The Outskirter's Secret (48 page)

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."

R
owan 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 Mander. 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.

Rowan watched them depart, noting the event
as pure fact, mere information. She remained where she was.

Warriors muttered and mertutials cast
sidelong glances at each other. Abruptly Jann stepped forward,
reached down. "Here," she said to her son, and handed him what she
had retrieved.