Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [149]
“Omba,” said Dag, leaning against Copperhead’s shoulder and grinning despite himself, “who have you gone and let ravish my wife’s mare?”
Omba sighed hugely. “Rig Crow’s stallion Shadow got loose and swam over from Walnut about five nights ago. Had himself a fine old time before we caught up with him. You’re not the only mares’ owners I’m going to have to apologize to today, though you’re the first in line. I’m not looking forward to it.”
“Will they be angry?” asked Fawn. “Were they planning other mates? Was he not a good horse?”
“Oh, Shadow is a fine horse,” Dag assured her. “You would not believe how many furs Rig asks for, and gets, as a stud fee for that snorty horse of his. I know. I paid through the nose last year to have him cover Swallow, for Darkling.”
“And therefore,” said Omba, pulling on her black-and-white braid, “everyone will say they are very upset, and carry on as convincingly as possible. While Rig tries to collect. It could go to the camp council.”
“You’ll forgive me, I trust, for wishing them all a long, tedious dispute, burning many candles,” said Dag. “If Rig asks, my wife and I are just furious about it all.” He vented an evil laugh that made even Fawn raise an eyebrow at him.
“I wasn’t even going to mention Grace,” Omba assured him. “I’ll be having troubles enough over this.”
Utau and Razi came out to help them saddle up, followed by Sarri, and Mari and Cattagus together. Dag mostly exchanged sober nods, except with his aunt Mari, whom he embraced; Fawn hugged everybody.
“Think you’ll be back?” asked Utau gruffly. “For that Bearsford Council, maybe?”
“Not for that. For the rest, who can say? I’ve left home for good at least four times that I recall, as Mari can testify.”
“I remember a spectacular one, ’bout eight years back,” she allowed. “There was a lot of shouting. You managed to be gone for seventeen months.”
“Maybe I’ll get better at it with practice.”
“Could be,” she said. Then added, “But I sort of hope not.”
And then it was time to mount up. Razi gave Dag a leg up and sprang away, Copperhead put in his usual tricks and was duly chastised, and Utau boosted Fawn onto Grace. On the road, Dag and Fawn both turned and gave silent waves, as silently returned. As the blurring forms left behind parted to their different tents, the mist swallowed them all.
Dag and Fawn didn’t speak again till the horses had clopped over the long wooden span from the island. She watched him lean his hand on his cantle and stare over his shoulder.
She said quietly, “I didn’t mean, when I fell in love with you, to burn your life to the ground.”
He turned back, giving her a pensive smile. “I was dry, dry timber when you met me, Spark. It’ll be well.” He set his face ahead and didn’t look around again.
He added after a while, “Though I’m sorry I lost all my camp credit. I really thought, when I promised your folks I would care for you, to have in hand whatever you’d need for your comfort, come this winter and on for a lot of winters more. All the plunkins in the Bearsford cold cellars won’t do us much good now.”
“As I understand it, your goods aren’t lost, exactly. More like, held. Like my dowry.”
His brows rose. “There’s a way of looking at it I hadn’t thought of.”
“I don’t know how we’d manage traveling anyhow, with a string of, what did you say—eight horses?”
He considered this picture. “I was thinking more of converting it into Tripoint gold tridens or Silver Shoals silver mussels. Their monies are good all up and down the Grace and the Gray. But if all my camp credit for the past eighteen years were converted into horses—average horses, not Copperheads or Shadows…hm. Let me see.” He did some mental estimating, for the curiosity of it. “That would be about forty horses, roughly. Way too many for us to trail in a string, it’s true.”
“Forty horses!” said Fawn, sounding quite taken aback. “You could buy a farm for the price of forty horses!”
“But I wouldn’t know what to do with it once I had it.