibly, weaving as he shifted weight onto and off of his left
leg, which seemed to pain him. Bel and Jann were no longer at their posts, and
light from the open edges of the shelter was dim and tinged with brown.

Averryl was barely visible in the gloom. “Lie down.” Rowan
wrapped one arm beneath his chest and laid one hand against the small of his
back, urging him down. “Come on, rest. It’s too early.” Against his skin, her
hand and arm were immediately hot and wet.

He seemed not to hear her, but understood her hands. He collapsed,
with something like relief, spoke in a loud, slurred voice that Rowan could not
understand, and abruptly became completely still. Shocked, Rowan checked his
pulse. It seemed too slow, and too forceful.

Through the open shelter sides, Bel and the others were nowhere
in sight. Rowan took her sword and clambered outside—to be startled by a
strange man, who was striding up quickly.

“He’s in there?” he asked, then hurried forward and was
under the shelter before Rowan could challenge him.

She stood bemused. Another scout, she hypothesized, then
found her pack and soaked her spare blouse from the waterskin while rain
drizzled down her neck.

The stranger was sitting on his haunches, studying Averryl silently.
Rowan gave him one cautious glance, then set to bathing Averryl’s back with the
wet cloth. The man watched a moment, then without a word took the shirt from
her and continued the job.

She sat back. “I’m Rowan,” she said, then added, as she had
learned to, “Only the one name.”

“Garvin, Edenson, Mourah.” He gestured. “Help me turn him.”

The sick man, who had revived under the cool water,
protested peevishly, but when the newcomer reassured him, he recognized the
voice and struggled to become alert. “Garvin?”

“None other.”

“Where were you?”

Rowan handed Garvin the waterskin, and he resoaked the
cloth. “I never saw your fire. Met a troop and ran like a tumblebug. I know
when I’m in over my head.” He wiped the cloth down Averryl’s chest. “Looks like
you don’t.”

“I was surrounded.”

“Mm. Well.” Garvin examined, but did not touch, the injured
arm. The wound itself was wrapped in linen torn from Bel’s spare blouse,
secured with thongs. Below this, the forearm showed a single raised ridge along
the inside to the wrist, and the middle two fingers of the hand were visibly
swollen. The other fingers and the thumb seemed normal, which followed no logic
Rowan could discern.

Averryl relaxed under his comrade’s ministrations, and presently
Garvin caught Rowan’s eye and jerked his head in suggestion that they speak
outside.

The drizzle had stopped, and the air had begun to move, a
light west wind. Garvin peered at the sky, then shook his head in incomprehension
of the weather’s pattern. “Do you think he’ll lose the arm?” Rowan asked.

The warrior was surprised. “No. No ...” His eyes were
deep-sea blue in his tanned face, and an old scar arced from his left temple to
the side of his nose. He studied the steerswoman speculatively from under
bristling yellow brows, then, by way of explanation, held out his own thick
forearm and with one finger traced a line that followed the ridge on Averryl’s
arm. “Goblin spit. Runs down the nerve, here.” The finger ran down to his palm,
which he tapped thoughtfully. “He’ll lose the use of those fingers, for
certain. He’ll be able to use the arm itself, but he might not want to. It’ll
pain him forever.”

Rowan nodded. She knew that damage to a nerve often resulted
in paralysis of a part of the body farther from the backbone. “What about the
fever?”

“Well, that’s the thing. If he gets past that, he’ll do well
enough.” With that he descended into internal musing, eyes automatically
scanning the horizon as his expression faintly mirrored his thoughts.

Abruptly, the wind swept from west to north, and the clouds
above began to roil. Garvin stared up, slack-jawed. “Look at that.”

With uncanny speed, the cloud cover churned and seemed to
tumble gray masses down toward them, which bled into streamers of mist that
trailed off to the southeast before they reached ground. Breaks showed in the
layers above, revealing a blue first faint, then brighter. Around the little
camp, spots of yellow sunlight illuminated the decimated redgrass. To the
north, a clearly demarcated line of clear weather appeared, sped toward them,
swept in, arced overhead, and flew south, bringing a coldness that descended so
suddenly that Rowan’s ears popped.

She and Garvin traded looks of amazement. “Rendezvous
weather?” the steerswoman hazarded. Garvin gave no reply.

A voice hailed, and, squinting against the brightness in the
distance, Rowan recognized Bel, waving. The Outskirter paused to stoop to the
ground, then approached at a jog trot, dragging something behind.

Leaving Garvin to tend Averryl, Rowan went forward and met
her friend. “What do you have there?”

“A tent for Averryl. Did Garvin arrive?”

“Yes. But I meant, what are you carrying the tent on?”

“This is a train. No, don’t examine it; pull it. I have to
go back and help. The tribe is moving.”

Rowan positioned herself between two poles whose grips were
worn shiny from countless hands. “Where is the tribe going?” She took a moment
to wonder where such lengths of wood had come from, in the treeless Outskirts.

“It’s not going, it’s coming. They’re pulling everything up
and moving here.” She gave Rowan a dray-beast’s slap. “Go.”

By the time she reached the little camp, Rowan had acquired
companions: six goats had come up from behind, passed, then doubled back to
pace alongside her. They jittered, shaking flop-eared heads in disapproval of
the barren ground.

Their voices drew Garvin from the shelter, and when Rowan
dropped the train grips, he immediately fell to dismantling the conveyance,
standing on one side and directing Rowan to imitate his actions on the other.

The frame of the train was made from two poles, some twelve
feet long, and a four-foot spreader. Behind the grips, the gap narrowed away
from the puller, as in a travois, but with a single small black wheel at the
point. Between the grips and the wheel stretched a hide platform, apparently
part of the tent itself. Garvin released the wheel on his side and twisted his
pole, and it slid back, collapsing the structure. Rowan did the same on her
side.

Hot damp breath blew down her neck, and something nibbled at
her hair. Garvin reached across and shoved the goat away from Rowan; it
protested, then clambered forward, over the train and past the rain fly. Two
more goats joined it, appearing from the right, and when Rowan paused to look
about, she counted a full dozen nervously wandering animals.

“Hey-oh, Rowan!” someone called from behind. Rowan turned,
and the person waved at her from a distant rise, then angled away to the south.
It was no one she knew.

Garvin was taking the poles themselves apart: they were constructed
of four-foot lengths of tangleroot wood, the mated ends revealing curious
twisting joints, reinforced by wood strips and leather straps. Rowan imitated
Garvin’s actions.

She spotted another warrior far off, moving from her right
to her left, and understood that this was the direction the approaching tribe
followed. More goats appeared, reluctantly trailing after the figure.

The steerswoman made to continue disassembling, but Garvin
stopped her. “No. We want one long pole, one short each.” That was what they
had. He chased away a kid goat that was perched atop the folded mass of the
tent, and began to untie lashings. The kid complained, skipped aside, and made
a dash to regain its position.

It was swept from its feet by a tall woman, and draped
across her shoulders as she strode into the camp and strode out again without
pausing. There was another person beyond her, and yet another beyond, pacing
her at measured distance, all warriors in gear, but without packs.

“Who chose this spot? It’s terrible!” Two train-draggers had
appeared, and dropped their loads. One fell to work, and the other fell to
complaining, pointing here and there at inadequacies of the terrain. Three
walkers with outsized packs came up to the cold remains of yesterday’s fire,
and examined it, shaking their heads, then scuffed dirt to cover it. They found
a better location ten feet away, dropped their packs, withdrew implements, and
set to digging a shallow hole. More goats straggled through.

Rowan and Garvin did not bother to take down the rain fly
where Averryl sheltered; they drove stakes, looped thongs, and prepared to draw
the stitched hide up and directly over the tarp itself. Four more draggers
appeared, found positions, and began to disassemble their trains.

“There, there,
there!”
a high voice squealed,
admonished by a quieter deep voice. A flock of children flurried forward,
parting around Garvin and Rowan like a burbling tide around rocks as they
passed. One little girl froze and stared at Rowan, giggling in hysterical
shyness at seeing a stranger, and was drawn off by a bent-backed old man. “Hush
and stay away, now, Averryl’s sick.” A serious-faced blond boy paused and
stooped to peer in at Averryl, then stationed himself protectively nearby as a
crowd of over a hundred goats of every size, age, and combination of colors
swept in, through, and out again, exactly as the children had done. An elderly
woman dropped her train by the new fire pit and began unloading blocks of peat.

Bel appeared, pulling a train, locked in conversation with a
gray-haired man who spoke with much gesticulation and walked with a limp. She
spared Rowan a wave. The man took an item from the train’s platform, stumped
over to Rowan, and handed it to her: a foot-square box of stiffened wool
fabric, patterned in maroon and violet. Not knowing what else to do with it,
she tucked it under the rising tent as she and Garvin lifted the lower end of
its short uprights. The guardian boy left his post to help, pulling the tent’s
side into shape.