“I wish you’d find a way to mend things with Fin.”
“Connor, don’t. Please.”
“I love you both. That’s all I’ll say for now.” He wandered the kitchen rubbing the little stone. “The field’s too far from the clearing for the music to carry, by ordinary means.”
He circled the kitchen as she sliced soda bread, as she broke eggs into the pan.
“We’re tied together. We three, those three. He heard your music. Twice now I’ve spoken to him. Iona saw Teagan.”
“And I’ve seen or heard none of them.”
Connor paused to pick up his coffee. “Eamon mentioned his sisters were jealous as well.”
“I’m not jealous. Well, a little, I admit. But it’s more frustrated, and maybe a bit insulted as well.”
“He took your music into dreams, and smiled as he slept when he’d been sad.”
“I’ll take that as something then.” She plated the bacon, the eggs she’d fried. Passed it to him.
“Aren’t you having some?”
“Just some coffee and toasted bread.”
“Well, thanks for the trouble.”
“You can pay it back with another favor.” She plucked toast out of the toaster, dropped one piece on his plate, and another on a smaller one. “Carry the stone he gave you.”
“This?” He’d already put it in his pocket, and now drew it out.
“Carry it with you, Connor, as you wear the amulet. There’s power in i
t.”
She took her toast and coffee to the table, waiting for him to sit with her. “I don’t know, can’t be sure if it’s suspicion, intuition, or a true knowing, but there’s power in it. Good magicks because of where it came from, when it came from, who it came from.”
“All right. I’ll hope the hawk’s eye does the same for Eamon, and his sisters.”
* * *
IT WASN’T ALL HAWK WALKS WITH EAGER TOURISTS OR giving tours to school groups. An essential part of the school involved care and training. Clean mews, clean water for baths, weight checks and a varied diet, sturdy lean-tos for weathering the birds so they might feel the air, smell it. Connor prided himself on the health, behavior, and reliability of his birds—those he helped raise from hatchlings, those who came to him as rescues.
He didn’t mind cleaning the poo, or the time it took to carefully dry a wet bird’s wings, the hours of training.
The hardest part of his job was, and always would be, selling a bird he’d trained to another falconer.
As arranged, he met the customer in a field about ten kilometers from the school. The farmer he knew well allowed him to bring the young hawks he trained to hunt to that open space.
He called the pretty female Sally, and tethered her to his glove to walk her about and talk to her.
“Now Fin’s met this lady who wants you to be hers, and he’s even seen your new home should the two of you get along. She’s coming all the way from Clare. And there, I’m told, she has a fine house and a fine mews. She’s done her training as well as you have yours. You’ll be her first.”
Sally watched him with her gold eyes, and preened on his fist.
He watched the spiffy BMW navigate the road, pull to a stop behind his truck.
“Here she is now. I expect you to be polite, make a good impression.”
He put on his own game face, though his eyebrows rose a bit when the willowy blonde with a film star’s face stepped out of the car.