Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [153]
Dag went on cautiously, “Biggest danger now’s infection. I expect there’ll be some. Got to wait and see how that plays out.”
Truly. A gut-wound like this was more usually a death sentence, fever finishing what bleeding started, as Bo likely knew, because he nodded shortly. When Fawn tied off her last thread, Whit, Hod, and Berry combined to lift Bo carefully into his bunk. Dag simply lay back on the floor and stared up at the roof.
Fawn was just wondering if they should also unite to lift Dag to his bed, when Barr and Remo clumped in to apologize for killing what they sincerely hoped had been an escaping bandit up in the woods. Fawn nipped to the front hatch to peek out, and saw a couple of saddled horses beyond the gangplank. Over one was draped the body of a skinny, red-haired fellow, his sharp, contorted face pale in death.
Crane was still lying in a heap beside the animal pen; his chin moved and his eyes shifted to glare at her, and she flinched and fled back inside. Dag, what did you do to him? That was like no making I ever seen or heard tell of…
In the kitchen, Barr was frowning down at Dag and asking the very question she’d longed to: “Dag, what the blight did you do to that fellow out on the front deck?”
“Is that Crane?” Remo added, glancing toward the bow.
“Yes,” said Dag, still staring at the roof. “I broke his neck. In effect. He won’t be getting better, in case anyone was worried about tying him up.”
His expression glazed, Dag watched Fawn upside down as she bent and peered at him in worry. She remembered the shock in Crane’s eyes when he’d dropped the knife and collapsed like a wall falling. In effect. But not in any other way? Would the patroller boys think to follow up that little flag of truth amongst Dag’s laconic misdirection? Either Dag would explain in his own time, or she’d wait for a private moment to ask, she decided.
Hod and Whit took tumbling turns giving a description of the events around and aboard the Fetch to the two patrollers, with an occasional corroborating moan or snort from Bo. Berry added little, still holding the sniffling Hawthorn. But as their words turned his frightening experience into a tale, he seemed to revive, uncurling from his childlike clutch in his big sister’s lap, slowly regaining the dignity of his eleven years, and finally adding a few flourishing, if gruesome, details of his own. By the time they’d finished, he mainly wanted to go off and inspect the corpse of Little Drum. Dubiously, Berry released him.
“I about swallowed my heart when I saw that big knife at Fawn’s throat,” said Whit, “but I swear she looked more mad than scared.”
“I was plenty scared enough,” said Fawn. And yet…Crane hadn’t been nearly as scary as the Glassforge malice, even if she might have been equally dead at either’s hands. How odd. Flying from a knife at her throat to an immediate need to pull things together for Bo’s sake, maybe she just hadn’t had time to fall apart yet.
Some boatmen called from outside, a troop sent back from the cave to help guard the boats—a bit belatedly, Fawn thought tartly. The two young patrollers and Whit went off to help sort out things. It was full dawn. Dag sat up.
“I have to…I can’t…let me sleep for one hour. Bo can have a few sips of water, nothing else.” He climbed to his hand and knees, then to his feet, making no protest when Fawn lent him a shoulder to help him lurch to their bed nook. She did insist on pulling off his boots. He was asleep by the time she flung a blanket over him.
Barr, Remo, and Whit had been grimly excited, describing their victory at the bandit cave. After they’d defeated the Glassforge malice, Fawn recalled, Dag had been wildly elated despite his weariness. There was not a trace of triumph in him now,