“What did Mari say to you all, last night?” asked Dag.

“Oh, there was a scene. She came in asking if we’d heard from you, which was a jolt to start, since you were supposed to be with her. Then she said she’d sent you home from Glassforge weeks ago, and everyone was worried you’d been injured, but she said not. Is that right?” She stared at the sling.

“Was at the time. I collected this on the way. Go on.”

“Then she had this wild tale about some cutie farmer girl being mixed up in your latest malice kill”—her eyes went curiously to Fawn—“which I barely believed, but now, hm. And that you’d jumped the cliff with her, which your mama hotly denied the possibility of, while simultaneously yelling at Mari for letting it happen. I kept my mouth shut during that part. Though I did wish you well of it.”

“Thank you,” said Dag blandly.

“Ha. Though I never imagined…anyway. Mari said that you’d gone off with the farmer girl, supposed to deliver her home or something. She was afraid you’d met some mishap at the hands of her kin—she said she was picturing gelding. That must have been some cliff. When Mari and your mama got down to arguing over lapses from twenty-five years back, I slipped out. But Mari took Dar down to the dock after, to talk private. He wouldn’t say what she’d added, except that it was about bone craft, which even your mama knows by now is the sign she’ll get no more from him.”

It seemed Mari was still keeping the tale of the accident to the second sharing knife close. Nor had the term pregnant turned up in relation to Fawn, at least in front of Dag’s mama. Fawn felt suddenly more charitable to Mari.

“Oh, Dag,” sighed Omba. “This is going to top anything you’ve done ever.”

“Look on the bright side. Nothing you can do ever after will top this. The effect might even be retroactive.”

She gave a bemused nod. “I’ll grant you that.” She slung the horseshoes onto some pegs on the nearest post, and held up her hands palm out in a warding gesture. “I think I’ll just stay out of this one altogether if you don’t mind.”

“You’re welcome to try,” said Dag amiably. “We were just over to the tent to drop our things, but it was empty. Where is everyone?”

“Dar went to the shack to work, or hide out. Mari was worried sick for you, and that shook him more than he was willing to let on, I think. She actually said I’m sorry to your mother at one point last night.”

“And Mama?” said Dag.

“Out on raft duty. Rationing plunkins.”

Dag snorted. “I’ll bet.”

“They tried to convince her to stay ashore with her bad back, but she denied the back and went. There will be no vile plunkin ear chucking today.”

Now Fawn was lost. “Rationing plunkins? Is there a shortage?”

“No,” said Dag. “This time of year, they’re worse than in season—they’re in glut.”

Omba grinned. “Dar still waxes bitter about how she’d nurse her supply through the Bearsford camp, like there was some sort of prize for arriving at spring with the most winter store still in hand. And then make you all eat up the old ones before allowing any fresh ones.”

Dag’s lips quirked. “Oh, yeah.”

“Did she ever go through a famine?” Fawn asked. “That makes people funny about food, I hear tell.”

“Not as far as I know,” said Omba.

She’s speaking to me, oh good! Though people wishful to vent about their in-laws would bend the ear of anyone who’d listen, so it might not signify much.

“Not that the choices don’t get a bit narrow for everyone by late winter,” Omba continued. “She’s just like that. Always has been. I still remember the first summer Dar and I were courting, when you grew so tall, Dag. We thought you were going to starve. Half the camp conspired to slip you food on the sly.”

Dag laughed. “I was about ready to wrestle the goats for the splits and the mishaps. Those are feed plunkins,” he added to Fawn aside. “Can’t think why I didn’t. I wouldn’t be so shy nowadays.”

“It is a known fact that patrollers will eat anything.” Omba twitched a speculative eyebrow at Fawn that made her wonder if she ought to blush.

To quell that thought, Fawn asked instead, “Plunkin ear chucking?”

Dag explained, “When the plunkin heads are dredged up out of the lake bottom, they have two to six little cloves growing up the sides, about half the size of my hand. These are broken off and put back down in the mud to become next year’s crop. Plunked in, hence the name. There are always more ears than needed, so the excess gets fed to the goats and pigs. And there are always a lot of youngsters swimming and splashing around the harvesting rafts, and, well, excess plunkin ears make good projectiles, in a reasonably nonlethal sort of way. Especially if you have a good slingshot,” he added in a suddenly warmly reminiscent tone. He paused and cleared his throat. “The grown-ups disapprove of the waste, of course.”

“Well, some do,” said Omba. “Some remember their slingshots. Someone should have given one to your mother when she was a girl, maybe.”

“At her age, she’s not going to change.”

“You’ve made a change.”

Dag shrugged, and asked instead, “How’re Swallow and Darkling?”

Omba’s face brightened. “Wonderful well. That black colt’s going to be fit to go for a stud when he’s grown, I think. He’ll fetch you a good price. Or if you finally want to trade in Snakebrain over there for dog meat, you could ride him yourself. I’d train him up for you. You two’d look mighty fine, patrolling.”

“Mm, thanks, but no. Sometime tomorrow or the next day, soon as I have a chance, I want to pull them out of the herd. I’ll get a packsaddle for Swallow, and Darkling can trot at her heels. Send them down to West Blue with my bride-gifts to Fawn’s mama, which I am fearsome late presenting.”

“Your best horses!” said Omba in dismay.

Dag smiled a slow smile. “Why not? They gave me their best daughter.”

“But I’m their only daughter,” said Fawn.

“Saves argument there, eh?” said Dag.

Omba caught up her braid and rubbed the end. “To farmers! What do they know about Lakewalker horses? What if they try to make Swallow pull a plow? Or cut Darkling? Or…” Her face screwed up, as she evidently pictured even worse farmer misuse of the precious horses.

“My family takes good care of our horses,” said Fawn stiffly. “Of all our animals.”

“They won’t understand,” said Omba.

“I will,” said Dag. He gave her a nod. “See you at dinner. Who’s cookin’?”

“Cumbia. You might want to grab a plunkin off the goats on the way, to fortify yourselves.”

“Thanks, but I guess we’ll survive.” He gestured Fawn away. She gave Omba another knee-dip and smile by way of farewell; the Lakewalker woman just shook her head and returned a sardonic wave. But not hostile, Fawn reminded herself.

As they reached the bridge again, Dag held the gate aside for a girl leading a couple of horses with pannier baskets piled high with plunkins; she gave him a nod of thanks. These plunkins did indeed seem to be mostly broken or weirdly misshapen or with odd discolorations. Fawn glanced back to see her walking along chirping and tossing out plunkins along her path, and a general movement among the goats and pigs toward this feast.

“Lakewalker animals eat plunkins too, do they?”

“Horses and cows and sheep can’t. The pigs and goats chomp them down. So will dogs.”

“I haven’t seen many dogs. I’d think you’d have more, for hunting and such. For hunting malices, even.”

“We don’t keep many. Dogs are more hazard than help on patrol. The malices snap them right up, and they have no defense. Except us, and if you’re trying to bring down a malice, it’d be no use to be distracted trying to protect a dog, especially if it’s turning on you itself.”

As they strolled back along the shore road, Fawn asked curiously, “Was your mother ever a patroller?”

“I think she had the training, way back when. All the youngsters at least get taken out on short trips around the camps. Patrollers are chosen for two things, mainly. General health and strength, and groundsense range. Not everyone can project their groundsense out far enough to be useful on patrol. The lack’s not considered a defect, necessarily; many’s the quite competent maker who can’t reach out much beyond his arm’s length.”