Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [31]
While Fawn, Tanner, and Whit went off to see to the horses, Mape came and squatted on his haunches beside Dag’s bedroll. After a while, he said, “I never guessed he was sick. Just thought he was lazy.”
“I didn’t catch on either, at first.” Dag had been led down a false trail by Tanner’s talk, yes, but he’d only to open his groundsense to learn better.
“I beat him, couple o’ times, when I caught him sleeping on the job,” Mape added. His voice was low, flat, expressionless. Suited for things confided in the dark, where no one could see. “I’m just sayin’. Thankee, Lakewalker.”
“The knee should be good with a couple of weeks of rest. The other, you’ll start to see a difference in a couple of days, I’m guessing.” Dag could leave it at that. It was tempting. Oh, blight it. “I was cleaning up my own mess. I saw him sneak out to my bags. Thought I’d just let Copperhead teach him a lesson. Instead, I got taught. Can’t say as I enjoyed it.”
“No,” agreed Mape. “Me neither.” He nodded, rose. Not friendly, exactly, but…acknowledging. That at least. He trod away into the dark.
When Fawn finally came to lie down, Dag tucked her into the curl of his body like one of the cloth-wrapped hot stones she sometimes used for pain. He held her hard. It helped.
In the morning, Hod was laid in his bedroll in the back of Mape’s wagon, and Whit took Hod’s place as brakeman. Fawn sat up beside Tanner. Dag, too, moved his bedroll, saddle, and bags to the back of the second wagon and continued his lie-down. Copperhead, unnaturally subdued, clopped loose behind, but Fawn supposed Dag had the gelding back under his mysterious groundsense-tie. Dag appeared to doze in the sun, but he was not asleep. It reminded Fawn uncomfortably of that deep, drained fatigue that had overcome him after Greenspring. The Glassforge teamsters seemed to think little of it, but Whit, familiar with Dag’s usual restless energy, cast more than a few concerned looks over his shoulder as they rumbled down the road.
Whit took over helping with Hod during their stops, at least. Hod still didn’t say much, but his gaze followed Dag around in something between worry and fascination. Tanner and Mape were kinder to him, which served only to confuse him, as though kindness were a baited trap into which he feared to fall.
Dag was quiet all day. They put up for the night in a barn let by a roadside farm to travelers and their beasts—no hotel, but warmer and more sheltered than last night’s uncomfortable sleep on the ground. The next morning, Fawn was relieved when Dag seemed enough himself to climb back up on Copperhead for the last leg of the journey.
Noon found the teams plodding up a long slope along a wooded ridge. Dag edged Copperhead alongside the wagon, and said to Fawn, “Climb on.” He had that elusive smile he wore when he looked forward to surprising her, so she stood up, balanced herself, and swung her leg over behind Dag. When she’d adjusted to a secure perch, he let Copperhead roll out in his long patrol walk, and they pulled ahead as though the wagons had parked. At the top of the ridge, he let her slide down, and swung after her. Walking backward, he took her by the hand and brought her to the lip of the road.
The valley of the Grace spread out below them in the gold-blue autumn light. The river seemed to have put on her party dress, her banks and bending hillsides a swirl of color: scarlet and purple-red, glowing yellow, bright brown. The water reflected the azure of the sky, save where it broke into a sparkling shoal, necklace to the dress. Brooches of boats slid upon the water—a distant keel, a broad, blunt ferry—with a girdle of flatboats pulled up along the farther shore. Fawn was dimly aware of Whit, trotting up panting to see