“Dag,” said Fawn curiously, “have you ever seen the sea?”
“Oh, yeah, couple of times. The south shore, that is, around the mouth of the Gray River. I’ve not seen the eastern sea.”
“What’s it like?”
He sat back, squatting, fingers still caressing the swamp-lizard skin, and a meditative look came over his face. “First time was almost thirty years ago. Never forget it. West of the Gray, between the river and the Levels, the land is flat and mostly treeless. All mounted patrols in that wide-sky country. Our company commander had us all spread out, half a mile or more apart, in one long line—that sweep must have been fifty miles across. We rode straight south, day after day. Spring it was, the air all soft and blue, and new green coming up all around, and flowers everywhere. Best patrolling I ever did in my life. We even found one sessile, and did for it without hardly pausing. The rest was just riding along in the sunshine, dangling our feet out of the stirrups, scanning the ground, just barely keeping touch with the patrollers to the right and left. End of the week, the color of the sky changed, got all silvery and light, and we came up over these sand dunes, and there it was…” His voice trailed off. He swallowed. “The rollers were foaming in over the sand, grumbling and grumbling, never stopping. I never knew there were so many shades of blue and gray and green. The sea was as wide and flat as the Levels, but alive. You could feel with your groundsense how alive it was, as if it was the mother of the whole wide green world. I sat and stared…We all dismounted and took off our boots, and got silly for a while, running in and out of that salty water, warm as milk.”
“And then what happened?” Fawn asked, almost holding her breath.
Dag shrugged. “Camped for the night on the beach, turned the line around and shifted it fifty miles, and rode back north. It turned cold and rained on the way back, though, and we found nothing for our pains.” He added after a moment, “Wood washed up on the beach burns with the most beautiful strange colors. Never saw anything like.”
His words were simple and plain, as his words usually were; Fawn scarcely knew why she felt as though she were eavesdropping on a man at prayers, or why water blurred her eyes.
“Dag…” she said. “What’s beyond the sea?”
His brows twitched up. “No one’s sure.”
“Could there be other lands?”
“Oh, that. Yes. Or there were, once. The oldest maps show other continents, three of them. The original charts are long gone, so it’s anyone’s guess how accurate the copies are. But if any ships have gone to see what’s still there, they haven’t come back that I ever heard. People have different theories. Some say the gods have interdicted us, and that anyone who ventures out too far is destroyed by holy curses. Some guess the other lands got blighted, and are now all dead from shore to shore, and no one’s there anymore. I’m not too fond of that picture. But you’d think, if there were other folks across the seas, and they had ships, some might have got blown off course sometime in the last thousand years, and I’ve never heard tell of any such. Maybe the people over there have interdicted us, till our task is done and all’s safe again. That would be sensible.”
He paused, gazing into some time or distance Fawn could not see, and continued, “Legend has it there is, or once was, another enclave of survivors on our continent, to the west of the Levels and the great mountains that were supposed to be beyond them. Maybe we’ll find out if that’s true someday, if anyone, us or them, ever tries to sail all around the shore of this land. Wouldn’t need such grand ships for hugging the coast.”
“With silver sails,” Fawn put in.
He smiled. “I think that’s got to happen sometime. Don’t know if I’ll live to see it. If…”
“If?”
“If we can keep the malices down long enough for folks to get ahead. The river men are bold enough to try, but it would risk a lot of resources, as well as lives. You’d need a rich man, a prince or a great lord, to fund such a voyage, and they’re extinct.”
“Or a bunch of well-off men,” Fawn suggested. “Or a whole big bunch of quite ordinary men.”
“And one fast-talking lunatic to coax the money out of their pockets. Well, maybe.” He smiled thoughtfully, considering this vision, but then shook his head and rose. Fawn carefully rerolled the astonishing swamp-lizard skin.
Dag went back inside to cadge paper, ink, and quills from the clerk, then they both sat at the nearest trestle table in the dappled shade to write their letters to West Blue. Fawn didn’t miss West Blue—she’d longed to get away, and she hadn’t changed her mind on that—but she couldn’t say her feet were planted in their new soil yet. Given the way Lakewalkers kept moving around, maybe home would never be a place. It would be Dag. She watched him across the table, scribbling with his quill clutched in his right fingers and holding down the paper, lifting in the warm breeze, with his hook. She bent her head to her own task.
Dear Mama, Papa, and Aunt Nattie. We got here day before yesterday. Had it only been two days? I am fine. The lake is very… She brushed the quill over her chin, and decided she really ought to say more than wet. She wrote large, instead. We met up with Dag’s aunt Mari again. She has a nice…Fawn scratched out the start of cabin and wrote tent. Dag’s arm is getting better. And onward in that vein, till she’d filled half the page with unexceptionable remarks. Too much blank space left. She decided to describe Sarri’s children, and their campsite, which filled the rest with enough cheery word pictures to grow cramped toward the end. There.
So much left out. Patroller headquarters, and Fairbolt Crow’s peg-board. Dar, the unnerving bone shack, Dag’s angry mama, the futility of the sharing knife after all this journey. Dag’s dark, nervy mood. The threat of swimming lessons. Naked swimming lessons, at that. Some things were best left out.
Dag, finishing, handed his letter across for her to read. It was very polite and plain, almost like an inventory, making clear which gifts were for which family members. Both horses and the packsaddle were to be Mama’s, as well as some of the fine furs. The mud-man skin for the twins was blandly described, entirely without comment. Fawn grinned as she pictured the three alarming hides being unpacked at West Blue.
Dag stepped inside and returned the quills and ink to the clerk, coming out with the letters folded and sealed just in time to greet a girl who rode up, bareback, on a tall, elegant, dappled gray mare. A dark foal about four months old pranced after, flicking his fuzzy ears; he had the most beautifully shaped head and deepest liquid eyes Fawn had ever seen on a colt, and she spent the time while Dag and the girl organized the packsaddle trying to make up to him. He flirted with her in turn, yielding at last to ear scratching just there. Fawn couldn’t imagine her mother riding that mare, nor any of her family; maybe the dappled beauty could be broken to harness and pull the light cart to the village, though. That would turn a few heads.
A man dressed as a patroller came riding from the direction of the headquarters building. He turned out to be a courier on his way south, apparently a trusted comrade; exactly what old favor Dag was calling in was not clear to Fawn, but however dubiously he greeted the farmer bride or raised his brows at Dag, he had undertaken to deliver the bride-gifts. He stopped with them long enough to get a clear description of the Bluefield farm and how to find it, and then he was off, with the silvery mare following meekly on a lead and the colt capering and scampering. The horse girl, trudging back to Mare Island, looked after them with a downright heartbroken expression.
Dag then led Fawn off to the next storehouse, where they found some lightly used cooking gear—not a proper kitchen’s worth, but at least a few things to permit more elaborate meals over an open fire than sliced raw plunkin and tea. And, to Fawn’s joy, several pounds of cotton from south of the Grace River, cleaned and combed, an equally generous bag of washed wool, and three hanks of good flax. The tools Aunt Nattie had given Fawn for a wedding present would find their proper use. Despite her burdens her steps were lighter turning back toward t
heir campsite, and she made plans for getting Dag to hold still long enough to measure his gnarly feet for socks.
The following day Dag returned from the medicine tent with no sling or splints, but with a smile on his face that would hardly go away. He flexed and stretched his hand gratefully. He reported he’d been instructed to take it easy for another week, which he interpreted liberally as no weapons practice yet. Everything else he embraced immediately, including Fawn.
To her muffled alarm, the next thing he did that afternoon was make her put down her spindle and go with him for her first swimming lesson. She was distracted from her fear of the water only by her embarrassment at their lack of clothes, but somehow Dag made both better. They picked their way past the bending cattails into water to his waist and her chest. At least the lake’s murkiness gave them a more decent cloak, its greeny-gold translucence turning opaque just a short way down. The top foot of the water was as warm in the sun as a bath; beneath that it grew cooler. The soft mud squelched between Fawn’s curling toes. They were accompanied by a dizzy escort of water bugs, flocks of little black ovals that whirled merrily like beads on a string, and agile water striders, their thin legs making dimples in the brown surface as they skated along. Dag promptly made the bead-shaped bugs an example to Fawn, inviting her to spin them down in little whirlpools with her hands and watch them bob right back to the surface.
Dag insisted she was naturally more buoyant than he, taking the opportunity to pat her most buoyant parts. Fawn thought his assertion that It doesn’t matter how deep the water is, Spark, you’re only going to use the top two feet overly optimistic, but under the influence of his confidence and unfailing good cheer, she gradually began to relax in the water. By the second day, to her own astonishment, she floated for the first time in her life; on the third afternoon, she achieved a dog paddle of several yards.
Even Dag had to admit that the lake’s muddiness made Hickory Lake residents all tend to smell a bit green by the end of the summer—sooner than that, Fawn did not say aloud—but Sarri took Fawn into the woods and showed her where a clear spring ran that not only allowed her to give lake-scrubbed clothes a final rinse, but also to draw water that didn’t need to be boiled before drinking. Fawn managed her first laundry day, and sniffed their clothes, drying on a line strung between two trees, with satisfaction at a job well done.
That afternoon, Dag came in with a small turkey to pluck. Fawn happily started a bag to save feathers, looking ahead to pillows and ticks. They roasted the bird over their fire and invited Mari and Cattagus to help eat it up. Fawn ended the evening casting on her first cotton yarn to her double-ended needle set for Dag’s socks, and feeling that this place might become home after all.
Two days later, instead of a swimming lesson, Dag took her out in one of the narrow boats. He had a specially shaped hook for his wrist cuff that allowed him to manage his paddle. Fawn, after a brief lesson on the dock, was placed in the front with a paddle of her own. She felt nervous and clumsy at first, looking over all that expanse of water with Dag out of sight behind her, but she soon fell into the rhythm of the task. Around behind Walnut Island, winking water gave way to a surface that was downright glassy, and Fawn relaxed still more. They paused to admire a dead tree reflected in the water, its bare white branches startling against the green of the woods. It was a roosting place for broad-winged hawks, a few circling gracefully overhead or perching on the branches, and Fawn smiled to remember the day they’d been startled by that big red-tail near Glassforge. Any larger predators, Fawn had gathered, were kept off the islands by Lakewalker magic.
Up the back channel, the air grew still and hot, and the water clear. Huge elderberry bushes leaned over the banks, their branches heavy with thick clusters of green fruit slowly acquiring a promising rosy blush; in another month the berries would be black and ripe, and Fawn could easily see how a boy might gather them from a boat like this one. A shiny sunfish jumped right into their boat at Dag’s feet; Dag, laughing at Fawn’s startled squeal, scooped the flopping creature gently back into the water and denied that he had enticed it by Lakewalker persuasion. “Much too small, Spark!”
Rounding a tangle of wrack and cattails where red-winged blackbirds traded barking chirps and hoarse whistles, they came at last upon a broad open space crowded with flat lily pads, their white flowers wide to the sun. Thin, iridescent blue dragonflies, and thicker scarlet ones, stitched the air above the marsh, and rows of turtles sunned themselves on logs, yellow-striped necks stretched out, brown backs gleaming like polished stones. A blue heron stalked slowly along the farther shore; it froze briefly, then darted its long yellow beak into the water. A silvery minnow flashed as the heron twisted its neck around, gulped, then stood folded for a moment looking smug. Fawn hardly knew whether it made her happier to watch the flowers or the contented look on Dag’s face. Dag sighed in satisfaction, but then frowned.
“I thought this was the same place, but it seems smaller. This water is a lot shallower, too. I remember it as being well over my head. Did I take a wrong turn somewhere?”
“It looks plenty deep to me. Um…how old were you, again, first time you found this place?”
“Eight.”
“And how tall?”
Dag began to open his mouth, then grinned sheepishly. “Shorter than you, Spark.”
“Well, then.”
“Well, indeed.” He laid his paddle across his lap and just gazed around.
The water lilies, though beautiful, were the same common variety Fawn had sometimes seen in quiet backwaters around West Blue, she decided. She had seen cattails, dragonflies, turtles, blackbirds, and herons before. There was nothing new here, and yet…this place is magical. The silence in the warm, moist air, broken only by the little noises of the marsh, seemed holy in her ears, as if she were hearing a sound beneath all sound. This is what having groundsense must be like, all the time. The thought awed her.
They sat quietly in the narrow boat, beyond all need of words, until the heat of the sun began to grow uncomfortable; with a sigh, Dag took up his paddle once more and turned them around. His stroke left a glossy whirlpool spiraling down into the clear water, and Fawn’s eye followed it. This is where his heart is anchored. I can see why.
They had almost rounded the corner into the main arm of the lake when Dag paused again. Fawn twisted around; he held his finger to his lips and grinned at her. His eyes half-lidded, he sat there with an absentminded, sleepy look on his face that didn’t reassure her a bit. So she didn’t quite fall out of the boat when a sudden splash and movement resolved into a huge black bass, twisting in the air and trailing sparkling drops. It fell into the bottom of the narrow boat with a resounding thud, flopped and flapped like mad, then at last lay still, bright gills flexing.
“There’s a better size for dinner,” said Dag in satisfaction, and thrust his paddle into the water once more.
“Now, that’s persuasion. Is that how you folks fish all the time?” asked Fawn in amazement. “I wondered why I didn’t see any poles or lines lying around.”
“Something like that. Actually, we usually use hand-nets. You ever see old Cattagus lying on the dock looking as if he’s dozing, with one hand trailing over the side, that’s what he’s likely doing.”
“It seems almost like cheating. Why are there any fish left in this lake?”
“Well, not everyone has the knack.”
As they pulled into the dock, sunburned and happy, Fawn made plans for begging some herbs from Sarri’s garden and grilling Dag’s catch worthily. She managed to clamber onto the weathered gray planks from the wobbly boat without taking an inadvertent swimming lesson, and let Dag hand her up his prize before he tied off the boat’s lines. Clutching the bass, she turned her face up to Dag for a quick kiss and hug, and they climbed the stone steps up the steep bank.
His arm around her waist gave her an abrupt squeeze, then fell away. She looked up to follow his glance.
Dar waited in the shade at the top of
the bank, frowning like a bit of rainy dark detached from winter and walking around. As they crested the rise, he said to Dag, “I need to talk to you.”
“Do you? Why?” Dag inquired, but he gestured toward their tent and the log seats around their fire pit.
“Alone, if you please,” Dar said stiffly.
“Mm,” said Dag, without enthusiasm, but he gave his brother a short nod. He saw Fawn back to the tent and left her to deal with the fish. Fawn watched uneasily as the pair strolled away out of the campsite and turned onto the road, leaning a little away from each other.
7
T hey turned left onto the shady road between the shore campsites and the woods. Dag was tired enough not to need to shorten his steps to match his brother’s, and not yet annoyed enough to lengthen them to his full patroller’s stride and make Dar hurry to keep up. On the whole, he wouldn’t bet on that remaining the case. What is he about? It didn’t take groundsense to see that although Dar had come to Dag, conciliation and apology were not strong in his mood.
“And so?” Dag prodded, although it would have been better tactics to wait Dar out, make him start. This isn’t supposed to be a war.
“You’re the talk of the lake, you know,” Dar said curtly.
“Talk passes. There will be some other novelty along soon enough.” Dag set his jaw to keep himself from asking, What are they saying? He was glumly sure Dar was about to tell him anyway.
“It’s a pretty unsavory match. Not only is that girl you dragged home a farmer, she’s scarcely more than an infant!”
Dag shrugged. “In some ways Fawn’s a child; in others not. In grief and guilt, she’s fully grown.” And I am surely qualified to judge. “In knowing how to go on, I’d call her an apprentice adult. Basic tasks aren’t yet routine for her, but when all that energy and attention get freed up at last, watch out! She’s ferociously bright, and learns fast. Main thing about the age difference, I reckon, is that it hands me a special burden not to betray her trust.” His eyebrows pinched. “Except that the same is true of anyone at any age, so maybe it’s not so special after all.”