Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [120]
Everyone went back to nibbling. Dag, who had been lying slumped against his saddlebags with his eyes closed, pushed himself slightly more upright, adjusted his left leg, and asked Saun suddenly, “You know the name of that farmer town the malice was supposed to have come up under?”
“Greenspring,” Saun replied absently, craning his neck through the open, leeward side of their shelter to look, in vain, for a break in the clouds.
“Do you know where it is? Ever been there?”
“Yeah, couple of times. It’s about twenty-five miles northwest of Bonemarsh.” He sat back on his saddlecloth and gestured vaguely at the opposite shelter wall.
Dag pursed his lips. “That must be, what, pretty nearly fifty miles above the old cleared line?”
“Nearly.”
“How was it ever let get started, up so far? It wasn’t there in my day.”
Saun shrugged. “Some settlement’s been there for as long as I’ve been alive. Three roads meet, and a river. There were a couple of mills, if I remember rightly. Sawmill first. Later, when there got to be more farms around it, they built one for grain. Blacksmith, forge, more. We’d stopped in at the blacksmith a few times, though they weren’t too friendly to patrollers.”
“Why not?” asked Fawn, willing to be indignant on Saun’s behalf.
“Old history. First few times farmers tried to settle up there, the Raintree patrollers ran them off, but they snuck back. Worse than pulling stumps, to try and get farmers off cleared land. On account of all the stumps they had to pull to clear it, I guess. There finally got to be so many of them, and so stubborn, it would have taken bloodshed to shift ’em, and folks gave up and let ’em stay on.”
Dag frowned.
Saun pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them in the damp chill. “Fellow up there once told me Lakewalkers were just greedy, to keep such prime farming country for a hunting reserve. That his people could win more food from it with a plow than we ever could with bows and traps.”
“What we hunt, they could not eat,” growled Mari.
“That’s the same fellow who told me blight bogles were a fright story made up by Lakewalkers to keep farmers off,” Saun added a bit grimly. “You wonder where he is now.”
Griff and Varleen shook their heads. Fawn bit her lip.
Dag wound a finger in his hair, pulling gently on a strand. He was overdue for another cut, Fawn thought, unless he meant to grow it out like his comrades. “I want to look at the place before we head home.”
Griff’s brow furrowed. “That’d be a good three days out of our way, Dag.”
“Maybe only two, if we jog up and catch the northern road again.” He added after a moment, “We could leave here two days early and be home on schedule all the same.”
Mari gave him a fishy look. “Thought it was about time for you to start gettin’ resty. Hoharie said, seven days off it for that leg. We all heard her.”
“Come on, you know she padded that.”
Mari did not exactly deny this, but she did say, “And why would you want to, anyway? You know what blight looks like, without having to go look at more. It’s all the same. That’s what makes it blight.”
“Company captain’s duty. Fairbolt will want a report on how this all got started.”
“Not his territory, Dag. It’s some Raintree camp captain’s job to look into it.”
Dag’s eyelids lowered and rose, in that peculiar I-am-not-arguing-about-this look; his gaze met Fawn’s curious one. “Nonetheless, I need to see whatever can be seen. I’m not calling for a debate on this, in case any of you were confused.” A faint, rare tinge of iron entered his voice. Not arguing, apparently, but not giving way, either.
Mari’s face screwed up. “Why? I could likely give you a tolerably accurate description of it all from right where I sit, and so could you. Depressing, but accurate. What answers are you lookin’ for?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t have to go look.” More hair-twisting. “I don’t think I’m even looking for answers. I’m think I’m looking for new questions.” He gave Fawn a slow nod.