Owlsight

Her thoughts circled around to the returning prodigal. I wonder what Darian Firkin is like. “Firkin” isn’t a name from around here. She’d have a general idea of what he looked like if she knew his family, but it seemed to her that she remembered he was an orphan. That’s right, that’s why he was apprenticed to the wizard in the first place. Whenever people talk about him, they talk about a boy, but he’s at least my age by now. Eighteen at the least. That’s a young man, not a boy.

He’d be old enough to do all the things people expected of him, she would think.

So by now he’s a mage, and he’s got a Hawkbrother bird. He‘ll have traveled more than everyone in the village combined! He’ll certainly have seen more of Valdemar than anyone here, except maybe Lord Breon and his family and liegemen. They hardly count, though; we never see them except at Midsummer and Harvest Faire. He should make quite an impression when he gets here, especially when people realize he isn’t a young boy anymore.

She smiled wryly. There was one thing that was as predictable as the sun rising; every unattached young woman in Errold’s Grove would be setting her cap for him. How could they not? He wasn’t so homely as a boy that anyone made note of it, so he could hardly have grown into an ugly young man - and he would not only have the cachet of being a new, unknown male, but an exotic and a traveler!

The older folks might be thinking of him as a boy still, but the girls are going to add up years and figure he’s of courting age. There’s going to be a lot of sewing and embroidery going on for the next few months, she decided. I wish Shandi were here! She’d be right in the middle of it all, and tell me all the tales!

Personally, she was just anticipating finally seeing a gryphon, maybe hearing it speak. It would bring a touch of excitement to the skies over the village if she could look up from time to time to see the enormous wings passing overhead, or see a momentary gryphon-shadow against the moon! That was all the magic that she needed in her world!

The gryphon was a certainty; she considered other possibilities that the Hawkbrothers might bring. So the other thing this means is that if Hawkbrothers are coming to settle, they’ll be bringing more of their medicines and treatments. Would they bring a Healer?

Now that was worth getting excited about. The Hawkbrothers were mages, everyone knew that, so any Healer they brought with them would - must! - have the secret to unlock those puzzling texts of hers!

Steelmind’s from k’Vala; their chief Healer sent seeds through him to help me. So they already know that I’m here. Healers always work with other Healers, that’s part of the Clan. So if they bring a Healer with them, it’s bound to be someone who knows all about using Healer’s Gift and it’s bound to be someone who‘ll at least give me enough help to get me on my feet!

This could be the solution to all of her problems; never mind Darian Firkin, and even the gryphon. Now she could hardly wait to meet the Hawkbrothers and learn if they did have a Healer among them!

Whatever it takes, I’ll find the way to get him to teach me!

She laughed out loud in relief, as a burden she had carried so long she hardly noticed it anymore lifted from her shoulders. No more mysteries, no more making excuses to Gil! It would only be a few short moons, and she would be learning the last skill she needed to consider herself and real Healer!

With the lifting of the burden, after the initial feeling of giddy pleasure, came a sense of relaxation. A few moons? She could wait that long.

And meanwhile, there were babies coming, childish illnesses to dose, broken bones to set, gashes to stitch. She would have her hands full enough to avoid fretting between then and now.

She went to bed and slept the soundest sleep she’d had in years, waking with the birds, feeling as if she had been Healed.

That day, after a round of children who’ d gotten bellyaches from eating too many half-ripe berries, she went out into the garden for some fresh mint. As she stooped to pick the pungent leaves, a strange shadow crossing the ground in front of her made her glance up.

It was a gryphon. It couldn’t be anything else.

It wasn’t alone either; there were more of them, carrying baskets suspended between pairs of them. She couldn’t make out what was in the baskets, they were too high, but there was no doubt of what they were.

Keisha stared at them until they vanished over the trees, tending vaguely upriver, where the Vale was alleged to be. She all but forgot the mint in her hands until they were gone, and she realized she had crushed it.

Eight