“Nothing is just what the problem is. Your hands have got all lonely, that’s what. They’re not used to resting folded up.”
“Can you get me-does this camp have Stores, like Hickory Lake? Can you get me some more wool or cotton or something?” She frowned.
“Oh. But I guess we don’t have any camp credit here.”
“No, we don’t.” He stared down at her. Had his head truly been stuffed so full as to drive all care for her out of it? Each night her eyes had sparkled, her lips parted, as she listened eagerly to his tales of his day, and so he’d thought her content. He should have noticed how she’d had less and less to offer in return. Her days should be laden with new things right along with his; absent gods knew her head was better built for learning than his had ever felt.
She sat up more sternly. “Never mind me. I promised I’d take whatever this camp dished out till you got what you needed, and I don’t mean to go back on my word. I’ll be fine.”
“Shh, Spark. Surely we can do better than that.” He hugged and comforted her as best he could, till her faked cheer grew less wobbly, then went to find Arkady.
–-
“Out of the question,” Arkady said, when Dag finished explaining his request. “A farmer can’t learn our techniques.”
Dag was unsurprised. He forged on nonetheless. “I always figured to train her myself, later, but having her just settin’ around like this is a huge waste of her time. And of a camp resource. Fawn can learn anything you can teach-except groundwork-we always meant her to be my spare hands, if ever I got out among farmers as a real medicine maker. You haven’t seen it, but I have. When she’s by my side, farmers calm right down and stop being afraid of me, despite what a starveling vagabond I generally look. The women because they can see she’s not scared, and the men because she’s so blighted cute they forget to worry about Lakewalker death magic. And if I’m ever to treat farmer women and girls, which I guess’d be about half my customers, I’d need her with me before I’d dare touch them.” He thought of Arkady’s breast-tumor treatment, and other even more intimate women’s ailments, and shivered.
“Absent gods, yes!”
Arkady finished the brief note he’d been jotting about the tooth extraction, set down his quill, and frowned across at Dag. “It’s not by any means concluded that you’ll be turned loose to treat farmers. As for placing Fawn here in the medicine tent-I grant you she has clever hands, but that bright ground of hers, always open, would be a distraction to patients and makers alike.”
“It’s not a distraction to me,” said Dag. “These are the same fool arguments Hoharie made back at Hickory Lake. One little farmer girl’s open ground is only as much of a botheration as folks choose it to be. Lakewalkers can deal fine with Fawn around when they want to.”
“Yes, but why should they want to? ”
Dag bit his lip. “I’m a stranger here. I’ve earned no trust from this camp. I know I can’t ask this of folks.” His eyes caught and held Arkady’s, and he dropped his voice to his company captain’s growl-not a gift of Dag’s that Arkady had guessed at, judging from his faint recoil.
“But you can. I’ve seen how this camp respects you, and I’ve more than a notion by now of why. You can make this happen if you choose, and we both know it.” Dag let his voice and his look lighten. “Besides, what’s to lose? Try her for a couple of weeks. If Fawn doesn’t work out here, we can think of something else. It’s not like me and my farmer bride are asking to join your camp permanent.”
“Hm,” said Arkady, lowering his eyes and closing his casebook. “Is that what you think? Well. Perhaps I could talk to Challa and Levan.”
–-
Fawn was ecstatic when Dag told her the news, which made him right proud of his husbandly insight. The next morning as he took her along to introduce to her new task makers at the medicine tent, she skipped down the road, caught his amused eye upon her, stopped, tossed her head, then skipped again. But she was walking sedately by the time they arrived.
Dag watched her welcome carefully, not above letting it be seen that he was watching. Challa was politely resigned. Levan, the aging herb master, had the air of a man with a long view enduring a temporary burden.
His two female apprentices and Challa’s boy, at first stiff and cold, grew more pliant as they realized that Fawn would be taking over many of their most tedious chores, from washing pots and bedding to peeling stems and sweeping the floor. As the first days passed, her uncomplaining cheer and enthusiasm softened the older makers, too. Within half a week more, even camp residents stopping in for treatment or to pick up medicines ceased being surprised to find her about the place.
Dag’s own heart was comforted and mind eased by having her so often within his sight and hearing, and by her obvious happiness at being so. Gradually, Dag began calling her over to give him a hand, as opportunities presented, and gradually, the other members of the tent became used to the picture. The first time Challa absentmindedly assigned a two-handed chore to the pair of them, Dag smiled in secret victory.
–-
One morning, as Dag made to rise from the breakfast table, Arkady said, “Wait.”
Dutifully, Dag sat back down.
“Have you made any further progress overcoming your asymmetry? ”
Dag shrugged. “Can’t say as I have.” Which seemed better than I’ve hardly given it a thought.
“Try now.”
Dag laid his right arm out on the table and attempted a ground projection, with the same lack of results as before.
“Uh-huh,” said Arkady, and walked over to rummage on his shelves.
He came back carrying a couple of lengths of rope and a penknife. After tying one rope around Dag’s hook, he bent Dag’s left arm behind him, and wove the end through the chair back and around to secure firmly in front. Dag cooperated uneasily.
“There. Will that hold? ”
Dag tugged. “I expect so.”
“Right arm feel free? ”
Dag wriggled his fingers. “Aye.” Fawn finished packing up the breakfast basket and slid back into her chair to watch. She met Dag’s look and grinned. Arkady had evidently paid better attention than Dag had thought to Fawn’s words about how his ghost hand had first emerged.
Arkady lit a candle by waving his hand over it, sat on Dag’s right, and picked up the sharp little knife. “You claim you’ve reattached blood vessels before, in your farmer healing? ”
“Aye,” said Dag, watching in worry as Arkady began passing the knife blade through the candle flame. “In Hod’s knee, and Chickory’s busted skull. They’re stretchy, and coil up when they’re busted, but the ends seem to want to find each other again after. Just the bigger ones. They got littler and littler till I couldn’t follow them down and in without risking groundlock.”
“Mm, yes. I’ve always wondered if the little arteries empty into a pool in the tissues, and then the veins suck up the blood again, or if they’re connected all the way through, unimaginably tiny. If only Sutaw had advanced enough to pull me out of the deep groundlock, I thought I might try… well. Never mind. That doesn’t concern us today.” He held the knife in the air to cool. “Let’s give you something more interesting than a piece of paper to work on, shall we? ”
He drew the tiny blade across the back of his own left hand, slicing through a plump vein. Fawn squeaked as blood began to well. Arkady laid his oozing hand down in front of Dag.
Dag, eyeing the red trickle with a mixture of alarm and annoyance, attempted once more to coax a ground projection from his right hand.
His left arm jerked at its bindings behind him, but from the right… nothing.
“What,” said Arkady, “you’re just going to sit there and watch while your teacher bleeds? For shame, Dag.”
Dag flushed, grimaced, clenched and stretched his fingers. Shook his head. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
Arkady waited, then shrugged, passed his right hand over his left- the flash of ground projection went by almost too fast for Dag to perceive- and mopped at the drips with a napkin. The bleeding stopped.