Shadows and Light

Chapter Twenty

Glynis set her wet, soapy fists on her hips. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times, and I’ll say it again. It isn’t right. Lady Elinore would never stoop so low as to do a servant’s work, and you’re just as fine a lady as she is—and kin besides.”

I don’t think Elinore would refuse to help with chores if her help was needed, but her servants would probably faint from the embarrassment, Breanna thought as she slipped the handle of the basket that held the wooden clothes-pegs over one arm. She and Glynis had been arguing this point on and off ever since the woman came to work for them. “I think my dignity can survive hanging up the wash. Besides, I do it every week, and I’m not about to stop doing it just because Elinore will see me.” She lifted the large basket full of wet sheets and pillowcases and left before Glynis could continue the argument.

As she walked toward the three wash lines strung between sturdy posts, she saw Clay look at the wash house, then look at her. He grinned.

Breanna stopped to give him a narrow-eyed stare. “I suppose you’re going to tell me a gentry lady would rather run naked down the main street of Willowsbrook than be seen hanging out her own wash.”

“Truth to tell, she probably would,” Clay replied. “And it would be more entertaining for the rest of us. But I’ve no objection to a healthy body doing healthy work, so if you ever have an urge to shovel out horse manure, I won’t be telling you it’s not a fit occupation for a gentry lady.”

She bit back a chuckle, shook her head, and continued her walk to the clotheslines. Setting down her baskets, she plucked a couple of clothes-pegs out of the small basket and started filling the lines with clean linens.

A light breeze from the west played with the pegged clothes as she filled one line and went on to the next. A few years ago, she and Keely had made a large flower bed of roses and lavender behind the clotheslines so that the wind would carry the scent over the clean clothes. A simple thing, but it pleased her every time she hung out the wash, and every time she slipped a tunic over her head and caught a hint of those mixed scents.

The message on the western wind a few days ago had been filled with warmth and humor. Aiden and Lyrra had reached the village in the Mother’s Hills where her kin lived. She wondered if Aiden had sung any new songs—and she wondered if Skelly had told Lyrra any stories about his sweet granny. At another time, she would have been tempted to escort them the whole way herself, but the things Aiden and Lyrra had said about the Black Coats had made her uneasy about leaving her mother and grandmother.

And she wondered, as she’d wondered since the morning they left, why Aiden and Lyrra had reacted to her parting words the way they did.

Merry meet, and merry part, and merry meet again. A common saying among family and friends—at least among those who were of the House of Gaian. But they’d looked at her as if she’d given them a key piece to a difficult puzzle.

Breanna shrugged, pegged a pillowcase to the third line. Perhaps one day they’d ride back this way and she could ask them why a simple saying had seemed so important.

She was halfway down the line when she heard a flutter of wings and caught the movement of something large and brown out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head slowly, she studied the hawk that was perched on one of the posts.

“Blessings of the day to you, brother hawk.”

She’d never seen a hawk quite that big before. No jesses, which meant it was a wild hawk. What could interest a wild hawk enough that it would perch on a post so close to where people lived and worked, not to mention the linens gently flapping in the breeze? Granted, sitting on that post would give a sharp-eyed bird a good view of the back lawn, gardens, and stables, but...

“Are you here because you spotted a few rats you thought might be tasty? If you have spotted any, you’re welcome to them.” She’d have to ask Clay if he’d seen any sign of rats. She didn’t mind field mice—unless they got into the house— but rats weren’t to her liking.

Since the hawk seemed content to perch on the post, she went back to pegging the sheet to the line. When her basket was empty and the line was full, she turned and saw the pillowcase nearest the post dangling by one peg—and the other peg firmly under one of the hawk’s taloned feet.

The hawk seemed to be studying the brown, hard object it had captured.

“Ah, come on now,” Breanna said, walking toward it slowly. “Come on. That’s of no use to you. You can’t eat it. You wouldn’t even bother chewing on it. Come on now. Give it up.”

How had it gotten the clothes-peg to begin with? Breanna wondered as she continued walking toward the hawk. Pulled it off the line with its beak? Whatever for?

“Here now,” Breanna said, raising one hand toward the hawk. “Give it back and I’ll—” She’d what? Offer him a bit of cold beef? He might like it, even if it was cooked, but she wasn’t sure feeding him would be a good idea.

She reached for the peg.

The hawk raised his wings, making him look much, much bigger than he already did. He bent so that his beak hovered above the clothes-peg—and he watched her.

Mother’s tits! This was worse than dealing with Idjit. And, she had to admit, she felt a lot more wary of the hawk’s talons and beak than she did of Idjit’s teeth. Maybe because she saw a lot more intelligence in the hawk’s eyes than she’d ever seen in the dog’s.

“Give it back,” Breanna said quietly, firmly.

The hawk grabbed the clothes-peg with its beak and flew off, the downsweep of its wings almost hitting her in the face, making her duck.

“You... thief.” Incensed, Breanna chased the bird until grass gave way to the woods and the hawk disappeared among the trees.

“Thief!” Breanna shouted, shaking her fist. “You’re nothing but a featherheaded thief! If you steal from us again, I’ll pluck you and we’ll have hawk surprise one night for the evening meal. Thief!”

“Breanna!” Nuala panted, having run from the house. “Whatever is the matter?”

Breanna whirled to face her grandmother. “That hawk just stole one of our clothes-pegs! We pay good coin for those pegs, and he stole one!”

“We pay a copper for a dozen of those pegs, and the only reason we pay that much is we can afford to and it gives old Jess a purpose to the whittling he likes to do. And now that he’s living with his granddaughter, having a few coppers of his own lets him keep his pride and buy a treat now and then for his great-grandchildren.”

“How much we paid for it isn’t the point,” Breanna said. “The point is it belonged to us and he stole it.”

“What would a hawk want with a clothes-peg?”

“Exactly!” Breanna threw up her hands in exasperation.

“Exactly,” Nuala agreed. “So I ask you again, my darling Breanna, what would a hawk want with a clothes-peg?”

Breanna opened her mouth, closed it slowly. “What would a Fae Lord want with a clothes-peg?”

“That,” Nuala said dryly, “is a different question, and, like the other, it has no obvious answer.”

“It’s bad enough that the Fae have been skulking in the woods, pestering the Small Folk about us, but this one just flies in here as bold as you please to watch everything we do—and steals from us.”

“Breanna—”

Breanna whirled around to face the woods, took a deep breath, and roared, “Thief!”

“Breanna,” Nuala said sternly. “Come inside now. You’ve had enough sun this morning. It’s overheated your brain.”

“It—What?”

Nuala just gave her the look that had subdued Aiden into obedience.

When Nuala walked back to the house, Breanna went with her—and saw three reasons why she should have been a little less vocal. Clay had run halfway to meet her, a pitchfork in his hands, before seeing that this was, somehow, a discussion between grandmother and granddaughter that he should stay out of. Edgar was standing near the wall of the kitchen garden, a hoe in his hands. And Glynis had come running with the big paddle she used to stir the laundry in the washtubs.

Giving Clay an embarrassed smile, Breanna hung her head and followed Nuala to the house, much as she had done when she was eight and couldn’t manage to stay out of trouble for more than two days in a row.

But as she reached the threshold of the kitchen door, she looked over her shoulder at the woods, and mouthed, “Thief.”

“Breanna,” Nuala called through the partially open parlor door. “Would you come outside with me for a minute?”

Sighing, Breanna set aside the book she’d been trying to read. She enjoyed reading when she wanted to read, but it had always seemed a shame to spoil the pleasure of a story by remembering she’d used it to fill the hours when she’d had to stay in her room after some kind of rumpus. Of course, Nuala hadn’t sent her to her room this time, since she was an adult, but suggesting that she stay in the parlor and find something quiet to do amounted to the same thing.

“What is it?” Breanna asked. Maybe she’d have to polish the silver. She hated polishing the silver. It was one of those tasks for which she was more than happy to side with Glynis about what was and wasn’t a proper task for a gentry lady.

Not that she thought her opinion was going to matter this afternoon.

Nuala led her out the kitchen door to where Clay stood with an odd smile curving his lips. He held up a dead rabbit.

“You caught a rabbit?” Breanna asked.

Clay shook his head. “The hawk caught a rabbit. He flew over to the wood block, waited until I spotted him there, then flew off, leaving the rabbit behind.”

Breanna frowned at the rabbit. “Why would he do that?”

“Maybe he didn’t want to be called a thief anymore,” Clay said.

Breanna felt her cheeks heat. Of course Nuala had told Clay—and probably Edgar and Glynis—what she’d been shouting about. She’d be surprised if there was anyone in the whole county who hadn’t heard her.

Which didn’t make it any easier when Nuala leaned toward her, and said softly, “I’d say a rabbit is adequate payment for a clothes-peg. Wouldn’t you?”

The next morning, the hawk brought another rabbit. This time, he guarded it until Clay fetched Breanna. As soon as the hawk saw her, he left the rabbit and flew off.

Ignoring Clay’s grin, Breanna took the rabbit to Glynis, who was quite pleased to have more fresh meat without having to make the trip to the butcher’s shop in Willowsbrook.

Two rabbits for a clothes-peg didn’t seem quite fair. Considering the way she’d yelled at him, he probably thought he’d taken something that had far more value than a whittled piece of wood. While she weeded the flower beds, she chewed on a kernel of worry that the bird was giving his kills to her and was going without food because of it. Which was foolish, of course. He was a Fae Lord. He’d just go back up to Tir Alainn and stuff himself with food. And perhaps amuse the other Fae by recounting how he’d caught a rabbit for the witches in the Old Place?

That thought didn’t sit any better than worrying about him, so she tried to keep her mind on the weeds instead of on the Fae. Unfortunately, the Fae provided more interesting thoughts than weeds did—or any of the other chores she did during that day to keep her hands busy.

The following morning, Breanna was in the kitchen garden, hoeing her share of the rows, when the hawk flew over to perch on the garden wall, empty-handed—or empty-footed in his case.

Leaning on the hoe, Breanna studied the bird. “Blessings of the day to you, brother hawk,” she said pleasantly.

The hawk just watched her.

“I thank you for the rabbits. They were very tasty, and the meat was much appreciated.”

The hawk lifted his folded wings. The movement was so much like a shrug, if a man had done it, she would have translated the gesture as, “It was nothing.”

“Since there aren’t many of us here,” Breanna continued, “there’s still plenty of meat left, so we don’t need another rabbit. You should do some hunting for yourself now.” Of course, that wasn’t true. Oh, there was a bowl of rabbit stew left, and a couple of pieces of the rabbit pies Glynis had made for yesterday’s evening meal, but six adults, especially when two of them were hungry, hardworking men, didn’t tend to leave much on the table after a meal.

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.