Passage

5

Back aboard Copperhead, Dag rode close to the second wagon as they made the turn at the top of the ridge and started down the road into the valley. Fawn, beside Tanner, sat bolt upright and earnestly alert, ready to work the wheel-brake at the teamster’s word. In the front wagon, Whit had his head cranked sideways, goggling at the river. Dag’s eye followed his gaze.

Half a mile upstream on this side, Pearl Riffle Camp was just visible amongst the thinning leaves, a scattering of tent-roofs—Fawn would have called them cabins, Dag supposed—along the wooded hillside. Opposite the Lakewalker camp, below the mouth of a creek, lay Possum Landing, the level stretch of shore where the ferry put in and where cargoes were traditionally transferred from the old straight road to the river, or vice versa. There were more farmer houses clustered upslope from the landing than the last time Dag had ridden through here, and more sheds for storing goods.

Eight flatboats and a keel were presently tied to the trees along the muddy bank on that side, waiting for a rise in the water level to dare the shoals below; a good selection, though if the water rose suddenly from some big storm upriver, they could all be underway in an hour. But the water was still falling, judging from both the width of the mud margin and the fact that a couple of the flatboats, tied imprudently too close to the bank, now had their bows stuck in the drying mire. Even the wharf boat was half-grounded.

Dag turned in his saddle to look over his shoulder. Half a mile below the glittering shoals on this side, where the river again curved out of sight, was the farmer hamlet of Pearl Bend, which also boasted a wharf boat serving the crossing, as it made sense to offload heavy cargo before hauling a boat up over the Riffle, or wait to load on till after successfully negotiating the hazard coming down. The Glassforge men would take the bulk of their goods there. Pearl Bend, too, boasted more roofs than Dag remembered; practically a village, now.

Dag turned back to find the cautious glass-men pulling their wagons to a halt at a wide space in the road, huddling toward the hillside. A troop of riders was coming up the slope, double file—a Lakewalker patrol, outbound from Pearl Riffle Camp, likely. A dozen and some men, maybe half that many women, a normal complement. Dag drew Copperhead in behind Tanner’s wagon and squinted down the track. He fought an impulse to open his crippled groundsense wide, closing it down instead. He could look with his eyes well enough.

Outbound for certain, Dag decided, as first patrollers drew level with the wagons and fell into single file to pass. They appeared far too rested and tidy to be anything else. He suppressed a company captain’s inventory of the condition of every horse, rider, and weapon approaching. Not his job, anymore.

The patrol leader, who had barely glanced at the wagons, looked up as he spotted Dag and urged his mount forward. Dag opened his groundsense just enough to keep Copperhead polite as the strange horse loomed near.

“Courier?” demanded the patrol leader, a spare, middle-aged fellow with a shrewd eye.

Because why else would a Lakewalker be riding alone, and if the news Dag bore was bad, perhaps this patrol was about to acquire a more urgent task than their routine search patterns. His mind would not connect Dag, in Lakewalker gear on what was obviously a patrol horse, with the party of farmers that his patrol was rounding.

Dag touched his hand to his temple in a courteous salute, but said, “No, sir. Just travelin’ through.”

The patrol leader’s shoulders eased in relief. “Any news from the north?”

He meant patrol news, Lakewalker news. “All was quiet when I passed through Glassforge, three days back.”

The leader nodded. He looked as if he’d like to pause for fuller gossip, but the last rider cleared the obstructing wagons and kicked her horse into a trot to take up her place in the re-forming double file. He contented himself with a return salute and a “Travel safely, then.”

“You, too. Good hunting.”

An acknowledging grimace, and he trotted after the others.

Dag took back his place as Fawn’s outrider as the two wagons creaked into motion again. Fawn twisted around in her seat to watch the departing patrol, turned back, and glanced across at Dag. Concern shone in her big brown eyes, though for what cause Dag was uncertain.

Tanner, too, cast a curious look over his shoulder. “So, all those Lakewalkers are going off to hunt for blight bogles, are they? With their, their ground-senses?”

“Yes,” said Dag. “Pearl Riffle Camp doesn’t cover as big a territory as Hickory Lake—that’s my, was my, home camp. Hickory has eight, nine thousand folks, the biggest camp in Oleana. Doubt Pearl Riffle has eight or nine hundred. They can field maybe two or three patrols, barely a company. But their more important task is right here, keeping the ferry crossing open in case of need. If the Glassforge malice had gotten out of hand—more out of hand—we might have called on Lakewalker camps from south of the Grace to help out. Or the other way around, if they ran into trouble down there.”

“The way Hickory Lake sent Dag’s company west to fight the malice that came up in Raintree, couple of months back,” put in Fawn, for Tanner’s sake. And, at Tanner’s next question, went on to give him an accurate summary of the summer’s campaign, if sketched in broad strokes, and all in terms a farmer might readily grasp, because, after all, Fawn was one. Which drew braver questions from the teamster in turn. Dag listened in grateful silence, backing her with an occasional nod. This fruitful exchange lasted till the wagons reached the bottom of the long slope and turned across the narrow floodplain toward the river.

When they reached the crossroads, Dag said, “Fawn, do you think you’d be all right staying with Whit for a little? I’d like to pay a visit.” He jerked his head upstream.

“Sure. This is the camp where Saun and Reela stayed, right?”

The two were fellow patrollers injured in the Glassforge fight, sent down here as the closest place to convalesce. Saun had been Dag’s own partner; Fawn had made friends of a sort with Reela, laid up in the hotel afterwards with a broken leg. “Yes,” Dag answered.

“Do you have friends here? Or k—” She cut short the last word: kin.

“Well, I’m not sure,” he said, passing over her little stammer. “It’s been a while since I was down this way. Thought I’d go check.” Which was not exactly the reason for his detour, but he was reluctant to discuss the real one in front of Tanner. Especially as Dag himself was doubtful of the result. “I’ll find you two after my errand. Might be a while. Stay by Whit, right?”

“Dag, I don’t need my brother to guard me every minute.”

“Who said it was you I thought needs a keeper?”

She dimpled, taking this in; he cast her a return wink, possibly more cheerful-looking than he felt. The wagons turned right onto the downstream road toward Pearl Bend. Dag wheeled Copperhead around and trotted in the opposite direction.

Across a shallow run and over a rise, he came to the camp’s perimeter and let his groundsense ease open just a hair, to present himself to the gate guard, if any. He felt an inquiring double-flick in return, and raised his eyes to spot not one but a pair of Lakewalkers lingering on a couple of stumps flanking the road. An older man was whittling pegs; a morning’s worth lay piled haphazardly at his feet, and Dag’s nostrils flared with the pleasant tang of new shavings. A young woman worked on weaving willow-withy baskets, but a bow and quiver leaned against a rock within easy reach. Patrollers both, on light camp duty.

Dag drew up Copperhead and nodded. “How de’.”

The man stood. “Good day to you”—a slight hesitation, as he looked Dag up and down—“patroller.” An anxious look crossed his face. “Courier, are you?”

“No, sir, just stopping by. I was hoping you could tell me where to find your camp captain, and who’s holding that post these days.”

The young woman frowned at his hook, wrapped with Copperhead’s reins, and he lowered it a trifle. The man directed Dag to look for Amma Osprey in the third tent to the left past the split oak tree, and Dag, not lingering to get tangled in talk, pressed Copperhead on. A last curious ground-flick touched him. Pass, friend.

Both ease and anxiety knotted in him as he rode by the familiar domestic sights of a Lakewalker camp. Tents peeked through trees, the traditional log structures with hide awnings rolled up on their fourth, open sides, mostly looking southwest to the river. Stands of fruit trees, beehives, homely washing on lines. Smoke rising from chimneys, the smells of cooking and preserving. From a distance, a less pleasant whiff of tanning hides. Half a dozen black-and-white speckled chickens squawked and fluttered across Copperhead’s path, and the horse tossed his head and snorted.

Downslope near the shore, a couple of men were building a good-sized narrow boat on a rack, hammering in pegs. Twenty-five feet long, double-prowed, broad in the middle, clearly meant for the river trade—its boards looked mill-sawn. A few of the newer tent-cabins, too, were built of such planks; the farmers at Pearl Bend or Possum Landing must have put in a sawmill on one of the feeder creeks.

Dag spotted patrol headquarters by the array of hitching posts in front, and the lack of washing and cook-smoke. The four-sided cabin had Glassforge glass windows, presently hooked open on what had to be one of the last warm days of the season. Dag dismounted, tied Copperhead, and let his groundsense dart out once more. Two folks inside right now, both ground-closed; a woman’s voice, sharp, drifted out the open windows.

“If we upped and moved the camp and the ferry a mile upriver—better, five miles—we wouldn’t have these blighted clashes.”

“And lose the rest of the business from the straight road to the Bend’s new ferry? We’re hurting already,” returned another woman, with a rougher, warmer voice. Not young.

“Let it go. We don’t need a wagon road for our patrols and pack trains.”

“Amma, three-fourths of the camp’s coin comes from farmers using our ferry. And flows right back to them. Everything from flour to horseshoe nails comes from the Bend goods-sheds these days.”

“As it should not. Proves my point, I’d say.”

A glum silence fell. When it remained unbroken, Dag stepped up onto the wooden porch and knocked, furling his groundsense more tightly around him.

“Is that you, Verel?” the first voice called. “Come on in. When are you going to let those two—ah.” A tough, tall, strongly built older woman, one haunch half-up on a plank table, wheeled as Dag ducked through the door and touched his hand to his temple in polite greeting. He had no trouble identifying her as the camp’s patrol captain, given her riding trousers, worn leather vest, long steel knife at her belt, and harassed look. The cabin held the usual headquarters clutter of strewn gear, with maps and record books stuffed on overflowing shelves. The other woman, of like age but rather plumper and wearing skirts, might be some clan head; she seemed to bear herself with scarcely less authority.

“Now what?” said the camp captain, in a voice of accumulated exasperation. Her lips began to shape the next query.

“Not a courier, ma’am!” Dag hastened to reassure her, and she let the word fall unvoiced, with a relieved nod. “I’m just passing through. M’ name’s Dag Bluefield.”

This won blank looks from both women. Bluefield was not a Lakewalker name, nor had Dag claimed a camp of origin. Before they could pry into this oddity, he hurried on. “I came about a sharing knife. But I could come back later.”

A look of inexplicable enlightenment crossed the camp captain’s face. “Oh, no, if you witnessed anything, I definitely want it now. Take a seat, we’ll be starting soon.” She waved to a bench along the back wall. “Sorry, I thought you were our medicine maker out there.”

They were at some cross-purpose, it seemed. But before Dag could open his mouth to uncross them, the other woman peered out the window and said, “Ah, here they come. Absent gods, what a sick and sorry pair they look.”

“They’re going to be a lot sicker and sorrier when I’m done with ’em.” Amma Osprey ran a stray strand of gray hair, escaped from the braid at her nape, back over her ear, then folded her arms and her lips equally tightly as the door opened.

Two young men limped through. One was shorter, tawny-haired, and sturdy with muscle. But his right hand was bandaged, and his arm rested in a sling. His fair, square face was bruised. His shirt was clean and didn’t quite fit him—borrowed? — but his trousers were spattered with dried blood. He walked decidedly bent over.

The one who followed was taller, brown-haired, maybe a bit older than his companion, though still very young to Dag’s eyes. His face was even more bruised, one eye swollen shut, lower lip twice its proper size. Beneath his torn shirt his ribs were wrapped in cloth strips. Chicken tracks of black stitches marched up two long cuts on his left arm. His knuckles were swollen and scabbed, though he gingerly helped himself along with a stick in his right hand.

Two patrollers who’d lost a fight last night, obviously. To each other? They collected equally cold and silent glowers from the two women as they shuffled into line. The tawny youth made one attempt at a winning smile, wilting swiftly as the scowls deepened. Dag squinted in curiosity. He really ought to excuse himself and go. Instead, he sank back on his bench like a hunter lying up in tall grass, silent and unnoticeable.

Amma Osprey began curtly, “Not the least of your offenses is that I had to pull two of your comrades off their camp leaves this morning to take your places in patrol. You can remember to apologize to them, too, when they get back.”

Dag had done that in his time, cut his camp rest short in order to fill in for a sick or injured or bereaved patroller.

The dark one looked, if possible, more hangdog, but the tawny one raised his bruised face and began, “But we didn’t start it! We were just—”

The camp captain held up a quelling hand. “You’ll have your say in a moment, Barr. I promise you.” It sounded more threat than promise; in any case, the tawny youth subsided.

Steps sounded on the wooden porch, and the door swung open once more. A broad-shouldered woman stepped through, nodded to the other two, and scowled at the youths. By the yellow leather gloves stuck in her belt and the thick-soled boots on her feet, Dag identified her as a ferrywoman; by her age and stride, likely the boat boss. She pulled a lumpy cloth from her belt, and said, “I found this piece up in the woods back of Possum Landing this morning.”

“Oh, good,” said the camp captain. “Remo, do you have the rest?”

The dark youth hitched around and pulled another lumpy cloth from his shirt, reluctantly handing it over to his captain. She slid off the table and laid open both scraps. Dag was disturbed to see the pieces of a broken sharing knife, carved from pale bone. Such a knife was supposed to break when it released its burden of mortality into the ground of a malice, but Dag already had an uncomfortable suspicion that there had been no malice involved, or these two patrollers would be in much better odor this afternoon. Amma Osprey swiftly aligned the shards.

“That’s got it all, Issi,” she reported. The ferrywoman nodded satisfaction; the dark youth, Remo, let out a faint breath.

“Now we have a council quorum,” said the skirted woman. The three exchanged nods and settled, two in chairs, Amma hitched up on the edge of the table again. The two young patrollers were not invited to sit.

“All right,” said the camp captain grimly to the pair, “start explaining. How did this get started?”

The two exchanged unhappy looks; Remo of the swollen mouth waved a purpling hand at his companion, and said, “Oo ’ell ’m, Arr.”

Barr gulped and began, “It was a good deed, blight it! It really got started when that last coal flat tried to take the Riffle when the water’d got too low, ten days back, and tore out its bottom and dumped its load for half a mile down the shoals. Remo and I took out a narrow boat to pick off some of the crew that had got themselves hung up in the white water and the cottonwood wrack. Probably saved three flatties from drowning. Anyway, they seemed to think so. We hauled ’em into the tavern at Pearl Bend looking sorry as wet rats. Got them all dried out, on the outside anyway. At least they bought us drinks. Seeing as everyone was saved, they were all in a mood to celebrate, except maybe the boat boss who’d lost his cargo. So some of the keelers who’d helped out and the flatties started some games.”

“You know you are not to play games of chance with farmers,” said Amma Osprey in a dangerous voice. Because Lakewalkers were inevitably accused of sorcerous cheating in such situations. Although only if they had the ill luck or poor judgment to actually win.

“’Ee ’idn’t,” protested Remo.

“It was arm wrestling,” said Barr. “With a couple of the keelers. And despite what they claimed, we didn’t cheat—though I could have, blight it!” The peculiar indignation of the accused not-quite-guilty livened his voice, and Dag, still quiet on his bench by the wall, suppressed an upward mouth twitch.

“It made me so mad,” Barr went on. “So I told them it was true, but they could protect themselves from evil Lakewalker influences with metal helmets, like what you see the soldiers of the old Lake League wearing in the broken statues, which was what those helmets had been for, see. And they bought it. By the next afternoon, we had half the flatties up at Possum Landing walking around with their cook pots and wash bowls stuck on their heads. It was, it was”—he struggled for a moment, eyes brightening in defiant memory—“it was glorious.” His jaw set, then slacked instantly as he winced and rubbed its bruises.

“So that’s where that fool nonsense came from!” cried the ferry boss, Issi, in a voice that shook in a good imitation of anger. She turned away from the truants and rubbed her face till the betraying laugh lines were smoothed back out. Dag, who could just picture a herd of naive Lakewalker-fearing flatboat crews wandering about the Landing in their clanking makeshift helmets, laid his palm hard over his jaw and kept listening. Oh, to have been here last week!

“I was just balancing the scales a bit,” Barr continued. “You know what we do for those stupid farmers, and how little thanks we get in return. And it wasn’t hurting anyone, till your crew told them it was all a fiddle.”

The ferry boss sighed. “It took my girls near three days to talk them out of it. Even then, some of them refused to give up their headgear.” She added reflectively, “The rest were plenty mad, though. The Possum folks and the older flatties gave ’em a ripe ribbing for it all.”

Captain Osprey pinched the bridge of her nose. “Despite all that, I suppose it would have all passed downstream harmlessly at the next rise, if you two unaccountable fools hadn’t gone over there last night and stirred them up again. Why?”

“I was baited,” Barr admitted in a surly voice.

“Tol’ yuh,” his partner muttered, rolling his good eye.

“How?” demanded the patrol captain.

An even more surly silence.

The ferry boss put in, “I’ve already heard one version of it over at the Landing this morning, Barr. We’d better have yours.”

Barr hunched.

Remo mumbled, “Tell t’ truth, blighdit. Can’t be worse f’r you th’n f’r me.”

Barr hunched lower. With a voice that seemed to come from somewhere around his knees, he said, “A flatboat girl invited me. To meet her in the woods back of the Landing.”

Amma Osprey broke the chill silence that followed this with “When and where did this invitation take place?”

“Down at the Bend wharf boat. Yesterday afternoon.” He looked up indignantly into the thick disapproval that now blanketed the room.

“She seemed all excited. I didn’t think she was lying. Well, you know how those farmer girls throw themselves at patrollers, sometimes!”

“You’re supposed to throw them back,” said the skirted woman in a grim voice.

“Tol’ yuh it was a setup,” said Remo, with a black stare at his partner.

“He said, no, it was too obvi’us.”

Barr turned redder around his livid bruises. “I didn’t ask you to come.”

“Y’r muh partner. I’m supposed t’ watch y’r back!”

Barr took a long breath, then let half of it out with his protest unvoiced. “Six of the flatties jumped me in the dark. I wasn’t carrying any weapon. Neither was Remo. The flatties just had fists and sticks, at first. Then when Remo piled in to help me, and things started to turn back our way, one of the flatties pulled a knife on us. Remo had to use his knife to defend himself, it was the only thing we had, except for our bare arms!”

“You drew a primed sharing knife in a common brawl.” Amma Osprey’s voice was flatter than winter ice. And colder. And harder.

“Wisht ’d just used muh arms,” mumbled Remo. And lower, more despairing, “Or muh neck…”

It was all becoming clear to Dag, and he almost wished it weren’t. He eyed the pale bone shards laid accusingly on the plank table. His heart ached for these two young fools. He curled his right arm around himself and waited for the rest.

“And now we come to it,” said Amma. “Why were you wearing your sharing knife at all last night, when you knew you weren’t to go out on patrol till today?”

Remo’s face set in an agony that had nothing to do with its bruises. “I…it was new. I’d jus’ been given it. I was trying t’ get used to it!”

The picture was plain. Dag knew exactly how excited and proud a young patroller entrusted with a first primed knife would be. A pride sobered, frequently, with personal grief and the heart-deep determination to be worthy of such mortal trust. Ow. Ow. Behind their stern facades, he thought the three women shared his pang.

“And then those blighted flatties, those blighted farmers, broke it to pieces,” Barr went on, remembered rage flaring in his voice. “And then we both, well, we both went after them full-out. I don’t even remember getting this.” He touched his smashed hand. “And they broke and ran off. Some of them are still running, for all I know.”

Dag could picture that, too, rage and outrage and appalling guilt boiling up to a loss of control as terrifying, perhaps, for its sufferers as their victims. A patroller should never lose control. Especially not around farmers. It was ingrained, if sometimes not deeply enough. Because when such control failed, everyone was subject to the frightened farmer backlash.

“Your great-grandmother Grayjay didn’t share early for this fate,” said the skirted woman. “She might have had months yet, except that she feared passing in her sleep.”

Remo’s face went from red to white, beneath his bruises. “I know.” His ground-veiling was held so tight, his body was shaking as if with physical effort.

“I was going to take the pieces to your parents, but I think you should.”

Remo’s eyes closed. “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered, dead-voiced. Barr was very quiet.

Amma Osprey gestured at Dag. “You, sir. I gather you were at Possum Landing. You have any information to add to all this?”

Issi stared at the newcomer; she must know he hadn’t crossed north over the river by the ferry since last night. Squinting at his arm harness, she asked, “Do I know you, patroller?”

Dag cleared his throat uncomfortably, and rose. “My apologies, Captain Osprey. I actually just rode down from Glassforge. I came to ask you about another matter. I think this isn’t a good time for it, though.”

An irate look from the camp captain confirmed this belief, but Issi snapped her fingers and pointed. “I have seen you! You used to ride with Mari Redwing of Hickory Lake. You’re her nephew, aren’t you?”

Yes, Issi and Dag’s aunt Mari could well be near-contemporaries. Acquaintances. Maybe even passing friends, who knew? “Yes, ma’am.”

The skirted woman said, “But he said his name was Dag Bluefield.”

“I’m lately married, ma’am.”

“What kind of name is—” the skirted woman began.

The two young patrollers looked wildly at each other. Barr burst out, “Sir! Are you Dag Redwing Hickory, Saun’s partner? Who slew the Glassforge malice, single—all by himself?”

Dag sighed. “Not by myself, no.” Oh, yes—these two were just the age and sort to have become Saun’s boon companions in his convalescence here last spring. Dag winced at the thought of what kind of Dag-stories Saun might have been inspired to tell, to alleviate his boredom and entertain his new friends. Dag could see his hope of anonymity evaporate like morning dew in the heat of those suddenly interested eyes.

Captain Osprey blinked, rocking back. “Then are you also the same Dag Redwing who led the Hickory Lake company to Raintree a couple of months ago, and took down that horrendous malice they had running wild over there?”

Dag set his teeth, briefly. “I was Dag Bluefield by then, ma’am.”

“Fairbolt Crow’s report on Raintree in the latest patrol circular named a Captain Dag Redwing.”

Oh, so that was how the word had got around. Yes, there had been time for such official patrol news to have slipped ahead of Dag while he was lingering in West Blue. Fairbolt kept up. “Then Fairbolt named me wrong.” At Amma’s rising brows, he offered, “Habit, maybe. I patrolled under him for eighteen years as Dag Redwing. I was in his company even before he became Hickory Lake’s camp captain.”

“Eh. So what is this other matter?”

Dag hesitated.

Amma made an impatient gesture. “Spit it out and get it over with. It can’t be worse than the rest of my morning.”

Dag nodded, trying to get over the jolt of having his recent reputation run before him, even if some of it was no doubt due to Saun’s exaggerations. But perhaps it would do him some good. “I left Hickory Lake on business of my own, after—as a result of—the Raintree campaign. I expect to travel a lot of territory in the next few months. I used my last primed knife on the Glassforge malice, and haven’t yet found another. You don’t have to be on patrol to run across a malice—when I was riding courier alone up in Seagate, I once took out a new sessile that might have grown a lot more dangerous before anyone had got back to it with a patrol. I made it a rule after that never to walk bare. I know sometimes folks leave their primed knives to the patrol generally, to outfit patrollers who have none. I was wondering if you happened to have any such”—his eye fell uncomfortably on the broken bone knife on the table, and avoided Remo’s face—“spares. Just now.”

The camp captain crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you get one before you left Hickory Lake, then?” The skirted woman’s expression seconded the question.

Because he’d still been reeling, sick and heartsick, exhausted. Not thinking. “I hadn’t yet settled my plans.”

“What plans?” asked Amma.

“I figure to take the rivers down to Graymouth. Ride back in the spring. After that, I’m not sure. I might be able to return the loan then, if I don’t cross a malice.” And if he did, and used the knife, no one would ask for a better fate for it. His voice softened. “I promised my wife I’d show her the sea.”

The skirted woman touched her lips. “Wait up. Are you also that same Dag Redwing who was just banished from Hickory Lake Camp for consorting with some farmer girl?”

Dag’s head shot up. “I was not banished! Where did you hear such a lie?”

“Well”—she waved a hand—“not banished, precisely. But the camp council circular didn’t make it sound like a happy outcome.”

Buying a moment to gather his wits and his temper, Dag touched his temple, and said stiffly, “You have the advantage of me, ma’am.”

The skirted woman gestured at herself. “Nicie Sandwillow. Pearl Riffle Camp council leader, this season.”

Therefore a senior tent head, that being the pool from which council members were selected by various sorts of rotations, depending on the camp. With the patrol’s camp captain always a permanent member. Dag wondered if the ferry boss was also a permanent member, here. It seemed likely. Making this morning’s inquiry doubly efficient, serving the patrol and the council at once. But it meant that one of Nicie Sandwillow’s tasks was to receive and pass along critical council news from around the hinterland of Oleana, just as Captain Osprey received patrol news. Dag said carefully, “The Hickory Lake council was deeply divided on my case—”

“So there was a charge.”

Dag overrode this. “Pakona Pike, our—Hickory Lake’s council leader this past summer—was not on the side favorable to my arguments. But I can’t believe she’d twist the facts that much.”

“No, not if the facts are that you came in alone, late from a leave, dragging some farmer girl with the pair of you wearing Lakewalker wedding braids that you’d somehow cooked up together, claiming she was your wife and not just your whore. The letter warns all camp councils to watch out for similar trickery.”

Grimly, Dag rolled up his left sleeve. “I say they’re valid cords, and so did a lot of others. Including Fairbolt Crow. See for yourself. Fawn made this one.”

A flicker of grounds touched him, felt the spark of Fawn’s live ground in her cord, drew back. The women looked nonplussed, the two sagging young patrollers confused. It was like the hearing at Hickory Lake all over again, and Dag was bitterly reminded of why he’d left.

“And Fawn isn’t just some farmer girl,” Dag went on, growing more heated. “It was her hand slew the Glassforge malice, with my knife. Or I wouldn’t be alive now to tell it. It was a scramble, I admit, but I can’t believe the tale you had was this distorted, because Saun knew the truth of it, and so did Reela.”

“Hm.” Amma Osprey rubbed her chin. “I believe the scramble part.”

Dag bit out, “This is beside the point. Do you have a spare knife to lend, or not?”

“Good question, Dag Redwing-Bluefield-whoever,” said Amma. “Are you still a patroller, or not?”

Dag hesitated. He could claim to be on the sick list, or pretend to be on long leave. Or disciplinary leave, they’d believe that! But in the midst of all these aggravating half-truths, he refused to lie. “No. I resigned. Although Fairbolt made it clear that if I ever wanted to un-resign, he’d find a place for me.”

“And your farmer, ah, woman?” asked Nicie Sandwillow.

“That was the sticking point. One of them.”

Amma eyed the gaping, hurting young patrollers, now leaning on each other and looking ready to cave on their feet. Dag was sorrier than ever for their witness of this, because Amma would certainly trim her judgment with an eye to making an impression on them. At least, Dag would never have missed such an opportunity, when he’d been a patrol leader. She said, “Such knives are bequeathed in trust for the patrol, specifically the Pearl Riffle patrol. I can’t very well ask the dead if they want to make an exception. As their guardian, it’s my duty to conserve them—especially as they seem to be needed here.”

Remo flinched.

Them, implying she was not down to her last primed knife. She might lend one and still not strip her patrol’s reserve bare. But not to me. Not today. Dag had the frustrating sense, watching her face set, that if he’d arrived with the same request yesterday, before this trouble with the boatmen had broken out over at Possum Landing, the balance of her decision might well have tipped the other way. He let his gaze cross the two miserable miscreants with new disfavor.

There were other sources, other Lakewalker camps downriver. He would simply have to try again elsewhere. “I see. Then I’ll not take more of your time, captain.” Dag touched his hand to his temple and withdrew.