judgment.
“It was a joke, almost. At the time. I thought.”
“I doubt it was such a big laugh for her,” said Fawn.
“Yeah. I found that out.”
Fawn sat up. “She didn’t go and hang herself, did she? ”
Barr’s eyes flew wide. “Hang herself! Do farmer girls really do that? ”
“Sometimes. Or drown themselves.”
“No, it wasn’t that, um… bad. Kind of the opposite. I asked the blacksmith, after I saw her… she’d got married. And had a child.”
“One of those seven-months children with the nine-months hair? ” said Dag. “We get them around these parts, time to time.”
“I think they get them everywhere,” conceded Fawn. I might have had one myself, once, but for some strange mortal chances.
“We ran into each other outside the village smithy. Cold day, but bright, the sort you sometimes get just before the first thaws. My patrol’d stopped to get a couple of cast shoes fixed. She was carting away some tools that had been repaired. She recognized me right off, but she pretended not to know me. Like I was invisible, or she wished I was. She had her little girl toddling after her, about Owlet’s size, blond-headed, curls everywhere, in this knit cap with a long pink tassel. She kept tossing her head to make it fly around, and giggling. Dag, she was mine.”
Fawn scowled. “How can you be sure? Just from her age and hair color? ”
“No, from her ground!”
Fawn cast Dag up a doubtful look; he returned a nod. “Barr would know, yes.”
“Then what did you do? ” Fawn asked in worry.
“Rode after her, of course. I caught up with her cart the first bend out of sight of the village. First she said she didn’t know me, and then she told me to leave off because she hated me, and go away or she’d scream, and I said the little girl was mine, and she said no she wasn’t, and I said yes she was, and then the girl started to cry from the yelling and her mama finally stopped the cart to talk.” He added after a moment, “She’d named her Lily.”
Barr took a breath and went on, as if afraid that if he halted he wouldn’t be able to get started again. “She said she had a good life now, and a good husband, and I didn’t have no call to ride after her and wreck her world.”
“Again,” murmured Fawn.
“And I said, did this fellow think my girl was his? And she said yes. And she offered me all the money in her purse to go away quiet.”
“Did you take it? ” asked Fawn sweetly.
Barr glared, outraged.
“Now, Fawn,” chided Dag.
Fawn sighed. It was much too late for a traditional farmer horsewhipping to do Barr the least good, after all. Or anyone else, she supposed.
He was learning his lessons in other ways, possibly no less painful.
“So she said if I wanted the other favor from her she wasn’t going to give it to me, because she was pregnant now, and this one was her husband’s, and I said no, I didn’t, and yes, I could see, it was a farmer boy, and healthy, too. She seemed glad to learn that, and calmed down a little. But she said that I should ride away and stay away, because I’d done her enough harm for one lifetime.” Barr blinked. “She didn’t actually look like she was suffering that much.”
“How would you know? ” said Fawn tartly. “You weren’t there to see the bad parts. Just because you survive a hurt doesn’t mean you didn’t bleed plenty at the time.”
“So what did you do?” Dag’s deep voice cut in before Fawn could expand on this theme.
Barr’s face scrunched up. “I didn’t know what to do. So I turned around and rode off like she wanted. But Dag-that little girl-she could’ve, should’ve, might have been my, my tent-heiress. In some other world.”
“Too late for that, I think,” said Dag.
“I know. But all the way home, I kept thinking about her. And about Calla and Indigo. I don’t know that I would have understood the problem, before I met Calla and her brother. What if Lily grows up with groundsense? What’s she going to do, come eleven, twelve years old, when all those strange things start happening in her head-you know how it feels when your groundsense first comes in, all in spurts-with no one to tell her how to go on? What if her mama’s husband comes to suspect, and, and… doesn’t treat her right?” He hesitated. “What if I come to some sudden end, out patrolling, and no one knows she exists? ”
Dag said, “You did not, I take it, see fit to inform your parents they have a half-farmer granddaughter? They having the next closest interest by right.”
Barr shuddered. “Absent gods, no!”
Barr was still, Fawn was reminded, very young by Lakewalker standards.
He might change his views on that later.
Dag grimaced. “Well, we don’t know them, you do; I won’t argue with your judgment on that.”
Barr ducked his head gratefully. “But I thought… someone had better know about Lily. In case. And if there was anybody who could tell me what to do next, it would be you two. So… I rode here.”
Dag shifted in his chair, and Nattie-Mari on his shoulder; she whuffled faintly, smacked her lips, and fell back to dozing. “What do you want to do? ”
“Well, first off… no harm.”
“Then you’ll do best to leave that poor woman alone to live her life,” said Fawn. “It seems she’s found a way to survive…” She wasn’t sure whether to say you or without you, so said neither. “You daren’t take that away from her unless you stand ready to replace it, and I don’t think you can. And nor does it sounds like she much wants you to.”
“No, I guess… not.”
Dag sucked on his lower lip, tapping his hook gently on the rocking chair arm. “But you shouldn’t, I think, leave little Lily alone without any watching over at all. Things change. Parents can die-hers or yours, come to think- fortunes reverse. Families up-stakes and move. At the very least, you owe the child a discreet-and if you don’t know how to be discreet, it’s time you learned-check every now and then. So you can spot if she ever needs any help.”
Barr said slowly, “I could do that, I guess.” His strain was easing, now that he had his confession out. And if it was replaced by a nearly Remo-like glumness, well, it would do him no permanent harm. Barr’s gaze lifted to Nattie-Mari, flopped happily on her papa’s shoulder, and Fawn finally recognized his odd look as a kind of envy. He added apologetically, “My father is a pretty good one, mostly, for all that we used to butt heads till Mama threatened to drown us both in the Riffle. He spent a lot of time with me and my sisters, teaching us things… it’s strange to think that I won’t ever… well.”
The silence that followed was broken only when Nattie-Mari stirred and squawked. Dag looked down at Fawn and smiled. “Two-handed chore, coming up.”
“Huh. Funny how your dexterity comes and goes, medicine maker.”
She scrambled up, stirred her pot once more, swung it to safety, then bent and retrieved her daughter. Yep, leaking. Dag was entirely unmoved by the damp spot left on his shirt, though he did stretch his arms and roll his shoulders. She might offer to teach Barr how to do this cleanup chore sometime, if he hadn’t yet learned on one of his younger sisters. Not just now, though-later on, when his heartache had eased a bit. Earlier in their acquaintance, she’d often wished for someone to hit Barr over the head with a plank and adjust his self-centered view of the world. It seemed little Lily finally had, but the results weren’t as much fun to watch as she’d imagined.
When Fawn came back, Dag gave up the old rocking chair by the fire for her to sit with Nattie-Mari, taking her place on the hearth to continue his earnest discussion with Barr. New ground-shield designs, and teaching unbeguilement, and how many camps had sent inquiries, and how many makers had promised to pass the word. Arkady blew in then with Sumac, stomping his feet and complaining as usual about the deadly northern cold, which was actually quite mild today, and the talk turned to medicine making Clearcreek-style, and the new apprentices begging for places, and horses in foal, and plans for the spring.
