“Oh, what?” asked Fawn in eager curiosity. Given that he only had the one hand, Dag hardly ever attempted carving or any sort of complicated craft work. It came to her almost at once; he’d meant making, Lakewalker groundwork. Magic, to farmer eyes, although Fawn had nearly trained herself out of using that word. But it seemed his attempt had failed, whatever it was, and he was feeling the failure. Especially after Whit’s grand present of the mare. She added, “Sometimes you have to give up on the surprise part. Remember your birthday, when I gave you one sweater sleeve?”
Dag smiled a little and touched the finished garment, which he was wearing now against the damp chill seeping back into the boat as the bustle of dinner wore off. “Indeed, Spark. Thing is, you already knew you could finish that promise. You didn’t have to stop and invent knitting, first.”
“All right, now you have to say,” said Whit, leaning back. “You can’t trail that sort of bait across the water and then just haul in your line.”
“Aye, give us the tale, Dag,” said Bo, a bit sleepily. “A tale is as good as a coin, some places.”
“Well . . .” Reluctantly, Dag shoved his hand down into his pocket, leaned over, and deposited a black walnut, still in its shell, on the hearthstone.
The farmers around the fire all looked blankly at it, and at Dag, but Barr and Remo both sat up, which made Fawn prick her ears, too.
“Dag, what in the world did you do to that poor walnut?” asked Remo. “Its ground is all . . . shiny.”
Dag touched the hard ridges with a finger, rolling the green-black sphere around on the stone, then sat back and stared glumly at it. “A shell protects and shields life. It seemed a good natural essence to try to anchor an involution on. The way a knife maker anchors an involution into the bone of a sharing knife, although that cup is made to hold a death, and this . . . was going to hold something else.”
Dag had made his first sharing knife bare weeks back, in the aftermath of the horrors of the bandit cave. Barr and Remo had been wildly impressed; having met Dag’s knife-maker brother Dar, Fawn had been less surprised.
“I’ve been trying and trying to think,” Dag went on, “what might protect farmers the way ground veiling protects patrollers.”
“Absent gods, Dag, how could farmers veil?” said Remo. “It’s like turning your whole ground sideways to the world. It gave me conniption fits, when I was first trying to learn. Not even all Lakewakers can catch the trick of it.”
Dag nodded, not disagreeing. “But see . . . Fawn can’t feel me in her marriage cord the way I can feel her in mine, the way any married Lakewalker does, but last summer I was able to do a shaped reinforcement in her arm that let her feel something like it, leastways for a while until her ground absorbed it again. It wasn’t the same thing, but it accomplished the same end.”
Fawn nodded vigorously. “It was better, actually. Old Cattagus said you can’t tell direction with regular cords, just if your spouse is alive or not. But I could tell which way you were from me. Roughly, anyhow.”
Barr’s brows rose. “From how far away?”
“Over a hundred miles, part of the time.” Fawn added scrupulously, “I don’t know if it would have faded at bigger distances.”
Remo’s brows climbed, too.
“See, the thing is,” Dag went on, “nobody’s trying to do groundwork on farmers. Except to sneak some healing now and then out of pity, which as like as not leaves an accidental beguilement, or the occasional”—he cleared his throat—“illicit persuasion. The strongest makers don’t much get outside their camps, and patrollers don’t do complex or clever making.”
“If you show clear talent for making,” said Barr, “they don’t send you for patroller. So how did you ever get let out on the trail, Dag?”
“I . . . was a difficult youngster.” Dag scratched his head ruefully, but did not expand, although eight people perked up in hope of the story. “I don’t know what’s not done because it’s impossible, or what’s not done because it’s never been tried. Or tried and kept secret, or discovered and then lost again.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you wanted to give my sister a walnut for her birthday,” said Whit.
“I thought she could put it on a string, wear it like a necklace.”
“She probably would. Just like you wore that silly-lookin’ straw hat she wove you.”
“That hat was very practical,” Dag said defensively.
“So what’s the use of a walnut, again?”
Dag sighed. “None, apparently. I wanted to make something that would protect her ground.”
“What from?” Fawn asked.
Dag took a short breath. “Anything. People like Crane, for one.”
Fawn refrained from pointing out that the renegade had actually threatened her with a perfectly ordinary steel knife, not with any magic.
What’s going on in that murky head of yours, beloved?
“Also, maybe some sort of shield could blur or soften farmer grounds so they wouldn’t strike on Lakewalker groundsense so hard,” Dag went on.
So she wouldn’t, Fawn realized he meant, have to walk around ground-naked in front of Lakewalkers. So that her presence in a Lakewalker camp wouldn’t disturb the neighbors?
“In other words,” said Berry slowly, “you’re thinking of something that would work like those wash-pan hats that Barr made up were supposed to, and didn’t.”
Barr winced. “It was just a stupid joke,” he muttered. “I said I was sorry.”
A few slow smiles around the circle, as the crew of the Fetch recalled the uproar back at Pearl Riffle when Barr had hoaxed a gang of flatties into believing they could protect themselves from Lakewalker magic by wearing iron helmets. Iron helmets weren’t usual boat gear, but iron cook pots were; the results had been pretty entertaining, for a time.
Fawn thought if Barr ever encountered any of those fellows again, he’d better be ready to run really fast.
“Oh my, Dag,” said Whit, his eyes suddenly aglow. “If you want something for Lakewalkers to sell to farmers for cash money, you’ve hit on it. Magic up a bunch of these walnuts, and you could likely peddle them at any price you wanted to name!”
“Yeah,” said Bo, “and by the next afternoon at the latest, there’d be folks selling off fake ones, too. It’d be a right craze, it would.” He looked suddenly thoughtful. “A feller could make a killing, if he timed it right.”
“Absent gods.” Dag wiped his left sleeve across his forehead, a look of some horror rising in his eyes. “I never thought of that. You’re right. I just wanted to protect Fawn. Makers wouldn’t . . . but if . . . never mind, it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t make it work anyway.”
“Dag,” said Fawn, “if it involves my ground, wouldn’t you have to work with my ground? Like you did, um, with that extra reinforcement in my arm?”
“Yes. Well, maybe not just like that. Although that would certainly make selling ground shields to farmers an unusual enterprise . . .”
With an effort, he untwisted his reminiscent smile. “It might need to be bonded to its user, yes. Custom-made. The way sharing knives are bonded to the grounds of their pledged donors,” he added in explanation all around. And Fawn thought it was a high mark of how far they’d all come that what he got in return were understanding nods.
Dag heaved a despondent sigh. “Except that all I’ve been able to do so far is make an unbreakable walnut.”
“Really?” said Berry, rocking back in doubt.
Hawthorn, entranced by this promise of more Lakewalker magic, scuttled up to go find a Tripoint steel hammer and test the proposition.
Many thwacks later, entailing flying chips from the hearthstone and turns taken by Barr and Remo, everyone agreed that it was one blighted unbreakable walnut, all right.
Whit scratched his head and stared at the little dark sphere. “That’s pretty useless, I admit. You wouldn’t even be able to eat it!”
“Oh, I dunno,” drawled Bo. “I ’spect you
could win bets with it. Wager some o’ those big strong keeler boys they can’t crack it, and watch the drinks roll in . . .”
He shared a long, speculative look with Whit, who said, “Say, Dag . . . if you don’t want that ol’ thing, can I have it?”
“No!” cried Fawn. “Dag made it for me, even if it doesn’t do what he wanted. Yet. And anyhow, you aren’t planning to go tavern crawling with Bo tonight, are you?”
Berry gave Whit’s hair a soft tug, which made him smirk. “No,” she said definitely. “He ain’t.”
Fawn scooped up the walnut and thrust it into her own skirt pocket. It was growing dark outside the cabin windows, she noted with approval. There was one advantage to a midwinter wedding— early nightfall. Bo put another piece of driftwood on the fire, and Berry rose to light an oil lantern. Fawn caught Dag’s eye and gave a jerk of her chin.
As planned, Dag levered himself up and invited the crew of the Fetch out to a nearby boatmen’s tavern for a round of drinks on him.
Hawthorn’s helpful observation that they hadn’t run out of beer yet was ignored, and Hod and Bo shepherded him off. Fawn paused to exchange a quick farewell hug with Berry, who whispered, “Thanks!” in her ear.
“Yep,” Fawn murmured back. “I ’spect we’ll be out most of the evening, but Hawthorn and Hod’ll make sure Bo doesn’t stay out all night. Don’t you worry about us.” She added after a moment, “I’m sure we’ll make plenty of noise clomping back in.”
She left Berry and Whit holding hands, looking at each other with matching terrified smiles, and sneaking peeks at their new bed nook.
Formerly, the boat boss had slept in one of the narrow, three-high bunk racks at the side of the kitchen just like her crew, except that her bunk had been made a tad more private by curtains strung on a wire. Fawn and Berry together had rearranged the bedding last evening, in the space freed up by the sold-off cargo, making two little curtained-off rooms on either side of the aisle. The task had ended with them going up on the roof for a really long, nice private talk. Berry, as she put it, wanted a pilot for the snags and shoals of the marriage bed. Because while Berry was a brave boat boss, and an experienced riverwoman, and a couple of years older than Fawn, Fawn had been married for a whole six months. So Fawn tried her best to explain it all. At least Berry was smiling and relaxed when they came back in.
Whit, in the meanwhile, had taken a long walk with Dag, and returned looking pale and terrified. Fawn took Dag aside, and whispered fiercely, “You know, if it was just Whit, I’d let you exercise your patroller humor to your heart’s content, but I won’t have any of it fall on Berry, you hear?”
“Don’t fret, Spark. I controlled myself,” Dag assured her, eyes glinting gold with his amusement. “I admit, it was a bit of a struggle. Two virgins, oh my.”
“Really?” said Fawn, with a surprised peek around Dag’s side at Whit, hunkering down to warm his hands at the fire. “I would have thought Tansy Mayapple . . . oh, never mind.”
“They’ll be fine,” he’d promised her.
Now, as they strolled away into the darkness after the rest of the crew, and Fawn turned to look over her shoulder at the glow of the lantern hung up on the Fetch’s bow, Dag repeated, “They’ll do fine, Spark.”
“I sure hope so.” Fawn reflected that it was likely just as well that everything about this wedding was as different as it could possibly be from the one that Berry had planned back in Clearcreek with her dead betrothed Alder. No reminders. Because while bad memories were plainly bad, it was the good memories, lost in them, that hurt the worst.
The tavern was crowded and noisy tonight, so after Dag had done his duty buying the first round, Fawn bequeathed her barely sipped tankard to the table and drew him back outside for a walk despite the dark. Partway up the steps to Uptown, Fawn found the lookout point that she’d spied earlier that day. She ducked under the rail around the landing and picked her way along the damp path, inadequately lit by the half-moon riding overhead between fitful clouds. At its end, a board propped up between two piles of stones made a smooth, dry seat, with a fine view over the serene river, all hazy silver in the night mist.
In summer, Fawn guessed couples came here to spoon. Even for northerners like themselves, this wasn’t quite outdoor spooning weather. She cuddled in gratefully under Dag’s right arm. Though the view was romantic, and Dag shared warmth generously, it was plain he was not in a romantic mood. He was in his worrywart mood, and he’d been stuck in it for days, if not weeks. Plenty long enough, anyhow.
Fawn fingered the walnut in her pocket, and said quietly, “What’s troubling your mind, Dag?”
He shrugged. “Nothing new.” After a long hesitation, while Fawn waited in expectant silence, he added, “That’s the trouble, I guess. My mind keeps looping and looping over the same problems, and never arrives anywhere different.”
“Same paths do tend to go to the same places. Tell me about them, then.”
His fingers wound themselves in her curls, as if for consolation or courage, then his arm dropped back around her and snugged her in; maybe she wasn’t the only one feeling the chill.
“When we two left Hickory Camp at the end of the summer—when we were thrown out—”
“When we left,” Fawn corrected firmly.
A conceding nod. “My notion was that if I walked around the world with my eyes new-open for a time, the way you’ve made them be, I could maybe see some way for farmers and Lakewalkers to work together against malice outbreaks. Because someday, the patrol won’t be perfect, and a malice will get away from us again, not in the wilderness or even by a village like Greenspring, but by a big farmer town. And then we’ll all be in for it. But if Lakewalkers and farmers were already working together before the inevitable happens . . . maybe we’d have a fighting chance.”
“I thought the Fetch was a good start,” Fawn offered.
“Good, but . . . so small, Spark! Eight people, and that’s counting you along-with. For six or so months of trying.”
“So, that’d be, um, sixteen folks a year. A hundred and sixty in a decade. In forty years, um . . .” A long hesitation while Fawn secretly tapped her fingers in her skirt. “Six or seven hundred.”
“And if the crisis breaks next year, and not forty years from now?”
“Then it won’t be any worse than if you hadn’t tried at all. Anyhow”—really, you’d think despair was his favorite corn-husk dolly, the way he clutches it—“I think your count is way off. There was all my kin in West Blue you talked to, and those teamsters from Glassforge, and Cress that you healed in Pearl Riffle and all her kin, and boatloads of boatmen along the river. And your show at the bandit cave with Crane; gods, Dag, they’ll be talking about that up and down these rivers for at least as many years as folks’ll be trying to wear those stupid pots of Barr’s. This river, I’ve figured out, is a village—one street wide and two thousand miles long.
It’s been a great place for you to tell your tale. Because river folks get around to gossip. And swap yarns like they were barter. And sometimes, change each other’s minds even when you aren’t looking on.”
Dag shook his head. “The absent gods may know what kind of path I blazed down the Grace Valley. I sure don’t. Did I light a fire, or was it all a damp sputter and right back to the gloom?”
“Why are all or nothing the only two choices, here?” Fawn asked tartly. “What I think is—”
Dag looked down, brows rising at the resolve in her voice.
“What I think is, you’re trying to carry a lazy man’s load. Inside your head, you’re trying to lift the whole world all by yourself, in one trip.
No wonder you’re exhausted. You’ve got to start smaller.”
“Smaller! How much smaller can I get?” Dag motioned down at the riverbank, by which Fawn guessed he meant to indicate their modest flatboat. A rhetorical reply in any case, so she paid no heed to it.
“Your own ground. I know it’s true because you told me so yourself, and you
never lie to me: the first thing a maker has to make is himself. But nobody ever said he had to do it by himself.”
“Do you have a point, Spark?”
She ignored his stung tone and answered straight out. “Yes. It’s true for cooking or sewing or boatbuilding or harness making or crafting arrows—so I don’t guess it’s false for groundwork. Before you tackle any new job, first you have to get your own tools in order, clean and sharpened and tidy and laid out ready to hand. The main tool for groundwork is your own ground. And yours, from everything everyone has ever told me about such things, has got to be in the most awful mess right about now.
“What I think you need is another maker. Not a farmer girl, much as she loves you, and not just a couple of earnest patroller boys, as much as they want to help, because they don’t know beans about that trail, either, but instead someone like Hoharie or Dar.” Fawn took a breath, shaken by a moment of panic when she realized that Dag, unlike any member of her family ever, was actually listening to her. The notion that a man so strong might actually change or do something differently on the basis of something she’d blathered was alarming. Back when she’d longed in vain for any sign that she was heard, had she ever imagined also accepting responsibility for the results? Well, they’re in my lap now. She gulped.
“So . . . so I’ve been asking around. Every visiting Lakewalker I could get to talk to me up in the day market, I asked about the best medicine makers in these parts. They told me about a lot of different folks, but the one they all talked up is a fellow named Arkady Waterbirch. Seems he’s to be found at a Lakewalker camp called New Moon Cutoff, which is less’n thirty miles northeast of here, right off the Trace. Not much more’n a day’s ride away for ol’ Copperhead.” She added in anxious appeal, “They call him a groundsetter, whatever that means.”
Dag looked taken aback. “Really? That close? If . . .” But then he rubbed his forehead with his left arm and smiled ruefully. “Oh, gods, Spark. Wouldn’t I just . . . but it won’t work. It would be Dar and Hoharie all over again, don’t you see?” His teeth set in unfond memory.