The Steerswoman's Road

by Rosemary Kirstein

  Rowan leaned forward slowly and forced herself to speak calmly, trying to ignore the eerie thrill running down her arms and her back. “Will you tell us the poem? Or have one of your people tell us, if you can’t?”

  “No,” he said definitely. “Our tales are our own. Their beauty is for us alone.”

  “If it really did happen,” she persisted, “if it’s not in the poem for—for artistic considerations”—she found herself fascinated by his inexpressive face, his veiled eyes—“it proves our facts. It would help us convince others.”

  He watched her cautiously, but said nothing.

  Bel urged him. “Someone saw it happen, someone saw a Guidestar fall. You would be confirming everything we say: it’s all true, if your poem is a true one.”

  He looked away, then looked back. “It is a true poem. It is set in the form of true poems.”

  “What form is that?” Rowan asked.

  He seemed to regard her as a fool. “Alliterative, unrhymed. Caesura in each line.” Rowan had not ceased to be surprised when she heard sophisticated terms from Outskirters other than Bel; coming from this most primitive of barbarians, the words were actually shocking.

  While the steerswoman was recovering her balance, Bel suggested, “Tell us the events, without revealing the secret beauty of the words.”

  He tilted his head to study Rowan’s companion, then the steers-woman herself. His eyes narrowed fractionally; the closest to an actual change of expression that he had yet displayed. Then he nodded. “There was a great battle for pasturage,” he began; the other seyohs watched and listened. “The hero who led it was bold and fierce. But he sent his people back, caused them to retreat. This was because an omen appeared.

  “As the attack began, a light appeared in the sky, over the enemy’s position. It sped toward the attackers. It went over their heads, and away, leaving a line of smoke drawn across the sky. The hero believed that this told his people to go in that direction, to not attack the enemy. He spoke to his people, to explain the meaning of the omen. It was good. They went that way, and found free pastures.”

  “What was its color?” Rowan asked.

  “Like fire. Burning. The smoke was black.”

  “In what direction was the line of smoke?”

  “From northwest to southeast.”

  This coincided with Rowan’s own calculations; she couched her next question carefully. “If I asked you to, would you tell us where the hero was when he and his people saw the object fall?” She wished to avoid placing any seyoh present under the Steerswomen’s ban.

  “I would not tell you.” A statement of fact.

  Rowan sat back, expelling a slow breath. “You don’t need to. I can tell you; not precisely, but I can draw a line on a map, and know that somewhere on that line the hero and his tribe were located when they saw their omen.”

  She scanned the circle, meeting each pair of eyes individually. “It’s true; someone saw it happen. A Guidestar fell, and the power of the wizards is real. Bel is one of the wisest people I know, and I sincerely hope you take her words to heart. You may face disaster otherwise.”

  By means of a subtle shift in his body, a calm gaze that indicating recognition and respect for each seyoh, and a careful, thoughtful pause, Kammeryn caused attention to turn to himself, and to remain there until he chose to speak. “I have been traveling with these women for some time,” he told the seyohs. “I have come to know them, and have thought a great deal on the things they told me. I believe,” he stressed, “that their ideas are correct in every particular. I am convinced that the wizards will soon turn their attention to the Outskirts—if they have not done so already.”

  The man with the braided beard protested. “There’s been no sign of any such thing!”

  Kammeryn addressed him calmly. “The wizards have magic. We cannot guess what form their actions will take, or how their attention might manifest itself. It is not enough to wait for some obvious sign of hostility. We must be on guard for events occurring now; any unusual event is suspect.”

  “Everything is unusual,” one woman noted, speaking half to herself. “This meeting is unusual, this Rendezvous. The steerswoman is unusual.” She jerked her head in the direction of the Face Person and addressed the group at large. “He’s unusual. I’ve never seen his like before.” The Face Person watched her with manifest disinterest.

  Rowan had never before heard Kammeryn enunciate his position completely. It pleased her. “Kammeryn is correct,” she said, and added to the woman who had spoken, “and so are you. All these unusual things may be connected.”

  “How can that be?” someone asked.

  Rowan sighed. “I don’t know. Not yet.”

  The moderator broke the pause that followed. “Bel, what precisely do you envision us doing?”

  “I cannot be precise,” Bel told her. “I don’t know what, precisely, Slado will do, or his puppet wizards, or their minions, or their soldiers, if any. But the first thing we must do is make certain that every tribe knows what we’ve just told you. I’ll do much of that myself; but it will help if each of your tribes passes the word to each tribe you meet.”

  The Face Person sat fractionally higher. “We do not meet with others, or speak with them. Only at Rendezvous. Other tribes are all our enemies.”

  “The more so if you steal their goats and kill their people,” the bearded man pointed out, angrily.

  But Bel continued. “The second thing we must do, when the time comes, is to cease being enemies. We will have to work together.”

  The bearded man spoke again. “I will not put my people at the service of another tribe. If I see advantage for my tribe, I will take it. If it causes another tribe difficulty, that’s their misfortune.”

  “If the wizards try to rule us,” Bel said, “or if they try to harm us, that’s everyone’s misfortune. If we join to defeat them, that’s to everyone’s advantage.”

  The third woman present spoke up for the first time. “But I see a difficulty,” she said; and from her tone Rowan realized that she did not in fact see a difficulty, but spoke only to give Bel an opportunity to make some particular point. “When the time comes to act, how can all the tribes act with one purpose? Our seyohs may not agree.”

  Bel responded smoothly. “We will need one person in command.” And before anyone could voice the question, she answered it. “Me.”

  Three seyohs protested immediately. Three did not; Kammeryn, who seemed to have expected the idea; the woman who had prompted the statement, who Rowan now realized was the seyoh of Ella’s tribe; and the Face Person.

  “I believe none of this,” the long-bearded man declared. “Perhaps the wizards are causing trouble in the Inner Lands; perhaps something has fallen from the sky—but it has nothing to do with my people. Bel’s concerns are imaginary. Unless this Slado acts directly against my people, my tribe, I will do nothing. No one will command me.”

  The woman who had earlier professed confusion had become definite. “This is counter to our laws. Each tribe lives or dies by its own skills. Each tribe answers to the seyoh, and the seyoh is alone.”

  The moderator leaned toward Bel, her blind eyes darting about in anger. “You have a young voice, and you are only a warrior. Can you think you know better than elders, than seyohs?”

  Bel gave no ground. “In this matter, yes. I’ve met wizards, and dealt with them. You have not. I’ve been at the steerswoman’s side throughout her investigation, and I’m still at her side. I know exactly what she knows. Only Slado himself knows more about his plans than we do. Even the wizard in Wulfshaven knew nothing until Rowan herself told him. The other wizards know even less.

  “And I’m continuing with Rowan, until we reach the Guidestar. What she sees, I will see. I know more than any of you, and I’ll soon know even more.”

  “You ask too much,” the blind woman said.

  Kammeryn replied, “She does not. I know her. She is wiser than you think, and stronger. If she calls me, I
will follow.”

  The seyoh of Ella’s tribe added, “It’s true that Bel is only a warrior. But this will be a war—what sort, we cannot know yet, but war nevertheless. If we need to become like an army, we must.”

  The Face Person shifted, and all eyes turned toward him; but he did not speak.

  A silence followed, and the moderator gathered her dignity. “We met in order to hear Bel and her companion speak. We have done so. This is something each seyoh must decide alone—”

  “I have decided!” the man with the long beard announced.

  The moderator made a gesture. “Then let us each take time to consider our decisions. Let us meet again tomorrow, to tell them to these two, and to each other.”

  37

  The two women returned to Kree’s tent, walking silently, separately considering the events of the meeting. When they arrived, they discovered that the tent was not empty. Three people were seated inside, with three pairs of the little erby jugs on the floor around them; and one pair of jugs was already empty.

  “Rowan!” Fletcher made a loose gesture of welcome. “Bel! Come in, sit down, have a drink. We’ve made a new friend.”

  Rowan was in no mood for celebration. “No, thank you,” she said. “I’m afraid Bel and I have some things on our minds. And I’ve already had one experience with erby; I don’t care to repeat it.”

  “Ah.” He laid a finger aside his nose. “Ah, but you should. Wouldn’t be sociable, otherwise.”

  Averryl spoke, with a shade of intoxicated precision. “You want to talk to our friend.”

  Rowan stepped further inside to see the stranger: a small man, hair cut short, dressed in a motley tunic with visible gaps, and bare-legged—

  Bel said, “A Face Person.” The same man they had seen sitting all alone in the avenue between camps.

  “You wanted to know why the Face People are so far west,” Fletcher said, nodding stolidly. “He told us he’d tell you.”

  Bel wavered, her thoughts clearly still on the meeting of seyohs. Then she nodded, at some inner observation. She strolled over to the group and joined them; Rowan followed, somewhat reluctantly.

  Bel addressed the stranger immediately. “I’m Bel. I’ve fought some of your people. They were very good fighters.”

  “My people. My tribe,” the small man said. His face, deeply lined, might have been carved from brown Inner Lands wood. He thumped his chest with one hand.

  Averryl was interested. “Your own tribe? It was you who attacked us?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed. Rowan became disturbed by the direction of the conversation. By contrast, Averryl and Bel seemed deeply impressed, even admiring.

  “If we hadn’t had you outnumbered,” Averryl told the Face Person, “if we hadn’t joined forces with another tribe ...” Apparently from the effects of the alcohol, he lost track of his thoughts. He paused to recover them.

  Bel finished the statement. “And if I hadn’t seen you in time to organize a resistance, we would have stood no chance at all. Your tribe was fearsome!”

  Outskirter compliments, Rowan thought: We’re very impressed that you almost destroyed us. Have a drink.

  “You have to catch up,” Fletcher announced. He stretched back and found two more mugs apparently set aside in anticipation of the women’s arrival. “Here.” He poured. “Four sips each.”

  They took their mugs, and the Face Person glowered across at them. “Women shouldn’t drink. It is bad for the child in the womb.”

  “They’re not pregnant,” Fletcher assured him, then caught Rowan’s eye and assumed an expression of panic. “Good god, you’re not, are you?”

  Rowan laughed. “No.” She could hardly know so soon. However, she had carefully waited for the proper time in her cycle; additionally, Fletcher had introduced her to the use of a peculiar Outskirter device, coyly referred to as a “glove.” She considered the eventuality extremely unlikely, and took a sip of the erby.

  The small man still did not approve.

  “Now,” Averryl protested, “you wouldn’t deny a warrior a drink, would you?”

  “They are warriors?” The man was dubious.

  Bel took a large draft and leaned forward to look him boldly in the eye. “I killed fourteen of your friends,” she told him. He wavered, and his gaze flicked to Rowan.

  “Perhaps that many, myself,” she admitted. “I was far too occupied to keep a running tally.”

  The Face Person studied her. “Women shouldn’t fight,” he said. “Yes, yes, we know,” Fletcher said dismissively. “Bad for the child in the womb.”

  The stranger turned to him in surprise and, as if against his will, emitted one short laugh, like the bark of a dog. Then the wooden face split, and he laughed long and loud, pounding the ground with one fist.

  Rowan exchanged an amused glance with Fletcher; he was, she decided, a very useful man indeed.

  She spoke to the Face Person. “I’m Rowan.” She took another sip; Bel did the same.

  There was still laughter in his eyes. “Efraim. Fearsome women,” he commented wryly. The humor had humanized him. He was no longer an anonymous danger, another depredation of the Outskirts; he was a small gnomish man of wiry strength and taciturn pride, who had survived the most dreadful battle of Rowan’s life. “You are the steers-woman,” Efraim said to Rowan.

  “That’s right.” She and Bel sipped again; the liquor seemed to Rowan considerably less authoritative than it had been on her first experience. “Did Fletcher and Averryl tell you what that means?”

  “You have questions?”

  “Yes. I also answer any question put to me.”

  “And you tell the truth.”

  “Always.”

  Bel spoke up. “I hope you don’t mean to ask anything that will help you attack our tribe after Rendezvous. If you do, we’ll simply report it to our seyoh, and be prepared when you come.”

  “I have no tribe to tell it to. All are gone. From battle, from fire.” Remembering the destroyed camp Fletcher and Averryl had found, Rowan was suddenly sorry for the man. “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  Bel took a sip; Rowan did the same. And when Fletcher ostentatiously caught the Face Person’s eyes, and both drank together, Rowan realized that she and her companion were now even with the men: from now on, each drinker would select a single person to match each sip, choosing a different person each time.

  Efraim’s draft was long, and when he finished, he sat looking into his cup.

  “Why did your people come so far west?” Rowan asked him. He looked up at her. “We were dying.”

  She looked at the small sad eyes in the weathered face. “Tell me about it.”

  38

  “The land became cruel. Always the Face is a cruel place to live; but for many years, each time the tribe changed pastures, things went for the worse.

  “At each moving, the redgrass grew less and less. The herd had not enough to eat in each pasture, and we had to move soon; but the next pasture was no better, and often worse. At last the land became like the prairie told of in legend, where only blackgrass grew. The herd could find no food, and could give little to the tribe.

  “Now all tribes on the Face began to prey upon each other. But when they defeated each other, they had no one to prey upon. Many people died in battle, many more of hunger.

  “Then strange creatures, and stranger ones, came to attack; creatures such as had not been seen before, nor told of in lore or song. The tribes did not know how to fight these creatures. And so the people grew ever fewer in number.

  “At last all the seyohs understood that the land had won the battle of life, that it had defeated the Face People.

  “And so we came west, seeking other people to raid: the rich, fat tribes west of the Face. But those tribes had good food, and were healthy and strong; we were poor and weak. The Face People most often failed.

  “And then the weather began to say that it was time to Rendezvous. It had been long since the last Ren
dezvous, and by the count of years, and the season, the time was not right. But our law told what to do in time of Rendezvous, that we must meet and not fight.

  “Some of the tribes of Face People listened to the command of the weather, and found a place to make open camp. But my tribe, my people, did not do this. Perhaps this is why all my tribe are now dead, why fate turned against us; it is punishment.

  “Our seyoh was foolish. He told us that, because the great heat did not come, it was not a true Rendezvous.”

  The steerswoman leaned forward. “‘Great heat’?”

  “Yes,” the Face Person confirmed. “So the tales say: when it is time to Rendezvous, a great heat comes over the land, causing destruction.” Rowan looked to her friend. “Bel?”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Only Rendezvous weather,” Bel told her. Averryl also expressed ignorance.

  Efraim was not surprised. “It happened only on the Face. This is how our seyoh was foolish. We were already far from the Face; he could not tell if the heat had come there. But he did not want to Rendezvous, and so pretended more wisdom than he possessed.”

  “This heat,” Rowan pressed him, “what was it like? What do you mean when you say it caused destruction?”

  Efraim took a sip of the erby, requiring Rowan to match him. “All this happened long ago. I know only what I have been told, and what the tales say. It grew warm. People became ill. Then they fled the Face, knowing the heat would grow greater still, and that the land itself would die.”

  “The land, die?” Rowan grew appalled. “I don’t understand.”

  “After Rendezvous, when the tribes returned to the Face, all plants were dead, all insects and animals.” He drank again, Averryl with him. “It was a bad thing. No one was sorry when it stopped, when Rendezvous stopped, so many years ago.”

  Fletcher’s face was a great wince of thought. “Everything was dead?” Belief was impossible.

  But Bel said slowly, “I don’t like this.” Her dark eyes, growing darker, were focused on some far distance.

  “Neither do I.” Rowan was doing the same as Bel, and ignored her next drinking prompt. “Efraim, how do you mean this: dead in what way? From drought?” But Rendezvous weather brought rain. “By fire?” She imagined the grass and plants on the Face aflame, eventually quenched by rain ...