disturbing his sleep.
At dawn the man seemed to make up his mind about something. "Not coming then," he mused aloud. "Well, it was worth the try."
"What was?" the boy asked, thinking the man was speaking to him, and receiving a cuff on the ear for asking. It was hard enough to make him fall over, hard enough to set his ear ringing, like the bells of a captive hawk.
The man picked him up, setting him against a fallen pillar. "Now, boy, don't ask me questions. I do not like it. Give me answers. That will sweeten my hand."
The boy nodded, not chancing another blow. "What is your name then, little thief?"
The boy thought for a moment. His name was Merlin, like the hawk in Master Robin's mews. But that was his name with the family. And the family was no more, buried under earth and gone to worms. Names could have power, he knew that instinctively. His own name had given him back his power of speech, had given him a past. And even though this man's power was great, it was a black, evil thing. He would give the man no more power than he already had.
"Hawk," the boy said. "My name is Hawk." It was close enough.
The man laughed. "A lie of course. You hesitated too long for the truth. And who would have named such a small, darkling boy such a strong, powerful name? But no matter. I will call you Hawk. It is conveniently short. And as for me, you can call me ... Fowler ... for I have mastered you as a falconer does a bird."
The boy almost spoke back then, for if he knew anything well from his years with Master Robin it was falconry. This man was no fowler. And he was no master either. But the boy bit his lip and said nothing.
"We are but a day out of Gwethern, a busy little market town, where I will sell your labor to a farmer and collect the wages. And you will not run, little bird, else I will have the sheriff on you. As will the farmer." He smiled. It did not improve his looks. "Do you understand me?"
The boy glared.
Fowler raised his hand for a slap.
"Yes," Hawk said, begrudging the syllable.
"Yes what?"
"Yes ... sir." The second syllable was even more grudging.
"I will unbind you, hawkling," Fowler said. "But my dog will be your leading strings. Mind him, now. He has a foul temper. Fowler and Fouler."
He laughed at his own joke, the sound coming out jerkily.
Hawk did not smile. He stood slowly and held out his hands. Fowler undid the ropes on the boy's wrists.
"Watch!" he said to the dog, and Ranger took up a position at Hawk's heels. He did not leave that place for the rest of the long day.
Â
They walked for a while before Fowler mounted Goodie. The big horse trembled under his weight, not because the man was heavy but because he was unfamiliar and kept at her with his rough boot heels.
They made a strange company, but not so unusual for a market town road: a half-grown boy, nervously in front of a menace of a dog; a massive, black-clad man on a plowhorse, leading an old cow by a rope.
No one will wonder about us,
Hawk realized.
No one will question the man's right to sell us all: horse, cow, boy. Even dog.
Just as he came to that awful conclusion, a large tan hare started across the road.
"Ranger, stay!" Fowler called out, though the dog had made no move toward the hare. But Fowler should have paid more mind to the horse. Unused to the road, upset with the man on her back, startled by the hare, the normally placid Goodie suddenly shied. She took one quick step to the left and then rose up onto her back legs.
Fowler was flung off, landing with a horrifying
thud!
His head whacked against a marker stone and, as he lay there, unmoving, blood flowed out of his nose, staining his mustache.
The dog left the boy's heels and went over to its master. It sniffed the man's head uncertainly, then sat down, threw back its head, and howled.
For a moment Hawk did not know what to do. He was stunned by the scene, which wasâand was notâthe very dream he had had: stone, blood, howl. He remembered, bleakly, the