Lois Bujold - Legacy

Fawn glanced up at them both, her eyebrows climbing in surprise, then smiled and folded the peg in her firm little grip. “You bet I won’t, sir.”

Dag made plans to leave in the gray light of dawn, in part to get a start on a day that promised to turn cool and rainy later, but mostly to avoid any more farewells, or worse, folks who still wanted to argue with him. He and Fawn had packed their saddlebags the night before, and Dag had given away what wouldn’t fit: his trunk to Sarri, his good ash spear to Razi, and his father’s sword to Utau, because he sure wasn’t passing it back to Dar. His winter gear in storage at Bearsford he supposed he must abandon with his camp credit. Tent Bluefield he left standing for Stores to struggle with, since they’d been so anxious for it.

Dag was surprised when Omba herself, and not one of her girls, appeared out of the mists hanging above the road leading Copperhead and Grace. She gave him a hug.

“Sneaking in a good-bye out of sight of the kin?” he inquired, hugging her back.

“Well, that, and, um…I have to offer an apology to Fawn.”

Fawn, taking Grace’s reins from her, said, “You never did me any harm that I know of, Omba. I’m glad to have met you.”

Omba cleared her throat. “Not harm, exactly. More of an…accident.” She was a bit flushed in the face, Dag was bemused to note, not at all like her usual dry briskness. “Fawn, I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid your horse is pregnant.”

“What?” cried Fawn. She looked at Grace, who looked back with a mild and unrepentant eye, and snuffled her soft muzzle into Fawn’s hand in search of treats. “Grace! You bad girl, what have you been up to?” She gave her reins a little shake, laughing and amazed.

“Omba,” said Dag, leaning against Copperhead’s shoulder and grinning despite himself, “who have you gone and let ravish my wife’s mare?”

Omba sighed hugely. “Rig Crow’s stallion Shadow got loose and swam over from Walnut about five nights ago. Had himself a fine old time before we caught up with him. You’re not the only mares’ owners I’m going to have to apologize to today, though you’re the first in line. I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Will they be angry?” asked Fawn. “Were they planning other mates? Was he not a good horse?”

“Oh, Shadow is a fine horse,” Dag assured her. “You would not believe how many furs Rig asks for, and gets, as a stud fee for that snorty horse of his. I know. I paid through the nose last year to have him cover Swallow, for Darkling.”

“And therefore,” said Omba, pulling on her black-and-white braid, “everyone will say they are very upset, and carry on as convincingly as possible. While Rig tries to collect. It could go to the camp council.”

“You’ll forgive me, I trust, for wishing them all a long, tedious dispute, burning many candles,” said Dag. “If Rig asks, my wife and I are just furious about it all.” He vented an evil laugh that made even Fawn raise an eyebrow at him.

“I wasn’t even going to mention Grace,” Omba assured him. “I’ll be having troubles enough over this.”

Utau and Razi came out to help them saddle up, followed by Sarri, and Mari and Cattagus together. Dag mostly exchanged sober nods, except with his aunt Mari, whom he embraced; Fawn hugged everybody.

“Think you’ll be back?” asked Utau gruffly. “For that Bearsford Council, maybe?”

“Not for that. For the rest, who can say? I’ve left home for good at least four times that I recall, as Mari can testify.”

“I remember a spectacular one, ’bout eight years back,” she allowed. “There was a lot of shouting. You managed to be gone for seventeen months.”

“Maybe I’ll get better at it with practice.”

“Could be,” she said. Then added, “But I sort of hope not.”

And then it was time to mount up. Razi gave Dag a leg up and sprang away, Copperhead put in his usual tricks and was duly chastised, and Utau boosted Fawn onto Grace. On the road, Dag and Fawn both turned and gave silent waves, as silently returned. As the blurring forms left behind parted to their different tents, the mist swallowed them all.

Dag and Fawn didn’t speak again till the horses had clopped over the long wooden span from the island. She watched him lean his hand on his cantle and stare over his shoulder.

She said quietly, “I didn’t mean, when I fell in love with you, to burn your life to the ground.”

He turned back, giving her a pensive smile. “I was dry, dry timber when you met me, Spark. It’ll be well.” He set his face ahead and didn’t look around again.

He added after a while, “Though I’m sorry I lost all my camp credit. I really thought, when I promised your folks I would care for you, to have in hand whatever you’d need for your comfort, come this winter and on for a lot of winters more. All the plunkins in the Bearsford cold cellars won’t do us much good now.”

“As I understand it, your goods aren’t lost, exactly. More like, held. Like my dowry.”

His brows rose. “There’s a way of looking at it I hadn’t thought of.”

“I don’t know how we’d manage traveling anyhow, with a string of, what did you say—eight horses?”

He considered this picture. “I was thinking more of converting it into Tripoint gold tridens or Silver Shoals silver mussels. Their monies are good all up and down the Grace and the Gray. But if all my camp credit for the past eighteen years were converted into horses—average horses, not Copperheads or Shadows…hm. Let me see.” He did some mental estimating, for the curiosity of it. “That would be about forty horses, roughly. Way too many for us to trail in a string, it’s true.”

“Forty horses!” said Fawn, sounding quite taken aback. “You could buy a farm for the price of forty horses!”

“But I wouldn’t know what to do with it once I had it.”

“But I would—oh, never mind.” She added, “I’m glad I didn’t know this yesterday. I’d have been a lot more upset.”

“Offends your notions of economy, does it?”

“Well, yes! Or my notions of something.”

He gave her a wink. “You’re worth it at twice the price, Spark. Trust me.”

“Huh.” But she settled again, thumping her heels gently against Grace’s wide-sprung sides to urge her to keep up, looking meditative.

They pulled their horses to a halt at the place, a mile from the bridge, where the road split in three. “So,” he said. “Which way?”

“Don’t you know?”

“No. Well, not north. Not this late in the season.” In the meadows, the cicadas were growing noisier as the morning warmed, but the first frosts would silence them soon enough. “Whichever way we go, we’ll need to travel in easy stages, see, on account of Grace’s delicate condition.” He suspected he could get a lot of use out of Grace’s condition if he played it right.

Not fooled a bit, Fawn looked narrowly at him, and said, “Couldn’t agree more.” She swiveled her head. “But still…which road?” Her eye was caught by something, and she twisted in her saddle. “What’s this?”

Dag followed her gaze, and his stomach knotted coldly at the sight of Saun and Dirla, galloping madly from the bridge and waving at them. Please, please, not some other malice outbreak…I don’t want to have to do all this leaving over again. But their flushed faces, when they pulled up and sat panting on their fidgeting mounts, weren’t that sort of anxious.

“I was afraid we’d missed you,” gasped Dirla.

“Kindly,” said Dag, touching his temple. “But I thought we’d all said good-bye yesterday?” And, while not enough…it had been enough.

Saun, catching his breath, waved this away. “It’s not that. It’s this.” He stuck a hand in his vest and pulled out a leather bag, which clinked. “A lot of folks from our company, and in the patrol, weren’t too pleased with how things went yesterday in the camp council. So Dirla and Griff and I took up a little collection. It’s nothing compared to what Dar stripped you of, I know, but it’s something.” He thrust out the bag toward Dag, who let Copperhead shy away a step.