Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [60]
“Fairbolt’s right about the experience, though,” he continued, his voice finding its volume again. “This sort of thing is different from hunting sessiles, or even from that mess we had near Glassforge. I run down the patrol lists in my head and think, They don’t know. Especially the youngsters. How far north of Farmer’s Flats was that town, anyway? Farmer settlements aren’t supposed to be allowed above the old cleared line…” He shook his head abruptly, and grasped her hands. His gold eyes glittered with an expression she’d never seen in them before; she thought it might be frantic.
She swallowed, and said, “You did this once. So the question isn’t, Can you do it? but, Can you do it better than someone doing it for the first time ever?”
“No—yes—maybe…It’s been a while. Still—if not me, who am I condemning to go in my place? Someone has to—”
She reached up and pressed her fingers to his lips, which stilled. She said simply, “Who are you arguin’ with, Dag?”
He was silent for the space of several heartbeats, though at length a faint wry smile turned his mouth, just a little.
Fawn took a deeper breath. “When I married a patroller instead of a farmer, I figured I must be signing up for something like this. You for the leaving…me for the being left.” His hand found her shoulder, and tightened. “It’s come on sooner than we thought, but…there has to be a first time.” She raised her arms to catch his beloved cheekbones between her hands, pressing hard, and gave his head a stern little shake. “Just you make sure it’s not the last, you hear?”
He gathered her in. She could feel his heartbeat slow. The scent of him, as she turned and buried her face in his shirt, overwhelmed her: sweat and summer and sun and just plain Dag. She opened her mouth and widened her nostrils as though she could breathe him in and store him up. Forever. And a day. Well, there wasn’t any forever. Then I’ll take the day.
“You’re not afraid to be left alone here?” he murmured into her curls.
“On the list of things I’m afraid of, that one’s just dropped down. Quite a ways.”
She could feel his smile. “You have to grant, I’ve always come back so far.”
“Yeah, the other patrollers in Glassforge said you were like a cat, that way.” But they all went out looking for you anyhow. “Papa used to say to me, when I got all upset about one of our barn cats that had got its fool self in a fix and was crying all woeful, Lovie, you ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree?”
That deep chuckle she so loved, too seldom felt lately, rumbled through his chest. They stood there wrapped in each other until the unwelcome sound of trotting hoofbeats echoed from the road. “Right, then,” muttered Fawn. She backed off and stared up.
He was looking down with a curious smile. He returned her nod. Squeezed and released her, all but her hand. Turned to face Fairbolt, looking down from his horse.
Fairbolt didn’t speak, merely raising his brows in question.
“I’ll want to talk to that courier,” said Dag. “And have a fresh look at whatever large-scale maps we have of the northern Raintree region.”
Fairbolt accepted this with no more comment than a short jerk of his chin. “Get up behind me, then. I’ll give you a lift to headquarters.” He kneed his horse around, and Dag stepped up on a stump and slid aboard. The burdened beast took to the road again at a rapid walk.
Fawn’s eyes were hot but dry. Mostly. Blinking, she ducked inside her tent flap to see what she could do to help get Dag’s saddlebags in order.
9
It was midnight before Dag returned to Tent Bluefield. Fawn raised her head at the sound of his steps, falling slower than usual out of the dark, and poked up their campfire coals with a stick, lighting their candle stub from it. In the weak flare of golden light his lips gave her a smile, but his eyes seemed abstracted.
“I was wonderin’ if you were going to get any chance to sleep,” she said quietly, rising.
“Some. Not much. We’ll be saddling the horses just before dawn.”
“That’s no way to start out, all tired.