He nodded cautiously, then remembered to say aloud, “Yes. That is to say, they are a visible proof of a valid marriage, like your village clerk’s record and writing your name in the family book with all the witnesses’ signatures below. The string-binding is the heart and center of a wedding. The food and the music and the dancing and the arguments among the relatives are all extra.”

“Uh-huh,” said Nattie. “And there’s the problem, patroller. Because if Fawn and you stand up in the parlor before the family and all like you say you want, and sign your names and make your promises, seems to me she’d be getting married, but you wouldn’t. I said I had a question, and this is it. I want to know exactly what you are about, that you think this won’t twist around somehow and leave her cryin’.”

Fawn wondered for a moment why he was being held responsible for her future tears but not her for his. She supposed it was the, the blighted age thing again. It seemed unfairly unbalanced, somehow.

Dag was silent for several long breaths. He finally raised his chin, and said, “When I first rode in here, I had no thought of a farmer wedding. But it didn’t take long to see how little her family valued Spark. Present company excepted,” he added hastily. Nattie nodded grimly, not disagreeing. “Not that they don’t love her and try to look out for her, in a sort of backhanded, absentminded way. But they don’t seem to see her, not as she is. Not as I see her. Of course, they don’t have groundsense, but still. Maybe the past fogs the present, maybe they just haven’t looked lately, maybe they never have looked, I don’t know. But marriage seems to raise a woman’s standing in a farmer family. I thought I could give her that, in an easy way. Well, it seemed easy at the time. Not so sure now.” He sighed. “I was real clear about the widowhood business, though.”

“Seems like a hollow gift, patroller.”

“Yes, but I can’t do a string-binding here. I can’t make the string, for one; it takes two hands and I’ve got none, and I’m not sure Fawn can make one at all, and we’ve no one to do the blessing and the tying. I was thinking that when we reached Hickory Lake I might try for a string-binding there, despite the difficulties.”

“Think your family will favor this idea?”

“No,” he said frankly. “I expect trouble about it. But I’ve outstubborned everything my life has thrown at me so far.”

“He’s got a point there, Aunt Nattie,” Fawn dared to say.

“Mm,” said Aunt Nattie. “So what happens if they pitch her out on her ear? Which Lakewalkers have done to farmer suitors before, I do believe.”