Lois Bujold: Legacy

It was a patrol, trotting in double file, very much as Fawn had first seen Mari and Dag’s troop ride into the well-house farm what was beginning to seem a lifetime ago. This bunch looked fresh and rested and unusually tidy, however, so she guessed they were outward bound, on their way to whatever patch of hinterland they were assigned to search for their nightmare prey. Most of them seemed to recognize Dag and cried surprised greetings; with his reins wrapped around his hook and his other arm in a sling, he could not return their waves, but he did nod and smile. They didn’t pause, but not a few of them turned in their saddles to stare back at the pair.

“Barie’s lot,” said Dag, looking after them. “Twenty-two.”

He’d counted them? “Is that good or bad, twenty-two?”

“Not too bad, for this time of year. It’s a busy season.” He chirped to Copperhead, and they took to the road once more.

Fawn wondered anew what the shape of her life was going to be, tucked in around Dag’s. On a farm, a couple might work together or apart, long hours and hard, but they would still meet for meals three times a day and sleep together every night. Dag would not, presumably, take her patrolling. Therefore, she must stay here, in long, scary separations punctuated by brief reunions, at least till Dag grew too old to patrol. Or too injured, or didn’t come back one day, but her mind shied from thinking too hard about that one. If she was to be left here with these people and no Dag, she’d best try to fit in. Hardworking hands were needed everywhere all the time; surely hers could win her a place.

Dag pulled up Copperhead and hesitated at a fork in the road. The rightward, eastern branch followed the shoreline, and Fawn eyed it with interest; she could hear voices echoing over the water farther along it, a few cheery shouts and calls and some singing too distant to make out the words. Dag straightened his shoulders, grimaced, and led left instead. Half a mile on, the woods thinned again, and the distinctive silvery light reflecting from the water glimmered between the shaggy boles. The road ended at another that ran along the northern shore, unless it was just rejoining the same one circling the perimeter of the island. Dag led left again.

A brief ride brought them to a broad cleared section with several long log buildings, many of which had walls all the way around, with wooden porches and lots of rails for tying horses. No kitchen gardens or washing, although a few fruit trees were dotted here and there, broad apple and tall, graceful pear. On the woodland side of the road was an actual barn, if built rather low, the first Fawn had seen here, and a couple of split-rail paddocks for horses, though only a few horses idled in them at the moment. A trio of small, lean, black pigs rooted among the trees for fallen fruit or nuts. On the lakeside a larger dock jutted out into the water.

Dag edged Copperhead up to one of the hitching rails outside a log building, dropped his reins, and stretched his back. He cast Fawn an afterthought of a smile. “Well, here we are.”

Fawn thought this a bit too close-mouthed, even for Dag in a mood. “This isn’t your house, is it?”

“Ah. No. Patroller headquarters.”

“So we’re seeing Fairbolt Crow first?”

“If he’s in. If I’m lucky, he will have gone off somewhere.” Dag dismounted, and Fawn followed, tying both horses to the rail. She trailed him up onto the porch and through a plank door.

They entered a long room lined with shelves stuffed with piles of papers, rolled parchments, and thick books, and Fawn was reminded at once of Shep Sower’s crammed house. At a table at one end, a woman with her hair in iron-gray braids, but wearing a skirt, sat writing in a large ledger book. She was quite as tall as Mari, but more heavily built, almost stout. She was looking up and setting aside her quill even as their steps sounded. Her face lit with pleasure.

“Woo-ee! Look what just dragged in!”

Dag gave her a wry nod. “How de’, Massape. Is, um…Fairbolt here?”

“Oh, aye.”

“Is he busy?” Dag asked, in a most unpressing tone.

“He’s in there talking with Mari. About you, I expect, judging from the yelps. Fairbolt’s been telling her not to panic. She says she prefers to start panicking as soon as you’re out of her sight, just to get beforehand on things. Looks like they’re both in the right. What in the world have you done to yourself this time?” She nodded at his sling, then sat up, her eyes narrowing as they fell on the braid circling his left arm. She said again, in an entirely altered tone, “Dag, what in the wide green world have you done?”

Fawn, awash in this conversation, gave Dag a poke and a look of desperate inquiry.

“Ah,” he said. “Fawn, meet Massape Crow, who is captain to Third Company—Barie’s patrol that we passed going out is in her charge, among others. She’s also Fairbolt’s wife. Massape, this is Missus Fawn Bluefield. My wife.” His chin did not so much rise in challenge as set in stubbornness.

Fawn smiled brightly, clutched her hands together making sure her left wrist showed, and gave a polite dip of her knees. “How de’, ma’am.”

Massape just stared, her lower lip drawn in over her teeth. “You…” She held up a finger for a long, uncertain moment, drawling out the word, then swung and pointed past the room’s fireplace, central to the inner wall, to a door beyond. “See Fairbolt.”

Dag returned her a dry nod and shepherded Fawn to the door, opening it for her. From the room beyond, Fawn heard Mari’s voice saying, “If he’s stuck to his route, he should be somewhere along the line here.”

A man’s rumbling tones answered: “If he’d stuck to his route, would he be three weeks overdue? You haven’t got a line, there, you’ve got a huge circle, and the edges run off the blighted map.”

“If you’ve no one else to spare, I’ll go.”

“You just got back. Cattagus would have words with me till he ran out of breath and turned blue, and then you’d be mad. Look, we’ll put out the call to every patroller who leaves camp to keep groundsense and both eyes peeled…”

Both patrollers, Fawn realized, must have their groundsenses locked down tight in the heat of their argument not to be flying to the door by now. No—she glanced at Dag’s stony face—all three. She grabbed Dag by the belt and pushed him through ahead of her, peeking cautiously around him.

This room was a mirror to the first, at least as far as the shelving packed to the ceiling went. A plank table in the middle, its several chairs kicked back to the wall, seemed to be spread with maps. A thickset man was standing with his arms crossed, a frown on his furrowed face. Iron-colored hair was drawn back from his retreating hairline into a single plait down his back; he wore patroller-style trousers and shirt but no leather vest. Only one knife hung from his belt, but Fawn noticed a long, unstrung bow propped against the cold fireplace, together with a quiver of arrows.

Mari, similarly clad, had her back to the door and was leaning over the table pointing at something. The man glanced up, and his gray brows climbed toward what was left of his hairline. His leathery lips twisted in a half grin. “Got that coin, Mari?”

She looked up at him, exasperation in the set of her neck. “What coin?”

“The one you said we’d flip to see who got to skin him first.”

Mari, taking in his expression, wheeled. “Dag! You…! Finally! Where have you been?” Her eyes, raking him up and down, caught as usual first on the sling. “Ye gods.”

Dag offered a short, apologetic nod, seemingly split between both officers. “I was a bit delayed.” He motioned with his sling by way of indicating reasonable causes. “Sorry for the worry.”