Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [173]
Then one afternoon the wind swung around to the south, the clouds broke up, and the air grew downright warm. Berry relented enough to tie up the Fetch during a spectacular sunset in the immense western sky and declare an evening of rest. After a string of nights handing out hasty meals to the off-watch crew to eat while crowding around the hearth, Fawn celebrated by fixing a bang-up sit-down supper, with everyone squeezed together around the table for once, even Bo, though she made sure his food was soft.
The meal was eaten with appetite enough, but in uncharacteristic and rather weary silence. After a glance around at the long faces, Fawn swallowed her last bite of fried potato and declared, “Well, this is no good. You’re all looking as glum as a chorus of frogs with no pond. We should do something after the dishes to ginger folks up. How about archery lessons? Everybody liked those. We still have plenty of lanterns in stock. And there’s hardly any wind tonight.”
Hawthorn and Hod looked interested, but Whit scrubbed his hand over his face and said, “Naw. I don’t think that would be so much fun anymore.”
Dag’s eyelids had been drooping in a combination of fatigue and food-induced mellowness; at this, they flicked open. He watched Whit, but did not at once speak.
Fawn glanced at Dag, then badgered, “Why not?”
Whit shrugged, made a face, and seemed about to fall into hunched silence, but then got out, “It feels funny to be making a game out of it, after I shot a man.”
“Big Drum?” said Berry. “Whit, we’re right glad you shot Big Drum.”
“No, not him.” Whit made a frustrated waving-away gesture. “Besides, I didn’t kill Big Drum; that fellow who cut off his head later did that. It was the other one. The first one.”
“What first one?” Fawn asked carefully.
“It was the night before, at the cave. Some fellows ran out trying to get away, which was exactly why Dag put us bowmen where he did, I guess. I was so scared and excited, I couldn’t hardly see what I was doing, but…my first shot, my very first shot ever, went right through this bandit’s eye. Killed him outright.”
Fawn winced and murmured Eew. Hawthorn, unhelpfully, made a very impressed Ooh.
Whit waved again. “It wasn’t the eye thing that bothered me. Well, it did, but that wasn’t…” He drew air through his nostrils, and tried, “It was too easy.”
Bo rubbed his rough chin in some sympathy, but rumbled, “Whit, some men need killin’.”
Berry put in perhaps more shrewdly, “It doesn’t need to be catching.”
“It’s not that, exactly,” said Whit, his brows drawing in.
Dag spoke for the first time, so unexpectedly that Fawn gave a little jump. “No, but you’re not the same person, after. It changes you in your ground, and that’s a fact. Whit, Barr, and Remo all crossed that line for the first time that night at the cave, and there’s no stepping back over it. You have to go on from where you are.”
“I suppose you did the same, once,” said Remo diffidently. “So long ago you don’t remember, likely.”
“Oh, I remember,” said Dag.
Nods all around the table at this received wisdom.
Dag set his tankard down so hard his drink slopped out. “Absent gods, do you people have to swallow down every blighted thing I say? Don’t you ever choke?”
Fawn’s eyes widened, and hers were not the only ones; surprised heads turned toward Dag all around the table. Hod flinched.
“What the blight’s bit you?” said