Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [11]
He wasn’t about to go into the variety of methods available to Lakewalkers for not having children till wanted, some of which he was fairly sure—make that, entirely certain—Fawn’s parents would not approve of. The secret of the malice-damage to Fawn’s womb, as slowly healing as his own inner blight, she had elected to keep to herself, a choice he respected, and—what was that farmer phrase for letting go of a regretted past? Water over the dam. He offered instead, weakly, “Lakewalker women have children on the move.”
Tril gave that the fishy stare it deserved. “But it seems Fawn is not to be a Lakewalker woman, after all. And from what you say, Lakewalker mamas have kin and clan and camp to back ’em, in their need, even if their men are off chasing bogles.”
He wanted to declaim indignantly, I will take care of her! But even he wasn’t that much of a fool. His eyelids lowered, opened; he said instead, merely, “That’s so, ma’am.”
“We plan to travel, before we decide where to settle,” Fawn put in firmly. “Dag promised to show me the sea, and I mean to hold him to his word.”
“The sea!” said Tril, sounding shocked. “You didn’t say you were fixing to go all that way! I thought you were just going to the Grace Valley. Lovie, it’s dangerous!”
“The sea?” said Whit in an equally shocked but very different tone.
“Fawn gets to go to the sea? And Raintree? I’ve never been past Lumpton Market!”
Dag regarded him, trying to imagine a whole life confined to a space scarcely larger than a single day’s patrol-pattern. “By your age, I’d quartered two hinterlands, killed my first malice, and been down the Grace and the Gray both.” He added after a moment, “Didn’t see the sea for the first time till a couple years later, though.”
Whit said eagerly, “Can I go with you?”
“Certainly not!” Fawn cried.
Whit looked taken aback. Dag muffled a heartless smile. In a lifetime of relentlessly heckling his sister, Whit had clearly never once imagined needing her goodwill for any aim of his own. So do our sins bite us, boy.
“We’re not done harvest,” said Sorrel sternly. “You have work here, Whit.”
“Yes, but they’re not leaving tomorrow. Are you?” He looked wildly at Dag.
Dag did some rapid mental calculating. Fawn’s monthly would be coming on shortly, bloodily debilitating since her injuries, though slowly improving as she healed inside. They must certainly wait that out in the most comfortable refuge possible. “We’ll linger and help out for another week, maybe. But we can’t stay much longer. It’ll be near a week’s ride down to the Grace. If we want any choice of boats we have to get there in time to catch the fall rise, and not so late as to be caught by the winter freeze-up. Or just by the cold and wet and misery.”
A daunted silence fell, for a while. Nattie’s spindle whirred, Whit went back to sanding a shaft smooth, and Dag considered the attractions of his bed upstairs, compared to dozing off and falling out of his chair onto his chin.
Whit said suddenly, “What are you planning to do with your horses?”
“Take ’em along,” said Dag.
“On a keelboat? There’s hardly room.”
“No, on a flatboat.”
“Oh.”
More busy silence. Whit set down the shaft with a click, and Dag opened one wary eye.
Whit said, “But Fawn’s mare’s in foal. You wouldn’t want her to drop her foal along the trail somewheres. I mean…wolves. Catamounts. Delay. Wouldn’t it be better to leave her here all comfy at West Blue and pick her up when you got back?”
“And what am I supposed to do, walk?” said Fawn in scorn.
“No, but see…suppose you left her here for Mama to ride, since she can’t ride Swallow. And suppose we each rode one of my team, instead. I’d been meaning to sell them in Lumpton next spring, but I bet down by those rivertowns I’d get a better price. Also Papa and Fletch wouldn’t be put to the trouble of feedin’ them all winter. And you’d save the cost of taking your pregnant horse on a boat ride she wouldn’t hardly appreciate anyhow.”