Passage

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  Alder’s lips moved wordlessly. He swallowed and found at least a few: “I’m so sorry, Berry. The Briar Rose sank in a storm near here last winter. I was the only one as got off. Some fellows from”—he glanced at Skink—“from a hunting camp up in the Elbow picked me up off the shore, nearly dead. I was sick for weeks—lung fever. By the time I got better, there was no sign of the boat but a few boards caught in a towhead. The river took the rest.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Berry anxiously. “They might have got downstream of you and thought you was lost—no, they would have sent word somehow…” Her breath went out of her in a long sigh.

  Hawthorn’s hopeful face crumpled; Berry folded him in one arm. His back shook. “Shh, Hawthorn,” she said, hugging him tight. “We always sort of knew, didn’t we? Because Papa and Buckthorn and…” she hesitated, “…they wouldn’t have left us without saying, unless…well.” She scrubbed her free arm across her damp eyes. “Why no word, Alder? It was so cruel on us!”

  Alder drew breath. “It took me months to get stronger, and then I owed the camp fellows for their help, and then I thought—I went down the river to get us a grubstake, and I didn’t want to come dragging back to you with my hands full of bad news and nothing. I meant to at least replace the value of the Rose for you. But it’s took longer than I thought it would.”

  Remo whispered urgently in Dag’s ear, “Dag, he’s—”

  Dag held up his hand and murmured back, “Wait. Let him finish.” He stared down intently at the anguished people on the front deck, groundsense as open as he could bear. Which was not wide, at this point.

  Berry cried, “Alder, you’re making no sense! You know me better, you must! How can you think I’d put a bag of coin above my kinfolks’ lives, or even the knowing of their fates?”

  “I’m sorry, Berry,” Alder repeated helplessly, hanging his head. “I was wrong, I see that now. I never dreamed you’d come after me.”

  A variety of expressions had moved across the listening Bo’s face, from muted pleasure to muted grief; now he was simply mute, chewing gently on a thumbnail. Fawn had tumbled out onto the deck almost as excited as Hawthorn. Her face had fallen in mirror to her friend Berry’s. Now she stood by Bo with her arms folded, listening hard. On the whole, Dag was glad she did not seem to be swallowing all this down as readily as Berry, but then, she had less reason to: Alder had sworn no heart-oaths to Fawn, and any hopes she held for Berry’s happiness teetered on a balance against fears for Whit’s. My Spark’s shrewd; she feels the twist in this.

  Berry went stiff. “Alder—you’re going to have to tell the truth sometime, so it may as well be now. If there’s another girl, you’ll have to betray one of us or t’other, so you can’t win that toss nohow. If she—maybe—nursed you back to health or something, I don’t suppose I can even hate her…” Berry stared beseechingly at him. They were standing wholly apart now.

  “No!” said Alder in surprise. “No other woman, I swear!”

  Remo whispered, “Blight. S’ the first true thing that fellow’s said.”

  “Aye,” replied Dag. And sorry he was for it; it would have been a tidy wrap for the tragedy. He added softly, “Keep an eye on that beguiled fellow. He’s getting ready to bolt.” Skink was edging toward the skiff. Remo nodded and slipped quietly down past the chicken pen. Skink stopped and edged back, looking furtively around the crowded bow.

  Berry searched her betrothed’s face and decided—however wishfully, even Dag could not tell—that he spoke true. “Then come with me now! We’ll sell the Fetch in Graymouth and have all the grubstake we need. The house in Clearcreek is waiting.” Her voice skipped a breath. “I had it all ready for us.”

  Alder ran a harried hand through his hair. “I can’t run off with no word to the camp fellows as helped me.”

  “Of course not!” said Berry. “We can stop around the bend. I’d want to thank them myself for their care of you. Or”—she paused as a new realization apparently overcame her—“if you have debts to them, well, I have some coin as will clear them. It’s not much, but it’s enough to cover a sick man’s keep and nursing.” She hesitated again in unwelcome suspicion. “Unless they were gambling debts that got all out of hand on you…?”

  “Berry, they’re a pretty rough lot. Better I should deal with them, and you take your boat straight on. I’ll…collect my things and meet you at the Wrist.”

  Bo’s slow voice broke in. “You never found any bodies to bury proper?”

  Alder shook his head. The roil in his ground was growing frantic.

  “You don’t have to soften it for me,” said Berry in a low voice. “I know what this river can do.”

  Was this Dag’s business? He glanced at Fawn, who was anxious for Berry but more anxious for the stricken Whit. At Bo, at the bewildered Hawthorn. Dag was not above supporting lies to shield someone from futile pain, but all directions seemed bad, here. So let’s have the truth out, and see where the pain falls fairly. He looked down gravely and said, “Berry…? Alder is lying to you.”

  Her face turned up, white and wild. “What about?”

  “Everything.”

  Skink lunged for the rail.

  He was caught by Remo and by Chicory, who had come out partway through the uproar to lean against the cabin wall and listen in baffled fascination. Chicory was quick enough to help catch Skink before he went over into the water, a hunter’s reflexes, but his face twisted up in doubt once the struggling man was held between them. “What are we doing here, Lakewalker?” he called up to Dag.

  “I’m not sure, but that fellow is beguiled to the gills. I don’t know who did it, or when, or why.” Had it been on purpose?

  “Oh, that’s no good,” said Hod. “Can you fix him, Dag?”

  What would happen if he unbeguiled the unsavory Skink? It was gut-wrenching to imagine having to take in that repulsive ground-release, but beguilement was a hurt in its own way. If Dag would not leave a man bleeding or lying with a broken bone, could he turn away from this? “Why are you trying to run off, Skink? I won’t hurt you.”

  Skink glared around madly. “Crane won’t like this!” he told Alder.

  The fear from both their grounds pulsed like a stench, but Alder at least held his stance as Dag eased down from the roof and approached Skink. On my head be it. He lifted his left arm, not that he needed to touch the man at this range, but aligning body and ground helped him concentrate. The act was growing easier with practice; Dag flinched as the backwash of Skink’s agitated ground poured into him, but he forced himself to accept it.

  Dag wasn’t sure what response he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Skink’s collapse into utter shock and violent weeping, a sudden shuddering heap on the deck. “No, no, no!” he wailed. “No, no, no…”

  Chicory bit his lip in appalled fascination, tense with surmise.

  Yes, Dag thought. The troop captain’s seen something like this before. And so have I.

  “Skink, pull yourself together!” Alder snapped. He looked around at his gaping audience, now augmented by Barr and Bearbait. “Sorry, folks, sorry. It takes him like that when the drink wears off, sometimes. I better get him back to camp…”

  Any one of Alder’s lies might have been plausible; the accumulation was surely not. What truth does he fear so desperately? This was Dag’s last chance to avoid finding out. Alas, there wasn’t much to choose between regret for a disaster from a mistake, or regret for a disaster from being perfectly correct. Strike at the weakest point; strike fast.

  He strode forward, yanked up Skink’s head by the hair, and bought his attention with, if not a fence post between the ears, his harshest company-captain’s voice. “Look at me.” Skink stared up, his breath catching in mid-snivel. Dag demanded, “What are you really doing here?”

  “Boat bandits!” babbled Skink. “We’re supposed to check the down-bound boats, and if they’re any good, bring ’em in to Crane and the boys for the plucking. Oh, gods!”

  “What?�
� cried Berry. “Alder, what?” She wheeled to stare in horror not at Skink, but at her betrothed.

  “The man’s in a drunken delirium!”

  “The man,” said Chicory thoughtfully, “reminds me a whole bunch of those fellers we used to pick off the edge of the blight bogle’s camp.”

  Dag just barely kept himself from saying, It’s related. Not a parallel he wished to draw attention to. He compromised on, “Maybe, but this is human mischief, it seems.” He yanked Skink’s hair again, refusing to let him retreat into breathless weeping. “How many bandits, where?”

  “Thirty. Forty. And Crane, always him.”

  “Where?”

  “Cave, there’s this cave up around the Elbow. Thirteen river miles around the loop, but just three across the neck. Gives time to scout out the boats and prepare, see…”

  He’s spouting good, now. Keep up the pressure. “Was there ever a malice in the cave?”

  “What?”

  “A blight bogle.”

  Skink shook his head. “Ain’t no blight bogles around here. Just Crane, that’s bad enough. And them Drum brothers. Before the Drums come, Alder was Crane’s right-hand man, but he likes them better now, and even Alder’s not crazy enough to be jealous of them two Drums.”

  Dag shook Skink again, leaning down on his shoulder as if Skink were a leather water-bag and Dag was trying to squeeze out the last drops. “So you lure in the boats with offers of piloting, and then what? Steal their valuables? What do you do to the crews?”

  “That wasn’t how they got my boat. When I first come, the cave was still fixed up as Brewer’s Cavern Tavern. Bring us in, get us drunk, set on us while we was in a stupor…except the ones Crane saved out for his game…oh, the blood and pitifulness of it all!”

  Very quietly, Bo and Barr had moved in on either side of Alder, Dag was glad to see. Berry had stepped back, her face drained, cold, distant. Fawn gripped her bloodless hand, in support or restraint or both.

  “What happens to the crews nowadays?” Dag kept on.

  “Kill ’em in their sleep or from behind, if we can. Can’t let any run off to tell. Ride ’em down if they run. Crane can always find ’em. Burn the boats or hide them in the blocked channel back behind the island. Can’t let any boats go down to be recognized, either. Brewer used to do that, but Crane is cannier. Brewer invented the game, too, but Crane won it in the end.”

  “And the bodies?”

  “Used to plant ’em in the ravine, till Little Drum showed how you could slit their bellies and load ’em with rock, and sink ’em in the river so’s they don’t come up. Faster than buryin’. Oh, gods. See, them Drum boys don’t always kill ’em first…”

  Was this enough? Too much. Dag knew their urgent danger now, and surely decanting more grotesque details—what was the game?—could wait till they were not in front of Fawn, Berry, Hawthorn, and Hod. One more. “Who is Crane?”

  “The Lakewalker. Our Lakewalker.”

  Barr and Remo both took that in immediately; Dag could tell by the way their grounds snapped shut like mussels. A renegade? A madman? A malice’s pawn? “Where did he come from?” Dag pressed relentlessly.

  “Don’t know. He was here already when I come along. Oleana somewheres, I guess.”

  “Did he start the gang?”

  “No! Fellow named Brewer, I said.”

  “Was Brewer a Lakewalker?” Surely not, with that name.

  “No, ’course not! Before me—before Alder—Crane was just a passenger on a down-bound flatboat that Brewer lured in to the Cavern Tavern. Somehow he talked Brewer out of killing him, and then he was Brewer’s right-hand man for a time, and then…no more Brewer. Just Crane.” Skink hesitated. “Brewer, they say he just wanted to get filthy rich, but nobody can figure out what Crane wants.”

  “He’s alone?”

  “No, there’s about thirty or forty of us, depending.”

  “I mean, no other Lakewalkers with him?” Dag clarified.

  “Oh. Yeah. Alone like that, I guess.”

  “Where is he right now, do you know?” Nowhere within a mile, but a mile seemed suddenly much too short a distance between this madness and Spark.

  Skink shook his head. “Cave, last I seen.” Alder seemed to cringe inward. Dag looked up and eyed him in cold speculation.

  Berry swallowed and said to Dag, “Ask him if they took…saw the Tripoint Steel.”

  “Them struttin’ keelers?” Skink snorted. “They was through here last week. Crane, he said to lie low and just let them fools float on by. Which they did.”

  Dag met Berry’s eyes and read the message: No help there. But it set his mind to spinning. The Fetch’s complement was outnumbered by at least two to one, but other boats came behind in a steady stream. Clever of the bandits to take only the richest and let most pass unmolested, but even so their crimes could not go unmarked much longer. How much time did the Fetch have to prepare? Prepare what?

  Some of the Raintree flatties had taken over the oars, or the Fetch would have drifted into a sand bar. They were much closer now to that feeder creek with the good lookout just above it. Dag motioned to Chicory and Bearbait. “Did you ever have the hunting of bandits up in Raintree?”

  “Once,” Chicory admitted, scratching his head. “It was only a couple, not thirty or forty. Brought them in alive to be tried before the village clerk, but we didn’t have to stay for the hangings. Not my favorite sort of hunting, but it needed doin’.”

  Dag said, “It seems to need doing again. I’ve helped take out bandit gangs a couple of times, plus the big one that plagued Glassforge. First trick is, you make sure you outnumber the targets. The Snapping Turtle is not too far behind us, and there may be other boats following soon. If we can get enough help by nightfall, are you fellows in?”

  Chicory glanced at Bearbait, who nodded. “Might as well be.”

  “If I could, I’d prefer to leave the farmers to the farmers. And the Lakewalker to the Lakewalkers,” said Dag. Barr and Remo both flinched at the word of their new task, but returned his nod. “This Crane is likely to be dangerous in ways you can’t fight.”

  “That would suit me,” said Chicory slowly. “As long as they’re all brought to the same justice after.” His gaze at Dag was hard and questioning.

  “If he’s guilty of half the horrors Skink suggests, that won’t be a problem. Three’s been a quorum for field justice before this.”

  Chicory gave this a very provisional nod. “Well, if you want to make a rabbit stew, first you catch your rabbit.”

  “Aye,” said Dag.

  After the Fetch tied up at the mouth of the feeder creek, Fawn watched anxiously as Dag and most of the rest of the men took their prisoners ashore for further questioning. They all returned in about three-quarters of an hour, looking even grimmer, although neither Alder nor his shattered partner showed signs of much new roughing-up. Bo closely supervised the chaining of Alder’s hands behind him, around one of the sturdy posts holding up the Fetch’s roof between the kitchen space and the stores. He advised Dag, “I’d put a gag in his rotten mouth, too.”

  Dag just shook his head, but he told Berry and Fawn, “Don’t let those chains loose for any reason. If he has to piss, turn your backs and have Hod hold a bucket.” He held Berry’s eyes as he said this; she nodded shortly. Then they all settled down to wait for reinforcements.

  Whit signaled from the bluff fairly soon; he and Bo went out in the bandits’ skiff to explain matters to a down-bound flatboat, which then rowed in to tie alongside the Fetch. Its nine able-bodied flatties were shocked at the news, not to mention at their own narrow escape, and readily volunteered for the attempt to burn out the river robbers.

  The Snapping Turtle came into sight around noon, and Fawn saw Dag start to breathe a little easier. Its raucous crew pronounced themselves all in for the dirty job. The serious planning began then amongst the cadre of leaders and bosses gathered on the shore: Wain and Saddler, Chicory and Bearbait, the new flattie boss, and Dag.
Wain, claiming to be the best brawler on the river bar none, was inclined to assume leadership. He called for a roundabout river attack, although it was plain Dag preferred Chicory to lead a land strike up over the neck. When the blustering threatened to grow loud and prolonged, Dag took Wain aside for a brief word. Fawn, watching from the Fetch’s bow, was not at all sure it had been words alone that persuaded Wain to settle down, and she nibbled on her knuckles in worry as Dag looked darker than ever. But the land ploy was finally agreed upon.

  The men spent the afternoon assembling or devising weapons. All had knives, and cudgels were readily fashioned, but there were fewer spears and bows amongst them than Dag plainly would have preferred. He set Whit with the bowmen.

  “Does Whit have to go?” Fawn murmured to Dag in a rare private moment snatched out on the Fetch’s back deck.

  “He volunteered. It would be an insult to leave him with the boats. And I’m short on archers.” He pushed a curl of hair back from her brow. “At least bow-shot puts him farther from the rough and tumble.”

  “There’s a point,” she conceded.

  “And…I’d rather not leave him with Alder.”

  Her gaze flew up. “Dag! No matter how heartbroke he is for Berry, Whit’s not an assassin!”

  “No, but Alder has as twisted a tongue as I’ve ever encountered. If he talks Berry into…anything, there’s as much danger of Whit being persuaded to some foolishness out of misplaced nobility as there is of his going to the other extreme. I’m as happy to remove him from the dilemma altogether.” He hesitated. “We’re all going to have to turn hangmen come morning, you know, if this goes as it should. Berry’ll need all the support you can give her through that.”

  “Does Alder have to hang? I mean, he was beguiled by this Lakewalker Crane, wasn’t he? Is he guilty, if he did what he did under compulsion? Is Skink? Isn’t that going to be a real problem to figure out, come…come morning?”

  Dag was silent for a long time, staring out across the river. “I’m not planning to bring it up if the others don’t. Please don’t you, either. They’re all guilty enough.”