Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [53]
Dag drummed his fingers on the wood, and began, “I spoke with Dar a bit ago. Or rather, he spoke to me. He’s threatening to go to the camp council. What he thinks they can do, I can’t imagine. They can’t force a string-cutting.” He faltered. “He speaks of banishment.”
Fairbolt scarcely reacted. Dag continued, “You’re on the council. Has he talked to you?”
“Yes, some. I told him that was a bad plan. Though I suppose there could be worse ones.”
Dag braced himself. “What are folks saying, behind my back?”
Fairbolt hesitated, whether embarrassed to repeat the gossip or just organizing his speech Dag wasn’t sure. Perhaps the latter, for when he did begin, it was blunt enough. “Massape says some are cruelly amused to see Cumbia’s pride crack.”
“Idle talk,” said Dag.
“Maybe. I’d discount that whole line, except the more they make your mother squirm, the more she leans on Dar.”
“Ah. And are there other lines? Naming no names.”
“Several.” Fairbolt shrugged in a what-would-you? gesture. “You want a list? Naming no names.”
“Yes. Well, no, but…yes.”
Fairbolt drew breath. “To start, anyone who’s ever been part of a patrol that came to grief relying on farmer aid. Or who endured ingratitude rescuing farmers whose panic resulted in unnecessary patroller injuries or deaths.”
Dag tilted his head, half-conceding, half-resisting. “Farmers are untrained. The answer is to train them, not to scorn them.”
Fairbolt passed on this with a quirk of his lips and continued, ticking off his fingers, “Anyone who has ever had a relative or friend harassed or ambushed and beaten or killed by farmers over misguided fears about Lakewalker sorcery.”
“If we kept less to ourselves, there wouldn’t be such misunderstandings. Folks would know better.”
Fairbolt ignored this, too. “More closely still, any patroller or ex-patroller who has ever been made to give up a farmer lover themselves. Some pretty bitter anger, there. A few wish you well, but more wonder how you’re getting away with it. Those who have had the ugly job of enforcing the rules aren’t best pleased with you, either. These people have made real sacrifices, and feel justifiably betrayed.”
Dag rubbed his fingers gently back and forth along the wood grain, polished smooth by the passage of many feet. “Fawn slew a malice. She shared a death. She’s…different.”
“I know you think so. Thing is, everyone thinks their own situation was special, too. Which it was, to them. If the rules aren’t for everyone, a system for finishing arguments turns into a morass of argument that never ends. And we don’t have the time.”
Dag looked away from Fairbolt’s stern gaze and into the orange disk of the sun, now being gnawed by the black-silhouetted trees across the lake. “I don’t know what Dar imagines he can make me do. I made an oath in my ground.”
“Aye,” said Fairbolt dryly, “in conflict with your prior duty and known responsibilities. You sure did. I swear you look like a man trying to stunt-ride two horses, standing with one foot on the back of each. Fine if he can keep ’em together, but if they gallop up two separate paths, he has to choose, fall, or be torn apart.”
“I meant—mean—to keep my duties yoked. If I can.”
“And if you can’t? Where will you fall?”
Dag shook his head.
Fairbolt frowned at the shimmering water, gone luminous in the twilight to match the sky. A few last swallows swooped and wheeled, then made away for their nests. “The rules issue cuts another way. If it’s seen that even so notable a patroller as Dag Redwing can’t evade discipline, it makes it that much easier to block the next