The Steerswoman's Road (71 page)

“What did happen?”

Chess sighed, shifted, and uncrossed her legs, stretching
them out straight; for its age, her gnarled body seemed remarkably flexible. “Now,
I have this from my boy, who got it from Averryl, who filled in the spots where
Fletcher didn’t say much, which was most of it, except my boy had a few things
from Fletcher himself, so he figured out the rest and it makes sense in the
end.”

Rowan was extremely confused by the sentence and became
angry: at the state of her mind, at Chess for causing it, and at Outskirter custom
for enforcing it. She tried to remember who Chess’s “boy” might he. Then it
came to her: Mander. The necessary physical intimacy of healers with their
patients often inspired commensurate emotional confidences under other circumstances.
Between Mander’s information and that of Fletcher’s closest friend, the story
that would follow was likely the most accurate version available.

“As Fletcher tells it,” Chess continued, “they were coming
up on a swamp, with a kilometer between them, Mai ahead, at about two by
Fletcher. He didn’t see her go down, but he heard her shout, and he started to
go to her. And then she was screaming. And then she wasn’t.

“He killed the creature—he called it a mud-lion”—Rowan nodded,
remembering Fletcher’s descriptions of the swamp creatures—

“after a bad fight, but too late for Mai. She wasn’t dead,
but she couldn’t speak. And she didn’t know who Fletcher was. She couldn’t
think anymore, my boy says, from shock. She should have died right away, but
she didn’t.”

They drank again.

“Now, you know that I’ve seen plenty of blood, in my time.
But my boy, he didn’t like to tell it to me, how Mai died. Something about the
way the beast’s jaws worked—they don’t tear, they squeeze and cut at the same
time, sealing the wounds. The girl was in pieces, and there were plenty of
pieces.” She blinked at the image she created for herself, then dropped her
head a bit and spoke more quietly, looking up at Rowan from under her grizzled
brows. “She was cut through the middle, as well, still alive. So there she was,
just a piece of a girl, most of the top half, in the mud, looking around, dying
...” The old woman’s eyes fell, her voice faded away, and she sat, looking
blindly at the cup resting in her lap. It came to Rowan that the girl in the
story had been a real, living person, known to Chess since her birth.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Chess announced. She sat
up, recovering a degree of animation. “We’re supposed to be celebrating, and
here I am telling sad stories.” She ostentatiously took a long swallow.

Rowan pointedly did not do the same. “I want,” she said, “the
rest of this story. I like Fletcher. When I see him sad, I worry.” A small,
hazy corner of her mind was surprised at how true this statement was.

“I like him, too,” Chess said. “He’s peculiar, but I like
that. When you get to be my age, you learn that peculiar is good. Young people
don’t understand that.”

Rowan refused the digression. “The story,” she prompted.

Chess shook her head. “That’s all. Mai died, and Fletcher
just put his face east and started walking.”

“Planning never to return?”

“Planning nothing, I suppose. You’ve seen how he looks when
he remembers it.” Her voice became heavy. “Planning nothing, not even thinking.
Just walking away.”

Rowan tried to imagine it. It seemed like death. “But he
came back.”

“He came back.” Chess paused. “Fletcher is a good warrior.
Now, that is. I had my own doubts before. Since coming back ... it’s like he put
more of his heart into being a warrior. He takes it seriously. We lost Mai, but
we got a better Fletcher than we had before.” She puzzled a moment, made to
drink, then recalled that Rowan had not matched her. She waited, puzzling some
more. “Fletcher’s good now, but ... but in a strange way.”

“How so?” Rowan, conceding, drank; a smaller sip than perhaps
was polite.

Chess gave further thought to the question; it rated yet
another sip. “He doesn’t look good,” she said at last. “When you watch him walking,
you think he’s going to fall over his own feet. I’ve seen him practice, and he
just barely holds his own, though he does seem to have a lot of stamina. But
the thing is—” She leaned forward, tapping the rug for emphasis. “The thing is,
and I have this from Eden who had it from her girl”—Kree, Rowan remembered—“that
if you put him out on the circle, that position is damned well secure. If he
pulls duty as temporary scout, he’ll come back with good report, clear, full of
things he wasn’t asked to find out. He makes a lot of jokes, but don’t let him
fool you. He’s got good eyes, and a sharp mind, and sometimes he just
sees
things,
things other people miss—like your demon egg. He figures out exactly where to
go, and what to do, to get results. If he’s all alone and something happens, he
can deal with it.” She stopped, blinked. “Mind you, he’ll just barely scrape
by. But, see, that’s it, that’s it.” She became excited by her discovery of the
fact. “Any other warrior would be good straight off, or fail and die straight
off, but Fletcher scrapes by—all
the time.
It’s like you can always
depend on him scraping by, all the time.” She peered up at Rowan, at an angle. “That’s
useful. Do you see how useful that is? That’s useful.” She had begun to list to
starboard.

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 steers-woman 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.”

“Ask 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.