Lois Bujold - Passage

“Oh,” said Barr, relaxing. “That’s all right, then.”

“For some of us here,” said Dag dryly.

Whit, at least, looked as though he caught the full implications; his mouth went round. Whatever was Dag about, to plop out this admission here, now, in this company? Was it for Whit’s sake, or his own?

Fawn sat up straight. “Dag, this is morbid. You aren’t no more going to turn into a malice, or even into Crane, than Whit is going to turn into Little Drum. For that matter, I made that arrow Whit shot in that fellow’s eye, with my own hands, as strong and straight and sharp as Cattagus could teach me. And I made it for killin’—whatever needed killin’—because I figured it would be down to either the other fellow or Dag at that point, and I knew which I wanted it to be. Same goes for my brother, if you’ve any doubt.” She drew breath. “A knife, an arrow, ground-ripping, they’re all just different tools. You can kill a man with a hammer, for pity’s sake.”

The farmerly alarm around the table faded as folks digested this thought. Dag said nothing, though his tension eased; he cast Fawn that odd little salute of his, and a slow nod. Had he never thought of ground-ripping as a tool, before? Or only as some uncanny magical menace? Fawn loved him beyond breath, but there was no doubt his tendency to Lakewalkerish gloom could be awfully exasperating, some days.

Dag said, “So you see, Whit, if there’s an answer to your trouble, I haven’t found it yet either. As for the bow lessons, though I do enjoy them very much, they were never a game for me, not even when I was a tadpole Hawthorn’s size. They’re earnest training for earnest business.” He blinked and added, “Same as ground-veiling drills, come to think, which we’ve also neglected for the past week. I’ll see you two out on the deck tomorrow morning.” He tilted his head at Barr and Remo, who did not argue.

Dag went on, “I won’t invite you out to play a game, Whit—and Hod and Hawthorn, and the rest of you—but I will invite you out to continue your training. Because—as you’ve seen—you never know when you’ll need a skill, and more lives than your own may depend on it.”

“My papa used”—Berry’s breath caught, broke free again—“used to say, Nothing worth doing is fun all the time. But it’s still worth doing all the time.”

Whit gave her a crooked smile, and nodded.

The archery lessons commenced by lantern light as soon as the dishes were washed up. Fawn was pleased to see the company’s mood lift, with all the exercise and interplay and stretching of legs running up and down the riverbank, which had been her whole purpose for the proposition in the first place. So that part was all right.

She was more worried for Dag, as he wrapped himself around her and fell into exhausted slumber that night. They hadn’t made love since before the cave. If Fawn hadn’t watched Dag convalescing after Raintree, she might have feared it meant some dwindling of his affection, but she was clear this was only profound fatigue. Yet this time he hadn’t been physically injured, or blighted, or ground-ripped. He had put out ground reinforcements—and unimaginably more complex healing efforts—till he couldn’t stand up, though, and the tally of the strange ground he’d taken in, directly or as part of unbeguiling, was daunting. Skink, Chicory, Bo, Hawthorn, who knew how many boatmen; most of all, that big wedge of Crane.

Yet Fawn wasn’t sure but what Crane had done more damage with his poisonous tongue than his dubious ground. He’d sure tried, anyhow. Dag should have paralyzed that part of the renegade, too, she decided. Had Dag’s odd outburst at dinner been some belated response to Crane, or just general accumulation?

Dag’s ground had to be in the most awful mess just now, come to think. Like a house the day after some big shindig where all the neighbors and kinfolks came, and ate and danced and drank and fought till all hours and your least favorite cousin threw up on the floor. You couldn’t hardly expect to get any work done till you’d cleaned up the place again all tidy, and you couldn’t tackle that till the hangover passed off.

Upon reflection, Fawn was profoundly thankful that Dag showed no weakness for drink. Patrollers in their cups had to make the most morose drunks in the world.

She snorted and rolled over, cuddling in tight. Please be well, beloved gloomy man.

The next day the Fetch floated through yet more of the bleak, treeless, unpeopled country they’d been passing for the last hundred miles. Berry promised there would only be about another day of this, then the banks of the river would grow more interesting than these endless scrubby sand bars: strange new trees, still green in the dead of winter and bearded with moss, mysterious creeper—hung side channels, an abundance of birds. Fawn mainly wondered if they would see any of those scary swamp lizards of Dag’s, and if Bo’s tales about the snakes were true. By noon the air was warm enough to go up on the roof without a jacket or boat cloak, and Fawn joined Berry, Dag, and Whit to keep company and to soak up the pale but valiant sun. With no duty to watch ahead for hazards, she was the first to look behind them.

“Hey, is that a narrow boat comin’ downstream, or—or not? If it is, that’s the biggest narrow boat I ever did see.”

Dag swung around. A slim vessel some thirty-five feet long was rapidly overtaking them. Paddles flashed in the hazy winter light, ten to a side; the occupants kept up a song to unite the rhythm of their strokes. Distance muffled the words, but Dag seemed to smile in recognition.

Barr, whose own watch was coming up soon, came out and stared over the stern rail, a half-eaten apple in his hand. “Isn’t that a Luthlian boat?” he called up excitedly.

“Yep,” said Dag. “But those aren’t Luthlians paddling, exactly. Those are southern Lakewalkers, heading home from a couple of years of exchange patrol.”

“How can you tell?” asked Fawn. “Their clothes? Their ages?”

The big narrow boat was already shooting past them—a quarter-mile off but still in the channel, as the river was a mile wide at this point. Even at that distance Fawn could see the mix of strong, young men and women, laughing and leaning into their work.

“That, and the enthusiasm. Though if you were outrunning the Luthlian winter, you’d paddle hard, too. That’s twenty or thirty new patrol leaders over there, young veterans. See, there’re areas to the south that haven’t seen a malice emergence in two, three hundred years. But the rule is, you can’t be a patrol leader till you’ve been in on at least one malice kill, preferably more. For obvious reasons.”

Fawn, who had not only seen but made a malice kill, nodded perfect understanding. Barr, who hadn’t, looked envious.

“So the southern Lakewalkers export all their best young patrollers up the Gray for a couple of seasons. And hope they get them back.”

“Do the malices take so many?” asked Berry.

“No, actually. The biggest causes of losing young patrollers in—or to—Luthlia are accidents and the weather, and marriage. The malices are a long ways down the list. There are those who say the malices aren’t nearly as scary as the Luthlian girls.” Dag grinned briefly.

“Not you!” said Fawn.

“I was a much braver man, when I was young.”

Whit cocked his head, watching the narrow boat pulling out of sight south around a broad curve of the great river. “Hey, Dag—it just occurred to me. I never asked. What was your name up in Luthlia when you were married to Kauneo? Because it wouldn’t have been Dag Redwing Hickory Oleana, then. Dag Something Something Luthlia, right?”