Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [105]
Dag went on in growing elation, “That also explains why beguilement’s so blighted erratic. It depends on how open—or not—the Lakewalker feels about farmers—or about that particular farmer, leastways. I’ve been open to Fawn since almost the beginning, so no imbalance has ever built up in her. Hod…not. Till just now. Ha!” He supposed he’d only frighten Hod and Remo if he jumped up and danced around them all whooping like a madman, but he really wanted to.
Remo looked less enthusiastic. “What do you mean, we beguile each other all the time? We don’t!”
“Beguile and un-beguile both. Ground exchange, in balance, not thwarted. I swear it starts with our mother’s milk, and goes on—not a Lakewalker child comes of age without having received dozens of little reinforcements from dozens of kinfolk or friends for this or that ailment or injury. Grown up and out on patrol, or in camp with our tent-kin, we’re always swapping around. We float in a lake of shared ground. I’d not be surprised to find it’s part of why, when a Lakewalker is cut off from others, we feel so odd and unhappy.”
Remo looked wholly interested but only half-convinced. “Dag, are you sure of this?”
“Nearly. You’d best believe I’ll be watching out for it from now on.”
Fawn asked, “Does this mean you really could teach other makers to heal farmers?”
“Spark, if I’m right, any medicine maker who knew this could treat a farmer without beguiling—if only the maker was willing to take in farmer ground.” He hesitated. That might be a bigger if only than it looked at first. Still, medicine making had never been for the squeamish.
Remo said slowly, “But what would happen to that lake of shared ground if a lot of Lakewalkers started taking in farmer ground? What would happen to the maker?”
Dag fell silent. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I came out here this morning determined to wring some answers to my questions—and we did!—but it seems I’ve just stirred up a pack of bigger questions. I’m not getting ahead, here.”
After a longer pause, Fawn clambered to her feet and motioned them all off the blanket so she could roll it up. The walk back to the Fetch was very subdued. Although at least Hod had stopped sniffling.
In the warmest part of the afternoon, Dag took Fawn down the island to, as they explained to Hawthorn, scout for squirrels. Hawthorn promptly begged to go along, brandishing a slingshot. Remo, bless him, understood the patrol code, and diverted the boy long enough for them to escape.
Finding a warm nook took a little searching, as the wind was freshening and showing signs of veering northwest, with horse-tail clouds spread in gauzy lines turning the light paler. But a low spot in some deadfall, once it was lined with the good supply of blankets they’d packed along, lent both privacy and comfort.
Over the next few delicious hours, Dag discovered that with his growing control of ground projection he could indeed lay reinforcements in select body parts that did not match his own, but, Fawn reported, it did nothing that his ghost hand didn’t already do better. They compared the techniques a couple of times, to be certain, during which Fawn’s solemnly helpful expression kept dissolving into giggles. Dag chortled in, he trusted, a more dignified fashion. Well, maybe not so dignified in that position…He was unable to test Barr’s assertion about making farmer girls suffer desire because he couldn’t force himself to stay closed to Fawn, and anyway, it would have been like pouring milk into milk and looking for a color change. But he hoped this new support around her hidden malice scars would help with the pain of her next monthly, coming up soon.
“A ground reinforcement doesn’t actually heal a person,” he explained as they lay drowsily intertwined, bodies and investigations temporarily exhausted. “It just strengthens a body