Lois Bujold - Passage

Captain Osprey blinked, rocking back. “Then are you also the same Dag Redwing who led the Hickory Lake company to Raintree a couple of months ago, and took down that horrendous malice they had running wild over there?”

Dag set his teeth, briefly. “I was Dag Bluefield by then, ma’am.”

“Fairbolt Crow’s report on Raintree in the latest patrol circular named a Captain Dag Redwing.”

Oh, so that was how the word had got around. Yes, there had been time for such official patrol news to have slipped ahead of Dag while he was lingering in West Blue. Fairbolt kept up. “Then Fairbolt named me wrong.” At Amma’s rising brows, he offered, “Habit, maybe. I patrolled under him for eighteen years as Dag Redwing. I was in his company even before he became Hickory Lake’s camp captain.”

“Eh. So what is this other matter?”

Dag hesitated.

Amma made an impatient gesture. “Spit it out and get it over with. It can’t be worse than the rest of my morning.”

Dag nodded, trying to get over the jolt of having his recent reputation run before him, even if some of it was no doubt due to Saun’s exaggerations. But perhaps it would do him some good. “I left Hickory Lake on business of my own, after—as a result of—the Raintree campaign. I expect to travel a lot of territory in the next few months. I used my last primed knife on the Glassforge malice, and haven’t yet found another. You don’t have to be on patrol to run across a malice—when I was riding courier alone up in Seagate, I once took out a new sessile that might have grown a lot more dangerous before anyone had got back to it with a patrol. I made it a rule after that never to walk bare. I know sometimes folks leave their primed knives to the patrol generally, to outfit patrollers who have none. I was wondering if you happened to have any such”—his eye fell uncomfortably on the broken bone knife on the table, and avoided Remo’s face—“spares. Just now.”

The camp captain crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you get one before you left Hickory Lake, then?” The skirted woman’s expression seconded the question.

Because he’d still been reeling, sick and heartsick, exhausted. Not thinking. “I hadn’t yet settled my plans.”

“What plans?” asked Amma.

“I figure to take the rivers down to Graymouth. Ride back in the spring. After that, I’m not sure. I might be able to return the loan then, if I don’t cross a malice.” And if he did, and used the knife, no one would ask for a better fate for it. His voice softened. “I promised my wife I’d show her the sea.”

The skirted woman touched her lips. “Wait up. Are you also that same Dag Redwing who was just banished from Hickory Lake Camp for consorting with some farmer girl?”

Dag’s head shot up. “I was not banished! Where did you hear such a lie?”

“Well”—she waved a hand—“not banished, precisely. But the camp council circular didn’t make it sound like a happy outcome.”

Buying a moment to gather his wits and his temper, Dag touched his temple, and said stiffly, “You have the advantage of me, ma’am.”

The skirted woman gestured at herself. “Nicie Sandwillow. Pearl Riffle Camp council leader, this season.”

Therefore a senior tent head, that being the pool from which council members were selected by various sorts of rotations, depending on the camp. With the patrol’s camp captain always a permanent member. Dag wondered if the ferry boss was also a permanent member, here. It seemed likely. Making this morning’s inquiry doubly efficient, serving the patrol and the council at once. But it meant that one of Nicie Sandwillow’s tasks was to receive and pass along critical council news from around the hinterland of Oleana, just as Captain Osprey received patrol news. Dag said carefully, “The Hickory Lake council was deeply divided on my case—”

“So there was a charge.”

Dag overrode this. “Pakona Pike, our—Hickory Lake’s council leader this past summer—was not on the side favorable to my arguments. But I can’t believe she’d twist the facts that much.”

“No, not if the facts are that you came in alone, late from a leave, dragging some farmer girl with the pair of you wearing Lakewalker wedding braids that you’d somehow cooked up together, claiming she was your wife and not just your whore. The letter warns all camp councils to watch out for similar trickery.”

Grimly, Dag rolled up his left sleeve. “I say they’re valid cords, and so did a lot of others. Including Fairbolt Crow. See for yourself. Fawn made this one.”

A flicker of grounds touched him, felt the spark of Fawn’s live ground in her cord, drew back. The women looked nonplussed, the two sagging young patrollers confused. It was like the hearing at Hickory Lake all over again, and Dag was bitterly reminded of why he’d left.

“And Fawn isn’t just some farmer girl,” Dag went on, growing more heated. “It was her hand slew the Glassforge malice, with my knife. Or I wouldn’t be alive now to tell it. It was a scramble, I admit, but I can’t believe the tale you had was this distorted, because Saun knew the truth of it, and so did Reela.”

“Hm.” Amma Osprey rubbed her chin. “I believe the scramble part.”

Dag bit out, “This is beside the point. Do you have a spare knife to lend, or not?”

“Good question, Dag Redwing-Bluefield-whoever,” said Amma. “Are you still a patroller, or not?”

Dag hesitated. He could claim to be on the sick list, or pretend to be on long leave. Or disciplinary leave, they’d believe that! But in the midst of all these aggravating half-truths, he refused to lie. “No. I resigned. Although Fairbolt made it clear that if I ever wanted to un-resign, he’d find a place for me.”

“And your farmer, ah, woman?” asked Nicie Sandwillow.

“That was the sticking point. One of them.”

Amma eyed the gaping, hurting young patrollers, now leaning on each other and looking ready to cave on their feet. Dag was sorrier than ever for their witness of this, because Amma would certainly trim her judgment with an eye to making an impression on them. At least, Dag would never have missed such an opportunity, when he’d been a patrol leader. She said, “Such knives are bequeathed in trust for the patrol, specifically the Pearl Riffle patrol. I can’t very well ask the dead if they want to make an exception. As their guardian, it’s my duty to conserve them—especially as they seem to be needed here.”

Remo flinched.

Them, implying she was not down to her last primed knife. She might lend one and still not strip her patrol’s reserve bare. But not to me. Not today. Dag had the frustrating sense, watching her face set, that if he’d arrived with the same request yesterday, before this trouble with the boatmen had broken out over at Possum Landing, the balance of her decision might well have tipped the other way. He let his gaze cross the two miserable miscreants with new disfavor.

There were other sources, other Lakewalker camps downriver. He would simply have to try again elsewhere. “I see. Then I’ll not take more of your time, captain.” Dag touched his hand to his temple and withdrew.

Fifty paces up the slope from the Pearl Bend wharf boat, Fawn craned her neck as the wagons halted in front of a plank shed. It seemed to be trying to grow into a warehouse by budding, add-ons extending in all directions. Whit jumped down from the lead wagon to help Hod hobble over to a bench against the front wall, displacing a couple of idlers that Mape, after a prudent sobriety check, promptly hired to help unload his fragile cargo. To Fawn’s surprise, they only shifted the top layer of slat boxes from her wagon; after that, Whit climbed up with them and Tanner took the reins to turn the rig toward the river.