The Steerswoman's Road

by Rosemary Kirstein

  Rendezvoused, you did it not only because your laws directed you to, but because if you stayed you would die.”

  He dropped his braid into his lap. “It is true.” And there was a puzzled stir among the listeners.

  “The heat,” Rowan said, “and the weather that followed it both ceased when the Guidestar fell.”

  “The Face People last Rendezvoused forty-eight years ago.” He carefully picked up his braid again and threaded it through his fingers; but now it was clearly a mannerism. “The Guidestar fell twelve years later, so you tell.”

  “And what was the heat like? Where did it come from?” She expected the questions to be refused; she did not care. Refusal, she believed, would only serve to convince the others of her conclusions.

  But he did not refuse. “No one stayed to see. At the first sign of the coming of the heat, all tribes would flee the Face.”

  “What was the first sign?”

  “It would grow warm. This was as it should be, when winter turns to spring. But it was a different heat, because although it was not strong, the people became ill, and the goats.”

  “Ill in what way ?” The tent walls rippled in the wind, stilled.

  “Pains in the head, and dizziness. The goats would vomit, and some weak people. If the tribe did not move soon enough, the ground became hot, and the air.”

  “And when you returned after Rendezvous, what did you find?” He paused, a pause intended to seem merely contemplative. “We found all living things dead.”

  There was silence within the tent. Outside, a group of children shouted in laughter, passed by, and were gone.

  Kammeryn spoke. “Dead by fire?” His voice was mild, his black eyes intent and unblinking.

  The Face Person did not reply until Rowan repeated the question. “No,” he told her. “No flame, no smoke.” At this Kammeryn leaned back, and his gaze narrowed in thought.

  “Dead with no marks on them?” Bel asked. He ignored her, studying the idle weaving motions of his hands. And it was a pose, Rowan understood; he was deeply disturbed and did not know how to conduct himself in this situation.

  The chairperson spoke disbelievingly. “This is impossible. Can you truly mean all living things?”

  The Face Person’s only reply was a flat stare, which she could not perceive.

  “Did nothing survive?” Rowan asked him.

  “Nothing,” he replied. “No plants. No insects. No animals.” Someone spoke in outrage. “How would your tribe support itself?” The tone implied that the speaker knew the answer.

  The Face Person gazed at the man with an expression of indifference so complete that it constituted derision. But Rowan pressed: she wanted the facts, in words. “By raiding?”

  “Yes. At first. Later, the land became alive again.”

  Rowan was confused. “The grass came back to life? And the animals?”

  “No. New grass. Redgrass is strong, grows quickly. And new animals: the Face People themselves, and their goats, returning with the grass.”

  “I see. Then: every twenty years, an inexplicable, destructive heat; every twenty years, strange and violent weather; every twenty years, Rendezvous.”

  “Yes. This is what I was told. I saw none of it myself. It was before my time.”

  He looked Kammeryn’s age; but Rowan was not surprised by his statement and merely asked, “And how old are you?”

  “I am forty-one years old.”

  Bel stepped in smoothly. “Then you can’t remember, as the other seyohs can, that the Rendezvous forty-eight years ago had had weather.”

  The third female seyoh spoke. “Bad weather and Rendezvous don’t always come together.”

  “But didn’t they, before the Guidestar fell?” Rowan countered. She and Bel had discussed this with Kammeryn before the meeting. “If you search your memory, and your songs, you’ll find that it’s so. Likely your tribe didn’t formally recognize the fact, as part of its tradition; but Bel’s tribe, living farther east, did. I believe that the closer one was to the Face itself, the more severe the weather. The connection would be much more evident to Bel’s people.”

  The man with the braided beard spoke true to form. “My people do not live on the Face. This heat is no concern of ours.”

  It was Bel who replied. “But the doings of wizards, that is. There’s more.” She addressed the Face Person. “The Face People have never come this far west before. Why are you here now?”

  He turned his flat gaze on her and did not answer, and Rowan felt her friend began to seethe at his refusal. But when the steerswoman cautiously prompted him again, he did reply. His expression did not change, nor did he raise his voice, but his words and tone were so suddenly vehement that all present startled. “I feed my people!”

  And Rowan nodded, and looked from one side of the circle to the other. “There is famine on the Face.

  “The Face, from all descriptions, is the most difficult part of the Outskirts in which to live,” she continued. “But people can live there, and have done, for centuries. Until recently. Until thirty-six years after a Guidestar fell.”

  “Thirty-six years later?” the blind woman asked. “If the Guidestar did cause it, why so long a delay?”

  “Famine cannot happen overnight,” Kammeryn pointed out.

  “True,” the steerswoman said. “But I don’t believe it was the Guidestar’s falling that caused the famine. Rather, the falling, and the famine, and the end of the killing heat all result from the same thing, from the choice of one person: the master wizard, Slado.”

  Now Bel took over, as planned. “The Face People can’t live out on the Face any longer,” she said. “There’s not enough redgrass, no matter how hard they search, and strange and deadly creatures are appearing. The Face People stayed and fought as long as they could; then they moved west. They’ve come here.

  “There have always been battles over pastures. But now there are more tribes, in the same pastures. The land can’t support us all. We’ll be fighting constantly; and our herds will dwindle from raiding. And we’ll dwindle, too, from battle, and later from hunger.”

  “We’ll recover,” the woman who had disagreed before said. “The battles will end, eventually. The tribes that win the battle will recover, eventually.”

  Bel turned to look her full in the eyes. “But there’s famine on the Face; what makes you think it will stop there?”

  There was silence as the seyohs considered this. The moderator spoke, half to herself. “It would come here?” She was visualizing it; she did not like what she saw.

  “But,” the long-bearded man wondered, “why? Why would this wizard send a famine?” It was no longer argument, Rowan noted, but distress.

  “The famine,” Rowan began, carefully, “might not be intended; it might be a side-result—”

  But Bel silenced her with a glare; and Rowan subsided. “Rowan is cautious,” Bel told the seyohs. “She’s a steerswoman, and she won’t present anything as true if she isn’t certain of it. I’m not cautious. I’m a warrior.

  “I don’t know why Slado should stop the heat on the Face, and I don’t care. I care about this famine.

  “Think of it: Why should Slado fight with a blade or with blasts of magic, when he can fight with hunger itself? He can save the blade and the spells for later, and attack his enemies when they are weak. And if he can get us to kill each other first, so much the better; fewer people, and weaker people, are much easier to defeat, and to control.

  “Slado did send the famine on us, and it’s having exactly the effect he wants it to. And he’ll do more, and worse. We must not let him or his wizards come to rule us like Inner Landers. We must fight, however we can. And of all Outskirters, only I will know what to do.”

  There was more discussion, but to no good purpose. All information had been presented; no further relevancies could be discovered. Certain arguments already heard were repeated, but in a new tone: not challenging, but querulous.

  At last, the seyohs
stated their decisions, speaking in turn, around the circle.

  The man with the braided beard spoke first. “Should it ever happen that the time comes to act, and Bel sends her names as signal,” he said, “and if at that time I can see no clear proof that Bel is mistaken—then, I will do as she says.”

  Bel was satisfied. “I cannot ask for more than that.”

  The woman beside him said, “When Bel sends her names, I will put the matter to my tribe’s council. I will take their wishes into consideration.”

  “It will slow your response,” Bel pointed out.

  “Perhaps. But I will promise no more than this.”

  The seyoh of Ella’s tribe was next. “When Bel sends her names, I will answer.”

  The Face Person was next in the sequence; but he did not speak. He sat gazing inscrutably, not at Bel, but at Rowan. She became puzzled.

  The moderator ended the uncomfortable pause herself. “I am very old,” she said. “If Bel calls for me and my people while I live, I will answer. But I cannot bind my successor to my promise. I will tell my possible successors of my decision, but he or she must decide for the tribe when the time comes.”

  “I am also very old,” Kammeryn stated. “But when the time comes for me to present my choices for successor to the tribal council, I will choose only persons who will keep my promise. When Bel calls, whether I live or not, my tribe will answer.”

  Now all attention was on the Face Person; his gaze passed once around the circle of faces and eventually settled on Bel. He took his time in speaking.

  “Bel, Margasdotter, Chanly,” he said, “I promise nothing to you.” And without ceremony, he rose and left.

  40

  Bel spent the remainder of Rendezvous teaching her poem to four people, one from each of the tribes that had agreed to her plan. Instruction was conducted as a class, the students hearing and echoing first one line, then entire stanzas, in unison. Jaffry joined the class on occasion but, having the advantage of previous instruction, rarely joined the recitations. He spent his time watching Bel, possibly studying nuances of her delivery.

  Rowan had never before seen her dangerous companion in such a role. The work was painstaking, detailed, and repetitive, but the Outskirter never showed boredom or impatience with the students. She corrected errors straightforwardly, berated no one, and simply repeated and corrected as many times as was necessary.

  Rowan watched for a time, but soon grew bemused by the experience of hearing the events of her life endlessly repeated in a droning monotone by strangers wearing expressions of fierce concentration.

  She spent most of her time with Fletcher.

  Unable to discuss her aims and analyses with Bel, Rowan found herself doing so with Fletcher. His earlier dubiousness had vanished, and he was intensely interested in all aspects of the matter. The conversations and explanations were useful to Rowan; despite the fact that no amount of analysis yielded further conclusions, the act of explanation, as always, kept the interrelation of her facts clear in her mind.

  On other occasions, they found other occupation, to their mutual enjoyment. Once the tribe was on the move, privacy would be impossible to find. Fletcher found several opportunities to remind her of this, with predictable result; and later, she took to reminding him.

  On the last day of Rendezvous, Rowan and Fletcher, by unspoken agreement, left their cloaks across the tent threshold rather longer than was strictly necessary. They remained together, quietly, as the clouds that had gathered at noon blurred and misted above the sky flaps. Soon it would rain, and they would need to rise to close the flaps; for the moment, they enjoyed the quiet, the sense of distance from the tribe, and each other’s presence.

  Rowan was resting her head on one hand, observing the changing light, sensing the shift of weather, watching and appreciating Fletcher’s face: his long chin, his narrow nose, his wide, wry mouth. It was a face made for laughter, and she saw that in future years laughter would come to etch itself in deepening lines across his forehead and around his wide blue eyes. It would be a process she could enjoy watching.

  But she found herself under similar scrutiny, as Fletcher was studying her in turn; and the face made for laughter showed wistfulness, a trace of puzzlement, and a measure of sadness.

  She had seen such an expression before and thought she knew the question that would follow, which she could answer only with the truth: She was a steerswoman, and steerswomen never stayed for long.

  But Fletcher surprised her. “I wish,” he said, running one finger down her arm, “I wish I could help you.”

  “You can,” she said. His eyes met hers with blank surprise. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity,” she continued, “escorting me back to the Inner Lands.”

  Surprise became hope. “You mean you want me?”

  Her reply, which contained no words, was definitely in the affirmative.

  When Kammeryn’s tribe left Rendezvous, Efraim accompanied them.

  He traveled at Mander’s side, sometimes pulling the healer’s train. Mander watched him sidelong; he seemed to consider the man as a potential patient. Possibly with good cause: although the Face Person pulled a full weight and seemed never to tire, he was gnarled and scrawny, and looked as if he might at any time seize up in knots, or collapse in fever.

  At noon meal, a brief rest was called, and Kammeryn took the opportunity to call Efraim aside and speak with him at length. Other tribe members left the two alone.

  “Kammeryn wants to be sure that Efraim will fit in with the tribe,” Mander explained to Rowan.

  “He’ll certainly have to give up some of his unusual habits,” she commented.

  “I don’t think that will be a problem,” the healer said, although his face showed less certainty than his words. “He seems stolid on the outside, but I think he’s a lot more flexible than he seems.” As they watched, the discussion ended, and Kammeryn, on departing, reminded one of Chess’s assistants that Efraim had not been served yet. The woman nodded and took care of the matter; Efraim watched her askance as she approached, and stared after her, clearly astounded, as she left.

  “He’s still uncomfortable among women,” the steerswoman noted. Mander raised his brows. “He’s not used to being with them all day, every day. His people keep their women apart.”

  “I wonder why?”

  The healer made a disgruntled sound. “Safety, if you want to look at it that way. They can’t risk their women in battle.” He tapped his knee as he organized his thoughts. “I’ve been talking to him. From what he says, the average Face People woman becomes pregnant the same year her cycles first begin, is pregnant every year after that, and dies before she’s twenty, in childbirth or miscarriage.”

  Rowan was shocked, then cursed under her breath. “Gods below, that’s no way to live ...”

  “Most of the pregnancies end with miscarriage,” Mander continued. “Most of the children born die in their first year. They need about five live births to get one surviving child. So it’s keep the women alive, safe, or risk the tribe. They chose the tribe.”

  With these facts as given, the Face People’s ways were merely a solution to the problem of survival. But the steerswoman struggled in an internal battle between recognition of necessity, and disgust. “Why so many miscarriages, and dying infants? Are the mothers ill?”

  Mander indicated the Face Person with a jerk of his chin. “Take a look at our friend, there.”

  Rowan studied Efraim. With Mander beside her, she could not help but compare him to the Face Person.

  Mander was tall and hale; Efraim, stunted and wizened. Mander was lean and smooth-muscled; Efraim’s muscles stood in cords and knots directly beneath his skin. If not for his missing arm, Mander, at thirty-eight years of age, might have nearly fifteen years as a warrior ahead of him. Efraim, at twenty-two, looked to have less than ten.

  “Now imagine a woman in the same state,” Mander said, “and imagine her giving birth. Efraim has had a hard life, in bad cond
itions, and starting before he was born.”

  “The famine did this?” Rowan asked.

  Mander shook his head. “Famine makes it worse. But his people have lived like this forever. Under the best circumstances, the Face is a terrible place to live.”

  “But how dreadful can it be, at the edge of the Outskirts?” the steerswoman asked; but Efraim’s very body and spirit provided her answer. Efraim sat quietly watching the world about him, with the infinite patience and absolute physical alertness of a wild animal, waiting for danger to appear.

  “Have you ever walked through a large stand of blackgrass,” Man-der asked her, “with it brushing against your skin the whole while?”

  “No ..”

  Mander held up the back of his own hand, as if showing how it had once happened to him. “The skin gets red. If you wash it off, it’s no problem, but there’s an irritant in blackgrass. Get enough of it, and it’s a poison. A little of it, every day, across your life, and it does a slow damage.”

  “There’s more blackgrass on the Face ...” And beyond lay the prairie, where no redgrass grew at all.

  “Not only blackgrass,” Mander went on, and held out fingers as he counted. “Mudwort; poison on tanglebrush thorns; any blue or yellow lichen—eat them and you die. The juice of lichen-towers irritates, but it can actually build up enough to kill you.” He dropped the hand. “If the goats eat too much blackgrass, they get ill. They don’t make enough milk, and the milk they have loses its fat; without enough milk and cheese, your bones get soft. Eat too much meat from those goats, and you grow weak. The goats’ lives get short, your life gets short—you’re both living just at the edge of starvation.”

  “The Face People eat their dead,” Rowan said; and suddenly it seemed perfectly logical.

  Mander nodded. “People are just another kind of meat.”

  It was three days later that Efraim was formally accepted into the tribe.