The Steerswoman's Road

by Rosemary Kirstein

  “You nearly did.” It was Kree, approaching with the girl Sithy in tow.

  Fletcher rose to his feet to meet his chief. “How’s that?” he asked. “Averryl was caught by a mating mob.”

  And all the wild energy vanished from his body, all the life faded from his face, until only blank shock remained. He stood, head tipped back as if from a blow, wry mouth slack, long hands dropped, his stance so limp that Rowan feared he might fall.

  He drew a shallow breath as if to speak, but then did not. Kree watched him, saying nothing more, permitting him to suffer. He waited, helplessly silent, acknowledging her right to do so.

  At last she answered the unspoken question, and the jerk of her chin gave both direction and dismissal. “He’s alive. Mander has him.” And Fletcher sped away, damp cloak flapping wildly about him.

  Rowan watched him depart. “So that’s the missing Fletcher,” she commented.

  “Yes,” Kree said, looking after him. “And he’d better have a good reason for having been out of his assigned position.”

  Rowan looked down. The chipped stone was still in one hand, the broken club in the other. “I think he does,” she said, and passed them to Kree.

  Later, as she was dragging a trainful of waterskins up from the creek, Rowan encountered Bel, returning from a stroll among the flocks. The Outskirter fell in beside her, amused. “Have you decided to be a mertutial?”

  “I must do something,” Rowan said. “I can’t simply lounge about like a guest.” She had received her assignment from the cook, wanting some simple physical activity, something that would occupy her body while leaving her mind free. But she had overestimated her strength and made the train too heavy; furthermore, the wheel tended to stick unexpectedly, and her absorbing analysis of Inner Lands regional accents was constantly interrupted.

  Bel, rather pointedly, did not offer to help, but ambled along companionably. “I wanted to ask Kree if she’d decided to use me, but she’s busy with debriefing.”

  “With what?” The wheel froze again, and Rowan dragged the dead train fully five feet before it loosened.

  “It needs grease,” Bel commented. “Debriefing. Someone is reporting to her, formally. A scout will debrief, or a war band back from sortie. Or anyone who’s had something happen to him that’s particularly important.”

  “That would be Fletcher,” Rowan told her. “He killed a Face Person.”

  Bell was taken aback. “This far west?”

  “Apparently. And it occurs to me: If a Face Person had come this far west, perhaps he’d been even farther west, and was just now returning. We almost met a solitary traveler ourselves.”

  “You think it was the Face Person following us?”

  “What do you think?”

  Bel considered. “Whoever it was, he moved well, very crafty. If it was a Face Person, and the rumors about them are true, he could easily have been following us for days before I noticed him.”

  “Could he have been following us again later, at enough distance that he crossed Fletcher’s position and was caught unawares?”

  “Perhaps,” Bel said. “Yes.”

  The train wheel emitted an evil squeal. Bel stepped back and gave it a shove with her boot.

  Rowan changed the subject. “What have you heard about Fletcher?”

  “Next to nothing; I haven’t bothered to ask. Jann and Jaffry have some grudge against him, but Kree must like him, or she wouldn’t keep him in her band. And Averryl defended him to Jann, if you remember.”

  “Fletcher and Averryl are close friends.” Rowan pulled, and Bel walked, for a few quiet minutes. “Fletcher is an Inner Lander.”

  Bel’s surprise was extreme. “Out here? And in a war band? Impossible. Who told you that?’

  “No one, at first. I heard him speak. He doesn’t have an Outskirter’s accent. And he knew me as a steerswoman without being told. Later I asked Chess, the head cook, and she confirmed it. She said he’s been here over a year.”

  Bel considered. “Good,” she said. She was following the same reasoning that Rowan had. An Inner Lander among Outskirters was a circumstance strange enough to inspire suspicion; but if Fletcher had been in the Outskirts for over a year, he could not be connected to the wizards’ recent hunt for Rowan.

  “But it’s odd. I’d like to talk to him.”

  “Ha. You’re just tired of the Outskirts, and want to hear some Inner Lands gossip.”

  Rowan laughed. “Perhaps that’s the case.”

  They arrived at the camp, where Chess clearly wished to berate Rowan for slowness but wavered, still uncertain of the steerswoman’s proper status. She finally relieved her ire with a generalized grumbling tirade, largely unintelligible, delivered at the threshold of hearing.

  Bel waited in the lee of the cook tent as the two women unloaded the train, after which Chess hesitated, unable to decide whether she ought to find Rowan another assignment or free her to converse with the warrior. Bel ostentatiously gave no clue as to preference, loitering nearby, humming a little tune as she watched the fire tenders at work. Rowan played along, waiting by the cook’s elbow, wearing a smile so patient that it could not help but irritate.

  The cook’s discomfort was ended by the arrival of Eden, a mertutial whose chief work seemed to consist of relaying Kammeryn’s requests. “He wants to see you, both. And Rowan should bring her maps.” Rowan and Bel followed her, leaving Chess to her muttering.

  The sky flaps of Kammeryn’s tent were closed against the intermittent rain, but one wall had been raised to admit light. The open wall faced away from the camp’s center, indicating a desire for privacy.

  Kree was present, and Fletcher, with the Face Person’s possessions gathered tidily beside him. Dignified, Kammeryn performed introductions. Line names were handed down through the female side; Rowan noted without surprise that the transplanted Inner Lander possessed only two names, and that his matronymic was an un-Outskirterly “Susannason.”

  “Fletcher tells me that you recognized these objects as belonging to folk called the Face People,” the seyoh said to Rowan. “I would like to know more about them.”

  “I didn’t recognize the equipment,” Rowan replied, “I reasoned its origins. What I know about the Face People I learned from Bel.”

  Bel regarded the objects with her head tilted, then leaned slightly left, then right, as she often did when organizing her thoughts. “The Face People,” she began, “live far to the east. The Face is their name for that part of the Outskirts. I’ve never seen them myself, but I’ve heard of them from older members of my home tribe. They’re primitive. They don’t have very many handicrafts, and not very good ones; they don’t make metal, and will steal any metal they can find. At Rendezvous, if they’re called on to sing, or tell a tale, they never do.

  “They’re said to be smaller than usual. Their men stand about my height. No one has ever seen their women.”

  Rowan interrupted. “There must be women.”

  “I only know what I was told.” Bel continued: “They’re vicious fighters, and they’re very crafty at keeping hidden. They talk little, and they take offense easily. Once one of their tribes broke truce at Rendezvous.”

  The other Outskirters present were appalled. “What was the reason?” Kree asked, clearly unable to conceive of such a thing.

  “I wasn’t told. And,” Bel finished, “they eat their dead.”

  Kree let out a breath through her teeth, disgusted. She turned to Fletcher. “Does that match the man you killed?”

  He twisted his mouth and made a wide gesture of assent. “Looks like. He was small, sort of scrawny.” Fletcher, when speaking, could not be immobile; of themselves, his quick hands sketched a shape in the air, an invisible Face Person. “You could see how his muscles lay on his bones”—he indicated the imaginary figure thoughtfully—“with nothing between them and the skin. I’d have said he looked sickly, but he moved like a flash, and one time he got hold of my arm”—his own arm and hand demonstra
ted—“and I thought his fingers would squeeze straight through. He fought like a madman, like he didn’t care if he lived or died.”

  Rowan indicated the equipment. “That looks about the level of handicraft that Bel mentioned.” She turned to Kammeryn. “Some days ago, Bel and I discovered that we were being trailed by someone. He fled before we saw him. We think it was the same man.”

  “Then he’s no longer a danger. No other scouts have sighted strangers; he was alone.”

  Fletcher apologetically corrected his seyoh. “I didn’t see this fellow coming until he was on me. And Bel did say they’re good at hiding.”

  “I’ll send word for the scouts to be more wary. But—and meaning no insult, Fletcher—you are a young warrior. You still have much to learn. Someone more experienced might have sighted him sooner.”

  Fletcher blew out his cheeks. “Well. I might not have seen him at first, but I saw him in time.”

  “You seem to be good at that,” Kree reassured him. Rowan noted that the reassurance seemed necessary; Fletcher sent Kree a small, wry glance of gratitude.

  Kammeryn leaned back, then nodded at Kree. “Please step outside and speak to Eden; tell her to have the warning relayed to the outer circle.”

  As Kree rose to leave, Fletcher followed; but Kammeryn stopped him with a gesture. “Bel and the steerswoman are undertaking a journey to the east. I believe that part of their route will cross the same area you traveled in your walkabout. I’d like you to tell them about the land they’ll be going into.”

  Fletcher had paused half-risen; he stared at Kammeryn, mutely, then glanced once after the departing Kree. He looked very much as if he wished to escape.

  Rowan was puzzled. “Anything you tell us might help a great deal,” she said.

  He gazed at her, motionless in his awkward position. Then, with slow unwillingness, he settled down again and waited. Rowan drew out her charts, Bel shifting nearer to see.

  Fletcher was oddly tentative as he leaned forward to study the map. He tilted his head to view the notations, as no Outskirter had: he could read. His gaze and his finger went to one particular feature. “Tournier’s Fault,” he read aloud. “Dust Ridge. What is it?”

  “It’s a cliff, if Bel’s information is correct. And it’s where we’re going.”

  “Why do you have it marked so clear?” His finger swept back across the blank expanse of the map. “How do you only know about that one place?”

  Rowan briefly explained about having seen a wizard’s map. “I

  couldn’t recall all the details, since it was some weeks after seeing their map that I had any chance to try to make a copy. But since I was particularly interested in Dust Ridge, I managed to impress that section in my mind. I’m sure the distance is correct, and its length, and its configuration. I need to know what lies between there and here.”

  Fletcher looked away and sat silent for a long moment, then reluctantly brought his attention back to the map. He drew a breath.

  “More rivers,” he said, and indicated; a small, inexpressive movement, very different from the wild, wide gestures Rowan had come to expect of him. “Scores of rivers here.” He did not elaborate, neither by words nor gestures, but paused again, waiting.

  Rowan exchanged a glance with Bel. “Try to re-create the route you took,” Bel suggested. “That would be easiest.”

  He nodded, then proceeded to trace a route across the unmarked chart, describing the terrain he had encountered, using the fewest possible words. Rowan notated every landmark he had passed and, using her knowledge of geological patterns, sketched in likely approximations of surrounding areas.

  Kree rejoined them, entering quietly to sit beside Kammeryn. Fletcher seemed not to notice her.

  At one point, the width of the observed area widened. Rowan asked why. “Went further north on the way back” was his terse reply.

  As the trail continued east, Fletcher became even less communicative, using ever shorter phrases and sometimes single words: “Hills.” Rowan had to prompt him for expansions and explanations. Bel and the other Outskirters watched in silence, then patiently, Bel with growing puzzlement.

  At last Fletcher ran out of words completely, his finger resting at a place where Rowan had assumed several small rivers converging. Fletcher sat as quietly as if he were alone.

  “What’s there?” Rowan asked at last, cautiously.

  “Swamp.”

  “How far does it extend?”

  “Fifty kilometers.” His route began to arc north, leaving the swamp.

  “No, hold a moment.” Rowan recalled the demon she and Bel had heard. “This swamp, was the water fresh?”

  He did not wish to reply. “Sour ...”

  “Was it like seawater? Have you ever tasted seawater?” As an Inner Lander, he might have done.

  “Different.” His finger wanted to leave the swamp behind. Rowan surmised some dreadful event having occurred in that location.

  But his statement could be considered to correspond with the wizard Shammer’s description of a demon’s needs, and Rowan was very interested. “Did you encounter any dangerous creatures in this swamp?”

  He did not reply, and only by looking up from the chart did Rowan realize that he had been reduced to gesture: he nodded.

  Kammeryn spoke. “If the steerswoman is going to pass near there, she will need to know what she might meet.” There was no admonishment in his words.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Fletcher neutrally delivered straightforward descriptions of a number of unpleasant creatures: round-backed beetles some three feet high, equipped with pincers, fore and aft; wasplike swarmers whose sting induced dizziness and temporary blindness, but which ignored persons unless disturbed; a man-sized soft lizard that dwelt in a lair beneath the mud in shallow water, springing on its prey by means of a trapdoor, and possessing huge jaws with a triple row of needle-sharp teeth.

  Rowan’s original planned route crossed directly through the swamp. She amended it.

  Fletcher had used more words in his descriptions than he had spoken during the entire previous hour; the act seemed to release some internal pressure, and his manner became easier as he traced the rest of his route, which had swung north past the swamp to end in an arid area. “And then I turned around,” he finished.

  Bel’s perplexity had grown during his descriptions, and now reached the point of suspicion. “Where were you going, that you traveled so far from your tribe?”

  His answer was again terse. “Walkabout.”

  “That’s a long walkabout.” Bel was frankly dubious.

  He paused, and Rowan expected him to revert to silence again; instead, he slipped back into his old manner: an eloquent wince, an apologetic half smile, a wide gesture made by hands more natural in motion than in stillness. “Well, I wasn’t all that certain I wanted to come back.”

  Kree spoke. “We’re glad you did.” Again, the reassurance.

  The steerswoman could resist no longer. “What is ‘walkabout’?”

  It took a moment for the Outskirters to decide who was to reply. “It’s a rite, a tradition,” Bel said. “It’s one of the things you do to become an adult and a warrior. The candidates go out into the wilderness for six weeks. You choose a direction, walk in as straight a line as you can, and deal with whatever you meet.”

  “Alone in the Outskirts?” She looked at Fletcher’s route drawn across the chart; it was far more than six weeks’ travel. Assuming that the tribe had been located farther west at the time of Fletcher’s journey, the walkabout might have taken months. “It sounds impossible to survive.”

  “Not completely alone,” Bel continued. “Candidates go out in pairs, but they keep a distance between each other. They’re not allowed to associate, or communicate.”

  “Or assist?”

  “If your partner rescues you, it means you fail the test.”

  Rowan began to ask what it meant if one failed to rescue one’s partner; she stopped herself. Beside her, once
again immobile, sat Fletcher: an energetic, expressive man reduced to quiet and stillness. His walkabout partner had not been summoned to add his or her information to Fletcher’s. Fletcher’s partner had not survived.

  Rowan forced herself back to her map. “This helps us a great deal. We can follow most of Fletcher’s route, swinging north here”—avoiding the deadly swamp—“and turning southeast here, where you went north. It’s not the most direct line, but at the least we’ll know what to expect. After that, we’ll simply strike out across the land,” and she unconsciously quoted Bel, “and deal with whatever we meet.”

  Bel leaned forward to study the result, then nodded with satisfaction. The chart had begun to resemble a true traveler’s map, and the gap between known route and goal was suddenly, miraculously, manageable. Success seemed less a hope, and more a likelihood.

  “Good.” Kammeryn made a gesture, and Rowan passed him the map. When the seyoh took it, he turned it around, but not to read the notations—he was illiterate. Rowan saw that he had adjusted its directions to correspond with reality: Kammeryn was seated facing south, and held the map with south on top.

  His gnarled finger moved, indicated. “The tribe,” he said, “will stay with you to this point, and continue, so.” The tribe’s route continued due east as the travelers’ wended southeast. “We’ll try to pause here ... and later here; all depending, of course, on whether the grass is good. We’ll move further north here”—far above the swamp—

  “there will be too much blackgrass and not enough red. You should be able to rejoin us near,” and he traced a circle, “this area.”

  Mastering her surprise, Rowan hurried to mark the tribe’s projected positions.

  Fletcher was astonished. “We’re changing our route for the steers-woman?”

  Kammeryn’s glance denied him the right to question his seyoh; Fletcher managed to suppress what should have been a splay-armed gesture of acquiescence into a mere flutter of fingers on his knees.

  Bel was delighted. “That’s good! We can travel lighter, and harder, if we know we have people to return to.”