Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [21]
He glanced up from his carving. His eyes were a clear bronze-brown. He looked back down, evidently trying to keep working, but after another spin muttered something short under his breath and straightened up with a scowl, allowing the blank to wind down, then unclamped it and dropped it into the shavings pile. He tossed the knife in the general direction of the stump and turned to Dag.
“Sorry to interrupt,” said Dag, nodding to the half bowl. “I was told you wanted to see me immediately.”
“Yes! Dag, where have you been?”
“Been getting here. I had a few delays.” He made the sling-gesture.
For once, it did not divert his interrogator’s eye. Dar’s voice sharpened as his gaze locked on his brother’s left arm. “What fool thing have you gone and done? Or have you finally done something right?” He let his breath out in a hiss as his eyes raked over Fawn. “No. Too much to hope for.” His brow wrinkled as he frowned at her left wrist. “How did you do that?”
“Very well,” said Dag, earning an exasperated look.
Dar walked closer, staring down at Fawn in consternation. “So there really was a farmer-piglet.”
“Actually”—Dag’s voice suddenly went bone dry—“that would be my wife. Missus Fawn Bluefield. Fawn, meet Dar Redwing.”
Fawn attempted a tremulous smile. Her knees felt too weak to dip.
Dar stepped half a pace back. “Ye gods, you’re serious about this!”
Dag’s voice dropped still further. “Deadly.”
They locked eyes for a moment, and Fawn had the maddening sense that some exchange had passed or was passing that, once again, she hadn’t caught, although it had seemed to spin off the rather insulting term piglet. Or, from the heated look in Dag’s eye, very insulting term, although she couldn’t see exactly why; chickie and filly and piglet and all such baby-animal terms being used interchangeably for little endearments, in Fawn’s experience. Perhaps it was the tone of voice that made the difference. Whatever it was, it was Dar who backed down, not apologizing but changing tack: “Fairbolt will explode.”
“I’ve seen Fairbolt. I left him in one piece. Mari, too.”
“You can’t tell me he’s happy about this!”
“I don’t. But neither was he stupid.” Another hint of warning, that? Perhaps, for Dar ceased his protests, although with a frustrated gesture. Dag continued, “Omba says Mari spoke to you alone last night, after the others.”
“Oh, and wasn’t that an uproar. Mama always pictures you dead in a ditch, not that she hasn’t been close to right now and then just by chance, but I don’t expect that of Mari.”
“Did she tell you what happened to my sharing knife?”
“Yes. I didn’t believe half of it.”
“Which half?”
“Well, that would be the problem to decide, now, wouldn’t it?” Dar glanced up. “Did you bring it along?”
“That’s why we came here.”
To Dar’s work shack? Or to Hickory Lake Camp generally? The meaning seemed open.
“You seen Mama yet?”
“That will be next.”
“I suppose,” Dar sighed, “I’d best see it here, then. Before the real din starts.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too.”
Dar gestured them toward the cabin steps. Fawn sat beside Dag, scrunching up to him for solace, and Dar took a seat near the steps on a broad stump.
“Give Dar the knife,” said Dag. At her troubled look, he dropped a reassuring kiss atop her head, which made Dar’s face screw up as though he was smelling something rank. Fawn frowned but fished the sheath out of her shirt once more. She would have preferred to give it to Dag to hand to his brother, but that wasn’t possible. Reluctantly, she extended it across to Dar, who almost as reluctantly took it.
Dar did not unsheathe it immediately, but sat with it in his lap a moment. He took in a long breath, as though centering himself somehow; half the expression seemed to drop from his face. Since it was mostly the sour, disapproving half, Fawn didn’t altogether mind. What was left seemed distant and emotionless.
Dar’s examination seemed much like that of the other Lakewalkers: cradling the knife, holding it to