“Really!”
Uncertain what the woman’s exclamation meant, Fawn just smiled in what she hoped seemed a friendly way. Then the woman’s eye fell on the cord peeking from Fawn’s left jacket cuff, and her breath drew in.
She leaned forward abruptly, reaching out, then caught herself, straightened, and motioned more politely. “May I see that? That’s a real wedding braid, isn’t it? ”
Fawn pushed back her cuff and laid her arm out on the table. “Yes, ma’am. Dag and I made them for each other back in Oleana.”
The little boy came galloping around the side of the shelter and, suddenly shy, clutched his mother’s skirts and stared at Fawn. The man strolled after, putting his arm possessively around the woman’s waist.
A brief stillness flashed in the woman’s face that hinted at groundsense extended. “How? ” she asked, sounding amazed.
“Dag wove his ground into his in the usual way for Lakewalkers. When we came to mine, we found that my ground would follow my live blood into my braid as I plaited it, and Dag could make it stick.”
“Blood! I never thought of that…”
The man was watching his wife’s profile warily. She glanced sideways at him, raised her chin, and said distinctly, “It doesn’t matter. I don’t need it.” Fawn wasn’t sure what emotion warmed his eyes- pride? relief? In any case, the woman selected some pain powder, some ague remedy, and half their stock of the anti-nausea syrup highly recommended, Fawn had learned, for morning sickness. She paid for it all with good Graymouth coin from a heavy purse, and she and her husband and son returned to the wagon, where the maidservant was setting out a picnic lunch.
“Who was that woman? ” Fawn asked her companions. “She looked like a Lakewalker-is she from here? ”
“She was,” said Nola in a disapproving tone. “She was a patroller, but about ten years back she ran off to marry-if you can call it that-that farmer following her.”
“They say he owns several mills in Moss River City,” Cerie added, nodding toward the wagon, “and built her a house overlooking the river three floors high, with flower gardens that go all the way down to the water.”
“Was she banished? ”
“She should have been,” said Nola. “But her tent didn’t ask it of the camp council.”
“Banishing deserters is a joke,” sighed Cerie. “Hardly any of them come back, so all it means is that their tent-kin can’t speak to them or visit them out there in farmer country. If their kin chase after them and drag them back here, they mostly just leave again at the first chance. And hardly anybody wants to hunt them down and hang them. Some claim if anyone’s that disaffected, it’s better to let them go, before they spread their mood around the camp.”
“Are there very many who leave? ”
Cerie shrugged. “Not really. Maybe a dozen a year? ”
Compared to the Unheard of! at Hickory Lake, that seemed like a lot to Fawn. And if the outward leak was like that at every camp in the south, it would add up. That peeled pole barrier at the camp gate only worked in one direction, it seemed.
In a while, three Lakewalkers appeared from the rutted road, an older woman and two sandy-haired adults. They sat down to the picnic with the Moss River family, speaking quietly. Once, the older woman stood up on her knees and measured the little boy against her shoulder, and said something that made him laugh, and once, the Lakewalker woman in farmer dress put her hand to her belly and gestured, which won strained smiles from the others. At length, the family packed up, made sober farewells, and drove off. The older woman turned her head to watch them out of sight, then the three vanished up the road again.
Fawn’s companions were looking impatiently at the shifting sun and their dwindling stocks of medicines and customers when a light cart drove up to the shelter, drawn by a rather winded mare. As she dropped her head to crop the scant grass, a young man jumped down and fetched out some slat crates. He glanced around, then carried them up to the medicine table and went back for two more. Fawn peeked over to see they were jammed with a jumble of glass jars and bottles packed in clean straw.
Almost as winded as his horse, the fellow set down the last boxes and said, “I’m not too late? Good! I don’t have much coin, but figure what these are worth to you.”
Cerie and Nola actually looked pleased by the offered barter-good glass containers were always in demand in the medicine tent-and circled the table to kneel down and inventory the boxes. The young man’s stare lit on Fawn, and he looked taken aback. “Well, hello there! You’re no Lakewalker!”
“No, sir.” The sir was a trifle flattering, but there was no harm in it.
She recited her well-worn speech, repeated to nearly every buyer they’d had today: “But I’m married to one. My husband is a Lakewalker from Oleana learning medicine making here.”
“Go on! You don’t look old enough to be married to anyone!”
Fawn tried not to glower at a paying customer. She supposed she’d know herself a woman grown when that remark began to be gratifying and not just annoying. “I’m nineteen. People just think I’m younger on account as I’m so short.” She sat up straight, so he could see she was much too curvy to be a child.
“Nineteen!” he repeated. “Oh.” He looked about nineteen himself, fresh-faced, with brown hair and bright blue eyes. He had a wiry build like Whit, but was, of course, taller. “I guess your, um… husband must be pretty important, to get you into the camp. They don’t usually let farmers past their gates here, you know.”
Fawn shrugged. “New Moon hasn’t taken us on as members or anything. We’re just visiting. Dag found me a job here when I ran out of stuff to spin and got to pining for home. He used to be a patroller up Oleana way, but now he feels a calling to be a medicine maker. To farmers,” she added proudly. “No one’s done that before.”
His mouth opened in surprise. “But that’s not possible! Farmers are supposed to go crazy if Lakewalkers use their sorcery on ’em.”
A surprisingly accurate comment, but maybe he was a near neighbor and so less ill-informed than most.
“Dag thinks he’s cracked beguilement, figured out how to make that not happen.” She added honestly, “He’s still working out whether or not it’ll do something bad to the Lakewalker. He’s just a beginner as far as medicine making goes. But he figures, if he can make it work… His notion is that Oleana farmers need to learn a lot more about Lakewalkers, on account as we have so many more malice-blight bogle- outbreaks up our way, and it’s dangerous for folks to remain so ignorant. He figures healing would give him a straight road to teaching people.”
“Are there really-are the bogles really bad, up that way? ”
“No, because the Oleana patrol keeps ’em down, but their job could stand to be made easier.”
The young man rubbed his mouth. “A couple of my friends keep talking about walking the Trace, maybe moving up to Oleana. Is it true there’s free land there, just for the taking? ”
“Well, you got to register your claim with whatever village clerk is closest, and then clear the trees and rocks and pull the stumps. There’s land for the back-busting working of it, yes. Two of my brothers are homesteading that way, right up on the edge of the great woods the Lakewalkers still hold. My oldest brother’ll get our papa’s farm, of course.”
“Yeah, mine, too,” sighed the young man. He added after a moment, “My name’s Finch Bridger, by the way. My parents’ place is about ten miles that way.” He pointed roughly southeast.
“I’m Fawn Bluefield,” returned Fawn.
“How de’!” He stuck out a friendly, work-hardened hand; Fawn shook it and smiled back. He added after a moment, “Aren’t the winters tough in Oleana? ”
“Nothing like so bad as north of the Dead Lake, Dag says. You prepare for it. Lay in your food and fodder and firewood, make warm clothes.”
“Is there snow? ”
“Of course.”
“I’ve never seen snow here but once, and it was gone by noon. In these parts, we mostly just have cold rain, instead.”
“We have some nice quiet times in winter. And it’s fun to have the sleigh out. Papa puts bells on the harnesses.” An unexpected spasm of homesickness shot through Fawn at the recollection.