Passage

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Isn’t a narrow boat faster than us?” she asked Dag, peering under the edge of her hand when they were both out on the back deck for a moment. “I’d think he should have pulled ahead. Or stopped somewhere and bought that broke-down horse.”

  “He imagines he’s trailing us just out of groundsense range. Which he is—of his and Remo’s. Though not of mine.”

  “How long d’you think he’ll follow us?”

  “Not much longer. With all his gear we threw into his boat, no one included any food. And I doubt hunting in the rain and dark on shore is likely to offer him much reward, especially without a cook fire.”

  Fawn hadn’t noticed Barr’s lack of supplies in the rush. Dag did. And had said nothing. What was he up to?

  Dag went on, “Rain again tonight, I expect. Perfect.”

  “Perfect for what?”

  “Sober reflection, Spark. Fasting is supposed to be good for meditating on one’s sins.” His dour smile faded a trifle. “Barr’s in trouble and he knows it. He’s getting his first taste of banishment. There are reasons in our grounds that Lakewalkers regard banishment as the next thing to a death sentence. If he’s let his bow-strings get as wet as I think, I give him till tomorrow night, tops.”

  “To do what?”

  “Well, that’ll be somewhat up to him.”

  “I dunno, Dag. If I wanted some particular thing, I don’t think I’d leave it entirely up to Barr.”

  He gave her a reassuring nod. “I’m not planning to, Spark.”

  The narrow boat trailed them disconsolately all the following morning. Around noon, it spurted forward as if in sudden decision. Fawn wondered if this had anything to do with the smell of the baking apple pies wafting in their wake, which Dag had asked for especially for today’s lunch. She and Dag stepped out onto the back deck to lean on the rail and watch as Barr paddled close to the side of the Fetch where Remo held a sweep. Berry and Whit were on roof crew with him, this hour. They all stared down coldly as Barr hailed them. He looked pinched and pale, and nothing like as self-righteous as upon his first arrival.

  Berry glowered over the side. “What are you doin’ back here?”

  Barr jerked his chin. “It’s a free river.”

  Berry shrugged; her frown did not change.

  “Remo,” Barr called plaintively, “what is it you’re planning to do once you get to the blighted sea, anyway?”

  Remo gave his sweep a long pull. “Turn around. Or keep walking, maybe. Depends on how I feel about things by then.”

  Barr winced. “All right. It’s plain you won’t come back with me. I, um, accept that.”

  Remo said nothing.

  Barr took a fortifying breath. “Can I come with you?”

  Remo’s brows flew up. “What?”

  “To the sea. Can I come with you?” Barr stared up in something very like pleading.

  Remo stared down in unflattering astonishment. “Why would I want you? Why would anyone?”

  “I sure don’t,” said Berry.

  “Ma’am.” Barr ducked his head at her. “I could pay my passage. Partway, at least.”

  “I wouldn’t have you on my boat for any money,” said Berry.

  “I could work? Like Remo?”

  “You?” She snorted. “I ain’t seen you lift a hand yet.”

  “You wouldn’t have to pay me…Look, I’m sorry, all right?”

  Dag’s lips twitched; he gave Fawn’s shoulder a squeeze and climbed up onto the Fetch’s roof. Bending his head, he murmured to Berry. She shot him a startled frown, then a slow, respectful look that started at his boots and traveled to his serious face, and said, “I don’t know, patroller. I suppose you can try.”

  He nodded and dropped back down to the rear deck. “Barr, bring your boat alongside. You and I need to have a private talk about some things.”

  He motioned Barr closer. When Barr brought his boat clumping up to the hull, Dag climbed down and lowered himself into it, facing Barr, and shoved them away. Barr stroked slowly backward till they were well out of earshot, then set his paddle across his lap. Only then did Dag lean grimly forward and start talking.

  Fawn scrambled up onto the roof to stand in the line with Remo, Whit, and Berry, watching.

  “What’s Dag doing?” asked Whit, craning his neck.

  “Well,” said Berry, “he said he wanted to talk to the boy, patroller-to-patroller like. And then we’d see what we’d see.”

  Barr waved his hands; Dag’s spine straightened in skepticism. He leaned forward and spoke again, and Barr rocked backward.

  “I think that may be more like company captain to patroller,” Fawn allowed.

  “Was he a—oh, yes, in Raintree,” began Remo. “I suppose the famous Fairbolt Crow wouldn’t have given Dag that command if he hadn’t thought he could handle it.”

  “Fairbolt didn’t just think,” said Fawn. “He knew. Dag’d been a company captain before, when he patrolled up in Luthlia.”

  “Luthlia!” said Remo. “That’s tough country. I met a couple of patrollers from there once, came across our ferry. They scared me.” He eyed Dag in new speculation.

  Barr, perhaps inadvisably, vented some protest. Dag gestured at his hook and spoke more fiercely.

  “Uh-oh,” said Fawn. “If Dag’s bringing up Wolf Ridge, that boy’s in bigger trouble than he can guess.”

  “Wolf Ridge?” said Remo. “The Wolf Ridge? Dag was there?”

  “That’s where the hand went,” said Whit, waving his left. “Torn off by one of them dire wolves that malice made, he says. He doesn’t much talk about it. But he sent the skin to Papa as one of Fawn’s bride-gifts. Big as a horse hide. The twins swore it had to be faked, but Papa and I didn’t think so.”

  Remo’s breath trickled out through pursed lips. “There were only a handful of survivors—wait, company captain at Wolf Ridge?”

  “Yeah, which is why he don’t care to talk about it,” said Fawn, “so don’t you let on I told you. It gave him an aversion to captaining. Despite beating that malice.”

  “Absent gods,” said Remo. He watched the pair in the narrow boat. Dag was saying more. Barr was saying much less. By the time Dag’s hand clenched in a venomous fist—for some emphasis rather than threat, Fawn judged—Barr had shrunk to half his former size. Crouching in his seat, really, but the effect from this angle of view was pretty startling. And if Barr backed up any more, he risked falling off the stern.

  Barr’s lips had stopped moving altogether. It was just head bobs, now, or sometimes head shakes. At length, Dag sat back. Barr straightened his slumped shoulders, picked up his paddle, and aimed his narrow boat back toward the Fetch. As they pulled alongside again, Dag sat with his hand on his knee, waiting. Barr looked up and cleared his throat.

  “Miss Clearcreek—Boss Berry, that is,” Barr corrected himself as her frown deepened. “First off, I apologize for what I tried with you the other morning. What I was trying, see, I was trying to put a persuasion in your ground to get you mad at Remo so’s you’d fire him and he’d have to come back with me. That was wrong. I also didn’t quite have a strong enough—” he caught Dag’s rising brows, and finished hastily, “I was just plain wrong, is all.”

  He drew a long breath and continued, “And I apologize to you, Remo. First for what I tried with Boss Berry, which was as much out of line to you as to her, and also for getting taken in by that flattie girl up in Pearl Bend even though you told me better, and for flirting with her in the first place, and for getting your great-grandmama’s knife broke when you came in after me in the fight, and for that stupid joke with the pots that started it all, which I guess I’m still going to be apologizing for when my hair turns gray. Which is going to be next week at this rate, but anyway. I’m really, really sorry.” He looked up. He looked, Fawn thought, ready to cry. Gods, Dag, you don’t do things by halves, do you. But I knew that…

  Remo’s mouth was hanging open. “Oh,” he said.

  “And I apologize to everyone on bo
ard the Fetch,” Barr concluded valiantly, “for being a walking, talking blight on you for the past few days.”

  Dag’s deep voice broke in. “Here’s the offer. I’ll stand good for Barr, Boss Berry, if you’ll let him back aboard your boat to work his passage. In return, Barr will place himself under my discipline as his patrol leader. Barr, if you agree, you can come back on board. If not, you’re on your own.”

  Barr stared around the wide, flat, empty riverscape, gulped, and murmured, “I agree, sir.” He looked up. “I agree, ma’am.”

  Berry leaned over, skeptically sucking her lip. “You understand, patroller boy, you’re here on Dag’s word. He’s earned my respect, which you have not, and it’s his wallet you’ll be drawin’ on. I don’t know how you plan to pay that debt; that’s between you and him. But I don’t have to put up with you, and if you give me one lick more trouble, I won’t. Clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She glanced at Dag, who nodded. “All right, then. You can come on my boat.”

  Dag climbed back over the rail, and Barr once more handed up his gear; he and Remo manhandled the narrow boat across the rear deck and tied it down. At lunch, which came up shortly, Barr ate hesitantly, though he left nothing to wash off his plate. Which was his gain, because his first assignment was scullery duty with Hod, which he fulfilled almost wordlessly. It was equally quiet up on the roof when he did his first stint on the oars with Dag and Bo. At dinner he was slightly less ghostlike, actually exchanging three or four unexceptionable remarks besides requests to pass the salt or cornbread.

  Cuddling down with Dag that night, Fawn whispered, “What in the world did you say to Barr out in that boat today? I’ve seen frogs run over by a cart wheel that weren’t squashed that flat.”

  “Well, I think that’d better be between me and him, Spark. But don’t fret too much. Barr’s resilient. You have to calibrate, see. A reprimand that would have poor Remo trying to fall on his knife is just about enough to ruffle Barr’s hair.”

  “Did you, um, persuade him?”

  “Didn’t need to. He was ready. Reminds me of how you train a Raintree mule. First you whack him between the ears with a fence post, hard as you can. This gets his attention. Then you can start in.”

  “That works on patrollers, as well as mules?”

  “Or on patrollers who are like mules. You have to give Barr credit for that two hundred—or three hundred—miles he hung on after his partner, despite all. That boy’s wrong-headed in a lot of ways, but you can’t accuse him of giving up easy.”

  “How’d you learn to handle mule-headed patrollers, anyhow?”

  His lips twitched against her brow in the dark. “Studied my own patrol leaders, as a youngster. Up really close.”

  “That would be, like, face-to-face close?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Her dimpled grin brushed his collarbone. “Mule-man. Why am I not surprised? Though I’d have guessed you more for a young Remo.”

  “Remo and Barr each have their moments that throw me back in memory. Between the pair of ’em, they put me in a real humble frame of mind toward my old patrol teachers, I will say.”

  During the next day, Barr settled in to be a pretty good crewman, as far as Fawn could judge. Topside, both his muscle and his groundsense proved useful, and adding the extra man to the rotation gave everyone a bit more ease, with the possible exception of the cook. Only Hod resented the reductions of his turns on the sweeps, but he was much consoled when Barr was assigned to dishwashing duty in his place one meal out of three. The good fellowship on the Fetch slowly began to recover from the setbacks Barr had brought.

  Berry put in at a largish rivertown, too briefly for Bo to wander away and find a tavern, just long enough to learn of another sighting here of her papa’s boat last fall. The news left her frowning thoughtfully and counting out the river miles still left till the junction of the Grace and the Gray; the Fetch was better than two thirds of the way from Tripoint to the Confluence. Not exactly running out of either river or possibilities, but as the distance shortened, Fawn thought she could feel Berry’s tension grow.

  Dag begged one short stop at another Lakewalker ferry camp, though Remo stayed aboard and Barr with him. Dag came back soon, shaking his head. “Too small, these camps strung along here. I’d likely do better to wait for Confluence Camp, which is the biggest in these parts. Better chance there.”

  Fawn had thought the Grace a big river at Pearl Riffle, but she began to see she’d been naive. It was a lot wider now, and not just because of the rains and the rise. It was also starting to be more bendy, turning in large loops that added river miles without getting them westward much and utterly confusing Fawn’s sense of direction, especially under the thickly overcast skies. But toward the afternoon of the next day, the scudding clouds broke up and genuine sunlight broke through once more. When the chill wind also died, Fawn climbed up to the roof to sit at Berry’s feet and watch the passing scene. The shores turned a sharper gray and a richer brown, glowing soberly, and the water shone a dark, metallic blue.

  As the sun’s light grew level and the shadows stretched, they rounded a tight bend to find a familiar keelboat drawn up to a high place along the bank. Smoke rose from cook fires, with the boat’s crew lazing around them. When they saw the Fetch, some rose and waved, and Boss Wain actually ran out to the back of the Snapping Turtle to cup his hands and hail them.

  “Hey, Boss Berry! How’s about a mutton dinner in exchange for a tune or three?”

  Berry grinned and bent her head to Fawn. “What do you say? Would the cook like a night off?”

  Fawn looked dubiously at the rowdy keelers, now adding whooping welcomes to that of their boss. “I don’t know. Is it safe?” Berry had always been with her papa and big brother before, keeping an eye out for her.

  “Oh, aye. Wain’s a loud lout, but he’ll keep the line if you do. Not that he won’t push his luck, mind. Doubt he’ll bother you, though—I mean, you have Dag.”

  Dag indeed. And Whit, Remo, Hod, Bo, and she supposed Barr, and Hawthorn for the cheering on. Fawn decided to be brave, like Berry. “All right. Sure.”

  Berry waved back. “You got yourselves a fiddler, boys!” She leaned on her steering oar to bring the Fetch to shore just above where the Snapping Turtle was moored. Keelers ran out to help tie their lines to the trees.

  “What, more Lakewalkers?” Boss Wain cried as they all trooped up to his fires. “What are you doing, Berry, collecting ’em?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” she replied, swinging her fiddle-bag. “This here’s Remo and Barr; Dag you know.”

  Wain tugged on the brim of his hat in uneasy, respectful acknowledgment of Dag, and promptly begged his attention for a crewman with a hurt foot, if he’d a mind. Dag returned a nod, eyelids lowering and lifting. Nobody brought up the sand bar; maybe Wain was trying to make amends, in which case Berry seemed willing to let him.

  “What’s this, Wain, stealing sheep again?” asked Bo, with a nod at the nearest cook fire, where two crewmen were turning a browning carcass on a makeshift spit. Dripping fat made the fire lick up in smoky, orange spurts, and sent a rich aroma into the cool air. Fawn’s mouth watered, and Whit licked his lips.

  Wain stuck his thumbs in his braces and puffed out his considerable chest. “I’ll have you know that farmer gave us this here mutton.” His wave took in not only the roasting carcasses, but three more worried-looking live sheep tied to the trees beyond the camp.

  His brawny lieutenant put in, “Yeah, he told us to take them as a present. He begged so pitiful, we finally gave in.”

  “That I just plain don’t believe,” said Berry.

  “It’s true as I stand!” Wain cried in indignation. A sneaky grin stretched his mouth. “See, we passed this sheep pasture up the river a ways, and the boys allowed as how fresh mutton for dinner would go down good, but the farmer likely wouldn’t give us a fair price. And I said, no, I wouldn’t allow no sheep-stealing, a riverman should
be above that, but I bet Saddler here a barrel of beer I could get us them there sheep for free, and he said, No, you can’t, which was as good as a red rag to a bull, you know me.”

  Berry nodded, though her blond brows had a skeptical lift to them, which only seemed to encourage the other boat boss.

  “So we tied up the Turtle, and me and a couple of the boys snuck up on some of those sheep—that was a job, let me tell you, sliding around that muddy pasture—and chucked a good slug of Graymouth pepper sauce in the mouths of the six slowest.”

  “Or tamest,” Fawn muttered, suddenly not liking where this tale was going. She edged closer under Dag’s arm.

  “You should’ve seen those sheep run around then, shaking their heads and drooling all orange at the mouth!”

  Wain’s lieutenant, Saddler, wheezed with laughter and took up the tale. “Then Boss Wain, see, goes up to the farmer’s barn and calls him out, and tells him there’s something wrong with his sheep—that they’ve taken the Graymouth murrain, horrible contagious. The fellow was practically shakin’ in his boots by the time Wain got done tellin’ him how he seen it wipe out a whole flock in a week, down on the lower Gray. And the farmer asked, what’s to be done? and Wain says, There’s no cure and nothing for it but to cull the sick ones, quick, and maybe bury the carcasses in lime, miles away from the others. And this fellow was practically crying for his sheep, so when Wain suggested he’d take away the sick ones and dispose of ’em for him, the farmer was most pitifully grateful. Which we did do, and here we are.”

  “And you owe me the next barrel!” Wain said, slapping him on the back in high good humor.

  “That I do,” coughed Saddler. “But it was worth it, to see the thankful look on that farmer fellow’s face when we carted off his poor sick sheep. And you have to admit, Wain spoke true—they didn’t live the day!”