The Lakewalker woman must have written this directive some time before she died, Fawn realized. Fawn imagined her sitting in a Lakewalker tent, tall and graceful like the other patroller women she’d glimpsed; writing tablet balanced on the very thigh that she must have known would come to bear the words, if things went ill. Had she pictured this knife, made from her marrow? Pictured Dag using it someday to drink his own heart’s blood in turn? But she could not ever, Fawn thought, have pictured a feckless young farmer girl fumbling it into this strange confusion, a lifetime—at any rate, Fawn’s lifetime—later.

Brow furrowed, Fawn slipped the sharing knife out of sight again in its sheath.

6

To Dag’s approval, Fawn dozed off again after lunch. Good, let her sleep and make up her blood loss. He’d had enough practice to translate the gore on the dressings to a guess as to the amount. When he mentally doubled the volume to make up for the fact that she was about half the size of most men he’d nursed, he was very thankful that the bleeding had plainly slowed.

He came in from checking on the bay mare, now idling about in the front pasture he’d repaired by pulling rails from the fence opposite, to find Fawn awake and sitting up against the back kitchen wall. Her face was drawn and quiet, and she pulled bored fingers through her curls, which were abundant, if tangled.

She peered up at him. “Do you own a comb?”

He ran his hand through his hair. “Does it look that bad?”

Her smile was too ghostly for his taste, though the quip was worth no more. “Not for you. For me. I usually keep my hair tied up, or it gets in an awful mess. Like now.”

“I have one in my saddlebag,” he offered wryly. “I think. It sifts to the bottom. Haven’t seen it in about a month.”

“That, I do believe.” Her eyes crinkled just a little, then sobered again. “Why don’t you wear your hair fancy like the other patrollers?”

He shrugged. “There are a lot of things I can do one-handed. Braiding hair isn’t one of them.”

“Couldn’t someone do it for you?”

He twitched. “Doesn’t work if no one’s there. Besides, I need enough other favors.”

She looked puzzled. “Is the supply so limited?”

He blinked at the thought. Was it? Shrewd question. He wondered if his passion for proving himself capable and without need of aid, so earnestly undertaken after his maiming, was something a man might outgrow. Old habits die hard. “Maybe not. I’ll look around upstairs, see what I can find.” He added over his shoulder, “Lie flat, you.” She slid back down obediently, though she made a face.