Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [68]
“Now,” said Fawn cheerily, “the first thing I know for sure about running away from home is, plans made in the middle of the night are not always the best. In the morning—after breakfast—you can generally think of much better ones.” She exchanged a meaningful look with Dag, and went on, “It’s the middle of the night now, and you’re keeping Dag from my bed. But I just laid a big pile o’ those furs and blankets we used for last night’s visitors in front of the hearth. They’re real warm now. Toasty, even.”
Remo was shivering, his damp skin clammy in the misty chill. Strands of hair escaping his soaked braid draggled across his furrowed forehead.
“If you got yourself warm, I bet you’d drop off right quick despite your troubles, tired as you look. All that swimming, after all. I expect you’re still hurting, too.”
In all ways, not just his bruises, thought Dag. He suppressed a smile at the way Remo stared up open-mouthed, blatantly susceptible to what were likely the first kindly words he’d had from anyone for days. A pretty young woman offering him food, a soft bed, and sympathy was not someone he was going to argue too hard with, even if she was a farmer.
“Wise Spark,” Dag commended this. “Take her up, Remo; you won’t get a better offer tonight.” He had the bare wisdom himself not to add aloud, It beats swimming halfway across the river all hollow. No good sprinkling salt on wounds, even self-inflicted ones.
Remo glanced as if surprised at his hand, now empty of leftover cornbread, and around at the flatboat and the darkness of the rippling river. Only a few orange lights from Pearl Riffle Camp shone through the half-naked trees on the far hillside.
“This boat’s not going anywhere tonight anyhow,” Fawn pointed out.
Remo shook his damp head. “No, but a rise is coming on. You can feel it, out in the middle. That’s why I swam across now. By morning it’ll be too dangerous, and by tomorrow night, these boats will all be gone.”
Remo had lived in this ferry camp all his life; Dag expected he knew the river’s moods well. Further, swimming the river left no evidence behind of what direction he’d taken. A missing horse would have said north; crossing on the ferry would have left witnesses who could say south. Once he was gone beyond groundsense range, none could guess if he’d gone north, south, east, or west. Or halfway across the river.
A faint breeze raised goose bumps on Remo’s lavender-tinged skin, and he yielded abruptly. “All right.”
“Be real quiet,” whispered Fawn, her hand on the door latch. “They’re mostly asleep in there.”
“Berry?” Dag murmured.
“I told her you’ll explain in the morning. She rolled back over.”
“Ah.”
With Remo tucked into the bedding before the hearth like an oversized, overtired child, Dag and Fawn at last made it back to their own curtained bed. Their bedroll, unfairly, had chilled down. They rubbed each other half-warm, and laced limbs together for the rest.
“Wondered why you chose just then to come popping out,” Dag murmured into Fawn’s curls. “You thought he meant it about that half-river, did you?”
“This time o’ night, you do. Besides, as ragged as Remo looks, and as big as this river is, the decision might be pulled out of his hands before he made it back to the other shore.” She added reflectively, “It’s a lot bigger than the river by West Blue, that way. Drowning yourself in that one would have called for a lot more determination. Here, you could do it just by inattention.”
He hugged her tight. “No half-rivers.”
“Anyhow, I took exception to your advice about not running away from your troubles. You picnicking fraud.”
An unvoiced laugh shook his chest. “But I’m not running away. I’m running toward.” He sighed. “And just in case I miss any, they follow after and join me. It’s going to be a crowded boat, Spark.”
In the morning, Fawn found to her excitement that the cracked mud at the bow had disappeared under new water. But Berry said the rise was not yet