Horizon

9

The Oleana boys returned from patrol in a cold afternoon rain, last gasp of the southern winter. Dag had just put another piece of split wood on the fire that warmed Arkady’s main room where they’d all clustered, Dag reading old casebooks, Arkady writing in a new one, Fawn knitting. The partners were heralded by the thump and shuffle of steps on the porch, and Remo’s voice: “Better leave our boots out here, and everything else till it dries. You know how Arkady is about his floors.” A grunt of agreement. A female voice said, “I’ll just stand in the doorway, then.” Fawn set aside her handwork and looked up in happy welcome. Dag straightened and turned his head curiously.

The door swung open and the patrollers entered, stomping and blowing. Remo wore wet socks, toes and heels peeking through the holes, and Barr wore none, his feet pale and cold, joints red where they’d rubbed in his boots. Both had hair plastered to their heads by the rain. Their wet jackets had apparently been hung on the row of pegs outside the door, so shirts and vests were not overly sodden except around their necks, but their trousers were flecked with mire in the pattern made by splashing hooves. Neeta, her boots muddy, stopped on the threshold. She wore a sensible hat with a brim that shed the rain beyond her jacket neck, and bore a laden withy basket.

“Welcome back,” said Dag, puzzled by the dark mood that hung about the partners. Neeta, though equally damp, smiled across at him as cheerfully as a spring flower.

“I won’t come in,” she called from the doorway. “My tent will be expecting me. But the patrol wanted you to have this, Dag.” She hefted the basket.

He raised his brows, going over to take it from her. It seemed to contain a large smoked ham and some glass jars of what might be fruit preserves, wrapped in cloth. “Well… thank the patrol for me,” he said, a little nonplussed.

She grinned back at him, her cheeks flushing pink with the cold. Her silver-blue eyes sparkled like stars in a sunset sky. “It’s the least we can do, sir. There’s this farmer’s market we always stop in at on the last day of patrol, you see, when we’re homeward bound. It’s a bit of a tradition. Well. I’m letting in the cold air, aren’t I.” What from any other girl might have been an embarrassed giggle came out more of a silvery trill. “Enjoy, sir!” She remained staring him keenly up and down for another moment before she withdrew and let the door snick closed behind her.

Remo, glowering after her, heaved a sigh. Barr snorted.

Fawn relieved Dag of the basket and lugged it to the round table.

“Nice ham,” she commented. Her own brows rose when she unwrapped the jewel-colored jars to discover the cloth was a made-up cotton shirt, very neatly sewn, in Dag’s size. Dag tried to think what he might have done for Neeta’s patrol to earn this tribute, and came up blank. He’d only been doing groundwork in the medicine tent for two weeks, they’d treated no extraordinary emergencies lately, and besides, the patrol hadn’t even been here.

In any case, neither returnee bore the air of a young man who had wooed and won. Dag was surprised. Generally, exchange patrollers, with the glamour of the exotic about them, found it fairly easy to worm their way into the bedrolls of willing young patrol women-easier, anyway, than it was for the local fellows the girls had been seeing all their lives. The advantage was considered one of the many enticements to go on exchange. All four youngsters in question were healthy and, as far as Dag knew, unattached. The interest had certainly been there. The numbers came out even. But Barr and Remo were plainly not relaxed, or sated, or goofy with delight, or enjoying any other of the happy emotions a woman could induce in a man-Dag smiled across at Fawn.

Quite the reverse. If grounds could be made visible, theirs would be knotted into personal thunderclouds hovering over their heads.

Dag said neutrally, “So, how was your first southern patrol?” They could not have found a malice, sessile or otherwise, or the general mood would have been something quite different.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Remo said. “Is Arkady’s bath barrel out there hot? ”

“It was this morning,” said Fawn. “The coals are still banked. You could likely put some more kindling on and get it to catch.”

“Good,” growled Remo. “Been thinking about that for hours.” He trudged out the back way.

“Why, yes, Remo, of course you can go first,” Barr remarked airily to the closing door. Dag heard Remo’s steps thump down the outside stairs. Barr flopped down on the braided rug in front of the hearth and stared bitterly up at the ceiling.

“What’s bit him? ” Fawn asked in wonder. Her gaze strayed to Barr.

“And you? ”

Barr made an unconversational noise in the back of his throat, not quite a death rattle.

“Did your, ah, courtships not prosper?” Dag inquired genially, taking his seat again. He really didn’t see how they could have failed. “Which one were you sweet on, again? I couldn’t hardly tell.”

Fawn picked up her needles and plunked down in the padded chair opposite, but didn’t start knitting again. Arkady had set down his quill and rested his chin in his hand, spread fingers hiding his smirk, listening shamelessly.

“Tavia,” sighed Barr. He waved his arms in the air. “Tavia, Tavia, Tavia. Hair so soft. The rest of her”-optimistically large hand motions above his chest-“so soft, too. A man wouldn’t get sliced up by her hip bones like that blond icicle Remo’s drooling after, not that it does him any good, either.” The arms fell listlessly to the rug.

“And the trouble with all this is…? ” prodded Fawn.

“Tavia’s gone sweet on Remo. Why? Why? I like her way better than he ever would. I bet I could make her happier, too. I’m an ever-so-muchcheerier fellow. Irony, ah, irony.”

“I gather from this that Remo is, er, sweet on Neeta?” Dag inquired.

“I shouldn’t think she would find him repulsive.” He wasn’t sure whether to hope to learn Neeta was sweet on Barr, or not. A truly creative patroller with a big enough blanket might do something with that array. He elected not to mention the thought. One mustn’t shock the youngsters.

“Oh, he was doing pretty good with her, at first, and I was getting all ready to catch Tavia on the first bounce with his goodwill, till he made the big mistake of telling Neeta who you really were.”

“Dag Bluefield No-Camp? It’s no secret.”

“No, who you were up in Luthlia. Dag Wolverine of Leech Lake Camp.”

Dag’s stomach clenched. “Oh. But that’s near a generation ago.”

“Neeta’s just back from two years’ exchange to Luthlia, and full of it. Did you know they still sing ballads up there about Captain Dag Wolverine of the Wolf War? ”

“One ballad,” growled Dag. And he didn’t much care for it. His wife Kauneo had been a heroine of Wolf Ridge, and her brothers, and fortyodd others. Dag had merely been a survivor.

Fawn, eyeing him uneasily, offered, “You can’t blame folks for wanting a song to help them remember their war.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to remember it.” Although the old memories no longer seared, merely twinged; he had time and Fawn to thank for that. “Besides, that ballad got it wrong. It carved up the truth to fit in its stanzas. Taught the wrong lessons.”

Barr groaned from the floor, “One ballad? There’s a couple dozen! A whole cycle about the Wolf War. And Neeta learned every blighted one of them while she was up there. She can sing them all. She did. And as soon as Remo let your old name drop, she didn’t want to hear anything from either of us except Dag stories.”

Dag had endured infatuated youngsters, and some not so young, a time or two before; at Hickory Camp word had eventually got ’round not to bother him, or perhaps he’d simply grown too old and dull. It was always embarrassing, but everyone always lived. He sighed grimly, trying to recall his methods of dealing with it. It had usually involved having Fairbolt send him out with a different patrol till things blew over. Not a method he could apply here, alas.

“Lovely Tavia,” Barr went on-bemoaned, actually-“lovely soft Tavia. Tavia, the fool girl, has sheep’s eyes only for Remo. Remo lusts after Neeta. Neeta’s besotted with Captain Dag Wolverine, who I’m not sure even still exists. Now, if only Fawn would yearn after me, the circle would be complete, but that’s not going to happen, we established that.” He vented a huge sigh. “So here I ride all alone at the tail of the pack train of love, eating dust.”

Dag, about to say something else, paused in stiff suspicion. “Just when and where did this establishin’ take place? ”

“Back on the Fetch,” mumbled Barr. “Very early on. Very.”

Dag glowered down at the supine figure on the rug, but his prey was too limp even for sport. Besides, if Fawn had suffered serious insult, the corner of her mouth wouldn’t dimple at the reminder.

“Remo’s taking forever,” said Barr at last. “I think I’ll go wash up in the lake.”

“But the water’ll be cold!” said Fawn.

“Good,” said Barr savagely, convulsed to his feet, and lurched out.

Arkady muffled a snicker, then let his hand fall to the table. “I suppose if we’re going to laugh at them we should do it now, and not in their faces.”

Dag cast him a glance of apology. “Sorry, Arkady. I reckoned those two would have had their love lives all arranged by now.” The only thing more dismal than one lovesick young patroller underfoot in his host’s tent was surely two lovesick young patrollers. Dag wondered how soon the pair might be sent back out on patrol.

Fawn said, in a constricted tone, “Is Neeta going to be a problem, Dag? ”

“No. I’ll just avoid her. It shouldn’t be hard; she’ll be patrolling, I’ll be in the medicine tent.”

Fawn raised her brows, but did not voice her opinion of his plan.

Arkady’s gaze sobered as he regarded Dag. “What Wolf War? ” he inquired.

“You’ve not heard of it? There’s a relief,” said Dag. “It was just one of our many northern malice scuffles, ’bout twenty years back. That’s where this went, among other things.” He gave a vague wave of his hook. The fading Wolf War wasn’t relevant to his current ambitions; he didn’t need to discuss it here. He tried not to think Hooray.

“Excuse me, but-company captain? In Luthlia? ” Arkady persisted.

“It was a short career.”

“I thought you were a plain patroller from Oleana.”

“I am. I was. It suited me better, after…” He waved his left arm again. “Luthlia is a hard hinterland, a young man’s country. When I wasn’t young anymore, I went home.”

“How long were you actually up there? ”

“ ’Bout ten years.” He grew uncomfortable under Arkady’s continuing stare. “What about it? ”

Arkady was silent a moment, then shrugged. “You keep surprising me, is all. I usually fancy myself more shrewd.”

Dag couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so he picked up the old casebook and tried to read again. After a moment Fawn returned to her knitting, and Arkady to his writing. All more slowly, with frequent glances to the lakeside windows.

–-

By the time the partners had washed, donned dry clothes, warmed up, returned Dag’s knife, and fallen upon the dinner basket like starving dogs, their moods had improved. Fortunately, in Dag’s view.

Fawn dared to ask, “Was this southern patrol very different from your Oleana ones? ”

Barr and Remo exchanged a hard-to-read glance. Arkady, chewing, watched with interest.

“No…” said Remo slowly. “And yes.”

“Yes.” Barr nodded. “It’s funny…”

“What is? ” asked Dag.

“I always thought I’d like it if things were looser out on patrol.”

He jiggled his shoulders to indicate a desirable slackness, then added, “Though the alligator hunt was fun. The farmers whose lands we crossed didn’t want us to hunt their bears, they’re too rare and valuable here-they want the bear grease and pelts and meat for themselves. But they were happy to grant us all the alligators we could find, the bigger the better. Wild pigs were free game, too. We came back with a stack of raw hides that we unloaded in that farmers market.” He took another bite of bread piled high with bright apricot jam from one of Dag’s gift jars, and chewed blissfully.

Fawn made a face. “Wasn’t it scary? Did you hunt them at night? ”

She turned to Arkady and explained, “Up in Oleana the Lakewalker patrols cross farms at night, to avoid disturbing folks. You hardly know they’re out there.”

“No,” said Remo, “you couldn’t, not around here. There’s way too much settled land. You’d run out of night. We just rode across in broad daylight. We didn’t bother the farmers, and they didn’t bother us.”

Barr put in, “Some sort of pretended not to notice us, which felt odd. Some would nod greeting. This patrol had a regular string of farmers’ barns we put up at, or campsites in their woodlots. The farmers expected a few coins for the use of them, which the patrol leader doled out.”

“So-the farmers around here aren’t so ignorant of patrollers as I was back in West Blue? ” said Fawn.

Remo scratched his head. “I guess not.”

“That’s good.”

“I’m not so sure.” Encouraged by Dag’s opened hand, Remo went on, “It seemed like there was nothing much for them to be ignorant of. We were no more than a hunting party.”

“More party than hunting,” said Barr, his brow furrowing. “It wasn’t how the New Moon patrollers all slipped in and out of camp at night. I didn’t mind that. It was how they were walking their patterns. They were noisy. They broke formation all the time to talk to each other. They sang. While walking. Blight, you’d never flush a mud-man that way. Our patrol captain back at Pearl Riffle always said that could be your first sign there was a malice nearby, even without the blight. She’d have had our tongues on a toasting fork for coughing during a pattern, but here they just let the ruckus roll on.” He looked up at Dag. “Are all southern patrols like that, or was it just this one? ”

Dag swallowed his bite, and chased it with tea. “I’ve only patrolled down here one season, ’bout four years back. I gather that the areas where they’ve found a sessile within living memory aren’t quite so, ah, loose, but there’s no question that the more pressing likelihood of malices shapes us in the north.”

“Shapeless…” said Remo. “Yes, that’s what this patrol felt like.”

“That’s why it’s so important that southern patrollers exchange north,” said Dag, with a glance at the now-frowning Arkady. “Not just for the extra hands they lend us, but for the training they bring back home. Without them, the southern patrol would be falling apart.” Faster.

“Neeta’s more valuable for coming home than any two volunteers who stay on in Luthlia.”

“I’m not sure she knows that,” said Remo slowly. “This was her first patrol after coming back here with new eyes. She was… it’s like… she was the only one there who realized what we saw. And she was ashamed for her patrol mates. And she hadn’t expected to be.”

“Wouldn’t your patrol leader have trained in the north?” asked Fawn. “I thought they had to.”

“He’s been back a long time,” said Remo. “Decades. I got the impression he’d sort of given up.” He glanced up at Dag. “Was the patrol you walked with here like that? ”

“Not after a season with me along.”

Barr snorted tea through his nose.

Remo ignored him to say, “But you weren’t the patrol leader.”

“You don’t have to be.”

Remo chewed a bite of stew, swallowed. “Huh.”

–-

It seemed to Fawn that word of Dag’s new, or old, fame spread around New Moon Cutoff Camp at an unsettlingly fast clip. She supposed twenty-five gossiping patrollers dispersed to twenty-five tents added up, atop all the folks who’d met them both in the medicine tent by now.

Dag wasn’t just Arkady’s peculiar project anymore, but a man of, apparently, more than local fame. It made her wonder just what all else was in those ballads Neeta had been passing along-Fawn had only ever heard the one, back in Oleana, and it had named no names.

Dag hated it, she could tell. But as the longest-tempered man Fawn had ever met, he endured politely, mostly. Well, he did give pretty daunting shrift to the merely curious, unless it was a patient he was doing groundwork on, when he turned the questions more gently. Children got straight, if brief, answers out of him, but no one else could.

For the first time since they’d arrived, Dag began to get invitations to visit tents around the camp for something other than Arkady’s medicine walks. Any that didn’t include Fawn he refused bluntly. Any that did, he took pains to point out to the issuer that Fawn was confined to Arkady’s place and the medicine tent by camp council order.

Then came an invitation that could not be refused.

“Dinner at the camp captain’s tent?” Dag said in confusion that Fawn shared: New Moon patrol’s captain was a member of the council. “Both of us? ”

“All of us. Your patroller boys and me, as well,” Arkady told him. “I expect most of the camp council will be there.”

Dag blinked. “You think we should go? ”

“Of course you should go. This could be your chance.”

“Chance to do what? ”

Arkady paused. “Fit in better,” he said at last.

“I thought we were fittin’ in fairly good. For practical purposes.”

“Yes, well,” said Arkady vaguely.

They went.

It was a pig roast, all outside at the tent-house, really-of the camp captain, making it seem to Fawn quite like Hickory Lake for a change.

Captain Antan Bullrush and his maker wife were older folks, their children grown, but there was still a crowd for dinner: three tent-heads, all mature women who were council members this season; spouses and families and grandchildren; and, since one of the council women was aunt to Tavia, both partners. Neeta looked especially pleased. The cookout could almost have been a farmer clan picnic, with different women bringing their dishes to share. But when everyone was stuffed, and the children gone off to play along the lakeside, and lanterns hung in the trees, a more select group gathered on a circle of upturned stumps. And began to interrogate Dag.

They asked about Captain Dag Wolverine of the Wolf War. What they got told about was Captain Dag Bluefield of the Raintree malice outbreak, with a side order of Greenspring. The Wolf War was ruthlessly relegated to background, though it had to come in a little to help explain how Dag’s company had been able to go through the Raintree malice like, in Fawn’s informed view, a hot knife through butter. But if the alternate tale was meant to turn aside interest in Dag’s patrolcaptaining career, Fawn didn’t think it was working all that well.

Arkady chewed his thumb and said little, watching his protege getting turned on this spit, and sometimes spitting back. He studied the faces of the council quorum, and only winced now and then. It was plain that he wished Dag would take a more compromising tone. It was plain to Fawn that Dag wasn’t going to waste such a captive audience.

He sure didn’t sound like he had a mouth full of pebbles tonight.

At length, the circle broke up to seek desserts. And, judging from the bent heads, to exchange franker opinions privately.

Dag murmured to Arkady, “Any objection if Fawn and I slip away early? ”

Arkady pursed his lips. “No, in fact. That would be fine. I need to stay awhile and talk to some folks.”

Dag nodded. Fawn refused to go without thanking Missus Bullrush properly, but once that duty was done, she allowed him to lead her off.

They stopped by patrol headquarters to check on their horses, idling in the paddock there eating New Moon’s fodder since their arrival, then continued down the shore road in the darkening chill.

“So,” Fawn said hesitantly. “What was that all about? ”

Dag scratched his head gently with his hook. “I’m not just sure. We were being inspected, right enough. You’d think they could come to the medicine tent for that.”

“Do you think they’re deciding whether to let us stay for your two years? ”

“Maybe.” He chewed his lip. “Maybe more.”

“Dag Bluefield New Moon Cutoff? ” She shaped the name in her mouth. Camp names didn’t just tell your place of residence. If you bore one, it marked you a member of some greater whole, and even after the better part of a year trailing after Dag, Fawn didn’t know all the subtleties that implied. “Is that… something you would like? ”

“Strange,” he sighed. “At the end of last summer, that could have been the sum of my ambitions. It was exactly what I wanted from Hoharie. Train up as a medicine maker together with you, serve in camp. Let my tired feet rest from patrolling. But Hoharie choked on you, and that was the end of it. I think I’ve made it clear enough to these New Moon folks that we come as partners or not at all-they won’t make her mistake.”

“I wonder what mistake they will make? ”

He snorted. “Hard to say, Spark.” His strong, dry hand found hers, and her cold little fingers stole warmth from it gratefully. “I do know Arkady’s not keen on spending two years of his time training me up as a groundsetter just to have me go off north and treat farmers. If I-we- became members of this camp, we’d have to abide by camp rules and discipline.”

“We? ”

He sucked a fortifying breath through his nose. “Wouldn’t that be something to have done, though? For the first time ever, get a farmer girl accepted as a full-fledged member of a Lakewalker camp? ”

“Would they? ”

“I wouldn’t stay for less. I hope I made that plain.”

Fawn rather thought he had. Her brows scrunched. She felt rattled, and she suspected he did, too. This offer-if it got made-wasn’t anything she’d ever expected or planned on, but then, nothing about her life since she’d met Dag had been anything that she could have imagined back when she’d first fled West Blue. My whole life is an accident. But some of her accidents had been happy far beyond her dreams, and she had surely chosen to put herself in the way of both good and bad, when she’d first set foot to the road. Am I Dag’s greatest accident, too?

At Arkady’s place Dag lit a lantern against the cool gloom, smiled slowly, and observed, “Seems we have the house to ourselves.”

The gold glint in his eye wasn’t only from the lantern light. Fawn dimpled back. “That’s a nice change,” she said agreeably.

Dag had been reticent about offering lovemaking since the patroller boys had returned, only partly due to fatigue from his long training days and, now, occasional draining groundwork under Arkady’s supervision.

The partners laid their bedrolls in the main room, and there was a door to close between, but wooden walls did not much block groundsense.

Tonight Dag and Fawn had a brief gift of privacy, if they could seize it before the beer ran out at the pig roast. They took turns washing up quickly in the sink, then Dag carried the lantern to their end room.

Fawn unrolled their bedding, and helped Dag off with his shirt and arm harness. He returned the favor, folding down her blouse as though it were a flower’s petals; they stood facing on their knees, skin to skin, each leaning into the other for support and heat. They’d made love in many different moods, from merry to mournful; tonight, it seemed to Fawn, there was something almost desperate in Dag’s grip.

“Gods, Spark,” he muttered. “Help me remember who I am.”

She hugged him tight. He released his clutch in favor of a caress, long fingers gliding over her bare back, winding in her hair, and she thought, not for the first time, that with all his touch being channeled through his single hand, he paid it a more reverent attention. And so, as a consequence, did she.

She whispered into his shoulder, “Wherever we are, you can always come home to me.”

He bent his face to her curls, handless arm tightening around her, and breathed her in. It was gently done; she had no call to think of a drowning man drawing air. “Always,” he promised. They sank to their bedroll of residence.

–-

Dag woke slowly in a gray morning light feeling vastly better, and he smiled to remember why. Fawn still slept. He lifted his arm from around her coiled warmth, then rolled over and opened his second eye.

At his face level, half a dozen pairs of beady little eyes stared back at him in unblinking fascination.

“You again!” he groaned at the field mice. “Go on! Shoo!”

Fawn came awake at his voice, sat up on her elbow, and took in their visitors. “Oh, my word. They’re back.”

“I thought you said you’d got rid of them yesterday. Again.”

“I did. Well, I thought I did. I took the box halfway around the lake and dumped them in the woods.”

Dag contemplated these leftovers from his frustrating shielding experiments.

Survivors all; had they been especially determined? They’d have to be, to trek back across half of New Moon Camp. “I’d think a farmer girl like you would have more ruthless ways of getting rid of mice.”

“Well, if they were piddling up my pantry, sure. But the only crime this bunch committed was to fall in love with you. Death seemed too cruel a penalty for that.” Her big brown eyes blinked at him in consideration.

“Beguiled,” he corrected austerely. “I don’t think mice have brains enough to fall in love.”

She dimpled. “I never noticed as it took brains.”

“There is that, Spark.” He creaked to his feet, peered a bit blearily around the room, found his slat box, tipped it on its side in front of the staring mice-whose heads turned in unison to track him-and chivvied them into it. Carrying them out the door onto Arkady’s roofless porch, he poured them over the rail. They fell with only a few faint squeaks, bouncing unharmed in the grass below, and, shocked out of their trance, scampered away. For now. Dag shook his head and trod back inside, where Fawn was sitting up lovely-naked and laughing behind her hand.

“The poor things!”

He grinned and opened himself to her bright ground as if basking in sunlight. Then went still, blinking.

Within her vivid swirl spun a brighter spark yet. He knew it at once, from that heartbreaking almost-month that he and Kauneo…

Fawn had no groundsense. It was his task to track when the brilliant changes in her ground signaled her time of fertility, and switch to alternate forms of pleasuring each other. For all the eight months of their marriage and before, she had trusted him to do so. How had he missed the signals last night? Blight it, he’d known it was almost time…!

No, not blight it, never in the same breath with this. That breath tangled in his throat in a ball of guilt, terror, and joy. If he’d taken one of Challa’s surgical knives and laid open his own chest wall, his heart could not be more exposed in this moment.

It might not catch. More than half of all such conceptions never did; many of the remainder failed in the first few weeks, barely delaying the woman’s monthly. It was one of the strongest, if least discussed, Lakewalker social rules to make no comment upon those blazing signs in a woman’s ground unless she brought them up herself. Should he say anything until he was more sure? When would that be? Fawn had been pregnant once before; how soon would she recognize her own symptoms?

Would they be the same, for this half-blood child? If that spark survived to become a child…?

“Dag? ” said Fawn doubtfully. “You feeling all right? Why’re you lookin’ at me like that? ”

He fell to his knees beside her, crouched, gathered her up in his arms, hugged her fiercely and protectively. Feeling as helpless as he’d ever been. “Because I love you,” he told her.

“Well, sure,” she said, a bit shaken by his fervor. “I knew that.” She hugged him back, bemused.

Absent gods. What do we do now?