Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [21]
“Unprimed knife, bonded to me?” Dag hazarded.
Whit said, “Well, it would have to be unprimed, wouldn’t it? Stands to reason. Because if it was primed you’d be, um.”
“I did have. Carried it with me for twenty years, in case. A lot of patrollers do.”
“Can I see—no, um. Did, right. What happened to it?”
Dag glanced at Fawn; she gave a small headshake, No, we didn’t get to that part. “It met with an accident.”
“Oh.” Whit blinked—daunted, Fawn prayed. But not quite enough, for he added curiously, “Whose bone was it?”
“Kauneo’s. She willed one bone to me and the other to one of her surviving brothers. My tent-brother up in Luthlia.”
Whit gave Dag a look partway between earnestly inquiring and leery. “Um?” He was already starting to learn caution about these sorts of questions, Fawn thought. And their answers.
Dag took a drink of spring water and managed to reply with tolerable composure, “My first wife.”
Fawn gave him a worried look, Are you all right with this? He returned her a fractional nod. Yes, he could talk about Kauneo now; they had come so far. Dag cleared his throat and added kindly, for even Whit’s feckless curiosity was faltering in the face of all this, “She was a patroller, too. She died in a malice war in Luthlia. She left me her own heart’s knife as well as a bone to make one for me. We think she rolled over on her knife in the field after she fell. Her brother said”—he drew air in through his nostrils—“she must have moved quick. Because she could not have been conscious for very long after…after she received her wounds.”
“Is that where you—” Whit’s gaze moved to Dag’s left arm.
Another short nod. “Same fight. I went down before she did, so I only have guesses. She was…just a girl, then. Five years younger than me.”
Just a girl, thought Fawn, and Dag didn’t repeat those words by accident.
“Oh,” said Whit. And, tentatively, “I’m, um, sorry.”
Dag gave him another reassuring nod, and repeated his stock phrase, “It was a long time ago.”
In your head, it sometimes turns into just yesterday, doesn’t it? thought Fawn curiously. Like me and the malice, back in the cave just now. Yes. Now I see how you knew. She bent over and took another bite of bread to quell the renewed flutter in her belly.
Whit’s brows knit. “Were you really going to stick that bone knife in your own heart?”
“Yes, if it chanced so.”
It took Whit a little while to remember to chew and swallow after that one. He finally scratched his ear, and said, “Can’t you get another?”
“Whit!” said Fawn indignantly.
Dag made a little gesture with his fingers, It’s all right. “It’s not quite up to me. I’d need someone to give me a bone. Or an unprimed knife that didn’t get used that could be rededicated. I want one. I’d be bitterly ashamed to waste my death just for lack of a knife.”
Fawn realized she hadn’t quite known that, for all she knew of Dag. Whit was reduced to blinking. Silently, praise be.
Whit inhaled. “Folks don’t know this. They say Lakewalkers are cannibals. That you rob graves. Eat your dead to make magic.”
Dag said gently, “But now you know better.”
“Um. Yeah.” Whit brightened. “So, that’s one farmer boy who’s learned something, huh?”
“One down.” Dag sighed. “Thousands to go. It’s a start.”
“Sure enough,” said Whit valiantly. Actually, he looked as if he were afraid Dag was about to put his head down and cry.
Fawn was a little afraid of that as well, but Dag just smiled crookedly and creaked to his feet. “Let’s go see Glassforge, ducklings.”
4
Even in the late afternoon, the straight road approaching Glassforge was busy with traffic. Fawn watched Whit’s head turn as he took in the sight of strings of pack mules, goods-wagons gaily painted with the names of their businesses and their owners, and a big brick dray, returning empty from somewhere. The team of eight huge dun horses thundered past at a lumbering trot, hopeful for home, the bells on their harness shaking out bright sounds like salt along their path. The teamster and his brakeman, too, were impressive in fringed