With his groundsense, he doubtless saw a lot more than that, and had done so even before he’d stepped out into the torchlight. Fawn clutched that thought to herself. Did Dag know what he was doing? Maybe not. But he’d know a lot more about what everyone else was doing than they could guess.

“You healed that wagon-boy’s busted knee,” Wain went on. “He showed it around at the Bend tavern last night. A lot of us saw. We know you can help.”

Dag drew a long breath. “You know, I’m not a real medicine maker. I’m just a patroller.”

“Don’t you try and lie your way out of this!”

Dag’s head came up; the keeler stepped back half a pace at his glinting glare. “I don’t lie.” And added under his breath, “I won’t.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looked up, and sighed softly to Fawn, who had crept close under his left shoulder, “You see any horse-tails up there in the moonlight?”

The long, wispy clouds that heralded a change of weather. She followed his glance. A few faint bands like skim milk veiled the autumn stars to the west. “Yes…well, maybe.”

He smiled down at her in would-be reassurance. “Guess we’ll take our chances.” He turned his head, raised his voice, and called to the shore, “Bring her here onto the bow and set her down. No, there’s not room for the all of you! Just her husband and, um, she got any female relatives? Sister, oh good. You come up, ma’am.” The crowd rearranged itself as the keelers threw down a couple more boards to make a better gangplank, carried the door across, and grunted onto the deck.

“Whit, stay by me,” Dag whispered under the cover of this noise. “Fawn, you stick real tight.” She nodded. “That the husband?” Dag muttered on, as a pale young man with dark circles under his eyes came forward. “Crap, he’s hardly older than Whit.”

Despite the risk of dropping the woman into the mud, the move onto the boat served to thin the crowd considerably. It also shifted the visitors onto Berry’s territory, for whatever authority she might have in what was shaping up to be a dicey situation. Once they’d set the door down, Berry was able to shoo most of the keelers back to the bank for the plain reason that there was no room for them aboard. Boss Wain remained, his jaw jutting in resolve. Fawn supposed this expedition had been organized in the Pearl Bend tavern. A good deed combined with a chance to beat someone up seemed an ideal combination to appeal to a bunch of half-drunk keelers. Twenty to one—did they think they could take Dag? He was staring down expressionlessly at the woman. Maybe not.

The boat carpenter’s wife reminded Fawn a bit of Clover—before this dire sickness had fallen on her, she might have been plump and cheerful. Now her round face was pallid and sheened with cold sweat. The brown hair at her temples curled damply from the tears of pain that leaked from the corners of her eyes. Breathing shallowly, she clawed at her belly, skirts bunching in her sweaty hands. Fawn was aware of Hod creeping out of the cabin door to stare, and Hawthorn as well.

Her husband knelt down and caught up one of her frantic hands; they clutched each other. He looked up at Dag in heartbreaking appeal. “What’s wrong with her, Lakewalker? She didn’t cry like this even when our baby was born!”

Dag rubbed his lips, then knelt down by the woman’s other side, pulling Fawn with him. “Happens I’ve seen this trouble before. In a medicine tent up in Luthlia, a long time ago.” Fawn glanced up at him, knowing just when he’d spent a season in such a tent. “They brought this fellow in, taken sudden with gut pain. Did this come on her sudden?”

The carpenter nodded anxiously. “Two days back.”

“Uh-huh.” Dag rubbed his hand on his knee. “I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a person’s insides”—not the best choice of words, Fawn thought, with maybe half the people here suspecting Lakewalkers of cannibalism—“but down at the corner of most folks’ entrails there’s this slippy blind pocket ’bout the size of a child’s little finger. The medicine makers never could tell me what it does. But this fellow, his had got twisted around or swollen up or something, and took a roaring hot infection that blew it up like a bladder. By the time he came to the medicine maker, it had busted clean open. No, not clean. Dirty. It spilled his guts into his belly just like a knife wound would.”

The keeler boss, at least, looked as though he knew what this entailed, and his lips went round in an unvoiced whistle.

“The infection spread too fast for even the maker’s best ground reinforcements to stop it, and he died about three days on. Funny thing was, when his gut busted, his pain actually eased for a while, since the pressure went down. I guess it fooled him into thinking he was getting better, till it was too late.”

The carpenter’s voice went hushed. “Is Cress’s belly going to bust inside like that, then?”

“It hasn’t yet,” said Dag. “This is a right dangerous sickness. But the groundwork to fix it isn’t really that deep. There’s a host of belly-ills no medicine maker born can cure, especially in women, but this…” He let out his breath. “I can try, leastways.” He nudged Fawn. “Spark, would you take off my arm harness, please?”

Dag could manage that himself, but having Fawn do it directed their spectators’ eyes to her, the patroller’s farmer bride. Purposely? She unbuckled the straps and drew off the wooden cuff and the fine cotton sock beneath that she’d lately knitted for Dag to stop the cuff rubbing up blisters, and set them aside. The presence or absence of the arm harness made no difference to Dag’s ghost hand as far as she knew, but she supposed Dag thought it would alarm the carpenter less not to have that wicked hook waving over his wife’s belly.

“What I can do—what I can try to do…” Dag looked up and around, and Fawn suspected only she realized how much uncertainty and fear his stern face was masking. “First I want to wrap a ground reinforcement around the swelling. Most of you don’t know what ground is, but anyway, you won’t see anything. Then I want to try and pry that swollen end open so’s the pocket will drain back into the gut the way it’s supposed to. That part I think may hurt, but then it ought to ease. There’s a danger. Two dangers. Look at me, you husband, sister.” His voice softened, “Cress.” He smiled down at her; her pain-pinched eyes widened a trifle. When he was sure he had their attention, he continued, “That little pocket’s stretched really tight right now. There’s a chance it’ll bust while I’m trying to drain it. But I think it’s like to bust anyway pretty soon. Do you still want me to try this?”

They looked at each other; the sick woman squeezed her husband’s hand, and he wet his lips and nodded.

“There’s another hitch. For later. Subtler.” Dag swallowed hard. “Sometimes, when Lakewalkers do deep groundwork on farmers, the farmers end up beguiled. It’s not on purpose, but it’s part of why the Lakewalkers here won’t treat you. Now, I’ll be gone on the rise. There’s a good chance that a touch of beguilement would do no worse to Cress than leave her sad for something she can never have, which can happen to a person whether they’re beguiled or not. So, I don’t know if you’re a stupid-jealous sort of fellow, Mark-carpenter, or more sensible. But if that mood should come on her, later, it’d be your husband-job to help her ease it, not to harry her about it. Do you understand?”

The carpenter shook his head no, then yes, then puffed out his breath in confusion. “Are you saying my Cress would run off? Leave me, leave her baby?” He stared wildly across at Fawn. “Is that what you did?”

Fawn shook her head vigorously, making her black curls bounce. “Dag and I killed a blight bogle together. That’s how we met.” She thought of adding, I’m not beguiled, just in love, then wondered how you could demonstrate the difference. Cress’s breath was coming in shallow pants; Fawn caught up her other hand and squeezed it. “She wouldn’t run off lessn’ you drove her.”