Since the hawk didn’t make any movements she could interpret as a response, she went back to hoeing the rows. He simply watched her, and she felt an odd pleasure in having his company. When he finally flew away, she was a bit sorry to see him go.
When she finished the first row, Breanna stretched to ease the muscles in her back.
The kitchen garden covered close to an acre of land. Most years, they planted half that land, leaving the other half to lie fallow. Clay dumped some of the horse manure in that fallow part, just as Glynis dumped the vegetable waste there. The combination could smell especially ripe on hot summer days, but it fed the land, keeping it rich and productive.
This year, Keely had decided they needed to plant the whole garden, had insisted the food would be needed although she couldn’t tell them why she felt that way. But she’d been so insistent they’d given in and planted. There was still a small place for the compost piles, but the rest of the garden had been filled with seeds or seedlings. Traditionally, the kitchen garden was tended by the witch whose gift was earth because she was the one who could draw the best from the land. But the garden was too big for Keely to tend by herself this year, so Breanna and Nuala were doing their share of the work.
Breanna started on the next row.
What were they supposed to do with all the food? How were they supposed to can the surplus when they reached harvest time? Keely had insisted that Clay and Edgar plant extra acres of oats and winter feed for the animals, so they already had extra work. Not to mention that all the fruit trees and berry bushes and plants were showing signs of producing twice as much as last year. That, too, had something to do with the restless way Keely had walked the land this spring. Mentally and emotionally, she had retreated to remaining a child after the old baron had raped her all those years ago, but there was nothing diminished about her gifts as a witch — and after Rory’s visit, and the letter telling Nuala that their cousins would be coming for a visit, and Aiden’s tales about the Black Coats, Breanna knew Nuala had studied Keely’s call to the land with a different eye.
Still, a handful of people spending a few weeks of the summer with them wasn’t going to empty the pantry.
Nothing she could do about it except tend the land. At least she’d reassured the hawk that his debt for the clothes-peg had been paid in full.
He brought her a salmon.
It wasn’t a large salmon, and, judging by how dirty it was, it had seen a fair piece of the forest floor between the stream where it had been caught and the wood block where it lay.
Breanna, Nuala, Keely, Glynis, Edgar, and Clay formed a half circle around the wood block and studied the fish.
“How do you think he caught it?” Breanna finally asked. “Hawks can’t swim. Can they?”
“There are fishing hawks who live around big rivers or along the coast near the sea,” Nuala said.
“But he’s not one of them,” Breanna said. “So how’d he catch a salmon?”
“Maybe he changed to his human form to catch it,” Keely said.
“Then why not stay in human form at least until he was close to the edge of the woods instead of trying to hold on to it while he flew here?” Breanna said.
“That would have been easy,” Nuala said.
“He didn’t hold on to it very well,” Keely said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s very dirty.”
“His feet weren’t meant to hold a fish,” Nuala said thoughtfully. “Perhaps the effort is part of the gift. Perhaps this is his way of saying he’d like to be your friend.”
“Or more than your friend,” Clay muttered darkly.
“If that was his purpose, he’d have come in his human form with a pocketful of trinkets,” Breanna snapped. At least, that’s what the Fae in the stories did.
“If he’d brought you a necklace or a fine bracelet, would you have been impressed?” Nuala asked quietly.
“Of course not!”
“So he brought something you would value.”
Breanna opened her mouth to argue, then discovered she wasn’t sure she could disagree with Nuala’s interpretation. She’d told him she didn’t need another rabbit, so he’d brought her something else. Something he’d obviously worked hard to bring.
“There’s no point standing here watching it rot,” Glynis said. She stepped forward, hooked her fingers under one of the salmon’s gills, and picked it up. “I’ll just clean it off and see what we’ve got. Should make a nice meal for all of us.”
After she walked away, Keely headed for the kitchen garden, and Clay and Edgar went back to their work.
“Why would a Fae Lord want to be friends with a witch?” Breanna asked.
“Aiden and Lyrra wanted to be friends.”
“That’s different. They’re different from the rest of the Fae. Why does this one want to be friends?”
Nuala smiled as she ran a soothing hand over Breanna’s hair. “That’s something you would have to ask him.”
Late that afternoon, she saw a hawk soaring overhead, but she couldn’t tell if it was the Fae Lord or just one of the hawks that lived in the Old Place.
Glynis had washed off the salmon, pronounced it fresh enough to eat, and had made them all a delicious meal.
Too bad Breanna couldn’t tell the hawk that — especially after one of the Small Folk showed up at the edge of the woods and asked her if she’d enjoyed the fish. There’d been laughter in the small man’s voice. Apparently, several of the Small Folk had watched that little journey through the woods and had found it highly entertaining. And his parting words, “That one’s not like the others,” gave her another kernel of thought to chew on.
When Idjit started barking, she went to see why the foolish dog was dashing back and forth in front of the archway. She saw the carriages, wagons, and riders slowly coming up the road. One of the riders raised his hand in greeting.
“Clay!” Breanna shouted, looking back over her shoulder. “Rory and the others have come for their visit.”
After she saw him lift a hand in acknowledgment, she ran out to meet her kin — and wondered why there were so many people with them.
The travelers reined in to wait for her. Rory and the rider beside him dismounted and walked to meet her.
It took Breanna a moment to recognize Fiona, with her hair bundled up under a hat and wearing what looked like an old set of Rory’s clothes.
“Merry me —”The grim expression on Rory’s face and the exhaustion and anguish in Fiona’s eyes killed the greeting.
“Breanna,” Fiona said hoarsely. She stumbled into Breanna’s arms and held on tight.
“Can the baron who rules this county be trusted?” Rory asked.
Still holding Fiona, Breanna stared at him, puzzled. “If you’d asked a few months ago, I would have said no. But Liam is a good man. You met him.”
“I met him,” Rory said. “But things can change.”
Breanna felt Fiona shiver — and felt an answering shiver run through her own body. “What’s happened?”
“The barons have gone mad,” Fiona whispered. “They —”
“The baron who rules our county declared that anyone with woodland eyes was to be brought in and questioned to determine whether or not the person was a witch, one of the Evil One’s servants,” Rory said. “From what we heard, it’s not the baron or the magistrate who’s doing the questioning — and so far no one who was brought in has been seen again.”
“The Inquisitors?” Breanna asked.
“We ran,” Fiona said, stepping back far enough to look at Breanna. “The elders decided that we had to run. After the new decrees were posted in the village last autumn, most of us stayed away. Rory and the other men went when we needed supplies. But when the baron ordered that a…procedure …be done on all females, the elders decided we had to get away. Now.”
“Procedure?”
Fiona shook her head. “They won’t say what it is. Won’t explain.”
“They did the women in the village first
,” Rory said. “When I went into the village for the last time, those women looked at me with dead eyes.”
Fiona’s eyes filled with tears. “My mother … my grandmother. They stayed. All the elders in the family stayed. They said it had to look like the younger members of the family had just gone for a summer visit. They said it couldn’t look like we were fleeing or we might be stopped before we could get away.”
“For months now, Craig has been buying cargo for our ships that would keep in the warehouse and not spoil. Bolts of cloth from some of the far-off lands whose ships make the journey to Durham to trade. Tea. Sugar. And he’s been drawing more from the family’s accounts than he needed to pay for the goods and sending the gold and silver upriver. We’ve brought your share of it. There’s no way of telling if we’ll be able to get more.”
“They burned Tremaine’s ship,” Fiona whispered. “That was the last message we got — along with Craig’s plea that we get out of the eastern counties.” She choked on a sob. “They burned his ship, and the men who jumped into the river to keep from burning with it never got to shore.”
Breanna’s knees started to buckle. “Jennyfer?” While she would never admit it to the others, Jenny had always been her favorite cousin. They had little in common except being witches, since air was her strongest branch of the Mother and Jenny’s passion was the sea, but they’d always worked well together and enjoyed each other’s company.
“She went with Mihail when he set sail to talk to some baron he knew in the west about finding a safe harbor for the ships and the family. Tremaine’s boys went with him, too. He was supposed to sail back to Seahaven and wait for the other ships — and for those who are traveling overland to meet him there. If the other ships can’t get past the barons and Inquisitors who are watching the Una River and reach the sea, his may be the only ship we have left.”
“Craig?”
Rory hesitated. “He was going to stay in Durham as long as he could to keep the warehouse and the business open. He’s supposed to be one of those meeting Mihail at Seahaven. We don’t know if he got out of Durham in time.”
“I know you weren’t expecting so many,” Fiona said. “We’d only intended to have the Daughters among us slip away, but we couldn’t leave people behind.”
Breanna looked at the carriages, wagons, and riders. Not just family watching her out of frightened eyes. It looked like some of the younger servants and farming families had come, too. But almost every one of them had woodland eyes.
“There’s still some time before the Summer Solstice,” Fiona said. “Those of us whose branch is earth could plant —”
Breanna shook her head. “It’s already planted. Keely knew.” No need to wonder now what they were going to do with the harvest. They would need everything the Mother could give.
“We can’t go back, Breanna,” Rory said quietly. “Not until we’re told it’s safe to go back.”
That message would never come — and the ones who had stayed behind knew it.
“Nuala is the elder now,” Fiona whispered.
Dull pain surrounded Breanna’s heart. She hadn’t visited her eastern kin often, but that didn’t change the feeling of loss.
“Come on,” Breanna said. “We may have to share beds for a while, but we’ll get it sorted out.”
As she led them through the archway, she realized Liam now held the lives of her eastern kin in his hands.
And it suddenly occurred to her that he should have been back from the barons’ council by now.
Chapter Twenty-one
There’s the manor,” Liam said with weariness and relief. “That’s home.” Padrick simply nodded. How many days had they been running, hiding? Liam wondered. Padrick had said something about the waning quarter moon, but had that been yesterday? The day before? He didn’t know. Didn’t want to ask.
He wouldn’t have gotten home without Padrick’s help. Fear had kept him in the saddle for hours the night they’d fled from Durham, but even fear couldn’t battle against the effects of the poison that had still been inside him. He remembered the first posting station where Padrick had said they’d rest for a few hours. He vaguely remembered burning up and freezing at the same time. He didn’t know how long they stayed at that posting station before Padrick had forced him to get out of bed, had helped him dress.
A back stairway. Stumbling as quietly as possible to the stables. Padrick saddling the horses and helping him mount. Riding away before there was even a hint of dawn in the sky.
A night spent in a bed of straw in some farmer’s barn. Another posting station. Or perhaps it was a room above a tavern. Fevered dreams that left him weak and confused. Chills no amount of blankets could ease. Days and nights that bled into each other. Places that became jumbled into one place and no place. Riding into an Old Place where he saw things that had to have come from the fever dreams — except, when they’d ridden away, and ridden fast, tears had streamed down Padrick’s face.
This morning he’d finally awakened weak but clearheaded — and close to home.
Now they were here, riding toward the house that had been in his family for generations. Tonight he’d sleep in a familiar room in a familiar bed, would eat food that had been prepared and served by people he could trust. He’d been unaware of so much over these past few days. Padrick had been unaware of nothing, and it showed in the grim exhaustion that seemed to reveal more of the Fae Lord beneath the gentry face.
As they reached the house, the front door opened and Sloane, his butler, rushed out to meet them.
“Baron Liam!” Sloane said. “It’s good you’re home. There’s —”He stopped. Looked. “Have you been ill, Baron?”
“Yes,” Liam said. There was no reason to tell anyone more than that right now.
“Has something happened here?” Padrick asked sharply. Sloane gave Padrick an uneasy look. “What is it?” Liam said.
“It’s Lady Elinore,” Sloane said. “Two people came by yesterday, a man and his wife. They had a letter for Lady Elinore. She told me to take them to the kitchen for something to eat. Then, suddenly, she was packing a trunk for herself and Miss Brooke and giving orders to have the pony cart ready instantly. As soon as the trunk was in the cart, she took Miss Brooke and the young couple and drove away without leaving any instructions.”
Liam stared at his butler. “She left? My mother left and took Brooke with her?” Sickness twisted his belly. Hadn’t she trusted him to at least try to do what was right?
“I can only guess that there was something in the letter that upset her greatly,” Sloane said.
“Did she leave no word for me about where she was
going?”
“No, Baron. But —”Sloane gave Padrick another uneasy look.
Fear sharpened Liam’s temper. He felt the heat of it under his skin. “Whatever you have to say to me can be said in front of Baron Padrick,” he snapped.
“The stallion has been fretful the last few days,” Sloane said cautiously. “Refused to enter his stall one evening, and even Arthur couldn’t control him.”
No matter how valuable Oakdancer was, right now he didn’t give a damn about the horse. He wanted to know about his mother and sister.
“The day Lady Elinore left, Arthur took Oakdancer for a run to see if he could calm the animal. He came back without the stallion, saying the horse was easier staying where he was — and he said he saw Lady Elinore and Miss Brooke there as well.”
There was only one place the stallion would feel easier — the Old Place. He suddenly appreciated Sloane’s efforts to tell him where Elinore and Brooke had gone without actually saying where they had gone.
“Don’t allow any strangers in the house,” Liam said. “No matter who they say they are or why they say they’re here, don’t let them in. Send a message to Squire Thurston to be wary of strangers, especially men. Tell him to pass that message along to the magistrate. I want to be informed of anyone coming to the village.”
“Yes, Baron
. I’ll send the message right away.”
“Come on,” Liam said to Padrick. He dug his heels into his horse’s sides, urging the tired animal to canter. It didn’t occur to him until they were riding down the lane that led to the bridge that he should have offered to let Padrick stay at the manor.
When they reached the bridge, Padrick thrust out an arm that would have knocked Liam out of the saddle if he hadn’t reined in sharply.
Padrick urged his horse forward, ahead of Liam’s, and stopped just before his horse’s hooves touched the bridge. He studied the stones and tall grass on the opposite bank.
“Blessings of the day to you, lady sprite,” Padrick said.
Liam clenched his fists, impatient to find his family. Then he saw the small woman rise up out of the water and wondered if the fever dreams had returned.
“Blessings of the day,” the sprite replied warily. “Fae Lord.”
Padrick nodded. “My friend’s family is visiting the Daughters in the Old Place.”
“We know his face. He has crossed the bridge many times lately.”
A water sprite. He was actually seeing one of the Small Folk. And they’d watched him every time he’d crossed the bridge to visit with Breanna and her family? “Has anyone else crossed the bridge recently?” he asked.
“Many,” the sprite replied. “But none who do not belong here.”
“You’ve seen no one else?” Padrick asked.
The sprite looked thoughtful. “Four men. They came to the edge of the Old Place farther upstream but did not cross into it. But they drew on the power here, and those who were nearby said that when they released the power again there was a…wrongness…to it. Then they left. We don’t know where. We don’t go beyond the boundaries of the Old Place.” She tipped her head. “Were they Black Coats?”
“What do you know about the Black Coats?” Padrick demanded.
“The Bard warned the Daughters about them, and the Daughters asked us to watch, to give warning if they crossed into the Old Place. But the Black Coats did not enter, so we did no harm.”