“Not a courier, ma’am!” Dag hastened to reassure her, and she let the word fall unvoiced, with a relieved nod. “I’m just passing through. M’ name’s Dag Bluefield.”
This won blank looks from both women. Bluefield was not a Lakewalker name, nor had Dag claimed a camp of origin. Before they could pry into this oddity, he hurried on. “I came about a sharing knife. But I could come back later.”
A look of inexplicable enlightenment crossed the camp captain’s face. “Oh, no, if you witnessed anything, I definitely want it now. Take a seat, we’ll be starting soon.” She waved to a bench along the back wall. “Sorry, I thought you were our medicine maker out there.”
They were at some cross-purpose, it seemed. But before Dag could open his mouth to uncross them, the other woman peered out the window and said, “Ah, here they come. Absent gods, what a sick and sorry pair they look.”
“They’re going to be a lot sicker and sorrier when I’m done with ’em.” Amma Osprey ran a stray strand of gray hair, escaped from the braid at her nape, back over her ear, then folded her arms and her lips equally tightly as the door opened.
Two young men limped through. One was shorter, tawny-haired, and sturdy with muscle. But his right hand was bandaged, and his arm rested in a sling. His fair, square face was bruised. His shirt was clean and didn’t quite fit him—borrowed?—but his trousers were spattered with dried blood. He walked decidedly bent over.
The one who followed was taller, brown-haired, maybe a bit older than his companion, though still very young to Dag’s eyes. His face was even more bruised, one eye swollen shut, lower lip twice its proper size. Beneath his torn shirt his ribs were wrapped in cloth strips. Chicken tracks of black stitches marched up two long cuts on his left arm. His knuckles were swollen and scabbed, though he gingerly helped himself along with a stick in his right hand.
Two patrollers who’d lost a fight last night, obviously. To each other? They collected equally cold and silent glowers from the two women as they shuffled into line. The tawny youth made one attempt at a winning smile, wilting swiftly as the scowls deepened. Dag squinted in curiosity. He really ought to excuse himself and go. Instead, he sank back on his bench like a hunter lying up in tall grass, silent and unnoticeable.
Amma Osprey began curtly, “Not the least of your offenses is that I had to pull two of your comrades off their camp leaves this morning to take your places in patrol. You can remember to apologize to them, too, when they get back.”
Dag had done that in his time, cut his camp rest short in order to fill in for a sick or injured or bereaved patroller.
The dark one looked, if possible, more hangdog, but the tawny one raised his bruised face and began, “But we didn’t start it! We were just—”
The camp captain held up a quelling hand. “You’ll have your say in a moment, Barr. I promise you.” It sounded more threat than promise; in any case, the tawny youth subsided.
Steps sounded on the wooden porch, and the door swung open once more. A broad-shouldered woman stepped through, nodded to the other two, and scowled at the youths. By the yellow leather gloves stuck in her belt and the thick-soled boots on her feet, Dag identified her as a ferrywoman; by her age and stride, likely the boat boss. She pulled a lumpy cloth from her belt, and said, “I found this piece up in the woods back of Possum Landing this morning.”
“Oh, good,” said the camp captain. “Remo, do you have the rest?”
The dark youth hitched around and pulled another lumpy cloth from his shirt, reluctantly handing it over to his captain. She slid off the table and laid open both scraps. Dag was disturbed to see the pieces of a broken sharing knife, carved from pale bone. Such a knife was supposed to break when it released its burden of mortality into the ground of a malice, but Dag already had an uncomfortable suspicion that there had been no malice involved, or these two patrollers would be in much better odor this afternoon. Amma Osprey swiftly aligned the shards.
“That’s got it all, Issi,” she reported. The ferrywoman nodded satisfaction; the dark youth, Remo, let out a faint breath.
“Now we have a council quorum,” said the skirted woman. The three exchanged nods and settled, two in chairs, Amma hitched up on the edge of the table again. The two young patrollers were not invited to sit.
“All right,” said the camp captain grimly to the pair, “start explaining. How did this get started?”
The two exchanged unhappy looks; Remo of the swollen mouth waved a purpling hand at his companion, and said, “Oo ’ell ’m, Arr.”
Barr gulped and began, “It was a good deed, blight it! It really got started when that last coal flat tried to take the Riffle when the water’d got too low, ten days back, and tore out its bottom and dumped its load for half a mile down the shoals. Remo and I took out a narrow boat to pick off some of the crew that had got themselves hung up in the white water and the cottonwood wrack. Probably saved three flatties from drowning. Anyway, they seemed to think so. We hauled ’em into the tavern at Pearl Bend looking sorry as wet rats. Got them all dried out, on the outside anyway. At least they bought us drinks. Seeing as everyone was saved, they were all in a mood to celebrate, except maybe the boat boss who’d lost his cargo. So some of the keelers who’d helped out and the flatties started some games.”
“You know you are not to play games of chance with farmers,” said Amma Osprey in a dangerous voice. Because Lakewalkers were inevitably accused of sorcerous cheating in such situations. Although only if they had the ill luck or poor judgment to actually win.
“’Ee ’idn’t,” protested Remo.
“It was arm wrestling,” said Barr. “With a couple of the keelers. And despite what they claimed, we didn’t cheat—though I could have, blight it!” The peculiar indignation of the accused not-quite-guilty livened his voice, and Dag, still quiet on his bench by the wall, suppressed an upward mouth twitch.
“It made me so mad,” Barr went on. “So I told them it was true, but they could protect themselves from evil Lakewalker influences with metal helmets, like what you see the soldiers of the old Lake League wearing in the broken statues, which was what those helmets had been for, see. And they bought it. By the next afternoon, we had half the flatties up at Possum Landing walking around with their cook pots and wash bowls stuck on their heads. It was, it was”—he struggled for a moment, eyes brightening in defiant memory—“it was glorious.” His jaw set, then slacked instantly as he winced and rubbed its bruises.
“So that’s where that fool nonsense came from!” cried the ferry boss, Issi, in a voice that shook in a good imitation of anger. She turned away from the truants and rubbed her face till the betraying laugh lines were smoothed back out. Dag, who could just picture a herd of naive Lakewalker-fearing flatboat crews wandering about the Landing in their clanking makeshift helmets, laid his palm hard over his jaw and kept listening. Oh, to have been here last week!
“I was just balancing the scales a bit,” Barr continued. “You know what we do for those stupid farmers, and how little thanks we get in return. And it wasn’t hurting anyone, till your crew told them it was all a fiddle.”
The ferry boss sighed. “It took my girls near three days to talk them out of it. Even then, some of them refused to give up their headgear.” She added reflectively, “The rest were plenty mad, though. The Possum folks and the older flatties gave ’em a ripe ribbing for it all.”
Captain Osprey pinched the bridge of her nose. “Despite all that, I suppose it would have all passed downstream harmlessly at the next rise, if you two unaccountable fools hadn’t gone over there last night and stirred them up again. Why?”
“I was baited,” Barr admitted in a surly voice.
“Tol’ yuh,” his partner muttered, rolling his good eye.
“How?” demanded the patrol captain.
An even more surly silence.
The ferry boss put in, “I’ve already heard one version of it over at the Landing this morning, Barr. We’d better have yours.”
Barr hunched.
Remo mumbled, “Tell t’ truth, blighdit. Can’t be worse f’r you th’n f’r me.”
Barr hunched lower. With a voice that seemed to come from somewhere around his knees, he said, “A flatboat girl invited me. To meet her in the woods back of the Landing.”
Amma Osprey broke the chill silence that followed this with “When and where did this invitation take place?”
“Down at the Bend wharf boat. Yesterday afternoon.” He looked up indignantly into the thick disapproval that now blanketed the room.
“She seemed all excited. I didn’t think she was lying. Well, you know how those farmer girls throw themselves at patrollers, sometimes!”
“You’re supposed to throw them back,” said the skirted woman in a grim voice.
“Tol’ yuh it was a setup,” said Remo, with a black stare at his partner.
“He said, no, it was too obvi’us.”
Barr turned redder around his livid bruises. “I didn’t ask you to come.”
“Y’r muh partner. I’m supposed t’ watch y’r back!”
Barr took a long breath, then let half of it out with his protest unvoiced. “Six of the flatties jumped me in the dark. I wasn’t carrying any weapon. Neither was Remo. The flatties just had fists and sticks, at first. Then when Remo piled in to help me, and things started to turn back our way, one of the flatties pulled a knife on us. Remo had to use his knife to defend himself, it was the only thing we had, except for our bare arms!”
“You drew a primed sharing knife in a common brawl.” Amma Osprey’s voice was flatter than winter ice. And colder. And harder.
“Wisht ’d just used muh arms,” mumbled Remo. And lower, more despairing, “Or muh neck…”
It was all becoming clear to Dag, and he almost wished it weren’t. He eyed the pale bone shards laid accusingly on the plank table. His heart ached for these two young fools. He curled his right arm around himself and waited for the rest.
“And now we come to it,” said Amma. “Why were you wearing your sharing knife at all last night, when you knew you weren’t to go out on patrol till today?”
Remo’s face set in an agony that had nothing to do with its bruises. “I…it was new. I’d jus’ been given it. I was trying t’ get used to it!”
The picture was plain. Dag knew exactly how excited and proud a young patroller entrusted with a first primed knife would be. A pride sobered, frequently, with personal grief and the heart-deep determination to be worthy of such mortal trust. Ow. Ow. Behind their stern facades, he thought the three women shared his pang.
“And then those blighted flatties, those blighted farmers, broke it to pieces,” Barr went on, remembered rage flaring in his voice. “And then we both, well, we both went after them full-out. I don’t even remember getting this.” He touched his smashed hand. “And they broke and ran off. Some of them are still running, for all I know.”
Dag could picture that, too, rage and outrage and appalling guilt boiling up to a loss of control as terrifying, perhaps, for its sufferers as their victims. A patroller should never lose control. Especially not around farmers. It was ingrained, if sometimes not deeply enough. Because when such control failed, everyone was subject to the frightened farmer backlash.
“Your great-grandmother Grayjay didn’t share early for this fate,” said the skirted woman. “She might have had months yet, except that she feared passing in her sleep.”
Remo’s face went from red to white, beneath his bruises. “I know.” His ground-veiling was held so tight, his body was shaking as if with physical effort.
“I was going to take the pieces to your parents, but I think you should.”
Remo’s eyes closed. “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered, dead-voiced. Barr was very quiet.
Amma Osprey gestured at Dag. “You, sir. I gather you were at Possum Landing. You have any information to add to all this?”
Issi stared at the newcomer; she must know he hadn’t crossed north over the river by the ferry since last night. Squinting at his arm harness, she asked, “Do I know you, patroller?”
Dag cleared his throat uncomfortably, and rose. “My apologies, Captain Osprey. I actually just rode down from Glassforge. I came to ask you about another matter. I think this isn’t a good time for it, though.”
An irate look from the camp captain confirmed this belief, but Issi snapped her fingers and pointed. “I have seen you! You used to ride with Mari Redwing of Hickory Lake. You’re her nephew, aren’t you?”
Yes, Issi and Dag’s aunt Mari could well be near-contemporaries. Acquaintances. Maybe even passing friends, who knew? “Yes, ma’am.”
The skirted woman said, “But he said his name was Dag Bluefield.”
“I’m lately married, ma’am.”
“What kind of name is—” the skirted woman began.
The two young patrollers looked wildly at each other. Barr burst out, “Sir! Are you Dag Redwing Hickory, Saun’s partner? Who slew the Glassforge malice, single—all by himself?”
Dag sighed. “Not by myself, no.” Oh, yes—these two were just the age and sort to have become Saun’s boon companions in his convalescence here last spring. Dag winced at the thought of what kind of Dag-stories Saun might have been inspired to tell, to alleviate his boredom and entertain his new friends. Dag could see his hope of anonymity evaporate like morning dew in the heat of those suddenly interested eyes.
Captain Osprey blinked, rocking back. “Then are you also the same Dag Redwing who led the Hickory Lake company to Raintree a couple of months ago, and took down that horrendous malice they had running wild over there?”
Dag set his teeth, briefly. “I was Dag Bluefield by then, ma’am.”
“Fairbolt Crow’s report on Raintree in the latest patrol circular named a Captain Dag Redwing.”
Oh, so that was how the word had got around. Yes, there had been time for such official patrol news to have slipped ahead of Dag while he was lingering in West Blue. Fairbolt kept up. “Then Fairbolt named me wrong.” At Amma’s rising brows, he offered, “Habit, maybe. I patrolled under him for eighteen years as Dag Redwing. I was in his company even before he became Hickory Lake’s camp captain.”
“Eh. So what is this other matter?”
Dag hesitated.
Amma made an impatient gesture. “Spit it out and get it over with. It can’t be worse than the rest of my morning.”
Dag nodded, trying to get over the jolt of having his recent reputation run before him, even if some of it was no doubt due to Saun’s exaggerations. But perhaps it would do him some good. “I left Hickory Lake on business of my own, after—as a result of—the Raintree campaign. I expect to travel a lot of territory in the next few months. I used my last primed knife on the Glassforge malice, and haven’t yet found another. You don’t have to be on patrol to run across a malice—when I was riding courier alone up in Seagate, I once took out a new sessile that might have grown a lot more dangerous before anyone had got back to it with a patrol. I made it a rule after that never to walk bare. I know sometimes folks leave their primed knives to the patrol generally, to outfit patrollers who have none. I was wondering if you happened to have any such”—his eye fell uncomfortably on the broken bone knife on the table, and avoided Remo’s face—“spares. Just now.”
The camp captain crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you get one before you left Hickory Lake, then?” The skirted woman’s expression seconded the question.
Because he’d still been reeling, sick and heartsick, exhausted. Not thinking. “I hadn’t yet settled my plans.”
“What plans?” asked Amma.
“I figure to take the rivers down to Graymouth. Ride back in the spring. After that, I’m not sure. I might be able to return the loan then, if I don’t cross a malice.” And if he did, and used the knife, no one would ask for a better fate for it. His voice softened. “I promised my wife I’d show her the sea.”
The skirted woman touched her lips. “Wait up. Are you
also that same Dag Redwing who was just banished from Hickory Lake Camp for consorting with some farmer girl?”
Dag’s head shot up. “I was not banished! Where did you hear such a lie?”
“Well”—she waved a hand—“not banished, precisely. But the camp council circular didn’t make it sound like a happy outcome.”
Buying a moment to gather his wits and his temper, Dag touched his temple, and said stiffly, “You have the advantage of me, ma’am.”
The skirted woman gestured at herself. “Nicie Sandwillow. Pearl Riffle Camp council leader, this season.”
Therefore a senior tent head, that being the pool from which council members were selected by various sorts of rotations, depending on the camp. With the patrol’s camp captain always a permanent member. Dag wondered if the ferry boss was also a permanent member, here. It seemed likely. Making this morning’s inquiry doubly efficient, serving the patrol and the council at once. But it meant that one of Nicie Sandwillow’s tasks was to receive and pass along critical council news from around the hinterland of Oleana, just as Captain Osprey received patrol news. Dag said carefully, “The Hickory Lake council was deeply divided on my case—”
“So there was a charge.”
Dag overrode this. “Pakona Pike, our—Hickory Lake’s council leader this past summer—was not on the side favorable to my arguments. But I can’t believe she’d twist the facts that much.”
“No, not if the facts are that you came in alone, late from a leave, dragging some farmer girl with the pair of you wearing Lakewalker wedding braids that you’d somehow cooked up together, claiming she was your wife and not just your whore. The letter warns all camp councils to watch out for similar trickery.”
Grimly, Dag rolled up his left sleeve. “I say they’re valid cords, and so did a lot of others. Including Fairbolt Crow. See for yourself. Fawn made this one.”
A flicker of grounds touched him, felt the spark of Fawn’s live ground in her cord, drew back. The women looked nonplussed, the two sagging young patrollers confused. It was like the hearing at Hickory Lake all over again, and Dag was bitterly reminded of why he’d left.