Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [140]
One log seat waited directly across from the councilors. Utau muttered something to Razi, who hurried to collect another from nearby and set it beside the first. Not ten feet of open space was left in the middle. No one was going to have to bellow…at least, not merely to be heard.
Fawn, looking every bit as wary as a young deer, stopped Dag just out of earshot by clutching his arm; he bent his head to her urgent whisper, “Quick! Who are all those new people?”
Fairbolt was seated, perhaps not accidentally, closest to the patrollers, and Dowie Grayheron beside him. Dag whispered back, “Left from Fairbolt and Dowie is Pakona Pike. She’s council leader this season. Head of Tent Pike.” A woman of ninety or so, as straight-backed as Cumbia and one of her closer friends—Dag did not expect benign neutrality from her, but he didn’t say it to Fawn.
“Next to her are Laski Beaver and Rigni Hawk, councilor and alternate from Beaver Sigh.” Laski, a woman in her eighties, was head of Tent Beaver on Beaver Sigh, and a leather maker—it was her sister who made the coats that turned arrows. No one would ever have pulled her from her making for council duty. Rigni, closer to Dag’s age, came from a tent of makers specializing in boats and buildings, though she herself was just emerging from raising a brood of children. She was also one of Dirla’s aunts; she might have heard some good of Dag and Fawn.
“Next down from them, Tioca Cattail and her alternate Ogit Muskrat, from Heron Island. I don’t know them all that well.” Only that Tioca was a medicine maker, and since the recent death of her mother head of Tent Cattail on Heron. Ogit was a retired patroller of about Cumbia’s age, curmudgeonly as Cattagus but without the charm; of no special making skills, he liked being on council, Dag had heard. While he was not close friends with Cumbia, the two had certainly known each other for decades. Despite Ogit’s patrol connections Dag did not hold much hope for an ally in him.
Fawn blinked and nodded, and Dag wondered if she would remember all this and keep it straight. In any case, she now let him lead her forward. He seated her on his right, to the patroller side of things, and settled himself, laying his hickory staff at his feet and sitting up with a polite nod to the councilors across from him.
On a shorter sawed-off log in front of Pakona sat a beeswax candle. She nodded back grimly, lit the wick, and lowered a square parchment windbreak around it, lanternlike. From beside it she picked up a peeled wooden rod, the speaker’s stick, and tapped it three times against the makeshift table. Everyone fell silent and regarded her attentively.
“There’s been a deal of talk and gossip about this,” she began, “so I don’t think anyone here needs more explaining-to. The complaint in the matter comes from Tent Redwing against its member Dag Redwing. Who’s speaking for Tent Redwing?”
Dag stirred at his naming, but voiced no protest. Let that one go for now. You’ll find your chance.
“I do,” said Dar, holding up one hand; behind him, Cumbia nodded. Cumbia, as head of Tent Redwing, was more than capable of speaking for herself and everyone else, and Dag wondered at this trade-off. An extension of Dag’s shunning? Didn’t trust herself to keep her voice and argument steady? She looked like old iron, today. But mostly, she looked old.
“Pass this down to Dar, then,” said Pakona. The stick went from hand to hand. “Speak your tent’s complaint, Dar.”
He took the stick, inhaled, cast Dag a level stare, and began. “It won’t take long. As we all know, Dag returned late from a patrol this summer with a farmer paramour in tow that he named his wife, on the basis of a pair of wedding cords that no one had witnessed them make. We say that the cords are counterfeit, produced by trickery. Dag is in simple violation of the long-standing rule against bringing such…self-indulgences within the bounds of camp. Tent Redwing requests the camp and the patrol enforce the usual penalties, returning the girl to her people by whatever means required and fining Dag Redwing for