As soon as the first dawn light pierced the morning sky, groups of children streamed past Keisha’s cottage, heading for the forest, their voices shrill with excitement. They came back within a candlemark, laden with boughs of greenery and bunches of long, trailing vines. Keisha followed them and joined the older children in decorating the square with the greenery, while all the tables and benches that had just been taken back into houses after the Faire were brought back out again and set up in the square itself.
By midmorning, most of the preparations were complete; food that didn’t need to be warm had been brought to the Temple for later serving, the bowers and decorations were up, banners and flags flew from windows looking out on the square, and a small boy, giddy with pride at his important assignment, was up in the Temple tower, watching for the first sign of the Hawkbrothers.
Keisha’s only symptom so far was a knotted stomach and a faint headache; those she could bear easily enough, so she remained with the rest of the village, waiting in the square. After two false alarms, at midmorning the shout went up from the tower.
“They’re coming!” the boy shrilled. “Oh, there’s a lot of them! And they’re riding on deer!”
Keisha’s stomach lurched, and she faded back into a doorway, while the Mayor gathered up his cronies and hustled them up onto a low platform left over from the Faire at the end nearest the Temple. Moments later, the visitors rode into the square.
A spontaneous cheer burst out, making their mounts start. The visitors seemed pretty startled, too, at least to Keisha’s eyes, but they kept their composure in spite of all the noise. She saw two of the ones in the lead - a thin, but good-looking young man about her own age and a dignified, craggily handsome older man with long, silver-white hair - put their heads together for a quick consultation. The young man gestured discreetly at the platform, the older man nodded, and they led the entire group toward the waiting Mayor.
The Mayor stood nervously clasping his hands as they approached him and his group. The cheering died down when the visitors dismounted and made the last few steps afoot.
The Mayor had probably memorized a grand speech, but his efforts were entirely set at naught, for the first words out of his mouth were “By Haven, Darian! Is that really you? You’re - bigger!”
The younger man laughed and held out his hand, clasping the Mayor’s firmly. “Boys have a habit of growing up, Lutter,” he replied, his warm, deep voice very amused. He shook the Mayor’s hand. “What are you, Mayor now? Good for you; I’m not surprised. Congratulations!”
Mayor Lutter flushed, and plainly made the decision to discard his planned speech, since the atmosphere of great dignity and importance he had been trying to establish was spoiled anyway. “Good to have you here again. Now, who are these fine folks?”
Darian introduced them, and Keisha took careful note of their names. The older man was Starfall k’Vala, an Adept, clearly one of the men in charge, and dressed in a tunic and breeches of exotic color and cut. A fellow who was dressed like the Hawkbrothers she was used to seeing was identified as Snowfire k’Vala, and a lady with night-black hair and sharp blue eyes as his mate, Nightwind k’Leshya. She was given the title of trondi’irn, whatever that was. But the next two to be introduced had every eye in the village fairly popping from its socket, Keisha’s included.
“This is Healing Adept Firesong k’Treva, and the kestra’chern Silverfox k’Leshya,” Darian said proudly, gesturing to the pair. Silverfox would have startled almost anyone in Errold’s Grove with his appearance. His black, silver-streaked hair was so long it touched the back of his knees, and he wore it unbound, flowing as loose as a maiden’s. His elaborately brocaded, sleeveless vest of green and teal could only be silk, as were the emerald shirt with its wide sleeves, and the matching, tight-fitting breeches. Keisha yearned to examine the silk brocade more closely, and his leather knee-boots fit so smoothly they must have been tailored to his legs alone.
But Silverfox paled in comparison with Firesong . . .
Firesong’s silver hair was just as long as Silverfox’s, but he sported a braid on either side of his face, with strands of crystal beads, silver chains, and tiny bells braided into them. His shirt of emerald green was embroidered all over in a pattern of blue, green, and silver feathers. Its pendulous sleeves reached down to his knees, and it was held in close to his body with a silver belt in the form of two birds, whose tails flowed together at the back and whose beaks hooked together in the front. He wore loose-fitting silk breeches tucked into green boots with silver ornaments down each side. But the crowning touch, the object that set him apart from everyone else, was the mask that he wore, completely covering his face.
It seemed to be of metal, and yet it was far too flexible to be of that substance. Patterned in glittering silver, with touches of shining emerald and sparkling sapphire, its ornamentation echoed the feather-embroidery of his tunic, giving him the look of a fantastic bird.
It was the mask that did it, that told her that this was the Firesong, the famous Adept who trained Princess Elspeth, who helped save Valdemar in the Great War, who then helped save it again from the mage-storms. . . .
“I am quite pleased to visit this place,” Firesong was saying, pretending to ignore the fact that he was the center of everyone’s gaze. “I understand that the wizard who helped to save your village was someone I had the honor of meeting a very long time ago. Justyn, wasn’t it?”
Keisha wondered why that casual remark would make Mayor Lutter pale, but the man regained his composure after a moment of coughing. “Ah, yes, Wizard Justyn - he was young Dalian’s first Master - that’s his statue, there, facing the bridge, you know - seemed the most appropriate place - least we could do to honor his memory - ”
Mayor Lutter pointed, and naturally everyone turned to look, in spite of the fact that most people here were as familiar with the statue as they were with the members of their families. Of course, from this angle, all anyone saw was the back of the statue, but at least it was evident that the statue was a pretty good one. It should be, considering it had been done by the same artist who made all the religious statues hereabouts, and not by the fellow that Mayor Lutter originally wanted to hire, a dauber who usually carved and painted inn signs. Lutter had been overruled by nearly everyone. Keisha saw Darian nod to himself, with a pleased little smile.
Mayor Lutter still seemed shaken. “Ah - you sent word not to make any special preparations - but we couldn’t - you know - we’ve prepared a feast in your honor - ” he stammered. The women waiting near the Temple took that for an order, and started bringing out dishes. Things were a bit confused for a moment, then the Mayor’s wife Mandy took charge and got everything set to rights and organized. Tables and benches placed on the platform were quickly covered with clean white cloths, and the visitors were guided to their seats. Everyone else scrambled for seats down below, as the young women and wives appointed as servers began bringing out food.
Keisha would have taken this opportunity to slip away, but Mandy Lutter wasn’t having any of that.
“There you are!” said the reedy voice as Keisha tried to ease her way out of the crowd. Mandy’s thin, hard hand seized her arm, and the Mayor’s wife pulled Keisha up toward the platform. Keisha wanted to jerk her arm free and run off, but that would have been unbearably rude, so she allowed Mandy to hustle her up onto the platform and into a seat.
“This’s Keisha Alder, our Healer,” Mandy proclaimed. “I’m afraid she’s a bit shy.” Keisha moved to protest, but was stilled by Mandy’s sharp glance.
Keisha looked cautiously about, and discovered she’d been seated between two of the visitors; Darian was on her right, and the lady with the black hair was on her left. And curiously, as she got control over her own nerves, she realized that the nausea and headache she’d been suffering from ever since she woke up were - gone!
“ - Kel will be arriving a little later,” the woman was saying to the Mayor. “He wanted to run his morning patrol before
coming here, and that seemed like a wise course to us.”
Keisha wondered who “Kel” was, but she didn’t get a chance to speculate, for Darian addressed her just as the woman went on to talk about the bondbirds.
“I’ve been told that you have the old cottage that I used to share with Justyn,” the young man said, with a friendly enough smile. But immediately Keisha worried. Did he want it back?
“ Ye-es,” she replied carefully. “No one was using it - you don’t mind, I hope?”
He chuckled, and his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Why should I mind? It’s nice to know it isn’t sitting empty, or worse, fallen into a ruin. I just hope you’ve managed to make more of it than we did.”
“People fixed it up for me. They fixed the walls, the roof, everything,” she told him, and hesitated a moment. “I don’t suppose you’d want to see it, would you?”
His face lit up with his smile. “Actually, yes I would, quite a bit. I was trying to think of a way to ask you if I could.”
“I will - if you’ll let me see the gryphon up close!” she said, suddenly thinking of a way to achieve her own wish.
Now Darian laughed. “Let? Havens, when he comes in from patrol, you’ll have a hard time keeping him away! If there’s one thing that Kel loves, it’s an audience.”
That led her to questions about gryphons in general and Kel - or “Kelvren” as his name really was - in particular. Darian was perfectly willing to answer them, and while he was talking, she didn’t have to.
Darian was a vast improvement over her brothers, both in manners and appearance. He never interrupted, passed platters without being asked, offered food to her before taking some himself, and never heaped his plate with the best cuts. He used knife and fork properly, didn’t wipe his mouth on his cuff, and didn’t make sarcastic or cutting remarks, even when Mayor Lutter was holding forth with great pomposity on things he obviously knew nothing about. When that happened, he just exchanged looks with others of his party, and hid his smile by turning his head.
As for appearance - well, Keisha didn’t blame the rest of the girls for competing to serve him, nor did she blame them for their posing, their flirtatious glances, their outright adoration in some cases. He was really one of the best-looking young men she’d ever seen, and the leather Hawkbrother clothing with its fringes, beadwork, and tooling only gave him an exotic touch that was very attractive.
He seemed completely oblivious to their attempts to catch his eye, though. Mature and self-possessed, he managed to pay attention to Keisha’s questions and to the discussions that the Hawkbrother Elders and the village officials were having at the same time. She was used to having to listen to more than one conversation at the same time, since she often had two or more people babbling at her about an illness or injury, but she’d never known anyone else to have that gift.
Well, maybe he’s too busy with that to pay any attention to the girls. Or maybe he’s used to admiration. At least he doesn’t seem vain about it, if he is.
“The bondbirds are mostly in the trees around the edge of the village right now,” he said, in answer to her last question. “No reason to call them in, and too many strangers make some of them nervous. Firesong is enough strangeness for all of you to handle, I think!”
“You have a bird, don’t you?” she asked.
“Of course! I couldn’t be a Hawkbrother without one!” he laughed. “His name is Kuari, and he’s an owl. He’s fledged of Snowfire’s two birds. When we’ve got lots of space, I’ll call him in if you’d like to see him. He is really far too big to call into a crowd.”
“What’s it like, having a bondbird?” she asked curiously. “Is it something like having a Companion?”
“Huh. A bit, I’d guess. The bond strengthens with time; in the beginning, you have to work to talk to them, but after a year or so, they’re always in your head and you’d have to work to keep them out - assuming you’d want to.” He raised his eyebrows. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to, though. They’re so different from humans that it isn’t like having someone eavesdropping on you.” He warmed to his subject. “Their needs are very different from a human’s, and their interests - it’s only because they are bred to be extremely intelligent that they have much in common with us at all. Have you ever been around ordinary birds of prey at all?”
“Not really,” she admitted. “In fact, the only raptors I’ve ever seen up close have been a couple of bondbirds, the ones that come with Hawkbrothers who’ve brought things to trade.” She offered a slow smile. “I really like Steelmind’s buzzard, he’s so calm.”
He chuckled. “You haven’t missed much with ordinary raptors. Oh, they are beautiful, graceful, and amazing to watch, but there isn’t much room in those heads for anything except hunting, breeding, and survival skills. They’re very focused. That’s the way Nightwind puts it. Bondbirds are less focused, but they do have intelligence and the ability to socialize, and not just with us. They play games and socialize with other bondbirds, and not just of the same breed. They have to be able to do that, or they couldn’t work together - and too many of them would be on the dinner menu for the biggest of them, if they didn’t have that ability to tell friend from food!”
She stifled a laugh. “I never thought about it that way.”
“Believe me, it’s quite true.” His attention wandered for a moment, as he caught part of one of the other ongoing conversations. It was only for a moment, though, and it came right back to her. “When you see the size of Kuari, you’ll understand. Honestly, I’m not strong enough to hold him for long without something to help support his weight.”
That candid remark surprised and charmed her. She couldn’t imagine any of the young men she knew admitting they weren’t strong enough to do something.
By this time, the meal was just about over; the last of the dishes were whisked away to make way for bowls of fruit and pitchers of wine. “Would you like to see the cottage now?” she asked, and when he hesitated, she assured him, “There won’t be any serious talk going on yet. Mayor Lutter won’t want any real discussions of anything happening in front of the whole village.” She listened a moment to the Mayor’s current topic, the past Midsummer Faire. “He’s on the Faire. The next thing will be the harvest, and the number of traders he expects. He’ll be priming your people for suggestions later about what they might bring to trade on a regular schedule. You can see the cottage and be back before he gets onto the next thing.”
“That sounds fine, let’s slip off.” He rose from his seat at the same time that she did. He set out in exactly the right direction, and it took her a moment to remember that he had lived here for years, so of course he would know where the cottage was!
“Well,” he exclaimed, as they approached the workshop. “You were right about people fixing it up. It certainly never looked this good when I lived here.”
She felt a bit of pardonable pride, for it was a neat little place now, with the stone walls scrubbed and morning glories and moonflower vines climbing up the trellises she’d built on either side of the door. The thatch had been patched and freshly trimmed last fall, too, and this spring she’d painted the shutters white.
“Show me around the outside first,” Darian urged. Always happy to show off her garden, Keisha took him around to the back.
“Oh, this is good,” he exclaimed, as the garden came into view. “What have you got here?” Without waiting for her reply, he walked carefully around the beds, identifying plants aloud. “Feverfew, wormwood, basil, thyme, lobelia, comfrey - ” Keisha was impressed, for she would never have thought he’d have any knowledge of herbs. “I must say, I’m glad Justyn didn’t have all this.”
“Why?” she asked, startled.
“Because then I wouldn’t have had so many excuses to go out into the forest,” he replied with perfect logic. “Keisha, you’ve done some remarkable things here. This is wonderful from the point of view of having supplies at hand.”
“And to trad
e,” she pointed out. “I’m able to get some things by swapping with traders that come here. Perfume oils are popular, and dyes, of course.”
“Of course.” He took another long look around the garden, nodding. “So, why don’t you show me what you’ve done with the inside?”
His grin as soon as he entered the door made her flush with pride, and she was very glad she’d cleaned everything thoroughly last night. “Good job. Really good job. You’ve made this place into a fine home and workshop.”
“I had help,” she began shyly, but he shook his head.
“I see one person’s hand everywhere,” he began, but a tap on the doorframe interrupted him.
The Hawkbrother woman - Nightwind - stood there. She said something quickly in the Hawkbrother tongue; he nodded and turned back to Keisha.
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