Sharing Knife 4 Horizon Read online

  Sharing Knife 4 Horizon

  Lois Mcmaster Bujold

  THE SHARING KNIFE

  Volume Four

  HORIZON

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  1

  The Drowntown day market was in full spate. Fawn’s nostrils flared at the strong smells: fish, clams, critters with twitching legs like giant crawdads packed in seaweed; frying funnel cakes, boiling crabs, dried fruit, cheeses; piles of used clothing not well laundered; chickens, goats, sheep, horses. Mixed with it all, the damp tang of the river Gray, stretching so wide its farther shore became a flat blur in the winter morning light.

  The lead-colored water shimmered in silence beyond the bright busy blot of folks collected under the bluffs that divided Graymouth’s Uptown from its noisier-and, Fawn had to admit, more noisome- riverside. The muddy banks were lined with flatboats at the ends of their journeys, keelboats preparing new starts, and fishing and coastal vessels that came and went more in rhythm with the still-ten-milesdistant sea than with the river’s moods. The streets dodged crookedly around goods-sheds, rivermen’s taverns, and shacks-all built of dismantled flatboats, or, in some cases, not dismantled but drawn ashore intact on rollers by oxen and allowed to settle into the soil. The owners of the latter claimed to be all ready for the next flood that would try, and fail, to wash the smells and mess of Drowntown out to sea, while Uptown looked down dry-skirted. It seemed a strange way to live. How had she ever thought of the rocky creek at the foot of her family’s farm back north as a river?

  Fawn shoved her basket up her arm, nudged her companion Remo, and pointed. “Look! There’s some new Lakewalkers here this morning!”

  At the other end of the square, where all the bigger animals were displayed by their hopeful owners, two women and a man tended a string of half a dozen leggy horses. The three all wore Lakewalker dress: riding trousers, sturdy boots, shirts and leather vests and jackets, not so different in kind from the farmers around them, yet somehow distinctive. More distinctive was their hair, worn long in decorated braids, their height, and their air of discomfort to be surrounded by so many people who weren’t Lakewalkers. Upon reflection, Fawn wondered if anyone else here realized the standoffishness was discomfort, or if they only thought it high-nosed disdain. She would have seen it that way, once.

  “Mm,” said Remo unenthusiastically. “I suppose you want to go talk to them?”

  “Of course.” Fawn dragged him toward the far end of the market.

  The man pulled a horse out of the string and held it for a farmer, who bent and ran his hands over its legs. The two young women looked toward Fawn and Remo as they approached; their eyes widened a bit at Remo, whose height, clothes, and long black braid also proclaimed him a Lakewalker patroller. Did their groundsenses reached out to touch the stranger-kinsman, or did they keep them closed against the painful ground noise of the surrounding farmers?

  The southern Lakewalkers Fawn had seen so far tended to lighter skin and hair than their northern cousins, and these two were no exception. The taller woman-girl-she seemed not so very much older than Fawn, anyhow-had hair in a single thick plait as tawny as a bobcat pelt. Her silvery-blue eyes were bright in her fine-boned face.

  The shorter woman had red-brown braids wreathing her head, and coppery eyes in a round face dusted with freckles. Fawn thought they might be patrol partners, like Remo and Barr; they seemed unlikely to be sisters.

  “ ’Morning!” Fawn called cheerfully, looking up at them. The top of her own dark curls came up just past the middle of Remo’s chest, and not much farther on these women. At almost-nineteen, Fawn had given up hope of gaining further inches except maybe around, and resigned herself to a permanent crick in her neck.

  The reddish-haired woman returned a nod; the bobcat blonde, seeming uncertain how to take the odd pair, addressed herself to a height halfway between them. “ ’Morning. You all interested in a horse? We’ve some real fine bloodstock, here. Strong hooves. One of these could carry a man all the way up the Tripoint Trace and never pull up lame.” She gestured toward the string, well brushed despite their winter coats, who gazed back and flicked their tufted ears. Beyond, the Lakewalker man trotted the horse toward and away from the farmer, who stood hands on hips, frowning judiciously.

  “I thought Lakewalkers only sold off their culls to farmers?” said Fawn innocently. The redhead’s slight flinch was more from guilt than insult, Fawn thought. Some horse traders. Suppressing a grin, she went on: “Anyhow, no, at least not today. What I was wondering was, what camp you folks hailed from, and if you have any real good medicine makers there.”

  The blonde replied at once, in a practiced-sounding tone, “Lakewalkers can’t treat farmers.”

  “Oh, I know all about that.” Fawn tossed her head. “I’m not asking for myself.”

  Two braided heads turned toward Remo, who blushed. Remo hated to blush, he’d said, because the awkwardness of it always made him blush worse than the original spur. Fawn watched his deepening tinge with fascination. She could not sense the flick of questing groundsenses, but she had no doubt that a couple went by just then. “No, I’m not sick, either,” Remo said. “It’s not for us.”

  “Are you two together?” asked the blonde, silver-blue eyes narrowing in a less friendly fashion. Lovers together, Fawn guessed she meant to imply, which Lakewalkers were emphatically not supposed to be with farmers.

  “Yes. No! Not like that. Fawn’s a friend,” said Remo. “The wife of a friend,” he added in hasty emphasis.

  “We still can’t help you. Medicine makers can’t fool with farmers,” the redhead seconded her companion.

  “Dag’s a Lakewalker.” Fawn shouldered forward, keeping herself from clutching the Lakewalker wedding braid circling her left wrist under her sleeve. Or brandishing it, leading to the eternal explanation and defense of its validity. “And he’s not sick.” Exactly. “He used to be a patroller, but he thinks he has a calling now for making. He already knows lots, and he can do some, some amazing things, which is why he needs a real good guide, to help him along his next step.” Whatever it is.

  Even Dag did not seem sure, to Fawn’s concerned eyes.

  The blonde turned her confused face to Remo. “You’re not from around these parts, are you? Are you an exchange patroller?”

  “Neeta,” said the redhead, with a proud gesture at the blonde, “is just back from two years’ exchange patrolling in Luthlia.”

  The blonde shrugged modestly. “You don’t have to tell everyone we meet, Tavia.”

  “No, I’m not exchanging, exactly,” said Remo. “We came down from Oleana on a flatboat, got here about a week back. I’m, I’ve…”

  Fawn waited with grim interest to see how he would describe himself.

  Run away from home? Deserted? Joined Captain Dag No-Camp’s muleheaded campaign to save the world from itself?

  He gulped, and fell back on, “My name’s Remo.”

  A tilt of the braid-wreathed head and a bouncing hand gesture invited him to continue with his tent and camp names, but he merely pressed his lips together in an unfelt smile. Tavia shrugged, and went on, “We came down from New Moon Cutoff Camp yesterday to sell off some cu-horses, and to pick up the week’s courier packet.” Clearly identifying herself and her partner to this tall, dark, northern stranger as patroller women, carrying mail between camps being a patrol task.

  Fawn wondered if she’d recognize patroller flirting if she saw it, and if it would be as dire as patroller humor. “The best medicine maker in the district is at New Moon,” Tavia continued, “but I don’t think he’s taking apprentices.”

  “That would be Arkady Waterbirch?” Fawn hazarded. “The one they say is a groundsetter?” That la
st had been a new term to Fawn, but the local Lakewalkers seemed to set great store by it. At the redhead’s raised eyebrows she explained, “I’ve been asking around for the past few days, whenever I saw a Lakewalker in the market. They always start by telling about the makers in their own camps, but they all end by mentioning this Arkady fellow.”

  Tavia nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “Why is he not taking apprentices?” Fawn persisted. All the medicine makers she’d ever met had seemed hungry to find new talent for their craft. Well, unless that talent was trailing a farmer bride. “Is he full up?” She added conscientiously, “Not that Dag’s looking to be an apprentice, necessarily. He might just want to, um, talk.”

  The two women exchanged guarded looks. Neeta said, “You’d think Arkady would be looking for a new apprentice, about now.”

  “I’m not so sure. He was pretty upset about Sutaw. He took a lot of shafts about it.”

  “He wasn’t even there!”

  “That’s the complaint that stings the most, I gather.”

  Uncertain if the girls would explain this camp gossip to a mere farmer, Fawn nudged Remo. He cast her down a pained look, but dutifully asked, “What happened?”

  Tavia rubbed her round chin and frowned. “A couple of months back, one of the youngsters at New Moon was badly mauled by a gator. When his friends ran to the medicine tent for help, Arkady was out seeing another patient, so his apprentice Sutaw went to take the boy on. He groundlocked himself, and died of the shock when the boy did.”

  Remo winced; Fawn quelled a chill in her belly. Remo said, “Wasn’t there anyone else there to break the lock?”

  “The boy’s mother, but she waited too long. Some other youngsters, but of course they couldn’t realize. There was a lot of bad feeling, after, between the parents of the mauled boy and Sutaw’s tent-kin, but it’s pretty much settled down now. Arkady’s been keeping to himself.”

  “Not that you can tell the difference,” said Neeta. “He always was as grim as a knife maker. Maybe a new apprentice would be good for him.” She smiled at Remo. “Your friend could ask, I suppose. But you’d likely better warn him old Arkady’s kind of… difficult, sometimes.”

  “Yeah?” Remo shot an ironic look at Fawn. “That’d be right interesting.”

  The two girls from New Moon Cutoff were picturing Dag as a young patroller like Remo, Fawn realized. She decided not to try to explain the more… difficult aspects of her Lakewalker husband. He’s not banished, not really…

  The New Moon man finished counting coins into his wallet from the farmer, slapped the horse on the rump in friendly farewell as it was led away, and turned back toward his companions. Fawn was reminded that her market basket ought to be piled high and handed off to Remo to lug by now.

  “Well, thank you.” Fawn dipped her knees. “I’ll pass the word along.”

  The two returned nods, the shorter girl’s bemused, the taller blonde’s a trifle grudging, though both watched after Remo with considering glances as Fawn led him off across the square once more. But their attention was soon diverted as another potential customer strolled up to eye the horses.

  Remo looked back over his shoulder and sighed in regret. “Barr would have charmed their socks off.”

  Fawn dimpled. “Only their socks? I’d think Barr would be more ambitious. Least to hear him tell it.”

  Remo blushed again, but protested, “They’re patroller girls. They’d keep him in line.” But after a longish glum moment, added, “If they wanted to.”

  Fawn shook her head, smiling. “Come on, Remo, cheer up. We got us a wedding party to fix.” A flash of color caught her eye, and she stepped along to a fruit cart to bargain for blocks of dried persimmon and bright round oranges packed in straw, both astonishing southern fruits she had tasted for the first time only a few days ago. Another Graymouth woman sold Fawn a jar of molasses, sweet as the maple syrup cooked up on the Bluefield farm each spring, if with a much stronger, stranger flavor. It would go well with biscuits, Fawn thought, or maybe with something using up that last barrel of wrinkling apples that had ridden with them all the way from Oleana.

  “So,” said Remo thoughtfully as they made their way to the next vendor on Fawn’s mental list. “If Dag wants to find himself a medicine maker that much, why isn’t he doing the asking around?”

  Fawn bit her lip. “You’ve heard him talking about it, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, sure, couple of times.”

  “He’s said even more to me. But Dag’s a doer, not a talker. So if he keeps talking, but doesn’t do… it seems to me something’s wrong somewhere.”

  “What?”

  Her steps slowed. “He’s scared, I guess.”

  “Dag? Are you joking?”

  “Not physically scared. Some other kind of scared. I don’t have the words for it, but I can feel it. Scared he won’t get the answers he wants, maybe.” Scared he’ll get the answers he doesn’t want.

  “Hm,” said Remo doubtfully.

  As they wended back to the riverbank and up the row of flatboats to where the Fetch was tied, Fawn’s thoughts reverted to the horrific tale of the groundlocked apprentice. That could be Dag, all right. A youngster in danger, a desperate fight for survival-despite being partnerless, he would dive right in and not come out. With him, it wouldn’t even be courage. It’d be a blighted habit.

  When Dag had first talked about giving up patrolling to become a medicine maker to farmers, it had seemed a wonderful plan to Fawn: it would be a safer line of work, it wouldn’t take him away from her, and he could do it all on his own, without needing other Lakewalkers.

  Without needing other Lakewalkers to accept her, to put it bluntly. All of these promised benefits appeared to be untrue, on closer look-see.

  My thoughts are all in a tangle, Dag had complained to her. What if it wasn’t just his thoughts? What if it was his ground, as well? Which would be no surprise after all the chancy groundwork he’d been doing, lately. Miracles and horrors. Maybe he really needed another maker to help straighten it all out.

  Groundsetter. Fawn rolled the word over in her mind. It sounded mysterious and promising. Her chin ducked in a firm nod as her feet rapped across the Fetch’s gangplank.

  –-

  The wagon roads from the lower to the upper halves of Graymouth wound around the far ends of the long bluff, but several sets of stairs zigzagged more breathlessly up the steep slope. They were built, inevitably, of old flatboat timbers, generously enough for folks to pass four abreast in places. Dag turned his head for a quick glimpse of the busy riverside laid out below, with the gleaming river receding into level haze in both directions. He breathed in the cool air of this midwinter noon, contemplating the array of people about to officially become part of, well… his family, he supposed. Tent Bluefield. The growth of it had happened so gradually over the weeks of their disastrous quest, Dag was almost shocked to look back and realize how far they’d come, and not just in river miles. Yet here we all are.

  The Fetch’s party climbed two by two. In the lead wheezed Berry’s uncle Bo, gnarled riverman, the one member of the young flatboat boss’s family back in Clearcreek who had volunteered to come help her on this long journey. Beside him thumped Hod, an arm ready to boost Bo along, but Dag judged the wheezing misleading; Bo was as tough as the old boot leather that he resembled, and the knife slash in his belly was almost fully healed. Hod had become far more than a mere boat hand after all their shared adventures, being as near as made-no-nevermind to adopted into the Fetch’s family.

  Berry’s eleven-year-old brother, Hawthorn, came next, his pet raccoon riding on his shoulder, both boy and animal sniffing the air in bright-eyed curiosity. There had been some argumentation over whether a raccoon was a proper ornament to a wedding party, but the creature had ridden with them all the way from Oleana, and had become something of a boat’s mascot over the downriver weeks. Dag was just glad no one had extended the argument to Daisy-goat, equally faithful and far more useful
. A bit more of Hawthorn’s swinging wrist stuck out of his shirtsleeve than when Dag had first met him, and Dag didn’t think it was because the cloth had shrunk with its rare washings. When his straw-blond head finally grew to overtop that of his sister Berry, he would be an impressive young man. Three more years, Dag gave it; forever, Hawthorn moaned; Dag tried to remember when three years had seemed forever.

  Next, the bride herself, supported by Fawn. Fawn had spent a good long time earlier this morning with her clever fingers plaiting Berry’s straight hair, usually tied at her nape, up into Lakewalker-style wedding braids. Somewhere in the Drowntown day market Fawn had found fresh winter flowers, either local to these southern climes or grown under glass, Dag was not sure. She’d arranged all the big white blooms she could fit in around Berry’s straw-gold topknot, with ivy trailing down in the silky fall of hair behind. Her own hair she’d gathered into a jaunty horsetail at her crown, with sprigs of scarlet flowers seeming to glow against the dark curls. Climbing behind the two women, Dag enjoyed the effect. There had been no time for new bride clothes, in these hasty preparations so far from home, but there had been a lot of laundry done on the Fetch yesterday after Fawn had returned from the market with Remo. Shabby and travel-worn the whole party’s workaday garments might be, but they were all clean and mended.

  As they reached a turn in the stairs and reversed direction, Fawn’s little hand gripped Berry’s in a gesture of encouragement. Berry’s workhardened fingers looked unusually cold and pale. Dag had seen Berry face down raging shoals, snagging sandbars, rough rivermen, sly goodsdealers, murderous bandits, knife fights, heartbreak, and hangings, high water and low as the riverfolk put it, with unflagging courage. Any who would dare chuckle at her pre-wedding nerves… had never faced a wedding ceremony themselves, Dag decided.

  Fawn’s brother Whit, climbing beside Dag, had chuckled merrily at his sister and Dag six months ago when they’d tied their knots in West Blue. He wasn’t laughing now, and the corners of Dag’s mouth tucked up at the pure justice of the moment. No one, looking at Fawn and Whit together, would take them for anything other than brother and sister even before they opened their mouths. Both had the same dark curls and clear skin, and though Whit topped Fawn by a head, he was still a sawed-off Bluefield. More height he would likely never gain, but his shoulders had broadened this fall, as the strain on his shirt seams testified.