Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [50]
“The weather in the Grace Valley can change sudden, this time o’ year,” Bo advised Whit amiably. “Rain, snow, wind—fog. Why, one time when I was workin’ a keel up from Silver Shoals, the fog came down so solid you couldn’t hardly see your hand in front of your face. It was so thick it held the boat back, it did, and finally the boss said to put down our poles, ’cause he was anchoring for the night. Next morning, we woke up to all this mooing, and found we’d run right up over that fog for a good half-mile onto shore, and the keel was stuck in some farmer’s cow-pasture.”
Whit sat up, snorting cider out his nose. He rubbed it on his sleeve, and said, “Go on, you did not!”
Hawthorn, looking equally skeptical, said, “So how’d they get the keelboat back in the river?”
“Rollers,” said Bo blandly.
Hawthorn’s lips twisted in doubt at this logical-sounding reply.
Bo’s head went back in mock-offense, those hairy gray eyebrows seeming to jig. “No, it’s as true as I speak! Twisters, now, those are good for a tale or two as well.”
“Twisters?” said Fawn uneasily. “You get twisters on the river?”
“Now and then,” said Berry.
“You ever been in one?” asked Whit.
Berry shook her head, but then Dag’s deep voice sounded for nearly the first time that evening. “I was, once, on the upper Gray.”
Everyone looked around as surprised as if one of the chairs had suddenly spoken. In the gloom almost beyond the fire circle, legs stretched out, Dag raised his tankard in return and drank. Only Fawn saw his indrawn breath, sensed that he was about to make an effort that did not come easily to him.
“There were six of us, paddling a big narrow boat full of furs down from Luthlia for the river trade. The storm came up sudden, and the sky turned dark green. We pulled in hard to the western bank and tied everything to the trees, which was not so reassuring when the trees started to rip out of the ground and tumble away like weeds. Strangest sight I ever saw, then—the wind had picked up a horse, this white horse, out of a pasture somewhere to the west, and it passed us by straight overhead, its legs churning away like it was galloping. Galloping across the sky.”
A little silence followed this; Bo’s gray eyebrows climbed. Then Hawthorn said, “So, what happened to the horse? Did you see it come down?”
“We were all too busy gripping the ground and being terrified, right about then,” said Dag. “The poor thing was killed, likely.”
Hawthorn’s face scrunched up in dismay; Dag glanced from it to Fawn, and swiftly offered, “Or it might have spun down and landed in a pond. Swum out, shook its dizzy head, and started eating grass.”
Hawthorn brightened slightly. So did Whit, Fawn noticed, and bit her lip.
“That was a tall tale, right?” said Whit, in a tone of some misgiving.
Dag let his eyes widen innocently. “Was it supposed to be?”
“Yes, that’s how the contest goes, in farmer,” Whit explained earnestly. “You’re supposed to top the tall tale with another tall tale.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Dag, ducking his head. “You’re not allowed to tell true tales, then? I can see I’m going to be at a disadvantage.”
“I…” Whit paused and looked confused. “Uh…”
Berry scrubbed her lips. Bo’s face was unreadable, but he did raise his tankard at Dag in a delicately conceding gesture.
Berry, after a glance comparing the length of Dag to the length of her bunks, offered a place for Fawn and Dag’s dual bedroll amongst the forward cargo. It was dank and dark and smelled of the stack of hides that cushioned their blankets, but Berry also donated a length of coarse cloth, which she and Fawn tacked up to the low beams and around for privacy. During this wordless concession to Fawn’s recently married state, Berry looked a trifle pensive, but she bade the pair good-night without comment.
So, it seemed the Dag-deprivation that Fawn had feared on this crowded leg of the journey was not to be. A stack of hides had no betraying rope nets to creak in time with any movement in the bodies so supported.