The boys had set up trestle tables in the west yard under the trees, so there would be room for everyone to sit down who wanted to. One whole table was devoted to the food and drink, which people circled and descended upon like stooping hawks, carrying loaded plates away to the other tables. Women banged in and out of the kitchen after things forgotten or belatedly wanted. With only the four families plus the Sowers present, it was literally a quiet wedding, with no music or dancing attempted, and as it chanced, there were no little ones present to fall down the well or out of trees or stable lofts and keep the parents alert, or crazed.

There followed eating, drinking, eating, talking, and eating. When Fawn hauled Dag and his plate to the food trestle for the third time, he bent and whispered fearfully, “How much more of this do I have to get down so as not to offend any of those formidable women I’m now related to?”

“Well, there’s Aunt Roper’s cream-and-honey pie,” said Fawn judiciously, “and Aunt Bluefield’s butter-walnut cake, and Mama’s maple-hickory nut bars, and my apple pies.”

“All of them?”

“Ideally. Or you could just pick one and let the rest be offended.”

Dag appeared to cogitate for a moment, then said gravely, “Slap on a big chunk of that apple pie, then.”

“I do like a man who thinks on his feet,” said Fawn, scooping up a generous portion.

“Yeah, while I can still see them.”

She smirked.

He added plaintively, “That dimple’s going to be the death of me, you know?”

“Never,” she said firmly, and led him back to their seats.

She slipped away soon after to her bedroom to change into her riding trousers and shoes and the sturdier shirt that went with them. She left the lilies in her hair, though. When she came back out to Nattie’s weaving room, Dag stood up from his neatly packed saddlebags.

“You say when, Spark.”

“Now,” she replied fervently, “while they’re still working through the desserts. They’ll be less inclined to follow along.”

“Not being able to move? I begin to see your clever plan.” He grinned and went to get Whit and Fletch to help him with the horses.

She met them in the lane to the south of the house, where Dag was watching with keen attention as his new brothers-in-law tied on the assorted gear. “I don’t think they’ll try any tricks on you,” she whispered up to him.

“If they were Lakewalkers,” he murmured back, “there would be no end of tricks at this point. Patroller humor. Sometimes, people are allowed to live, after.”

Fawn made a wry face. Then added thoughtfully, “Do you miss it?”

“Not that part,” he said, shaking his head.