Lois Bujold - Legacy

“Go along, fire-eater,” said Mari, sounding amused. “Take a rest till Dag gets back from the medicine tent. Go for a swim.”

Fawn hesitated. “In that big lake?” Naked?

Mari and Sarri stared at each other. “Where else?” said Sarri. “It’s safe to dive off the end of the dock; the water’s well over your head there.”

This sounded the opposite of safe to Fawn.

Mari added, “Don’t dive off the sides, though, or we’ll have to pull your head out of the mud like a plunkin.”

“I, um…” Fawn swallowed, and continued in a much smaller voice, “don’t know how to swim.”

Mari’s brows shot up; Sarri pursed her lips. Both of them gazed at Fawn as though she were a freak of nature like a two-headed calf. That is, even more than most Lakewalkers looked at her that way. Fawn reddened.

“Does Dag know this?” demanded Sarri.

“I…I don’t know.” Would being so readily drownable disqualify one from being a Lakewalker’s spouse? When she’d said she wanted to be taught how to go on here, she hadn’t imagined swimming lessons being at the top of anyone’s list.

“Dag,” said Mari in a definite voice, “needs to know this.” And added, to Fawn’s increasing alarm, “Right away!”

The Two Bridge Island medicine tent was in fact three cabins with its own dock a few hundred paces past patroller headquarters. It seemed not very busy this morning, Dag saw as he neared after dropping the cart at Stores. Only a couple of horses were hitched to the rails out front. Good. No pestilence this week, no patrols dragging home too many smashed-up comrades.

As he mounted the porch to the main building, he met Saun coming out. Ah, one smashed-up comrade, then—if clearly on the path to recovery. The boy looked well, standing up straight and moving only a little stiffly, although he was looking down and touching his chest gingerly. Saun’s face lit with delight as he glanced up and saw Dag, which turned to the usual consternation as he took in the sling.

“Dag, man! They said you were missing, then there was a crazy rumor going around you’d come back with the little farmer girl—married, if you can believe! Some people!” His voice trailed off in an oh as he took in the cord wrapping Dag’s left arm, just visible below his rolled-up sleeve and above his arm-harness strap.

“We got back yesterday afternoon,” said Dag, letting the last remark pass. “And you? Last I saw, you were bundled up in a wagon heading south from Glassforge.”

“When I could ride again, one of the Log Hollow fellows brought me up to rendezvous with Mari’s patrol, and they brought me home. Medicine maker says I can go out again when the patrol does if I rest up good the next couple of weeks. I’m still a little ouchy, but nothing too bad.” His stare returned to Dag’s left arm. “How did you…I mean, Fawn was cute and all, and she sure cheered you up, but…all right, there was the malice, maybe she…Dag, is your family going to accept this?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Saun fell silent in dismay. “If…what…where will you go?”

“That’s to be seen. We’ve set up our tent at Mari’s place for the moment.”

“I suppose that makes sense. Mari’s bound to defend her own…um.” Saun shook his head, looking wary and confused. “I never heard tell of anything like this. Well, there was a fellow they told me about down at Log Hollow. He got into big trouble a few years back for secretly passing goods and coin along to his farmer lover and her half-blood child, or children—I guess it had been going on for some time when they caught up with him. He argued the goods were his, but the camp council maintained they were the camp’s, and it was theft. He wouldn’t back down, and they banished him.”

Dag tilted his head.

“It was no joke, Dag,” Saun said earnestly. “They stripped him to his skin before they turned him out. In the middle of winter. Nobody seemed to know what had happened to him after that, if he made it back to her, or…or what.”

He was staring at Dag in deep alarm, as if picturing his mentor so used. Was Saun’s hero worship of Dag finally to be called into question? Dag thought it a good thing if so, but not for this reason.

“Hardly the same situation, Saun.” For one thing, it’s summer. “In any case, I’ll handle it.”

Taking this heavy hint—anything lighter would not have penetrated, Dag thought—Saun managed an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah, I suppose you will.” After a moment he added in a more chipper tone, turning the subject, “I’m something in the same line myself. Well, of course not with a…I’m thinking of asking Fairbolt for a transfer to Log Hollow this fall. Reela”—Saun’s voice went suddenly shy—“said she’d wait for me.”

Dag recognized that sappy look; he’d seen it in his own shaving mirror. “Congratulations.”

“Nothing is fixed yet, you understand,” Saun said hastily. “Some people think I’m too young to be, well. Thinking about anything permanent. But how can you not, when…you know?”

Dag nodded sympathetically. Because either snickering or pity would be a tad hypocritical, coming from him just now. Was I ever that feckless? Dag was very much afraid the answer was yes. Possibly even without the rider at his age.

Saun brightened still further. “Well. Looks like you need the makers more than I did. I won’t hold you up. Maybe I’ll stop by and say hi to Fawn, later on.”

“I expect she’d be glad for a familiar face,” Dag allowed. “She’s had a rough welcome, I’m afraid.”

Saun gave a short nod and took himself off. When in camp, Saun stayed with a family farther down the shore who had a couple of their own children out on exchange patrol at present; Dag gathered that the boy, away from home for the first time, did not lack for mothering.

Dag pushed open the door and made his way into the anteroom. The familiar smell of herbs—sharp, musty, deep, pungent—was strong today, and he glanced through the open door to the next room on this side to see two apprentices processing medicines. Pots bubbled on the fire, piles of dried greenery were laid out on the big table in the room’s center, and one girl busied herself with a mortar. They were making up packets: for patrols, or to be sold to farmers for coin or trade goods. Dag didn’t doubt that some of what he smelled would end up in that shop at Lumpton Market, at double the price the Lakewalkers received for them.

Another apprentice looked up from the table crammed up to the anteroom’s window, where he was writing. He smiled at the patroller, regarding Dag’s sling with professional interest. But before he could speak, the door to the other chamber opened and a slight, middle-aged woman stepped out, her summer shift cinched at the waist by a belt holding half a dozen tools of her trade. She was rubbing her chest and frowning.

The medicine maker looked up. “Ah! Dag! I’ve been expecting you.”

“Hello, Hoharie. I saw Saun coming out just now. Is he going to be all right?”

“Yes, he’s coming along nicely. Thanks to you, he says. I understand you did some impressive emergency groundwork on him.” She eyed Dag in speculation, but at least she refrained from comment on his marriage cord.

“Nothing special. In and out for a quick match at a moment he needed it, was all.”

Her brows twitched, but she didn’t pursue the point further. “Well, come on in, let’s have a look at this.” She gestured at his sling. “How in the world have you managed?”

“I’ve had help.”

Dag followed her into her workroom, closing the door behind them. A tall bed, onto which he’d helped lift more than one hurt comrade over the years, stood out in the room’s center, but Hoharie gestured him to a chair beside a table, taking another around the corner from it. He slipped his arm out of its sling and laid it out, and she pulled a pair of sharp scissors from her belt and began undoing the wrappings. Upon inquiry, he favored her with a much-shortened tale of how he’d come by the injury back in Lumpton Market. She ran her hands up and down the bared forearm, and he could feel the press of her ground on his own, more invasive than the long probing fingers.