The Outskirter's Secret

by Rosemary Kirstein

  Zo watched him with pride, then briskly applied the comb to her own hair. “Deely makes rugs,” she told Rowan, “and ropes, and boxes. Sometimes he helps Parandys with the dyeing.”

  “Your job keeps you away from him,” Rowan observed. There was clearly much love between the siblings.

  Zo nodded. “It’s what I’m best at. But I do miss him. Jann doesn’t understand him.”

  “Jann—” Rowan began, and stopped herself. Here was an opportunity to confirm her speculation about the source of Jann and Jaffry’s dislike of Fletcher; but Zo, too, might share the feelings.

  Zo finished the steerswoman’s statement for her. “Jann is a very good warrior,” she said, with a wry mouth and eyes that understood what Rowan had not said. “But she’s not good at recognizing valuable things that come in odd packages.”

  “That’s a good way to put it.” In itself, the statement explained much. But Zo’s frankness impelled Rowan to add, “Fletcher is an odd package, in his way.”

  Zo’s reply was buried by Deely’s. “Fletcher is back?” The prospect gave him joy.

  “No,” Zo told him carefully. “Kree’s band went out to the first circle, remember?”

  He nodded his disappointment, and his hands found their work again.

  Rowan watched him a moment; Zo did the same.

  “Fletcher’s become a good friend to Deely,” Zo said. “He wasn’t, at first. He was, well, he was a sillier person, when he first arrived.”

  Rowan chuckled. “Sillier than he is now?”

  Zo’s dark eyes caught the steerswoman’s. “If you think Fletcher is really a fool, you’re not very clever.”

  “I don’t know him well enough to tell, for certain,” Rowan replied with perfect honesty. “But his presence here does surprise me. I’ve learned that it’s difficult to approach an Outskirter tribe. How is it that you let him in?”

  “If you render a service, you can ask for a service in return,” Zo responded. She shifted back a bit to give Deely more room; he had reached the center of one thin braid, stretching it out behind his body to work. “And if you can give the name of a tribe member, you can’t be refused.”

  “Whose name did he have?”

  “Emmary, Karinson, Gena.”

  Rowan hunted among her collection of names. “Merryk’s brother?” Another connection emerged. “And Kammeryn’s line name is Gena.”

  Zo nodded, her dark hair sifting forward and back with the motion. “Kammeryn’s nephew.”

  Rowan laughed. “That’s a good name to have.”

  Zo winced. “But a sad way to get it.”

  Deely had stopped braiding, becoming fascinated by the looping flight of a hunting hawkbug overhead. He laughed, found a stone on the ground, and tossed it clumsily into the air. It went nowhere near its mark; but astonishingly, the hawkbug dove for it, contacted it, then fluttered to the ground among the flock. Goats shied from the thrashing in the grass.

  Zo caught Rowan’s expression of distress and laughed. “Don’t worry, it isn’t hurt. It thinks it’s caught something too heavy to carry. When it figures out it’s just a stone, it will let go and fly away.” It did so as Rowan watched. It was near enough for her to hear its voice for the first time: a high, exasperated chirring.

  “A little over a year ago,” Zo told Rowan, as Deely resumed braiding, “our tribe had a clash with another, over pasturage. We couldn’t back off, there was another tribe too nearby, and nowhere else to go. We had to fight, and we did, and won.

  “But Emmary had vanished in the fighting.” She paused. “He was a warrior, but he had been planning to cross over soon. He had trouble with his eyes, and it was becoming worse. When the time came to move, Emmary was still missing, and assumed dead. We left.” Deely had completed five thin braids and began weaving them close to his scalp.

  “We learned later,” Zo continued, “that during the fighting, Emmary had been cut off from our tribe. When the other tribe fled, he was forced to move ahead of them, in hiding. By the time he could get free of them, he had lost our position. He was wandering for weeks and never found us.

  “He tried to steal a goat from the other tribe and was wounded, though he escaped. The wound turned bad, and a rot set in. He had almost nothing to eat for days. When Fletcher found him, he was dying.”

  “Fletcher couldn’t help him?” Rowan tried to imagine it: alone, starving, sick, then found in the wilderness by a kindly stranger.

  “Too late.” Zo was silent for a moment. “He should have crossed before, really. I don’t know what Berrion was thinking, keeping him on.

  “Well. Fletcher gave him food and tended him as best he could. Before he died, Emmary told Fletcher how to conduct a proper Outskirter funeral.”

  Rowan’s stomach gave a twist. “Casting?” She recalled Bel’s description.

  “That’s right. And he brought back part to the tribe, for his war band to cast; that’s proper. So, when Fletcher appeared with a tale of aid given, with Emmary’s names, and with Emmary’s own hand in a sack made of his cloak—no one could deny him. Fletcher asked to stay permanently, and the council was so moved that they gave consensus immediately.” She stopped, blinked, and, astonishingly, began to laugh. “And they were sorry afterward!” Tragedy and hilarity wrestled on Zo’s face; she quelled her laughter into breathy chuckles and struggled against the grin on her face. “Oh, Rowan,” she said, “if you could have seen him! He was such an Inner Lander!”

  25

  Scouts habitually ranged beyond the outer circle: a group of loosely knit individuals, belonging to no war band, and answerable only to the seyoh himself. It was a position highly respected, owing to the degree of skill required.

  Yet it was a strangely isolate respect; on matters internal to the tribe, the opinions of the scouts were rarely solicited. The scouts themselves seemed to prefer it so. All their skill, and all their attention, was directed outward to the wilderness. When required to remain in camp, a scout often seemed out of place, a visitor. He or she might wander the grounds as if observing the actions of strangers, or fall into long periods of musing that other tribe members rarely interrupted.

  Only Zo, with her love for Deely, maintained what might be considered a normal connection in the tribe’s social life. When not on duty, Zo traveled by Deely’s side, on the edge of the small herd of children.

  On one such occasion, one drizzling morning a week later, Bel and Rowan were walking with them, Bel and Zo discussing the geography of an area to the north, which Zo had scouted some days earlier; it had been passed over by Kammeryn, in favor of possibly better pastures farther east.

  Rowan had begun the questioning, planning to add the information to her charts. But as Bel began to contribute questions of her own, Rowan asked less and less, and listened more. Bel, better informed on the nature of the Outskirts, found questions that were more astute, more revealing. By listening only, the steerswoman gained twice as much information: first from the question, then from the reply.

  “There were plenty of brooks, but shallow,” Zo replied to one of Bel’s queries.

  “Too much blackgrass, then?” Blackgrass thrived on damper land.

  “It was a mix. If we’d camped there, we couldn’t stay long.” Goats could not digest blackgrass. What redgrass there was would be consumed too quickly to warrant a long stay.

  “And hard work for the herdmasters.” Goats enjoyed the flavor of blackgrass and would eat it despite its lack of nutrition. Herdmasters would need to watch the flock closely and discourage foraging in blackgrass patches.

  “But safe from goblins. I didn’t see a single sign of them, or their eggs.” Goblins preferred dryness, and warmth; Rowan considered that their fascination with fire might constitute an extreme expression of instinctive preference.

  Rowan was slowly learning the interconnections between the Outskirts wildlife and vegetation, beginning to see, through her incomplete information, that they followed the same rules of interdependence shown b
y life in the Inner Lands. “What eats goblins?” she asked.

  She had been so long silent that Zo and Bel looked at her in surprise, as if she had just arrived. They considered the question. “Flesh termites,” Bel supplied.

  Zo nodded. “And nothing else.”

  Flesh termites ate any living creature—except goats and humans. Humans ate goats. “What eats humans?” In the Inner Lands it was wolves, and sometimes bears.

  Zo made an indifferent gesture. “Nothing.”

  “Except where the Face People live,” Bel amended. “There they eat each other.”

  They resumed their conversation; but Rowan had stopped listening. She was constructing in her mind a diagram of rising, interlocking lines: what preyed upon what, what needed which type of resource. There were too many empty spaces, where her lack of knowledge forced her to assume unknown interdependencies. And yet, even so, one side-branch seemed to stand almost isolated. Goats ate redgrass, humans ate goats and redgrass—“What else eats redgrass?”

  She had interrupted Zo speaking, on a completely different subject, and received a perplexed look. “Other than humans and goats,” Rowan amplified.

  “Humans don’t eat redgrass,” Zo pointed out.

  “They must do; where does your grain come from?”

  Bel looked at her sidelong. “Humans can’t eat redgrass grain.”

  “But from what else is bread made?” Every meal she had had in the Outskirts consisted of some combination of goat products and bread.

  Zo found her ignorance puzzling. “Redgrass roots.”

  Rowan spread her hands. “But that’s a part of redgrass …”

  “Humans can’t eat redgrass root,” Bel said. “Not directly.”

  The Outskirter had spoken with such uncharacteristic delicacy that Rowan turned her a suspicious gaze. “Am I,” she asked slowly, “about to hear something that I won’t enjoy?”

  Bel grinned, and explained how bread was made.

  Redgrass roots were peeled and boiled in water, at least four times, using fresh water each time. A number of goats were killed, and the first stomach chamber of each, the rumen, was set aside. Next, the cook, cook’s assistants, and anyone else who cared to help, took the roots, chewed them without swallowing, and spit the results directly into the severed rumens. When each was filled, it was submerged in cold water. The following day it was cut open, and the resulting paste and fluid was removed. The fluid was discarded, and the paste was washed and then prepared in any number of ways to become the various types of Outskirter bread with which Rowan had become so familiar.

  The steerswoman listened silently. “Then,” she said slowly, “all this time, I’ve been eating other people’s saliva.”

  Bel was ostentatiously matter-of-fact. “That’s right.”

  Rowan considered, then heaved a sigh of resignation. “It hasn’t harmed me so far.”

  “The rumens are cooked, as well,” Zo put in. She mused on the resulting dish with open longing. “There’s never enough for everyone.”

  Outskirter culinary delights. Rowan rubbed her forehead. “I see.” But the information only rendered her analyses more perplexing: humans and goats were even more isolated from the interdependencies of Outskirter life than she had thought. The goats, she thought; the goats are the link. “What else, of itself, eats redgrass?” she asked, then answered herself from the knowledge she had accumulated: “Nothing.”

  The tribe found a usable campsite two days later, and Rowan observed and participated in the same astonishing camp construction she had witnessed before. The finished camp struck her even more completely as a mobile village: the streets were the same, the courtyards and gathering areas exactly where they had been before. Rowan knew where each war band lived, and where to find her own adopted home.

  Inside Kree’s tent, Rowan and Bel assisted in laying the bright carpet and arranging the various bedrolls. A train-dragger paused outside while Kree’s people retrieved a number of boxes of stiffened, patterned fabric, which they placed at the foot of each bedroll. These contained the personal possessions of each member of the band, those objects not carried while on duty; few, small, treasured.

  The tent was empty when Rowan and Bel awoke the following morning; Kree’s band had left before dawn, to serve on the inner circle. The two women rose at their leisure, risking the loss of a hot breakfast for the luxury of rest from the weeks of travel.

  When they finally decided to rise, Rowan stepped out of the tent briefly to gauge the weather. As she gazed at the slanting sunlight and the hazy blue above, she felt something beneath her bare left foot and stooped to pick it up.

  It was a long, woven band, such as was sometimes used to decorate camp clothing. Bright red, pale blue, and white, it showed a complicated pattern of squares overlaid with interlocking waves. The design was crisp, bold, and lovely to see, but by some difference of style Rowan knew it was not Deely’s work. Unlike the other mysterious objects that had been left by the tent, this one had not been harmed.

  She tied the tent flap open to admit the light and brought the band to Bel, framing a cautious question, designed to permit Bel to indicate whether or not the subject was one open to discussion.

  Seeing the object, Bel spoke quickly. “Where did you find that?”

  “By the door. And back at the old camp—”

  “Did anyone see you take it?” the Outskirter demanded.

  “I don’t think so …”

  Bel hurried to the entrance and cautiously peered outside. “No one in sight. Now, quick, put it back.”

  Rowan placed the band on the ground again just as Chess wandered into view, accompanied by Mander, deep in discussion. As Rowan stood by, Bel gazed about nonchalantly, pretended to notice the band for the first time, studied it with evident indifference, and then, amazingly, ground it into the dirt under her foot. The two Outskirters paused in their conversation long enough to watch the performance, then continued on their way.

  Rowan waited until they had departed to speak. She abandoned any attempt at circumlocution. “And exactly what was that in aid of?”

  “I should have warned you. But from now on, if you’re the last person out of the tent and you find something left by the entrance, destroy it.”

  “What was it?”

  “A courting gift.”

  It was the last explanation Rowan might have imagined. “A courting gift?” All her concerns became ridiculous. “Left by the tent door? Is that the custom?”

  “Yes.” Bel reentered the tent, Rowan following.

  “But who left it? And for whom?”

  “I don’t know.” Bel sat on her bedroll to don her boots. “But if someone saw you accept it,” she said, “you would have been honor-bound to accept the person who left it.”

  “Some Outskirter man has an interest in me?” It seemed very unlikely.

  Bel shook her head. “No. Well, probably not. But whoever it was meant for, it’s someone who sleeps in this tent. Which means a member of Kree’s band, or me, or even you.”

  Rowan thought. “The other gifts were all ruined by someone.” She sat down on her bedroll.

  “I know. If someone is leaving you courting gifts and you’re not interested, you reject the gifts by destroying them. But if you don’t want anyone to know that you realize you’re being courted, you ignore the gifts.” Bel completed lacing her boots, then sat back to explain. “That’s what’s happening here. If the gift isn’t accepted by the time everyone else leaves the tent, the last person leaving has to destroy it. But that was usually you, and I knew you didn’t know what to do. So I did it.”

  “If I’d taken it, whoever left it could … claim me?”

  “That’s the custom.”

  “That was rather a close call, then,” Rowan commented. She leaned back on her hands, considering the situation with amusement. “Perhaps I should have taken it. I might like to learn about Outskirter lovemaking techniques.”

  “Ha. The giver might no
t admit he left it. Or she. They don’t always.” Bel looked at her, dark eyes laughing.

  “What an odd way to manage things.”

  “I like it.” Bel grinned in reminiscence. “There are a hundred ways to play it: you can be subtle, or daring, or cruel, or generous. You can even use it for revenge, by leaving presents for someone until they’re accepted, and then never admitting it was you who left them.”

  “It sounds devious.”

  “Of course.” The aspect pleased Bel.

  “Then, whoever is being courted from Kree’s band is not interested?” Rowan asked.

  “Yes. Or it’s too soon.”

  “Too soon?”

  “You always reject the first gifts. Then they get finer.”

  Rowan spent part of the afternoon seated beside the fire pit, sketching various samples of Outskirts insect life. On her way to return her materials to Kree’s tent, she passed through a small open yard where four sets of tents faced each other. In front of one tent, a number of warriors were seated, conversing. “Rowan!” Jann called from across the area. Rowan changed course to approach her.

  Half of Orranyn’s band was present, with two members of Berrion’s, including Berrion himself. Jann jerked her chin up at the steerswoman. “I see you carry your weapon with you all the time. That’s a good idea in the Outskirts.”

  Rowan’s right hand went to her sword hilt, by way of assent; she had to shift her book to her left to do this. “I’ve heard that’s the case. And I’ve experienced enough to agree.”

  “Let’s have a look at it.”

  Rowan mentally juggled her still-unintegrated information on Outskirter custom and decided there was nothing that suggested she should not do as asked. She complied.

  Jann held the sword, hilt in her right hand, the blade resting across her left arm, turning it to examine its structure. “It looks strong,” she commented. “Well made.”

  Berrion leaned closer. “No ornamentation. That’s not usual for Inner Lands swords.”

  “It’s a soldier’s sword,” Rowan told him.