The Wind-Witch by Susan Dexter Page A

offered the food she’d brought? Where else was secure enough? She tried to tally their outbuildings in her mind, to recollect the strengths of walls and doors.
    Come to that, was he even well enough to work? She recalled one of Robart’s friends, ailing and useless for most of one summer after he’d taken a nimble from his horse and split his head open on an inconvenient rock. Maybe the raider was only cramped and unused to daylight—but just as likely he was too sick to do even one man’s work.
    She assessed her prisoner as heartlessly as she would have a stray sheep added to her flock. He did not, in the light of day, have quite the terrifying aspect the sea raiders were getting a name for. He didn’t look as if he could raid a henhouse on his own. He wasn’t much taller than she was, and his build was on the slight side. But that meant nothing. Armed, hale, he’d be another man entirely. She should remember that, not be deceived by pity.
    From a distance she’d have reckoned him aged, by his ash-color hair and the pale stubble on his jaw, but close-to Druyan could see he wasn’t age-gray. His brows—one of which was presently caked with his blood—were very dark. His weather-tanned skin was smooth where it wasn’t bruised: not an old man’s skin. His battered face was lean and narrow, with a long nose pushed out of line from right to left—he hadn’t been born with it that way, but the damage wasn’t recent, either. His teeth, blunted or not, were very white, and he had all of them, at least those that showed. A villainous face, Druyan told herself as ruthlessly as Enna would have.
    He looked back at her, managing to drag his right eyelid open a trifle. That eye—like the left—was gray with flecks of gold, as open and startlingly honest as a dog’s. That must be useful , Druyan thought, stemly distrusting them. No reason he couldn’t be trying to put her off her guard. She held out the sack of food, the bottle of water, but she kept the pitchfork in her right hand.
    “Eat that, while I ready the wagon,” she ordered. There was still better than half the day left to work with. They could make a start on the nearest field. She’d see if he could work.
    He looked first at her face, then at the sack. Smart enough, maybe, to resist a grab that would set the dog on him. Rook was still tense, her back hair standing up from neck to tail.
    “Go ahead,” Druyan insisted, shoving the food into his hands. “And don’t even think about trying to escape. Rook won’t let you stir a step.”
    He unstoppered the bottle, put it to his lips, and gulped the liquid down as fast as he could swallow. Too fast—he began to choke, and coughed till Rook’s growl told him to desist, to behave himself. Stifling the spasm, he put the bottle down, juggled the bag around, and investigated the bread.
    The door jamb was still holding him upright, Druyan noticed. She did not discount the danger of him, but it was very hard to believe there was much worry about him for the next few minutes, while she hitched the wagon and brought Valadan out. She could risk it.
    Druyan made the hand signal to Rook: Hold. One sheep or an entire flock, ’twas all one to the dog, who knew her business. Rook settled happily and fixed the man with her best stare. Halfway to the barn—a dozen steps—Druyan turned back. The man had sat down in the doorway. The bread was gone, and there were crumbs from it dusted down the fmnt of him. He had the cheese clutched to his chest. Rook was watching him alertly. Probably she wouldn’t have tom his throat out if he’d tried to run, but he’d never have got past her, either. Especially not with the cheese.
    Her fine scheme was seeming less and less a workable plan. Druyan sighed. Only a single man to aid the harvest, and already she was losing her fear of him, which was foolish and did not bode well. The hope-that she could hold Splaine Garth, make herself a place, seemed more and more a dream, from