Free Emerald Prince by Brit Darby

chance him not returning. He does not know these hills and dales, milady.”
     Nor I, Alianor thought, but the idea occurred to her if she could convince Liam to let her bird hunt, she might be able to slip away while the men were distracted by the sport.
    Goliath of course had a far keener eye than any human, and would find his mistress again no matter where she fled. The real risk was not in losing him but in the outlaws finding her again.
    “I do not wish him to weaken,” she said.
    “Birds of prey can go days without eating if need be, milady.”
    “Yes, but not without water. All living things need water.” She cast what she hoped was a wide-eyed appeal for sympathy to him. She wrung her hands for added effect.
    Liam sighed and slung the water pouch and saddlebag over his shoulder. “Follow me.”
     
    A LIANOR GATHERED UP HER skirts and trailed Liam out of the barn. She blinked against the light, and when her vision settled saw they occupied a little valley still wreathed in morning mist. Besides the barn there were smaller outbuildings, and a cozy stone cottage with a curl of smoke coming from its chimney. Sheep and cattle grazed alongside the outlaws’ horses in a field lush with grass and dotted with wildflowers.
    Looking around at the emerald green slopes surrounding them, Alianor remembered the color of Liam’s eyes. It seemed they had been fashioned somehow from these hills.
    Fortunately he did not seem to read her mind this time. Her unbidden thoughts disturbed her, but for Liam to know she girlishly mused on the color of his eyes would be too much to bear.
    “Fetch yon tankard,” he said to her. “I’ll fill it with water for the bird.”
     She nodded and grabbed a half-full pewter tankard someone had left sitting on a nearby fence post. She sniffed its contents. “Ale?”
    “’Tis Uisce Beatha , milady, and ’twould double the curls in your fine Sassenach hair.”
    His eyes twinkled with laughter. Ignoring his comment, she dumped the contents, jumping back from the splash it made. Why she bothered she knew not — her skirts were filthy. Liam stepped close to fill the mug from the water pouch.
    Niall walked over to them, carrying Goliath’s cage. “Aye, the Water of Life is stout stuff. Perhaps this feisty fellow needs a sip. Seems you’re not the only one cranky this morn.” He set down the cage on the ground and nursed his injured finger. Alianor saw Goliath had nipped him as he had Liam, this time drawing blood.
    She resisted a smile. Truly, her Goliath was loyal to her as no other. He would see these Irish outlaws taken down a peg or two. “I suppose if you’d been bounced around like a sack of grain on the back of a horse for hours on end, you’d be a bit bad-tempered as well. I’d bite your finger, too, were I in his place.”
    A laugh-like snort escaped Niall at her spirited retort, one he tried to cover with a cough. But his eyes showed merriment he could not hide.
    Alianor knelt beside the cage and spoke to Goliath, offering her sympathy for his plight. Aware of the two men watching, she dared not make a move to flee. Instead she opened the door and offered the tankard of water to the tercel sitting on his perch. Goliath ruffled his feathers and tilted his head to one side as if to say, “Is that the best you can do?” But he bobbed his head a few times and drank. When he was done, Alianor withdrew the tankard and refastened the latch.
    When she finished tending her bird, she rose to her feet and returned the mug where she had found it. She spotted an older couple walking towards them, both short and stout of frame, wearing clothing fashioned from coarse homespun. The woman was garbed in a long russet-brown gown, and the man’s tunic and breeches were the same color. Their mantles likewise matched, though the woman’s was pinned with a brooch and the man’s an ornate pin. Their hair was equal mixtures of ginger and gray. They looked so alike she assumed they were related