Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [50]
Dar’s voice hardened. “Then you’ll just have to be forced to will it, eh?”
Dag let ten steps pass in silence before he replied. “I’m stubborn. My wife is determined. You’ll break your knife on that rock, Dar.”
“Have you grasped what you risk? Shunning—banishment? No more patrolling?”
“I’ve a lot of patrol years left in me. We’re stretched, you say—and yet you’d throw those years away into a ditch? For mere conceit?”
“I’m trying for exactly the reverse.” Dar swiped an angry hand across his brow. “You’re the one who seems to be galloping blindly for the ditch.”
“Not by my will. Nor Fairbolt’s. He’ll stand up for me.” Actually, Fairbolt had said only that he didn’t care to defend this before the camp council—not whether he would overcome his understandable distaste if he had to. But Dag was disinclined to confide his doubts to Dar at this point.
“What,” scoffed Dar, “with all the trouble this will make for patrol discipline? Think again.”
Had Dar and Fairbolt been talking? Dag began to be sorry he had held himself aloof from camp gossip these past days, even though it had seemed wiser not to present his head for drumming on or let himself be drawn into arguments. He countered, “Fawn’s a special case anyway. She’s not just any farmer, she’s the farmer girl who slew a malice. As contrasted with, for example, your malice count. What was it, again? Oh, yes—none?”
Dar’s lips thinned in an unfelt smile. “If you like, brother. Or maybe the count is, every malice that any knife of my making slew. Without a sharing knife no patroller is a malice killer. You’re just malice food walking around.”
Dag drew breath through his nostrils and tried to get a better grip on his temper. “True. And without hands to wield them, your knives are just—what did you call them?—wall decorations. I think we need to cry truce on this one.”
Dar nodded shortly. They paced beside each other for a time.
When he could trust himself to speak again, Dag went on, “Without Fawn’s hand, I would be dead now, and maybe a good part of my patrol with me. And you’d have spent the past weeks having memorial rites and making tender speeches about what a fine fellow I was.”
Dar sighed. “Almost better, that would be. Simpler, at least.”
“I appreciate that almost. Almost.” Dag gathered his wits, or attempted to. “In any case, your bird won’t fly. Fairbolt’s made it clear he’ll tolerate this for the sake of need and won’t take it to the council. And neither will Mama. Get used to us, Dar.” He let his voice soften to persuasion, almost plea. “Fawn is her own sort of worthy. You’d see it if you’d let yourself look at her straight. Give her a chance, and you won’t be sorry.”
“You’re besotted.”
Dag shrugged. “And the sun rises in the east. You’re not going to change either fact. Give up the gloom and set your mind to some more open view.”
“Aunt Mari was a feckless fool to let this get by.”
“She made all the same arguments that you just did.” Rather better phrased, but Dar had never been a diplomat. “Dar, let it ride. It’ll work out in time. Folks will get used to it. Fawn and I may always be an oddity, but we won’t start a stampede any more than Sarri did with her two husbands. Hickory Lake will survive us. Life will go on.”
Dar inhaled, staring straight ahead. “I will go to the camp council.”
Dag covered the chill in his belly with a slow blink. “Will you, now. What will Mama say? I thought you hated rows.”
“I do. But it’s come down to me. Someone has to act. Mama cries, you know. It has to be done, and it has to be done soon.” Dar grimaced. “Omba says if we wait till you get your farmer girl pregnant, you’ll never be shifted.”
“She’s right,” said Dag, far more coolly than he felt.
Dar bore the look of a man determined to do his duty, however repugnant. Yes, Dar would stiffen Cumbia, even against her better judgment. Did both imagine Dag would cave in to these threats—or did they both realize he wouldn’t? Or was it one of each?
“So,” said Dag, “I’m a sacrifice you’re willing to make, am I? Is Mama so willing?