“Oh. Crap.” Barr looked briefly put out, then cheered up. “This is better anyway. If I’d stopped there, I wouldn’t have caught up with you till tonight at the earliest, and that’d be yet another fifty upriver miles to backtrack. At least.” He turned again to Remo. “Which is another reason to come back with me now. Every mile you go down is going to be that much more work going up.”
“Not my problem,” said Remo.
“Well, it’s mine!” said Barr, baited into personal outrage again. “With this current running, a narrow boat with only one paddler couldn’t even make headway going upriver! It needs at least two, and better four!”
In a practical spirit, and to divert whatever crushing thing Remo was fixing to say next, Fawn suggested, “You could trade your narrow boat for a horse at the next town and ride back to Pearl Riffle overland.”
“That’s a stupid idea,” objected Barr. Failing to notice either her stiffening or Dag’s, he plunged on, “I couldn’t get one good horse in trade for that old boat, let alone two!”
“You wouldn’t need two,” said Remo.
Whit, falling back into his old bad habits of pot-stirring, put in cheerfully, “And who says it has to be a good horse?”
Barr clenched his teeth and eyed him unfavorably.
Boss Berry’s drawl cut across the debate. “There’s this, Remo. You hired on as my sweep-man. If you jump my boat now, you’ll leave me shorthanded in the middle of nowhere, and that’s not right. Now, this ain’t my argument, but if you want to quit, at least do it at a village or town where I can hire on your replacement.”
“That’s only fair,” Remo allowed, looking at Barr in a challenging way. Barr didn’t have an immediate answer, although by his grimace Fawn thought she could see him mentally adding the upstream miles.
“Sky’s lightening,” said Bo. “Time to get out on the river.”
Berry nodded. “Me, Remo, and Whit for the first watch.”
Which ended the squabble for the next two hours at least. Breakfast broke up, and Remo and Barr went out to get the water emptied from Barr’s boat, hoist it up, and tie it down across the back deck, where, Fawn thought, it was going to be mightily in the way. Hod and Hawthorn turned to their scullery duties. Dag went ashore to collect Copperhead, who had been standing amongst the dripping leafless trees and whinnying plaintively since predawn, answered by bleats from Daisy-goat. Copperhead actually seemed glad to scramble back onto the boat, and touched noses with Daisy; the two animals had become unlikely friends. The lines were untied, the top-deck crew took to their sweeps, and the Fetch pushed off from the muddy bank, turning slowly downstream. The river was dark and fast and scary this morning, the wind funneling up the valley cold and raw, whipping the mist to tatters. Fawn put her mind to sewing up more rain cloaks and retreated inside to find her work basket, glad for an indoor task.
Fawn had her oilcloth pieces laid out on the table near the window for the light, stitching industriously, when Barr came into the kitchen, shot her a guarded look, and began puttering around setting his dried gear back in order. Patrollers were doubtless taught to travel tidy, she reflected. She returned him a nod, in case he wanted to talk but wasn’t sure he was allowed. Although maybe that was more for rigid Remo; Barr apparently had found no trouble talking with farmer girls in the past. Except not farmer brides inexplicably married to other Lakewalkers, it seemed, for when he finally opened his mouth, what came out was hardly smooth.
“You’re pretty stuck on Dag, aren’t you?” He’d sat down in front of the hearth with his knees up, to oil some leather straps, incidentally blocking the heat. But perhaps he was still core-cold from yesterday.
For answer, Fawn held up her left wrist and the marriage cord wrapped around it. “What does your groundsense tell you?”
His nose wrinkled in wonder, but not denial. “Can’t imagine how you two did that.”
“We wove them together. As partners, you might say. I made my ground follow my blood into the cord that Dag wears, which Dag’s brother Dar said was a knife-making technique. It worked, anyhow.”
Barr blinked. “Saun said you two had jumped the cliff at Glassforge, which surprised him right off, as he hadn’t thought Dag was the sort—stiffer than Remo, even—but nobody ever…Lakewalkers don’t usually marry farmers, you know.”
He was actually being sort of polite: don’t ever would have been more accurate. “Dag’s an unusual man.”
“Do you realize how old he likely is? To farmer eyes I know he looks thirty-five or forty, but I can tell you he has to be a good deal more than that.”
What are you on about? “His fifty-sixth birthday was yesterday. We had a real nice party. That was the leftovers you bolted last night.”
“Oh.” Barr squinted at her in increasing puzzlement. “Do you realize he has to have beguiled you?”
“Do you realize you are amazingly offensive?” she returned in a level tone.
By his discomfited head-duck, that wasn’t the response he’d been expecting. She bit off her short strand and tied it, then drew out a new length to thread her needle. “Dag hasn’t beguiled me one bit. He and Remo have been doing some studying on that, how beguilement really happens in groundwork, and have found out some pretty terrific things. You should get Dag to teach you.” Barr did not seem the most promising learner, but there was certainly worse out there. If Dag’s schemes were to work, they had to reach ordinary folks, Lakewalker and farmer alike, and not just a tiny elite.
But Barr had other matters on his mind. He muttered, “Can’t be her. Has to be the blonde.” Raising his voice, he said, “Remo’s after that Berry girl, isn’t he? That’s why he won’t turn around…taking after your Dag, maybe? Absent gods, he doesn’t mean to marry her, does he?”
Fawn stared over her stitches in increasing exasperation. “Berry’s betrothed to a farmer boy named Alder, who went missing on a downriver trip last fall along with Berry’s papa and brother. She’s going to look for ’em all, which is why she named her boat the Fetch. She carries on steady, because she’s that sort and it’s a long haul, but inside she’s anxious and grieving. You want to make yourself real unpopular with everyone on this boat in a big hurry, you try botherin’ Berry in any way.” Had she hammered in that hint hard enough to penetrate Barr’s self-absorption? Well, if not, she knew someone with a bigger mallet. Dag had been a company captain, twice. She doubted a patroller boy like Barr would present him an insurmountable challenge.
Barr looked down, finished treating the straps, and returned to reorganizing his pack.
Fawn stared at his sandy hair tied in that touchable fluffy queue down his back, shoved her needle through the heavy cloth with her thimble, and said abruptly, “Ha! I know who you remind me of! Sunny Sawman.”
Barr looked over his shoulder. “Who?”
Fawn smiled blackly. “Farmer boy I once knew. He was blond and broad-shouldered like you.”
Straightening up, Barr cast her a probing smile. Gleaming enough, but she wondered why it wasn’t as face-transforming as Dag’s or Remo’s. Not as genuine, maybe? Barr said, “Good-looking fellow, was he?”
“Oh, yes.” As Barr brightened further, she went on, “Also completely self-centered, a slanderer, and a liar. It wouldn’t quite be fair to call him a coward, because with those muscles he didn’t need to be, but he sure was eager to skim out of the consequences of his choices when things went sour.” She looked him over, pursing her lips in consideration, and added in a kindly voice, “It’s likely your hair color does it, but boy howdy, it’s not a recommendation. I’ll try not to let it set me against you. Too much.”
Barr cleared his throat, opened his mouth, and prudently closed it again. He made his way—or fled—out of the kitchen to pretend to check on his boat on the back deck. Fawn stabbed her cloth once more, satisfied.
At lunch, Remo stopped responding to Barr’s continued badgering altogether, which left Barr floundering. Fawn shrewdly followed Remo’s example, and Whit followed the crowd. Hod and Hawthorn didn’t talk to Barr in the first place, Hod because he was fearful, Hawthorn because he liked Remo and didn’t want him to go away, and so took Barr as an unwelcome interloper. Bo was bemused, Berry unamused, and Dag, well, it was hard to tell what he was thinking. Nothing simple, anyhow.