Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [26]
“I’m sorry,” said Fawn.
“Was he ground-ripped, like?” inquired Whit, morbidly curious.
Tanner looked grim. “I think that would have been easier, all told. He was one of the ones took up by the bandits and pressed into their gang. It was a bad time, after, sorting out who was really a bandit and who was tranced by the blight bogle. In the end it was locals got pardoned and strangers got hanged, mostly, which I don’t think was always right. But Mape’s nephew was killed outright by the Lakewalker patrollers, in the fight when they caught up with the bandits. Which maybe saved the family a hangin’, but I’m not sure Mape’s wife sees it that way.”
“Oh,” said Whit.
Fawn swallowed. “Was he a sort of dun-blond boy?”
“No, dark-haired.”
Fawn let out her breath in secret relief. Not the one Dag had shot in front of her, then, saving him from a hanging for sure. Dag, riding alongside, had gone quiet—quieter—and expressionless, and it occurred to her that maybe her assailant wasn’t the only one whose evil career Dag had personally ended on that patrol. He had been in on the attack on the bandit camp the night before, she knew, which was how he’d happened to be trailing her kidnappers in the first place. He’d run low on arrows. Some must have found targets…
“Thanks for the warning,” she said to Tanner. “I shouldn’t like to step on anyone’s feelings.” He nodded cordially enough. Glancing at the skinny youth beside Mape, riding along with his back rounded and his hands dangling between his knees, she added, “So what about Hod? Was he caught up in it all?”
“No, he was way too much of a homebody.” After a long pause, Tanner added, “Hod’s a bit of a sad sack, if you want my opinion. He was an orphan, living with his older sister, till her husband threw him out not long back for laziness and—he said—thievin’. Sassa Clay took a pity on him and let him put up in the glassworks’ stable to look after the hosses. Which he does do middlin’-well, I admit, despite us finding him sleeping in the straw half the time.”
“Will he work up to driver?” asked Fawn, wondering if this was Whit’s competition for the coveted job.
“Hard to say. He’s not real bright. Mape wouldn’t let him touch the reins of his team, for sure.” Tanner lowered his voice. “I’m not sayin’ the boy’s vicious, mind, but it’s true about the thievin’. I’ve seen him sneaking. Only food, so far. Missus Clay slips him extra scraps, now and then, but it doesn’t seem to have stopped him. I’m afraid he’s gonna work up to something bigger someday soon and get into real trouble. So, um…watch your bags.”
Did Tanner mean for their sakes, or for Hod’s? It was hard to tell.
Truly, when they all stopped for lunch and to water and bait the horses, it seemed to Fawn that the lanky youth had little going for him. Hod’s dishwater hair was dull and limp and in need of a cut, his skin was bad, his teeth doubtful, and he moved in a habitual slouch. He was inarticulate to the point of muteness; her couple of attempts to say a friendly word to him threw him into complete confusion. He seemed outright afraid of Dag, and went wide around him. Fawn wasn’t even sure if Hod was his real name.
Whit was taken aback when he made the discovery that grub was not provided for the drivers and loaders, but that they were expected to bring their own, a little detail of planning that had evidently escaped his notice—and Fawn’s too, in the morning’s hustle. Dag let them both flounder and recriminate for a bit before blandly fetching the provisions from his saddlebags that he’d had Sal pack up while he was shaving. He wasn’t too dry about it, but he did wait and make Whit ask, humbly, for a share before portioning it out. Just enough of a dig, Fawn thought, to make certain that neither of them were like to make a similar mistake again.
Dag enjoyed watching Fawn and Whit take in the scenes south of Glassforge, on a road new to them both, if old to Dag. He hadn