Passage

by Lois McMaster Bujold

Two flatboats at the far end of the row must have lain here since last fall, for the ice had opened their seams and buckled their boards, and what caulking hadn’t given way in the winter cold had rotted out in the summer heat. They sat low in the water, weathered and ghostly, and even Fawn’s eye could pick out the Rose, second from the last, because it was the exact same design as the Fetch.

  Berry made her way across a sagging gray board and lowered herself carefully to the decaying deck; Fawn and Whit followed. With a creaking of rusted hinges, Berry pulled open the front hatch and peered into the shadows within. She wrinkled her nose, hiked up her skirts, and stepped down into the cold water. Fawn, deciding her shoes could get no wetter, did the same. Whit saved his trousers and waited in the hatch, watching Berry in worry.

  Most of the fittings had been removed, including the glass windows in the gaping frames toward the back of the cabin. Blue daylight filtered through, reflecting off the water to give a drowned glow to the space. A lot of warped barrel staves were still left, half-floating, slowly rotting. Some kegs might once have held salt butter or lard; Fawn wasn’t sure if they’d been broken open by humans or a passing bear. Wildlife had been in here, certainly. Berry waded right through water to her knees, back and forth; twice, she reached down and pulled up unidentifiable trash. It took Fawn a few minutes to realize she was looking for bodies—or skeletons maybe, by this time—and was immeasurably relieved when none were found. Berry climbed up briefly through the kitchen hatch to peer around the back deck, then, still in that same silence, made her way to the bow and onto shore where Saddler waited.

  “Anything left?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s good for nothing but firewood, now. Half of it’s too waterlogged even for that.”

  He nodded, unsurprised. “Wain says you’re to have a share from the cave. Plan is, we mean to fix up what boats here will still float, and take the goods we found piled up down to the Confluence.”

  “You’ll see that Cap Cutter gets word of his lost boats and men? I expect you’ll catch up with him about there.”

  Would Boss Cutter be wounded in his male pride to learn that the lowly Fetch had destroyed the river bandits, when all the Tripoint Steel’s bristling bravado had missed the mark? No, more likely by the time the tale was carried downriver by the keelers, boastful Boss Wain would feature as its hero. Well, Berry would not begrudge it to him.

  “Cutter from Tripoint? Aye, we know the fellow. Will do.” Saddler ducked his head. “What don’t get claimed by the old owners’ kin will be sold. Together with our salvage shares, it’s going to add up to quite a bit.”

  “I don’t want no share of this,” said Berry.

  “More for us, but that ain’t right, Boss Berry. I expect Wain’ll have a word or two about that.”

  “Wain can have as many words as he wants. They’re free on the river.” She scraped strands of pale hair out of her eyes.

  Saddler shrugged, dropping the debate for the moment. “There’s a couple other flats up the row we got more than one guess on. I’d be grateful if you’d take a look at ’em. Settle an argument, maybe.”

  She nodded and let herself be drawn off.

  Whit stood on the muddy bank, looking from Berry’s straight, retreating back to the rotting hulk of the Rose. He ran a harried hand through his hair, and said to Fawn, “I had one shoulder for if her betrothed was dead, and another for if he was run off with another gal. But I got no shoulder for this. And she’s not cryin’ anyhow. I dreamed of cutting out Alder, but not this way! What’ll I do, Fawn? I want to hold her, but I don’t dare!”

  “It’s too soon, Whit. I don’t think she could stand having her hurts touched yet.”

  “But I’m afraid that soon it’ll be too late!”

  Fawn considered this. “Dag once told me that Lakewalkers wear their hair knotted for a year for their losses, and it’s not too long a time. She’s just been hit with a lot of losses. Her papa, Buckthorn—Alder, too. Alder’s the worst of all, because she’s lost and found and lost him twice.”

  “She don’t cry at all.”

  “Maybe she’s like Hawthorn, and goes off in the woods to cry private. You do wonder…what sort of life a girl must have had to spurn comfort even in the worst pain, as if needing help was a weakness. Maybe she figured if only she was strong enough, she could save everything. But it doesn’t work that way.” She frowned and went on, “After the Glassforge malice, Dag comforted me, but he had some pretty deep experience to draw on, I reckon.”

  “I ain’t got no deep experience,” Whit said, a little desperately.

  “I’d say you’re getting some now. Pay attention.”

  He rubbed the back of his wrist across his nose. “Fawn…I grant that malice roughed you up and scared you silly, but it wasn’t as complicated as this.”

  She took two long breaths, and finally said: “Whit…when it caught me, the Glassforge malice ground-ripped the ten-weeks child I was carryin’ in my womb. When I miscarried of it, I almost bled to death. Dag saved my life that night, taking care of me. Nothing could save my baby by then.”

  Hit on the head with a fence post about summed up the look on Whit’s face. Well, she’d certainly got his attention. “Huh…?” he breathed. “You never said…”

  “Why did you think I ran away from home?” she asked impatiently.

  “But who was the—wait, no, not Dag, couldn’t have been—”

  Fawn tossed her head. “No, the papa was a West Blue boy, and it doesn’t matter now who, except that he made it real plain he wanted no parts of his doin’. So I walked on down that road by myself.” She drew air through her nose, and went on, “Where I met Dag, so it came out all right in the end, but it wasn’t—ever—simple.”

  “You never said,” he repeated faintly.

  “Silence doesn’t mean you’re not grieving. I didn’t want my hurts rummaged in, either. Or to have to listen to a lot of stupid jokes about it. Or otherwise be plagued to death by my family.”

  “I wouldn’t have made…” He hesitated.

  “For Berry, you just be there, Whit. Be the one person in the wide green world she doesn’t have to explain it to, because you were there and saw it all for yourself. Hand her a clean cloth if she cries or bleeds, and some warm thing for the pain that doubles her over. The time to hold her will come. This day isn’t over yet.”

  “Oh,” said Whit. Quietly, he followed her up the riverbank to rejoin Saddler and Berry.

  22

  Flanked by Remo, Dag exited the cave and dragged his hand over his numb face. The groundwork on the Silver Shoals fellow’s cut neck was holding, and Chicory had opened his eyes a while ago, swallowed a mouthful of water, complained that his head hurt like fire, and pissed in a pot—all good signs—then fallen back into something more resembling sleep than blackout. In the meanwhile, however, one of the flatboat men—not the papa or his son, thankfully—had died unexpectedly when a deep knife cut his friends had thought was stanched had opened again beneath his bandages and blood had filled his lungs.

  If I had been here, I might have saved him. But if Dag had been here, he wouldn’t have been at the Fetch, and others would surely have perished. If I were ten thousand men, everywhere at once, I could save the world all by myself, yeah. Dag shook his aching head, grateful to Fawn for sneaking him those extra hours of sleep, because that last blow, atop his fatigue, might well have shattered him else. He had an old, deep aversion to losing those who followed him in trust. They weren’t following you. They were following Wain and Chicory. Dag considered the argument dubiously, for who had aimed Wain and Chicory, after all? But it was bandage enough on his brain for now.

  It was a bright though chilly noon; if he looked out into the distance, he could take it for a peaceful early winter day on the river, which glimmered beyond the fantail of scree that swept down from the cave to the shore. As long as he kept his eyes to the silvery-gray tree branches, and didn’t let them drop to take in the mob of men scattered b
elow. Some cook fires had been started along the edge of the woods, with men moving around to tend to them. Other men slept in bedrolls, or lay injured. Or tied up. Dag’s squint at the latter was interrupted by Barr, hurrying up to him and Remo.

  “Dag, you better come over here.”

  Another man gravely hurt? Dag let himself be dragged down the slope, stones turning under his boots. “Why haven’t they hanged those fellows yet? I confess, I was hoping that part would all be over by the time we got here.”

  “Well, there’s a problem with that,” said Barr.

  “Not enough rope? Not enough trees?” Berry had rope in her stores, he thought. Although if they had to lend it to hang Alder, it might be best not to tell her.

  “No, there’s—just listen.”

  “I always listen.”

  A circle of men sat on logs and stumps at the edge of the scree, near the line of moored boats. Wain was there, and Bearbait, and the other three boat bosses: Greenup from the big Oleana flatboat, who looked not much older than Remo; Slate from the Silver Shoals keel, a muscular man of an age with Wain; and the one named Fallowfield, the fatherly flattie from south Raintree. They seemed variously confused, worried, or angry, but all looked mortally tired after being up all night for the brutal fight. Followed by the uncovering of the cave’s full history of horrors in whatever confessions they’d collected from the bandits, possibly in even more gruesome detail than what Dag had obtained from Skink, Alder, and Crane. Crane himself now lay in his blankets over on the opposite side of the scree, shadowed by the leafless scrub, walked wide around by the nervous boatmen. Whatever the debate was, it had apparently been going on for a while.

  “There he is,” said Slate.

  An unsettling greeting. Dag nodded around the circle. “Fellows.” He didn’t add anything hazardously polite like What can I do for you? He squatted to avoid looming, and after an uncertain glance at each other, Barr and Remo copied him.

  Wain, never loath to take the lead, spoke first. “There’s a problem come up with the bandits and this Lakewalker of theirs.”

  Dag said cautiously, “We agreed that the farmers would look to the farmers, and the Lakewalkers to the Lakewalker. Luckily, we caught Crane early this morning while he was trying to get to Alder on the Fetch.”

  Gesturing at Barr, Bearbait said, “Yeah, your boy here told us that tale. I hear you got Big and Little Drum, too. Good so far, aye.”

  “Thing is,” Wain continued, “some of these here bandits are claiming they shouldn’t ought to be hanged, because they couldn’t help what they did. That they were forced to it by Crane’s sorcery.”

  Boss Fallowfield put in, “Yeah, and once one of ’em claimed it, they all took up that chorus.”

  “What a surprise,” muttered Barr.

  Dag ran his hand through his hair. “And you entertained that argument for more ’n five seconds?”

  Bearbait frowned. “Are you saying they aren’t none of ’em beguiled and mind-fogged? Because some of ’em seem more than a bit that way to me.”

  And Bearbait would have seen the real thing, in the Raintree malice war last summer. Dag bit his lip. “Some are, some aren’t. Skink was beguiled, as you know.” Nods from all who had helped interrogate Skink when they’d been planning the attack yesterday, which was everyone but the late arrival Slate. Dag added, “Have you all heard anything yet about that cruel recruiting game of Brewer’s and Crane’s?”

  “Oh, aye,” said Wain. Troubled nods all around seconded this, although some didn’t seem as troubled as others. It occurred to Dag that the game was a bit like the rougher keeler tavern duels, in a way. And yet…not.

  “I don’t believe there was any of what you call sorcery involved with that—it worked for Brewer just the same, remember,” Dag pointed out.

  “Besides, some men were here before Crane ever arrived. And some drifted in on their own—the Drum brothers, for instance.”

  Bearbait squinted at Dag. “Could you pick out which of them bandits over there was beguiled and which was lying?” He nodded toward the prisoners amongst the trees opposite.

  Dag said carefully, “Do you think it should make a difference in their fates, when all of them are red to the elbows pretty much the same?”

  “You’re surely not thinking of letting any of these murdering thieves go?” said Remo in a voice of indignation. “After all the trouble we went to catching them!”

  Greenup grimaced. “At least one was begging to be hanged to end it.” Dag wasn’t sure what the grimace meant. Did the young boat boss prefer his bandits to be stoical? Granted, hangings were much less embarrassing that way.

  Bearbait dug in the ground with the stick in his hand, then looked across at Dag. “See, the way it was, I saw folks the malice had mind-slaved up in Raintree. When the spell was broken—or outrun, anyways—they would come back to themselves. Their true selves.”

  “With their memories intact,” Dag murmured.

  “That was a mixed blessing, true,” sighed Bearbait.

  Dag picked through his next words very carefully. “What Crane did was very different from a malice’s compulsion.” Was it? “In power, if nothing else. It’s like comparing a pebble to a landslide.”

  Boss Fallowfield scratched his graying head. “Landslides’re made of pebbles. So—are you actually saying it is the same?”

  Dag shrugged. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever been caught in a landslide.” He must not be drawn into being made judge of these men, selecting some to live and some to die. But if he was the only one with knowledge enough to make the judgment…“Look.” He leaned forward on his hook, gestured with his hand. “All here are either survivors of the game, or helped run it. They all had another choice once—and there are a lot of bodies up in that ravine or down in the river bottom to prove it was possible for some men to choose otherwise. I don’t think any here were so beguiled that they couldn’t have escaped, or at least tried. In fact, that’s why Crane was away from the cave last night—because he was hunting down two fellows who’d chosen to walk away from the horrors. Grant you, they didn’t make it.”

  Dag paused to contemplate the unpleasant ambiguity of that. Yet it would surely be a huge injustice to those who’d died resisting this evil to let these laggards go free. Most were ruined men by now, schooled in arcane cruelties; it would be madness to unleash them on the world. The rivermen had no way to hold them as prisoners. Such was his opinion. But it shouldn’t be my judgment.

  “If you’re going to hang them all the same, it’s pointless for me—or Barr or Remo”—Dag hastily stopped up that possible gap—“to pick out one from another. And if you’re not—it means farmers aren’t judging farmers anymore. Lakewalkers are. You’d just have to take our word blind, because you’d have no way of checking it yourselves. I don’t think that’s such a good idea, in the long run. If you mean to let any here go, it should be for your own reasons, on your own evidence. Farmers to farmers, the Lakewalker renegade to us.” Dag thought it important to get in that word, renegade. So who’s No-camp now?

  Slate said, “Will Crane hang with the rest, then?”

  Remo, unfortunately sounding up on a high horse, said, “He’s chosen to die by our own rituals. Privately.”

  Greenup stared distrustfully. “You Lakewalker fellers aren’t planning to spirit him away, are you?”

  Barr rolled his eyes. “With a broken neck?”

  “It could be some trick,” said Slate.

  Dag said, unexpectedly even to himself: “It won’t be private. You’ll see it all, every step.”

  “Dag!” cried Remo and Barr together. Remo’s appalled voice tumbled on, “Dag, you can’t!”

  “I can and will.” Could he? Dag’s knife maker brother, Dar, worked in careful solitude, possibly for a reason beyond Dar’s general misanthropy.

  “He should hang with the rest, to be fair,” said young Greenup.

  “He’s chosen to die by sharing knife,” said Dag. “I promised to
make the knife for it. To try, leastways.”

  Wain’s eyes narrowed. “But don’t Lakewalkers think that’s an honorable death? That don’t seem quite right, either, when hanging sure ain’t. Patroller.”

  “It’s not about honor. It’s about saving something useful from all this, this river of waste,” said Dag.

  Slate said, scratching his chin, “I admit, it don’t sound quite fair to me, either.”

  All the boat bosses were frowning suspiciously at the Lakewalkers now. Dag sighed. “All right, then let’s talk about something you do understand. Let’s talk salvage rights, which you all were divvying up in prospect a while back. I claim this knife as my salvage share.” He fished the bone blade from his shirt, twisted the cord over his head, and held it up. “This knife, and its priming.”

  Slate’s brows flicked up. “That alone?” he inquired, in a very leading tone. Quick to scent a bargain, these Silver Shoals fellows. Greenup, too, looked intrigued, as if mentally recalculating something.

  Dag added hastily, as the other Lakewalkers stirred, “I don’t speak for Barr and Remo, who also put their lives in the balance for this last night—as some of you may yet remember. This is just for me.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Slate brightly. “Give the patroller his knife, if that’s all he wants.”

  “And its priming. Its priming,” Dag went on, “for any of you who don’t realize what I’m talking about—although when this day is over I swear you will understand it through and through—will be Crane’s mortality. Crane’s heart’s death, which he will pledge to it.”

  Faces screwed up around the circle in deep misgiving.

  Breaking the silence, Bearbait drew breath. “The other patrollers can make their claims as may be, but give that medicine maker whatever due-share he asks, I say.”

  Boss Slate, perhaps reminded of his crewman with the cut throat, shrugged in discomfort. “Well…I guess it’s all right. Maybe. I do say that Lakewalker bandit should die first, though. Where all those fellows he tricked can see it.”

  “That’ll be a lifelong lesson to ’em,” Barr muttered. At least a few around the circle quirked their lips in some slight sympathy to his exasperation.