summer, when the heat came down like a hammer and you near choked on the water in the air, and mosquitoes patrolled in clouds almost as bad as northern Luthlian bogs, and for more months running. And lethal fevers of half a dozen sorts raged unchecked till the laggard frosts. “Then what? ”
“Well, their papa took a long time recovering, and was pretty unhappy at that. The harness shop failed.”
From the loss of the work of his wife’s hands? Or from having the heart torn out of the household? And of him, maybe. It was Dag’s turn to grow uneasy. While his groundwork might aid Fawn in some dire illness, he’d never pictured being deathly ill himself at the same time.
“He finally set Indigo and Calla with his wife’s sister, and went back to his people at Moss River Camp.”
“He abandoned his children? ” said Fawn indignantly.
“No, not really. He visited and brought their aunt and uncle horses and hides a couple of times a year, and other presents for them-cash money when he had it. Indigo and Calla were happy enough on her farm when they were younger, I guess.”
Dag was uncomfortably reminded of the renegade Crane’s tale. If Crane had had a more cooperative sister- in-law-or a more cooperative camp-might he have worked out some less disastrous fate? So was it the rigidity of the north, or was it Crane’s own chaos that had been the problem? Or both?
Fawn peeked over her shoulder at the wagon rumbling maybe twenty paces back, Sage and Calla on the box, Indigo riding alongside. Out of earshot, for now. “And when they got older? ” she asked.
“It was all right till lately.” Finch’s lips thinned. “Just the last year or so. There were these accusations. I didn’t think much of them. I mean, sure, Indigo’s good with animals, but a lot of folks are. Calla took it to heart, though, Indigo says.”
“Accusations of what? ” asked Fawn.
“Er…” Finch cast a sidewise look at Dag. “Lakewalker sorcery. Or powers, anyway. Indigo got in a lot of fights about it. And then, of course, if anything bad happened, just bad luck, to folks he was mad at or who were mad at him, there were suspicions it wasn’t luck, but some doing on Calla’s part, and Indigo got into even more fights over those. Defending his sister.”
“Oh, dear,” said Fawn.
“Anyway, it got so bad their aunt made their papa take them to Moss River for some sort of testing. I guess they might have been allowed to be Lakewalkers if they’d passed whatever it was, but they didn’t, and the camp sent them back. Which you would think would have stopped the rumors, but it didn’t.”
“Some people,” Fawn sighed.
“Testing? ” said Dag.
“A kind of Lakewalker magic, I guess. Weaving or something, which doesn’t sound too sorcerous to me. I didn’t understand it when Indigo tried to explain. I’m not sure he did, either.”
“Practice marriage cords, do you think? ” said Fawn across to Dag, touching her own.
“Might have been.”
“Too bad they didn’t know about-never mind. And then what? ”
“Well, luckily this spring Sage went sweet on Calla, and things started working out. I was a little surprised she took to him-she’s four, five years older. Mostly, older girls look at you like you’re a flour beetle in their bread dough.” A distinct sigh. “Anyway, Indigo’s notion is that up north, they don’t need to tell anyone about their Lakewalker papa, so no one will have reason to give them trouble anymore.”
Dag considered this plan. It struck him as overly optimistic. True, fellow farmers wouldn’t be able to tell the pair were half bloods, but most Lakewalkers would know with one glance at their grounds. And they’d certainly run into Lakewalkers sometime. But for the moment, he just said, “Mm.”
Fawn said rather carefully, “I got the idea Sage’s family had taken against Calla, some. Is it her age? ”
“She’s not that much older. And there are plenty of other girls around Alligator Hat just as poor. One of Sage’s sisters-in-law had no due-share at all. I guess some of his family believed those stupid rumors, though really, if Calla did have powers, I’d think you’d want them on your side.”
He did not deny the familial coolness, Dag noted. The bones of the tale all lined up true. With one joint possibly missing, although it would be easy enough to check now that Dag knew where to look.
“Well,” said Fawn, “I hope things work out for them all.”
Sincerely.
Waving Fawn to continue her amiable chatting with Finch, Dag held Copperhead back till the mule wagon came alongside. He eased closer to Sage, driving, and touched his temple to Calla, and to Indigo riding beyond. “Fine mornin’ for your start.”
Sage nodded, and came back friendly-like with, “I take it for a good sign.”
Calla sat up and turned her head stiffly Dag’s way, watching him as if she feared he might leap from Copperhead and attack her. Dag was reminded of his height, his hook, and his general-what was that phrase Arkady had used?-starveling vagabond air. He really did need Fawn by him, to make him look tame. Yet Calla should be far more used to Lakewalkers than the typical farmer girl. Her alarm was something more particular.
Dag smiled vaguely at them all and opened his ground. Indeed. Sage’s ground was planted with an ill-formed persuasion, fading as it was absorbed over time. He showed not a trace of beguilement, however.
Interesting.
Calla’s attention sharpened, as did Indigo’s. Both plainly possessed a residual groundsense, Calla’s much the stronger. Likely not the doubled vision of the world full-blooded Lakewalkers could call up, of light-shot shadows more weighty and true than the forms that cast them. But Dag would certainly seem suddenly more there to them, when he opened like this. Did they understand why? Surely this couldn’t be new to them.
“What? ” said Calla curtly, eyes narrowing. Tension quivered off her tight ground like noise from a badly tuned fiddle. Indigo was less strained, but alert.
Maybe Fawn could help Dag puzzle out the half-blood girl? They were both young women. Dag scraped for inspiration, and came up with, “I was wonderin’, Sage. Happens that my wife Fawn is lately with child, which is partly why we’re heading home just now. She’s holding up right well so far, but she does get weary in the afternoons. I’m thinking it would ease her to have a lie-down in your wagon, later, when the riding starts to exhaust her.”
Calla’s face fairly cried No!, but before she could speak, Sage said cheerfully, “Why, sure! We’d be happy to help her out. She’s such a little bit of a thing, she wouldn’t add more to my load than a sack of feathers.”
“Thank you kindly! I’ll let her know.” Dag switched his reins from his hook to his hand and raised his left arm as if in acknowledgment.
He let his ghost hand trail out and spread like a net, passing through the back of Sage’s head, defusing the tattered persuasion into nothingness, accepting the faint ground backsplash. Sage just smiled at him, blinking.
Calla looked worried but deeply uncertain.
As I thought. Good. Dag went on, “If there’s anything I can do for you folks-anything at all”-his eyes bored into Calla’s-“don’t wait to ask. I’ve helped train a world of young patrollers about your ages. There’s not too much I haven’t seen before.”
If Calla was struggling to manage rudimentary ground powers, and it certainly appeared that she was, she needed all the help she could get.
But she should have had help before now, blight it. What had her maker father been thinking? Or was she a late bloomer-like Dag-dismissed because someone mistook not yet for not?
She has to trust me, first. Which wasn’t going to happen in their first hour of acquaintance. Patience, Dag. They had weeks before them, just like a new patrol. He nodded and reined Copperhead away.
Arkady and Barr were trailing their pack string out of range of the kick-up of dirt from the wagon. At Barr’s wave, Dag joined them.
Arkady frowned at him. “What did you just do to your ground? ”
“Just a little cleanup. I flushed some old groundwork out of Sage. It would have been absorbed in a few more weeks, but I wanted to see exactly what it was.”
“That boy with the lockjaw-now this-your ground is going to be back in the same mess in no time if you keep this up.”
Dag shrugged. “Afraid so. Don’t do that isn’t going to be a good enough plan, out here. We need to come up
