Lois Bujold - The Sharing Knife - Beguilement

“Where did you go while I was milking?” Fawn finally asked him.

“Took a walk down to the river and back around. I am pleased to say there’s no malice sign within a mile of here, although I wouldn’t expect any. This area gets patrolled regularly.”

“Really?” said Fawn. “I’ve never seen patrollers around here.”

“We cross settled land at night, mostly, to avoid disturbing folks. You wouldn’t notice us.”

Papa Bluefield looked up curiously at this. It was quite possible, over the years, that not all patrols had passed as invisibly to him as all that.

“Did you ever patrol West Blue?” Fawn asked.

“Not lately. When I was a boy just starting, from about age fifteen, I walked a lot in this area, so I might have. Don’t remember now.”

“We might have passed each other all unknowing.” She looked thoughtful at this notion.

“Um… no. Not then.” He added, “When I was twenty I was sent on exchange to a camp north of Farmer’s Flats, and started my first walk around the lake. I didn’t get back for eighteen years.”

“Oh,” she said.

“I’ve been all over this hinterland since, but not just here. It’s a big territory.”

Papa Bluefield sat back at the table’s head and eyed Dag narrowly. “Just how old are you, Lakewalker? A deal older than Fawn, I daresay.”

“I daresay,” Dag agreed.

Papa Bluefield continued to stare expectantly. The sound of forks scraping plates was suddenly obtrusive.

Cornered. Must this come out here? Perhaps it was better to get it on the table sooner than later. Dag cleared his throat, so that his voice would come out neither squeaking like a mouse’s nor too loud, and said, “Fifty-five.”

Fawn choked on her cider. He probably should have glanced aside first to see she wasn’t trying to swallow anything. His fork-spoon hand was no good for patting her on the back, but she recovered her breath m a moment. “Sorry,” she wheezed.

“Down the wrong pipe.” She looked up sideways at him in muffled, possibly, alarm. Or dismay. He hoped it wasn’t horror.

“Papa,” she muttered, “is fifty-three.”

All right, a little horror. They would deal with it.

Tril was staring. “You look forty, if that.”

Dag lowered his eyelids in nonargument.

“Fawn,” Papa Bluefield announced grimly, “is eighteen.”

Beside him, Fawn’s breath drew in, sharply aggravated.

Dag tried, almost successfully, to keep his lips from curling up. It was hard, when she was clearly boiling so much inside she was ready to pop. “Really?”

He eyed her blandly. “She told me she was twenty. Although from my vantage, it scarcely makes a difference.”

She hunched her shoulders sheepishly. But their eyes connected, and then she had trouble not laughing too, and all was well.

Papa Bluefield said in an aggravated tone, “Fawn had an old bad habit of telling tall tales. I tried to beat it out of her. I should have beat her more, maybe.”

Or less, Dag did not say aloud.

“As it happens, I come from a very long-lived kin,” Dag said, by way of attempted repair. “My grandfather I told you of was still spry till his death at well over a hundred.” One hundred twenty-six, but there was more than enough mental arithmetic going on around the table right now. The brothers, particularly, seemed to be floundering, staring at him in renewed wariness.

“It all works out,” Dag went on into the too-long pause. “If, for example, Fawn and I were to marry, we would actually arrive at old age tolerably close together. Barring accidents.”

All right, he’d said the magic word, marry. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done something like this before, long ago. Well, all right, it had been nothing at all like this. Kauneo’s kin had been overpowering in an entirely different manner. The terror rippling through him felt the same, though. Papa Bluefield growled, “Lakewalkers don’t marry farmer girls.”

He couldn’t grip Fawn’s hand below the table for reassurance; all he could do was dig his fork into her thigh, with unpredictable but probably unhelpful results at the moment. He did glance down at her. Was he about to jump off this cliff alone or with her? Her eyes were wide. And lovely. And terrified. And…

thrilled. He drew a long breath.

“I would. I will. I wish to. Marry Fawn. Please?”

Seven stunned Bluefields created the loudest silence Dag had ever heard.

In the airless moment while everyone else around the table was still inhaling, Fawn said quickly, “I’d like that fine, Dag. I would and will and wish, too.

Yes. Thank you kindly.” Then she drew breath.

And then the storm broke, of course.

As the babble rose, Fawn thought Dag should have tackled her family one at a time instead of all together like this. But then she noticed that neither Mama nor Aunt Nattie was adding to the rain of objections, and truly, whenever Papa turned to Mama for support he received instead a solemn silent stare that seemed to unnerve him. Aunt Nattie said nothing at all, but she was smiling dryly.

So maybe Dag had been doing more than just thinking, all this day.

Fletch, possibly in imitation of Papa’s earlier and successful attempt to embarrass Dag about his age, came up with, “We don’t take kindly to cradle robbing around these parts, Lakewalker.”

Whit, his tone mock-thoughtful but his eyes bright with the excitement of battle, put in, “Actually, I’m not sure if he’s robbing cradles, or she’s robbing graves!”

Which made Dag wince, but also offer a wry headshake and a low murmur of,

“Good one, Whit.”

It also made Fawn so furious that she threatened to serve Whit’s pie on his head instead of his plate, or better still his head on his plate instead of his pie, which drew Mama into the side fray to chide Fawn, so Whit won twice, and smirked fit to make Fawn explode. She hated how easily they all could make her feel and act twelve, then treat her so and feel justified about it; if they kept this up much longer, she was afraid they’d succeed in dropping her back to age two and screaming tantrums right on the floor. Which would do just about nothing for her cause. She caught her breath and sat again, simmering.

“I hear Lakewalker men are landless, and do no work ‘cept maybe hunting,”

said Fletch, determinedly returning to the attack. “If it’s Fawn’s portion you’re after, let me tell you, she gets no land.”

“Do you think I could carry farm fields away in my saddlebags, Fletch?” said Dag mildly.

“You could stuff in a couple o’ chickens, maybe,” Whit put in so helpfully.

Dag’s eyes crinkled. “Be a bit noisy, don’t you think? Copperhead would take such offense. And picture the mess of eggs breaking in my gear.”

Which made Whit snicker unwillingly in turn. Whit, Fawn decided, didn’t care which side he argued for, as long as he could stir the pot and keep it boiling.

And he preened when folks laughed at his jokes. Dag had him half-wrapped around his thumb already.

“So what do you want, eh?” asked Reed aggressively, frowning.

Dag leaned back, face growing serious; and somehow, she was not sure how, commanding attention all around the table. It was as if he suddenly grew taller just sitting there. “Fletch brings up some very real concerns,” Dag said, with a nod of approval at Fawn’s eldest brother that puffed him up a bit despite himself. “As I understand it, if Fawn married a local lad, she would be due clothing, some furniture, animals, seed, tools, and a deal of labor to help set up her new house. Except for her personal gear, it’s not Lakewalker custom or expectation that I should have any of that. Nor could I use it. But neither should I like to see her deprived of her rights and due-share. I have an alternate plan for the puzzle.”