Around noon the woods opened out in some flat meadowlands bordering a creek, with a dual track, and Fawn found herself riding alongside Dag again. “You once said you’d tell me the tale of Utau and Razi if you were either more drunk or more sober. You look pretty sober now.”

He smiled briefly. “Do I? Well, then.”

“Whenever I can get you to talk about your people, it helps me form up some better idea what I’m heading into.”

“I’m not sure Utau’s tale will help much, that way.”

“Maybe not, but at least I won’t say something stupid through not knowing any better.”

He shrugged, though he amended, “Unknowing, maybe. Never stupid.”

“Either way, I’d still end up red-faced.”

“You blush prettily, but I give you the point. Well. Utau was string-bound for a good ten years to Sarri Otter, but they had no children. It happens that way, sometimes, and even Lakewalker groundsense can’t tell why. Both his family and hers were pressuring them to cut their strings and try again with different mates—”

“Wait, what? People can cut their marriage strings? What does that mean, and how does it work?” Fawn wrapped a protective right hand around her left wrist, then put her palm hastily back on her thigh, kicking Grace’s plump sides to encourage her to step along and keep up with Copperhead’s longer legs.

“What leads up to a string-cutting varies pretty wildly with the couple, but lack of children after a good long time trying is considered a reason to part without dishonor to either side. More difficult if only one partner assents to the cutting; then the argument can spread out to both their families’ tents and get very divisive. Or tedious, if you have to listen to them all go on. But if both partners agree to it, the ceremony is much like string-binding, in reverse. The wedding cords are taken off and re-wrapped around both partners’ arms, only with the opposite twist, and knotted, but then the string-blesser takes a knife and cuts the knot apart, and each takes back the pieces of their own.”