Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [135]
The Fetch didn’t handle any worse for its added passengers, but neither did it handle any better, Dag noted the next morning as he took his turn on the roof. Hod was on the opposite oar and Whit at the rudder, very proud to be permitted to steer all on his own down this straight stretch. Berry would be coming up shortly to take over, as, she said, the next bend would bring them to one of the trickiest passages on the river. Berry had allowed a few of the Raintree flatties to volunteer for oar duty, but only one at a time and under her or Bo’s close supervision. The rest seemed willing to help out with the increased scullery chores their presence as inadvertent guests had caused, so except for the unavoidable crowding and the friction on the Lakewalkers’ groundsenses, a day more of their company seemed likely to pass pleasantly enough.
Since a chill wind funneled up the valley, with sunshine intermittent between the scudding blue-gray clouds, most everyone stayed inside near the hearth or curled up in nests amongst the stores. As Dag studied the river, two men in a skiff put out from a feeder creek beneath a bluff, rowing in their direction. When they pulled to within shouting distance, the older one rose up on one knee from his bench and hailed them, waving his hat.
“Hallo the boat!”
“How de’!” Whit called cheerfully in return. “What can we do for you fellows?”
“Well, it’s more like what we can do for you. That last flood messed up the channels all through Crooked Elbow something fierce! I’ll undertake to pilot you through safe.”
This was a common way all along the river for local men to earn a bit of coin. Berry, now that she’d come to trust her Lakewalker crew’s groundsenses, usually turned down such offers politely, though she did enjoy the exchange of river gossip that went with. Sometimes, the rowboats also brought out fresh food or other goods to sell or trade.
“I’m not the boat boss,” Whit called back, “but what do you charge?”
“Just ten copper crays to the Elbow. Twenty to the Wrist.”
A nominal sum, well worth it to the average boat given the time—or worse—that could be lost to an accident. Dag opened his ground, furled to block out the uproar of the crowd on the Fetch. And paused in his sculling.
“Huh,” he said to Hod and Whit. “That’s funny. One of those fellows is as beguiled as all get-out.”
“By a malice?” said Whit in alarm. Hod gaped curiously.
“No, there’s not a touch of blight-sign. He must have had some encounter with a Lakewalker, lately.” Dag stared as the men rowed nearer.
The beguiled man was middle-aged, shabby, rough-looking, a typical tough riverman. He hardly seemed the sort to have attracted the attention of some female Lakewalker lover. Perhaps he had less visible attractions, but his ground was certainly no brighter than the rest of him. He hadn’t been healed of any obvious injury lately. The other, Dag could imagine drawing a female eye: well built, young, open-faced, with crisp brown hair, and cleanly in his dress and bearing. But no beguilement distorted his ground, for all that it was furrowed by old stress. It was a puzzle.
“You can come up and talk to our boss, I guess,” Whit called down as the skiff came alongside. “I don’t think we need a pilot, but we have some things to trade, if you’re interested. Some real fine Glassforge window glass, to start.”
The skiff men waved apparent understanding. Hod shipped his oar and swung down to the bow to help them tie their boat and clamber up past the chicken pen. They both