Christopher Stasheff

‘I just don’t like anything airborne following me, Tom. They’re not always what they seem.’ Tom’s brow furrowed at the cryptic statement. Rod tucked the stock into his shoulder. ‘Besides, I’ve taken one shot a day at it for the last four days; it’s getting to be a habit.’ The bow hummed, and the quarrel leaped upward; but the bird sailed up faster. The bolt passed through the place where the bird had been, rose another fifty feet, hit the top of its arc, and began to fall. The bird, fifty feet higher, watched it sink.

Big Tom raised an eyebrow, his mouth quirked up on one side.

‘You’ll never strike it, master. The fowl knows the meaning of a crossbow.’

‘You’d almost think it does.’ Rod slung the bow over his shoulder.

‘What kind of country is this, with elves under every tree and hawks in the sky shadowing you?’

”Tis not a hawk, master,’ Big Tom reproved. ”Tis an osprey.’

Rod shook his head. ‘It started following us the second day out.

What would a fish hawk be doing that far inland?’

‘Myself, I cannot say. Thou might ask it, though, master.’

‘And I wouldn’t really be all that surprised if it answered,’ Rod mused. ‘Well, it isn’t doing us any harm, I suppose, and we’ve got bigger problems at the moment. We came here to get into that castle. Do you sing, Big Tom?’

- Tom did a double take. ‘Sing, master?’

‘Yeah, sing. Or play the bagpipes, or something.’

Tom tugged at his lip, frowning. ‘I can make some manner of noise on a shepherd’s flute, and the half dead might put the word music to it. But what folly is this, master?’

‘Fool’s folly.’ Rod unstrapped a saddlebag and took out a small harp. ‘As of now, we’re minstrels. Let’s hope the cliff-dwellers are a little short on music at the moment.’ He pulled an alto recorder out of the saddlebag and gave it to Tom. ‘I hope that’s enough like your shepherd’s flute to do some good.’

‘Aye, master, very like it. But-‘

‘Oh, don’t worry, they’ll let us in. Folks this far away from the capital tend to be-out of touch; they’re hungry for news and new songs, and minstrels carry both. Do you know “Eddystone Light”?’

‘Nay master.’

‘Too bad; that’s one that always goes over well in a seaport town.

Well, no matter, I can teach it to you as we go.’