“Too late for that, I think,” said Dag.
“I know. But all the way home, I kept thinking about her. And about Calla and Indigo. I don’t know that I would have understood the problem, before I met Calla and her brother. What if Lily grows up with groundsense? What’s she going to do, come eleven, twelve years old, when all those strange things start happening in her head—you know how it feels when your groundsense first comes in, all in spurts—with no one to tell her how to go on? What if her mama’s husband comes to suspect, and, and . . . doesn’t treat her right?” He hesitated. “What if I come to some sudden end, out patrolling, and no one knows she exists? ”
Dag said, “You did not, I take it, see fit to inform your parents they have a half-farmer granddaughter? They having the next closest interest by right.”
Barr shuddered. “Absent gods, no!”
Barr was still, Fawn was reminded, very young by Lakewalker standards.
He might change his views on that later.
Dag grimaced. “Well, we don’t know them, you do; I won’t argue with your judgment on that.”
Barr ducked his head gratefully. “But I thought . . . someone had better know about Lily. In case. And if there was anybody who could tell me what to do next, it would be you two. So . . . I rode here.”
Dag shifted in his chair, and Nattie-Mari on his shoulder; she whuffled faintly, smacked her lips, and fell back to dozing. “What do you want to do? ”
“Well, first off . . . no harm.”
“Then you’ll do best to leave that poor woman alone to live her life,” said Fawn. “It seems she’s found a way to survive . . .” She wasn’t sure whether to say you or without you, so said neither. “You daren’t take that away from her unless you stand ready to replace it, and I don’t think you can. And nor does it sounds like she much wants you to.”
“No, I guess . . . not.”
Dag sucked on his lower lip, tapping his hook gently on the rocking chair arm. “But you shouldn’t, I think, leave little Lily alone without any watching over at all. Things change. Parents can die—hers or yours, come to think—fortunes reverse. Families up-stakes and move. At the very least, you owe the child a discreet—and if you don’t know how to be discreet, it’s time you learned—check every now and then. So you can spot if she ever needs any help.”
Barr said slowly, “I could do that, I guess.” His strain was easing, now that he had his confession out. And if it was replaced by a nearly Remo-like glumness, well, it would do him no permanent harm. Barr’s gaze lifted to Nattie-Mari, flopped happily on her papa’s shoulder, and Fawn finally recognized his odd look as a kind of envy. He added apologetically, “My father is a pretty good one, mostly, for all that we used to butt heads till Mama threatened to drown us both in the Riffle. He spent a lot of time with me and my sisters, teaching us things . . . it’s strange to think that I won’t ever . . . well.”
The silence that followed was broken only when Nattie-Mari stirred and squawked. Dag looked down at Fawn and smiled. “Two-handed chore, coming up.”
“Huh. Funny how your dexterity comes and goes, medicine maker.”
She scrambled up, stirred her pot once more, swung it to safety, then bent and retrieved her daughter. Yep, leaking. Dag was entirely unmoved by the damp spot left on his shirt, though he did stretch his arms and roll his shoulders. She might offer to teach Barr how to do this cleanup chore sometime, if he hadn’t yet learned on one of his younger sisters. Not just now, though—later on, when his heartache had eased a bit. Earlier in their acquaintance, she’d often wished for someone to hit Barr over the head with a plank and adjust his self-centered view of the world. It seemed little Lily finally had, but the results weren’t as much fun to watch as she’d imagined.
When Fawn came back, Dag gave up the old rocking chair by the fire for her to sit with Nattie-Mari, taking her place on the hearth to continue his earnest discussion with Barr. New ground-shield designs, and teaching unbeguilement, and how many camps had sent inquiries, and how many makers had promised to pass the word. Arkady blew in then with Sumac, stomping his feet and complaining as usual about the deadly northern cold, which was actually quite mild today, and the talk turned to medicine making Clearcreek-style, and the new apprentices begging for places, and horses in foal, and plans for the spring.
And if hope for their wide green world grew as slowly as a baby grew into a mama, well, no one had ever said raising either was a task for the faint of heart, or the impatient.
Fawn rocked, and fed the future.
About the Author
One of the most respected writers in the field of speculative fiction, LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD burst onto the scene in 1986 with Shards of Honor, the first of her tremendously popular Vorkosigan Saga novels. She has received numerous accolades and prizes, including two Nebula Awards for best novel (Falling Free and Paladin of Souls), four Hugo Awards for Best Novel (Paladin of Souls, The Vor Game, Barrayar, and Mirror Dance), as well as the Hugo and Nebula Awards for her novella The Mountains of Mourning. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. The mother of two, Bujold lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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ALSO BY LOIS MCMASTER BUJOLD
The Spirit Ring
Falling Free
Shards of Honor
Barrayar
The Warrior’s Apprentice
The Vor Game
Cetaganda
Ethan of Athos
Borders of Infinity
Brothers in Arms
Mirror Dance
Memory
Komarr
A Civil Campaign
Diplomatic Immunity
The Curse of Chalion
Paladin of Souls
The Hallowed Hunt
The Sharing Knife: Beguilement
The Sharing Knife: Legacy
The Sharing Knife: Passage
Credits
Designed by Joy O’Meara
Jacket design by Ervin Serrano
Jacket illustration by Julie Bell
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE SHARING KNIFE, VOLUME FOUR: HORIZON. Copyright © 2009 by Lois McMaster Bujold. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader February 2009
ISBN 978-0-06-175987-1
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Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife Book Four: Horizon
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