Bujold, Lois McMaster - Sharing Knife 04 by Lois Mcmaster Bujold

Author:Lois Mcmaster Bujold
Language: eng
Format: epub

The patrollers collected around the fire after supper to piece together Rase’s spent knife and carefully wrap the shards in a makeshift cloth shroud until it could be returned to New Elm Camp for burial.

They didn’t seem grave enough for Fawn to call it a ritual, nor cheery enough to call it a celebration, but Sumac led them in a song Fawn recognized from the bow-down she’d seen back in Glassforge—not with a bone flute this time, just with naked voices. The words turned out to be not about malices or death or sacrifice, but about a garden by a lakeside where two lovers met. It ought to have sounded lyrical, but somehow came out more like a hymn. Fawn could not have said why, but she felt the tune must be very old.

Berry, listening as the verses found their culmination, drew her hickory-wood fiddle from its bag and, despite her healing fingers, took up the melody in winding variations each sweeter than the last. The flickering firelight gleamed off tracks of tears on Rase’s face as he listened from his bedroll, and when she finished, he murmured, “Thank you,” very sincerely. Fawn wondered how close to his great-grandfather the young patroller had been.

Berry lightened the mood with a brisker reel, inspiring Plum to drag her little brother Owlet to the fireside in a valiant attempt to dance. The two held hands and swung arms with more enthusiasm than grace, and Owlet squealed his delight as Plum twirled her skirts.

In this warm weather Owlet ran about dressed in a cast-off shirt, as good as a gown on him, and nothing else; below the hem his dimpled knees pumped and his little bare feet tromped the dirt, and even Bo and Dag smiled.

After Berry shook out her hands and put the fiddle away, Bo offered a tale or two, both outrageously unlikely, which led to some reminiscing from the patrollers, the likelihood of which was harder to judge.

A few hoarded bottles passed from hand to hand. Arkady’s contribution won the most respect; the one sip that Fawn dared went down like liquid fire. Even Grouse took a swallow of that one.

When the moon rose, Fawn lay in their bedroll and listened to the munching and muffled snorting of the grazing animals, scattered up the creek side. From the way he’d picked at his dinner, she thought Dag shared some of Rase’s queasiness, but she wasn’t sure how it compared with how he’d felt after the Glassforge malice, as she’d been in no condition then to notice. So had Rase’s ground veiling just been unpracticed, or would he grow into a maker someday, too? Dag walked his perimeter patrol very wide; it was a long time before he joined her. They found their familiar positions, legs interlaced beneath the blankets, face-toface in the silvered dark.

“Was it a hard fight today? ” she asked, stroking his furrowed forehead, winding her fingers in the unruly curls of his hair in which no gray strands yet gleamed.

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