Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [157]
Dag finally spoke again. “You’ve kept this gang going for a long time, though, as such things go. I can see where you gave the bandits a sort of twisted leadership, which held them to you, but what held you to them?”
Crane jerked his chin—in lieu of the shrug he could no longer make, Fawn supposed. “The coin, the goods, I’d not much use for, but Brewer’s game fascinated me. Besides being mad after money, I think Brewer liked running the cave because it gave him something lower than himself to despise. Me…It was like owning my own private fighting-dog kennel, except with much more interesting animals.
“I hardly had to do a thing, you know? They just arranged themselves around me. Drop any Lakewalker down amongst farmers, that’s what happens. If he doesn’t rise to the top, they’ll blighted shove him up. They want to be ruled by their betters. They’re like sheep that can’t tell the difference between shepherds and wolves, I swear.”
“So did you make them, or did they make you?” Dag asked quietly.
Crane’s smile stretched. “You are what you eat. Any malice learns that.”
This time, it was Dag’s turn to twitch, and Crane didn’t miss it.
Dag took a long breath, and said, “Remo, give me that knife you found.”
Remo rather reluctantly pulled the sheath cord over his head. Dag weighed the knife in his hand and regarded Crane sternly. “Where’d you come by this? And that boatload of Lakewalker furs?”
Crane twisted his head. “It wasn’t my doing. Just an evil chance. Pair of Lakewalker traders down from Raintree chose to pull in their narrow boat and camp practically in front of the cave. There was no holding the fellows, though I told them they were being blighted fools. I lost six of those idiots in the fight that followed.”
“Did you try the game on the Lakewalkers?”
“They didn’t live long enough.”
Dag touched the knife sheath to his lips in that odd habitual gesture.
“You’re telling me half the truth, I think. This knife was bonded to a woman.”
Crane’s jaw compressed in exasperation. “All right! It was a string-bound couple. They both died the same.”
“You murdered her, and didn’t even let her share?” said Remo.
“She was dead before I got to her. Fought too hard, there was an unlucky blow…At least it saved me a tedious argument with the Drum boys. I figured it’d be a bad idea to let them learn they could play with Lakewalkers.”
A rather sick silence followed this pronouncement.
Crane did not break it. Past hope, past rage, past revenge upon the world. Just waiting. Not waiting for anything, just…waiting. He spoke as if from the lip of a grave he no longer feared but wanted as a tired man wanted his bed.
Dag’s hand folded tightly around the sheath. He asked, “If you had a bonded knife, would you choose to share, or to hang?”
Crane’s look seemed to question his wits. “If I had a bonded knife…!”
“Because I think I could rededicate this one,” said Dag. “To you.”
Barr’s mouth dropped open. “But you’re a patroller!”
“Or a medicine maker,” Remo put in, more doubtfully.
“I said, I think. It would be my first knife making, if it worked.” He added dryly, “And if it didn’t work, leastways no one would complain.”
Crane blinked, squinted, said cautiously, “Do you fancy the justice of it? To put an end to me with that woman’s own knife?”
“No, just the economy. I need a primed knife. I hate walking bare.”
“Dag,” said Remo uneasily, “that knife belongs to somebody. Shouldn’t we try to find the rightful heir? Or at least turn it in at the next camp?”
Dag’s jaw set. “I was thinking of applying river-salvage rules, same as with the rest of the cave’s treasure.”
Barr said, “Should he be allowed to share? His own camp council didn’t think so even back when he carried far fewer crimes in his saddlebags.”
“He’s Crane No-camp now, I’d say. Which makes me his camp captain, by right of might, if nothing