Dana made her decision. “No time to walk to town and back and drop these two off. They will come.” She pointed out the narrow path through the trees, leading down to another portion of the beach.
“Big year for drakes!” the beardless boy said, smiling excitedly at Reynard as they exchanged places in the line. Reynard studied the restless trees, touched his wounded leg, and made quick appraisal of his chances of fleeing—and living. Slim at best. Besides, he was fascinated by the group’s task.
“The town hath a dozen defenders,” said a pale-skinned man with hardly any nose and long, knotted flaxen hair.
“Paired to drakes,” the beardless boy explained to Reynard with a sly nod. “Just right for nasty visitors. I’ll be paired as well.”
“How do you speak with them?” Reynard asked.
“We will show you,” the beardless boy said. “Stay close.”
Dana said, “The woods are in turmoil and will resist. That will slow us.” She took the lead, followed by her two older partners. Anutha took a step back and let them pass. Reynard tried to clearly observe this hierarchy through the throbbing pain in his leg.
Anutha rejoined the line behind Manuel. “I think thou must be th’one called Pilgrim.”
“I was given that name, long ago,” Manuel said.
“Dost thou know a woman called Maggie?” she asked.
“I do,” Manuel said.
“And dost thou know me?”
“I believe I do.”
“I had seven or eight years when thou last went to sea. Now I work with Maggie and Maeve. Dana is Maggie’s daughter. And of course thou know’st Maeve…”
“Maggie’s older sister,” Manuel said. “She must be in her sixties, and Maeve, in her eighties. I hope she is well and alive.”
“Maeve is eighty-four,” Anutha said with a wry twist of her lips. “Still alive, but feeble. Thou hast kept thy wife waiting a long, long time, Pilgrim.”
Dana called over her shoulder, “There be nymphs and drakes in our future, more important than far-wandering husbands or the Spaniards they guide. Boy, canst thou travel with that leg?” she asked Reynard.
Reynard tried to stand straight. He noted that the men in the team now looked on Manuel with no small distrust. Their distrust included him, he realized, with an added twinge. “I can walk,” he said.
“I can travel, as well,” Manuel said. “But I will stay on the beach and distract the Eaters.”
Dana looked back, expression barely changed, but Manuel seemed to be confirming something for her. “That would not be in our best interests,” she said, brows pinched.
Anutha said, “I know not thy connection, but before we hand ye to the Eaters, I await Maeve’s judgment.”
This irritated Manuel. “I bring her what she needs, that which I promised long ago,” he said.
Anutha sniffed and looked away. Dana said, “That is for Maggie and Maeve to judge. For now, we move together.”
Reynard had to agree. Even if the wild, window-winged drakes did not find them, the glassy people—those all seemed to call Eaters—would return, and Reynard felt it was hardly likely they could be lucky again. So why was Manuel willing or even eager to stay behind? And then Reynard knew, as if he had understood those strange scenes on the beach for the first time. Manuel needed those visitors. They had something for him.
They brought him youth.
The procession worked through thickly twisting branches, then, reaching a stubborn impasse, split their line in two and left the difficult, narrow path to find other ways. Dana faced the boy as he limped past. “Thou think’st we let the drakes hatch to fend off Spaniards?”
Reynard was embarrassed by the direct question, though not surprised by her inflection. As a young man of no particular prominence or high birth, everyone older addressed him so. And when he spoke to horses, he gave them highborn respect, as one should, for all horses are noble. “I wis not what you keep them for. They scare me.”
“As they should. It hath been a hard year for tracking nymphs,” Dana said. “They come ashore, hang in trees or off rocks, and we boat out to find and blunt before they rise. If we blunt them, we can pair them with defenders—but split wild, they be a danger to all.”
“We saw them from the galleon,” Reynard said. “Out in the bay.”
“Maybe with thy guidance we can find them again. After the feast the ddraig môr found on that damned galleon, the wild ones already out there will fight and mate and spread their eggs in the deep waters… and next year will be far worse.” Dana used Welsh-sounding words with an old flavor, like drake mar—sea dragons. Reynard’s grandmother had often dropped into Welsh when she was angry.
The blunter’s face was calm but hardly placid. As they trooped and stumbled through a low, thorny brake, she seemed to judge him more kindly. He sensed a deep intelligence, and her strong, taut features reminded him of his grandmother so much he wished he could remember more Welsh and use it to reassure her he meant no ill. But the words were not there. Not yet.
None of the blunters hacked at the branches, however much they annoyed, as if they respected the trees and bushes that made their journey difficult, even devious—for twice Anutha had to reverse course, swearing under her breath, vowing that the trees were playing tricks again. But she seemed to feel an almost perverse affection for them, and touched a few as she passed, as if she knew them.
When the dark finally fell, Dana let the knob dim. “Stay close,” advised a small, big-chested fellow, and Reynard and Manuel found themselves bumping shoulders in the center of a circle.
“They were not touched the first time,” Dana said to Anutha.
“Why?” the beardless boy asked. “If Eaters are thieves, will they not take from anyone?”
Neither answered.
“I hope they be not thieves,” the boy finished in a lower tone.
“Doth not matter if we sleep,” Anutha said. “They are not ghosts. Eldest outside, youngest in.”
Manuel seemed expectant, almost happy. Reynard doubted he would himself sleep.
And then… he did.
And sometime in his fitful repose—
Was it a dream?
Again he saw the glowing face of his glassy-skinned visitor on the beach, so beautiful and strange—and she stroked him along the nape of his neck, and he did not care.
A Hidden Boat, and Islands in the Mist
MANUEL GRIPPED HIS shoulder, and Reynard came awake with a start. The morning was well upon them. Nobody appeared frightened or hurt—or older.
“They seem to favor me, no?” Manuel whispered to the boy.
Reynard looked at him with wonder and concern. “I did not hear a thing.”
“We do not, most often,” Manuel said. His beard was darker, the skin on his hands smoother, less wrinkled, less spotted with age—and he had more hair. Reynard pushed away and rose with the others in the small clearing. They all seemed subdued, like cattle before slaughter—but also relieved.
“They were not here to take,” said a swarthy man with wide, nervous eyes.
“We work for them as well,” Dana said. “Thou’rt looking well, Pilgrim,” she said to Manuel. He stared off into the bushes.
Dana and the young men made a fire of castaway twigs. The trees did not seem to object. Dana heated water from a small stream and brewed a brothy tea. Reynard found it salty but restorative.
Anutha came through the woods and told them she could see three nymphs on rocky islands near the shore. Dana said, “The boat is hidden south. Let us hope it is still there.”