The Falconer's Daughter - Liz Lyles Page 0,11

Was he a powerful lord? Was he like her grandfather in Aberdeen? She wrinkled up her face, knowing that Papa would not like this last question. “What do monks do?”

“What Brother Lyles did here.”

Her mouth formed a tiny perfect circle. “Oh.” And she made a face, not wanting to hear any more.

CHAPTER TWO

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HE LEFT HER alone when he went hunting. There was no way Kirk could take the girl with him. He told her to stay inside, to keep the door closed. “Animals cannot open doors,” he would say, “and the only way you would be hurt is by letting them in.”

“But animals do not want to hurt people,” she would answer, having already been taught that animals were good and important to the mountain.

He added an extra log to the fire before leaving, his face already wrapped against the wind and snow. “You won’t go near it now, will you?”

“No,” she said a little crossly, huddling in the deerskin lined with supple pelts. She didn’t like being left behind. It was lonely when he was away, so quiet, so big. He filled the cottage up, took its silence and space, not that there was so much space in winter when the cow lived inside too.

After he had gone, she slid the bar across the door and went back to her pallet on the floor. Curling beneath the fur throw, she watched the fire, the red flames rising between the logs. She remembered how she had burned herself once, trying to capture the fire in her hands. She had never done that again and the burn had healed by the summer’s end.

She must have fallen asleep because she was woken hours later by her father pounding outside. “Open up, Cory. Open the door!”

The fire had burned out while she slept, and, shivering, she stumbled to pull back the bar. As she swung the door open, snow swirled outside in great white gusts, powdery drifts forming just inside the step.

“Careful, Cory,” Kirk said, as he staggered in.

“A deer?” she asked, struggling to close the door as snow blanketed the dirt-packed floor. She bent over to brush back the snow, her fingers smearing the snow pink and in some places red. She smelled her hand. Blood. “Papa?” she said, tracing the puddles of red to his footsteps, pools of it forming by his instep.

“Be very quiet,” he said, his husky voice but a whisper. “Come see what I have.” She tiptoed to him, careful not to push against him. She couldn’t help worrying about the blood though. “Are you hurt?”

“I’ll mind it soon, lassie. But look here now, gentle is it.” He opened his coat for her to see. She stared at the ball of fur uncertainly. “A wolf pup,” he said, his large hand covering the white furry head, soothing the pup’s trembling. “What do you think of that?”

She touched the soft head and felt the tiny nose brush against the palm of her hand. Its nose was cold. Damp. She smiled in wonder. “Can I hold him?” she asked, feeling the pup nuzzle against her hand.

“Keep your fingers out of its mouth for now. He hasn’t been weaned and might be a wee bit hungry. We’ll need feed him in the morning, as soon as your cow can be milked.”

She held the squirming pup on her lap as her father pulled up his pant leg and began tending to the wound on his ankle. Long red scratches ran down his calf, the deeper of those cuts not yet scabbing. “What happened?” she asked.

“Chose the wrong night, wrong place to hunt. I must have stumbled on the den. Or else they were on the move.”

The pup gave a tentative lick at her fingers and she buried her other hand in its soft fluffy coat. “What happened to the mother?”

“Died.”

“You killed her?”

He wiped the blood from his hands and straightened. Blood had trickled down his cheek, drying at his jaw in a dark clot of color. “I had no choice,” he said quietly. “She came at me instead of running away. Must have been starving, poor thing.” He stared at the pup in her arms. “I shouldn’t have gone out tonight. I thought something bad might happen. I could feel it in my bones.”

“Some things can’t be helped,” she said, seeing the blood crusted on his face and the stain still on the floor. Snow had melted around the door, water running back under the frame. The pup rested his small head