Fawn blurted, “Can I come with you? Because I think I’m part of Dag’s puzzle, too.” She nearly held out her left arm in evidence.
The three Lakewalkers stared down at her in uncomplimentary surprise.
Fawn hurried on, “It’s not a war zone anymore, and if I went with you, I couldn’t get lost, so I wouldn’t be being stupid at all. I could be ready in an hour. Less.”
Dirla said, not scornfully but in a tone of kindness that was somehow even more annoying, “That fat little plow horse of yours couldn’t keep up, Fawn.”
“Grace is not fat!” said Fawn indignantly. At least, not very. “And she may not be a racehorse, but she’s persistent.” She added after a moment, as her wits caught up with her mouth, “Anyhow, couldn’t you put me up on a patrol horse just like Hoharie?”
Fairbolt smiled a little, but shook his head. “No, Fawn. The malice may be gone, but north Raintree is going to be disrupted for weeks yet, in the aftermath of all this. I made a promise to Dag to see you came to no harm while he was gone, and I mean to keep it.”
“But—”
Fairbolt’s voice firmed in a way that made Fawn think of her father at his most maddening. “Farmer child, you are one more worry I don’t need to have right now. Others have to wait for their husbands and wives to return as well.”
And what was the counterargument to that? I am not a child? Oh, sure, that one had always worked so well. “Funny, I ran around out there in the wide world for eighteen years without your protection, and survived.” Barely, she was depressingly reminded.
A bitter smile bent Fairbolt’s lips, and he murmured, “No, farmer child…you’ve always had our protection.” Fawn flushed. As she dropped her eyes in shame, he gave a satisfied nod, and went on more kindly, “I imagine Cattagus and Sarri would be glad to learn the news about the malice. Maybe you could run and let them know.”
It was a clear dismissal. Run along. Fawn looked around and found no allies, not Dirla, and not even Hoharie, despite the curious look in her eyes; the medicine tent might be her realm, but it was plain the road was Fairbolt’s, and she would yield to his judgment in the matter.
Fawn swallowed, nodded, and took herself out, as chairs scraped and the conference continued more intently. Without her. Not being a Lakewalker and all.
She stumped up the path between the medicine tent and Fairbolt’s headquarters, fuming and rubbing her arm. Its thrumming echoed in her heart and head and gut until she was in a fair way to screaming from it. So was she a Lakewalker bride or a farmer bride? Because if the first was under Lakewalker disciplines, the other could not be. People couldn’t just switch her label back and forth at their convenience. Fair was fair, if not, hah, Fairbolt.
In one thing she was surely expert, and that was running away from home. Of which the first well-tested rule was, don’t give folks a chance to argue with you. How had she forgotten that one? She set her teeth and turned aside at patroller headquarters.
A pair of patrollers conferring over a logbook looked up as she entered. “Fairbolt’s not here,” said one.
“I know,” Fawn replied breezily. “I just talked with him up at Hoharie’s.” Which was perfectly true, right? No one, later, could say she’d lied. “I need to borrow one of his maps for a bit. I’ll bring it back as soon as I can.”
The patroller shrugged and nodded, and Fawn whipped into Fairbolt’s pegboard chamber, hastily rolled up the map of north Raintree still out on top of the center table, tucked it under her arm, and left, smiling and waving thanks.
She dogtrotted to Mare Island, let herself through the bridge gate, and found one of Omba’s girls in the work shed.
“I need my horse,” said Fawn. “I want to take her out for some exercise.” A hundred or so miles worth.
“She could use some,” the girl conceded. Then, after a moment, “Oh, that’s right. You need help summoning her.” The girl sniffed, grabbed a halter and line off a nail, and wandered out into the pastures.
While she was gone, Fawn hastily found an old sack and filled it with what she judged to be a three-day supply of oats. Was it stealing, to take the equivalent of what her mare would have eaten anyhow? She decided not to pursue the moral fine point, as the lush grass here grew free and the grain had to be painstakingly brought in from off island. She considered hiding the sack under her skirts, decided it would involve walking funny, then, remembering that sneak thief down in Lumpton Market, just cast it over her shoulder as if she’d a right. The horse girl, when she led Grace in, didn’t even ask about it.
Back at Tent Bluefield, Fawn tied Grace to a tree while she went inside, skinned into her riding clothes, and swiftly packed her saddlebags. She pulled her sharing knife from its place in Dag’s trunk and slung it around her neck under her shirt, then fastened the steel knife Dag had given her to her belt. Last, she plopped plunkins into her saddlebags opposite the grain sack till they balanced, and fastened the buckles. Food and to spare for one little farmer girl for a three-day ride, and no stopping.
Finally, she fished Dag’s spare quill and ink bottle from the bottom of his trunk and knelt beside it, penning a short note on a scrap of cloth. Dear Cattagus and Sarri. Dag’s company killed the malice, but he’s hurt, so I’m going to Raintree to meet up with him, because he’s my husband, and I have a right. Ask Dirla about the rest. Back soon. Love, Fawn. She worked it into the tent-flap ties, where it fluttered discreetly but visibly. Then she stood on a stump to saddle Grace, heaved up and tied on her saddlebags, and climbed aboard. She was over the bridge in ten minutes more.
14
B y sunset, Fawn guessed she had covered about twenty-five miles from Hickory Lake. The hours of interspersed trotting and walking, nursing her mare along in what she hoped was the best balance between speed and endurance, had given her plenty of time to think. Unfortunately, by now her thoughts were mainly variations on Have I taken a wrong turn yet? Fairbolt’s map was not as reassuring as she’d hoped. The Lakewalker notion of roads seemed more Fawn’s idea of trails; their trails, paths; and their paths, wilderness. So she wasn’t altogether sorry when she heard the hoofbeats coming up behind her.
She turned in her saddle. Rounding the dense greenery of the last curve, a husky patroller rode, followed by Hoharie, her apprentice Othan towing a packhorse and a spare mount in a string, and another patroller. Fawn didn’t bother trying to race ahead, but she didn’t halt, either. In a moment, the others cantered up to surround her, and she let Grace drop back to a walk.
“Fawn!” cried Hoharie. “What are you doing out here?”
“Riding my fat horse,” said Fawn shortly. “They told me she needed exercise.”
“Fairbolt didn’t give you permission to come with us.”
“I’m not with you. I’m by myself.”
As Hoharie sucked on her lower lip, eyes narrowed in thought, Othan chimed in. “You have to turn around and go back, farmer girl. You can’t follow us.”
“I’m ahead of you,” Fawn pointed out. She added, “Though you’re welcome to pass. Go on, run along.”
Hoharie glanced back at her two patrollers, now riding side by side at the rear and watching dubiously. “I really can’t spare a man to see you home.”
“Nobody’s asking you to.”
Hoharie drew a deeper breath. “But I will, if you make me.”
Fawn halted her mare and glanced back at the two big, earnest fellows. They would do their duty; that was a bit of a mania, with patrollers. If she let herself get cumbered with either one of that grim pair, he would see her back to Hickory Lake, sure enough, and in no good mood about it, likely. Patrollers had objections to leaving their partners.
Fawn tried one more time. “Hoharie, please let me come with you. I won’t slow you down, I promise.”