She sighed. At least Rofan and his cronies didn't make bad liquor, the sort that could blind a person, or even kill. She wasn't at all above keeping a jug of Rofan's brew herself, on a high shelf in the cabinet behind her work-table. As a stimulant it was excellent, when used in small quantities. And a little poured into a cut or wound virtually eliminated the danger of infection. It never ceased to amaze her that something with such beneficial applications could be so misused—the way Rofan did.
“Come,” she said briskly. “And you other children as well. We can make a game of it. Each one of you pick up something that is out of place, and put it where it belongs. We'll have this cottage tidy in no time!”
Under her insistent urging, most of the children began moving reluctantly or resentfully, according to their natures, but doing as she ordered. Some, however, just stood, staring vacantly.
“You're so good with children,” Belda said. “I'm not. Strange that I have to go and have a new one every year, while you've got just the one.”
Eirran peered at Belda closely. “You don't mean—”
“Yes. I'm carrying again. I think it was the prospect of having still another mouth to feed that set Rofan off this time.”
“As if he feeds the ones who are already here.” Eirran bit her tongue but not in time to call back the words. She had to leave, now, before she found herself saying even worse. “Here, Rawfa, you're in charge until your mother gets better,” she said briskly. “You see to it that things are kept tidy. And you help your mother with the little ones. You all have to work together.”
“Yes, lady,” the girl said.
But Eirran knew in her heart that the words were just that—words. Those who lived in this tiny cottage on the far side of the village came into this world beaten down, already defeated by what life had to offer. She felt sorry for the new one, so tiny he or she didn't even show as a bulge in Belda's weary body.
Eirran wished with all her heart that Yareth were back from his spring hunting trip. The stern Falconer who was now her husband brooked no nonsense from anyone, man or woman. The first time she had gone to treat Belda after Rofan had beaten her, Yareth had sought him out and had given the man a sound thrashing from which he did not recover for a week. Now Rofan dared beat Belda only when Yareth was absent from the village, and he seemed determined to make up for missed opportunities at such times.
She gathered her things into her carry-sack and left, declining the offered guest-cup of watery broth. “Save it for the children,” she advised Belda. “Or for Rofan, when he returns. I'll be back to see you tomorrow, and bring another mixture that's good for women who are carrying. And maybe a little flour, if I can spare it. Use it to make something for the children.”
“Thank you, lady,” Belda said humbly. “Thank you, Wise Woman.”
II
The day was already fading as Eirran trudged along the path leading back to the warmth and cleanliness of their cottage. She missed Yareth with a pang that cut through her like the early spring wind. She slipped and caught herself before she fell. The footing was uncertain; with the coming of dusk the mud was beginning to freeze and a skin of ice to form on the puddles. She looked forward to the dish of hot stew Jenys was certain to have waiting for her. Only six years old, Jenys was one of those rare children who seemed to have been born grown up. From the time she could toddle, she had enjoyed “helping Mama.” Eirran loved her as much as she loved Yareth; the two of them were her entire life.
In spite of Rofan and the occasional unpleasantness like the medical emergency that had drawn Eirran from her snug, warm home, Blagden was a pleasant little village and Eirran was happy enough to be living here. Most of the year she and Yareth made do quite well. Only the winter's end was hard to bear, when food stores dwindled and bitter nights gave way to chill, dank days belying the start of spring.
The two of them had traveled a long way since their excursion into the Barrier Mountains seeking the ruins of the Eyrie. When they had first met, Yareth had had some idea of rebuilding the Falconers’ ancient stronghold and, driven by his dream, had stolen Eirran to become the mother of a new generation of Falconers.
She had hated him at first, and felt contempt for someone who would steal her away in her sleep, but she had never feared him. The man who had sat the previous evening in the shadows of her uncle's public house on the road between Kars and Verlaine, watching her as she worked, had attracted her interest, as she had his. But Eirran was never one to accept her fate tamely; when she discovered she had been bound, gagged, blindfolded and abducted, she all but screamed the broken mountains down around his ears the moment he removed the gag. Even his falcon, Newbold, fled from the noise. She stopped screaming only when she got the hiccups, as she always did when upset or angry. They had had their first quarrel then. He had expected her to tend the camp; she angrily retorted that as she was his captive, it was his responsibility to look after her instead. Eventually, after a day of stony silence, they reached an uneasy peace. Afterwards, as they traveled they made the best of a poor situation between them until they actually got into the mountains and found themselves under attack by a creature so horrible Eirran was glad she had been thrown to the ground and stunned before she could get a look at it.
They took refuge in a narrow cave, the four of them—Eirran, Yareth, Newbold and the Torgian horse, Rangin. And there in that shelter—despite the chill of the evening breeze Eirran grew warm at the memory—Yareth had stripped her half-naked to examine her bruised shoulder. They touched, moved closer, and then without either of them willing it, they made love. Later, the monster found their trail, tearing at the cliff face trying to get at them; they huddled together in darkness, waiting, and both had been certain they would die that night. He gave her his hunting knife. Without speaking, they knew how they would make a clean death. Eirran would kill the Torgian, Yareth the falcon. Then, as he held her, she would die by his hand and he would kill himself with the same weapon before the terrible beast could touch any of them. Mercifully, morning had come and driven away the beast before they must put their plan into action.
Knowing what sort of monster now inhabited the mountains where the Eyrie had been, they had to depart. They could not fight it alone, and the rest of the Falconers were now scattered to the winds, their society as fragmented as the riven mountains where they had once lived.
An experience like this forges strong bonds between a man and a woman. Even the falcon accepted her, coming at last to ride on the special Y-shaped fork on the saddle horn close to where she rode in the circle of Yareth's arms, and the horse, Rangin, allowed her to feed and brush him. There was no question that Yareth and she would stay together even though Yareth's dream of rebuilding the Eyrie was now for naught. Eirran refused to return to the public house where her uncle had begun to urge her to bring in a little extra coin by being “nice” to the men. Her dream had always been of a cottage, clean and tidy, with a baby in a cradle and a cat purring on the hearth; only her fantasy now seemed to have any chance of coming true.
They made their way to Estcarp, rejecting holding after holding as they passed through. Either it was a forsaken nook in the mountains, where Eirran could not be comfortable, or it was a town on the plains where Yareth felt like an interloper. Finally they had chanced upon the tiny village of Blagden, a few miles south of Lormt. Blagden lay in a notch of the Barrier Mountains where they branched out from the Great Mountains to the east, which pleased him. And the village occupied a low valley, flat enough to make her happy. Here, at last, Eirran opened the store of coins she had acquired so painfully over so many years and that Yareth had brought when he had abducted her, and they bought a cottage with enough land to sustain them. With a few more of her dwindling supply of coins Eirran bought another horse, a gentle old gelding to pull the plow, for the Torgian was no farm horse.
And so they settled down at last. Eirran had almost begun to despair of finding a suitable place for them in time; she knew that the child growi
ng in her belly was ripe to be born.
That first winter was a lean one, for they had not had time to put food by. But Yareth went out and hunted rabbits, squirrels and birds, and these he traded for other foods, and for seed to plant the following spring. Eirran spent the last of her coins for furnishings for their cottage—a bed, a table and benches, a kettle. Yareth displayed an unexpected talent when he turned to whittling wooden spoons and bowls for them to use. Later he built a cradle for their daughter with his own hands. Nor was Eirran idle. She plowed, she planted, she scrubbed, she cooked. And everywhere she went, she carried the infant Jenys on her back. The little cottage fairly glistened under her hands; likewise, the vegetable garden flourished, and the herb garden threatened to overrun its boundaries. Then, as if to complete her dream, a young tiger cat showed up one morning on their doorstep, strolled in, and made himself at home. At first, Newbold eyed the interloper warily and Pounce, the cat, walked very softly indeed when Newbold was indoors on his perch. But somehow the two worked things out between them, even as Eirran and Yareth had. Newbold's territory was with Yareth, in the wilds, and Pounce's with Eirran, in the cottage and the area immediately surrounding.
Falcon and cat competed for chasing the vermin with the result that nowhere in all of Blagden was there a cottage and garden so free of mice and rats as the Falconer's. So thorough were the animals that they had to expand their hunting grounds to the cottages on either side, much to those occupants’ gratitude and sometime amusement.
“It's as if those two were having a contest, seeing which could bag the most mice,” Aidine, Eirran's next-door neighbor, was wont to remark laughingly. “Who would have thought of such a thing?”
If there was a flaw in Eirran's and Yareth's lives now, it was that Yareth was no farmer nor would he ever be one. But he continued to go up into the mountains and bring home fresh meat for the villagers. In time he became the chief huntsman for Blagden. He had no sword, only the long dagger, and his dart gun was no hunting weapon even if he had been able to find fresh ammunition for it. But he could rig nets and deadfalls, and he could use a sling with great efficiency. One of the men in the village, no archer himself, gave him a bow he had unearthed from some hiding-place, and Yareth used it until he could make a better one for himself. Evenings, he fashioned and fletched arrows when he was not making other things for them both to use.
And they loved each other. Stern though he was, his Falconer upbringing strong in him, he loved her. They had occasional differences of opinions—sometimes quite loud and vigorous, as she had never been one to hide her feelings under a veneer of submission—and though they might shout at each other now and then, or he might stamp outside until both their tempers cooled, he had never, ever raised a hand against her.
He's ten times—a hundred times—the man that miserable Rofan is, Eirran thought grimly to herself as she turned down the lane where the dwelling that had come to be known as the Falconer's cottage stood. I cannot believe how lucky I am to have him.
Eirran was so deep in her thoughts it took her a moment to realize that something was wrong. The little house near the end of the pleasant lane had an oddly deserted look to it. There was no welcoming glow of lamp at window, no curl of smoke from chimney. Pounce didn't wait on the stoop for her return. Aidine opened the door of the cottage next door and came running toward her.
“Oh, Eirran, she's gone, she's gone!” Aidine cried. She burst into sobs.
With an effort, Eirran kept herself steady. “Be calm, Aidine,” she said. “I can't help you unless you can tell me what's wrong. Who's gone? What's happened?”
“It's Jenys.” Aidine swallowed hard, visibly trying for control of herself. “She's gone.”
It was Eirran's turn to panic. “Jenys! Gone? Where? What happened? Is she hurt—?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Please. Come inside. Warm yourself. You must be half-frozen—”
“I don't have time for that! I must go look for her—”
“No, Eirran. They took her.”
“They who?”
“Armed men, on horseback. And a lady, dressed all in gray. She had five other children with her, riding on ponies. There was a sixth pony.”
“And Jenys rode off with them? Is that what you're trying to tell me? My Jenys would never do such a thing!” Eirran brushed past Aidine, opened her door and rushed inside her empty home. Pounce came out of his hiding place and began winding himself around her legs, miaowing plaintively.
She searched through the cottage, hoping that Jenys, like Pounce, had merely been hiding, making a joke. But the fire had burned down to ashes on the hearth, and a forgotten pot of stewed vegetables gave off a stale, burnt smell. There was no sign of Jenys anywhere.
Automatically, Eirran picked up Pounce, cuddling him in her arms. He nudged her chin with his cold nose, the way he did when he wanted food or attention. She stroked his ears. “She really is gone,” she told him numbly. “My Jenys really is gone. Oh, whatever shall I do?”
III
For a day and a half Eirran fretted and waited, worrying herself almost into illness. She took the promised herbs and a small sack of flour to Belda, being careful both to pick a time when Rofan wasn't at home and to school her face, voice and manner in calmness. There was nothing to be gained by alarming Belda. That task done, she alternately lavished attention on Pounce and threw herself into heavy springtime chores. That evening, she attempted to mend one of Jenys's dresses and found herself weeping over the stitches. She ate only because Pounce reminded her of mealtimes. On the afternoon of the second day, Yareth returned.
To keep herself from thinking, she had begun digging out the tree-root that interfered with planting this year's vegetable garden, enlarged from the year before. Intent on a stubborn coil of root deep in the earth, she didn't hear the commotion when Yareth and the other hunters returned to the village and only looked up when Rangin snorted, greeting the gelding. Yareth slapped him on the flank, sending him into his stall. Unsaddling and grooming could come later. Now the Falconer smiled, hurrying toward her with open arms.
“I told you to wait until I came home so we could tackle that chore together!” he said in a half-scolding tone of voice. “Here I find you covered with dirt, not exactly what I pictured when I thought about holding you again—”
She jumped up and flung herself sobbing into his arms, nearly knocking him off-balance.
“Eirran, Eirran, a little restraint!” He laughed, holding her so he could look at her. Then he grew serious. Hers weren't tears of joy. “What is it? What's wrong?”
“Jenys. …”
It wasn't at all the way she had practiced telling him, calmly, showing none of the fear and panic she had known when Aidine had met her at the door. As the story emerged he began to shake; somehow they found themselves on their knees in the dirt, clinging to each other as Eirran told him all that she knew, all that she had learned since that night.
Then he stood up, drawing her to her feet, and they walked back to the cottage. He sat down at the table and by habit, Eirran set about brewing some tea. Newbold was already on his perch and he bated and screeched at her in greeting.
“How many armed men?” Yareth said coldly.
“Five, Aidine said. Five men, one woman, six children.”
“And the woman wore gray? Are you sure?”
“Aidine said so. I didn't see them. I—I was away.”
He frowned. “You left Jenys alone?”
“It was no different from any other time I've done the same. There was need elsewhere in the village. Jenys was minding the cottage until I returned.”
“Where were you?”
“Belda was hurt.”
Yareth slammed his fist down on the table. “That worthless man! You were out tending the damage he did to his stupid wife while the Hags of Estcarp were stealing my daughter… .” He started to get to his feet. “I'll kill him—”
“No!” Eirran pushed him back into the chair. “That won't so
lve anything! What did you mean, the Hags of Estcarp?”
He scowled. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “It could be no other. The woman in gray, the armed men, the children—they were all girls?”
“That's what Aidine said.”
“Then it's certain. The Hags nearly eliminated themselves and their entire malignant strain when they worked the Turning and destroyed the Eyrie. More than a few in Estcarp hoped they had. Now they're trying to build up their ranks again, coming by stealth and taking the daughters of unsuspecting—”
“Surely they didn't steal all six of the children, didn't wait until all their parents were away—”
Yareth got up. Decisiveness radiated from him. “After this much time the trail has gone stone-cold. But it doesn't matter. I know where they've taken her. I'm going to Es City and get my daughter back.”
“You won't go alone.”
“And why not?”
“Because she's my daughter as much as she is yours!” Eirran glared at him fiercely, unaware that she had put her hands across her abdomen. “Even more so. I carried her in my belly all those months. I'm the one who bore her. It was my pain that pushed her out into the world. Don't you think I would have followed that very night, except that I felt I must wait for you? And now you think you'll leave me behind? Never! I am going, and that's final.”
Yareth glared at her out of yellowish-brown eyes as fierce as those of the falcon, Newbold. Another person, even a warrior, might have quailed before that gaze; Eirran could imagine that kind of look being used many times in the past, when a Falconer confronted one of those who dwelt apart in the Falconers’ Village. A mere woman. But she was much more than that; she was Yareth's wife and Jenys's mother, and she was going with him to demand the child be returned from those who had taken her.
“I won't make Rangin carry double the whole way to Es City,” Yareth said.
Eirran's knees trembled a little and she realized that somewhere within her, she had feared he might find a way to force her to stay behind after all. “You forget we have Dorny. Give me a few minutes to get ready.”