THE
SHARING KNIFE
Volume Two
LEGACY
Lois McMaster Bujold
Contents
Maps
1
Dag had been married for a whole two hours, and…
2
The bridge the young man guarded was crudely cut timber…
3
Fawn turned in her saddle to look as they passed…
4
Beyond the clearing with the two tent-cabins, the gray of…
5
Bag left on a mumbled errand soon after it was light…
6
Dag returned from the medicine tent reluctant to speak of…
7
They turned left onto the shady road between the shore…
8
They were making ready to lie down in their bedroll…
9
It was midnight before Dag returned to Tent Bluefield. Fawn…
10
Three days gone, Fawn thought. Today would begin the fourth…
11
Another night attack—without the aid of groundsense this time.
12
Dag knew they were approaching Bonemarsh again by the growing…
13
Dag woke well after dark, to roll his aching body…
14
By sunset, Fawn guessed she had covered about twenty-five miles…
15
He had floated in an increasingly timeless gray fog, all…
16
For the next couple of days Dag seemed willing to…
17
Some six days after striking the north road, the little…
18
Fawn woke late the next morning, she judged by the…
19
Fawn let out her breath as Dag settled again beside…
About the Author
Other Books by Lois McMaster Bujold
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Maps
1
D ag had been married for a whole two hours, and was still light-headed with wonder. The weighted ends of the wedding cord coiling around his upper arm danced in time with the lazy trot of his horse. Riding by his side, Fawn—my new bride, now there was a phrase to set a man’s mind melting—met his smile with happy eyes.
My farmer bride. It should have been impossible. There would be trouble about that, later.
Trouble yesterday, trouble tomorrow. But no trouble now. Now, in the light of the loveliest summer afternoon he ever did see, was only a boundless contentment.
Once the first half dozen miles were behind them, Dag found both his and Fawn’s urgency to be gone from the wedding party easing. They passed through the last village on the northern river road, after which the wagon way became more of a two-rut track, and the remaining farms grew farther apart, with more woods between them. He let a few more miles pass, till he was sure they were out of range of any potential retribution or practical jokers, then began keeping an eye out for a spot to make camp. If a Lakewalker patroller with this much woods to choose from couldn’t hide from farmers, something was wrong. Secluded, he decided, was a better watchword still.
At length, he led Fawn down to the river at a rocky ford, then upstream for a time till they came to where a clear creek, gurgling down from the eastern ridge, joined the flow. He turned Copperhead up it for a good quarter mile till he found a pretty glade, all mossy by the stream and surrounded by tall trees and plenty of them; and, his groundsense guaranteed, no other person for a mile in any direction. Of necessity, he had to let Fawn unsaddle the horses and set up the site. It was a simple enough task, merely laying out their bedrolls and making just enough of a fire to boil water for tea. Still, she cast an observant eye at him as he lay with his back against a broad beech bole and plucked irritably at the sling supporting his right arm with the hook replacing his left hand.
“You have a job,” she told him encouragingly. “You’re on guard against the mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, and blackflies.”
“And squirrels,” he added hopefully.
“We’ll get to them.”
Food did not have to be caught or skinned or cooked, just unwrapped and eaten till they couldn’t hold any more, although Fawn tried his limits. Dag wondered if this new mania for feeding him was a Bluefield custom no one had mentioned, or just a lingering effect of the excitement of the day, as she tried to find her way into her farmwifely tasks without, actually, a farm in which to set them. But when he compared this to many a cold, wet, hungry, lonely, exhausted night on some of the more dire patrols in his memory, he thought perhaps he’d wandered by strange accident into some paradise out of a song, and bears would come out tonight to dance around their fire in celebration.
He looked up to find Fawn inching nearer, without, for a change, provender in her hands. “It’s not dark yet,” she sighed.
He cast her a slow blink, to tease. “And dark is needed for what?”
“Bedtime!”
“Well, I admit it’s a help for sleeping. Are you that sleepy? It’s been a tiring day. We could just roll over and…”
She caught on, and poked him in reproof. “Ha! Are you sleepy?”
“No chance.” Despite the sling he managed a pounce that drew her into his lap. The prey did not precisely struggle, though it did wriggle enchantingly. Once she was within kissing range, they found occupation for a little. But then she grew grave and sat up to touch the cord wrapping her left wrist.
“How odd that this all should feel harder, now.”
He kissed her hair beneath his chin. “There’s a weight of expectation that wasn’t there before, I suppose. I didn’t…” He hesitated.
“Hm?”
“I rode into West Blue, onto your family’s farm, last week thinking…I don’t know. That I would be a clever Lakewalker persuader and get my way. I expected to change their lives. I didn’t expect them to change my life right back. I didn’t used to be Fawn’s patroller, still less Fawn’s husband, but now I am. That’s a ground transformation, in case you didn’t realize. It doesn’t just happen in the cords. It happens in our deep selves.” He gave a nod toward his left sleeve hiding the loop binding his own arm. “Maybe the hard feeling is just shyness for the two new people we’ve become.”
“Hm.” She settled down, briefly reassured. But then sat up again, biting her lip the way she did when about to tackle some difficult subject, usually head-on. “Dag. About my ground.”
“I love your ground.”
Her lips twitched in a smile, but then returned to seriousness. “It’s been over four weeks since…since the malice. I’m healing up pretty good inside, I think.”
“I think so, too.”
“Do you suppose we could…I mean, tonight because…we haven’t ever yet…not that I’m complaining, mind you. Erm. That pattern in their ground you said women get when they can have babies. Do I have it tonight?”
“Not yet. I don’t think it’ll be much longer till your body’s back to its usual phases, though.”
“So we could. I mean. Do it in the usual way. Tonight.”
“Tonight, Spark, we can do it any way you want. Within the range of the physically possible, that is,” he added prudently.
She snickered. “I do wonder how you learned all those tricks.”
“Well, not all at once, absent gods forfend. You pick up this and that over the years. I suspect people everywhere keep reinventing all the basics. There’s only so much you can do with a body. Successfully and comfortably, that is. Leaving aside stunts.”
“Stunts?” she said curiously.
“We’re leaving them aside,” he sa
id definitely. “One broken arm is enough.”
“One too many, I think.” Her brows drew down in new worry. “Um. I was envisioning you up on your elbows, but really, I think maybe not. It doesn’t exactly sound comfortable, and I wouldn’t want you to hurt your arm and have to start healing all over, and besides, if you slipped, you really would squash me like a bug.”
It took him a moment to puzzle out her concern. “Ah, not a problem. We just switch sides, top to bottom. If you can ride a horse, which I note you do quite well, you can ride me. And you can squash me all you want.”
She thought this through. “I’m not sure I can do this right.”
“If you do something really wrong, I promise I’ll scream in pain and let you know.”
She grinned, if with a slight tinge of dismay.
Kissing blended into undressing, and again, to his mixed regret and entertainment, Fawn had to do most of the work. He thought she was much too brisk and businesslike in getting her own clothes off, although the view when she finished was splendid. The setting sun reached fingers of golden light into the glade that caressed her body as she flickered in and out of the leaf shadows; she might well have been one of those legendary female spirits who were supposed to step out of trees and beguile the unwary traveler. The way her sweet breasts moved not quite in time with the rest of her was fair riveting to his eye, too. She folded up his astonishing wedding shirt with fully the care he would have wished, tucking it away. He lay back on his bedroll and let her pull off his trousers and drawers with all her considerable determination. She folded them up too, and came and sat, no, plunked, again beside him. The after-wobble was delightful.
“Arm harness. On or off?”
“Hm. Off, I think. Don’t want to risk jabbing you in a distracted moment.” The disquieting memory of her bleeding fingers weaving her wedding cord flitted through his mind, and he became conscious again of it wound around his upper arm, and the tiny hum of its live ground. Her live ground.
With practiced hands, she whisked the hook harness away onto the top of the clothes pile, and he marveled anew at how easy it was all becoming with her.
Except for, blight it all again, having no working hand. The sling had gone west just before the shirt, and he shifted his right arm and attempted to wriggle his fingers. Ouch. No. Not enough useful motion there yet. Inside his splints and wrappings, his skin, damp from the sweat of the warm day, was itching. He couldn’t touch. All right, there was a certain amount he could do with his tongue—especially right now, as she returned and nuzzled up to him—but getting it to the right place at the right time was going to be an insurmountable challenge, in this position.
She withdrew her lips from his and began working her way down his body. It was lovely but almost redundant; it had been well over a week, after all, and…It used to be years, and I scarcely blinked. He tried to relax and let himself be made love to. Relaxation wasn’t exactly what was happening. His hips twitched as Fawn’s full attention arrived at his nether regions. She swung her leg over, turned to face him, reached down, and began to try to position herself. Stopped.
“Urk?” he inquired politely. Some such noise, anyway.
Her face was a little pinched. “This should be working better.”
“Oil?” he croaked.
“I shouldn’t need oil for this, should I?”
Not if I had a hand to ready you nicely. “Hang should, do what works. You shouldn’t have that uncomfortable look on your face, either.”
“Hm.” She extracted herself, padded over to his saddlebags, and rummaged within. Good view from the back, too, as she bent over…A mutter of mild triumph, “Ah.” She padded back, pausing to frown and rub the sole of one bare foot on her other shin after stepping on a pebble. Was this a time to stop for pebbles…?
Back she came, sliding over him. Small hands slicked him, which made him jolt. He did not allow himself to plunge upward. Let her find her way in her own time. She attempted to do so.
She was getting a very determined look again. “Maidenheads don’t regrow, do they…?”
“Shouldn’t think so.”
“I didn’t think it was supposed to hurt the second time.”
“Probably just unaccustomed muscles. Not in condition. Need more exercise.” It was driving him just short of mad to have no hands to grasp her hips and guide her home.
She blinked, taking in this thought. “Is that true, or more of your slick patroller persuasion?”
“Can’t it be both?”
She grinned, shifted her angle, then looked brighter, and said, “Ah! There we go.”
Indeed, we do. He gasped, as she slid slowly and very, very tightly down upon him. “Yes…that’s…very…nice.”
She muttered, “They get whole babies through these parts. Surely it’s supposed to stretch more.”
“Time. Give it.” Blight it, at this point in the usual proceedings, she would be the one who couldn’t form words anymore. They were out of rhythm tonight. He was losing his wits, and she was getting chatty. “Fine now.”
Her brows drew down in puzzlement. “Should this be like taking turns, or not?”
“Uhthink…” He swallowed to find speech. “Hope it’s good for you. Suspect it’s better for me. ’S exquisite for me right now.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then.” She sat for a moment, adjusting. It would likely not be a good idea at this point to screech and convulse and beg for motion; that would just alarm her. He didn’t want her alarmed. She might jump up and run off, which would be tragic. He wanted her relaxed and confident and…there, she was starting to smile again. She observed, “You have a funny look on your face.”
“I’ll bet.”
Her smile widened. Too gently and tentatively, she at last began to move. Absent gods be praised. “After all,” she said, continuing a line of thought of which he had long lost track, “Mama had twins, and she isn’t that much taller than me. Though Aunt Nattie said she was pretty alarmin’ toward the end.”
“What?” said Dag, confused.
“Twins. Run in Mama’s side of the family. Which made it really unfair of her to blame Papa, Aunt Nattie said, but I guess she wasn’t too reasonable by then.”
Which remark, of course, immediately made his reeling mind jump to the previously unimagined idea of Spark bearing twins, his, which made his eyes cross. Further. He really hadn’t even wrapped his mind around the notion of their having one child, yet. Considering just what you’re doing right now, perhaps you should, old patroller.
Whatever this peculiar digression did to him—his spine felt like an overdrawn bow with its string about to snap—it seemed to relax Fawn. Her eyes darkening, she commenced to rock with more assurance. Her ground, blocked earlier by the discomfort and uncertainty, began to flow again. Finally. But he wasn’t going to last much longer at this rate. He let his hips start to keep time with hers.
“If I only had a working hand to get down there, we would share this turn…” His fingers twitched in frustration.
“Another good reason to leave it be to heal faster,” she gasped. “Put that poor busted arm back on the blanket.”
“Ngh!” He wanted to touch her so much. Groundwork? A mosquito’s worth was not likely to be enough. Left-handed groundwork? He remembered the glass bowl, sliding and swirling back together. That had been no mere mosquito. Would she find it perverse, frightening, horrifying, to be touched so? Could he even…? This was her wedding night. She must not recall it with disappointment. He laid his left arm down across his belly, pointed at their juncture. Consider it a strengthening exercise for the ghost hand. Beats scraping hides all hollow, doesn’t it? Just…there.
“Oh!” Her eyes shot wide, and she leaned forward to stare into his face. “What did you just do?”
“Experiment,” he gritted out. Surely his eyes were as wide and wild as hers. “Think the broken right has been doing something to stir up my left ground. Like, not like?”
“Not sure. More…?
”
“Oh, yeah…”
“Oh. Yeah. That’s…”
“Good?”
Her only reply was a wordless huff. And a rocking that grew frantic, then froze. Which was fine because now he did drive up, as that bowstring snapped at last, and everything unwound in white fire.
He didn’t think he’d passed out, but he seemed to come to with her draped across his chest wheezing and laughing wildly. “Dag! That was, that was…could you do that all along? Were you just saving it for a wedding present, or what?”
“I have no idea,” he confessed. “Never done anything like that before. I’m not even sure what I did do.”
“Well, it was quite…quite nice.” She sat up and pushed back her hair to deliver this in a judicious tone, but then dissolved into helpless laughter again.
“I’m dizzy. Feel like I’m about to fall down.”
“You are lying down.”
“Very fortunate.”
She tumbled down into the cradle of his left arm and snuggled in for a wordless time. Dag didn’t quite nap, but he wouldn’t have called it being awake, either. Bludgeoned, perhaps. Eventually, she roused herself enough to get them cleaned up and dressed in clothes to sleep in, because the blue twilight shadows were cooling as night slid in, seeping through the woods from the east. By the time she cuddled down again beside him, under the blanket this time, he was fully awake, staring up through the leaves at the first stars.
Her slim little fingers traced the furrows above his brows. “Are you all right? I’m all right.”
He managed a smile and kissed the fingers in passing. “I admit, I’ve unsettled myself a bit. You know how shaken I was after that episode with the glass bowl.”
“Oh, you haven’t made yourself sick again with this, have you?”
The Sharing Knife 2 - Legacy Page 1