He listened gravely, not attempting, after his first protest, to interrupt. Trying to sort it out, maybe, for he said, “Are you saying you’re too tired to keep up this struggle anymore?”
She eyed him. “No, that’s you, I think.”
He gave a little self-derisive snort. “Could be.”
“Keep it straight. I love you, and I’ll walk with you down any path you choose, but…this one isn’t my choice to make. It’s yours.”
“True. And wise.” He sighed. “I thought we both chose in that scary little parlor back in West Blue. And yet your choice will be honored or betrayed by mine in turn. They don’t come separately.”
“No. They don’t. But they do come in order. And West Blue, well—that was before either you or I saw Greenspring. That town could’ve been West Blue, those people me and mine. I watched your lips move, counting down that line of dead…To keep you, there’s a lot of things I’d fight tooth and toenail. Your kin, my kin, another woman, sickness, farmer stupidity, you name it. Can’t fight Greenspring. Won’t.”
He blinked rapidly, and for a moment the gold in his eyes looked molten. He swiped the shiny water tracks from his cheekbones with the back of his hand, leaned forward, and kissed her on the forehead, that terrifying kiss of blessing again. “Thank you,” he whispered. “You have no idea how that helps.”
She nodded shortly, swallowing down the hot lump in her own throat.
They went into their tent to change, him out of his short trousers and sandals, her out of her somewhat grubby shift. When, on her knees sorting through his trunk, she tried to hand him up his cleanest shirt, he surprised her by saying, “No—my best shirt. The good one your Aunt Nattie wove.”
He hadn’t worn his wedding shirt since their wedding. Wondering, she shook it out, its folds wrapped in other clothes to keep it from creasing—her green cotton dress, as it happened.
“Oh, yes, wear that one,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “It’s so pretty on you.”
“I don’t know, Dag. It’s awfully farmer-girl. Shouldn’t I dress more Lakewalker for this?”
He smiled crookedly down at her. “No.”
It was disquieting, in this context, to be all gussied up in their wedding-day clothes again. She adjusted the hang of the cord on her left wrist, and the gold beads knocked cool against her skin. Were they to be unmarried in this new noon hour, as if tracing back over some exact path after they had gotten lost? Maybe they had gone astray, somewhere along the way. But fingering the links of events back one by one in her memory, she couldn’t see where.
Dag had picked up his hickory stick, so she guessed they were in for a longish walk to this grove, since he’d stopped using it around the campsite a few days back. She brushed her skirts straight, slipped her shoes on, and followed him out of the tent.
Dag realized he’d walked for a mile without seeing a single thing that had passed his eyes, and it wasn’t because the route was so familiar. His mind seemed to have come to some still place, but he wasn’t sure if it was poised or simply numb. They were passing patroller headquarters when Fawn, uncharacteristically silent till then, asked her first question: “Where is this council grove, anyhow?”
He glanced down at her. The rosy flush from their walk in the noon warmth kept her from being pale, but her face was set. “Not much farther. Just past Hoharie’s medicine tent.”
She nodded. “Will there be very many people there? Is it like a town council?”
“I don’t know town councils. There are nearly eight thousand folks around Hickory Lake; the whole point of having a camp council is so they don’t have to all show up for these arguments. Anyone can come listen who’s interested, though. It depends on how many people or families or tents are involved in a dispute. It’s only Tent Redwing—and Tent Bluefield—today. There’ll be Dar and Mama, but not too many friends of theirs, because they wouldn’t care to have them watch this. My friends are mostly out on patrol this season. So I don’t expect a crowd.” He hesitated, swinging his staff along, then shrugged his left shoulder. “Depends on how they take our marriage cords. That affects most everyone, and could grow much wider.”
“How long will it take?”
“At the start of a session, the council leader lights a session candle. Session lasts as long as it takes to burn down, which is about three hours. They say of a dispute that it’s a one-candle or two-candle or ten-candle argument. They can spread over several days, see.” He added after a few more paces, “But this one won’t.” Not if I can help it.
“How do you know?” she asked, but then it was time to turn off into the grove.
Grove was a misnomer; it was more of a clearing, a wide circular space at the edge of the woods weeded of poison ivy and other noxious plant life and bordered by huge, flowering bushes people had planted over the years—elderberry, forsythia, lilac—some so old their trunks were thick as trees. Upended log seats were scattered about on grass that a couple of placid sheep were at work nibbling short. To one side rose an open frame nearly the size of patrol headquarters under a shingled roof, for bad weather, but today a small circle of seats was set up in the shade at the clearing’s edge. A few more folks were walking in as Dag and Fawn arrived, so apparently they were not late.
Fairbolt Crow, talking head down with Mari, arrived last. They split off from each other, Fairbolt taking the remaining unoccupied log seat at the end of a close-set row of seven backed up to some venerable elderberry bushes, branches hanging heavy with fruit. Mari strode over to the gaggle of patrollers seated to Dag’s right. Dag was not surprised to see Saun, Razi, and Utau already there; Saun jumped to his feet and rolled up a log for her. He was a little more surprised to see Dirla—had she paddled all the way over from Beaver Sigh for this? — and Griff from Obio’s patrol.
Clustered to the left of the councilor’s row were only Dar, Cumbia, and Omba, the latter plainly not too happy to be there. His mother looked up from a bit of cord she was working in her lap for habit or comfort, shot Dag one glance of grim triumph, which he scarcely knew how to interpret—See what you made me do? maybe—then looked away. The looked away part he had no trouble understanding, since he did the same, like not watching a medicine maker rummage in one’s wound. Dar merely appeared as if he had a stomachache, and blamed Dag for it, hardly unusual for Dar.
One log seat waited directly across from the councilors. Utau muttered something to Razi, who hurried to collect another from nearby and set it beside the first. Not ten feet of open space was left in the middle. No one was going to have to bellow…at least, not merely to be heard.
Fawn, looking every bit as wary as a young deer, stopped Dag just out of earshot by clutching his arm; he bent his head to her urgent whisper, “Quick! Who are all those new people?”
Fairbolt was seated, perhaps not accidentally, closest to the patrollers, and Dowie Grayheron beside him. Dag whispered back, “Left from Fairbolt and Dowie is Pakona Pike. She’s council leader this season. Head of Tent Pike.” A woman of ninety or so, as straight-backed as Cumbia and one of her closer friends—Dag did not expect benign neutrality from her, but he didn’t say it to Fawn.
“Next to her are Laski Beaver and Rigni Hawk, councilor and alternate from Beaver Sigh.” Laski, a woman in her eighties, was head of Tent Beaver on Beaver Sigh, and a leather maker—it was her sister who made the coats that turned arrows. No one would ever have pulled her from her making for council duty. Rigni, closer to Dag’s age, came from a tent of makers specializing in boats and buildings, though she herself was just emerging from raising a brood of children. She was also one of Dirla’s aunts; she might have heard some good of Dag and Fawn.