Book Notes: The Sharing Knife, Vol. 4: Horizon, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Book Notes: The Sharing Knife, Vol. 4: Horizon, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Ch. 1

As they reached a turn in the stairs and reversed direction, Fawn’s little hand gripped Berry’s in a gesture of encouragement. Berry’s workhardened fingers looked unusually cold and pale. Dag had seen Berry face down raging shoals, snagging sandbars, rough rivermen, sly goodsdealers, murderous bandits, knife fights, heartbreak, and hangings, high water and low as the riverfolk put it, with unflagging courage. Any who would dare chuckle at her pre-wedding nerves...had never faced a wedding ceremony themselves, Dag decided.

--

He considered his own wedding cord wound around his upper arm, concealed beneath his jacket sleeve, braided by Fawn’s own hands and containing a thread of her live ground, proof of their union to anyone with groundsense. She wore its twin on her left wrist, peeping like a hair bracelet from her shirt cuff, humming with a bit of Dag’s ground in turn. Not that any Lakewalker camp wouldn’t seize on a wedding as an excuse for a party, and not that the tent-kin on both sides didn’t mix in till you were ready to wrap some spare cords around their necks and twist, but in the end, the marriage was solely between two people, tracking its traces in their inward selves. Even if the couple should be cast among strangers, the cords silently spoke their witness for them.

Ch. 2

“Sometimes you have to give up on the surprise part. Remember your birthday, when I gave you one sweater sleeve? ”
Dag smiled a little and touched the finished garment, which he was wearing now against the damp chill seeping back into the boat as the bustle of dinner wore off. “Indeed, Spark. Thing is, you already knew you could finish that promise. You didn’t have to stop and invent knitting, first.”
“All right, now you have to say,” said Whit, leaning back. “You can’t trail that sort of bait across the water and then just haul in your line.”

Ch. 5

Dag had wakened at first light, with all of the uncertainties that had chased one another around in his head last night ready for more laps.

Ch. 8

“Did your, ah, courtships not prosper?” Dag inquired genially, taking his seat again. He really didn’t see how they could have failed. “Which one were you sweet on, again? I couldn’t hardly tell.”
Fawn picked up her needles and plunked down in the padded chair opposite, but didn’t start knitting again. Arkady had set down his quill and rested his chin in his hand, spread fingers hiding his smirk, listening shamelessly.
“Tavia,” sighed Barr. He waved his arms in the air. “Tavia, Tavia, Tavia. Hair so soft. The rest of her”—optimistically large hand motions above his chest—“so soft, too. A man wouldn’t get sliced up by her hip bones like that blond icicle Remo’s drooling after, not that it does him any good, either.” The arms fell listlessly to the rug.
“And the trouble with all this is . . . ? ” prodded Fawn.
“Tavia’s gone sweet on Remo. Why? Why? I like her way better than he ever would. I bet I could make her happier, too. I’m an ever-so-muchcheerier fellow. Irony, ah, irony.”
“I gather from this that Remo is, er, sweet on Neeta?” Dag inquired.
“I shouldn’t think she would find him repulsive.” He wasn’t sure whether to hope to learn Neeta was sweet on Barr, or not. A truly creative patroller with a big enough blanket might do something with that array. He elected not to mention the thought. One mustn’t shock the youngsters.

--

“Remo’s taking forever,” said Barr at last. “I think I’ll go wash up in the lake.”
“But the water’ll be cold!” said Fawn.
“Good,” said Barr savagely, convulsed to his feet, and lurched out.
Arkady muffled a snicker, then let his hand fall to the table. “I suppose if we’re going to laugh at them we should do it now, and not in their faces.”

Ch. 11

She wondered just how refreshed he found himself this morning, and considered lifting the quilt to check.

--

“Planting ideas? ” Fawn tested the notion in her mind. “Only works if you’re going to stay and water and weed them. And pick off the caterpillars.”
“Huh.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “It’s never simple, is it, Spark? ”

Ch. 13

Fawn was grateful for the Lakewalkers making an alligator patrol before bed. All they stirred up was a family of scurrying animals that looked to be the unlikely offspring of a possum mating with a turtle. Dag, accused, denied that ancient or recent Lakewalker magery had anything to do with the armor-plated possums. When the boys poked them with sticks they rolled up like pill bugs, inspiring a brief round of creature-ball till they unrolled and scampered indignantly away.

--

“I hope you don’t mind me volunteering you, sir.”
“No . . .” A shrewd pause. “All in all, that was well done.” From Arkady, who was quite capable of prefacing his milder critiques with You gormless, ham-handed half-wit! this was true praise.