Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold [89]
She shook her head. “Well, Dar. Your brother.” With this opaque pronouncement, she strode off up the path.
By the bitter twisting of Dar’s lips, he drew more information from this than Fawn could. Fawn let it go; she had much more urgent worries right now. She approached Dar cautiously, as if he might bite. He set the knife on the porch boards and eyed her ironically.
Too nervous to plunge straight in, Fawn said instead, “What was that woman here for?”
“Her grandfather died unexpectedly in his sleep a few weeks ago, without getting the chance to share. She brought his knife back to be rededicated.”
“Oh.” Yes, that had to happen now and then. She wondered how Dar did that, took an old knife and bound it to the heart of someone new. She wished he and she could have been friends—or even relatives—then she could have asked.
Never mind that now. She gulped and stuck out her left arm. “Before Dag rode off to Raintree, I asked him if he couldn’t fix it so’s I could feel him through my marriage cord the way he feels me. And he did.” She prayed Dar would not ask how. “Last night about two hours after midnight, I woke up—there was this hurting all up my arm. Sarri, she woke up about the same time, but all she said was that Razi and Utau were still alive. Mari, too, Cattagus says. It didn’t do this before—I was afraid that—I think Dag’s hurt. Can you tell? Anything more?”
Dar’s face was not especially revealing, but Fawn thought a flash of alarm did flicker through his eyes. In any case, he did not snipe at her, but merely took her arm and let his fingers drift up and down it. His lips moved, tightened. He shook his head, not, seemingly, in defeat, but in a kind of exasperation. “Gods, Dag,” he murmured. “Can you do worse?”
“Well?” said Fawn apprehensively.
Dar dropped her arm; she clutched it to herself again. “Well…yes, I think Dag has probably taken some injury. No, I can’t be sure how much.”
Offended by his level tone, Fawn said, “Don’t you care?”
Dar turned his hands out. “If it’s so, it won’t be the first time he’s been brought home on a plank. I’ve been down this road with Dag too many times. I admit, the fact that he’s company captain is a bit…”
“Worrisome?”
“If you like. I can’t figure what Fairbolt…eh. But you say the others are all right, so they must be taking care of him. The patrol looks after its own.”
“If he’s not lost or separated or something.” Fawn could imagine a hundred somethings, each more dire than the last. “He’s my husband. If he’s hurt, I should be lookin’ after him.”
“What are you going to do? Jump on your horse and ride off into a war zone? To lose yourself in the woods, drown in a bog or a river, be eaten by the first wolf—or malice—whose path you cross? Come to think, maybe I should have Omba saddle up your horse and put you on it. It would certainly solve my brother’s problems for him.”
And it was extremely aggravating that just such panicked thoughts had been galloping through her mind all morning. She scowled. “Maybe I wouldn’t be as lost as all that. When Dag fixed my cord, he fixed it so’s I can tell where he is. Generally, anyhow,” she added scrupulously.
Dar squinted down at her for a long, silent, unnerving moment; his frown deepened. “It has nothing to do with your marriage cord. Dag has enslaved some of your ground to his.” He seemed about to say more, but then fell silent, his face drawn in doubt. He added after a moment, “I had no idea that he…it’s potent groundwork, I admit, but it’s not a good kind.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Naturally not.”
Fawn clenched her teeth. “That means, you have to explain more.”
“Do I?” The ironic look returned.
“Yes,” said Fawn, very definitely.
A little to her surprise, he shrugged acquiescence. “It’s malice magic. Forbidden to Lakewalkers for very good reasons. Malices mind-enslave farmers through their grounds. It’s part of what makes farmers as useless on patrol as dogs—a powerful enough malice can take them away and use them against us.”
“So why doesn’t that happen to Lakewalkers?” she shot back.
“Because we can close