Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [1]
“I wasn’t aiming at you!” Whit declared anxiously.
“I’m right glad to hear that,” drawled Dag. “I know I annoyed a few people around here when I married your sister, but I didn’t think you were one of ’em.” His lips compressed in a grimmer line. Whit might well have hit Fawn.
Whit flushed. A head shorter than Dag, he was still a head taller than Fawn, whom, after an awkward hesitation, he now embraced. Fawn grimaced, but hugged him back. Both Bluefield heads were crowned with loosely curling black hair, both faces fair-skinned, but while Fawn was nicely rounded, with a captivating sometimes-dimple when she smirked, Whit was skinny and angular, his hands and feet a trifle too big for his body. Still growing into himself even past age twenty, as the length of wrist sticking from the sleeve of his homespun shirt testified. Or perhaps, with no younger brother to hand them down to, he was just condemned to wear out his older clothes.
Dag took a step forward, then hissed, hook-hand clapping to his buckling left thigh. He straightened again with an effort. “Maybe I want my stick after all, Spark.”
“Of course,” said Fawn, and darted across the lane to retrieve the hickory staff from under Copperhead’s saddle flap.
“Are you all right? I know I didn’t hit you,” Whit protested. His mouth bent down. “I don’t hit anything, much.”
Dag smiled tightly. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“He is not fine,” Fawn amended sternly, returning with the stick. “He got knocked around something fearsome last month when his company rode to put down that awful malice over in Raintree. He hasn’t nearly healed up yet.”
“Oh, was that your folks, Dag? Was it really a blight bogle—malice,” Whit corrected himself to the Lakewalker term, with a duck of his head at Dag. “We heard some pretty wild rumors about a ruckus up by Farmer’s Flats—”
Fawn overrode this in concern. “That scar didn’t break open when you landed so hard, did it, Dag?”
Dag glanced down at the tan fabric of his riding trousers. No blood leaked through, and the flashes of pain were fading out. “No.” He took the stick and leaned on it gratefully. “It’ll be fine,” he added to allay Whit’s wide-eyed look. He squinted in new curiosity at the bow still clutched in Whit’s left hand. “What’s this? I didn’t think you were an archer.”
Whit shrugged. “I’m not, yet. But you said you would teach me when—if—you came back. So I was getting ready, getting in some practice and all. Just in case.” He held out his bow as if in evidence.
Dag blinked. He had quite forgotten that casual comment from his first visit to West Blue, and was astonished that the boy had apparently taken it so to heart. Dag stared closely, but not a trace of Whit’s usual annoying foolery appeared in his face. Huh. Guess I made more of an impression on him than I’d thought.
Whit shook off his embarrassment over his straying shaft, and asked cheerfully, “So, why are you two back so soon? Is your patrol nearby? They could all come up too, you know. Papa wouldn’t mind. Or are you on a mission for your Lakewalkers, like that courier fellow who brought your letters and the horses and presents?”
“My bride-gifts made it? Oh, good,” said Dag.
“Yep, they sure did. Surprised us all. Mama wanted to write a letter back to you, but the courier had gone off already, and we didn’t know how to get in touch with your people to send it on.”
“Ah,” said Dag. There’s a problem. There was the problem, or one aspect of it: farmers and Lakewalkers who couldn’t talk to each other. Like now? For all his mental rehearsal, Dag found it suddenly difficult to spit out the tale of his exile, just off the cuff like this.
Fortunately, Fawn filled in. “We’re just visitin’. Dag’s sort of off-duty for a time, till his hurts heal up.”
True in a sense—well, no,