Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [15]
“She’ll spit.”
“Likely.” He smiled grimly. “Want to come watch?”
Mari rolled her eyes. “I think I want to go back out on patrol. Fairbolt, you need volunteers?”
“Always, but not you today. Go along home to Cattagus. Your stray has turned up; you’ve no more excuse to loiter here harassing me.”
“Eh,” she said, whether in agreement or disagreement Fawn could not tell. She cast a vague sort of salute at Fairbolt and Dag, murmured, “Good luck, child,” at Fawn, in a rather-too-ironical voice, and took herself out.
Dag made to follow, but stopped with a look of inquiry when Fairbolt said, “Dag.”
“Sir?”
“Eighteen years ago,” said Fairbolt, “you persuaded me to take a chance on you. I never had cause to regret it.”
Till now? Fawn wondered if he meant to imply.
“I don’t care to defend this in the camp council. See that it doesn’t boil up that high, eh?”
“I’ll try not,” said Dag.
Fairbolt returned a provisional sort of nod, and Fawn followed Dag out.
Missus Captain Crow was gone from the outer room. Outside, the sky had turned a flat gray, the water of the lake a pewter color, and the humidity had become oppressive. As they made their way down the porch steps to where the horses were tied, Dag sighed. “Well. That could have gone worse.”
Fawn recognized her own words tossed back to her, and remembered Dag’s. “Really?”
His lips twitched; it wasn’t much of a smile, but at least it was a real one, and not one of those grimaces with the emphasis on the grim he’d mostly had inside. “Really. Fairbolt could have pulled my peg and chucked it in the fire. Then all my problems would have been not his problems anymore.”
“What, he could have made you not a patroller?”
“That’s right.”
Fawn gasped. “Oh, no! And I said all those mouthy things to him! You should have warned me! But he made me mad, talking over the top of my head.” She added after a moment’s reflection, “You all three did.”
“Mm,” said Dag. He pulled her into his left arm and rested his chin on her curls for a moment. “I imagine so. Things were moving pretty fast there for a while.”
She wondered if the patrollers had all been saying things to one another through their groundsenses that she hadn’t caught. For sure, she felt there was a good deal back there she hadn’t caught.
“As for Fairbolt, you won’t offend him by standing up to him, even if you’re wrong, but especially if you’re right. His back’s broad enough to bear correction. He doesn’t much care for folks who go belly-up to him to his face then whine about it behind his back, though.”
“Well…stands to reason, that.”
“Indeed. You didn’t make a bad impression on him, Spark. In fact, judging from the results, you made a pretty good impression.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” She paused in puzzlement. “What results?”
“He put my peg in the sick box. Still a patroller. The camp council deals with any arguments the families can’t solve, or arguments that come up between clan heads. But any active patroller, the council has to go through the camp captain to deal with. It’s like he’s clan head to all of us. I won’t say Fairbolt will or even can protect me from any consequences of this”—he shrugged his left arm to indicate his marriage cord—“but leastways he’s keeping that possibility open for now.”
Fawn turned to untie the horses, considering this. The tailpiece seemed to be that it was Dag’s job—and hers?—to keep the consequences from getting too out of hand. As she scrambled up on Grace, she saw under some pear trees at a little distance Mari sitting on a trestle table swinging her legs, and Massape Crow on the bench beside her. Mari seemed to be talking heatedly, by the way she was waving her arms, and Massape had her head cocked in apparent fascination. Fawn didn’t think she needed groundsense to guess the subject under discussion, even without the curious glances the pair cast their way.
Dag had wrapped Copperhead’s reins around his hook. Now he led the horse beside the porch and used the steps for a mounting block, settling into the saddle with a tired grunt. He jerked his chin by way