Dag shook his head and retreated. At least he managed to stop wincing before he exited the stairs.

Dag arrived in the stable, its stalls crowded with the horses of the two patrols, barely before Fawn did. He led her to the straight stall housing the placid bay mare, and pointed.

"Congratulations, Spark. Mari"s made it official. You now own this nice horse. Your share of our pay from the Gla.s.sforge town fathers. I found you that saddle and bridle on the peg, too; should be about the right size for you. Not new, but they"re in real good condition." He saw no need to mention that the tack had been part of a private deal with the willing harnessmaker who had done such a fine job repairing his arm-harness.

Fawn"s face lit with delight, and she slid into the stall to run her hands over the horse"s neck and scratch her star and her ears, which made the mare round her nostrils and drop her poll in pleasure. "Oh, Dag, she"s wonderful, but"-Fawn"s nose wrinkled in suspicion-"are you sure this isn"t your share of the pay? I mean, Mari"s been nice to me and all, but I didn"t think she"d promoted me to patroller."

A little too shrewd, that. "If it had been left to me, there would be a lot more, Spark."

Fawn did not look entirely convinced, but the horse nudged her for more scratches, and she turned back to the task. "She needs a name. She can"t go on being that mare that mare." Fawn bit her lip in thought. "I"ll name her Grace, after the river. Because it"s a pretty name and she"s a pretty horse, and because she carried us so smoothly. Do you want to be Grace, sweet lady, hm?" She carried on with the petting and making-much; the mare signified her acceptance of the affection, the name, or both by c.o.c.king her hips, easing one hind hoof, and blowing out her breath, which made Fawn laugh. Dag leaned on the stall part.i.tion and smiled.

At length, Fawn"s face sobered in some new thought. She wandered back out of the stall and stood with her arms folded a moment. "Except... I"m not sure if I"ll be able to keep her on a milkmaid"s pay, or whatever."

"She"s yours absolutely; you could sell her," Dag said neutrally.

Fawn shook her head, but her expression did not lighten.

"In any case," Dag continued, "it"s too early for you to be thinking of taking on work. You"re going to need this mare to ride, first."

"I"m feeling much better. The bleeding stopped two days ago, if I were going to get a fever I think I would have by now, and I don"t get dizzy anymore."

"Yes, but... Mari has given me leave to take the sharing knife back to camp and have it looked at by a maker. I know the best. I was thinking, since Lumpton Market and West Blue are more or less on the way to Hickory Lake from here, we ought to stop in at your farm on the way and put your folks out of their cruel suspense."

Her eyes flashed up at him with an unreadable look. "I don"t want to go back." Her voice wavered. "I don"t want my whole stupid story to come out." And firmed: "I don"t want to be within a hundred miles of Stupid Sunny."

Dag took a breath. "You don"t have to stay. Well, you can"t stay; your testimony will be needed on the matter of the knife. Once that"s done, the choice of where to go next is yours."

She sucked on her lower lip, eyes downcast. "They"ll try to make me stay. I know them. They won"t believe I can be a grown..." Her voice grew more urgent. "Only if you promise to go with me, promise promise not to leave me there!" not to leave me there!"

His hand found its way to her shoulder in attempted rea.s.surance of this odd distress. "And yet I might with your goodwill leave you here?"

"Mm..."

"Just trying to figure out if it"s the here or the there or the me leaving that"s being objected to."

Her eyes were wide and dark, and her moist lips parted as her face rose at these words. Dag felt his head dipping, his spine bending, as his hand slipped around her back, as if he were falling from some great height, falling soft...

A throat cleared dryly behind him, and he straightened abruptly.

"There you are," said Mari. "Thought I might find you here." Her voice was cordial but her eyes were narrowed.

"Oh, Mari!" said Fawn, a bit breathlessly. "Thank you for getting me this nice horse. I wasn"t expecting it." She made her little knee-dip.

Mari smiled at her, managing to give Dag an ironic eyebrow-c.o.c.k at the same time. "You"ve earned much more, but it was what I could do. I am not entirely entirely without a sense of obligation." without a sense of obligation."

This crushed conversation briefly. Mari continued blandly, "Fawn, would you excuse us for a while? I have some patrol business to discuss with Dag, here."

"Oh. Of course." Fawn brightened. "I"ll go tell Saun about Grace." And she was off again at a scamper, flashing a grin over her shoulder at Dag.

Mari leaned against the end post of the stall and crossed her arms, staring up at Dag, till Fawn had vanished through the stable door and out of ear shot. The aisle was cool and shady compared to the white afternoon outside, redolent with horses, quiet but for the occasional champing and shifting of the heat-lazy animals and the faint humming of the flies. Dag raised his chin and clasped his hand and hand replacement behind his back, winding his thumb around the hook-with-spring-clamp presently seated in the wooden cuff, and waited. Not hopefully.

It wasn"t long in coming. "What are you about, boy?" Mari growled.

Any sort of response that came to, Whatever do you mean, Mari Whatever do you mean, Mari? seemed a waste of time and breath. Dag lowered his eyelids and waited some more.

"Do I need to list everything that"s wrong with this infatuation?" she said, exasperation plain in her voice. "I daresay you could give the blighted lecture yourself. I daresay you have."

"A time or two," he granted.

"So what are you thinking? Or are you thinking?"

He inhaled. "I know you want to tell me to back away from Fawn, but I can"t. Not yet anyway. The knife binds us, till I get it up to camp. We"re going to have to travel together for a time yet; you can"t argue with that."

"It"s not the traveling that worries me. It"s what"s going to happen when you stop."

"I"m not sleeping with her."

"Aye, yet. You"ve had your groundsense locked down tight in my presence ever since you got in. Well, that"s partly just you-it"s such a habit with you, you stay veiled in your sleep sleep.

But this-you"re like a cat who thinks it"s hiding because it"s got its head stuck in a sack."

"Ah, mental privacy. Now, there"s a farmer concept that could stand to catch on."

She snorted. "Fine chance."

"I"m taking her up to camp," Dag said mulishly. "That"s a given."

In a sweetly cordial voice, Mari murmured, "Going to show her off to your mother? Oh, how lovely."

Dag"s shoulders hunched. "We"ll go by her farm, first."

"Oh, and you"ll meet her her mother. Wonderful. That"ll be a success. Can"t you two just hold hands and jump off a cliff together? It"d be faster and less painful." mother. Wonderful. That"ll be a success. Can"t you two just hold hands and jump off a cliff together? It"d be faster and less painful."

His lips twitched at this, involuntarily. "Likely. But it has to be done."

"Does it?" Mari pushed off the post and stalked back and forth across the stable aisle. "Now, if you were a young patroller lout looking to dip his wick in the strange, I"d just thump him on the side of the head and end this thing here and now. I can"t tell if you"re trying to fool me, or yourself!"

Dag set his teeth and went on saying nothing. It seemed wisest.

She fetched up at her post again, leaned back, scuffed her boot, and sighed. "Look, Dag. I"ve been watching you for a long time, now. Out on patrol, you"d never neglect your gear or your food or your sleep or your feet. Not like the youngsters who get heroic delusions about their stamina, till they crash into a rock wall. You pace your body for the long haul."

Dag tilted his head in acknowledgment, not certain where she was going with this.

"But though you"d never starve your body to wasting and still expect to go on, you starve your heart, yet act as though you can still draw on it forever without the debt ever coming due. If you fall- when when you fall, you"re going to fall like a starving man. I"m standing here watching you start to topple now, and I don"t know if any words of mine are strong enough to catch you. I don"t know why, blast and blight it"-her voice shifted in renewed aggravation-"you haven"t let yourself get string-bound with any one of the nice widows that your mother-well, all right, not your mother-that one of your friends or other kin used to introduce you to, till they gave up in despair. If you had, I daresay you"d be immune to this foolishness now, knife or no." you fall, you"re going to fall like a starving man. I"m standing here watching you start to topple now, and I don"t know if any words of mine are strong enough to catch you. I don"t know why, blast and blight it"-her voice shifted in renewed aggravation-"you haven"t let yourself get string-bound with any one of the nice widows that your mother-well, all right, not your mother-that one of your friends or other kin used to introduce you to, till they gave up in despair. If you had, I daresay you"d be immune to this foolishness now, knife or no."

Dag hunched tighter. "It would not have been fair to the woman. I can"t have what I had with Kauneo over again. Not because of any lack on the woman"s part. It"s me. I can"t give what I gave to Kauneo." Used up, emptied out, dry Used up, emptied out, dry.

"n.o.body expected that, except maybe you. Most people don"t have what you had with Kauneo, if half of what I"ve heard is true. Yet they contrive to rub along tolerably well just the same."

"She"d die of thirst, trying to draw from that well."

Mari shook her head, mouth flat with disapproval. "Dramatic, Dag."

He shrugged. "Don"t push for answers you don"t want to hear, then."

She looked away, pursed her lips, stared up at the rafters stuck about with dusty cobwebs and wisps of hay, and tried another tack. "Now, all things considered, I can"t object to your indulging yourself. Not you. And after all, this farmer girl has no relatives here to kick up a fuss for me."

Dag"s eyes narrowed, and a fool"s hope rose in his heart. Was Mari about to say she wouldn"t interfere? Surely not...

"If you can"t be turned or reasoned with, well, these things happen, eh?" The sarcasm tingeing her voice quenched the hope. "But if you are so bound and determined to get in, you"d better have a plan for how you"re going to get out, and I want to hear it."

I don't want to get out. I don't want an end. Unsettling realization, and Dag wasn"t sure where to put it. Blight it, he hadn"t even begun begun...anything. This argument was moving too fast for him, no doubt Mari"s intent. "All the great plans I ever made for my life ended in horrible surprises, Mari. I swore off plans sometime back."

She shook her head in scorn. "I halfway wish you were some lout I could just thump. Well...

no, I don"t. But you"re you. If she"s cut up at the end-and I don"t see how this can be anything other than a real short ride-so will you be. Double disaster. I can see it coming, and so can you. So what are are you going to do?" you going to do?"

Dag said tightly, "What do you suggest, seeress?"

"That there"s no way you can end this well. So don't start." don't start."

I haven't started, Dag wanted to point out. A truth on his lips and a lie in his ground, perhaps? Endurance had been his last remaining virtue for a long, long time, now; he hugged his patience to him and stood, just stood.

In the face of his stubborn silence, Mari shifted her stance and her attack once more. "There are two great duties given to those born of our blood. The first is to carry on the long war, with resolute fort.i.tude, in living and in dying, in hope or out of it. In that duty you have not ever failed."

"Once."

"Not ever," she contradicted this. "Overwhelming defeat is not failure; it"s just defeat. It happens sometimes. I never heard that you ran from that ridge, Dag."

"No," he admitted. "I didn"t have the chance. Surrounded Surrounded makes running away a bit of a puzzle, which I did not get time to solve." makes running away a bit of a puzzle, which I did not get time to solve."

"Aye, well. But then there"s the other great duty, the second duty, without which the first is futile, dross and delusion. The duty you have so far failed altogether."

His head came up, stung and wary. "I"ve given blood and sweat and all the years of my life so far. I still owe my bones and my heart"s death, which I mean to give, which I will will give in their due time if chance permits, but suicide is a self-indulgence and a desertion of duty no one will ever accuse me of, I decided that years ago, so I don"t know what else you want." give in their due time if chance permits, but suicide is a self-indulgence and a desertion of duty no one will ever accuse me of, I decided that years ago, so I don"t know what else you want."

Her lips compressed; her gaze went intent with conviction. "The other other duty is to create the next generation to hand on the war duty is to create the next generation to hand on the war to to. Because all we do, the miles and years we walk, all that we bleed and sweat and sacrifice, will come to nothing if we do not also pa.s.s on our bodies" legacy. And that"s a task on which you have turned your back for the past twenty years."

Behind his back, his right hand gripped the arm cuff till he could hear the wood creak, and he forced his clench to loosen lest he break what had been so recently mended. He tried clamping his teeth down just as tight on any response, but one leaked out nonetheless: "Borrow my mother"s jawbone, did you?"

"I expect I could do her whole speech by rote, I"ve had to listen to her complaints often enough, but no. This is my own, hard-won with my life"s blood. Look, I know your mother pushed you too soon and too hard after Kauneo and set your back up good and stiff, I know you needed more time to get over it all. But time"s gone by, Dag, time and past time. That little farmer girl"s the proof of it, if you needed any. And I don"t want to be caught underneath when you come crashing down."

"You won"t be; we"re leaving."

"Not good enough. I want your word."

You can't have it. And was that, itself, some decision? He knew he wavered, but had he already gone beyond some point of no return? Ana what would that point be Ana what would that point be? He scarcely knew, but his head was pounding with the heat, and a bone-deep exhaustion gripped him. His drying clothing itched and stank. He longed for a cold bath. If he held his head under for long enough, would the pain stop? Ten or fifteen minutes ought to do it.

"If I had died at Wolf Ridge, I would be childless now just the same," he snarled at Mari. And And not even my kin could complain. Or leastways, I wouldn't have to listen not even my kin could complain. Or leastways, I wouldn't have to listen. "I have a plan. Why don"t you just pretend that I"m dead?"

He turned on his heel and marched out.

Which would have made a grander exit if she hadn"t shouted so furiously and so accurately after him, "Oh, certainly-why not? You do!"

Chapter 11.

Dag thought he"d had his groundsense strapped down tight, but whatever of his vile mood still leaked through the cracks was enough to clear the bathhouse of the three convalescent patrollers idling there within five minutes of his entry. Still, at length both his body and his wits cooled, and he went off to find some useful task to occupy himself, preferably away from his comrades. He found it in taking a saddle with a broken tree uptown to the harnessmaker"s to trade in for a replacement, and retrieving some other mended gear there, which filled the time till dinner and the arrival of the anxious Utau and the rest of his swamp-slimed patrol.

Mari"s arguments were not, any of them, wrong, exactly. Or at all Or at all, Dag admitted glumly to himself. Ashamed, he dutifully set his mind to the upholding of a self-restraint that had once been more routine than breathing... which had somehow grown as heavy as a stone cairn upon his chest. Dead men don't need air, eh Dead men don't need air, eh?

At dinner that night he behaved toward Fawn with meticulous courtesy, no more. Her eyes watched him curiously, wary. But there were enough other patrollers at the table for her to pelt with her questions, tonight mostly about how patrol patterns were arranged and walked, that his silence pa.s.sed unremarked.

Never had rect.i.tude seemed less rewarding.

The next day was officially devoted to rest and the preparations for the bow-down, and Dag allowed himself to be made mule to help carry in supplies from uptown gathered by the more eager. He crossed paths with Mari only long enough to volunteer for evening watch and door duty, and be briskly refused.

"I can"t put the patroller who slew the malice onto guard duty during the celebration of his own deed," she said shortly. "I"d have a revolt on my hands-and rightly, too." She added after a reluctant moment, stopping his protest, "Make sure that little farmer girl knows she"s invited, too."

Shortly after, he ran into the enthusiast from Log Hollow who was nabbing the volunteer musicians from the combined patrols for practice practice, a novelty in the experience of most involved, and did not escape till almost time to collect Fawn.

Fawn peered at her hair in the shaving mirror and decided that the green ribbons, loaned by Reela of the broken leg, matched her good dress very well. Reela had been teaching her how to do Lakewalker hair braids, which had turned out to have various meanings; the knot at the nape, Fawn had found out, was a sign of mourning, except when it was a prudent arrangement for going into a fight. Knowing this made the mob of patrollers look different to Fawn"s eyes, and gave her a strange feeling, as though the world had shifted under her feet, if only a little, and could never shift back. In any case she could be certain that tonight"s style, with her hair tied up high on the back of her head by a jaunty bow and allowed to swing like a horsetail, curls bouncing, didn"t say anything she didn"t intend in patroller.

Dag came to her door, seeming more relaxed this evening; Fawn wondered if Mari had imparted some bad news to him in the stable yesterday, to so depress his spirits last night. But now his eyes were bright. His simple white shirt made his coppery skin seem to glow.

Yesterday"s reek of swamp and horse and emergency was replaced with lavender soap and something warm underneath that was just Dag. His hair was clean and soft and already escaping whatever order a stern combing had imposed upon it, looking very touchable, if only she could reach that high. Tiptoes. A stepladder. Something...

The atmosphere in the dining room was not too different from other nights, ravenous and raucous, except more crowded because for once everyone was there at the same time. They were all notably cleaned up, and many seemed to have obtained, or shared, scent water. Party clothes seemed to be everyone"s same clothes, except laundered. Fawn supposed saddlebags didn"t really have room for many changes; the women were all still wearing trousers. Did they ever wear skirts? Hairstyles seemed more elaborate, though. Some of the younger patrollers even wore bells in their braids.

Food and drink, especially drink, overflowed through the entry hall into the next room, where chairs were pushed to the walls and rugs rolled up to make a s.p.a.ce to dance. Fawn found herself a seat with the rest of the convalescents, Saun and Reela and the man from Chato"s patrol with the game knee and st.i.tches in his jaw, and that poor subdued fellow who"d managed to get snakebit yesterday and was now good-naturedly enduring some pretty merciless ribbing about it. The teasers also distributed fresh beer to all the chair-bound, however, and seemed dedicated to keeping it coming. Fawn sipped hers and smiled shy thanks.

Dag had vanished briefly, but now he returned, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g something into his wrist cap. Fawn blinked in astonishment to recognize a tambourine, fitted with a wooden peg so he might hold it securely.

"My goodness! I didn"t know you played anything."

He grinned at her, giving the frame a last adjustment and drumming his fingers over the stretched skin. The staccato sound made her sit up.

"How clever. What did you play before you lost your hand?"

"Tambourine," he replied cheerily. "I tried the flute, but it tangled my fingers up even when I had twice as many, and when I tackled the fiddle, I was accused of tormenting cats. With this, I can never strike a wrong note. Besides"-he lowered his voice conspiratorially-"it gets me off the hook for the dancing." He winked at her and drifted up to the head of the room, where some other patrollers were collecting.

Their array of instruments seemed a bit random, but mostly small, as would fit in a spare corner of a saddlebag. There were several flutes, of wood, clay, or bone, two fiddles, and a makeshift collection of overturned tubs for thumping on, obviously filched from around the hotel. The room filled and quieted.

A gray-haired man with a bone flute stepped forward into the hush and began a melody Fawn found haunting; it made the hairs stir on her arms. Disturbed, she studied that pale length of bone, its surface burned about with writing, and was suddenly certain it was someone"s relative. Because thighbones came in pairs, but hearts came one by one, so what did did Lakewalker makers do with the leftovers, in all honor? The tune was so elegiac, it had be some prayer or hymn or memorial; Fawn could see a few people"s lips moving on words they obviously knew by heart. A hush followed for a full minute, with everyone"s eyes downcast. Lakewalker makers do with the leftovers, in all honor? The tune was so elegiac, it had be some prayer or hymn or memorial; Fawn could see a few people"s lips moving on words they obviously knew by heart. A hush followed for a full minute, with everyone"s eyes downcast.