Passage

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “No, they paid me off.”

  “But that’s not fair. Just because you’re off your feet for a week or two, they shouldn’t ought to sack you!” Whit scowled in outrage at this injustice.

  “Didn’t. I asked to be let off.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to stay. Here. No, not here.” A vague wave around took in Pearl Riffle. “With him.” Hod pointed to Dag. “He could hire me.”

  “To do what?” asked Fawn in bafflement.

  “I dunno.” Hod shrugged. “Just…things. Anything.” He glanced up warily at Dag. “Well, sitting-down things at first, I guess.” He added after a minute, “He wouldn’t have to pay me or anything.”

  “Do you know much about boats?” Fawn asked thoughtfully. She glanced up at Berry, still sitting on the roof edge and watching it all with some perplexity.

  Hod gave an uncertain headshake.

  Whit’s lips screwed up; he strolled over to Berry’s dangling feet and whispered up to her, “Hod’s not too quick in the wits, I’m afraid.”

  “Neither was my last two oarsmen. Took me days to get my cook-pots back.”

  Whit muffled a grin, and went on, “But he’s willing. I mean, he could be, once he gets over having his knee kicked in by Dag’s evil nag. That’s what happened, see, how he got hurt in the first place. Dag fixed him up again Lakewalker-style.”

  “Mm. The Fetch is still a bit shorthanded, it’s true.”

  “He’s sort of an orphan, I gather.”

  Berry’s brows rose. “Huh. Funny. So am I, sort of.” Her stare down at Hod grew more appraising.

  Dag wondered if he’d get anywhere offering to throw Hod up behind him on Copperhead and gallop after Mape and Tanner, delivering their henchman back to them to be firmly returned to Glassforge. Hod plainly wouldn’t want to go, and Dag was beginning to have a very ugly misgiving about why. And it wasn’t just on account of Hod’s unhappy former life.

  Could he test his suspicion? Hod was bent over with both hands on his right knee again, helplessly patting at it. It was clear his pain was very real.

  Dag swallowed and cleared his throat. “All right, Hod. I can give you just a little more ground reinforcement. But then you have to behave and follow orders about letting that knee heal, all right?”

  Hod’s face lit with joy; he nodded vigorously. His lips parted as he watched Dag bend down and lay his hand on the joint again.

  The wrench of the reinforcement came readily; Dag felt it like a wave of heat passing from his palm into the throbbing joint below. For a moment, all the tension seemed to go out of Hod’s body. He gave vent to an aah of blissful relief. “That’s good,” he whispered to Dag. “That’s so good.”

  Fawn patted Hod’s shoulder again in encouragement. “There, see? You’ll be all right soon.”

  Berry, watching, scrubbed the back of her hand across her mouth. “That’s real interesting, Lakewalker. You some kind of bonesetter, too, are you?”

  “Sometimes,” Dag admitted, climbing to his feet. His heart was pounding, and it wasn’t from the exertion. “Just in emergencies. I’m not trained as a real medicine maker.”

  Fawn started to explain proudly to Berry how Dag had once mended a glass bowl by groundwork, but broke off as Dag grasped her by the arm and dragged her into the cabin. He didn’t stop till they were out of earshot back by the kitchen hearth.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, alarmed. “Isn’t Hod healing all right?”

  “Oh, his knee’s healing fine. So’s his gut.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. You know, I’m thinking maybe a trip on the river would be good for Hod, too, now he’s not going to be so sick all the time. I bet we all could watch after him better ’n those glass-men did.”

  “Fawn, stop. It’s not that. It’s something else.”

  She blinked at his tone, then looked at him more carefully.

  “Hod”—Dag took a deep breath—“is beguiled to the eyebrows. And I don’t know how to get him un-beguiled.”

  8

  Dag had the most unsettled look on his face, downright dismayed. Fawn felt pretty dismayed herself. “How did it happen?” she asked.

  “Not sure. Well, it must have happened when I healed his knee, yes, but—I didn’t mean to. I always thought beguilement was something you had to do on purpose.”

  “It’s something real, then?” She had thought it rumor, tall tale. Slander.

  “I’d never seen a case. Only heard about it. Gossip, stories. I’ve never known a farmer who—well, till I met you, I hadn’t really known any farmers at all. Passed through, passed by, dealt with farmers, yes. Never got so close, for so long.”

  “What’s this beguilement like?”

  “You saw near as much as I did. Hod wants more. More healing. More ground reinforcement, more pieces of…me, I guess.”

  Her face screwed up in new confusion. “But Lakewalkers have healed me. You, Mari, old Cattagus once a little, when I scorched my hand. And I’m not beguiled.” Am I? The thought went well beyond dismay. She remembered her own rage when Dag’s brother Dar had implied just such a thing, mocking her marriage.

  “I…” Dag shook his head. It would have reassured Fawn more to think it was in denial and not just Dag trying to clear his brain. “Those were minor healings. What I did on Hod was as deep as any medicine making I know of. I nearly groundlocked myself.”

  Her hand went to her lips. “Dag, you never said!”

  He waved away her alarm. “And you—I’m not sure how to put this. Your ground isn’t hungry like Hod’s. You’re abundant. I don’t think you know how much you give to me, every day.” His brows drew down, as if he pursued some insight that eluded him. “I’d half-talked myself into thinking the risk of beguiling farmers during healing was exaggerated. That others might have problems, but that I’d be an exception. Looks like I need to think again.”

  Both their heads swiveled at the sound of footsteps. Boss Berry, frowning, ambled into the cramped living quarters at the back of the cabin. “What do you want to do about that boy, Lakewalker? You takin’ responsibility for him or not? He’s only about half-useful as he stands. Or sits.”

  Fawn said, her voice tinged with doubt, “He could be a scullion, I suppose. How long till he could man a sweep, Dag?”

  “If he could be taught, you mean? Couple of weeks. If he doesn’t do anything to reinjure the knee.” He looked at Fawn, his brows pinching harder. “In two weeks, we’ll be far down the river.”

  “If it ever rains again,” sighed Berry.

  “If he’s to be left behind, better here than in some strange place,” said Dag. “I can’t…see my way.”

  Of how to un-beguile Hod, did he mean? And if Hod were left at Possum Landing, would he still try to follow Dag? How far? “Well…if we take him along, you may or may not figure it out. If you leave him here, you never will.”

  He scratched his chin ruefully. “There’s a point, Spark.”

  Fawn glanced at Berry, who was waiting with her brows up. No, the boat boss’s own situation was far too unsettled to ask her for undertakings or promises on behalf of Hod. It was up to them. Fawn said, “I’m willing to try with him if you are, Dag.”

  Dag took a breath. “Then we’ll haul him along.”

  Boss Berry gave a short nod. “The Fetch has itself a scullion, then.” She added, in mild regret, “I won’t charge nothing for his passage.”

  In the warmest part of the afternoon, Bo led an expedition downstream to the Riffle, where the locals had gathered to salvage coal from a recently wrecked flatboat before the water rose again. Hod stayed on the Fetch with his leg up, supposedly keeping watch but probably, Fawn thought, napping. Whit’s interest was aroused when he learned that the wrecked boat’s boss was buying back coal retrieved from the river bottom by the bushel, albeit at a meager price. Some gatherers preferred to carry off the coal itself, and then, after some jawing, the meager price was paid the other way; Berry explained to Fawn that the going
rate had been worked out a few days earlier, when the gatherers had dumped their baskets back in the worst part of the rapids before the boat boss saw reason. Whit stripped to his drawers and sloshed in after Bo and Hawthorn to duck and dive for the scattered cargo—or, contorting, grub it up with his toes. Fawn found herself drawn in along with Berry, skirts tucked up and feet bare as they waded out to receive dripping sacks and pile up the coal on the bank to dry. The water was growing chilly as the autumn waned.

  Dag claimed blandly that his one-handed state barred him from the task, which made Fawn raise her brows and snort. He withdrew to sit with his back comfortably propped against a stump and watch. Fawn wondered if giving the ground reinforcement to Hod had set him back, again. He ignored the stares he drew from the handful of families working farther on down the riverside. There were no youths from the Lakewalker camp cashing in on the windfall, Fawn noticed, though clusters of village boys had turned out for the chance.

  About an hour into this task, a gang of half a dozen brawny keelers from the boat trapped above the Riffle traipsed past. Some wore striped trousers, others had colored scarves around their waists or sometimes their heads, or feathers in their hatbands if they owned hats. They started to call something rude to Fawn and Berry, but then some recognized the boat boss and hushed the others. Berry waved back amiably enough. Dag opened one eye to observe, but when nothing untoward developed, closed it again.

  “Where are they going?” Fawn asked Berry.

  “Down to Pearl Bend. To drink, mostly, I expect.”

  “Isn’t there a tavern at Possum Landing?” It was the first place Berry went to look for Bo whenever he vanished off the Fetch, Fawn understood.

  Berry grinned, lowered her voice, and said, “Yeah, but there’s a bed boat tied up down at the lower end of the Bend, just now. Three sisters and a couple o’ cousins keep it. There isn’t one at the Landing. The ferrywomen won’t have it.”

  Fawn hesitated, reluctant to reveal her ignorance. She had her suspicions. She was the married woman here, after all. “Bed boat?” she finally asked.

  “Some of the girls who sleep with the boatmen for money follow the trade up and down the river in their own boats. They can slip away easier if the town mothers object, see, and they don’t have to split their pay with the tavern-keepers.”

  Fawn wondered if Mama had known about this exotic river-hazard. “You ever meet one?”

  “Time to time. Playing fiddle for the keelers pulling upriver, I met most every sort sooner or later. Well, not the worst; Papa didn’t work on those boats. Most of the girls are all right. Some take it up because they’re way down on their luck, but others seem to like it. Some are thieves who give the rest a bad name, same as some boatmen.” She grimaced.

  By unspoken agreement, the topic was tabled as Whit waved and they waded out within earshot of the males again. Fawn wondered if Whit had heard yet about the bed boat. She couldn’t help thinking he’d be even more curious than she was. And he had money in his pocket, just now. She resolved not to mention it in front of him. Then she wondered if Lakewalker men from the camp ever snuck down there. Dag might know. And if she asked him straight out, he would likely tell her straight out, though she bet he wouldn’t bring up the subject.

  She emptied Whit’s sack onto their coal pile as Berry emptied Bo’s and Hawthorn’s; Berry waded back out in the water to toss them again to the fellows. Whit grinned thanks through purple-blue lips. The shade was already creeping over this patch of bank as the sun sank, and Fawn rubbed her chilly legs together, wondering how long Berry and Bo meant to go on. Dag straightened up and turned his head; he bent one knee and lurched up to a seat on the stump. Fawn followed his gaze.

  Coming down the track along the bank were three older Lakewalkers: two women and a man. One woman was dressed like a patroller, the other wore a woolen skirt and buckskin slippers decorated with dyed porcupine quills, and the man was tidy in a simple shirt and trousers, with hair in a very neat queue tied down his back, undecorated. His braid wasn’t shot with gray like the others’, but his face was not young. His left hand was bandaged. They all wore matching frowns.

  They came to a halt in front of Dag. The patroller-looking woman said, “Dag Red-Blue whatever you are, we need a word with you.”

  Dag opened his hand to indicate welcome to his patch of grass and tree roots.

  As Berry came to Fawn’s side to stare, the patroller woman glanced at them both and jerked her head over her shoulder. “In private.”

  Dag’s eyelids lowered, opened. “Very well.” He heaved to his feet. “I’ll be back in a bit, Spark, or I’ll find you at the Fetch.”

  All the Lakewalker looks dismissed Berry and focused on Fawn, especially her left wrist. She wrapped her right hand around her wedding cord and lifted her chin. She expected Dag to introduce her, but he didn’t, merely giving her a touch to his temple in farewell, and a nod something between grave and grim. Did he know what this was all about? If he did, he sure hadn’t told her. He’d said nothing about his visit to the camp when he’d caught up with her yesterday, and in the flurry of news about the boat, Fawn hadn’t asked. She’d assumed he simply hadn’t found the friends he’d been looking for. Plainly, there was more to it. Fawn watched in concern as Dag trod up the river path after the frowning Lakewalkers.

  With his groundsense locked down, Dag could not read the moods of the three Pearl Riffle Lakewalkers directly, but he hardly needed to. Amma Osprey and Nicie Sandwillow were plainly not happy, even more not-happy than when he’d left them yesterday. The man seemed shaken, his right hand protecting the bandaged left held to his chest. He bore no tool bag, but his cleanliness and bearing bespoke his craft.

  Captain Osprey turned aside and climbed the bank through the trees till they were out of sight and earshot of anyone happening along the path. The three took seats on a fallen cottonwood trunk, and Amma waved Dag to a place on a recently cut oak stump opposite. As he sank down, her wave continued to the new man, whom she introduced laconically: “Verel Owlet. Pearl Riffle’s medicine maker.”

  Tension leaked from the trio, infecting Dag. He couldn’t decide between a belligerent What’s this all about? or a cool So, what can I do for you? He tilted his head instead. “Dag Bluefield.”

  Their return stares remained dubious.

  Amma Osprey drew breath. “First off, I want to get down to the bottom of those rumors flying around Pearl Bend. Is it true you healed some Glassforge wagon-man’s broken leg, couple of days back?”

  Dag hesitated, then said, “Yes. I was obliged. It was my horse kicked him.”

  The medicine maker put in anxiously, “Was it really groundwork, or just a bonesetting?”

  For answer, Dag held up his hook. But not his ghost hand, tightly furled with the rest of his ground. “I don’t do many two-handed chores.”

  “Ah. I suppose not,” said the medicine maker. “Sorry. Did the wagon-men realize what you were doing?”

  “Yes. I didn’t make a secret of it.” He’d just about made it a show, in fact.

  Amma hissed through her teeth and muttered, “Blight it.”

  Various premature defenses sprang to Dag’s mind, fighting with a desire to demand of the medicine maker everything he knew about beguilement. He settled more cautiously on, “Why do you ask?”

  Verel Owlet straightened, laying his injured hand on his left knee. “The first I heard about your stunt was when some farmer fellow from Pearl Bend—I think he’s a carpenter by trade—turned up at my tent this morning insisting I come see his sick wife. When I told him Lakewalkers could only heal other Lakewalkers, he started babbling about the wagon-men’s story, which was evidently being passed around the tavern down there last night. First he begged, then he offered money, then he drew a knife on me and tried to force me to walk to the Bend. Some of the off-duty patrollers were able to jump us and take the knife away from him, and escort him to the crossroads. He went back down the road crying and swearing.”

  Verel
wasn’t just shaken by the knife attack, Dag guessed, but also by his distraught attacker. Medicine makers tended to be sensitive, given their need to be open to their patients. How sick had that carpenter’s wife been? A picture of a deathly ill Fawn rose unbidden in Dag’s head, and he thought, I’d have done a lot worse than pull a knife on you. “But it’s not true.”

  “What’s not true?” said Nicie.

  “It’s not true that Lakewalkers can’t do groundwork on farmers.”

  “It’s what we tell ’em around here,” said Amma impatiently. “Absent gods, man, use your head. All we have is one good medicine maker and two apprentices, barely enough for our own.”

  “Not even enough,” muttered Verel.

  “We’ll sell the farmers what remedies we make and can spare, yes,” Amma continued. “But they would drain poor Verel dry, if they knew. And then they would keep coming, and scenes like this morning would be the least of our troubles.”

  “They’d never understand groundwork,” said Verel. “What it costs us, what it lays us open to.”

  “Not if they’re never taught, no,” said Dag dryly. “Funny, that.”

  Amma eyed him sharply. “It’s all fine for you; you’ll be moving on at the next rise. We have to stay here and deal every day with these people.”

  Verel was frowning at Dag with fresh speculation. “Your partner Saun said you were unusually strong in groundwork. For a patroller, I mean.”

  Ye gods, yes, the medicine maker here would certainly have treated and talked with the convalescent Saun last spring, and Reela as well. “I did what I could with what I had. Patrol healing can get pretty rough-and-ready.” Granted, since Dag’s ghost hand had emerged, he’d seemed to have…more. Whether it was new-grown strength, or just new access to strength long crippled, even Hickory Lake’s medicine maker, the remarkable Hoharie, had been unable to say.

  Verel hadn’t mentioned inadvertent beguilement as a reason not to do groundwork on farmers. Did he even know about it, if he’d never healed anyone but Lakewalkers? Was Dag’s effect on Hod something unique? Dag suddenly wondered if Amma knew that Hod hadn’t gone home with the other wagon-men. It seemed not, since she didn’t ask after him.