Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold [99]
“Would they poison you?”
“I have no idea.” He stared down at the little pile for a long time. “I’d try feeding that handful to Copperhead, but he’s over on the island, and, well, a horse. We’ve no dog.” His eye fell speculatively on Daisy-goat.
“We drink milk from that goat,” Fawn said hastily. And, as his face swiveled toward the chicken pen, “And we eat the eggs!”
He frowned, then got a faraway look for a moment. A scratching sound made Fawn glance down to find that Hawthorn’s raccoon kit had appeared at Dag’s ankle and was pawing at his trouser leg. Dag reached down and gathered up the creature, tucking it in the crook of his left arm. Its little leathery paws gripped his sleeve, and its bright black eyes twinkled from its furry mask.
“Dag,” Fawn gasped, “you can’t!”
“The horse, goats, chickens, and you are out,” he said patiently. “What’s left on this boat that’ll eat grain? Well, Hod, but no. I don’t think it will poison the little critter, really.”
“It’s just not right. I mean, at the very least you should ask Hawthorn’s permission, and I can’t see you explaining all this to Hawthorn!”
“I can’t even explain it all to myself,” Dag sighed. “Very well.” He scooped up the pile of grain and raised his palm to his own lips.
“No!” Fawn clapped her hand to her mouth to muffle her shriek.
Dag raised his brows at her. “You can’t say I don’t have the right.”
Fawn bounced up and down in dismay, lips pressed tight. And finally blurted, “Try it on the raccoon, then.”
He tilted his head ironically at her and offered the grain to the kit. The kit seemed only mildly interested—spoiled, Fawn thought, by the tastier fodder that everyone aboard slipped to it—but at Dag’s urging and, she suspected, sorcerous persuasion, it did nibble down a spoonful or so of the grains, whiskers twitching. When Dag let it go, it toddled off, apparently unaffected, or at least it didn’t drop over dead on the spot. Dag tossed the remaining handful of dead seeds over the side, wiped his palm on his shirt, and picked off a few raccoon hairs. His eye fell on the chicken coop. “Food, huh,” he said in a distant tone. “I wonder what would happen if I tried to ground-rip a chicken? Next time you mean to serve up a chicken dinner, Spark, let me know.”
Fawn mentally took chicken off her menu plans for the indefinite future. “I don’t know, Dag. The idea of you ripping seed grains doesn’t bother me a bit. But if you could rip a chicken, could you—” she broke off.
He eyed her, not failing to follow. “Ground-rip a person? In full malice mode? I don’t know. A person’s bigger. I begin to suspect I could rip up a person’s ground, at least. And yes, the idea does trouble me, thank you very much.”
Fawn scrubbed her mouth with the back of her hand. “You can rip up a person’s body and ground with your war knife, and you have. Would this truly be different?”
“I don’t know yet,” sighed Dag. “Spark, I really do not know.” He folded her in to him then, leaning his forehead against hers. “I’ve been wondering for some time if I’ve stumbled across some craft secrets of senior medicine makers. Now you have me wondering if it’s secrets of the senior knife makers, instead. They’re even more close-mouthed about their work, and it may be with good reason. Because…”
“Because?” she prompted, when he didn’t go on.
“Because I can’t be the only person with these abilities. Unless I truly have been malice-corrupted, somehow. I wish I had someone to…”
“Someone to ask?” Alas, not Remo; a nice young patroller, but no maker.
Dag shook his head. “Someone safe to ask.”
“Urgh.” She didn’t fail to follow, either.
“Hoharie might be, but she’s back at Hickory Lake. She saw me—I don’t think I told you about this…”
Fawn rolled her eyes. “More purple halos? Yes?”
“Sorry. At the time, I didn’t know what to make of it, so I didn’t talk about it. But when her apprentice Othan was trying to give a ground reinforcement to my broken arm, he couldn’t get in. I ended up sort of…ripping it from him as he was trying to give it. Hoharie was right