plan ahead, how to make the future happen as it was supposed to. Well… it had shown her one way, she reckoned. It hadn’t taught her how to follow a long-legged Lakewalker husband over half a continent; that, she’d had to learn as she trotted along. And she was still learning. How do we do this? wasn’t to be simply answered, Just like Mama and Papa.
Dag’s hand left off caressing her belly and found a lower spot to admire. She eased her thighs apart to give him room, then hesitated. “I suppose it’s safe to…? Must be, stands to reason. Most folks wouldn’t even know at this point.”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “I asked.”
“Who? ”
“Arkady.”
“Oh.” She digested this, as well as she could through the distraction of his sweet tickling. “Does he know that I’m…? Oh. Yeah. ’Course he could tell, if you could.” She blinked. “Wait a minute. Did everyone know but me? Barr and Remo, too? And…” Now she hit him, but it was too late to be convincing.
“Groundsense,” he sighed. “You just deal with it.” He licked down her neck. “You’re smiling.”
She suspected she was grinning like a chipmunk with its cheeks full, actually. “So much for my dignity.”
“Remember,” he breathed, “to take joy.”
She was put in mind of what he’d said when planning their wedding night; that it would stand out sharp and clear when a thousand other nights blurred. So far, he’d been proved right, though they weren’t even up to a thousand days, yet. She opened mind, heart, and body to him as he set about making sure that, along with all her other recollections of this remarkable morning, she would remember that she was beloved.
–-
After they washed up and dressed, Dag went in to give Sparrow another treatment. The boy seemed so much eased that Finch’s unmarried sister, a girl of fifteen, was left to sit with him. Midmorning found Fawn and Dag on their own in the farmhouse kitchen, the rest of the Bridger family having scattered to their relentless farm chores. Fawn rewarmed the pot of grits left out for them, not too stiffly congealed, and fried up ham and eggs to go-with. They were half done with this meal when Dag lifted and turned his head at nothing. It reminded Fawn of the way a cat stared at things no one else could see. Lakewalkers. No wonder they made regular folks uneasy.
“What? ” said Fawn.
“Just bumped grounds with Neeta, of all people. What’s she doing here? ”
“Looking for us? ” Fawn made to scramble up.
“Seemingly. Sit, Spark, she’s still riding in. Finish your breakfast. You need your food.” He gave her a fond smile.
She smiled back. Deep inside her head an excited voice was still crying Babybabybaby, yesnoyes eep! She wanted to jump up and run around madly preparing something, but truly, there was nothing much to do yet, especially here. Except to eat her breakfast. She swallowed the last bite of buttery grits, then followed Dag to the front porch.
Neeta was just cantering into the farmyard, mud splashing from the hooves of her sweating horse, which shook its head as she pulled up, and stood blowing through round, red nostrils. “Dag!” she cried. “Sir! You’re alive!”
Had there been doubt? Dag’s left arm tightened around Fawn’s waist, whether possessively or in warning she wasn’t sure.
“Am I in time? ” Neeta added breathlessly. She cast an odd look at Fawn, her blond brows tightening as if in confusion or dismay or… disappointment?
In a rather deliberate drawl, Dag said, “In time for what, Neeta? I expect we could still rustle you up some breakfast.”
She made an impatient swipe of her hand at the levity. “Captain Bullrush can’t be more than an hour behind me, and he’s hopping mad. You have time to get away if you hurry.”
“Away where, and why? I can’t believe Antan Bullrush has mayhem on his mind, on such a fine spring morning.”
“No, no, of course not, but you can still get back to camp. Slip past him. No one need ever know you were here. Oh gods, I should have brought another horse. I can lend you mine if you like, and I can walk home.” She dismounted and climbed the wooden steps as if to present her reins to Dag at once.
Dag stuffed his hand into his pocket. “I should’ve thought folks knew we were out. Didn’t Arkady get my note? ”
“Yes, Barr and Remo said. Except they didn’t tell us till the next night, when the rumors were already all over the place.”
An uneasy sigh trickled through Dag’s lips. “So, ah… you want to begin at the beginning, Neeta? ” He let a tinge of patrol-captain sternness seep into his tone-deliberately?
Perhaps, for Neeta straightened her shoulders. “Yes, sir. Well. I guess old Arkady wasn’t best pleased when he found you’d gone off- was there a sick farmer? ”
“Lockjaw,” said Dag shortly.
Neeta’s mouth made an Oh; she looked briefly daunted, but forged on. “I don’t know what was going through Arkady’s mind, but the next morning when you two didn’t come to the medicine tent, he told Challa he’d given you a day of rest. Except that Nola and Cerie piped up that they’d seen Fawn go off into the woods the day before with some cute farmer boy, and she never came back. Well, Cerie said she wasn’t sure it was like that, but Nola thought it was. And Arkady just snorted.”
“Wasn’t like what? ” said Fawn, taken aback.
“That you had eloped with that farmer boy, and Dag had gone chasing after you both.” Neeta’s lips thinned with as much disapproval as if she had discovered it to be true.
Fawn gasped in outrage at the slander. “I never-!”
Dag squeezed her to silence and removed his hand from his pocket, but only to rub it over his face. “Go on.”
“Any gossip that’s all over the medicine tent spreads all over the camp pretty shortly. That night Barr and Remo told me and Tavia about your note, but they made us swear to keep our mouths shut, which I for one was just as happy to do. I still thought it could have been a false trail, if you’d gone off with blood in your eye. I don’t know how the whole garbled mess came to Captain Bullrush’s ear, but next morning he stormed down to the medicine tent to find out what was really going on. He said he wasn’t going to be having some blighted murder ballad play out in his patrol district.
“He was even more livid when he found out the truth, and that Arkady hadn’t warned him. I heard they had the most ferocious argument. They agreed to give you till last night to show up and explain yourself, and then the captain was going to go looking for the answers. Which he is doing this morning. Oh, sir!” Neeta raised a distressed hand toward Dag. “Arkady and I had almost talked the camp into offering you tent rights! I thought you fought so hard for your training-don’t you care about it anymore? ”
“More than I can rightly say.”
“Then there has to be some way to salvage this. Can’t you have these farmers swear you were never here? ”
Dag wanted, Fawn could see, to slap Neeta with a flat No, and leave it at that. But the habits of too many years spent shaping young patrollers cut in before he could gratify himself. “Useless, Neeta. Antan would have the truth out in no time. I won’t lie. But I’d be glad to grovel, if you think it would help.”
“Oh!” Neeta nearly stamped her foot, Fawn thought; she did clench her fists. “Can’t you please come away? ”
“Not yet. One more day of nerve treatments will slice better ’n a week off Sparrow’s recovery, I figure. Have you ever seen lockjaw, Neeta? ”
She shook her head, lips tight. “No. But I hear it’s gruesome.”
“You heard right.” Dag straightened and stretched, as if girding himself.
“Leave your captain to me, Neeta. It’s come on sooner than I would have liked, but these questions were bound to get laid on the table sometime. Best to have it out and done.”
“Sir, you… you blighted fool, sir!”
“The Bridgers will let you use their barn. Go take care of your horse, patroller.” Dag sighed. “You’ve used him
