“Ah,” said Dag.

She glanced up at him. “I better write back soon, or the letter might not reach him before they shove off. So… what are we doing, Dag? When we started out for New Moon, I thought we might be here a few days, but it’s already been more ’n a month.”

Dag delayed answer by going to the sink to wash his hand before dinner, a ritual Arkady insisted upon with more than maternal firmness.

Fawn followed suit. They laid out the contents of the basket, and Arkady brought over the tea, before Dag spoke. “I’ve hardly finished training up for medicine maker.”

Arkady, pouring, snorted. “You’ve hardly started. I’d give you two years. Most apprentices take three or four.”

“Two years!” said Fawn.

Dag merely nodded. “I begin to see why.”

“Really,” said Arkady, “medicine makers don’t ever stop learning from each other, and from their patients. The common ailments become routine very quickly-and I will say, you’re the most relentless student I’ve ever had-but some experiences can’t be sped up. You just have to wait for them to occur.”

Dag bit into his bread and butter, chewed, swallowed. “When would you guess I’d be fit to start actual groundwork? ”

Arkady didn’t answer right off. Instead he went to his shelf, took down a familiar little book, and paged through it. He eyed Dag steadily for an unnerving minute, then, with some danger of mixing ink and crumbs, jotted a few notes and blew on the page to dry them. “Tomorrow,” he said.

Dag looked startled but pleased. “What about all my so-called dirty ground you were so worried about? ”

“As I hoped, the best remedy was time. Your ground is cleaning itself out quite nicely, and will continue to do so as long as you don’t contaminate yourself again. The permanent cure, of course, is to stop doing that.”

Dag took a slow sip of tea. “That’s… not enough, Arkady. If I’m ever to treat farmers and not leave them crazy with beguilement, I’m going to have to go on absorbing all sorts of strange ground.”

Arkady glowered at him.

“It was all mixed together in my head for a while,” Dag went on, “but looking back, I’m less and less sure how much of my upset was from taking in strange ground, and how much was just from dealing with Crane and his bandits, which was plenty to give any thinking man nightmares.”

“Mind and ground-and emotion-do intersect on the deepest levels,” Arkady conceded. He glanced, oddly, at Fawn.

Dag nodded. “Because for all the things I took in-barring Crane- it seems to me I just kept getting stronger and better at groundwork all the way downriver. ’Cept for the part about being untidy, just what about having dirty ground unfits me for medicine making? ”

“Every bit of strange ground you take in changes your own ground, and so how it works. The results risk being uncontrolled.”

Dag frowned. “Everything I do and learn-blight, every breath I take-changes my ground. My ground can’t not change, not while I’m alive. Could be dirty ground is just something to live with, like the bugs and blisters and weather and weariness on patrol.”

“Rough-and-ready may do for patrolling. Not for the delicate control needed for groundsetting.”

“Groundsetting isn’t so sweet and delicate as all that, that I’ve seen.”

“Your projection changes everything you touch with it.”

“My hand changes everything I touch with it. Always has. Anyway, I want to change folks.”

“Dag, you can’t treat farmers. Not at New Moon Cutoff.”

“What if Fawn falls ill? I will sure enough treat her!”

Arkady waved this away. “That’s different.”

“Oh? How? Groundwise.”

Arkady sighed and rubbed his brow. “I can see I’m going to have to give you the set speech. For my usual apprentices it starts out, When I was your age… but I suppose that won’t do for you.”

“When you were my age? ” Fawn suggested helpfully.

Arkady eyed her. “A little older than that. Not much, I grant.”

Dag eased back and occupied his protesting mouth with another bite of bread. He nodded to signal that Arkady had his full attention.

Arkady drew a long breath. “When I was much younger, and stupider, and vastly more energetic, my wife and I were training up together as medicine makers at a camp called Hatchet Slough, which is about a hundred and fifty miles northeast of here.”

What wife? Fawn hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a Missus Arkady since she’d arrived, nor, more tellingly, heard any word. Dag nodded understanding- of the geography? Or of something else? She wasn’t sure if Arkady saw the little flinch that went-with. Tales of the ill fates of first wives would likely do that to Dag. Fawn gulped and shut up hard.

“We were both newly come into our full maker’s powers. Bryna had a special talent for women’s ailments. There were already hints that I’d be a groundsetter when I grew into myself. It seemed we had more enthusiasm than sick or injured to treat at Hatchet Slough. An excess of energy that’s hard to imagine, now…

“Being young, we talked about the problems of our neighboring farmers. She thought it a grand idea to offer treatments to them- perhaps set up a little medicine tent at the camp farmer’s market, next to the table for herbs and preparations. Our mentors put their feet down hard on that before it became more than talk, of course, but you can see how far our thinking had gone. Your notions aren’t new, Dag.”

Dag’s eyes lit. “But with unbeguilement, you could really do that!”

Arkady made a little wait-for-the-rest gesture. “A desperate farmer woman with a dying husband who’d heard our loose talk came to Bryna for help. She went.”

“Is this one of those failed-and-blamed tales?” Dag said uneasily.

Fawn shivered. Accusations of black sorcery could get a lone Lakewalker beaten up-or burned alive, if the mob was vicious enough. Lakewalkers in pairs or groups were much harder to tackle.

“No. She succeeded. The man wasn’t even beguiled.” Arkady drew another fortifying breath. “Word got out. Another frantic farmer came, and another. I started going out with her. One sick woman became deeply beguiled, and began haunting the camp. Her husband decided she’d been seduced, and tried to waylay and kill me. Fortunately, there were some patrollers nearby who rescued me and drove him off.

“It all came to a head when there was a riot at the camp gates by the kin of some desperately ill folks, trying to break in and carry us away by force. It was repulsed with a lot of bloodied heads on both sides-one patroller was killed, and two farmers. The camp council decided to break the impasse by smuggling us out in the night. We were taken in secret to Moss River Camp to continue our training. The Hatchet Slough Lakewalkers misdirected anyone inclined to search for us. And that was the end of our experiments with farmers.” Arkady sat up straight and fixed Dag with a glare. “As I don’t care to relive that nightmare, you will stay away from farmers as long as you reside at New Moon Cutoff. Is that very clear? ”

Dag returned a short nod like some unhappily disciplined patroller.

“Yes, sir.”

Arkady said in a more conciliating tone, “Of course that does not apply to Fawn. She doesn’t trail a jealous farmer spouse, nor does she have kin here to foment a riot. She’s not likely to create a camp problem.”

He added after a moment, “At least, not in that sense.”

Fawn’s brows drew down in puzzlement. “But what happened to your wife, sir? ”

Dag gave her an urgent head shake, but whether it meant No, don’t ask! or I’ll explain later, she wasn’t sure.

But Arkady replied merely, “She works at Moss River Camp these days.” Voice and expression both flat and uninviting, so Fawn swallowed the dozen questions that begged.

“As guests here,” Dag said, “Fawn and I are of course obliged to abide by your camp rules. I won’t give you trouble, sir.”