The Outskirter's Secret (31 page)

Rowan took her delayed obligatory sip.
"That's useful," she agreed. With the story ended, her
self-enforced concentration began to slip. She felt pleased. She
liked Fletcher. Fletcher was useful. "It's good to be useful." She
decided that this was a deep observation; then decided that it was
a statement inane to a positively puerile degree; and then, because
it could hardly do more harm, drank again.

Chess did the same. "I like the boy," she
said. It took a moment for Rowan to realize that she meant not her
son, but Fletcher. "He makes me laugh."

Rowan sat amazed at the comment. She had
absolutely never heard Chess laugh. The idea was worthy of
examination. She paused to examine it at length, or at least seemed
to: she was certainly doing something with her mind, although she
could not quite identify what.

At some point she heard a sound and decided
that neither she nor Chess had made it. She turned her head to look
at its source, discovering that the action was very unwise
indeed.

She acquired a tilted, unstable view of Bel,
who was lying on her side on her bedroll, watching wryly. She had
cleared her throat to gain Rowan's attention, and now indicated
Chess with a lift of her chin.

Rowan turned back dizzily to find the
mertutial fast asleep, head dropped on her chest. "Sleeping sitting
up," Rowan observed. "A true Outskirter to the end." She blinked.
"What do I do with her?"

"She'll have to sleep it off." Bel rose.
"Let's put her in my place. I'll sleep in her tent."

Sometime in the night, Rowan was awakened by
the sounds of Kree's band returning to their beds. "What is that
racket?" Kree demanded. Rowan became aware of the sound: a raucous,
buzzing rattle. Chess was snoring.

"Dragon, by the sound of it," Fletcher
said.

"It's Chess," Rowan informed them, or tried
to: she discovered that her face was muffled in her blanket. She
cleared it and repeated the statement. It came out slurred, which
annoyed her.

"If that's Chess," Averryl said, "where's
Bel?" Rowan heard him undress and climb into his bedroll on Chess's
far side.

She attempted to control her speech more
precisely. "She's sleeping in Chess's tent. Because Chess is
sleeping here tonight."

"No Bel?" someone asked, seeming amused by
the concept. Four voices from various parts of the tent commented
simultaneously: two "Ah"s, one "Oho," and one half-audible
"Ha."

Rowan intended to ask what was meant by the
comments, but fell asleep before the words reached her mouth.

She was shocked awake by swooping whoops,
cracking cackles, a number of pounding stomps—

Rowan opened her eyes to dimness, her body
heavy from the motionless sleep of the drunk. The tent was sweetly
warm, her rough blanket comforting. She had no desire to move, and
would be satisfied to stay in place all day—if only that impossible
din would cease!

The sounds were joined by laughter and
indecipherable comments pitched at a humorous level. Rowan rolled
over and rose with difficulty; she felt that her brain consisted of
viscous fluid possessed of a slow, independent momentum. She
discovered that she was still completely dressed, and, resigned to
action, she plodded out into the painful sunshine.

Outside: a crowd of laughing people, and more
watching from nearby tents. Among them, a figure draped in a
swirling cloak, turning and flapping with delight. "Oho," a voice
declared, "someone loves me, and loves me true, that's for sure!"
Rowan came closer.

It was Chess, lively and nimble despite the
previous night's debauch. The cloak she wore was a delight to see,
its patches, black and white, worked into a bold diagonal design,
flashing before the eyes as she alternately spread and swirled it.
It was clearly designed for camp-wear, and not for a warrior while
on duty; it was eye-catching, immediately identifiable, from its
clear pattern to its ties of bright blue braided wool.

Rowan found Fletcher nearby. "What's
happening?" Looking up at his height caused her eyeballs to
throb.

He grinned down at her. "Looks like Chess
found a courting gift."

"But—" It certainly was not intended for
Chess. "Can she do that?"

Fletcher assumed a wide-eyed, innocent
expression. "I didn't see anyone else claim it." He laughed.

Chess's uncharacteristic sociability was
explained. She had known, or suspected, that the next gift would be
very fine indeed, and that it, too, would be refused. By spending
the night in Kree's tent, she was technically as eligible as the
gift's intended recipient. Rowan grinned wryly at the old woman's
cleverness: Chess had acquired a lovely possession, prevented its
likely destruction, and quite probably put an end to the clearly
unwelcome petitions of the giver.

"You look awful." It was Bel, studying her
with amused sympathy.

"Thank you so much," Rowan replied. "Far be
it from a steerswoman to deny the truth. I feel exactly as bad as I
look."

"She needs food," Fletcher told Bel.

"And fresh air," Bel replied to him. "Perhaps
a little easy exercise."

"They're looking for people to hunt goblin
eggs in the pasture."

"That's perfect."

"Actually," Rowan put in, "I thought of
spending the day in bed."

They ignored her. "She slept straight through
dinner last night," Bel said.

"So she did. I'll fetch her some breakfast.
You walk her around a bit."

"To the cessfield and back should do it."

"Right." He loped off. Bel nudged Rowan's arm
and led her away. Rowan, with a wry grin, permitted herself to be
ushered.

As they walked, the steerswoman recalled
something. "Bel, that cloak was meant for you."

The Outskirter stopped short, her brows went
up, her wide eyes grew wider, and she weaved from side to side in
thought; a total effect comical enough to make Rowan laugh out
loud.

"How do you know?" Bel asked.

"By some odd comments in the tent last night,
from Kree's people."

"Do you know who left it?"

Rowan smiled. "I have no idea at all. Have
you?"

"None." Bel became satisfied; they resumed
walking. "It's just as well that Chess took it, then. I hope it
serves her well."

"
A
sk me why
I'm following you around," Fletcher said.

Four days had passed, and Rowan had already
become restless. But the tribe would be in place for at least two
weeks, and the steerswoman had no choice but to remain until they
moved again.

On this day, she dealt with her restlessness
by wandering among the flock in Fletcher's company, wading through
the still-deep grass between the camp and the inner circle. The
late-morning sky was bright, a cool clear crystal above the
shifting, rippling red—a phenomenon still rare enough in Rowan's
experience of the Outskirts that she intended to make the most of
it.

She sauntered along in the sunlight, Fletcher
beside her, or perhaps she beside him; the lengths of their strides
did not match. Sometimes she was ahead, sometimes he.

She decided to humor him. "Why are you
following me around?"

He paused a moment to apply his knee to the
ribs of a browsing goat, which was disinclined to give way. "Well,
actually, I'm enjoying it. But the fact is, I've been told to." He
grinned down at her and shook a finger. "Call yourself a
steerswoman; you're supposed to notice things. Haven't you noticed
that you've had someone beside you every minute today?"

"No, I haven't," she replied, bemused.

"Now ask me where Bel is."

Rowan stopped in her tracks. "Where's Bel?"
Her companion had risen before her. Rowan had not seen her yet that
day.

Fletcher pointed north. "Last night one of
the scouts found signs of another tribe. Bel's gone to talk to
them."

Rowan looked in the direction indicated:
forty goats scattered among the sweeping redgrass, some seen only
by the disturbance they made in the rolling pattern. In the
distance, a single warrior at position ten.

Rowan resumed walking, annoyed. "I'd like to
have gone with her."

Fletcher's eyes and mouth apologized.
"Letting strangers stay among us is one thing. Letting them wander
off to talk to a tribe that might be hostile, whenever they want
to—that's dangerous."

"But Kammeryn let Bel go."

He raised a finger, amused. "But
you're
still here."

She stopped again, and her jaw dropped. "I'm
a hostage?" It seemed impossible, considering the friendship she
had begun to share with these people. Then she viewed it again,
from the brutal perspective of the Outskirts, and saw that it was
entirely sensible.

"Let's just say," Fletcher told her, "that
we're going to take very good care of you, until your friend
returns." He began walking again. Rowan took half again as many
steps as his, to catch up.

"I suppose it's to reassure the people who
are bothered by Kammeryn endlessly extending your stay," he
continued. "But if you really want to talk to the next tribe
yourself, you could probably reverse things, next time. Bel could
stay here."

"I don't know. I think Bel will do the best
job of convincing other Outskirters. This is her work, really, and
not mine." She watched her feet for a moment. "But I'd like to help
her."

"From the sound of it, you have." He was
momentarily distracted, as the man at ten signaled inward to the
relay, then continued. "She wouldn't be doing anything at all, if
it weren't for you. She wouldn't have found out about the
Guidestars, or the wizards . . ." He acquired an uncomfortable
expression.

"You still don't quite believe it."

"Rowan, there's nothing
for
a wizard here," he said, then thought. "Nothing
I know about," he amended.

A small incongruous shuddering in the
redgrass caught Rowan's attention: a handful of reeds, showing
color out of pattern. She angled toward it.

Reaching the spot, she parted the grass and
at first saw nothing, then saw a motionless irregular lump, brown,
gray, and black. As she watched, the object shifted jerkily, then
teetered.

Fletcher was stooping beside her. "What is
it?" It was a mound, apparently consisting entirely of dead
insects. Fletcher prodded it with one shaggy boot. "Stuck
together?" The mass shifted, then suddenly trundled itself away, in
a panicky amble. Fletcher laughed out loud, recognizing it.

Rowan stepped into its path, causing it to
halt. "Is it a harvester? It seems too big." It bulked to half the
height of her knee.

"Greedy fellow!" Fletcher stooped down to
address his admonishment to the living insect buried beneath the
dead. "Think you can get all that home? Think you can
eat
it all?" The load tilted up; a
tiny black-and-white head turned glittering red eyes first on
Rowan, then on Fletcher, then vanished; the entire mass rotated in
place; and the ambling escape resumed, somewhat accelerated.

Fletcher noted the direction it took. "Ho,
watch out," he advised the harvester. "That way's the
cessfield!"

"I should think he'd find plenty of bugs to
harvest there," Rowan said, as the grass closed behind the clumsily
fleeing insect; then she abruptly realized that that was not the
case. In retrospect, she could not recall ever having seen any
insects in the tribe's waste area. "Insects, as well?" she
questioned herself, aloud. In the Outskirts, human presence seemed
to result in an inordinate amount of destruction. She turned to
Fletcher.

She made to speak, then saw his head go up,
like a listening dog's. He began to rise, stopped.

"What?" Rowan looked where he was looking,
rising herself to see over the grass tops.

The guard at ten had just completed a signal
and had turned away. Rowan prompted Fletcher again. "Motion on the
veldt" was his distracted reply.

"Outside the circles?"

The guard signaled outward, turned, then
signaled inward. Fletcher stood and looked back to camp for the
reply. " 'Has it stopped?' " he read, then turned to see the guard
again. A pause. " 'Yes.' "

"That's good," Rowan said.

He knit his brows, watching. "No . . . no, it
isn't . . ." He startled; his hand made a movement toward the sword
hilt at his shoulder, then paused.

"What?"

"The scout is gone."

"Gone?"

"Maud. She may have dropped into hiding." He
stood quivering, head high, all attention outward. Rowan looked
around. Nothing visible had changed.

The wind was from the north. A scout in
hiding must move to remain concealed, else the grass waves would
break around her, showing her position to possible enemies. Maud
would be approaching the tribe.

In the windy quiet of the veldt, Rowan's
heart beat hard, twice. She watched the guard at ten. There were no
signals; he stood in Fletcher's pose, waiting. She watched
Fletcher's face and learned more. A dozen possibilities were
passing through his mind; his face showed each. His body wanted to
move.

He made a sudden, quiet sound of shock, then
a choked cry. His long arm flailed up to his sword.

"What is it?"

"Outer nine is down!"

"Down?"

"It's an attack!" And he took two loping
strides away.

Rowan moved without thinking and found
herself back at his side, her sword in hand. "Where do we go?"

"We—" He spared her a glance, then stopped so
suddenly that he stumbled; he recovered, and stood staring at her,
aghast.

Rowan grabbed his free arm and pulled. It was
like trying to move a tree. "Come on! What do we do?"

He was a moment finding his voice.
"Nothing."

"We have to help!"