He strode quickly to the medicine table, eyes seeking, to her surprise, Fawn. “You’re here, you’re here, oh thanks be! Can I talk to you privately, Missus Bluefield? ”

“Well, sure, I suppose so.” Fawn looked around. “Would over by the trees be private enough? ”

“Yes, anything.” His hand stretched and clenched, as if he wanted to grab her arm and hurry her along, but didn’t quite dare. They came to a halt at the fringe of the woods, in sight of the market but out of earshot.

Not out of groundsense range, naturally, but she doubted groundsense could make anything more of the agitated farm youth than she did.

Finch’s tense face was damp with perspiration and flushed with exertion, making his blue eyes look incongruously bright.

“Is your husband still of a mind to treat farmers? ” he asked abruptly.

He watched her mouth with painful intensity, as if expecting his heart’s salvation to issue from her lips.

“Well… in the north, in due course, sure. But he’s just an apprentice here. He’s not allowed.”

His hand swept this aside as if he barely heard her. His words fell out in a breathless tumble. “It’s my nephew Sparrow. My brother’s little boy. He’s barely five. He’s got the lockjaw. And it’s all my fault! I let him run barefoot in the barn. There was this nail, went halfway though his poor little foot. I was supposed to be watching him! He cries and cries, when he can. The fever came on first. The straining started last night. The screams are bad, but the silences are worse, oh gods.”

“Yeah, I know lockjaw,” said Fawn slowly. “Violet Stonecrop’s little brother died of it, oh, years back. They were neighbors of ours, when I was growing up in West Blue. I didn’t see, but Violet told me all about it, later.” Horrifying descriptions.

“Can he come? Can your Lakewalker husband help? ” Finch clutched her sleeve. “Can you ask-him, whatever his name is? Please? My sisterin- law cries, and Mama’s so mad she won’t even look at me. Please, can you ask him?” The clutch became a shaking grip, painful. “It’s all so awful!”

“Dag,” said Fawn, answering his least question while trying desperately to think. “Dag Bluefield. He insisted on taking my name when we were wed, the way Lakewalkers do. Took a farmer name to be more Lakewalker. ’S funny.” She would have to catch Dag alone, not in front of everyone in the medicine tent. She glanced at the sun. Near noon- he might be back to the house for lunch.

Or she could spare Dag the decision. Because this one was going to be hard no matter what way it played out, though with a youngster involved, she didn’t have a lot of doubt which way Dag would jump. She knew the camp rules as well as he did. She could send Finch packing, back to his daylight nightmare, and never share the dilemma. It wasn’t a good time for Dag. He’d seemed so strained since the pig roast. Constantly looking at her, as if wondering-what? As if regretting how his farmer bride divided him from his people?

Out in the wide world, there were any number of folks sick or dying right this minute, and what was one more? Arkady would surely forbid it, if he caught even a whiff of the plan. Fawn wasn’t even sure Lakewalkers could do anything for lockjaw; she hadn’t seen a case since she’d started work in the medicine tent. This could cost Dag his training. And how much would that cost others, down the line?

She let out her breath in a slow trickle, knowing her choice was no choice at all. “I can’t promise he’ll come. But I can ask him. Come along.”

Finch exhaled in a long huff, nodded, seemed to realize at last that his grip was hurting her, and let her go. She looked up and gave a wave to Cerie and Nola, watching her dubiously across the grass, which didn’t explain a thing but at least made it look like she wasn’t sneaking. There was a path over the wooded ridge that went nearly straight to Arkady’s place, much quicker than going around by the gate. The camp’s perimeter, she had learned, wasn’t as tightly guarded as that gate made it appear.

Nevertheless, she’d better not push their luck. When they were almost in sight of the water, she told Finch, “Stay here, down in this little hollow. Arkady’s place is just a couple hundred paces farther on. I’ll bring back Dag, or… or his word. I might be a little while.”

He nodded silently and hunkered down on a fallen log below the earthen banks, turning his face up to a dapple of sunlight, eyes squeezing shut. Fawn hurried down the path.

She found Dag and Arkady just finishing lunch, packing up the basket.

The Oleana boys had gone off somewhere, good.

“Fawn!” said Dag, rising from the table in surprise. “I thought you’d be at the market. Are you hungry? ”

She gave her head a quick shake.

He hesitated, giving her that uncomfortable penetrating Daggish look. Groundsense, gods, her skin might as well be glass. “Are you all right? ”

“Something’s come up,” she told him, not glancing at Arkady. “Can I talk to you private? ”

“Ah, hm,” said Arkady, his brows lifting inexplicably. “Perhaps it’s as well. I’ll walk on back to the medicine tent, Dag. You take all the time you need.” With a benign wave, he took the basket with him, setting it outside the front door. Well, this was easier than she’d expected. So far. She wasn’t sure that was a good thing. Fawn waited till she could no longer hear his footsteps going up the path.

“Fawn,” Dag began slowly, “there’s something-” but she overrode him, saying, “Oh, Dag, it’s so horrible!”

“Huh? ” he said warily. “No, Spark, it won’t be that bad, I’ll be with you every-”

“It’s Finch Bridger’s nephew, poor tyke. He stepped on a nail and got the lockjaw. Oh, Dag, I know Arkady won’t like it, but can we go to him? He’s only five years old!”

Dag blinked. Paused. Blinked again. “Who? ”

Rapidly, Fawn related what Finch had told her. “Can we go to him? Do we dare? Can Lakewalker medicine makers even treat lockjaw? ”

Dag replied, with agonizing slowness, “I’ve read up on it in Arkady’s casebooks. They do groundwork on the nerves, and try to get enough water and food down between the spasms to keep the patient alive till the worst passes. I’ve only run across two cases. One was a woman at Hickory Lake came down with it-after childbirth, gods, there’s another!-Hoharie brought her through somehow. Didn’t see that one, only heard about it-tent gossip. Another was a patroller caught way out on the big summer wilderness sweep up in Luthlia. The treatment failed. He shared. Not right away-when he and his patrol couldn’t bear it anymore.”

“Do you think you could do that nerve work? Despite not having seen it? ”

Dag vented a long sigh, scratched his head. “How old did you say this youngster was, again? ”

“Rising five, Finch says.”

“Absent gods,” Dag muttered.

“The Bridger farm is about ten miles off. Finch has a cart. Do you think we could get there and back before Arkady… um, no, likely not.”

Dag shook his head. “It can take days to pull someone through lockjaw. Or… not.”

“I can pack up what we need for some overnights in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

“I’d really rather you stayed here.”

“And face Arkady alone? ” She shook her head vigorously. “Don’t you dare leave me to him! He’d make mincemeat of me. It’s going to be bad enough when we get back. Anyhow, it would be madness to send you into an upset farmer household without me to ease them along. To know what Lakewalkerish things need explaining to them, and how.”

“That is unquestionably true.” He stared at her unnervingly. “Well… it’s not a very contagious sort of disease, in the usual course of things. You might be safe around it.”

“Well, of course!”

“If you didn’t get too close.”

She stared back at him, perplexed. What was he going on about, here? Never mind. Once they got to the Bridgers’, she would deal with things as they needed to be dealt with, same as always. She wet her lips.