Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [52]
“Lakewalker!” said Hod, glancing up at him with a fleeting smile that faded to uncertainty.
“Hello, Hod.” Dag gave him a nod. “What brings you here?” Surely Tanner and Mape had planned to leave at dawn on their two-day rattle back to Glassforge. “Is anything the matter?”
Hod, his throat bobbing, said abruptly, “I brought your stick back!” He held out Dag’s hickory staff as if in evidence.
“Well…” Dag scratched his head in confusion. “That’s right thoughtful of you, Hod, but it wasn’t necessary. I can cut another in the woods. It’s certainly not something you should have walked all this way on your bad leg to bring me!”
Hod ducked his head and gulped some more. “No, well, yes. My knee. It still hurts.”
“I’m not surprised. What is it, a mile down to the Bend?” Dag sucked his lip. To say That wasn’t too bright to Hod seemed a pretty pointless remark.
“I want—I wondered—if you’d do that thing you do again. What you called it. The Lakewalker magic.”
“A ground reinforcement?” Dag hazarded.
Hod nodded vigorously. “Yeah, that thing. The thing that makes me not hurt.”
“What would make your knee not hurt would be to stay off it the way you were told,” said Dag sternly.
“Please…” said Hod, rocking on the barrel. His hand went out toward Dag, dropped back to his knee. His face scrunched up; his eyes, Dag was startled to note, were damp with held-back tears. “Please. No one didn’t ever make it stop hurting like that before. Please?”
Fawn patted him somewhat helplessly on the shoulder and looked at Dag in consternation. Dag sighed and knelt down before the feckless boy, laying his right hand over the knee. “Well, let’s see what’s happening in there.”
Gingerly, he extended his groundsense. His ground-glue was holding, certainly, the flesh healing well, but the joint was indeed newly inflamed from the imprudent exercise. He frowned.
“Now, Hod,” said Fawn, watching Dag in worry, “you know Dag can’t just do those medicine maker tricks anytime. They’re very tiring for him. He has to have time to recover, between.”
Hod swallowed. “I’ll wait.” Gazing earnestly at Dag, he sat up straight on his barrel as if prepared to take a post there for the rest of the day, or maybe the week.
Dag rocked back on his heels and eyed the boy. “You can’t wait that long. Didn’t Mape and Tanner want to leave early?” If they’d been delayed by this foolish side trip of Hod’s, they were going to be irate, Dag thought.
“They did.”
“What?” said Whit, startled. “They didn’t just ditch you here, did they?”
“No, they paid me off.”
“But that’s not fair. Just because you’re off your feet for a week or two, they shouldn’t ought to sack you!” Whit scowled in outrage at this injustice.
“Didn’t. I asked to be let off.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to stay. Here. No, not here.” A vague wave around took in Pearl Riffle. “With him.” Hod pointed to Dag. “He could hire me.”
“To do what?” asked Fawn in bafflement.
“I dunno.” Hod shrugged. “Just…things. Anything.” He glanced up warily at Dag. “Well, sitting-down things at first, I guess.” He added after a minute, “He wouldn’t have to pay me or anything.”
“Do you know much about boats?” Fawn asked thoughtfully. She glanced up at Berry, still sitting on the roof edge and watching it all with some perplexity.
Hod gave an uncertain headshake.
Whit’s lips screwed up; he strolled over to Berry’s dangling feet and whispered up to her, “Hod’s not too quick in the wits, I’m afraid.”
“Neither was my last two oarsmen. Took me days to get my cook-pots back.”
Whit muffled a grin, and went on, “But he’s willing. I mean, he could be, once he gets over having his knee kicked in by Dag’s evil nag. That’s what happened, see, how he got hurt in the first place. Dag fixed him up again Lakewalker-style.”
“Mm. The Fetch is still a bit shorthanded, it’s true.”
“He’s sort of an orphan, I gather.”
Berry’s brows rose. “Huh. Funny. So am I, sort of.” Her stare down at Hod grew more appraising.
Dag wondered if he’d get anywhere offering to throw Hod up behind him on Copperhead