Lois Bujold - Passage

Upon reflection, Dag was not surprised to learn that Chicory’s troop had acquitted itself well upon the mud-men—hunting and killing bears and wild pigs would have trained them in both methods and daring. But Chicory’s face grew graver when he remarked, “Ugly as they was, they didn’t bother me near as much as those bogle-maddened farmers we met up with. Because they weren’t driven witless. It took you a little to realize they weren’t right in the head, because they walked and talked as if what they was doing was sensible, and they looked just like anybody else, too. You couldn’t hardly tell who was on what side, till they jumped on you, and then it could be too late. What we did find, though”—he rubbed his chin and frowned at Dag in the lantern glow and firelight—“was that if we rode in and grabbed up a few, and took ’em back south far enough, they’d come to their senses. We first found that out trying to capture one to make him talk. Got him far enough away and he talked, all right—not that you could make much sense of it through the crying. After that, we tried to catch as many as we could, and carry ’em away till they found their lost minds again. Wouldn’t any of them join us to go fight, after, though.”

Dag’s brows rose in increased respect. “I didn’t realize farmers could do that, on the edge of a malice war. Huh. That would be…good. Draw down the malice’s forces.”

“You took a chance,” said Remo in disapproval. “If you’d got too close to the malice, it might have caught your minds in turn, and then the malice’s forces would have been up, not down.”

Chicory said stiffly, “Seems to me such a chance would’ve overtaken a man sitting still, just the same.” He eyed Dag sidelong, and added, “I was never too fond of Lakewalkers, and the ones I’ve met have pretty much returned the favor—but I do admit, after last summer I don’t like blight bogles a whole lot more.”

The lead-in could not be spurned; Dag set Fawn to describing Greenspring again, as he did not think he could bear to. Fawn and Whit together managed a creditable explanation of groundsense and sharing knives. Barr and Remo listened with troubled faces to these deep Lakewalker secrets being bandied around; the boatmen, with expressions ranging from disturbed to disbelieving. Chicory, though, just grew quiet and intent.

Chicory seemed a village leader of sorts—if a terrible boatman—with initiative and wits enough on dry land to persuade friends and kin to follow him into discernible danger, for a good cause. His words, as well as the slices of his ground, gave Dag much to digest as he retreated with Fawn to their curtained nook. The bits of ground were converting far more readily than those of the mosquito or even the oats, nearly indistinguishable from an ordinary supporting or healing ground reinforcement. As with malices, it seemed people made the best food. Lakewalker cannibals, indeed. Neither Chicory’s ghost tales nor his war stories had unnerved Dag, but as Fawn cuddled into the curve of his body and drifted into sleep, that last reflection kept him awake for a long time.

The Fetch didn’t handle any worse for its added passengers, but neither did it handle any better, Dag noted the next morning as he took his turn on the roof. Hod was on the opposite oar and Whit at the rudder, very proud to be permitted to steer all on his own down this straight stretch. Berry would be coming up shortly to take over, as, she said, the next bend would bring them to one of the trickiest passages on the river. Berry had allowed a few of the Raintree flatties to volunteer for oar duty, but only one at a time and under her or Bo’s close supervision. The rest seemed willing to help out with the increased scullery chores their presence as inadvertent guests had caused, so except for the unavoidable crowding and the friction on the Lakewalkers’ groundsenses, a day more of their company seemed likely to pass pleasantly enough.

Since a chill wind funneled up the valley, with sunshine intermittent between the scudding blue-gray clouds, most everyone stayed inside near the hearth or curled up in nests amongst the stores. As Dag studied the river, two men in a skiff put out from a feeder creek beneath a bluff, rowing in their direction. When they pulled to within shouting distance, the older one rose up on one knee from his bench and hailed them, waving his hat.

“Hallo the boat!”

“How de’!” Whit called cheerfully in return. “What can we do for you fellows?”

“Well, it’s more like what we can do for you. That last flood messed up the channels all through Crooked Elbow something fierce! I’ll undertake to pilot you through safe.”

This was a common way all along the river for local men to earn a bit of coin. Berry, now that she’d come to trust her Lakewalker crew’s groundsenses, usually turned down such offers politely, though she did enjoy the exchange of river gossip that went with. Sometimes, the rowboats also brought out fresh food or other goods to sell or trade.

“I’m not the boat boss,” Whit called back, “but what do you charge?”

“Just ten copper crays to the Elbow. Twenty to the Wrist.”

A nominal sum, well worth it to the average boat given the time—or worse—that could be lost to an accident. Dag opened his ground, furled to block out the uproar of the crowd on the Fetch. And paused in his sculling.

“Huh,” he said to Hod and Whit. “That’s funny. One of those fellows is as beguiled as all get-out.”

“By a malice?” said Whit in alarm. Hod gaped curiously.

“No, there’s not a touch of blight-sign. He must have had some encounter with a Lakewalker, lately.” Dag stared as the men rowed nearer.

The beguiled man was middle-aged, shabby, rough-looking, a typical tough riverman. He hardly seemed the sort to have attracted the attention of some female Lakewalker lover. Perhaps he had less visible attractions, but his ground was certainly no brighter than the rest of him. He hadn’t been healed of any obvious injury lately. The other, Dag could imagine drawing a female eye: well built, young, open-faced, with crisp brown hair, and cleanly in his dress and bearing. But no beguilement distorted his ground, for all that it was furrowed by old stress. It was a puzzle.

“You can come up and talk to our boss, I guess,” Whit called down as the skiff came alongside. “I don’t think we need a pilot, but we have some things to trade, if you’re interested. Some real fine Glassforge window glass, to start.”

The skiff men waved apparent understanding. Hod shipped his oar and swung down to the bow to help them tie their boat and clamber up past the chicken pen. They both gazed around with interest. The pilot could have been watching his prospective customers approach for the past ten miles from a vantage on that bluff, Dag realized.

“Hey, Boss!” Hod called through the front hatch. “More visitors!”

Dag locked his oar and walked forward to the roof edge. He looked down to see the top of Berry’s blond head bob through. She stopped as if stone-struck; the tin cup in her hand fell to the deck with a clank and rolled disregarded, spilling a last mouthful of tea.

The handsome young man looked up at her with recognition in his gray eyes and, Dag would swear, a flash of horror.

“Alder!” Berry shrieked, and flung herself forward to wrap around the startled fellow nearly from top to toe. His arms hesitated in the air, then closed around her to return the hug. “Alder, Alder!” Berry repeated joyously, her face muffled in his shoulder. “You’re alive!”

Berry’s radiant joy seemed to light up the air around her; in contrast, Alder’s roiling ground darkened in consternation. Dag set his feet apart and stared down, hand on his jaw, fingers spread hard across his lips. What is this? Hod grinned uncertainly. Whit abandoned his steering oar and came to Dag’s side to peer over, his eyes widening in a suddenly set face.