The Steerswoman's Road (67 page)

“Or maybe his god protects him,” Bel said, then knit her
brows at Rowan’s dubious expression. “You’re too quick to deny the gods, Rowan,”
Bel admonished the steerswoman.

“I’m not quick at all,” Rowan began, prepared to expand upon
the subject; but Jann forestalled the explication that would have followed. She
turned to Bel, speaking hotly.

“His god, ha! Did you hear what he said, that he found that
egg by almost putting his knee on it? He kneels to pray, Bel; you should think
of that. No warrior kneels to anyone. Not even to the gods.” She trudged in
silence for a long moment, then spoke as if to herself. “There are bad gods and
better gods. You fight the bad ones and deal with the better ones. But any man
who abases himself, even to gods, is no Outskirter.”

Bel agreed easily. “That’s true.”

Rowan was taken aback. “Didn’t you once say that one ought
to respect other people’s religions?”

“Yes. Because a person’s religion is a part of his own way
of honor. But this is different. When you belong to a tribe, the whole tribe is
depending on you to do your part. You have to do it right, or someone could
die. Your first honor is to protect the tribe.” She thought long; high above, a
pair of hawkbugs swooped, fighting for territory. Bel continued, uncertain. “I
don’t understand Fletcher’s god; it doesn’t sound right to me. If he were in
the Inner Lands, I wouldn’t think twice about it.

“But this is the Outskirts, and Fletcher is calling himself
one of us. If he follows this god, then whatever he does, he does for different
reasons than we do.” She became decided. “In the Outskirts, it’s Outskirter
ways that succeed. If Fletcher wants to be an Outskirter, then he ought to be
one completely.”

They walked in silence for a while. “It seems to me,” Rowan
hazarded, “that whatever his motivations, Fletcher is doing more good than
harm.”

From behind them, Jaffry made one of his rare contributions.
“So you say.”

* * *

When noon meal was passed out, Rowan took the opportunity to
drop back in the crowd, eventually falling in near Fletcher and Averryl.

She greeted them, then addressed Averryl. “How are you? Are
you feeling fit to fight? And if that counts as an Outskirter insult, please
accept my apology in advance.”

Fletcher laughed out loud; Averryl did not, but his gray
eyes crinkled. “It’s no insult. And you’d have to do a great deal, steerswoman,
for me to take any insult. I owe you and Bel my life.” He still carried no load;
but his steps were easier, his right arm swinging freely to their rhythm. His
left arm he carried close to his body, occasionally flexing his hand
unconsciously. The middle two fingers, slack, did not follow the motions of the
others.

Fletcher was walking with his sword drawn, its hilt tucked under
his right arm and its length braced along the forearm. He had a whetstone in
his left hand and was idly honing the weapon. “A metal sword,” Rowan observed,
with surprise.

“Yes, indeed.” He took a moment to study the edge. “Lovely
thing, isn’t it? Got it in Alemeth. Saved my pennies and commissioned the
swordsmith three streets over to make it for me. Went and watched him at his
work every day.” He grinned. “Bothered him no end.” He walked without looking
at his direction, and the warrior in front of him threw wary glances at the
exposed blade waving at her back. Fletcher ignored her, giving careful attention
only to the maintenance of his fine weapon, as he strode along in his
loose-legged lope.

All Fletcher’s actions carried excessive movement:
wide-armed gestures, turns of the body when a shift of the eyes would
do—sloppy, undisciplined motions. It was impossible to imagine him being a superior
fighter.

“Why have you never been challenged for your sword?” Rowan asked
unthinking, then immediately regretted the statement. It contained an implied
insult; that, if challenged, he would certainly lose.

He took no offense. “I was challenged about as soon as I arrived.”

The precision of his honing suffered as he warmed to his
story. “There

I was,” Fletcher began, “settling into my first day in camp,
and a huge strapping barbarian steps right up to me and starts complimenting me
on my weapon. And I’m trying to thank him without thanking him, because my grandfather
warned me about that. But if he’d warned me a little better, I would have known
what this fellow was leading up to; it’s all part of the form, see. So, I
finally get the idea, everyone needing to explain it to me first, and I still
wasn’t all that certain they weren’t just having me on.”

“But you fought him and won.”

“No,” he replied. “I fought him and lost. Took all of about
five seconds.”

“But—” And she indicated the sword.

He looked down. “Yes, right.” He resumed honing. “Well, I
made such a fool of myself that it was pretty obvious to everyone that I was
mostly useless, and not really a warrior at all. Then they all found out I hadn’t
gone walkabout, which meant that I was really a child. A little embarrassing.
But the best thing, all around, really.”

“And the warrior gave the sword back to you?” At this,
Averryl snorted a laugh.

“Lord, no!” Fletcher asserted. “You don’t waste a fine
weapon like this on a child.”

“But—”

He waved down her protest and indicated that she should let
him finish his tale at his own pace. “So,” he went on, getting back to work as
he spoke, “the warrior who took my sword starts following me around, giving me
suggestions, correcting my behavior when I do something particularly silly. He
even offers me fighting practice sessions, and before I know it, he’s become
my mentor. Eventually I learn enough to try to become a warrior. Now, when a
child is ready for walkabout—” He paused for the briefest moment, then
continued. “When a child goes walkabout, it’s customary for the mentor to give
him a gift.” And he smiled.

“Your sword.”

“Right. It was—well, it’s not usual to give something this
fine. He was a good teacher, and now he’s a good friend, and I’d be dead a hundred
times over, if it wasn’t for the things he taught me.”

“A thousand times over,” Averryl corrected.

“Really? That many?” Fletcher considered, with raised brows.
“Well, you know best, I’m sure.”

Rowan understood. “You were his mentor?” she asked Averryl.

The Outskirter shook his head sadly. “Someone had to he.”

Fletcher spared a glance from his honing to look down at the
steerswoman. “That’s right,” he said. “Averryl taught me, Averryl argued for
me when I came back, and Averryl recommended me to Kree when there was an
opening in her band. She thinks a lot of him; if she crosses the line before he
does, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he took her place.” At this, Averryl
looked politely dubious. Fletcher continued. “She wasn’t all that sure of me
at first, but I’ve held up my end, well enough, I think.”

“She speaks well of you,” Rowan informed him.

He smiled and made an expansive gesture with the hand that
held the whetstone. “It’s my charm,” he assured her. “Purely my charm.”

Rowan spent the next morning among the goats, which traveled in
two great streaming herds on either side of the tribe. As she was conversing
with one of the flockmasters, she recognized the angular form and
characteristic movement of Fletcher, on guard duty on the inner circle at
position eight. He greeted her with a wide wave, which earned him a silent,
energetic scolding from the relay, who had mistaken the gesture for a signal.

Rowan continued her discussion with the flockmaster, attempting
to discover more about the specific differences between Outskirter goats and
those living in the Inner Lands. She was considerably handicapped by a lack of
knowledge of farm goats, which she had frankly never thought to study.
Nevertheless, she thought she could discern differences other than appearance.

Outskirter goats seemed on the whole to be both more wary
and more sociable than their farm cousins. On her arrival among them, they
instantly converged upon her, then stood slightly back as she was submitted to
careful inspection by one fat and lively female. The flockmaster, a mertutial
named Kester, solemnly introduced the she-goat to her as “the Queen of
Nine-side.”

“She’s a nice old queen,” Kester told Rowan. “Doesn’t mind
stepping down to let me be queen goat, now and then.”

Rowan was amused. “Can a human male be a queen goat?”

“Oh, yes. Have to be, sometimes. And sometimes I’m a king
billy, and sometimes I’m a kid. Right now, I’m king; see the queen watching me?
If she doesn’t like what I’m doing, she’ll come and stare at me, ‘til I do
something else.”

Rowan and Kester strode along together, with the tribe
moving on Rowan’s right. She found she liked the sight; she liked movement, and
travel. Here was the equivalent of an entire town, all of them doing exactly
what she most enjoyed.

At first, walking among the flock, Rowan took pains to avoid
the puddles of goat muck. In this she was frustrated: the animals seemed to
defecate almost constantly. She soon gave it up as a lost cause.

“It’s the redgrass,” Kester informed her. “Runs through
them, fast as anything. And it comes out not much different from how it went
in. A goat’ll eat a day, maybe two days before it’s worked up enough to cud.”

Rowan’s scant knowledge indicated that this ought not to occur.
“Greengrass would probably serve them better.”

His hand swept the horizon. “Find some. They’ll thank you.”
Rowan laughed. “How does a goat thank someone?”

“By not crapping on your foot.”

At noon a brief rest was called. Adults dropped trains and packs
to sit in the dim sunlight that filtered through high, thin clouds. The children
arranged themselves on cloaks and trains, and instantly fell asleep.

Rowan wandered along the edge of their area, eventually coming
across two adults engaged in a homely, comfortable occupation: a woman, of
about Rowan’s age, was carefully combing out the long hair of an older man. The
woman herself wore her hair short, and by this Rowan knew her as a warrior, and
her companion as a mertutial. Warriors wore their hair short: men’s hair routinely
to the shoulders, although trimmed back from their faces; women’s sometimes
the same, but more often shorter still. When a warrior crossed the line, he or
she ceased to trim the hair in a fighter’s style. Length of hair was a good
indication of how long a person had been a mertutial.

As Rowan approached the pair, the man looked up at her. Something
in his eyes, in his posture, in the pure sunlit smile with which he greeted
her, made her alter her intended manner. “Hello,” she said with pronounced
cheerfulness, as though to a child. “I’m Rowan. What’s your name?”

“I’m Deely,” he declared, leaning forward to tell her, as if
it were an important statement. Then he leaned back with pleasure into the attentions
of the woman with the comb.

The warrior introduced herself. “Zo, Linsdotter, Alace.”
Sister to Jann, Rowan noted.

“Oh!” Hearing three names prompted the man. He closed his
eyes to think. “Delanno, Linson, Alace.” He opened them again and smiled. “Zo
is combing my hair.” Although his pronunciation was perfect, he spoke with the
careful separation of phrase common in the slow in thought.

“I see.” Rowan sat down beside the pair. Both had Jann’s
straight brows and thick hair: Deely’s a solid black, Zo’s a warm shade
lighter. “It looks like it feels good.”

“It does,” he said seriously. “It feels good.” He squirmed a
bit, to emphasize the point, and his sister said, “Stay still.”

Taking the usual Outskirter conversational opening, Rowan
asked, addressing Zo, “Whose band is yours?”

Deely replied for his sister. “No one’s. Zo is a scout.”

“That explains why I haven’t seen her before.” She exchanged
a glance with Zo, then continued with Deely. “Scouts stay out a long time, don’t
they?” She became interested in him, and in his presence.

“Real scouts stay out a long time,” Deely informed her. The
statement saddened him. “It’s very important.” He was quoting someone, who had
once spoken those words to him as explanation and reassurance.

“I see. But Jann and Jaffry don’t have to. I see them around
often.” She hoped he could find solace from Zo’s frequent absence by the presence
of other family members.

“They’re in Oro’s band.”

“Oro?”

“Orranyn. No one calls him Oro now.” Deely and Orranyn were
of an age; likely they had been childhood playmates. “Jaffry’s funny.”

“How so?”

“He doesn’t talk.” The idea caused him deep perplexity.

“I’ve heard him talk,” In very short sentences, with the
thoughts behind his words remaining unspoken.

Deely conceded the point. “Only a little.”

The grooming was finished, Deely’s hair a dark, rich fall of
midnight lying across Zo’s lap; should Deely stand, it would reach to his
knees. “Shall I fix it?” Zo asked.

“I’ll do it.” He reached up and buried his fingers in
darkness. Then, with astonishing speed, he quartered, subdivided, and nimbly
braided.

The skill of his hands prompted Rowan’s memory. “Of course!
You’re Deely, the weaver. I’ve seen your rugs. They’re very beautiful.” But,
rapt in his work, he had forgotten her presence.

Zo watched him with pride, then briskly applied the comb to
her own hair. “Deely makes rugs,” she told Rowan, “and ropes, and boxes.
Sometimes he helps Parandys with the dyeing.”

“Your job keeps you away from him,” Rowan observed. There
was clearly much love between the siblings.

Zo nodded. “It’s what I’m best at. But I do miss him. Jann
doesn’t understand him.”

“Jann—” Rowan began, and stopped herself. Here was an opportunity
to confirm her speculation about the source of Jann and Jaffry’s dislike of
Fletcher; but Zo, too, might share the feelings.