Lois Bujold - Legacy

Dag gave her a nod of greeting, his smile lopsided. “Hello, Omba. Brought you something.” He gestured Fawn forward; she held out the horseshoes.

Omba’s face lit, and she pounced on the prize. “Do I need those!” She came to a dead halt again at the sight of the cord on Fawn’s wrist, and made a choked noise down in her throat. Her gaze rose to Fawn’s face, her eyes widening in something between disbelief and dismay. “You’re a farmer! You’re that farmer!”

For an instant, Fawn wondered if there was some Lakewalker significance to Dag’s tricking Omba into accepting this gift from Fawn’s hands, but she had no time or way to ask. She dipped her knees, and said breathlessly, “Hello, Omba. I’m Fawn. Dag’s wife.” She wasn’t about to make some broader claim such as, I’m your new sister; that would be for Omba to decide.

Omba wheeled toward Dag, her eyebrows climbing. “And what does that make you, Dag Redwing Hickory? Besides head down in the slit trench.”

“Fawn’s husband. Dag Bluefield…To-Be-Determined, at this point.”

Or would the effect instead be to make Dag not Omba’s brother anymore? Lakewalker tent customs continued to confuse Fawn.

“You seen Fairbolt yet?” asked Omba.

“Just came from there. Saw Mari there, too.”

“You told him about this?” She jerked her head toward Fawn.

“Certainly.”

“What did he do to you?”

“Put me on sick list.” Dag wriggled his sling. “That was the To-Be-Determined part, or so I took it.”

Omba blew out her breath in unflattering wonder. But not, Fawn thought, in hostility; she hung on tight to that realization. It did not seem as though Dag had taken her advice to start with the hardest ones first. By later today, not hostile might yet look pretty good.

“What did Mari say to you all, last night?” asked Dag.

“Oh, there was a scene. She came in asking if we’d heard from you, which was a jolt to start, since you were supposed to be with her. Then she said she’d sent you home from Glassforge weeks ago, and everyone was worried you’d been injured, but she said not. Is that right?” She stared at the sling.

“Was at the time. I collected this on the way. Go on.”

“Then she had this wild tale about some cutie farmer girl being mixed up in your latest malice kill”—her eyes went curiously to Fawn—“which I barely believed, but now, hm. And that you’d jumped the cliff with her, which your mama hotly denied the possibility of, while simultaneously yelling at Mari for letting it happen. I kept my mouth shut during that part. Though I did wish you well of it.”

“Thank you,” said Dag blandly.

“Ha. Though I never imagined…anyway. Mari said that you’d gone off with the farmer girl, supposed to deliver her home or something. She was afraid you’d met some mishap at the hands of her kin—she said she was picturing gelding. That must have been some cliff. When Mari and your mama got down to arguing over lapses from twenty-five years back, I slipped out. But Mari took Dar down to the dock after, to talk private. He wouldn’t say what she’d added, except that it was about bone craft, which even your mama knows by now is the sign she’ll get no more from him.”

It seemed Mari was still keeping the tale of the accident to the second sharing knife close. Nor had the term pregnant turned up in relation to Fawn, at least in front of Dag’s mama. Fawn felt suddenly more charitable to Mari.

“Oh, Dag,” sighed Omba. “This is going to top anything you’ve done ever.”

“Look on the bright side. Nothing you can do ever after will top this. The effect might even be retroactive.”

She gave a bemused nod. “I’ll grant you that.” She slung the horseshoes onto some pegs on the nearest post, and held up her hands palm out in a warding gesture. “I think I’ll just stay out of this one altogether if you don’t mind.”

“You’re welcome to try,” said Dag amiably. “We were just over to the tent to drop our things, but it was empty. Where is everyone?”

“Dar went to the shack to work, or hide out. Mari was worried sick for you, and that shook him more than he was willing to let on, I think. She actually said I’m sorry to your mother at one point last night.”

“And Mama?” said Dag.

“Out on raft duty. Rationing plunkins.”

Dag snorted. “I’ll bet.”

“They tried to convince her to stay ashore with her bad back, but she denied the back and went. There will be no vile plunkin ear chucking today.”

Now Fawn was lost. “Rationing plunkins? Is there a shortage?”

“No,” said Dag. “This time of year, they’re worse than in season—they’re in glut.”

Omba grinned. “Dar still waxes bitter about how she’d nurse her supply through the Bearsford camp, like there was some sort of prize for arriving at spring with the most winter store still in hand. And then make you all eat up the old ones before allowing any fresh ones.”

Dag’s lips quirked. “Oh, yeah.”

“Did she ever go through a famine?” Fawn asked. “That makes people funny about food, I hear tell.”

“Not as far as I know,” said Omba.

She’s speaking to me, oh good! Though people wishful to vent about their in-laws would bend the ear of anyone who’d listen, so it might not signify much.

“Not that the choices don’t get a bit narrow for everyone by late winter,” Omba continued. “She’s just like that. Always has been. I still remember the first summer Dar and I were courting, when you grew so tall, Dag. We thought you were going to starve. Half the camp conspired to slip you food on the sly.”

Dag laughed. “I was about ready to wrestle the goats for the splits and the mishaps. Those are feed plunkins,” he added to Fawn aside. “Can’t think why I didn’t. I wouldn’t be so shy nowadays.”

“It is a known fact that patrollers will eat anything.” Omba twitched a speculative eyebrow at Fawn that made her wonder if she ought to blush.

To quell that thought, Fawn asked instead, “Plunkin ear chucking?”

Dag explained, “When the plunkin heads are dredged up out of the lake bottom, they have two to six little cloves growing up the sides, about half the size of my hand. These are broken off and put back down in the mud to become next year’s crop. Plunked in, hence the name. There are always more ears than needed, so the excess gets fed to the goats and pigs. And there are always a lot of youngsters swimming and splashing around the harvesting rafts, and, well, excess plunkin ears make good projectiles, in a reasonably nonlethal sort of way. Especially if you have a good slingshot,” he added in a suddenly warmly reminiscent tone. He paused and cleared his throat. “The grown-ups disapprove of the waste, of course.”

“Well, some do,” said Omba. “Some remember their slingshots. Someone should have given one to your mother when she was a girl, maybe.”

“At her age, she’s not going to change.”

“You’ve made a change.”

Dag shrugged, and asked instead, “How’re Swallow and Darkling?”

Omba’s face brightened. “Wonderful well. That black colt’s going to be fit to go for a stud when he’s grown, I think. He’ll fetch you a good price. Or if you finally want to trade in Snakebrain over there for dog meat, you could ride him yourself. I’d train him up for you. You two’d look mighty fine, patrolling.”

“Mm, thanks, but no. Sometime tomorrow or the next day, soon as I have a chance, I want to pull them out of the herd. I’ll get a packsaddle for Swallow, and Darkling can trot at her heels. Send them down to West Blue with my bride-gifts to Fawn’s mama, which I am fearsome late presenting.”

“Your best horses!” said Omba in dismay.