Dream of Me/Believe in Me

here?”
    “Restin' my bones, lord. 'Tis a long journey we've had.”
    Still irked, Hawk said, “It must be as it is taking your mistress so long to make it.”
    The strange fellow—bearded and stooped, barrel-chested above bandy legs—chuckled. “Impatient are ye? Well an' ye' should be. She's a fine lass, she is.”
    “Lass? Are you that familiar with her then?”
    “Ye could say so. Known her since the day she was born.”
    Foolishness was dogging him this day. He might as well add to it. “Tell me of her.”
    Thorgold grinned. “Are ye that eager to know her?”
    “Eager? No, merely curious.”
    The old man pursed his lips, nodding sagely. “Ah, curiosity, now there's the thing. Men have wandered the earth because of it.” He cast a sideways grin. “Or mayhap they only wanted to get away from the womenfolk. Trouble they can be, sad to say. Harpin' on this and that, never done. Voices like … well, I won't say ravens 'cause I want no trouble myself. But raucous they can be when they've a mind. Know what I mean?”
    Hawk thought of Daria and sighed. “I suppose I do.”
    “Ah, but then there's the other kind. Soft as a spring rain, strong as water running over rock. Wears down the rock, it does, but gently like. Rock hardly knows what's happening to it. Doesn't seem to mind neither.”
    “I am not a rock,” Hawk said. He looked up at the sky so blue as to sting the eyes, down and around at the trees cut back from the fortress walls. Ravens were sitting in them. So many ravens. “I am a man.”
    Thorgold chuckled again. He seemed pleased with the response. It made him generous. “She likes hair ribbons.”
    “What … ?”
    “Ribbons, for her hair. She likes 'em. All different colors, doesn't seem to matter. Ever since she was a little thing, she's liked hair ribbons.” He stared back at Hawk staring at him. “Keeps 'em in a little chest, she does. All curled up like flowers.”
    “Are you suggesting I acquire some hair ribbons?”
    Thorgold shrugged. “Couldn't hurt.”
    “What about jewels, furs, silks?”
    “Hair ribbons.”
    “A fine mount, luxurious hangings for her chamber, rare perfumes?”
    “Hair ribbons.”
    “A mirror from the farthest reaches of Araby, cedar chests filled with spices, a harp strung from the tail of a unicorn?”
    “Hair ribbons. And I'd forget that about the unicorn, if I were ye. They can't be caught.”
    Hawk fought a smile, didn't win. “Are you telling me I'll be an old, old man and still buying her hair ribbons?”
    “Ye will if ye be lucky, lord. Are ye? Is the fey gift of fortune sittin' on those broad shoulders?”
    “Damned if I know.” Was it? He'd had good fortune in his life and bad. The Essex of his childhood had been a more dangerous and uncertain place than it was now. Yetno man of sense drew more than two easy breaths in a row. His mother had died too soon, yet gentle memory remained, elusive, sometimes filling him with yearning at unexpected moments. Odd things would set it off—a snatch of song, a whiff of scent, the murmur of a voice that was almost but not quite familiar. He was accustomed to it. By contrast, he scarcely remembered the selfish, unthinking girl who had perished in a foolish accident of her own making shortly after their marriage, taking their unborn child with her. He had done well in the terms of the world and was glad of that, yet were there times when he found himself wondering if there was anything more to be hoped for, something as yet undiscovered and unexperienced.
    A signal horn rang out, the warning of riders approaching Hawkforte. Its master took a quick step, levering himself up onto the arch, and looked out beyond the town. He spied the banner of the royal equerry fluttering above a party of a dozen horsemen.

Chapter THREE

    T HEY WERE LIKE MEWLING BABES, BRAYING their laughter, posturing, expecting their every whim to be obeyed. Watching the men newly arrived from the court at Winchester, prattling on with her
dear
brother, Daria sneered. They were such dung-for-brains, all of them, imagining themselves to be of worth and consequence when they could not even recognize the person of true consequence among them. And Hawk was the worst of them. Malicious fate had made them siblings of a sort. He suffered her presence under his roof because it was his duty to do so. She knew it and hated him for it. But he went his own way, brushing her off as lightly as he would a fly, scarcely noticing that she existed.