The Steerswoman's Road (47 page)

A year ago, a day,

Still too wise for the touch ...”

Melodic cadence and lyric resolution seemed to wrap around
each other. Rowan began to catch the sense behind the structure: an endless,
forward-moving spiral, as each element strove to complete itself, found itself
out of step with its partner, and so was impelled to continue.

“Her eyes now light in light on dark,

Her voice a silent, known and humming

In my heart only: wider, call and empty.

Her fingers pulse the edges of the sky ...”

The style of grammar was peculiar, the choice of metaphor
hardly comprehensible: the song seemed to use words in a fashion very different
from the usual. The steerswoman struggled briefly, then understood that a
hundred unheard implications echoed unperceived behind each phrase. She began
to listen more with her heart than her ears, grasping at the emotions that
trailed behind the words. First they seemed like moving shadows; then like
pastel banners of silk; then she understood how to hear the song, and its
images opened to her.

It was a love song, but the strangest she had ever heard.
The woman who was its subject seemed absent, though bound to return; but from
the manner in which the composer attempted to convey her nature, it was clear
that she was perceptible only to him, like a spirit, or a ghost, coming to him
alone, mysteriously.

“... I lose my days in days of days,

I know my time by nights of yes or no,

In going, stepping into dark,

And standing, marking yes or no ...”

Although the form was new to her, Rowan sensed that the song
was ancient, passed from voice to voice, altered subtly across the years. The
composer was as gone as his lover, as mysterious as she, known only to the
listener for the space of time that his words and music were lifted into the
night air by Bel. Defining his lover, he defined himself; showing what he
loved, he showed the most secret part of his soul, showed it easily and
willingly.

In all Rowan’s short life of only casual love, she found
herself for the first time wishing to know someone who would speak of her in
words like these.

“Until my own hands meet once,

And fleeting, learn her place among

The empty spaces I will arrange myself

Among the changes of the dark. I will

Find myself in waiting, forget I wait,

And what is known, unknown. When she is gone,

I am sole and only ...”

The flickering fire, the harsh, still faces vanished; but
Rowan remained aware of the forest, of the cool quiet atmosphere smelling of
greenness and water, of the sky where, amid the glittering stars of the
Fisherman, the Eastern Guidestar shone, a stark needle-point of light.

“ ... And she will tell me, when she speaks again: the cry

Of stars, the sweet of light, the secret tang of numbers.

When last I sang she smiled, and I will sing again

While all the world and winter rain complete,

Until fleeing has no home but her words,

Last known, last awaited, last spoken, last heard.”

The elements of structure approached each other, met: the
song ended.

There was a long silence, and Rowan rode on the silence as
if it were still song; it seemed endless, holding within it all the time needed
for the mind to reach across the wide world, across time and history. She felt
empty, but not diminished, as if all that lay in her heart had left her body to
become water, sky, the air itself.

She was a hollow reed, and the wind had blown through her,
the wind that circled the world, that had been everywhere and touched
everything and was still touching it. That wind had blown one pure tone through
her soul and departed, and she waited, disbelieving that it could be gone.

A motion brought her mind back to camp, leaving a piece of
her heart in the wilderness. Bel shifted from one foot to the other in a
fashion characteristic to her at the completion of a performance, smiled her
small smile, and crossed over to seat herself by Rowan’s knee.

The steerswoman studied her friend: a small, compact shape
of bone and muscle, fur and leather, poetry and violence. Beneath a shock of
short brown hair, the familiar dark eyes glowed in pleasure. Rowan shook her
head, amazed.

There was a scattering of ground-pounding Outskirter applause,
and Rowan looked across the fire for Jermyn’s reaction. He was gone. “What
happened to Jermyn?”

A man beside her replied. “Ran off.” And he reached behind
her to give Bel’s shoulder a friendly shove. “There’s a new way to do battle:
turn a man to an infant with a song, and send him crying.”

The steerswoman looked at him in shock. He had not been listening;
or, listening, had not understood. It did not seem possible.

“Better than swords,” one woman added with a laugh, lounging
back to lean on her elbows. “Easy victory, no blood to either side.”

Rowan found it difficult to control her distaste. “I don’t
believe that was the intention.”

Bel’s eyes flared. “That was The Ghost Lover,’” she informed
the woman stiffly. “Someone ought to have sung it, or something like it, so I
did.”

Hanlys joined the conversation. “It worked on Jermyn. Looked
like a ghost himself.”

Bel had altered the way she was sitting, becoming more
upright, more balanced. “It’s one of Einar’s songs,” she said coldly.

The woman who had spoken earlier indicated deprecating comprehension.
“I suppose they still sing those old songs,” she said, and made a vague gesture
intended to refer to the east, actually indicating south by southwest.

Rowan recognized danger in Bel and tried to redirect the conversation.
“Who’s Einar?” she asked.

“The first seyoh, from the oldest times we know. He made our
laws. And he was a poet, and a singer.”

“A legendary figure,” Hanlys put in, for the steerswoman’s
edification.

“Not only legend! He was a real person!”

The woman disagreed. “If he lived, why does no one have his
name in their line?”

“Because he loved a ghost! You can’t get children on a
ghost.”

The male warrior spoke under his breath. “Loved a ghost, ha.
Goat, more like, out there,” he said, and then events moved too quickly for
Rowan to forestall.

From her cross-legged position, Bel was on her feet in a
single fluid movement. Her sheathed sword had been on the ground beside her;
now the naked blade was in her hand. “Enough!” Light flickered on the weapon as
it moved: then, abruptly, it was standing alone, vertical, its point buried in
the earth by the fire, while its owner pointed an accusing finger that moved
slowly around the circle of faces, indicating each and every person singly. “This
is a challenge!” Fury filled Bel’s voice, a fury Rowan recognized: the fury of
battle. Bel’s dark eyes glittered, cold stars in a shadowed face. “Come
forward!”

Around the circle, puzzled faces stared, pale in the
shuddering yellow light.

Rowan sat frozen in disbelief. “Bel, are you insane ?”

“No!” Bel whirled back toward her. “No, this is too much!”

Rowan found herself at Bel’s side, inside the circle of
faces, one hand half reaching out to restrain her friend, held back only by the
knowledge that such an attempt would be very unwise. She pleaded. “No, it’s a
misunderstanding, it’s a difference of opinion—Bel, you can’t mean to fight all
of them!”

“I don’t have to. I fight one, that’s law.” Bel’s hand swept
the circle again. “Choose your champion, if you have one, if there’s one among
you can stand on two feet alone!” The warriors had not moved.

“You insult my customs,” Bel spat out, “you insult my
people, my tribe, my blood, my heroes and forebears. You insult the Outskirts,
you insult its air with your fetid carrion breath!” She whirled in the flickering
light, confronting the impassive faces, a wild storm awaiting release.
“Choose,
you vermin, you rodents, you dung-worms!”

From his position among the seated warriors, Hanlys cleared
his throat experimentally. “Pardon me, lady?”

Rowan could scarcely believe that she was being addressed. “Yes?”
He gestured. “We don’t need this.”

“Excuse me?”

He indicated Bel, somewhat apologetically. “Can’t you
control your friend?”

Rowan discovered that now it was she who was insulted. “She’s
not my servant,” she said, voice flat, “and she’s not my dog, either. She’s a
free woman and a warrior.” The steerswoman was suddenly, coldly calm. She
stepped back to her place among the warriors and sat. “I won’t interfere with
your traditions.” She said to Bel, “I wish you good luck.”

A single “Ha!” expressed Bel’s opinion of luck.

Murmurs passed between the faces, and Hanlys looked even
more uncomfortable. “Well.” He caught Rowan’s eye and, with a little shrug,
rose. “I’m sorry for this, lady.”

“No need. It’s between you and her.”

He winced. “Not quite.” His gaze flicked around the circle,
and he made a rapid series of small gestures.

Whether Bel understood the signals or merely recognized
their import, Rowan could not tell, but the Outskirter suddenly spun and
reached for her weapon. Then all warriors were on their feet, and one pair of
hands clutched for her sword arm, another stopped her left hand an instant
before it reached the hilt, and someone grabbed her from behind with an arm
around her throat, lifting her from her feet. Bel thrashed wildly, kicking out,
and connected with one man’s chest, another’s stomach, and then disappeared in
a mass of struggling forms.

None had drawn a weapon.

Rowan found herself standing alone, aghast, as a writhing
crowd worked its way away from the fireside, out between the standing tents,
off toward the edge of camp. Bel’s was the only voice raised, in furious,
inarticulate shouts. Then all vanished from sight.

Rowan followed the mob to the limit of the encampment. There
it struggled to a halt, reconfigured, and a thrashing thing was expelled into
the darkness. It came back instantly, flailing wildly: Bel, striking out with
both fists toward any person within reach. She received the same treatment as
before, as both arms were captured, by several people, and rendered harmless.
She was turned about forcibly, and again ejected. She came back. The process
was repeated.

“Lady? Rowan?”

Rowan turned. Jermyn stood before her, one arm looped
through the straps of two packs: Rowan’s and Bel’s. In his other hand was Bel’s
sword, now sheathed.

He glanced once at the melee and had the grace to look
deeply ashamed. “You’d better take these.”

“Will they hurt her?” Rowan almost believed it might be
better if they tried to.

“No. You both helped us. But they won’t let her come back.”

Rowan took the equipment, looking up into a face made large,
eyes made small, by tears. She suddenly wished not to leave him here, among
false comrades who mocked his pain. She wanted to ask him to come away.

But before she could speak, he stepped back. “Thank Bel for
the song,” he said, and was gone.

Rowan made her way to the edge of camp and circled around
the mob. Bel stood, darkness at her back, frustrated for the dozenth time. She
shook with fury, eyes full of murder.

“Bel.”

The Outskirter turned to her with a choked shriek of hatred.
Rowan fell back a step, then recovered, and stood quietly, holding out the pack
and sword.

Bel was a moment in recognizing her friend; then she took
the gear without a word, spun away, and tracked off into the night, leaving
Rowan to follow. Behind, the warriors dispersed, one by one.

“How safe is it, traveling in the dark like this?”

Bel was long in answering. “Not at all.”

They had walked some time in silence. The raider tribe’s
camp was already two miles behind, hidden by low brush and a small copse of spruce.
Looking back, Rowan saw no light; the fire was either blocked by trees, or had
been finally extinguished.

Before them, the landscape was a vague starlit sweep of
hilly meadow, with a dark loom of forest to the north, smaller blots of trees
scattered to the east. Rowan followed Bel, a half step behind and to the
Outskirter’s left. The steerswoman realized that they had exactly reversed
their usual positions. In the Inner Lands, Rowan had always led, a half step
ahead, on the right.

“Do you know this area?”

Bel replied with an expressionless “No.”

Rowan’s step faltered. “How are you guiding us?”

“By my ears.” The Outskirter paused, and both women listened.

A breeze rose, and the meadow grass hissed and visibly undulated,
rolling black shadows like fleeing beasts. Behind, the spruce and brush gave
out muted rattles, branches cushioned by leaves and green needles. Ahead: a
series of harsh high clatterings, like brittle brush bare of leaves. Three
sources of this sound: one nearby to the right, one farther away and straight
ahead, one distant and slightly to the left. When the wind shifted, Rowan could
hear from the forest to the north the sound of water over stones.

Eventually, Rowan asked, “What does a goblin sound like?”
Near the raiders’ familiar fire, the threat had seemed abstract, unlikely;
here, nearly blind, in unknown territory with both Guidestars weirdly shifted
west, she found the possibility disturbingly believable.

Bel provided the information reluctantly. “Alone, like a man
walking quickly.” She led on, angling to the right. “In a group, they call to
each other.” She stumbled on an unseen tussock, and Rowan managed to catch at
her arm and prevent her from falling.

“What sort of call?”

Bel recovered, readjusted her pack, and continued. “A sort
of rasping squeal, and a rattle.” A pause. “I’d imitate it, but I might draw
one.”