THE SHARING KNIFE
Volume Two
Legacy
Lois McMaster Bujold
Maps
1
D ag had been married for a whole two hours, and was still light-headed with wonder. The weighted ends of the wedding cord coiling around his upper arm danced in time with the lazy trot of his horse. Riding by his side, Fawn—my new bride, now there was a phrase to set a man’s mind melting—met his smile with happy eyes.
My farmer bride. It should have been impossible. There would be trouble about that, later.
Trouble yesterday, trouble tomorrow. But no trouble now. Now, in the light of the loveliest summer afternoon he ever did see, was only a boundless contentment.
Once the first half dozen miles were behind them, Dag found both his and Fawn’s urgency to be gone from the wedding party easing. They passed through the last village on the northern river road, after which the wagon way became more of a two-rut track, and the remaining farms grew farther apart, with more woods between them. He let a few more miles pass, till he was sure they were out of range of any potential retribution or practical jokers, then began keeping an eye out for a spot to make camp. If a Lakewalker patroller with this much woods to choose from couldn’t hide from farmers, something was wrong. Secluded, he decided, was a better watchword still.
At length, he led Fawn down to the river at a rocky ford, then upstream for a time till they came to where a clear creek, gurgling down from the eastern ridge, joined the flow. He turned Copperhead up it for a good quarter mile till he found a pretty glade, all mossy by the stream and surrounded by tall trees and plenty of them; and, his groundsense guaranteed, no other person for a mile in any direction. Of necessity, he had to let Fawn unsaddle the horses and set up the site. It was a simple enough task, merely laying out their bedrolls and making just enough of a fire to boil water for tea. Still, she cast an observant eye at him as he lay with his back against a broad beech bole and plucked irritably at the sling supporting his right arm with the hook replacing his left hand.
“You have a job,” she told him encouragingly. “You’re on guard against the mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, and blackflies.”
“And squirrels,” he added hopefully.
“We’ll get to them.”
Food did not have to be caught or skinned or cooked, just unwrapped and eaten till they couldn’t hold any more, although Fawn tried his limits. Dag wondered if this new mania for feeding him was a Bluefield custom no one had mentioned, or just a lingering effect of the excitement of the day, as she tried to find her way into her farmwifely tasks without, actually, a farm in which to set them. But when he compared this to many a cold, wet, hungry, lonely, exhausted night on some of the more dire patrols in his memory, he thought perhaps he’d wandered by strange accident into some paradise out of a song, and bears would come out tonight to dance around their fire in celebration.
He looked up to find Fawn inching nearer, without, for a change, provender in her hands. “It’s not dark yet,” she sighed.
He cast her a slow blink, to tease. “And dark is needed for what?”
“Bedtime!”
“Well, I admit it’s a help for sleeping. Are you that sleepy? It’s been a tiring day. We could just roll over and…”
She caught on, and poked him in reproof. “Ha! Are you sleepy?”
“No chance.” Despite the sling he managed a pounce that drew her into his lap. The prey did not precisely struggle, though it did wriggle enchantingly. Once she was within kissing range, they found occupation for a little. But then she grew grave and sat up to touch the cord wrapping her left wrist.
“How odd that this all should feel harder, now.”
He kissed her hair beneath his chin. “There’s a weight of expectation that wasn’t there before, I suppose. I didn’t…” He hesitated.
“Hm?”
“I rode into West Blue, onto your family’s farm, last week thinking…I don’t know. That I would be a clever Lakewalker persuader and get my way. I expected to change their lives. I didn’t expect them to change my life right back. I didn’t used to be Fawn’s patroller, still less Fawn’s husband, but now I am. That’s a ground transformation, in case you didn’t realize. It doesn’t just happen in the cords. It happens in our deep selves.” He gave a nod toward his left sleeve hiding the loop binding his own arm. “Maybe the hard feeling is just shyness for the two new people we’ve become.”
“Hm.” She settled down, briefly reassured. But then sat up again, biting her lip the way she did when about to tackle some difficult subject, usually head-on. “Dag. About my ground.”
“I love your ground.”
Her lips twitched in a smile, but then returned to seriousness. “It’s been over four weeks since…since the malice. I’m healing up pretty good inside, I think.”
“I think so, too.”
“Do you suppose we could…I mean, tonight because…we haven’t ever yet…not that I’m complaining, mind you. Erm. That pattern in their ground you said women get when they can have babies. Do I have it tonight?”
“Not yet. I don’t think it’ll be much longer till your body’s back to its usual phases, though.”
“So we could. I mean. Do it in the usual way. Tonight.”
“Tonight, Spark, we can do it any way you want. Within the range of the physically possible, that is,” he added prudently.
She snickered. “I do wonder how you learned all those tricks.”
“Well, not all at once, absent gods forfend. You pick up this and that over the years. I suspect people everywhere keep reinventing all the basics. There’s only so much you can do with a body. Successfully and comfortably, that is. Leaving aside stunts.”
“Stunts?” she said curiously.
“We’re leaving them aside,” he said definitely. “One broken arm is enough.”
“One too many, I think.” Her brows drew down in new worry. “Um. I was envisioning you up on your elbows, but really, I think maybe not. It doesn’t exactly sound comfortable, and I wouldn’t want you to hurt your arm and have to start healing all over, and besides, if you slipped, you really would squash me like a bug.”
It took him a moment to puzzle out her concern. “Ah, not a problem. We just switch sides, top to bottom. If you can ride a horse, which I note you do quite well, you can ride me. And you can squash me all you want.”
She thought this through. “I’m not sure I can do this right.”
“If you do something really wrong, I promise I’ll scream in pain and let you know.”
She grinned, if with a slight tinge of dismay.
Kissing blended into undressing, and again, to his mixed regret and entertainment, Fawn had to do most of the work. He thought she was much too brisk and businesslike in getting her own clothes off, although the view when she finished was splendid. The setting sun reached fingers of golden light into the glade that caressed her body as she flickered in and out of the leaf shadows; she might well have been one of those legendary female spirits who were supposed to step out of trees and beguile the unwary traveler. The way her sweet breasts moved not quite in time with the rest of her was fair riveting to his eye, too. She folded up his astonishing wedding shirt with fully the care he would have wished, tucking it away. He lay back on his bedroll and let her pull off his trousers and drawers with all her considerable determination. She folded them up too, and came and sat, no, plunked, again beside him. The after-wobble was delightful.
“Arm harness. On or off?”
“Hm. Off, I think. Don’t want to risk jabbing you in a distracted moment.” The disquieting memory of her bleeding fingers weaving her wedding cord flitted through his mind, and he became conscious again of it wound around his upper arm, and the tiny hum of its live ground. Her live ground.