Free A Kestrel Rising by S A Laybourn Page B

week had been replaced by a glimpse of autumn, with heavy gray clouds hurried along by a bitter, north wind.
    “All right, dear. It’ll do you good.”
    Ilona called to the dogs and stepped out into the wind. It snatched at her hair when she walked down the drive and into the woods. The treetops swayed back and forth and roared like a waterfall. For the first time in days, she felt something other than raw sorrow. It was just as well, as she had received her new posting and was to be at Mildenhall in two days’ time. It would not do to turn up at a new place a weeping wreck. She would have to save her grief for moments when she was alone.
    She headed through the woods and turned onto the grassy track that ran alongside the barley field. It followed the line of their property then doglegged to the right to run alongside the Reardons’ garden wall. The wind hit Ilona full in the face when she stepped out of the shelter of the trees. She followed the dogleg and reached a faded blue door in the wall. She paused, leaning against the wall and looking at a little bench. It was obscured by a wild tangle of vines, surrounded by a deep chamomile lawn and a riot of love-in-a-mist. The wind wasn’t as strong there. She took some time to clear away the tangle of vines and sat down on the bench, glad of a respite from the relentless gale.
    The ripening barley was a sea of pale gold that shifted restlessly beneath the heavy sky. A bird, its feathers ragged, tried to make headway above the field. It struggled and fought, dropping once or twice before it tried to rise again. Ilona watched its progress while it battled its way toward the trees and to the shelter of the Reardons’ garden. She lost sight of it in the trees and returned to watching the barley and the clouds racing across the sky. There was peace in this place, something left over from another time when it had been a much-loved sanctuary for someone. She glanced down at the lace-framed blue of the love-in-a-mist and wondered who had once taken the trouble to care for them. They were all over the place, waving in the wind while chamomile flowers shone like stars at their feet. The scent of the bruised leaves rose to meet her and she bent and plucked a sprig to hold to her nose before she stood to leave. Ilona put it in her pocket and turned back toward home, glad that the wind was at her back. At the edge of the woods, something on the ground—small, pale brown and alive—caught her eye. She edged toward where it sat, partly hidden in the tall, soft grass and knelt beside the kestrel. It stared at her with fierce, black and familiar eyes, its sides heaving, its feathers ruffled against the chill of the wind.
    “This seems to be my year for kestrels.”
    Her eyes stung when the scent of heather rose from nowhere and she was back on the moor, her face hidden in Ian’s bright hair. Tears returned and slipped down her cheeks when she looked at the bird and it looked at her, unflinching and unafraid. She held her hand out toward it. “Come on, then. If you’ve something to say or do, just do it.”
    It hopped onto her fingers and clung to her knuckles with sharp little talons while it regarded her. Ilona was too stunned to move while this little, wild creature sat on the back of her hand. Then, as swiftly as it had come, it spread its wings and rose back into the wind, riding with it as it soared away to the south, a sharp little arrow that disappeared in her blur of tears.
    “Goodbye,” she whispered. Part of her disappeared south with it. She put her hands into her pockets and walked back toward the house.
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
     
     
    Ilona shivered when she climbed out of the lorry. Even in spring, Newmarket Heath could be an inhospitable place when the wind swept down from the north. One of the ground crew told her that it was cold because there was nothing between Newmarket and Russia to stop it. It brought the chill of the North Sea and the Wash. This day in