He gave her a quick return embrace with his left arm and turned to Reed. “Ah, Reed. Your papa wants to see you in the old barn. Now.”
Reed looked at Dag as though he were a poisonous snake surprised in some place he’d been about to put his hand. “Why?” he asked in a suspicious voice.
“I believe he and Rush have quite a lot to say to you.” Dag tilted his head and gave Reed a little smile, which had to be one of the least friendly expressions to go by that name Fawn had ever seen. Reed’s mouth flattened in return, but he didn’t argue; to Fawn’s relief, he took himself off. She heard the front door slam behind him.
Fawn pushed back her unruly curls. “Well, that was a fool’s errand.”
“Where did you two go off to?” Dag asked.
“He dragged me all the way to the back pasture to help rescue a calf stuck in a fence. If the brainless thing had got itself in, it had got itself out by the time we made it there. And then he wanted to walk the fence line while we were out there. I didn’t mind the walk, but I have things to do.” She stood back and looked Dag over. He was often not especially tidy, but at the moment he looked downright rumpled. “Did you have your quiet think?”
“Yes, I just spent a very enlightening hour. Useful, too, I hope.”
“Oh, you. I bet you never sat still.” She brushed at a few stray bits of bark and leaf stuck to his shirt, and observed with disfavor a new rip in his trouser knee stained with blood from a scrape. “Walking in the woods, I think. I swear, you been walking so long you don’t know how to stop. What, were you climbing trees?”
“Just one.”
“Well, that was a fool thing to try with that arm!” she scolded fondly. “Did you fall down?”
“No, not quite.”
“That’s a blessing. You be more careful. Climbing trees, indeed! I thought I was joking. I don’t want my bridegroom broken, I’ll have you know.”
“I know.” He smiled, glancing around. Fawn realized that, miraculously, they were actually alone for a moment. He seemed to realize this at the same time, for he sat in the big wooden chair by the hearth and pulled her toward him.
She climbed happily into his lap and raised her face for a kiss. The kiss went urgent, and they were both out of breath when their lips parted again.
She said gruffly, “They won’t be able to keep us apart much longer.”
“Not even with ropes and wild horses,” he agreed, his eyes glinting. His smile grew more serious. “Have you decided yet where you want us to be tomorrow night?
Ride or bide?”
She sighed and sat up. “Do you have a partiality?”
He brushed her hair from her forehead with his lips, likely because he had a notable reluctance for touching her about the face with his hook. It turned into a small trail of kisses along the arches of her eyebrows before he, too, sat back thoughtfully. “Here would be physically easier. We won’t get to Hickory Lake in a day, still less in a couple of hours tomorrow evening. If we camped, you’d have to do most everything.”
“I don’t mind the work.” She tossed her head.
“There is this. We won’t just be making love, we’ll be making memories. It’s the sort of day you remember all your life, when other days fade. Real question, then, the only really important one, is what memories of this do you want to bear away into your future?”
Now, there was a voice of experience, she thought. Best listen to it. “It’s farmer custom for the couple to go off to their new house, sleep under the new roof. The party goes on. If we stay, I swear I’ll end up washing dishes at midnight, which is not what I want to be doing at midnight.”
“I have no house for you. I don’t even have a tent with me. It’ll be a roof of stars, if it’s not a roof of rain.”
“It doesn’t look like rain. This high blue weather this time of year usually holds for three or four days. I admit I prefer inn chambers to wheatfields, but at least with you there’s no mosquitoes.”
“I think we might do better than a wheatfield.”
She added more seriously, thinking about his words, “This place is chock-full of memories for me. Some are good, but a lot of them hurt, and the hurtful ones have this way of jostling into first place. And this house’ll be full of my family. Tomorrow night, I’d like to be someplace with no memories at all.”
And no family.
He ducked his head in understanding. “That’s what we’ll do, then.”
Her spine straightened. “Besides, I’m marrying a patroller. We should go patroller-style. Bedroll under the stars, right.” She grinned and nuzzled his neck, and said seductively, “We could bathe in the river…”
He was looking immensely seduceable, eyes crinkling in the way she so loved to see. “Bathing in the river is always good. A clean patroller is, um…”
“Unusual?” she suggested.
And she also loved the way his chest rumbled under her when he laughed deep down in it. Like a quiet earthquake. “A happy patroller,” he finished firmly.
“We could gather firewood,” she went on, her lips working upward.
His worked downward. He murmured around his kiss, “Big, big bonfire.”
“Scout for rowdy squirrels…”
“Those squirrels are a right menace.” He looked down over his nose at her, though she didn’t see how he could focus his eyes at this distance. “All three?
Optimistic, Spark!”
She giggled, joyful to see his eyes so alight. He’d seemed so moody when he’d first come in.
To her aggravation, she could hear heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, Fletch or Whit, heading this way. She sighed and sat up. “Ride, then.”
“Unless we have a barker of a thunderstorm.”
“Thunder and lightning couldn’t keep me in this house one more day,” she said fervently. “It’s time for me to go on. Do you see?”
He nodded. “I’m beginning to, farmer girl. This is right for you.”
She stole one last kiss before sliding off his lap, thinking, Tomorrow we’ll be buying these kisses fair and square. Her heart melted in the tenderness of the look he gave her as, reluctantly, he let her slip out of his arm. All storms might be weathered in the safe harbor of that smile.
Chapter 19
Fawn flew through the irreducible farm chores the next morning. The milking fell to her; afterwards, waving a stick with resolute vigor, she sent the bewildered cows off to pasture at a brisk and unaccustomed trot. For practical reasons the rule about the marrying couple’s not seeing each other before the wedding was put aside till after the family breakfast, when Aunt Rose Bluefield arrived to help Mama with the food and the house, along with Fawn’s closest cousins and girlfriends Filly Bluefield and Ginger Roper to start the primping.
First came proper baths. The women went off to the well; the men were dispatched to the river. Fawn had grave doubts about leaving Dag to the mercies of her father, Fletch, and Whit for such a vulnerable enterprise, although at least the twins weren’t to follow till a long list of dirty chores had been completed.
Filly and Ginger dragged her away as she was still yelling strict orders down the hill after the men about not letting Dag’s splints get wet. There followed a naked, wet, silly, and sudsy half hour by the well; Mama brought out her best scented soap for the task. Once they were back in the bedroom with Ginger and Filly starting on her hair, Fawn was relieved to hear footsteps and men’s voices through the closed door to the weaving room, Dag giving some calm instruction to Whit.
Filly and Ginger did their best, from Fawn’s dimly remembered description of what Reela had told her, to imitate Lakewalker wedding braids, although Fawn was glumly aware that her own hair was too curly and unruly to cooperate the way Lakewalkers’ long locks no doubt did. The result was creditable, anyhow, with the hair drawn up in neat thick ropes from her temples to meet at her crown, and from there allowed to spin down loose behind after its own turbulent fashion.
In the little hand mirror, held ou
t at arm’s length, Fawn’s face looked startlingly refined and grown-up, and she blinked at the strangeness. Ginger’s brother had ridden all the way to Mirror Pond this morning, four miles upriver, to get the flowers Fawn had begged of him: three not-too-crumpled white water lilies, which Ginger now bound into the knot of hair on the crown of her head.
“Mama said you could have had all of her roses you wanted,” Filly observed, tilting her head to examine the effect.
“These are more lake-ish,” said Fawn. “Dag will like them. The poor man doesn’t have any family or friends here, and is pretty much having to borrow everything farmer. I know he was pining that he couldn’t send down his Lakewalker bride-gifts till after the wedding; they’re supposed to be given beforehand, I guess.”
Filly said, “Mama wondered if no women of his own people would marry him because of his hand being maimed like that.”
Fawn, choosing to ignore the implied reflection upon herself, said only, “I shouldn’t think so. A lot of patrollers seem to get banged up, over time.
Anyhow, he’s a widower.”
Ginger said, “My brother said the twins said his horse talks human to him when there’s no one around.”
Fawn snorted. “If no one’s around, how do they know?”
Ginger, considering this, conceded reluctantly, “That’s a point.”
“Besides, it’s the twins.”
Filly granted, “That’s another.” She added in regret, “So I guess they made up that story about him magicking together that glass bowl they broke, too?”
“Um. No. That one’s true,” Fawn admitted. “Mama put it away upstairs for today, so it wouldn’t risk getting knocked down again.”
A thoughtful silence followed this, while Filly poked at the curls in back to fluff them, and pushed away Fawn’s hands trying to smooth them.
“He’s so tall,” said Ginger in a newly speculative tone, “and you’re so short.
I’d think he’d squash you flatter than a bug. Plus both his arms bein’ hurt.
However are you two going to manage, tonight?”
“Dag’s very ingenious,” said Fawn firmly.
Filly poked her and giggled. “How would you know, eh?”
Ginger snickered. “Someone’s been samplin’, I think. What were you two doin’, out on the road together for a month like that?”
Fawn tossed her head and sniffed. “None of your business.” She couldn’t help adding smugly after a moment, “I will say, there’s no going back to farmer boys, after.” Which won some hoots, quickly muted as Nattie bustled back in.
Ginger set her a chair by Fawn’s bench, and Nattie laid out the cloth in which she’d wrapped the braided cords; she’d just delivered Dag’s to him, together with the other, surprise present.
“Did he like his wedding shirt?” Fawn asked, a bit wistful because she couldn’t very well ask Nattie How did it look on him?
“Oh, yes, lovie, he was very pleased. I’d say, even moved. He said he’d never had anything so fine in his life, and was in a wonder that we got it together so quick and secret. Though he said he was relieved for the explanation of you girls with your measurin’ strings yesterday, which had evidently been worryin’
him a bit.” She unrolled the wrap; the dark cord lay coiled in her lap, the gold beads firm and rich-looking upon the ends.
“Where is he wearing his cord? Where should I wear mine?”
“He says folks mostly wear them on the left wrist if they’re right-handed.
T’other way around if not, naturally. He’s put his around his left arm above the harness, for now. He says when the time comes for the binding, he can sit down and you can stand facing him, left side to left side, and I should be able to do the tyin’ between you without too much trouble.”
“All right,” said Fawn doubtfully, trying to picture this. She stuck out her left arm and let Nattie wrap the cord several times around her wrist like a bracelet, tying the ends in a bow knot for now. The beads dangled prettily, and she twisted her hand to make them bounce on her skin. A little of her most secret self was in it, Dag said, bound in with her blood; she had to take his word.
Then it was time to get her dress on, the good green cotton, washed and carefully ironed for this; her other good dress being warm wool for winter.
That Dag would remember this dress from that night in Glassforge when he had so gently and urgently removed it, unwrapping her like a gift, must be a secret between them; but she hoped he would find it a heartening sight. Ginger and Filly together lowered the fabric carefully over her head so as not to muss her hair or crush the lilies.
A knock sounded at the door, from someone who did not wait for permission to enter; Whit, who looked at Fawn and blinked. He opened his mouth as if to fire off one of his usual quip-insults, then appeared to think better of it and just smiled uneasily.
“Dag says, what about the weapons?” he recited, revealing himself as a messenger sent. “He seems to want to put them all on. He means, all of them, at once.
He says it’s to show off what a patroller is bringing to his bride’s tent.
Fletch says, no one wears weapons to a wedding, it just ain’t done. Papa says, he don’t know what should be done. So Dag says, ask Spark, and he’ll abide.”
Fawn started to answer Yes, it’s his wedding too, he should have some of his own customs, then instead said more cautiously, “Just how many weapons are we talking about, here?”
“Well, there’s that great pigsticker that he calls his war knife, for starters.
Then there’s one he slips down in his boot, and another he straps on his thigh sometimes, evidently. What he wants with three knives when he only has one hand, I don’t know. Then there’s that funny bow of his, and the quiver of arrows, which also has some little knives stuck in it. He seemed a bit put out that he didn’t have a sword by him—seems there’s one he inherited from his pa back at his camp, and some ash spear or another for fighting from horseback, which he also doesn’t have here. Fortunately.”
Ginger and Filly listened to this lengthening catalog with their faces screwing up.
Whit, nodding silent agreement at them, finished, “You’d think the man would clank when he walked. You wouldn’t want a patroller to fall into water over his head on his way to his wedding, I’ll say.” His own brows rose in gruesome enthusiasm. “You suppose he’s killed anybody with that arsenal? ‘Spect he must have, sometime or another. That’s a right sobering collection of scars he has, I saw when we were down washing up. Though I suppose he’s had a long time to accumulate ’em.” He added after another contemplative moment, “Do you think he’s getting nervous ‘bout the wedding? He don’t hardly show it, but with him, how would you tell?”
With Whit as a helper, it was a wonder Dag wasn’t frenzied by now, Fawn thought tartly. “Tell him”—Fawn’s tongue hovered between yes and no, remembering just what all she had seen Dag kill with those weapons—“tell him just the war knife.”
In case it was nerves and the weapons a consolation. “Tell him it can stand for the rest of them, all right? We’ll know.”
“All right.” Whit did not take himself off at once, but stood scratching his head.
“Did the shirt fit him good?” Fawn asked.
“Oh, yeah, I guess.”
“You guess? Didn’t you look? Agh! Useless to ask you, I suppose.”
“He liked it fine. Kept touchin’ it with his fingertips peekin’ out of those bandages, anyhow, like he liked the feel. But what I want explained is—you know, I had to help him button and unbutton his trousers. So how in the green world has he been managing them for the past week? ‘Cause I haven’t never seen him going around undone. And I don’t care how much of a sorcerer he is, he has to have been doin’ the necessary some time…”
“Whit,” said Fawn, “go away.”
Ginger and Filly, thinking this through, looked at Fawn’s flushing face and began to giggle like steam kettles.
“Because,�
� Whit, never one to take a hint, forged on, “I know it wasn’t me or Fletch or Pa, and it couldn’t have been the twins, who didn’t warm to him a bit.
Suppose it could have been Nattie, but really, I think it must have been you, and how—ow!” He ended in a yelp as Nattie smacked him firmly and accurately across the knees with her cane.
“Whit, if you don’t go find yourself a chore, I’ll find you one,” she told him.
“Don’t you go embarrassin’ Fawn’s patroller with all your supposing or you’ll have me to answer to, and I will be here tomorrow.”
Whit, daunted at last, took himself out, saying placatingly, “I’ll say just the knife, right.”
Outside, Fawn could hear the sounds of hoofbeats and creaking carts coming up the lane, and calls of greeting, more folks arriving. It felt very peculiar to sit still in this room waiting, instead of being out bustling around doing.
Mama came in, wiping her hands on a towel, to say, “Shep Sower and his wife just got here. They were the last. The sun’s as close to noon as makes no never mind.
We could start most any time.”
“Is Dag ready? Is he all right?”
“He’s clean, and dressed neat and plain. He looks very calm and above it all, except that he’s had Whit switch out his wooden hand for his hook and back again twice now.”
Fawn considered this. “Which did he end up with?”
“Hook, last I seen.”
“Hm.” So did that mean he was getting more relaxed, to let himself be seen so by strangers, or less, to have the most useful tool and maybe-weapon ready, as it were, to hand? “Well, it’ll be over soon. I didn’t mean to put him through such an ordeal when I agreed to stop back here.”
Mama nodded to Fawn’s cousins. “You girls give us a minute.”
The Sharing Knife: Beguilement Page 32
