“Well, if you want an answer to, How am I recovering? there’s your test. No patrolling for you for a while, Captain. Not till your range is back to its usual.”
Dag waved this away. “I’m not arguin’.”
“That tells a tale right there.” Hoharie’s fingers touched his thigh, his arm, his side; he could feel her keen regard as a passing pressure through his aches. “After my story and Saun’s, Fairbolt reckoned he’d be putting your peg back in the sick box. He wanted me to tell him for how long.”
“So? How long?”
“Longer than Utau, anyway.”
“Fairbolt won’t be happy about that.”
“Well, we’ve talked about that. About you. You did rather more in that Bonemarsh groundlock than just take hurt, you know.”
Something in her tone brought him up, if not to full alertness, which eluded him still, then to less vague attention. He let his ground ease closed again. Hoharie sat back on the woven mat beside the bedroll and wrapped her arms around her knees, regarding him coolly.
“You’ve been patrolling for a long time,” she observed.
“Upwards of forty years. So? Cattagus walked for almost seventy. My grandfather, longer than that. It’s a life.”
“Ever think of another? Something more settled?”
“Not lately.” Or at least, not until this summer. He wasn’t about to try to describe how confused he’d become about his life since Glassforge.
“Anyone ever suggest medicine maker?”
“Yes, you, but you weren’t thinking it through.”
“I remember you complained about being too old to be an apprentice. May I point out, yours could be about the shortest apprenticeship on record? You already know all the herb-lore, from decades of patrol gathering. You know field aid on the practical side—possibly even more than I do. Your ground-matching skills are astonishing, as Saun has lived to testify to anyone who will listen.”
“Saun, you may have noticed, is a bit of an enthusiast. I wouldn’t take him too seriously, Hoharie.”
She shook her head. “I saw you do things with ground projection and manipulation, inside that groundlock, that I can still barely wrap my mind around. I examined Artin, after it was all over. You not only could do it, you could be good, Dag. A lot of people can patrol. Not near as many can do this level of making, fewer still such direct groundwork. I know—I scout for apprentices every year.”
“Be reasonable, Hoharie. Groundsense or no, a medicine maker needs two clever hands for, well, all sorts of tasks. You wouldn’t want me sewing up your torn trousers, let alone your torn skin. And the list goes on.”
“Indeed it does.” She smiled and leaned forward. “But—patrollers work in partnered pairs all the time. You’re used to it. And I get, from time to time, a youngster mad for medicine-making, and with clever hands, but a bit lacking on the groundsense side. You get along well with youngsters, even if you do scare them at first. I’m thinking—what about pairing you up with someone like that?”
Dag blinked. Then blinked again. Spark? She had the cleverest hands of anyone he’d ever met, and, absent gods knew, the wits and nerve for the task. His imagination and heart were both suddenly racing, tossing up pictures of the possibilities. They could work together right here at Hickory Lake, or at Bearsford Camp. Honorable, necessary, respected work, to win her a place here in her own right. He could be by her side every day. And every night. And once she was trained, they might do more…would Fawn like the notion? He would ask her at once. He grinned at Hoharie, and she brightened.
“I see you get the idea,” she said in a tone of satisfaction. “I’m so glad! As you might guess, I have someone in mind.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, did Othan talk to you?”
“Beg pardon?”
“It’s his younger brother, Osho. He’s not quite ready for it yet, mind, but neither are you. But if I knew he’d be pairing with you, I could admit him to training pretty soon.”
“Wait, what? No! I was thinking of Fawn.”
It was Hoharie’s turn to rock back, blinking. “But Dag—even if she’s still—she has no groundsense at all! A farmer can’t be a medicine maker. Or any kind of a maker.”
“Farmers are, in their own way, all the time. Midwives, bonesetters.”
“Certainly, but they can’t use our ways. I’m sure their skills are valuable, and of course better than nothing, but they just can’t.”
“I’d do that part. You said.”
“Dag…the sick and the hurt are vulnerable and touchy. I’m afraid a lot of folks wouldn’t trust or accept her. It would be one strange thing too many. There’s also the problem of her ground. I like Fawn, but having her ground always open around delicate groundwork, maybe distracting or interfering…no.”
It wouldn’t distract me, he thought of arguing. He settled his shoulders back on his cushion, his little burst of excitement draining away again, leaving his fatigue feeling worse by contrast. Instead, he asked, more slowly, “So why don’t we do more for farmers? No, I don’t mean the strong makers like you, you’re rare and needed here, but all of us. The patrols are out there all the time. We know and use a dozen little tricks amongst ourselves, that we could find ways to share. More than just selling plants and preparations. We could build up goodwill, over time.” He remembered Aunt Nattie’s tale of her twisted ankle. Just such a good deed had borne some fair fruit, even decades afterwards.
“Oh, Dag.” Hoharie shook her head. “Do you think no one’s tried it, tempted through pity? Or even friendship? It sounds so fine, but it only works as long as nothing goes wrong, as it inevitably must. That goodwill can turn to bad will in a heartbeat. Lakewalkers who let themselves get in over their heads trying to share such help have been beaten to death, or worse.”
“If it were…” His voice faltered. He didn’t have a counterargument for this one, as it was perfectly true. There has to be a better way was easy to say. It was a lot harder to picture exactly how.
Returning to her subject, Hoharie said, “Fairbolt doesn’t much want to give you up, but he would for this. He can see a lot of the same things I do. He’s watched you for a long time.”
“I owe Fairbolt”—Dag lifted his left arm—“everything, pretty much. My arm harness was his doing. He’d spotted something like it in Tripoint, see. A farmer artificer and a farmer bonesetter over there had got together to fix things like it for some folks who’d lost limbs in mining and forge accidents. Neither of them had a speck of groundsense, but they had ideas.”
Hoharie began to speak, but then turned her head; in a moment, Fawn popped around the tent’s open side, looking equally pleased and anxious. “Hoharie! I’m so glad you’re here. How is he doing? Mari was worried.”
As if Fawn didn’t expect her own worry to count with the medicine maker? And is she so wrong in that?
Hoharie smiled reassuringly. “He mostly needs time and rest and not to do fool things.”
Dag said plaintively, not to mention horizontally, “How can I do fool things when I can’t do anything?”
Hoharie gave his query the quelling eyebrow twitch it deserved, and went on to give Fawn a set of sensible instructions and suggestions, which added up to food, sleep, and mild camp chores when ready. Fawn listened earnestly, nodding. Dag was sure she’d remember every word. And be able to quote them back at him, likely.
Hoharie rose. “I’ll send Othan down in a couple of days to pull those stitches out.”
“I can do that myself,” said Dag.
“Well, don’t,” she returned. She glanced down at him. “Think about what I said, Dag. If your feet—or your heart—ache too much to walk another mile, you could do a world of good right here.”
“I will,” he said, unsettled. Hoharie waved and took herself out.
Frowning, Fawn flopped down on her knees beside him and ran a small hand over his brow. “Your eyebrows are all scrunched up. Are you in pain?” She smoothed away the furrows.