Lois Bujold - The Sharing Knife - Beguilement

Even so, there’s no telling they missed anything; that malice might well not have been hatched out yet.”

“I’m not looking to lay blame,” said Mari mildly.

“I know.” Dag sighed. “Now, as for neglected sections…” His lips peeled back in a dry smile. “That was more revealing. Turns out all sections within a day’s ride of Glassforge that can be patrolled from horseback are up-to-date, or as up-to-date as anything, meaning no more than a year overdue. What’s left are some swampy areas to the west and rocky ravines to the east that you can’t take a horse through.” He added reflectively, “Lazy whelps.”

Mari smiled sourly. “I see.” She scratched her nose. “Chato and I figured he’d lend me two men, and we’d both send out sixteen-groups, dividing up the neglected sections between us. He and I are both going to be stuck here arguing with Glassforgers about what we’re due for our recent work on their behalf, so I’d thought to put you in charge of our patrol. Give you first pick of sections, though.”

“You’re so sweet, Mari. Waist-deep wading through smelly muck, with leeches, or sudden falls onto sharp rocks? They both sound so charming, I don’t know how I can decide.”

“Alternatively, you can roll up your sleeves and come help me arm wrestle with Glassforgers. That works exceptionally well, I’ve noticed.”

Fawn, who had set down the map and was following the talk closely, blinked at this.

Dag grimaced in distaste. In his list of personal joys, parading their wounded to shame farmers into pitching in ranked well below frolicking with leeches and barely above lancing oozing saddle boils. “I swore the last time I put on that show for you, it would be the last.” He added after a reflective moment, “And the time before. You have no shame, Mari.”

“I have no resources,” she returned, her face twisting in frustration.

“Fairbolt once figured it takes at least ten folks back in the camps, not counting the children, to support one patroller in the field. Every bit of help we fail to pull in from outside puts us that bit more behind.” “Then why don’t we pull in more? Isn’t that why farmers were planted in the first place?” The argument was an old one, and Dag still didn’t know the right answer.

“Shall we become lords again?” said Mari softly. “I think not.”

“What’s the alternative? Let the world drift to destruction because we’re too ashamed to call for help?”

“Keep the balance,” said Mari firmly. “As we always have. We cannot ever let ourselves become dependent upon outsiders.” Her glance slid over Fawn. “Not us.”

A little silence fell, and Dag finally said, “I’ll take swamps.”

Her nod was a bit too satisfied, and Dag wondered if he’d just made a mistake.

He added after a moment, “But if you let us take along a few horse boys from the stables here to watch the mounts, we won’t have to leave a patroller with the horse lines while we slog.”

Mari frowned, but said at last, reluctantly, “All right. Makes sense for the day-trips, anyway. You’ll start tomorrow.”

Fawn’s brown eyes widened in mild alarm, and Dag realized the source of Mari’s muffled triumph. “Wait,” he said. “Who will look after Miss Bluefield while I’m gone?”

“I can. She won’t be alone. We have four other injured recovering here, and Chato and I will be in and out.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine, Dag,” Fawn offered, although a faint doubt colored her voice.

“But can you keep her from trying to overdo?” Dag said gruffly. “What if she starts bleeding again? Or gets chilled and throws a fever?”

Even Fawn’s brow wrinkled at that last one. Her lips moved on a voiceless protest, But it’s midsummer.

“Then I’ll be better fit to deal with that than you would,” said Mari, watching him.

Watching him flail, he suspected glumly. He drew back from making more of a show of himself than he already had. He’d had his groundsense closed down tight since they’d hit the outskirts of Glassforge yesterday, but Mari clearly didn’t need to read his ground to draw her own shrewd conclusions, even without the way Fawn glowed like a rock-oil lamp in his presence.

He rolled up his chart and handed it to Mari. “You can have that to tack on the wall downstairs, and we can mark it off as we go. For whatever amusement it will provide folks. If you hint there could be a bow-down when we reach the end, it might go more briskly.”

She nodded affably and withdrew, and Dag put Fawn to work helping him restack the contents of the trunk in rather better order than he’d found it.

As she brought him an armload of stained and tattered logbooks, she asked,

“That’s twice now you’ve talked about planting farmers. What do you mean?”

He sat back on his heels, surprised. “Don’t you know where your family comes from?”

“Sure I do. It’s written down in the family book that goes with the farm accounts. My great-great-great-grandfather”—she paused to check the generations on her fingers, and nodded—“came north to the river ridge from Lumpton with his brother almost two hundred years ago to clear land. A few years later, Great-great-great got married and crossed the western river branch to start our place. Bluefields have been there ever since. That’s why the nearest village is named West Blue.”

“And where were they before Lumpton Market?”

She hesitated. “I’m not sure. Except that it was just Lumpton back then, because Lumpton Crossroads and Upper Lumpton weren’t around yet.”

“Six hundred years ago,” said Dag, “this whole region from the Dead Lake to nearly the southern seacoast was all unpeopled wilderness. Some Lakewalkers from this hinterland went down to the coasts, east and south, where there were some enclaves of folks—your ancestors—surviving. They persuaded several groups to come up here and carve out homes for themselves. The idea was that this area, south of a certain line, had been cleared enough of malices to be safe again.

Which proved to be not quite the case, although it was still much better than it had once been. Promises were exchanged… fortunately, my people still remember what they were. There were two more main plantations, one east at Tripoint and one west around Farmer’s Flats, besides the one south of the Grace at Silver Shoals that most folks around here eventually came from. The homesteaders’

descendants have been slowly spreading out ever since.

“There were two notions about this scheme among the Lakewalkers—still are, in fact. One faction figured that the more eyes we had looking for malice outbreaks, the better. The other figured we were just setting out malice food.

I’ve seen malices develop in both peopled and unpeopled places, and I don’t see much to choose between the horrors, so I don’t get too excited about that argument anymore.”

“So Lakewalker’s were here before farmers,” said Fawn slowly.

“Yes.”

“What was here before Lakewalkers?”

“What, you know nothing?”

“You don’t have to sound so shocked,” she said, obviously stung, and he made a gesture of apology. “I know plenty, I just don’t know what’s true and what’s tall tales and bedtime stories. Once upon a time, there was supposed to have been a chain of lakes, not just the big dead one. With a league of seven beautiful cities around them, commanded by great sorcerer-lords, and a sorcerer king, and princesses and bold warriors and sailors and captains and who knows what all. With tall towers and beautiful gardens and jeweled singing birds and magical animals and holy whatnot, and the gods’ blessings flowing like the fountains, and gods popping in and out of people’s lives in a way that I would find downright unnerving, I’m pretty sure. Oh, and ships on the lakes with silver sails. I think maybe they were plain white cloth sails, and just looked silver in the moonlight, because it stands to reason that much metal would capsize a boat. What I know is the tall tale is where they say some of the cities were five miles across, which is impossible.”