His grandmother, passing through with an armload of roving to spin up for some future shirt or saddle blanket, paused to watch this harried negotiation. “Huh. It’s a rough road your farmer girl’s rid down, Barr, but don’t go thinking you can just dump your pack on Shirri and run off. She’s carrying load enough right now. She had two more miscarriages while you were gone, you know.”
Barr winced. “Her letters didn’t say.”
She puffed out a dry breath. “They wouldn’t. You were in Luthlia. We figured you needed to keep your whole mind on the task in front of you, up there.”
“Luthlia’s really not that different from camps in Oleana, three seasons out of four.” Barr reflected. “Poorer, maybe, but they take being able to move camp at a moment’s notice a lot more seriously. Their patrol’s more… more strained than here, though. Far more strained than any Lakewalker enclave I saw south of the Barrens.”
“I daresay.” She contemplated him for a moment. “For all that Amma complains about what she calls your joy-jaunts, your travels have been the making of you, I think.”
Barr blinked, but even he couldn’t work this out for a criticism. Glory be. “I think so, too.” His mouth tweaked up. “Maybe we should send Bay to Luthlia, next. One of the girls up there might collect him.”
“They didn’t take you. And you’re cuter’n him.”
“Yeah, well… I guess I made it too plain I meant to come home, after.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Because of Lily?”
He wouldn’t have said so out loud, but… “Maybe some.”
“Hm.” She stumped away to collect her spindle.
* * *
Having thankfully traded off the toddler, Barr had been given a sit-down chore outside at the smaller fire pit, tending to a kettle of Shirri’s wax, melting and cleaning it. The slow-moving sky had congealed into a cool mist threatening rain when Lily and Raki came tromping back. Raki was called inside by her mother, no doubt for her next chore; Lily, after a lurch in her wake, came instead over to Barr’s side.
“So what all did you see?” he asked amiably.
“We went down by the river and watched where they were building narrow-boats. One woman was carving paddles, and let us both try with scraps. And then we stopped at a, a tent-cabin, where some people were practicing music. I didn’t know Lakewalkers did that.”
“Out on patrol we have to make our own entertainment, yes. Though only with little instruments we can tuck in saddlebags. There’s a lot of songs. Most morose, some funny. Some both, but you have to know patroller humor.”
She twisted her lips, as if this explained something. “Then we went over the ridge and saw the broodmare pastures, and the foals, and the fields. People were planting. And then back up, and saw across the river to your ferry landing, and all the way down past the rapids to Pearl Bend—I didn’t realize there was a farmer town practically next door to you!” Her eyes were full of new; it made them brighter. Good.
“River town, really. The river is like its own hinterland. The Bend has a ferry of their own at the foot of the Riffle, as we have the one at the head. They deal more with boat ladings, folks portaging loads around the bad stretch. Our ferry is smack on the old straight road, serves folks going overland. Although that’s a bonus for us. Really, we maintain it to be sure patrols can get across if needed.”
“Is everything here about patrols, in the end?”
Her questions were growing shrewder every day, huh. Or maybe every hour. “Pretty much.”
At his gesture, she seated herself on the sawn-off log beside him, not uncompanionably. Barr, it seemed, had now been promoted to the rank of her familiar anchor in a sea of strangeness, if only for want of her horse. Lily waved toward the straggle of kin Foxbrush tents beyond the main tent. “Raki claims those are all your relatives, too?”
“Ayup. My grandmother Nura is senior, tent head, but those cabins stuck together on the end are for her younger sister, um, my great-aunt, and her two daughters, and their string-bound fellows—husbands, you would say, though I count them as tent-brothers, and their youngsters. And the one in the middle is my mother’s sister, and her three girls, and their two partners so far, and their kids.”
“That’s… are they all Foxbrushes?”
“Yeah, there must be rising forty of us, last I counted. The generations get a bit skewed, so we just call them all cousins or aunts.” He added after a moment, “My oldest brother married out to another camp years ago. So have most of the other fellows I grew up with. Their youngsters would be your cousins, too, though they don’t count as Foxbrushes. But we don’t see them often.”
She absorbed this. “What do you do when it gets to be too much? All you Lakewalkers thrown in together. You said you didn’t like crowds.” She frowned, perhaps in memory of her bad night in Glassforge.
“Well, there’s groundshielding.” Barr grinned. “When even that’s not enough anymore, we go patrollin’. Or hunting. Or fishing on the river. Or go up to the woods and shoot arrows into innocent trees.”
“Hard on the poor trees.”
“Can be, yeah.”
Barr leaned over and stirred the melted wax in the hot water. The bee-bits were mostly falling to the bottom, good. “Almost ready to let cool. We’ll fish out the wax when it hardens, save it for the next batch of candles, and run the water through a cheesecloth and use for sweet tea. A two-handed job, if you’ll lend one.”
“Sure.” She bent over and picked up the little peg-studded board that he’d leaned against his log. “Are you braiding candlewick string?”
“Ayup. Care to try your hand?”
“We do this the same at home. I know how.” Pensively, she gathered up the cotton plies and began to crisscross them. “Did those Foxbrush women give you a hard time about me?” Her sideways glance tried to be opaque, and failed.
“The scars will heal.” He smirked, inviting her to be amused at his expense, hoping she wouldn’t take criticism of Barr as censure of herself. “Upshot was, we both have a place to sleep tonight dry and warm. It’ll do for a start. I’m safe till my stitches come out, for sure.” Which were itching again; he dutifully did not scratch, rgh.
He let Lily ease into the maybe-comforting familiar task for a few minutes, her fingers flicking, then he stirred the wax-water again and sighed. “There is one chore this afternoon we can’t put off.” Much as I would like to. “We need to write a letter for a Lakewalker courier to carry to your folks in Hackberry Corner, let them know you’re found safe. Thing is, I’m not sure what all else to say. Your mama and aunt Iris both know you’re half Lakewalker, but no one else seemed to. And neither of them realized your talents had started coming in. Which you might not have hid as well as you think, but up till then Bell just thought it was you being fourteen.”
A grimace; all her quills bristling again, after the distractions of the camp had finally laid them flat. “Why should I care? Why should they? They all thought I was next door to being a murderer.”
“They cared. Well, I s’ppose the youngsters were mostly oblivious, but the grownups were near frantic. People are complicated like that. I’d promised to haul you home if I found you.” By the scruff of the neck, if need be, he’d implied; now, there was an obsolete plan. “If I’m not going to keep that promise… it’s going to be tricky to explain why I’ve taken over as your patrol leader if your Lakewalker blood’s to be kept a secret from half the people reading the letter and half not.”
A twitch. But she didn’t gainsay this.
“Now, I don’t think it’s a secret that can be kept anymore, but I don’t feel it’s mine to choose. Is it yours?”
Her hands hesitated; resumed braiding. She stared down at her work. “Maybe not,” she said at last. And then, “…No.”
“Think a little on what we should say, then.” The mist was collecting into heavier droplets, drifting downward; time to go inside. She cast one wry glance at him trying to manage his stick and lift the heavy kettle, a
nd forthrightly took it away from him.
* * *
Lunch and the drizzle finished at about the same time, so Barr led Lily back across camp to the patrol headquarters, that being the best place to find paper, pens, ink, and the courier schedule. By a stroke of great luck, Amma was out, and her assistant helped him to the supplies with no more than a curious glance. He sat Lily down at the side of the map table and flattened out his cadged paper, gnawing his lip. Think of it as a patrol report. Short and to-the-point. He dipped the quill and began to write.
To the Mason family, Tamarack Farm, Hackberry Corner.
I found Lily safe about a day’s ride south of Glassforge. I’ve taken her to Pearl Riffle Camp to rest up at my mother’s tent. Yes, good idea to get mention of Kiska in there. Bell and Iris should both realize what that meant. You can write back to me as Barr Foxbrush, Pearl Riffle Camp, and give it to this courier or any Lakewalker to pass along. It will find us in a while.
There was a lot of page left, even when he signed it large and clear.
He shoved it around to Lily. “You should add something in your own hand, to show I’m not sending them a tarradiddle.”
She took the quill and scowled at the paper, though seemingly more in concentration than anger, because she dipped and began a careful, scratchy print. He watched sidewise as the words and her thinking trickled out.
We ran across a blight bogle on the trail. They are real!!! Barr got hurt but will get better. Barr’s brother Bay and some patrollers went to kill it. I’m all right. So is Moon. The camp is interesting. There are a lot of women here doing things. A long pause, and she crouched again. The river is big.
After another minute or two spent staring at this desperately neutral recitation of inarguable facts, she gave up and signed her name.
“That will likely do,” Barr reassured her. And himself. “It doesn’t have to be the last letter ever.”
“I wish it was,” she muttered.
Unsure how to respond, he let that go by. “Anyway, if there’s anything you want to add but not put in writing, you can give the courier a short message to deliver by word of mouth. Of course, then you’ve got to trust the courier, but they mainly don’t care what you tell them. They just pass it on same as the letters. I figure to say, Tell Miz Bluebell Mason, but no one else, Lily’s growing Lakewalker powers. Four words, one ear, it won’t be mixed up. But somebody there needs to know why I haven’t just trotted you right back, or they’ll be making up tales for themselves.” Barr shuddered at the more lurid possibilities. “Ate you and boiled your bones, or worse.”
She looked startled. “What’s worse?”
He rubbed his face. Did not scratch at his stitches. “Never mind. But I’m sure you’ve heard gossip about patroller necromancers, even if not in your house.”
“Well, yeah, but mostly kids’ talk, whispers under the blankets. I thought it wasn’t really real, same as… blight bogles.” She hesitated, contemplating this contradiction.
“I already handed you the heart of us, out on the trail.” He touched where the bone knife hilt would be at his waist, if he hadn’t laid it aside atop Bay’s trunk. “Just as soon as I could. Maybe that was the wrong order, I dunno. But the rest is only filling out the details.”
She frowned at his gesture. “Will I get one of those human-bone knives like yours? If they let me stay?”
He flinched, and evaded, “They’re for grownups. Children don’t share.”
“I’m not hardly a child anymore. How old were you?”
“…Sixteen. As soon as I had the range and control to patrol.” Not very good control yet, but a young patroller wouldn’t get better by sitting in a tent. And how anxiously avid he had been to get bonded to his own sharing knife, proud outward marker of adulthood! He’d barely thought deeper than that, then. What should you call a wise thing done for fool reasons?
Clothes made big for growing into, maybe.
Lily sucked her lip, thinking who-knew-what. Not Barr, unfortunately.
Barr folded and sealed the letter, and handed it in to the right courier bag, together with a note for the courier to see him at Tent Foxbrush before riding out tomorrow morning. Which meant someone would be waking him up at a hideous hour, but it couldn’t be helped. Maybe he could hit his bunk early. Was now too early? Verel had been right, blight him. Barr wouldn’t have been fit for riding the length of the camp today, let alone the length of the river road. He motioned Lily to follow and limped toward the door.
Only to backstep nearly into her as Captain Osprey blew in.
Amma halted too, looking them over. “There you two are.” She sounded… actually, not much more dyspeptic than usual. Anyway, not with that tight, scalding edge of fury leaking between her teeth that Barr could remember from prior incidents.
“Ah. Amma. Hiya.” Barr attempted a grin, suspected it made him look like a sick possum, and gave it up. He straightened instead. Backing another half step, he put his arm around Lily’s shoulders. “I don’t think you met my daughter last night. Miss Lily Mason of Hackberry Corner. Lily, this is the Pearl Riffle Camp patrol captain, Amma Osprey.”
“Yeah, I heard the story about that,” said Amma. “From the horse girls. And Verel and Yina. And your grandmother.”
She’d have encountered the horse girls when seeing the relief patrol off at dawn. That would likely have sent her back to the medicine tent. Whether she’d cornered the head of Tent Foxbrush, or the other way around, Barr couldn’t guess, but the two were near-contemporaries and long-time cronies, so they wouldn’t have delayed. It did suggest she was fully caught up already, but then, this was Amma.
“Haven’t heard your side yet. Curiously.” This dry observation was accompanied by that particular ironic eyebrow twitch that Barr knew and loathed so well.
“Is she your boss?” whispered Lily, leaning up to his ear.
“She’s everybody’s boss.”
The corner of Amma’s lip twitched. “And don’t you forget it, boy.” She closed the door firmly—no escape, blight it—and strode to her desk, herding Barr and perforce Lily before her.
She hitched up one haunch on the corner, eyeing Barr. He stiffened and tightened his arm around Lily, whose ground was growing ever more anxious. Stop leaking, Barr. It’s not fair to burden her with your saddlebags. He took a breath and eased his grip, letting his arm fall.
“Sitting on this news for fifteen years, I hear tell?” said Amma blandly.
“Twelve. If you want to be exact. I didn’t know myself until then. I kept a watch after.”
“And what would have become of that little patrol if anything had happened to you?”
“Remo knew. And Dag and Fawn.”
“Remo! Huh. Might have guessed that. So you weren’t riding bare.” Patroller slang for riding without a primed knife; in other words, unprepared. Her eyes grew less threateningly narrow, to Barr’s confusion. She… liked that he’d taken care? Well, and what else but that does Amma do, all day and every day? The recognition made for an odd shifting in his brain from Nags young patrollers; dodge!
“It didn’t seem like a good idea to leave no reserve, no,” said Barr.
Her gaze swung to the tense Lily, and she frowned and gestured. “Oh, pull over a couple of chairs and sit down.”
Barr, still at rigid attention, blinked. “Really?”
“You ain’t a youngster any more. When more’s expected of you, you get more slack.”
Barr tried to work out if that was reassuring or ominous as he followed instructions. Lily perched on the edge of her seat like a bird ready to take flight. Barr grunted as he lowered himself, relieving his still-throbbing leg.
“Yeah, you look about like what Verel said you would today,” murmured Amma, taking in the details of his physical state with much the same unflattering attention as she’d turn on a patrol horse that had pulled up lame.
“I was a thousand miles of tired before I reached Hackberry Corner,” Barr sighed. And then floated t
he question he’d had no chance to ask anyone yet: “How did the farmer-patroller scheme here fare in my absence?”
“It’s still going, I expect you’ll be pleased to know. We have the usual mix of volunteers, boys out for a lark who don’t last, and serious folks who’ve lost kin to malice attacks, who do. It dropped a little drive without you to spur it along. Your stint in Luthlia was supposed to raise your clout.”
He squeezed one eye shut, then the other, without light dawning. “…And then what?”
She shrugged. “As a patrol leader, you’d have had more muscle to run things your way than as a patroller. Or puppeteer, to hear your poor leaders tell it. I’m not so sure what this does to that plan, when it becomes so clear that your motives were more personal. And some folks called you a farmer-lover before this.”
Barr straightened, pricked into anger. “Lily has no bearing on that! If you cast your mind back, you might remember that I was proposing mixing for the Pearl Riffle patrol right after I got back from the trip up the Trace, which was even before I found out about her. Remo and I got behind the farmer-patroller scheme and pushed because we thought it was right, not because I thought it would serve me specially. Well, any more than it serves everyone alive.”
She brushed her finger over her lips and regarded him narrowly. “That so.”
“Yes,” he growled.
Lily tugged his sleeve and looked at him big-eyed, clearly wondering if she dared interrupt this bracing exchange of views with questions.
Barr eased his tone. “Aye, Lily?”
“What are you talking about?”
Amma folded her arms. “This whole scheme for putting farmers on patrol with maker-made groundshields started with Barr. Well, Barr and his friends Dag and Arkady, who’d worked out the first makings. It’s all spread out from Pearl Riffle, since. Not something I ever imagined my camp would be famous for. Or notorious, depending on folks’ feelings for the try-out.”
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