Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [40]
“In a few days, I expect,” said Hoharie. “That was a much stronger ground reinforcement than I normally let my apprentices attempt.”
Othan smiled proudly, although his eyes were still a trifle confused. Hoharie dismissed him with thanks, closed the door behind him, and slid back into the seat across from Dag. She eyed him narrowly.
“Hoharie,” said Dag plaintively, “what’s happening to me?”
“Not sure.” She hesitated. “Have you ever been tested for a maker?”
“Yes, ages ago. I’d no knack nor patience for it, but my groundsense range was a mile, so they let me go for a patroller. Which was what I’d desperately wanted anyway.”
“What was that, nigh on forty years ago? Have you been tested lately?”
“No interest, no point. Such talents don’t change after youth…do they?”
“Nothing alive is unchanging.” Her eyes had gone silvery with interest—or was that covetousness? “I will say, that was no ghost, Dag. That was one of the live-est things I’ve ever seen. Could it do shaped reinforcements, I wonder?”
Did she think of training him as a medicine maker, in the sort of subtle groundwork that she herself did? Dag was taken aback. “Dar’s the maker in my family.”
“So?” Her shrewd look that went with this made him shift uncomfortably.
“I don’t control this. It’s more like it works me.”
“What, you can’t remember how wobbly you were when your groundsense first came in? Some days, my apprentices are all over the map. Some days I still am, for that matter.”
“Fifty-five’s a bit old for an apprentice, don’t you think?” Hoharie herself was younger than Dag by a decade. He could remember when she’d been an apprentice. “And any road—a maker needs two good hands.” He waved his left, by way of a reminder.
She started to speak, but then sat back, frowning over this last.
“Patrolling’s what I do. Always have. I’m good at it.” A shiver of fear troubled him at the thought of stopping, which was odd, since hunting malices should be the scariest task there was. But he remembered his own words from Glassforge: None of us could do the job without all of us, so all of us are owed. Makers and patrollers alike, all were essential. All essential, all expendable.
Hoharie shrugged surrender, and said, “In any case, come back and see me tomorrow. I want to look at that arm again.” She added after a moment, “Both of them.”
“I’d take it kindly.” He gestured with his sling. “Do I really still need this splint, now?”
“Yes, to remind you not to try anything foolish. Speaking of experience. You patrollers are all alike, in some ways. Give that ground reinforcement some time to work, and we’ll see.”
Dag nodded, rose, and let himself out, conscious of Hoharie’s curious gaze following him.
6
Dag returned from the medicine tent reluctant to speak of the unsettling incident with the maker’s apprentice, but in any case, no one asked; instead, five persons took the chance to tell him that he needed to teach his wife to swim. Dag thought the idea fine, but Fawn seemed to find the fact that he still wore splints and a sling to be a great relief to her mind.
“Well, you certainly can’t go swimming with that rig on,” she said firmly. “When will you have it off, did they say?”
“Soon.”
She relaxed, and he did not clarify that soon could well mean tomorrow.
Sarri’s little boy, having been coaxed earlier into hauling rocks for their fire pit and warmly praised for his efforts by his fathers, had crept back to the task, toddling across the clearing with stones as big as his little fingers could clutch and flinging them in with great determination. It set off a small crisis when his excess offerings were removed. His outraged tears were diverted by a treat from Fawn’s dwindling store of farm fare, and Dag, grinning, hauled him back to his assorted parents. That evening, Dag and Fawn boiled tea water on their first home fire, even if supper was cold plunkin again. Fawn looked as though she was finally beginning to understand all the plunkin jokes.
They burned the rinds and sat together by the crackling flames, watching through the trees as