The Outskirter's Secret (44 page)

And Rowan nodded, and looked from one side of
the circle to the other. "There is famine on the Face.

"The Face, from all descriptions, is the most
difficult part of the Outskirts in which to live," she continued.
"But people can live there, and have done, for centuries. Until
recently. Until thirty-six years after a Guidestar fell."

"Thirty-six years later?" the blind woman
asked. "If the Guidestar did cause it, why so long a delay?"

"Famine cannot happen overnight," Kammeryn
pointed out.

"True," the steerswoman said. "But I don't
believe it was the Guidestar's falling that caused the famine.
Rather, the falling, and the famine, and the end of the killing
heat all result from the same thing, from the choice of one person:
the master wizard, Slado."

Now Bel took over, as planned. "The Face
People can't live out on the Face any longer," she said. "There's
not enough redgrass, no matter how hard they search, and strange
and deadly creatures are appearing. The Face People stayed and
fought as long as they could; then they moved west. They've come
here.

"There have always been battles over
pastures. But now there are more tribes, in the same pastures. The
land can't support us all. We'll be fighting constantly; and our
herds will dwindle from raiding. And we'll dwindle, too, from
battle, and later from hunger."

"We'll recover," the woman who had disagreed
before said. "The battles will end, eventually. The tribes that win
the battle will recover, eventually."

Bel turned to look her full in the eyes. "But
there's famine on the Face; what makes you think it will stop
there?"

There was silence as the seyohs considered
this. The moderator spoke, half to herself. "It would come here?"
She was visualizing it; she did not like what she saw.

"But," the long-bearded man wondered, "why?
Why would this wizard send a famine?" It was no longer argument,
Rowan noted, but distress.

"The famine," Rowan began, carefully, "might
not be intended; it might be a side-result—"

But Bel silenced her with a glare; and Rowan
subsided. "Rowan is cautious," Bel told the seyohs. "She's a
steerswoman, and she won't present anything as true if she isn't
certain of it. I'm not cautious. I'm a warrior.

"I don't know why Slado should stop the heat
on the Face, and I don't care. I care about this famine.

"Think of it: Why should Slado fight with a
blade or with blasts of magic, when he can fight with hunger
itself? He can save the blade and the spells for later, and attack
his enemies when they are weak. And if he can get us to kill each
other first, so much the better; fewer people, and weaker people,
are much easier to defeat, and to control.

"Slado
did
send the famine on us, and it's having exactly the effect he wants
it to. And he'll do more, and worse. We must not let him or his
wizards come to rule us like Inner Landers. We must fight, however
we can. And of all Outskirters, only I will know what to do."

There was more discussion, but to no good
purpose. All information had been presented; no further relevancies
could be discovered. Certain arguments already heard were repeated,
but in a new tone: not challenging, but querulous.

At last, the seyohs stated their decisions,
speaking in turn, around the circle.

The man with the braided beard spoke first.
"Should it ever happen that the time comes to act, and Bel sends
her names as signal," he said, "and if at that time I can see no
clear proof that Bel is mistaken—then, I will do as she says."

Bel was satisfied. "I cannot ask for more
than that."

The woman beside him said, "When Bel sends
her names, I will put the matter to my tribe's council. I will take
their wishes into consideration."

"It will slow your response," Bel pointed
out.

"Perhaps. But I will promise no more than
this."

The seyoh of Ella's tribe was next. "When Bel
sends her names, I will answer."

The Face Person was next in the sequence; but
he did not speak. He sat gazing inscrutably, not at Bel, but at
Rowan. She became puzzled.

The moderator ended the uncomfortable pause
herself. "I am very old," she said. "If Bel calls for me and my
people while I live, I will answer. But I cannot bind my successor
to my promise. I will tell my possible successors of my decision,
but he or she must decide for the tribe when the time comes."

"I am also very old," Kammeryn stated. "But
when the time comes for me to present my choices for successor to
the tribal council, I will choose only persons who will keep my
promise. When Bel calls, whether I live or not, my tribe will
answer."

Now all attention was on the Face Person; his
gaze passed once around the circle of faces and eventually settled
on Bel. He took his time in speaking.

"Bel, Margasdotter, Chanly," he said, "I
promise nothing to you." And without ceremony, he rose and
left.

B
el spent the
remainder of Rendezvous teaching her poem to four people, one from
each of the tribes that had agreed to her plan. Instruction was
conducted as a class, the students hearing and echoing first one
line, then entire stanzas, in unison. Jaffry joined the class on
occasion but, having the advantage of previous instruction, rarely
joined the recitations. He spent his time watching Bel, possibly
studying nuances of her delivery.

Rowan had never before seen her dangerous
companion in such a role. The work was painstaking, detailed, and
repetitive, but the Outskirter never showed boredom or impatience
with the students. She corrected errors straightforwardly, berated
no one, and simply repeated and corrected as many times as was
necessary.

Rowan watched for a time, but soon grew
bemused by the experience of hearing the events of her life
endlessly repeated in a droning monotone by strangers wearing
expressions of fierce concentration.

She spent most of her time with Fletcher.

Unable to discuss her aims and analyses with
Bel, Rowan found herself doing so with Fletcher. His earlier
dubiousness had vanished, and he was intensely interested in all
aspects of the matter. The conversations and explanations were
useful to Rowan; despite the fact that no amount of analysis
yielded further conclusions, the act of explanation, as always,
kept the interrelation of her facts clear in her mind.

On other occasions, they found other
occupation, to their mutual enjoyment. Once the tribe was on the
move, privacy would be impossible to find. Fletcher found several
opportunities to remind her of this, with predictable result; and
later, she took to reminding him.

On the last day of Rendezvous, Rowan and
Fletcher, by unspoken agreement, left their cloaks across the tent
threshold rather longer than was strictly necessary. They remained
together, quietly, as the clouds that had gathered at noon blurred
and misted above the sky flaps. Soon it would rain, and they would
need to rise to close the flaps; for the moment, they enjoyed the
quiet, the sense of distance from the tribe, and each other's
presence.

Rowan was resting her head on one hand,
observing the changing light, sensing the shift of weather,
watching and appreciating Fletcher's face: his long chin, his
narrow nose, his wide, wry mouth. It was a face made for laughter,
and she saw that in future years laughter would come to etch itself
in deepening lines across his forehead and around his wide blue
eyes. It would be a process she could enjoy watching.

But she found herself under similar scrutiny,
as Fletcher was studying her in turn; and the face made for
laughter showed wistfulness, a trace of puzzlement, and a measure
of sadness.

She had seen such an expression before and
thought she knew the question that would follow, which she could
answer only with the truth: She was a steerswoman, and steerswomen
never stayed for long.

But Fletcher surprised her. "I wish," he
said, running one finger down her arm, "I wish I could help
you."

"You can," she said. His eyes met hers with
blank surprise. "You'll have plenty of opportunity," she continued,
"escorting me back to the Inner Lands."

Surprise became hope. "You mean you want
me?"

Her reply, which contained no words, was
definitely in the affirmative.

When Kammeryn's tribe left Rendezvous, Efraim
accompanied them.

He traveled at Mander's side, sometimes
pulling the healer's train. Mander watched him sidelong; he seemed
to consider the man as a potential patient. Possibly with good
cause: although the Face Person pulled a full weight and seemed
never to tire, he was gnarled and scrawny, and looked as if he
might at any time seize up in knots, or collapse in fever.

At noon meal, a brief rest was called, and
Kammeryn took the opportunity to call Efraim aside and speak with
him at length. Other tribe members left the two alone.

"Kammeryn wants to be sure that Efraim will
fit in with the tribe," Mander explained to Rowan.

"He'll certainly have to give up some of his
unusual habits," she commented.

"I don't think that will be a problem," the
healer said, although his face showed less certainty than his
words. "He seems stolid on the outside, but I think he's a lot more
flexible than he seems." As they watched, the discussion ended, and
Kammeryn, on departing, reminded one of Chess's assistants that
Efraim had not been served yet. The woman nodded and took care of
the matter; Efraim watched her askance as she approached, and
stared after her, clearly astounded, as she left.

"He's still uncomfortable among women," the
steerswoman noted. Mander raised his brows. "He's not used to being
with them all day, every day. His people keep their women
apart."

"I wonder why?"

The healer made a disgruntled sound. "Safety,
if you want to look at it that way. They can't risk their women in
battle." He tapped his knee as he organized his thoughts. "I've
been talking to him. From what he says, the average Face People
woman becomes pregnant the same year her cycles first begin, is
pregnant every year after that, and dies before she's twenty, in
childbirth or miscarriage."

Rowan was shocked, then cursed under her
breath. "Gods below, that's no way to live . . ."

"Most of the pregnancies end with
miscarriage," Mander continued. "Most of the children born die in
their first year. They need about five live births to get one
surviving child. So it's keep the women alive, safe, or risk the
tribe. They chose the tribe."

With these facts as given, the Face People's
ways were merely a solution to the problem of survival. But the
steerswoman struggled in an internal battle between recognition of
necessity, and disgust. "Why so many miscarriages, and dying
infants? Are the mothers ill?"

Mander indicated the Face Person with a jerk
of his chin. "Take a look at our friend, there."

Rowan studied Efraim. With Mander beside her,
she could not help but compare him to the Face Person.

Mander was tall and hale; Efraim, stunted and
wizened. Mander was lean and smooth-muscled; Efraim's muscles stood
in cords and knots directly beneath his skin. If not for his
missing arm, Mander, at thirty-eight years of age, might have
nearly fifteen years as a warrior ahead of him. Efraim, at
twenty-two, looked to have less than ten.

"Now imagine a woman in the same state,"
Mander said, "and imagine her giving birth. Efraim has had a hard
life, in bad conditions, and starting before he was born."

"The famine did this?" Rowan asked.

Mander shook his head. "Famine makes it
worse. But his people have lived like this forever. Under the best
circumstances, the Face is a terrible place to live."

"But how dreadful can it be, at the edge of
the Outskirts?" the steerswoman asked; but Efraim's very body and
spirit provided her answer. Efraim sat quietly watching the world
about him, with the infinite patience and absolute physical
alertness of a wild animal, waiting for danger to appear.

"Have you ever walked through a large stand
of blackgrass," Mander asked her, "with it brushing against your
skin the whole while?"

"No . . ."

Mander held up the back of his own hand, as
if showing how it had once happened to him. "The skin gets red. If
you wash it off, it's no problem, but there's an irritant in
blackgrass. Get enough of it, and it's a poison. A little of it,
every day, across your life, and it does a slow damage."

"There's more blackgrass on the Face . . ."
And beyond lay the prairie, where no redgrass grew at all.

"Not only blackgrass," Mander went on, and
held out fingers as he counted. "Mudwort; poison on tanglebrush
thorns; any blue or yellow lichen—eat them and you die. The juice
of lichen-towers irritates, but it can actually build up enough to
kill you." He dropped the hand. "If the goats eat too much
blackgrass, they get ill. They don't make enough milk, and the milk
they have loses its fat; without enough milk and cheese, your bones
get soft. Eat too much meat from those goats, and you grow weak.
The goats' lives get short, your life gets short—you're both living
just at the edge of starvation."

"The Face People eat their dead," Rowan said;
and suddenly it seemed perfectly logical.

Mander nodded. "People are just another kind
of meat."

It was three days later that Efraim was
formally accepted into the tribe.

The tribe paused in its travel for one day,
and Efraim removed himself from camp before dawn; he would remain
alone on the veldt all day and return toward evening, symbolically
entering the camp for the first time.

It was traditional that he should offer gifts
to the tribe at this time, and under normal circumstances these
would be provided by his home tribe, if the shift of membership met
with his seyoh's approval. Efraim, with no home tribe, dug from the
veldt two lengths of tanglebrush root, suitable for converting into
swords.