Lois Bujold - Legacy

“There’s a mental picture for you, Spark,” Dag said out of the corner of his mouth at her. “Me and Copperhead, bareback to bare-backside…”

She could have shaken him till his teeth rattled for making her almost laugh aloud in the midst of this mess. As it was, she had to clap her hand over her mouth and look down into her lap until she regained control. “Happy eyes!” she whispered back, and had the sweet revenge of watching him choke back a surprised guffaw.

Dar glowered at them both, furiously impotent against their private jokes. Which was also pretty tasty, amongst the ashes.

“Wherever did you come by that horse, anyhow?” Fawn asked under her breath.

Dag murmured back, “Lost a game of chance with a keelboat man at Silver Shoals, once.”

“Lost. Ah. That explains it.”

Pakona considered Dag, not in a friendly way. “That does bring up the question of where camp credit leaves off and personal effects begin.” And if she was picturing Dag walking out naked, it wasn’t with the same emotions Fawn did, by a long shot.

Fairbolt rumbled, “No, it doesn’t, Pakona. Unless you want to start a revolt in the patrol.”

Saun, still squirming in his seat with Utau’s hand heavy on his shoulder, looked as if he was ready to begin an uprising right now. And if steam wasn’t billowing from Dirla, Razi, and Griff, it was only because they weren’t wet.

Pakona raised an eyebrow at Fairbolt. “Can’t you keep your rowdy youngsters under control, Fairbolt?”

“Pakona, I’d be leading them.”

Her mouth thinned in lack of appreciation of his humor, or whatever that was—black and sincere, anyhow. But she veered off, nonetheless. “Very well. Till the Bearsford rehearing, the…former patroller can take away his horse Copperhead, its gear, and whatever personal effects it can carry. The farmer girl can leave with whatever she came with; it’s no business of ours.”

“What about all those bride-gifts he sent off?” said Dar suddenly.

Dag stirred, his eyes narrowing dangerously.

Mari looked up at this one. “Dar, don’t even start.” Fawn wasn’t sure if that was her patrol leader voice or her aunt voice, or some alloy of the two, but Dar subsided, and even Pakona didn’t reprimand her.

Pakona straightened her spine and looked around the circle. “Tent Redwing, do you have anything more to say before I close this session?”

Dar choked out through flat lips, “No, ma’am.” The camp-credit ruling had left him looking bitterly satisfied, but Cumbia, behind him, was drawn and quiet.

“Dag Redwing?”

Dag shook his head in silence.

Pakona held out her hand, and the speaking stick was passed back to her. She tapped it three times on the log table, leaned forward, and blew out the session candle.

At the door to his pegboard chamber, Fairbolt excluded Dag’s outraged escort of fellow patrollers and their increasingly imaginative and urgent offers to wreak vengeance on Dar. Dag was just as glad. Fairbolt gestured him and Fawn to seats, but Dag shook his head and simply stood, hanging wearily on his hickory stick. Not fellow patrollers anymore, I suppose. What was he now, if not Fawn’s patroller? He hardly knew. Fawn’s Dag, leastways. Always. She leaned up under his left arm, looking anxiously at Fairbolt, and Dag let some of his weight rest on her slim shoulders.

“I’m sorry about how that came out back there,” said Fairbolt, jerking his head in the general direction of the council grove. “I didn’t expect Dar to blindside me. Twice.”

“I always said my family was impossible. I never said they were stupid,” sighed Dag. “I thought it was a draw between the two of you, myself. I’d made up my mind to it when I walked into that circle that I was going to walk out banished for real, and if they didn’t offer it, I was going to take it myself.” He added, “You have my resignation, of course. I should have stopped in here before the session and not blindsided you with that, too, but I wasn’t just sure how things were going to play out. If you want to call it desertion, I won’t argue.”

Fairbolt leaned down and plucked Dag’s peg from the painted square on the wall labeled Sick List. He straightened up and weighed it thoughtfully in his palm. “So what are you going to do out there, walking around farmer country? I just can’t picture you plowing dirt.”

“Leastways it would involve movin’, though right now sitting looks pretty good. That mood’ll pass, it always does. I wasn’t joking when I said I do not know.” He had once traveled great distances. For all he knew, the next great journey would be all in one place, but walked the long way, through time, a passage he could barely envision, let alone explain. “No plan I ever made has been of the least use to me, and sometimes—plans keep you from seeing other paths. I want to keep my eyes clear for a space. Find out if you really can teach an old patroller new tricks.”

“You’ve learned quite a few lately, from what Hoharie says.”

“Well…yes.” Dag added, “Give my regrets and thanks to Hoharie, will you? She almost tempted me away from you. But…it would have been the wrong road. I don’t know much right now, but I know that much.”

“No lordship,” said Fairbolt, watching him.

“No,” Dag concurred. “I mean to find some other road, wide enough for everyone. Someone has to survey it. Could be the new way won’t be mine to make, but mine to be given, out there. From someone smarter than me. If I keep my ground open, watch and listen hard enough.”

Fairbolt said meditatively, “Not much point for a man to learn new things if he doesn’t come back to teach ’em. Pass ’em on.”

Dag shook his head. “Change needs to happen. But it won’t happen today, here, with these people. Camp council proved that.”

Fairbolt held his hand out, palm down, in a judicious rocking gesture. “It wasn’t unanimous.”

“There’s a hope,” Dag conceded. “Even if it was mainly due to Dowie Grayheron having a spine of pure custard.” Fairbolt barked a laugh, shaking his head in reluctant agreement

Dag said, “This wasn’t my first plan. I’d have stayed here with Spark if they’d have let me. Be getting myself ready for the next patrol even now.”

“No, you’d still be on the sick list, I assure you,” said Fairbolt. He glanced down. “How’s the leg? You were favoring it, walking back, I noticed.”

“It’s coming along. It still twinges when I’m tired. I’m glad I’ll be riding Copperhead instead of walking, bless Omba’s wits. I’ll miss that woman.”

Fairbolt stared out the hooked-open window at the glimmer of the lake. “So…if you could have your first plan back—sorry, Fawn, not even what you call Lakewalker magic could make that happen now, but if—would you take it?”

It was a testing question, and a good one. Dag tilted his head in the silence, his eyelids lowering, rising; then said simply, “No.” As Fawn looked solemnly up at him, he gave her a squeeze around the shoulders. “Go on and chuck my peg in the fireplace. I’m done with it.”

Fairbolt gave him a short nod. “Well, if you ever change your mind—or if the world bucks you off again—you know where to find us. I’ll still be here.”

“You don’t ever give up, do you?”

Fairbolt chuckled. “Massape wouldn’t let me. Very dangerous woman, Massape. The day I met her, forty-one years gone, all my fine and fancy plans for my life fell into Hickory Lake and never came up again. Hang on to your dangerous woman too, Dag. They’re rare, and not easy to come by.”

Dag smiled. “I’ve noticed that.”

Fairbolt tossed the peg in his palm once more, then, abruptly, held it out to Fawn. “Here. I think this is yours, now. Don’t lose it.”