Dag returned at dinnertime as promised. Fawn had put on her good dress, the green cotton that her aunt Nattie had spun and woven; she followed him downstairs. The raucous noises coming out of the room where they’d eaten their quiet lunch gave her pause.

Seeing her hesitate, Dag smiled and bent his head to murmur, “Patrollers can be a rowdy bunch when we all get together, but you’ll be all right. You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want. We can make out you’re still too shaken by our fight with the malice and don’t want to talk about it. They’ll accept that.” His hand drifted to her collar as if to arrange it more tidily, and Fawn realized he was not covering up the strange marks on her neck, but rather, making sure they showed. “I think we don’t need to mention what happened with the second knife to anyone besides Mari.”

“Good,” said Fawn, relieved, and allowed him to take her in, his arm protective at her back.

The tables this evening were indeed full of tall, alarming patrollers, twenty-five or so, variously layered with road dirt. Given Dag’s warning, Fawn managed not to jump when their entrance was greeted with whoops, cheers, table pounding, and flying jibes about Dag’s three-day vanishing. The roughness of some of the jests was undercut by the real joy in the voices, and Dag, smiling crookedly, gave back: “Some trackers! I swear you lot couldn’t find a drink in a rain barrel!”

“Beer barrel, Dag!” someone hooted in return. “What’s wrong with you?”

Dag surveyed the room and guided Fawn toward a square table on the far side where only two patrollers sat, the Utau and Razi she’d met earlier. The two waved encouragement as they approached, and Razi shoved out a spare chair invitingly with his boot.

Fawn was not sure which patrollers were Mari’s and which were Chato’s; the two patrols seemed to be mingled, not quite at random. Any sorting seemed to be more by age, as there was one table with half a dozen gray heads at it, including Mari; also two other older women Fawn had not seen at the well-house, so presumably from the Log Hollow patrol. The young woman with her arm in the sling was at a table with three young men, all vying to cut her meat for her; she was presently holding them off with jabs of her fork and laughing. The men patrollers seemed all ages, but the women were only young or much older, Fawn noticed, and remembered Mari’s account of her life’s course. In the home camps would the proportions be reversed?

Breathless serving maids and boys weaved among the tables lugging trays laden with platters and pitchers, rapidly relieved by reaching hands. The patrollers seemed more interested in speed and quantity than in decorum, an attitude shared with farmhouse kitchens that made Fawn feel nearly comfortable.

They sat and exchanged greetings with Razi and Utau; Razi leaped up and acquired more plates, cutlery, and glasses, and both united to snag passing food and drink to fill them. They did ply Dag with questions about his adventures although, with cautious glances, spared Fawn. His answers were either unexcitingly factual, vague, or took the form that Fawn recognized from the Horsefords’ table of effectively diverting counterquestions. They finally desisted and let Dag catch up with his chewing.

Utau glanced around the room, and remarked, “Everyone’s a lot happier tonight.

Especially Mari. Fortunately for all of us downstream of her.”

Razi said wistfully, “Do you suppose she and Chato will let us all have a bow-down before we go back out?”

“Chato looks pretty cheerful,” said Utau, nodding across the room at another table of patrollers, although which was the leader Fawn could not tell. “We might get lucky.”

“What’s a bow-down?” asked Fawn.

Razi smiled eagerly. “It’s a party, patroller-style. They happen sometimes, to celebrate a kill, or when two or more patrols chance to get together. Having another patrol to talk to is a treat. Not that we don’t all love one another”—Utau rolled his eyes at this—“but weeks on end of our own company can get pretty old. A bow-down has music. Dancing. Beer if we can get it…”

“We could get lots of beer, here,” Utau observed distantly.

“Lingerrrring in dark corners—” Razi trilled, catching up the tail of his braid and twirling it.

“Enough—she gets the idea,” said Dag, but he smiled. Fawn wondered if it was in memory. “Could happen, but I guarantee it won’t be till Mari thinks the cleanup is all done. Or as done as it ever gets.” His eye was caught by something over Fawn’s shoulder. “I feel prophetic. I predict chores before cheer.” “Dag, you’re such a morbid crow—” Razi began.

“Well, gentlemen,” said Mari’s voice. “Do your feet hurt?”

Fawn turned her head and smiled diffidently at the patrol leader, who had drifted up to their table.

Razi opened his mouth, but Dag cut in, “Don’t answer that, Razi. It’s a trick question. The safe response is, ‘I can’t say, Mari, but why do you ask?’ ”

Mari’s lips twitched, and she returned in a sugary voice, “I’m so glad you asked that question, Dag!”

“Maybe not so safe,” murmured Utau, grinning.

“How’s the arm-harness repair coming?” Mari continued to Dag.

Dag grimaced. “Done tomorrow afternoon, maybe. I had to stop at two places before I found one that would do it for free. Or rather, in exchange for us saving his life, family, town, territory, and everyone in it.”

Utau said dryly, “Naturally, you forgot to mention it was you personally who took their malice down.”

Dag shrugged this off in irritation. “Firstly, that wasn’t so. Secondly, none of us could do the job without the rest of us, so all are owed. I shouldn’t…

none of us should have to beg.”

“It so happens,” said Mari, letting this slide by, “that I have a sitting-down job for a one-handed man tomorrow morning. In the storeroom here is a trunkful of patrol logs and maps for this region that need a good going-over. The usual.

I want someone with an eye for it to see if we can figure how this malice slipped through, and stop up the crack in future. Also, I want a listing of the nearby sectors that have been especially neglected. We’re going to stay here a few extra days while the injured recover, and to repair gear and furbish up.”

Utau and Razi both brightened at this news.

“We’ll do some local search-pattern catch-up at the same time,” Mari continued.

“And let the Glassforge folk see us doing so,” she added, with dour emphasis and a nod at Dag. “Give ‘em a show.”

Dag snorted. “Better we should offer them double their blight bogles back if they’re not happy with our work.”

Razi choked on the beer he was just swallowing, and Utau kindly if unhelpfully thumped his back. “Oh, how I wish we could!” Razi wheezed when he’d caught his breath again. “Love to see the looks on their stupid farmer faces, just once!”

Fawn congealed, her beginning ease and enjoyment of the patrollers’ banter abruptly quenched. Dag stiffened.

Mari cast them both an enigmatic look, but moved off without comment, and Fawn remembered their exchange earlier on the universal nature of loutishness. So.

Razi burbled on obliviously, “Patrolling out of Glassforge is like a holiday.

Sure, you ride all day, but when you come back there are real beds. Real baths!

Food you don’t have to fix, not burned over a campfire. Little comforts to bargain for up in the town.”

“And yet farmers built this place,” Fawn murmured, and she was sure by his wince that Dag heard clearly the missing stupid she’d clipped out.

Razi shrugged. “Farmers plant crops, but who planted farmers? We did.” What? Fawn thought.

Utau, perhaps not quite as oblivious as his comrade, glanced at her, and countered, “You mean our ancestors did. Pretty broad claim of credit, there.”