And if Dar couldn’t make it stick, there was still the other strategy to fall back on. But Dag doubted there was a person on council who wouldn’t prefer the simpler version, Fairbolt not excepted.
“But if you rule the girl’s cord is invalid,” said Laski Beaver, scratching her head, “yet Dag’s is not, does that mean he’s married to her but she’s not married to him? Makes no sense.”
“Both are invalid,” snapped Dar. Pakona, with admirable even-handedness, gave him the same quelling glower and headshake she’d given Dag, and he subsided.
Pakona turned back, and said, “Bring those things up here, Dag. We need a closer look.” She added reluctantly, “The girl, too.”
Dag had Fawn roll up the soft fine fabric of his left sleeve and dutifully rose to walk slowly down the row of councilors. Fawn followed, silent and scared. The touches, both with fingers and groundsense, were for the most part brief enough to be courteous, although a couple of the women’s hands strayed curiously to the fabric of his shirt. Tioca, Dag was almost certain, detected his fading ground reinforcement being slowly absorbed in Fawn’s left arm, but she said nothing about it to the others. Fairbolt, at the end of the line, waved them both away: “I’ve seen ’em. Repeatedly.”
Dag and Fawn recrossed the circle and sat once more. He watched her head bend as she straightened her skirts. In the green dress, she looked like some lone flower found in a woodland pool, in a spring-come-late. Very late. She is not your prize, old patroller, not to be won nor earned. She’s her own gift. Lilies always are. His only-fingers traced her cord on his arm, and fell back, gripping his knee.
“There’s our vote, then,” said Pakona. “Is this unusual cord-making to be taken as valid, or not?”
“There’s this,” said Laski, slowly. “Once word gets out, I’d think others could repeat this trick. Acceptance would open the door to more of these mismatches.”
“But they’re good ground constructions,” said Tioca. “As solid as, well, mine.” She wriggled her left wrist and the cord circling it. “Are cords not to be proof of marriage anymore?”
“Maybe all cord-makings will have to be witnessed, hereafter,” said Laski.
A general, unenthusiastic hm as everyone envisioned this.
“I suggest,” said Pakona, “that we set the future actions of future folks beyond the scope of this council, or we’ll still be arguing as the hundredth candle burns down. We only have to rule on this couple, this day. We’ve seen all there is to see, heard from the only ones who were there. Whether the idea for the thing was Dag’s or the farmer girl’s seems to me not to make a great deal of difference. The outcome was the same. A no vote will see it finished right now. A yes vote will…well, it won’t. Dar, is this agreeable to Tent Redwing?”
Dar leaned back for a low-voiced exchange with their frowning mother. Cumbia had run out of cord to play with; her hands now kneaded the fabric of her shift along her thin thighs. A grimace, a short nod. Dar turned back. “Yes, we accept,” he replied.
“Dag, you?”
“Yes…,” said Dag slowly. He glanced aside at Fawn, watching him in trusting bewilderment, and gave her a little nod of reassurance. “Go ahead.”
Dar, expecting more argument, looked at him in sharp surprise. Dag remembered Fairbolt’s word picture of the sitting tactician. Wise man, Fairbolt. He settled back to watch the candle burn down as Pakona started down the row.
“Ogit?”
“No! No farmer spouses!” Well, that was clear.
“Tioca?”
A slight hesitation. “Yes. I can’t reconcile it with my maker’s conscience to say that’s not a good making.”
Rigni, called upon, looked plaintively at Tioca and at last said, “Yes.”
Laski, after a bit of a struggle, said, “No.”
Pakona herself said, “No,” without hesitation, and added, “if we let this in, it’s going to be every kind of mess, and it will go on and on. Dowie?”
Dowie looked down the row and made a careful count on her fingers, and looked appalled. A no from her would finish the matter. A yes would create a tie and throw it onto Fairbolt. After a long, long pause, she cleared her throat, and said, “Yes?”
Fairbolt gave her palpable cowardice a slow, blistering, and ungrateful glare. Then he sighed, sat up, and stared around. A longer silence stretched.
You know they’re good cords, Fairbolt, Dag thought. Dag watched the struggle in the captain’s face between integrity and practicality, and admired how long it was taking the latter to triumph. In a way, Dag wished the integrity would pull ahead. It wasn’t going to make a bit of difference in the end, after all, and Fairbolt would feel better about himself later.
“Fairbolt?” said Pakona, cautiously. “Camp captain always goes last to break the tie votes. It’s a duty.”
Fairbolt waved this away in a Yeah, yeah, I know gesture. He cleared his throat. “Dag? You got anything more to say?”
“A certain amount, yes. It will seem roundabout, but it will go to the center in the end. Makes no never mind to me whether it’s before or after you have your say, though.”
Fairbolt gave him a little nod. “Go ahead, then. You have the stick.”
Pakona looked as though she wanted to override this, but thought better of annoying Fairbolt while his vote hung in the breeze. She crossed her arms and settled back. Dar and Cumbia were frowning in alarm, but Dag certainly had all their attention.
Dag’s mind was heavy, his head ached, but his heart felt light, as if it were flying. Might just be falling. We’ll know when we hit the ground. He set the speaking stick aside, reached down, gripped his hickory staff, and stood up. Full height.
“Excepting the patrollers who just came back from Raintree with me, how many folks here have heard the name of a farmer town called Greenspring?”
An array of blank looks from the center and left, although Dirla’s aunt Rigni, after a glance at her patroller niece, hesitantly raised her hand for a moment. Dag returned her a nod.
“I’m not surprised there are so few. It was the town in Raintree where that last malice started up, unchecked. No one told me the name either, when I was called out to ride west. Now, partly that was due to the confusion that always goes with such a scramble, but you know—partly, it wasn’t. No one knew, or said, because it didn’t seem important to them.
“So how many here—not my patrollers—know the numbers of dead at Bonemarsh?”
Ogit Muskrat said gruffly, “We’ve all heard them. ’Bout fifty grown-ups and near twenty youngsters.”
“Such a horror,” sighed Tioca.
Dag nodded. “Nineteen. That’s right.” Fairbolt was watching him curiously. No, I’m not taking your advice about boasting, Fairbolt. Maybe the reverse. Just wait. “So who knows how many died at Greenspring?”
The patrollers to his right looked tight-lipped, holding back the answer. The majority of the councilors just looked baffled. After a stretch, Pakona finally said, “Lots, I imagine. What has this to do with your counterfeit wedding cords, Dag?”
He let that counterfeit slide unchallenged, too. “I said it was roundabout. Of a thousand townsfolk—roughly half the population of Bonemarsh—Greenspring lost about three hundred grown-ups and all—or nearly all—of their youngsters. I counted not less than one hundred sixty-two such bodies at the Greenspring burying field, and I know there were the bones of at least three more at the Bonemarsh mud-men feast we cleaned up after. Didn’t mention those three to the townsmen doing the burying. It wouldn’t have helped, at the time.”