The Steerswoman's Road (88 page)

Bel scanned the veldt. “What?”

He ignored her. “Look, you,” he said to the redgrass ahead, “I
understand. I sympathize with your, your natural caution. But if you think we’re
going to walk within two meters of you, you’re damn well mistaken!” He made a
wild gesture of dismissal. “Clear off!”

There was a pause, then a louder clatter among the
chattering of the redgrass, and a line of motion, departing. Rowan and her companions
continued on their way. Twenty feet later, Bel looked back, and Rowan did the
same: the Face Person was now standing, looking after them with a bemused
expression.

Bel said to Fletcher, “I hadn’t noticed him.”

“Spotted him earlier. Kept an eye on him.” He drew a long
breath. “Ladies,” he said tightly, “please, let’s just get out of here.”

Rowan filled four pages of her logbook with drawings and descriptions
of the Guidestar fragment; the pages were growing few, she dared use no more
than that. She sat by the fire, upwind from the cooking smoke, intermittently
pausing in her writing to hold up her palms to the warmth. Fletcher sat beside
her, making a show of reading over her shoulder purely to annoy her; but Rowan
thought that behind the joke, he was very much interested in what she was
doing.

Someone spoke his name: “Fletcher.”

He looked up. Rowan did the same; shading her eyes against
the sun, she saw Jaffry, dark and still, standing above them.

The young man pitched his voice somewhat louder: all could
hear. “Your sword needs a better master.”

Fletcher sighed, but his reply matched Jaffry’s tone. “And
you think that’s you?”

“I know it.”

“Well.” Unfolding himself, Fletcher stood. “Let’s find out,
shall we?”

“Who’s to signal the start?” someone asked. The duty fell to
a chief Rowan did not know well: Garris, tall and angular, with eyes like two
straight lines behind high cheekbones.

People began to arrange themselves. Averryl spoke quietly to
Fletcher. “You won’t have your left-hand advantage.” Jaffry also fought from
the left.

“I know.” Fletcher unstrapped his sword in its sheath and
handed it to Averryl.

“Jaffry’s a good all-around fighter, but you have a long
reach, and more weight.”

“Right.” Fletcher untied his vest, removed it, and slipped
off the wool shirt he wore beneath, passing both to his friend.

“Watch where you throw your limbs.” At this, Fletcher
grinned. “And you should take that thing off, too. It’ll get in the way.”
Fletcher’s cross.

Rowan had seen him without it only when making love.
Fletcher paused a moment, and Rowan thought to see a quick flash of fear on his
face. It vanished; he slipped the thong over his head, handed it to Averryl,
and spoke without humor. “Please don’t fuss with it. It’s sacred.” And he drew
his weapon from the sheath Averryl was holding.

Jaffry had also shed most of his clothing. Rowan took a moment
to study his physique. Each muscle was clearly defined, but of no great bulk. “Smooth
moves,” Rowan said to Fletcher. “He’s probably a very fluid fighter, very
controlled.”

“I’ve seen him. He is.” And Fletcher grinned again. “Perhaps
I can make him angry.” He put his right hand in the small of her back and drew
her up for a kiss. “Wish me luck.”

Rowan recalled Bel’s response when Rowan had wished her
luck, and provided it for Fletcher: “Ha.”

But when the fighters took their positions, she felt less
certain. Fletcher had fought and survived the attack of the Face People; but
she had not closely watched him fighting, could not extract the memories from
her own experiences in the wild heat of battle. She did not know if his skill,
even with a steel blade, was sufficient to defeat Jaffry.

It would be a shame if Fletcher lost his fine sword; despite
her wish to be confident in her lover, and her recognition of his very real
skills, she could not dispel the suspicion that Fletcher needed every possible
advantage to survive as an Outskirter.

The signal came, and Jaffry swung, then with a pivot of
wrists converted to an overhand blow; Fletcher moved to parry the apparent
maneuver, adjusting at the last second to meet the actual one. He let his sword
be driven down, then slithered it from beneath Jaffry’s, stepped left, and
found his own blow expertly parried. His blade was pushed farther aside than
one would expect for so long and strong a weapon; he was not surprised, but
followed it, with a half step to clear himself for Jaffry’s next swing. The
action looked awkward, but achieved its purpose. His sword was in place to meet
Jaffry’s next thrust, and when it did Fletcher discovered a small, unexpected
clear space to step into, at the last moment. It gave him a tiny piece of maneuvering
room, for a tiny maneuver that sent Jaffry’s weapon out of line for one brief
moment.

But the young man recovered and compensated instantly, apparently
without thought, without breaking his own rhythm. Fletcher had defended
himself, but gained no advantage.

Near Rowan, Chess grunted once. “Look at him,” she said
around an expression of reluctant admiration. “He’s doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“Scraping by.” And it was true.

Jaffry moved with pure grace, with perfect oneness of body
and weapon, his will and intellect directing the whole as a unit. Rowan could
see as clearly as if drawn on a chart: lines of force, from mind to muscle,
from muscle to weapon, the edge making flashing, clattering connection with his
opponent’s; and back from muscle to bone, from bone to earth. The young man
stood in the center of two directions, the perfect pivot point, with the world
on one side, the foe on the other. Jaffry’s strength was in grace, in balance,
in his unconscious comprehension of the physics of action.

Fletcher understood his sword, and what he wanted it to
do—and nothing else.

He thought with the edge and the point of his blade. He sent
his weapon where he wanted it to go, and his body followed or did not follow,
depending on his stance and direction of motion, sometimes flinging wild counterbalances
of arm, leg, throwing his weight into a blow, then with a dodging twist leaving
both body and sword to continue of their own momentum, wherever that might
lead—as long as the blade went where it needed to go.

And it did. It seemed too long a weapon to be directed so
lightly, to move so quickly. But it did what he asked of it.

Fletcher, all odd moves, scraped by, again and again.

He took a wild step back, made a feint at the length of his
reach. Jaffry saw opportunity to force Fletcher’s blade down, and made his
move; but Fletcher miraculously slipped his weapon free, spun it up and over,
struck hilt-to-hilt, twisted his blade once, disengaged. And he repeated the
maneuver, finding entry where there should be none

Rowan saw the logic of the move and smiled a small smile of
satisfaction: it was precisely what she would have done in Fletcher’s place.

Rowan began to enjoy the fight. She studied the action, imagined
the next moves, and saw them come into being as Fletcher again struck the weak
point on Jaffry’s blade before escaping easily from what ought to have been a
perfect trap.

Jaffry entered a set drill, a holding maneuver. He was
thinking, hard. Fletcher’s strategies were obvious to the young man, their execution
incomprehensible. Rowan realized with pleasure that she had an advantage over
Jaffry in understanding Fletcher’s style.

Then she realized of what her advantage consisted, and felt
a sudden, cold shock. Unconsciously, she took a step forward. Bel pulled her
back.

Jaffry set another trap, maneuvering Fletcher’s parries
inexorably toward a configuration that would permit one perfect flick of the
blade to disarm him. Fletcher willingly entered the trap, springing his weapon
free at the last instant.

Fletcher’s move looked awkward, seemed impossible—but
worked.

In the midst of a crowd of watching, enthusiastic people, in
the center of a village of skin tents, out on a grassy plain in the heart of the
wildest land—Rowan felt that there were two worlds present, separate but
contiguous. One was a world of people, going about the living of their lives;
persons known, admired, loved, two of whom were now engaged in a contest of
skill. The other was the world of pure action: force, motion, mass, momentum.
The worlds did not match.

Rowan stood dead still, staring in her mind’s eye at the
link between those two worlds. They did not match because the link itself was
a lie.

She wished to deny the lie’s existence. She wished to ignore
the irrefutable world of fact and action.

She was a steerswoman. She stepped into the world of fact,
holding the lie in her hands—and watched.

The fighters ceased to exist as persons; they consisted only
of the actions they made. It did not matter who fought or why. She shivered,
once, unconsciously, then gave herself to pure reason.

She saw that one fighter was slowly gaining advantage over
the other, and that the other could wrest that advantage from the first, by
using certain specific maneuvers. She saw some of those maneuvers become
manifest. The opponent faltered, regathered. A moment later, in the midst of
her calculations, she caught sight of one fighter’s face.

For the first time in Rowan’s experience that face, ever
before calm and controlled, displayed a pure, unequivocal emotion. It was
hatred. The steerswoman coldly added that fact to her analyses.

The fighter had been growing more angered throughout the contest.
Now his anger had crested and broken, and its source stood clear: hatred. For
the sake of hate, he was attempting to fight far beyond his own level of skill.
He found the new level; he entered it; he inhabited it. He began to take
brilliant risks. The risks paid.

The second fighter had noticed the hatred and faltered at
the force of it. The first took that moment to shift his body, to change to a tight
upstroke.

Just in time, the stroke was parried; but it was a stupid
parry, too close, with no room to recover and respond. It was an utterly foolish
maneuver, driven by panic. It was a move of reflex. It failed.

With cold clarity, Rowan reasoned under what specific alterations
of parameters that particular parry would have been successful.

The steerswoman was vaguely aware of a rise of sound from
the spectators. Beside her, Bel stiffened. “He shouldn’t draw blood!”

Rowan had not noticed. “What?”

Bel relaxed somewhat. “It’s only a nick. It can happen in a
sword challenge, by accident.”

What Rowan had noticed was a further disintegration of one
fighter’s style, an even greater focus in the other’s. The blood had been no
accident.

One of the fighters was failing; he was being driven back.
The other man pursued, pressed, sending his opponent’s sword into wilder and
wider defenses.

And then they were close again; and the failing man ought to
have pulled back. He was fighting in utter panic, Rowan understood. He had
completely reverted to trained reflex; he possessed some instinct that told him
that in this close situation he should move closer yet. He did so. The instinct
was wrong. His opponent made one small, quick motion.

The fighters paused; a pause seeming offhand, innocent, held
in an almost gentle silence.

Fletcher released his sword, and it dropped to the ground.
He took a half step back, then turned away. In the crowd, someone cried out,
then someone else. Fletcher took one more step, then fell to his knees, arms
wrapped tight about his body, hissing between his teeth in a choked, rising
tone, “Christ!” And Jaffry drew his blade back to strike again.

“No!” There was a hiss, a flurry of motion, a clash; and Bel
stood between the two men, with Jaffry’s sword stopped against her own. She
faced him from behind the crossed blades. “Have you gone mad?”

Jaffry halted. Trembling, he stared at her with wild eyes. “I’ll
kill him.”

“It’s not a blood duel!”

“It should be!”

“Then call it as one—if you can justify it!” She stepped
closer; he permitted it. “Justify it, Jaffry,” she said. “Do you want revenge?
Revenge for what?” Behind her, Fletcher was doubled over, gasping. Averryl
broke from the crowd to rush to his friend; Jaffry pulled away from Bel and
made for Averryl, who froze at the madness in the young man’s face.

Bel interposed herself again. With a visible internal shock,
Jaffry recognized her for the first time, and her face held him fascinated. He did
not blink, did not move. He shuddered, rhythmically, as if to his heartbeat.

Averryl was at Fletcher’s side, supporting him, calling out
for Man-der. Fletcher was making small, strange sounds and attempting to collapse.

“A blood duel for a wrong done,” Bel said to Jaffry, “or for
an insult too great to let pass: that’s warrior’s honor. But where’s the
insult? Or the wrong?” And she fairly spat the next words in fury: “Justify! Or
call this murder.” She tried to push his sword aside with hers; he resisted.
She spoke more carefully. “You cannot murder a warrior of your own tribe.”

Jann called out, “Fletcher’s no warrior!” Jaffry’s head
jerked at her voice, but his eyes stayed on Bel.

“He is,” Bel told her. “Your tribe named him so, and your
seyoh. You can’t have him fight and risk death for your tribe, then call him no
warrior. Perhaps he’s not the best warrior, but he is one, and he’s yours.” She
turned back to Jaffry and looked up at him, dark eyes on dark eyes. Her fury
melted. She said quietly, sadly, “Jaffry ... there’s no honor in this.”

He was holding his breath. He looked down. Then he dropped
his point and turned away.

Mander appeared. Fletcher had fainted; the healer tried to examine
the wound that Averryl was pressing with bloody hands, laid his fingers against
Fletcher’s throat, and peered at his eyes. He called for help, and the wounded
man was carried away.