The Sharing Knife: Beguilement

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Right, that’s done it. “You’ll have to catch me first, boys. If you’re as slow-footed as you are slow-witted, I shouldn’t have a problem—”

  Sunny lunged, his stick whistling through the air. Dag was not there.

  Dag stretched his legs, driving up the hill, dodging around trees, boots slipping on old leaves and damp limestone lumps and green-black rolling round hickory husks. By the thump and pained grunt, at least one of his pursuers was finding the footing equally foul. He didn’t actually want to lose the boys in the woods, but he wanted a good head start by the time he arrived…

  Here.

  Ah. Hm.

  His chosen tree turned out to be a shagbark hickory with a trunk a bit less than a foot and a half wide. And no side branches for twenty feet straight up.

  This was a mixed blessing. It would certainly be a challenge for the boys to follow him up it. If he could get up it. He pulled his right arm from the sling and let it swing out of his way, reached up with his left, jammed in his hook, clapped his knees around the trunk, and began shinnying. Yanked the hook out again, reached, jammed, shinnied. Again. Again. He was about fifteen feet in the air when the pursuit arrived, winded and swearing and waving their cudgels. It occurred to him, in a meditative sort of way as he dragged his body skyward, that even without the unpleasant searing feeling in his left shoulder muscles, he was putting an awful lot of trust in a small wooden bolt and some stitching designed to pull out. The rough bark strips crackled and split beneath his gripping knees, small bits raining down in an aromatic shower. If his hook gave way and he slid down, the bark would have an interesting serrated effect between his legs, too.

  He made it to the first sturdy side branch, put an arm and a leg over, winched himself up, and stood. He searched for his objective. Absent gods, another fifteen feet to go. Up, then. A dry branch gave way under one foot, which was partly useful, for he was then able to kick it free and drop it on the upturned face of the skinny fellow who was being urged up the tree in Dag’s wake by his friends. He yelped and fell back, discouraged for a moment. Dag didn’t need too many more moments.

  To his delight, a rock whistled up past him, then another. “Ow!” he cried realistically, to lure more of them. A couple more missiles rose and fell, followed by a meaty clunk and an entirely authentic “OW!” from below. Dag made sure they could hear his evil laugh, even though he was wheezing like a smithy’s bellows by now.

  Almost to goal. Absent gods, the blighted thing was well out on that side branch. He extended himself, gripping the branch he was half-lying across under his right armpit, feet sliding along the wobbly bough below it, wishing for almost the first time in his life for more height and reach. Overbalance at this elevation, and he could swiftly prove himself stupider than Stupid Sunny. A

  little more, a little more, get his hook around that attachment… and a good yank.

  Dag clung hard as the rough gray paper-wasp nest the size of a watermelon parted from the branch and began its thirty-five foot-drop. Most of the nest’s residents were home for the evening, his groundsense told him, settling down for the night. Wake up! You’re under attack! His feeble effort to stir up the wasps with his ground seemed redundant when the plummeting object hit the dirt and ruptured with a loud and satisfying thwack. Followed by a deep angry whine he could hear all the way up here.

  The first screams were a deal more satisfying, though.

  He cuddled back against the trunk of the tree, feet braced on some less flexible side branches, gasping for breath and applying himself to a few refinements.

  Persuading the furious wasps to advance up trouser legs and down collars proved not as difficult as he’d feared, although he could not simply bounce them like mosquitoes, and they were much less tractable than fireflies. A matter of practice, Dag decided. He set to it with a will.

  “Ah! Ah! They’re in my hair, they’re in my hair, they’re stinging meee!” came a wail from below, voice too high-pitched to identify.

  “Augh, my ears! Ow, my hands! Get them off, get them off!”

  “Run for the river, Sunny!”

  The shuffling sounds of retreat filtered up through the leaves; the pell-mell flight wouldn’t help them much, for Dag made sure they left under full guard.

  Even without groundsense, though, he could tell when his trouser-explorers made it all the way to target by the earsplitting shrieks that went up and up until breath was gone.

  “Limp for the river, Sunny,” Dag muttered savagely, as the frantic cries trailed away to the east.

  Then came the matter of getting down.

  Dag took it slowly, at least till the last ten feet when his hook slipped free and scored a long slash down the trunk in the wake of the flying bark bits from under his knees. But he did manage to land on his feet and avoid banging his splint very much on anything on the way. He staggered upright, gasping. “It was easier… when I could just… gut them…”

  No. Not really.

  He sighed, and did his best to tidy himself up a trifle, brushing bark and sticks and wide papery leaves from his clothing and hair with the back of his hook, and gratefully slipping his throbbing right arm back into its sling. A

  few stray wasps buzzed near in investigative menace; he sent them off after their nest mates and slithered back down the slope to where the horses were tied.

  He picked apart their ties and did his best to loop up their reins so they wouldn’t step on them, led them out onto the road, and pointed them south, trying to plant horsey suggestions about barns and grain and home into their limited minds. They would either find their way, or Sunny and his friends could have a fine time over the next few days looking for them. Once the boys could get their swollen selves out of bed, that is. A couple of the would-be bullies, including Sunny—Dag had made quite sure of Sunny on that score—would definitely not be wishing to ride home tonight. Or for many nights to come.

  As he was wearily climbing back up the lane, he met Sorrel hastening down.

  Sorrel gripped a pitchfork and looked thoroughly alarmed.

  “What in thunder was that awful screeching, patroller?” he demanded.

  “Some fool young fellows trespassing in your woods thought it would be a grand idea to chuck rocks at a wasp nest. It didn’t work out the way they’d pictured.”

  Sorrel snorted in half-amused vexation, the tension draining out of his body, then paused. “Really?”

  “I think that would be the best story all around, yes.”

  Sorrel gave a little growl that reminded Dag suddenly of Fawn. “Plain enough there’s more to it. Have it in hand, do you?” He turned again to walk up the lane side by side with Dag.

  “That part, yes.” Dag extended his groundsense again, this time toward the old barn. His future brother-in-law was still alive, though his ground was decidedly agitated at the moment. “There’s another part. Which I think is your place and not mine to deal with.” It was not one patrol leader’s job to correct another patrol leader’s people. On the other hand, teaming up could sometimes be remarkably effective. “But I think we might get forward faster if you’d be willing to take some direction from me.”

  “About what?”

  “In this case, Reed and Rush.”

  Sorrel muttered something about, “… ready to knock their fool heads together.”

  Then added, “What about them?”

  “I think we ought to let Rush tell us. Then see.”

  “Huh,” said Sorrel dubiously, but he followed as Dag turned aside from the lane at the old barn.

  The sliding door onto the lane was open, and a soft yellow light spilled out from an oil lantern hung on a nail in a rafter. Grace, in a box stall by the door, snorted uneasily as they entered. The packed-dirt aisle smelled not unpleasantly of horses and straw and manure and dove droppings and dry rot.

  From Copperhead’s box sounded an angry squeal. Dag held out a restraining hand as Sorrel started to surge forward. Wait, Dag mouthed.

  It was hard f
or Dag not to laugh out loud as the scene revealed itself, although the sight of half his gear strewn across the stall floor being well trampled by Copperhead did quite a lot to help him keep a straight face. On the far wall of the stall, some wooden slats were nailed to make a crude manger, and above it a square was cut in the ceiling to allow hay to be tossed down directly from the loft above. Although the hole was big enough to stuff down an armload of hay, it wasn’t quite big enough for Rush’s broad shoulders to make the reverse trip.

  At the moment, having scrambled off the top of the manger as a partial ladder, Rush had one leg and both arms awkwardly jammed through the hole, and was attempting to twist the rest of his body out of range of Copperhead’s snapping yellow teeth. Copperhead, ears flat back and neck snaking, squealed and snapped again, apparently for the pure evil pleasure of watching Rush squirm harder.

  “Patroller!” Rush cried as he saw them come up to the stall partition. “Help me!

  Call off your horse!”

  Sorrel shot Dag a worried look; Dag returned a small headshake and draped his arms over the partition, leaning comfortably.

  “Now, Rush,” said Dag in a conversational voice, “I distinctly remember telling you and your brothers that Copperhead was a warhorse, and to leave him alone.

  Do you remember that, Sorrel?”

  “Yes, I do, patroller,” said Sorrel, matching his tone, also resting his elbows on the boards.

  “I know you magic him in some way! Get him off me!”

  “Well, we’ll have to see about that. Now, what I’m mightily curious about is just how you happened to be in his stall, without my leave, but with my saddlebags and bedroll and all my gear, which I had left in Aunt Nattie’s weaving room. I think your pa would like to hear that story, too.” And then Dag fell silent.

  The silence stretched. Rush made a tentative move to swing down. Copperhead, excited, stamped and snapped and made a most peculiar noise, halfway between whipsaw menace and a horselaugh, Dag thought. Rush swung up again hastily.

  “Your brute of a horse savaged me!” Rush complained. His shirt was ripped on one shoulder, and some blood leaked through, but it was clear to Dag’s eye by the way Rush moved that there was nothing broken.

  “Now, now,” said Dag in a mock-soothing tone. “That was just a love bite, that was. If Copper’d really savaged you, you’d be over there, and your arm would be over here. Speaking from experience and all.”

  Rush’s eyes widened as it dawned on him that if he’d wanted sympathy, he’d gone to the wrong store with the wrong coin. Dag didn’t say anything some more.

  “What do you want to know?” Rush finally asked, in a surly tone.

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Dag drawled.

  “Pa, make him let me down!”

  Sorrel vented an exasperated sigh. “You know, Rush, I’ve drawn you and your brother out of wells of your own digging more than once when you were younger, because every boy’s got to survive his share of foolishness. But as you’re both so fond of telling me, you’re not youngsters anymore. Seems to me you got yourself up there. You can get yourself down.”

  Rush looked appalled at this unexpected parental betrayal. He started blurting a somewhat garbled account for his predicament involving an imaginary request relayed from Fawn.

  Dag gave Sorrel another small headshake. Sorrel looked increasingly grim.

  “No,” Dag interrupted in a bored voice, “That’s not it. Think harder, Rush.”

  After a moment, he said, “I should also mention, I suppose, that Sunny Sawman and his three strapping friends are now on their way downriver to West Blue.

  Under escort. Underwater, mostly. I don’t think they’ll be back for some several days.”

  “How did you—I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  More silence.

  Rush added in a smaller voice, “Are they all right?”

  “They’ll live,” said Dag indifferently. “You can remember to thank me kindly for that, later.” And fell silent again.

  After a couple more false starts, Rush at last began to ‘fess up. It was more or less the story Dag expected, of alehouse conspiracy and youthful bravado. In Rush’s version, Reed was the ringleader, valiantly horrified at the thought of his only sister marrying a Lakewalker corpse-eater and thus making him brother-in-law to one, and Rush’s motivations were lost in a mumble; Dag wasn’t sure whether this was strict truth or blame-casting, nor did he greatly care, as it was clear enough both boys were in it together. They had found a strangely enthusiastic helper in Sunny, fresh from a summer of stump-pulling and happy to show off his muscle. Unsurprisingly, it appeared Sunny had not seen fit to mention to the twins his prior encounter with Dag. Dag chose not to either.

  Sorrel looked grimmer and grimmer.

  Rush at last stuttered to a halt. A cool silence fell in the warm barn. Rush began to sag down; Copperhead lunged again. Rush tightened up once more, clinging like a possum to a branch. Dag could see that his arms were shaking.

  “Now, Rush,” said Dag. “I’m going to tell you how it’s going to be. I am actually prepared to forgive and forget your brotherly plan to beat me crippled or dead and buried in your pa’s woods on the night before my wedding. The fact that you also seriously endangered the lives of your friends—because I would not, facing that death, have held back in defending myself—I leave to your pa to take up with you two. I’ll even forgive your lies to me.” Dag’s voice dropped to a deadly register that made Sorrel glance aside in alarm. “What I do not forgive is the malice of your lies to Fawn. You’d planned for her to wake up joyful on her wedding morning and then tell her I’d scunnered out in the night, make her believe herself shamed and betrayed, humiliate her before her friends and kin, set her to weeping—although I think her real response might have surprised you.”

  He glanced aside. “You like that picture, Sorrel? No? Good.” Dag took a long breath. “Whatever reasons your parents tolerated your torment of your sister in the past, it stops tomorrow. You claim Reed was afraid of me? He wasn’t near afraid enough. Either of you so much as look cross-eyed at Fawn tomorrow, or anytime thereafter, I will give you reason to regret it every day for the rest of your lives. You hear me, Rush? Look at me.” Dag hadn’t used that voice since he was a company captain. He was pleased to note it still worked; Rush nearly fell from his perch. Copperhead shied. Even Sorrel stepped backward. Dag hissed,

  “You hear me?”

  Rush nodded frantically.

  “All right. I will halter Copperhead, and you will climb down from there.

  Then you will pick up every bit of my gear and put it back where you found it.

  What’s broken, you and your brother can fix, what’s been rolled through the manure you can scrub—which will keep you two out of further mischief for the rest of the evening, I think—what can’t be fixed, you’ll replace, what can’t be replaced, I leave you to work out with your pa.”

  “You heard the patroller, Rush,” said Sorrel, in a deeply paternal snarl.

  Really, it was almost as good as the company-captain voice.

  Dag extended his ground to his horse, a familiar reach long practiced; he’d been saddled with this chestnut idiot for about eight years, now. Disappointed at the loss of his toy, Copperhead lowered his head to the stall floor and began lipping straw, pretending that it all never happened. Dag thought he had a lot in common with Rush, that way. “You can get down,” said Dag.

  “He isn’t haltered,” said Rush nervously.

  “Yes, he is,” said Dag, “now.” Sorrel’s eyebrows climbed, but he didn’t say anything. Cautiously, Rush climbed down. Red-faced, his eyes wary on Copperhead, he began collecting Dag’s strewn possessions: clothing and saddlebags and ripped bedroll, knocked-about saddle and pummeled saddle blanket. The adapted bow, though kicked into a corner, was undamaged; Dag was glad. Only the reasonably benign outcome was keeping him from utter fury right now—that, plus not thinking too hard about Spark. B
ut he had to think about Spark.

  “Now,” Dag said, as Rush made his way out of the stall with his arms loaded, and Dag closed the stall door after him. Rush set the tangled gear down very carefully. “We come to the other question. What of all this would you have me tell Fawn?”

  The place had been quiet like a barn; for a moment, it grew quiet like a tomb.

  Sorrel’s face screwed up. He said cautiously, “Seems to me she’d be near as distressed for the word of this as for the thing itself. I mean, with respect to Reed and Rush,” he added, visions of Fawn weeping over Dag’s battered corpse evidently presenting themselves to his mind’s eye, as indeed they did to Dag’s.

  Rush, who had been rather red, turned rather white.

  “Seems that way to me, too,” said Dag. “But, you know, there’s eight people who know the truth about what happened tonight. Granted, four of them will be telling lies when they drag home tonight, though I doubt even those will all be the same lies. Some kind of word’s going to get around.”

  Dag let them both dwell on this ugly vision for a little, then said, “I’m not Reed’s and Rush’s linker, though I should have been. I will not lie to her for them. But I’ll give you this much, and no more: I’ll not speak first.”

  Sorrel took this in almost without expression for a moment, clearly thinking through the deeply unpleasant family ramifications. Then he nodded shortly.

  “Fair enough, patroller.”

  Dag extended his groundsense briefly, for all that the proximity of the two shaken Bluefields made it painful. He said, “Reed is coming back to the house with Fawn, now. I’d prefer to leave him to you, Sorrel.”

  “Send him down here to the barn,” said Sorrel, somewhat through his teeth.

  “That I will, sir.” Dag gave a nod in place of his usual salute.

  “Thank you—sir.” Sorrel nodded back. Fawn returned to the kitchen with Reed in some annoyance with him for dragging her out in the dark. She lit a few candle stubs on the mantel to lighten both the room and her mood. Better still for the latter was the sound of Dag’s long footfalls coming through from the front hall. Reed, who had ducked into Nattie’s weaving room for some reason, came out with an inexplicable triumphant smile on his face. She was about to ask why he was so happy all of a sudden when the look was wiped clean at the sight of Dag entering the kitchen. Fawn bit back yet more irritation with her brother. She had better things to do than fuss at Reed; hugging Dag hello was on the top of that list.