Lois McMaster Bujold - Sharing Knife - 01 - Beguilement

THE SHARING KNIFE - BEGUILEMENT

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Acclaimed author Lois McMaster Bujold—winner of the Hugo Award for her novel

Paladin of Souls—brings us to a new world beset with an ancient and

malevolent

presence that a race of mages struggles against in a generations-long war…

THE SHARING KNIFE

Volume One: BEGUILEMENT

Young Fawn Bluefield has fled her family’s farm hoping to find work in the

city

of Glassforge. Uncertain about her future and the troubles she carries, Fawn

stops for a drink of water at a roadside inn, where she encounters a patrol

of

Lakewalkers, enigmatic soldier-sorcerers from the woodland culture to the

north.

Fawn knows the stories about the Lakewalkers: they are necromancers; they

practice black sorcery; they have no permanent homes and own only the clothes

they wear and the weapons—mysterious knives made of human bone—they carry.

What

she does not know is that the Lakewalkers, as a whole, are engaged in a

perilous

campaign against inhuman and immortal magical entities known as “malices,”

creatures that suck the life out of all they encounter, and turn men and

animals

into their minions.

Dag is an older Lakewalker patroller who carries his past sorrows as heavily

as

his present responsibilities. When Fawn is kidnapped by the malice Dag’s

patrol

is tracking, Dag races to rescue her. But in the ensuing struggle, it is not

Dag

but Fawn who kills the creature—at dire cost—and an uncanny accident befalls

Dag’s sharing knife, which unexpectedly binds their two fates together.

And so now the misenchanted knife must be returned to the Lakewalkers.

Together,

Fawn and Dag set out on the long road back to his camp. But on the journey

this

unlikely pair will encounter danger and delight, prejudice and partnership,

and

maybe even love…

Also by Lois McMaster Bujold

The Spirit Ring

Falling Free

Shards of Honor

Barrayar

The Warrior’s Apprentice

The Vor Game

Cetaganda

Ethan of Athos

Borders of Infinity

Brothers in Arms

Mirror Dance

Memory

Komarr

A Civil Campaign

Diplomatic Immunity

The Curse of Chalion

Paladin of Souls

The Hallowed Hunt

CONTENTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19

MAP

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are

drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any

resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely

coincidental.

THE SHARING KNIFE, VOLUME ONE: BEGUILEMENT.

book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written

permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical

articles

and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd

Street, New York, NY 10022.

HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales

promotional use.

For information please write: Special Markets Department, HarperCollins

Publishers,

10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.

FIRST EDITION Eos is a federally registered trademark of HarperCollins

Publishers.

Designed by Sunil Manchikanti

Map by Lois McMaster Bujold

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-113758-7

ISBN-10: 0-06-113758-7-8

06 07 08 09 10 jtc/rrd 10 98765432 1

THE SHARING KNIFE

BEGUILEMENT

Chapter 1

Fawn came to the well-house a little before noon. More than a farmstead, less

than an inn, it sat close to the straight road she’d been trudging down for

two

days. The farmyard lay open to travelers, bounded by a semicircle of old log

outbuildings, with the promised covered well in the middle. To resolve all

doubt, somebody had nailed a sign picturing the well itself to one of the

support posts, and below the painting a long list of goods the farm might

sell,

with the prices. Each painstakingly printed line had a little picture below

it,

and colored circles of coins lined up in rows beyond, for those who could not

read the words and numbers themselves. Fawn could, and keep accounts as well,

skills her mother had taught her along with a hundred other household tasks.

She

frowned at the unbidden thought: So if I’m so clever, what am I doing in this

fix?

She set her teeth and felt in her skirt pocket for her coin purse. It was not

heavy, but she might certainly buy some bread. Bread would be bland. The

dried

mutton from her pack that she’d tried to eat this morning had made her sick,

again, but she needed something to fight the horrible fatigue that slowed her

steps to a plod, or she’d never make it to Glassforge. She glanced around the

unpeopled yard and at the iron bell hung from the post with a pull cord

dangling

invitingly, then lifted her eyes to the rolling fields beyond the buildings.

On

a distant sunlit slope, a dozen or so people were haying. Uncertainly, she

went

around to the farmhouse’s kitchen door and knocked.

A striped cat perching on the step eyed her without getting up. The cat’s

plump

calm reassured Fawn, together with the good repair of the house’s faded

shingles

and fieldstone foundation, so that when a comfortably middle-aged farmwife

opened the door, Fawn’s heart was hardly pounding at all.

“Yes, child?” said the woman.

I’m not a child, I’m just short, Fawn bit back; given the crinkles at the

corners of the woman’s friendly eye’s, maybe Fawn’s basket of years would

still

seem scant to her. “You sell bread?”

The farmwife’s glance around took in her aloneness. “Aye; step in.”

A broad hearth at one end of the room heated it beyond summer, and was

crowded

with pots hanging from iron hooks. Delectable smells of ham and beans, corn

and

bread and cooking fruit mingled in the moist air, noon meal in the making for

the gang of hay cutters. The farmwife folded back a cloth from a lumpy row on

a

side table, fresh loaves from a workday that had doubtless started before

dawn.

Despite her nausea Fawn’s mouth watered, and she picked out a loaf that the

woman told her was rolled inside with crystal honey and hickory nuts. Fawn

fished out a coin, wrapped the loaf in her kerchief, and took it back

outside.

The woman walked along with her.

“The water’s clean and free, but you have to draw it yourself,” the woman

told

her, as Fawn tore off a corner of the loaf and nibbled. “Ladle’s on the hook.

Which way were you heading, child?”

“To Glassforge.”

“By yourself?” The woman frowned. “Do you have people there?”

“Yes,” Fawn lied.

“Shame on them, then. Word is there’s a pack of robbers on the road near

Glassforge. They shouldn’t have sent you out by yourself.”

“South or north of town?” asked Fawn in worry.

“A ways south, I heard, but there’s no saying they’ll stay put.”

“I’m only going as far south as Glassforge.” Fawn set the bread on the bench

beside her pack, freed the latch for the crank, and let the bucket fall till

a

splash echoed back up the well’s cool stone sides, then began turning.

Robbers did not sound good. Still, they were a frank hazard. Any fool would

know

enough not to go near them. When Fawn had started on this miserable journey

six

days ago, she had cadged rides from wagons at every chance as soon as she’d

walked far enough from home not to risk encountering someone who knew her.

Which

had been fine until that one fellow who’d said stupid things that made her

very

uncomfortable and followed up with a grab and a grope. Fawn had managed to

break

away, and the man had not been willing to abandon his rig and restive team to

chase her down, but she might have been less lucky. After that, she’d hidden

discreetly in the verge from the occasional passing carts until she was sure

there was a woman or a family aboard.

The few bites of bread were helping settle her stomach already. She hoisted

the

bucket onto the bench and took the wooden dipper the woman handed down to

her.

The water tasted of iron and old eggs, but was clear and cold. Better. She

would

rest a while on this bench in the shade, and perhaps this afternoon she would

make better time.

From the road to the north, hoofbeats and a jingle of harness sounded. No

creak

or rattle of wheels, but quite a lot of hooves. The farmwife glanced up, her

eyes narrowing, and her hand rose to the cord on the bell clapper.

“Child,” she said, “see those old apple trees at the side of the yard? Why

don’t

you just go skin up one and stay quiet till we see what this is, eh?”

Fawn thought of several responses, but settled on, “Yes’m.” She started

across

the yard, turned back and grabbed her loaf, then trotted to the small grove.

The

closest tree had a set of boards nailed to the side like a ladder, and she

scrambled up quickly through branches thick with leaves and hard little green

apples. Her dress was dyed dull blue, her jacket brown; she would blend with

the

shadows here as well as she had on the road verge, likely. She braced herself

along a branch, tucked in her pale hands and lowered her face, shook her

head,

and peered out through the cascade of black curls falling over her forehead.

The mob of riders turned into the yard, and the farmwife came off her tense

toes, shoulders relaxing. She released the bell cord. There must have been a

dozen and a half horses, of many colors, but all rangy and long-legged. The

riders wore mostly dark clothing, had saddlebags and bedrolls tied behind

their

cantles, and—Fawn’s breath caught—long knives and swords hanging from their

belts. Many also bore bows, unstrung athwart their backs, and quivers full of

arrows.

No, not all men. A woman rode out of the pack, slid from her horse, and

nodded

to the farmwife. She was dressed much as the rest, in riding trousers and

boots

and a long leather vest, and had iron-gray hair braided and tied in a tight

knot

at her nape. The men wore their hair long too: some braided back or tied in

queues, with decorations of glass beads or bright metal or colored threads

twisted in, some knotted tight and plain like the woman’s.

Lakewalkers. A whole patrol of them, apparently. Fawn had seen their kind

only

once before, when she’d come with her parents and brothers to Lumpton Market

to

buy special seed, glass jars, rock oil and wax, and dyes. Not a patrol, that

time, but a clan of traders from the wilderness up around the Dead Lake, who

had

brought fine furs and leathers and odd woodland produce and clever metalwork

and

more secret items: medicines, or maybe subtle poisons. The Lakewalkers were

rumored to practice black sorcery.

Other, less unlikely rumors abounded. Lakewalker kinfolk did not settle in

one

place, but moved about from camp to camp depending on the needs of the

season.

No man among them owned his own land, carefully parceling it out amongst his

heirs, but considered the vast wild tracts to be held in common by all his

kin.

A man owned only the clothes he stood in, his weapons, and the catches of his

hunts. When they married, a woman did not become mistress of her husband’s

house, obliged to the care of his aging parents; instead a man moved into the

tents of his bride’s mother, and became as a son to her family. There were

also

whispers of strange bed customs among them which, maddeningly, no one would

confide to Fawn.

On one thing, the folks were clear. If you suffered an incursion by a blight

bogle, you called in the Lakewalkers. And you did not cheat them of their pay

once they had removed the menace.

Fawn was not entirely sure she believed in blight bogles. For all the tall

tales, she had never encountered one in her life, no, nor known anyone else

who

had, either. They seemed like ghost stories, got up to thrill the shrewd

listeners and frighten the gullible ones. She had been gulled by her

snickering

older brothers far too many times to rise readily to the bait anymore.

She froze again when she realized that one of the patrollers was walking

toward

her tree. He looked different than the others, and it took her a moment to

realize that his dark hair was not long and neatly braided, but cut short to

an

untidy tousle. He was alarmingly tall, though, and very lean. He yawned and

stretched, and something glinted on his left hand. At first Fawn thought it

was

a knife, then realized with a slight chill that the man had no left hand. The

glint was from some sort of hook or clamp, but how it was fastened to his

wrist

beneath his long sleeve she could not see. To her dismay, he ambled into the

shade directly below her, there to lower his long body, prop his back

comfortably against her tree trunk, and close his eyes.

Fawn jerked and nearly fell out of the tree when the farmwife reached up and

rang her bell after all. Two loud clanks and three, repeated: evidently a

signal

or call, not an alarm, for she was talking all the time in an animated way

with

the patroller woman. Now that Fawn’s eyes had time to sort them out in their

strange garb, she could see three or four more women among the men. A couple

of

men busied themselves at the well, hauling up the bucket to slosh the water

into

the wooden trough on the side opposite the bench; others led their horses in

turn to drink. A boy loped around the outbuildings in answer to the bell, and

the farm wife sent him with several more of the patroller’s into the barn.

Two

of the younger women followed the farmwife into her house, and came out in a

while with packets wrapped in cloth—more of the good farm food, obviously.

The

others emerged from the barn lugging sacks of what Fawn supposed must be

grain

for their horses.

They all met again by the well, where a brief, vigorous conversation ensued

between the farmwife and the gray-haired patroller woman. It ended with a

counting over of sacks and packets in return for coins and some small items

from

the patroller saddlebags that Fawn could not make out, to the apparent

satisfaction of both sides. The patrol broke up into small groups to seek

shade

around the yard and share food.

The patrol leader walked over to Fawn’s tree and sat down cross-legged beside

the tall man. “You have the right idea, Dag.”

A grunt. If the man opened his eyes, Fawn could not tell; her leaf-obstructed

view was now of two ovals, one smooth and gray, the other ruffled and dark.

And

a lot of booted leg, stretched out.

“So what did your old friend have to say?” asked the man. His low voice

sounded

tired, or maybe it was just naturally raspy. “Malice confirmed, or not?”

“Rumors of bandits only, so far, but a lot of disappearances around

Glassforge.

With no bodies found.”

“Mm.”

“Here, eat.” She handed him something, ham wrapped in bread judging by the

enticing aroma that rose to Fawn. The woman lowered her voice. “You feel

anything yet?”

“You have better groundsense than I do,” he mumbled around a mouthful. “If

you

don’t, I surely won’t.”

“Experience, Dag. I’ve been in on maybe nine kills in my life. You’ve done

what—fifteen? Twenty?”

“More, but the rest were just little ones. Lucky finds.”

“Lucky ha, and little ones count just the same. They’d have been big ones by

the

next year.” She took a bite of her own food, chewed, and sighed. “The

children

are excited.”

“Noticed. They’re going to start setting each other off if they get wound up

much tighter.”

A snort, presumably of agreement.

The raspy voice grew suddenly urgent. “If we do find the malice’s lair, put

the

youngsters to the back.”

“Can’t. They need the experience, just as we did.”

A mutter: “Some experiences no one needs.”

The woman ignored this, and said, “I thought I’d pair Saun with you.”

“Spare me. Unless I’m pulling camp guard duty. Again.”

“Not this time. The Glassforge folk are offering a passel of men to help.”

“Ah, spare us all. Clumsy farmers, worse than the children.”

“It’s their folk being lost. They’ve a right.”

“Doubt they could even take out real bandits.” He added after a moment, “Or

they

would have by now.” And after another, “If they are real bandits.”

“Thought I’d stick the Glassforgers with holding the horses, mostly. If it is

a

malice, and if it’s grown as big as Chato fears, we’ll need every pair of our

hands to the front.”

A short silence. “Poor word choice, Mari.”

“Bucket’s over there. Soak your head, Dag. You know what I meant.”

The right hand waved. “Yeah, yeah.”

With an oof, the woman rose to her feet. “Eat. That’s an order, if you like.”

“I’m not nervy.”

“No”—the woman sighed—“no, you are not that.” She strode off.

The man settled back again. Go away, you, Fawn thought down at him

resentfully.

I have to pee.

But in a few minutes, just before she was driven by her body’s needs into

entirely unwelcome bravery, the man got up and wandered after the patrol

leader.

His steps were unhurried but long, and he was across the yard before the

leader

gave a vague wave of her hand and a side glance. Fawn could not see how it

could

be an order, yet somehow, everyone in the patrol was suddenly up and in

motion,

saddlebags repacked, girths tightened. The whole lot of them were mounted and

on

their way in five minutes.

Fawn slipped down the tree trunk and peered around it. The one-handed

man—riding

rear guard?—was looking back over his shoulder. She ducked out of sight again

till the hoofbeats faded, then unclutched the apple tree and went to seek the

farmwife. Her pack, she was relieved to see in passing, lay untouched on the

bench.

Dag glanced back, wondering anew about the little farm girl who’d been hiding

shyly up the apple tree. There, now—down she slid, but he still gained no

clear

look at her. Not that a few leaves and branches could hide a life-spark so

bright from his groundsense at that range.

His mind’s eye sketched a picture of her tidy farm raided by a malice’s

mud-men,

all its cheerful routine turned to ash and blood and charnel smoke. Or

worse—and

not imagination but memory supplied the vision—a ruination like the Western

Levels beyond the Gray River, not six hundred miles west of here. Not so far

away to him, who had ridden or walked the distance a dozen times, yet

altogether

beyond these local people’s horizons. Endless miles of open flat, so

devastated

that even rocks could not hold their shape and slumped into gray dust. To

cross

that vast blight leached the ground from one’s body as a desert parched the

mouth, and it was just as potentially lethal to linger there. A thousand

years

of sparse rains had only begun to sculpt the Levels into something resembling

a

landscape again. To see this farm girl’s green rolling lands laid low like

that…

Not if I can help it, Little Spark.

He doubted they would meet again, or that she would ever know what

her—mother’s?—strange customers today sought to do on her behalf and their

own.

Still, he could not begrudge her his weariness in this endless task. The

country

people who gained even a partial understanding of the methods called it black

necromancy and sidled away from patrollers in the street. But they accepted

their gift of safety all the same. So yet again, one more time anew, we will

buy

the death of this malice with one of our own.

But not more than one, not if he could make it so.

Dag clapped his heels to his horse’s sides and cantered after his patrol.

The farmwife watched thoughtfully as Fawn packed up her bedroll, straightened

the straps, and hitched it over her shoulder once more. “It’s near a day’s

ride

to Glassforge from here,” she remarked. “Longer, walking. You’re like to be

benighted on the road.”

“It’s all right,” said Fawn. “I’ve not had trouble finding a place to sleep.”

Which was true enough. It was easy to find a cranny to curl up in out of

sight

of the road, and bedtime was a simple routine when all you did was spread a

blanket and lie down, unwashed and unbrushed, in your clothes. The only pests

that had found her in the dark were the mosquitoes and ticks.

“You could sleep in the barn. Start off early tomorrow.” Shading her eyes,

the

woman stared down the road where the patrollers had vanished a while ago.

“I’d

not charge you for it, child.”

Her honest concern for Fawn’s safety stood clear in her face. Fawn was torn

between unjust anger and a desire to burst into tears, equally uncomfortable

lumps in her stomach and throat. I’m not twelve, woman. She thought of saying

so, and more. She had to start practicing it sooner or later: I’m twenty. I’m

a

widow. The phrases did not rise readily to her lips as yet.

Still… the farmwife’s offer beguiled her mind. Stay a day, do a chore or two

or

six and show how useful she could be, stay another day, and another… farms

always needed more hands, and Fawn knew how to keep hers busy. Her first

planned

act when she reached Glassforge was to look for work. Plenty of work right

here—familiar tasks, not scary and strange.

But Glassforge had been the goal of her imagination for weeks now. It seemed

like quitting to stop short. And wouldn’t a town offer better privacy? Not

necessarily, she realized with a sigh. Wherever she went, folks would get to

know her sooner or later. Maybe it was all the same, no new horizons

anywhere,

really.

She mustered her flagging determination. “Thanks, but I’m expected. Folk’ll

worry if I’m late.”

The woman gave a little headshake, a combination of conceding the argument

and

farewell. “Take care, then.” She turned back to her house and her own

onslaught

of tasks, duties that probably kept her running from before dawn to after

dark.

A life I would have taken up, except for Sunny Sawman, Fawn thought gloomily,

climbing back up to the straight road once more. I’d have taken it up for the

sake of Sunny Sawman, and never thought of another.

Well, I’ve thought of another now, and I’m not going to go and unthink it.

Let’s

go see Glassforge.

One more time, she called up her wearied fury with Sunny, the low, stupid,

nasty… stupid fool, and let it stiffen her spine. Nice to know he had a use

after all, of a sort. She faced south and began marching.

Chapter 2

Last year’s leaves were damp and black with rot underfoot, and as Dag climbed

the steep slope in the dark, his boot slid. Instantly, a strong and anxious

hand

grasped his right arm.

“Do that again,” said Dag in a level whisper, “and I’ll beat you senseless.

Quit

trying to protect me, Saun.”

“Sorry,” Saun whispered back, releasing the death clutch. After a momentary

pause, he added, “Mari says she won’t pair you with the girls anymore because

you’re overprotective.”

Dag swallowed a curse. “Well, that does not apply to you. Senseless. And

bloody.”

He could feel Saun’s grin flash in the shadows of the woods. They heaved

themselves upward a few more yards, finding handgrips among the rocks and

roots

and saplings.

“Stop,” Dag breathed.

A nearly soundless query from his right.

“We’ll be up on them over this rise. What you can see, can see you, and if

there’s anything over there with groundsense, you’ll look like a torch in the

trees. Stop it down, boy.”

A grunt of frustration. “But I can’t see Razi and Utau. I can barely see you.

You’re like an ember under a handful of ash.”

“I can track Razi and Utau. Mari holds us all in her head, you don’t have to.

You only have to track me.” He slipped behind the youth and gripped his right

shoulder, massaging. He wished he could do both sides together, but this

touch

seemed to be enough; the flaring tension started to go out of Saun, both body

and mind. “Down. Down. That’s right. Better.” And after a moment, “You’re

going

to do just fine.”

Dag had no idea whether Saun was going to do well or disastrously, but Saun

evidently believed him, with appalling earnestness; the bright anxiety

decreased

still further.

“Besides,” Dag added, “it’s not raining. Can’t have a debacle without rain.

It’s

obligatory, in my experience. So we’re good.” The humor was weak, but under

the

circumstances, worked well enough; Saun chuckled.

He released the youth, and they continued their climb.

“Is the malice there?” muttered Saun.

Dag stopped again, bending in the shadows to hook up a plant left-sided. He

held

it under Saun’s nose. “See this?”

Saun’s head jerked backward. “It’s poison ivy. Get it out of my face.”

“If we were this close to a malice’s lair, not even the poison ivy would

still

be alive. Though I admit, it would be among the last to go. This isn’t the

lair.”

“Then why are we here?”

Behind them, Dag could hear the men from Glassforge topping the ridge and

starting down into the ravine out of which he and the patrol were climbing.

Second wave. Even Saun didn’t manage to make that much noise. Mari had better

land her punches before their helpers closed the gap, or there would be no

surprise left. “Chato thinks this robber troop has been infiltrated, or

worse,

suborned. Catch us a mud-man, it’ll lead us to its maker, quick enough.”

“Do mud-men have groundsense?”

“Some. Malice ever catches one of us, it takes everything. Groundsense.

Methods

and weapon skills. Locations of our camps… Likely the first human this one

caught was a road robber, trying to hide out in the hills, which is why it’s

doing what it is. None of us have been reported missing, so we still may have

the edge. A patroller doesn’t let a malice take him alive if he can help it.”

Or

his partner. Enough lessons for one night. “Climb.”

On the ridgetop, they crouched low.

Smoothly, Saun strung his bow. Less smoothly but just as quickly, Dag

unshipped

and strung his shorter, adapted one, then swapped out the hook screwed into

the

wooden cuff strapped to the stump of his left wrist, and swapped in the

bow-rest. He seated it good and tight, clamped the lock, and dropped the hook

into the pouch on his belt. Undid the guard strap on his sheath and made sure

the big knife would draw smoothly. It was all scarcely more awkward than

carrying the bow in his hand had once been, and at least he couldn’t drop it.

Lois McMaster Bujold - Sharing Knife - 01 - Beguilement

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