“Forty horses!” said Fawn, sounding quite taken aback. “You could buy a farm for the price of forty horses!”
“But I wouldn’t know what to do with it once I had it.”
“But I would—oh, never mind.” She added, “I’m glad I didn’t know this yesterday. I’d have been a lot more upset.”
“Offends your notions of economy, does it?”
“Well, yes! Or my notions of something.”
He gave her a wink. “You’re worth it at twice the price, Spark. Trust me.”
“Huh.” But she settled again, thumping her heels gently against Grace’s wide-sprung sides to urge her to keep up, looking meditative.
They pulled their horses to a halt at the place, a mile from the bridge, where the road split in three. “So,” he said. “Which way?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No. Well, not north. Not this late in the season.” In the meadows, the cicadas were growing noisier as the morning warmed, but the first frosts would silence them soon enough. “Whichever way we go, we’ll need to travel in easy stages, see, on account of Grace’s delicate condition.” He suspected he could get a lot of use out of Grace’s condition if he played it right.
Not fooled a bit, Fawn looked narrowly at him, and said, “Couldn’t agree more.” She swiveled her head. “But still…which road?” Her eye was caught by something, and she twisted in her saddle. “What’s this?”
Dag followed her gaze, and his stomach knotted coldly at the sight of Saun and Dirla, galloping madly from the bridge and waving at them. Please, please, not some other malice outbreak…I don’t want to have to do all this leaving over again. But their flushed faces, when they pulled up and sat panting on their fidgeting mounts, weren’t that sort of anxious.
“I was afraid we’d missed you,” gasped Dirla.
“Kindly,” said Dag, touching his temple. “But I thought we’d all said good-bye yesterday?” And, while not enough…it had been enough.
Saun, catching his breath, waved this away. “It’s not that. It’s this.” He stuck a hand in his vest and pulled out a leather bag, which clinked. “A lot of folks from our company, and in the patrol, weren’t too pleased with how things went yesterday in the camp council. So Dirla and Griff and I took up a little collection. It’s nothing compared to what Dar stripped you of, I know, but it’s something.” He thrust out the bag toward Dag, who let Copperhead shy away a step.
“I thank you kindly, Saun, but I can’t take that.”
“Not as many chipped in as I thought should,” said Dirla, looking irate. “But at least the blighted camp council has nothing to do with this.”
Dag was both touched and embarrassed. “Look, you children, I can’t—”
“Fairbolt put in three gold tridens,” Saun interrupted him. “And told us not to tell Massape.”
“And Massape put in ten silver mussels,” Dirla added, “and told us not to tell Fairbolt.” She paused in reflection. “You do wonder what they’ll say if they catch up with each other.”
“Are you telling?” Saun asked her, interested.
“Nope.”
Well…the Crow clan was rich. Dag sighed, looking at those earnest, eager faces. He could see he wasn’t getting out of this one. “I suppose the patrol will be wearing out some of those horses I left behind.”
“Likely,” said Saun.
Dag smiled in defeat and held out his hand.
Saun passed the bag across, grinning. “I’ll try and remember all you taught me. No more swordplay in the woods, right.”
“That’s a start,” Dag agreed. “Duck faster is another good one, ’cept you learned that one all by yourself. It’ll stick better that way, I do allow. Take care of each other, you two.”
“The patrol looks after its own,” said Dirla firmly.
Dag gave her a warm nod. “The patrol looks after everybody, Dirla.”
Her return smirk was quite Spark-like. “Then you’re still some kind of patroller. Aren’t you. Take care—Captain.”
They waved and turned away.
Dag waited till they’d stopped craning around and looking back, then hefted the bag and peeked in. “Huh. Not bad. Well, this gives us a direction.”
“How so?” Fawn asked.
“South,” he said definitely.
“I’ve been south,” she objected. “All the way to Glassforge.”
“Spark, south doesn’t even start till you get to Silver Shoals. I’m thinkin’…this season, passage on a flatboat going down the river isn’t too expensive. We could ride slow down as far as Silver Shoals, pick out a boat…load Grace and Copperhead in too. I could see a lot of farmer country and sit still at the same time. Very enticin’, that notion. I’ve always wanted to do that. Follow fall all the way down to the sea, and show you the sea. Ride back easy, come spring—you can make spring last a long time, riding north at the right pace. Bet my ground will be healed by then. What do you think?”
Her mouth had fallen open at this sudden spate of what were to her, he guessed, quite fantastical visions. She shut it and swallowed. “When you say travel,” she said, “you don’t think small.”
“Oh, that’s just a jaunt, by old patroller standards,” he assured her. He twisted in his saddle to tuck the leather purse away in his saddlebag, then frowned when his fingers, pushing through a fold of blanket cloth, encountered an unidentifiable lump. He traded off and pulled out the lump to hold up to the light, and gazed in some astonishment at a plunkin ear. “What’s this? Did you pack this?” he asked Fawn.
She blushed. “Them. Yes. I thought you should have your food, wherever we end up.”
“We don’t eat the ears, love.”
“I know that.” She tossed her head. “They’re for planting. Sarri told me the ears’ll keep good for two or three years, dry. I snuck round last night after you fell asleep and filched some out of the feed bin on Mare Island. Not the best, maybe, but I picked out the nicest-looking that were there.”
“What were you thinking, farmer girl?”
“I was thinking…we might have a pond, someday.” And at his look, “Well, we might!”
He couldn’t deny it. He threw back his head and laughed. “Smuggling plunkins! And horses! No, no, Spark, it’s all clear to me now. The only future for us is going to be as road bandits!”
She grinned in exasperation and shook her head. “Just ride, Dag.”
As they chirped their horses into a walk, a patrol of some two dozen wild geese flew overhead, calling hauntingly, and they both turned their faces upward to mark the beating wonder of those wings.
“A bit early,” Fawn commented.
“Maybe they’re out for a jaunt.”
“Or lost.”
“Not those fellows. It looks like a pointer to me, Spark. I say, let’s follow ’em.”
Stirrup to stirrup, they did.
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 the Nebula Award (for Falling Free), 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 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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