Passage tsk-3

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  The night was quiet—the songs of frogs and insects stilled by the recent frosts, the current barely lapping the dark shore. Dag settled comfortably on a fallen log by the second lantern, offering corrections to Whit’s stance and grip as he sped his dozen arrows. After that, Dag had to grunt up and go with Fawn to find six of them. But the next round, he only had to collect two. Pleased, he made Whit back up ten paces for the following round.

  Then Hawthorn arrived, agog to be let try. At least his hands were clean from the dishwashing and wouldn’t leave grubby prints on the bow. Dag promptly set up Whit as Hawthorn’s instructor, a good old-patroller trick to force a novice to focus on his problems from the outside for a change. Dag grinned to hear some of his own phrases falling glibly from Whit’s lips. Remo, Dag was bemused to note, kept creeping closer, first to the end of the gangplank, then to the end of Dag’s log. Every once in a while his hands twitched. If Remo owned a bow, he had not brought it with him on his cross-river swim. Well, if he wanted to play with this one, he would have to ask Whit, just like Hawthorn.

  When Dag returned from seeking the next set of misses, and had suggested Whit move Hawthorn rather closer to the target, Remo said suddenly, “Collecting spent arrows was always work for the beginners. Not for a captain.”

  Not for a captain with twenty-seven malice kills to his name, did he mean? On whose behalf was Remo offended? “You fetch back your share when you were a tad, did you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good for you.”

  Fawn wandered back to watch over Dag’s head, finding a task for her restless hands by kneading Dag’s shoulders, which disinclined him to get up and run down the shore again. She said, “What about you, Dag? You haven’t practiced in a while either.”

  “Now, Spark, I’ve been pulling a sweep half the day. I’m tired. If I can’t hit that target it’ll make me look nohow in front of all these youngsters.”

  “Ha,” she said unsympathetically, abandoned her lovely task—he tried not to whimper out loud—and dodged back up the gangplank. In a couple of minutes, she came back toting Dag’s adapted bow and his well-stocked quiver.

  Remo sat upright, eyes widening. “What’s that?”

  “That’s my bow.” Dag unscrewed his hook from his wooden wrist cuff, dropping it into the leather pouch on his belt. He stood, put his weight into bending the short, heavy bow, and strung it. Setting into his cuff slot the carved bolt that stuck out where the grip would be, he rotated the bow once to seat it, making sure the string ended up to the inside, and snapped the lock down.

  “A farmer artificer that Fairbolt Crow knew up in Tripoint made it for me, some years ago,” Dag went on. “And my arm harness and all my gear that goes with it. It took us four tries to get a design that would work. Interesting fellow. He started out making wooden arms and legs for miners and foundry men, see, as the folks in those hills do a deal of that dangerous work. He’d been a friend of Fairbolt’s back when Fairbolt was a young patroller up that way. Seems you never know when you’ll need an old friend.”

  Remo’s ground was as shuttered as his expression; hard to tell how he took this pointed moral. He said only, “It looks like it has a heavy draw.”

  “Aye, it’s a right bear. It was all compromises by that point. We needed a short length, to keep it out of my way if I had to move in a hurry, because putting it down takes a minute and dropping it isn’t an option. At the same time, I needed penetrating power. When I had two hands, I used a much longer bow, matching my height and arm length. Took me months of practice to finally change all my long-bow habits.” His remaining fingers had bled.

  “You’re pretty matter-of-fact about it all.”

  Dag had no idea what Remo was going to hear out of this, but he chose the truth anyway. “I wasn’t at first. I took a long time getting over it.” A little jerk of his left arm made his meaning clear. “I won’t say no one can be a blighted fool forever, because I’ve seen some try for it. But I finally decided I didn’t care to be in that company.”

  Remo grew rather quiet.

  The appearance of this fascinating new device brought Hawthorn back, bouncing in curiosity. Whit, trailing amiably, said, “Oh, yeah, give us a show, Dag!”

  “This rig’s no good for teaching you, mind. It takes a different stance and style than your bow, and besides, I’m full of old bad habits you likely shouldn’t be allowed to watch.”

  Whit grinned. “Do as I say, not as I do?”

  “There is that,” Dag agreed.

  Hawthorn pulled one of Dag’s heavy, steel-tipped arrows from the quiver. “Hey, these are lots fancier than the ones we were using! I bet these’d work better!”

  “Nothing wrong with the ones you were using. They all had the same maker.” Dag winked at Fawn. “Here, give yours to me—put that one back, now…”

  Hawthorn said Ow, and Fawn pried the arrow out of his bloodstained grip, saying, “Give that over before you poke your eye out. Those are Dag’s good arrows. He doesn’t waste them on target practice.”

  “Well, what does he use ’em for?”

  Dag prudently let that one go by unanswered, and swapped for Whit’s quiver. He strolled up to a distance from the target about equal to Whit’s longest range, hitched his shoulders, and spent a leisurely few minutes putting the dozen flint-tipped arrows into the general vicinity of the two circles. It felt good enough. “Nope, Hawthorn, they all work just fine. See? You can go collect those.” Hawthorn scampered off.

  “My style isn’t pretty enough for contest bow-work,” Dag remarked to Whit. “I argue with the purists about that. I claim a patroller is going to have to shoot from all sorts of strange positions, and that it doesn’t pay to get too fussy. They claim—well, maybe I won’t repeat what they claim.”

  His muscles felt reasonably warm and loose, now. Fawn was watching him. Humming unmusically under his breath, Dag took up his quiver, clamped it awkwardly under his left arm, and removed about half its contents to give to her for safekeeping, leaving twelve of the heavy arrows more loosely packed. He shrugged the quiver up over his shoulder and walked back to the shooting spot. Made an estimate of the range to the straw bale, turned, and added another dozen paces to it. Stretched, emptied his mind, turned back.

  The first arrow went its way with a notably louder twang; Whit’s head snapped around from the gangplank where he’d been talking to Berry. The second followed before the first hit the target, then the third. One after another, Dag reached, set, pulled, released. The extra range hadn’t been just swagger; he needed all that distance to get that lovely streaming effect of two and three arrows in the air at a time.

  Twelve shots in less than a minute. It’s been a while since you did that, old patroller!

  He lowered his stubby bow and studied the results. Well, they had all ended up somewhere within the outer circle. Not a tidy heart-shot, but that straw bale sure wasn’t getting away. He rather regretted not being able to spell out D + F in quivering feather shafts. He could imagine them spelling a trailing sort of argh! maybe, if he squinted a lot, which was almost as good.

  Fawn came up beside him, peering in fascination. “Was that the pure flight? My stars, it did look like something!”

  “Almost,” Dag said in satisfaction. “Right workmanlike, leastways. You can go fetch those, Whit.”

  Whit trotted off. Dag sensibly decided to quit while he was ahead. He did off his equipment and turned the makeshift range back over to Whit. Hawthorn was ruthlessly set aside when Berry, watching from a seat on the gangplank, barely hinted that she might like to try her hand. Dag gave himself over to an indolent seat on the log and a cozy cuddle with his wife. It was getting chilly; he’d favor going in soon.

  Fawn nudged him and pointed, grinning. Remo was now standing up talking to Whit, earnestly demonstrating some fine point of gripping a bow. Dag replied with a finger laid to the side of his nose and a lift of his eyebrows. His lips twitched up. When next it came time to collect Berry’s misses, Remo waved
Dag back and went with Whit.

  A loud thump from the boat turned both Berry’s and Dag’s heads around. “What was that?” said Berry. But as no more noises followed, she turned back to watch Whit and Remo.

  Dag stayed twisted, brows knotted. Hod. What’s the fool boy gone and done now?

  In another few moments Bo stuck his head through the front hatch, and called, “Lakewalker, you want to come in here for a minute?”

  No, I don’t, Dag could not answer. He rose, waving the concerned Berry back to the game with Whit and Remo. Fawn gave him a sharp look and tagged along.

  In the kitchen and bunk space, he found Hod sitting on the floor in front of the hearth with his right trouser leg rolled up, rocking and whimpering.

  “What happened?” Dag asked.

  “I fell down out on the back deck,” sniveled Hod. “Hurt my knee. Fix, can’t you fix it again, please?”

  Fawn drew breath in ready sympathy. Dag sighed, knelt, and let his palm hover above the joint, opening himself briefly. The damage was not deep, but Hod had definitely re-cracked one of the healing fissures in his kneecap, blight it.

  Fawn said sternly, “Hod, were you trying to carry too much at a time again? Remember what I told you about a lazy man’s load?”

  “No, I just fell down,” Hod protested. He seemed to think a moment.

  “I was trying not to step on the raccoon.”

  A quick groundsense check found the kit snoozing peacefully in Dag and Fawn’s bedroll. Dag looked up and frowned.

  Bo caught his gaze and lifted his hairy brows. After a long, considering pause, he said slowly, “Actually, that kit was nowhere around. Didn’t sound like Hod tripped on the deck, either. I think he slammed into the back wall.”

  Hod blurted in a flustered voice, “You didn’t see me!” Then added belatedly, “Yeah, that’s right. I tripped and fell against the wall.”

  Dag sat back on his heels, taking in the ugly implications. “Hod, tell me the truth. Did you just go and knock your own knee into the wall on purpose?”

  Hod would not meet his gaze. “Fell,” he muttered belligerently.

  Dag drew a long breath. Hod’s was a real injury, but not a real emergency. There was no need for hasty stopgaps. Dag could take time, slow down, think. That didn’t feel like his best skill, right now, but maybe, like bow-work, it took practice. I wonder if my brain will bleed?

  Hod seemed stupid and surly, but maybe those were just other words for inarticulate and terrified. Dag had won this trouble by making assumptions about Hod. When his own habits of concealment met Hod’s mute bewilderment, it wasn’t any wonder that enlightenment didn’t generally follow.

  “Hod, you were standing right there on the front deck when I did the groundwork on Cress’s belly-hurt. Did you hear what I said to her and Mark about beguilement? Did you understand it?”

  Hod managed somehow to shake his head yes and no at the same time. Dag couldn’t tell if that meant he hadn’t heard, hadn’t understood, or was just uncertain if it was safe to admit to either.

  “Do you even know what beguilement is?” Did Dag? It seemed he was finding out.

  Hod shook his head again, but then offered, “Lakewalker magic? They make people give them bargains. Or make the girls”—he shot a glance at Fawn and turned red—“want to go out to the woodpile with ’em.”

  The latter, Dag guessed, being a Hod-ism, or perhaps Glassforge slang, for seduction. “It’s not either of those things,” he asserted, possibly untruthfully. At least it wasn’t either of those in this case, and he didn’t want those slanderous—or cautionary, pick one—notions cluttering up Hod’s thinking. Or his own. “You and I are both finding out just what beguilement really is, because I beguiled you by accident when I healed your smashed knee. It seems to happen when a farmer—that’s you—experiences Lakewalker groundwork and wants it to happen again. Wants it so bad he or she will do crazy things to get it.” He let his finger tap the swollen skin over the knee; Hod whimpered.

  “Hurts,” said Hod. Complaint, or placation?

  “No doubt. What I want to know is why you want a ground reinforcement again so bad you’d go and hurt yourself to coax one out of me?”

  Hod looked as panicked as a possum in a leg-hold trap. He gulped, but kept his lips clamped.

  “It’s not a trick question, blight it!” Hod jumped; Dag gentled his tone. “Lakewalkers give each other ground reinforcements all the time—well, often—and they don’t work like that on us. I have to know. Because I’ve a notion, a dream, leastways, that I’d really like to settle down with Fawn someplace and be a medicine maker who heals farmers, but I sure can’t do that if I’ll make all my patients crazy. I’m really hoping you can help me figure it out.”

  “Oh,” said Hod. In a voice, absent gods, of Hoddish enlightenment. “Me, help you? Me?” He looked up at Dag and blinked. “Why didn’t you say?”

  Why hadn’t he said? Maybe he should go out to that back deck and hit, say, his head against the wall…He glanced up to find Fawn looking at him with her arms crossed and her brows up as if she quite seconded Hod’s question.

  Evading answering, Dag went on, “First off, this has to stop. You can’t go on hurting yourself just to get a ground reinforcement.”

  Hod looked up in hope. “Would you give me one without me hurting?”

  “I don’t think I’d better give you any more at all. I’m not sure if beguilement wears off over time or not, but I’m pretty sure repeating makes it worse.”

  “Oh.” Hod gingerly petted his knee and blinked tears. “You gonna make me…wait?”

  “If only I had two hurt Hods, I could make one wait and one not, and compare, and then I’d know.”

  “Which one would I get to be?”

  Dag couldn’t quite figure out an answer to this. He ran his hand through his hair.

  Fawn put in, “In a way, you do have another Hod to do the waiting. Cress. If we ever get back to Pearl Bend, say, next spring, you could check up on her.”

  “Good point, Spark.”

  Hod, too, brightened. He looked at Fawn almost favorably.

  “I guess that frees me up to try something else.” Dag squinted into the fire. He hated to interrupt the first voluntary interchange Remo had enjoyed with his boat-mates since the start of this trip, but needs must.

  “Fawn, would you go ask Remo to come inside for a moment, please?”

  Her brows twitched up, but she nodded and went off. In a few minutes, Remo shouldered through the shadowed supplies into the firelight and lantern glow of the kitchen area, Fawn trailing. He frowned at Hod and looked his question at Dag, What’s this?

  “Ah, Remo,” said Dag. “Glad you’re here. Have you been taught how to give minor ground reinforcements, out on patrol?”

  “Verel taught all of us who had the knack,” said Remo cautiously. “I’ve never had a chance to try it out for real.”

  “Good, then it’s time you had some practice. I would like you to put a reinforcement into Hod’s hurt knee, here.”

  Remo stared, shocked. “But he’s a farmer!”

  “I thought you wanted to break the rules?”

  “Not that one!”

  You’re choosy all of a sudden. Dag rubbed his lips, reminded that Remo hadn’t been there to witness Cress. Or Hod’s original injury, either. Dag steeled himself and gave a brisk description of both incidents, finishing, “With Hod beguiled by me already, the last thing I want to do is make it worse. What I don’t know is what would happen if a beguilement was divided amongst two Lakewalkers. I’m hoping—wondering, leastways—if the division might halve the problem.”

  Remo’s lip jutted in suspicion. “Are you trying to foist this off on me?”

  “No,” said Dag patiently, “I’m trying to solve a groundwork problem. For myself, yes, but if I can solve it for myself, there might be a chance I’d solve it for a lot of other medicine makers as well. It seems worth a shot.”

  “I thought you were a patroller.”


  “Old habits die hard. Did you think I quit only because I ran mad over a pretty little farmer girl a third my age?” Fawn raised her brows ironically at him; he tipped her a wink. “I’m also becoming—trying to become—a maker.” I’m just not sure of what. “Take a good look at Hod’s knee, down to the ground, and tell me if I’m wrong about that ambition.”

  Reluctantly, Remo knelt down next to Dag beside Hod, who gave him a worried smile. He glanced aside at Dag and opened his ground for the first time in days. Dag saw Remo’s wince as the unveiled farmer grounds pressed upon him: the dark old knots of the watching Bo, the mess of Hod, Fawn’s brightness. It took him a moment to draw his focus in upon the injury. When he did, his brows climbed. “You did all that? Verel doesn’t pull breaks together that tight!”

  “I could have wished for Verel. Or someone, to guide and guard me. I almost groundlocked myself.”

  Remo’s ground, open to Dag at last, was in about the uproar he expected. Upset patroller—he knew the flavor well. Sometimes he regretted that reading grounds did not give access to thoughts, although most of the time he had better sense. We already know too much about each other. Who knew what Remo would perceive of him? “What’s on your mind?” he asked gently.

  Remo licked his lip, still a little sore. “I don’t know what you want from me!” he blurted. “You didn’t have any use for me before.”

  Dag almost said, I just told you what I wanted, but hesitated. “How do you figure?”

  Remo hung his head, and muttered, “Never mind. It’s stupid.” He made to lumber up, but Dag held out his spread hand, stop. Remo drew breath. “When you got in trouble the other day with that fish. You called for Whit. The farmer. Not for me. Remo the botch-up. Well,” he added fiercely, “why would you?”

  Remo, who hadn’t been able to save his partner from trouble before? Leaving aside the flash of jealousy about Whit, Remo was wounded, it seemed, in his oversensitive conscientiousness. Dag couldn’t hand him back his self-esteem gift-wrapped. He wondered if it was time for the full tale of Wolf Ridge again. He was reminded of Mari’s trick of hauling him and his maiming along when she wanted to shame local farmers into pitching in with pay or supplies after a malice kill in their area, and grimaced in distaste. No. Parading his old griefs to shame Remo was not the right road; Remo had shame enough for two already. You’re making this too hard, old patroller. Keep it simple.