Lois Bujold - Legacy

Dag had scarcely paid attention to who was in the barrel on council this year, or to tell the truth any other year, and suddenly it mattered.

The council resolved most conflicts by open discussion and binding mediation. Only in matters involving banishment or a death sentence did they make their votes secret, and then the quorum was not the usual five, but the full seven. There had only been two murders in Hickory Lake Camp in Dag’s lifetime, and the council had settled the more ambiguous by ordering a payment between the families; only one had led to an execution. Dag had never yet witnessed a banishment like the one at Log Hollow that Saun had gossiped about. Dag couldn’t help feeling that there must have been a more unholy mess backing up behind that incident than Saun’s short description suggested. Like mine? Maybe not.

Dag had deliberately steered clear of camp gossip in the past days if only to avoid the aggravation, keeping to himself with Fawn—and healing, don’t forget that—but in any case he doubted very many of his friends would repeat the most critical remarks to his face. He could think of only one man he could trust to do so without bias in either direction. He made plans to seek Fairbolt after supper.

Fawn glanced up from the perfect coals in the fire pit to see Dag stride back into the clearing, his scowl black. She had never seen so much quiet joy in Dag as this afternoon out in the lily marsh, and she set her teeth in a moment of fury for whatever his brother had done to wreck his happiness. She also bade silent good-bye to her hope, however faint, that Dar had come as a family peacemaker, dismissing the little fantasy she had started to build up about maybe a dinner invitation from Dag’s mama, and what Fawn could bring and how she could act to show her worth to that branch of the Redwings.

At her eyebrows raised in question, Dag shook his head, adding an unfelt smile to show his scowl was not for her. He sat on the ground, picked up a stick, and dug it into the dirt, his face drawn in thought.

“So what did Dar want?” Fawn asked. “Is he coming around to us?” She busied herself with the bass, gutted, cleaned, stuffed with herbs begged from Sarri’s garden, and ready to grill. It sizzled gently as she laid it on the rack above her coals, and she stirred the pot of mashed plunkin with onions she’d fixed to go with. Dag looked up at the enticing smells pretty soon, his eyes growing less pinched, although he was still a long time answering.

“Not yet, anyway,” Dag said at last.

Fawn pursed her lips. “If there’s some trouble, don’t you think I need to know?”

“Yes,” he sighed. “But I need to talk to Fairbolt first. Then I can say more certainly.”

Say what? “Sounds a little ominous.”

“Maybe not, Spark.” Attracted by his supper, he got up and sat again by her, giving her neck a distracting nuzzle as she tried to turn the fish.

She smiled back, to show willing, but thought, Maybe so, Dag. If something wasn’t a problem, he usually said so, with direct vigor. If it was a problem with a solution, he’d cheerfully explain it, at whatever length necessary. This sort of silence, she had gradually learned, betokened unusual uncertainty. Her vague conviction that Dag knew everything about everything—well, possibly not about farms—did not stand up to sober reflection.

As she’d hoped, feeding him did brighten him up considerably. His mood lightened still further, to a genuine grin, when she came out from their tent after supper with her hands behind her back, and then, with a flourish, presented his new cotton socks.

“You finished them already!”

“I used to have to help make socks for my brothers. I got fast. Try them under your boots,” she said eagerly. “See if they help.”

He did so at once, walking experimentally around the dying fire, looking pleased, if a little mismatched in the boots with the truncated trousers that Lakewalker men seemed to wear here in hot weather, when they weren’t called on to ride.

“These should be better in summer than those awful lumpy old wool things you were wearing—more darns than yarn, I swear. They’ll keep your feet dryer. Help those calluses.”

“So fine! Such little, smooth stitches. I’ll bet my feet won’t bleed with these.”

“Your feet bleed?” she said, appalled. “Eew!”

“Not often. Just in the worst of summer or the worst of winter.”

“I’ll spin up some of that wool for winter later. But I thought you could use these first.”

“Indeed.” He sat again and removed his boots, drawing the socks off carefully, and kissed her hands in thanks. Fawn glowed.

“I’m going to help Sarri start to spin her plunkin stem flax tomorrow, now the retting’s all done,” she said. “These women need a wheel to speed things up, they really do. Surely a little one wouldn’t be so hard to cart back and forth, and we could all share it around the camp. I could teach them how to use it, give something back for all the help Sarri and Mari have been giving me. Do you think you could bring one back next time you patrol around Lumpton or Glassforge—or West Blue, for that matter? Mama and Nattie could make sure you got a good one,” she added in a burst of prudence.

“I could sure try, Spark.” And won her heart anew by not protesting a bit about the sight he would present hauling such an unwieldy object atop Copperhead.

She drew him into a promissory sort of cuddle for a time, but at length he recalled whatever Dar had brought to trouble him, and stood up with a sigh.

“Will you be gone long?” she asked.

“Depends on where Fairbolt’s got off to.”

She nodded, struggling to be content with the vague answer and what all it left out. The dark mood seemed to settle over his shoulders again like a cloak as he strode out to the road and vanished beyond the trees.

Dag tracked Fairbolt down at last at the end of a string of several campsites devoted to the extensive Crow clan on the western side of the island. Fairbolt took one look at his face and led him away from the noisy group of tents, crowded with his and Massape’s children and grandchildren, and down to the dock. They sat cross-legged on the boards. Fairbolt’s leathery skin was turned to blood-copper by the sunset light, which painted the silky wavelets lapping the shore purple and gleaming orange; his eyes were dark and unrevealing.

Dag drummed his fingers on the wood, and began, “I spoke with Dar a bit ago. Or rather, he spoke to me. He’s threatening to go to the camp council. What he thinks they can do, I can’t imagine. They can’t force a string-cutting.” He faltered. “He speaks of banishment.”

Fairbolt scarcely reacted. Dag continued, “You’re on the council. Has he talked to you?”

“Yes, some. I told him that was a bad plan. Though I suppose there could be worse ones.”

Dag braced himself. “What are folks saying, behind my back?”

Fairbolt hesitated, whether embarrassed to repeat the gossip or just organizing his speech Dag wasn’t sure. Perhaps the latter, for when he did begin, it was blunt enough. “Massape says some are cruelly amused to see Cumbia’s pride crack.”

“Idle talk,” said Dag.

“Maybe. I’d discount that whole line, except the more they make your mother squirm, the more she leans on Dar.”

“Ah. And are there other lines? Naming no names.”

“Several.” Fairbolt shrugged in a what-would-you? gesture. “You want a list? Naming no names.”

“Yes. Well, no, but…yes.”

Fairbolt drew breath. “To start, anyone who’s ever been part of a patrol that came to grief relying on farmer aid. Or who endured ingratitude rescuing farmers whose panic resulted in unnecessary patroller injuries or deaths.”