Free Dragonfield by Jane Yolen Page A

skins that hung from his shoulders to his feet. About the man leaped fawning wolves, some spotted like jackals, some tan and some white. He pushed them from him with a rough sweep of his hand.
    “I seek a deer,” he called when he glimpsed Hinda’s face, a pale moon, at the window.
    But when Hinda came out of the door, closing it behind her to hide what lay inside, the man did not speak again. Instead he took off his fur hat and laid it upon his heart, kneeling down before her.
    “Who are you?” asked Hinda. “What are you? And why do you seek the deer?” Her voice was gentle but firm.
    The man neither spoke nor rose but stared at her face.
    “Who are you?” Hinda asked again. “Say what it is you are.”
    As if she had broken a spell, the man spoke at last. “I am but a man,” he said. “A man who has traveled far and who has seen much, but never a beauty such as yours.”
    “If it is beauty, and beauty is what you prize, .you shall not see it again,” said Hinda. “For a man who hunts the deer can be no friend of mine.”
    The man rose then, and Hinda marveled at the height of him, for he was as tall as the cottage door and his hands were grained like wood.
    “Then I shall hunt the deer no more,” he said, “if you will give me leave to hunt that which is now all at once dearer to me.”
    “And what is that?”
    “You, dear heart,” he said, reaching for her. Startled, Hinda moved away from him, but remembering her brother inside the cottage, found voice to say, “Tomorrow.” She reached behind her and steadied herself on the door handle. She thought she heard the heavy breathing of Brother Hart through the walls. “Come tomorrow.”
    “I shall surely come.” He bowed, turned, and then was gone, walking swiftly, a man’s stride, through the woods. His animals were at his heels.
    Hinda’s eyes followed him down the path until she counted even the shadows of trees as his own. When she was certain he was gone, she opened the cottage door and went in. The cottage was suddenly close and dark, filled with the musk of deer.
    Brother Hart lay on their straw bed. When he looked up at her, Hinda could not bear the twin wounds of his eyes. She turned away and said, “You may go out now. It is safe. He will not hunt you again.”
    The deer rose heavily to his feet, nuzzled open the door, and sprang away to the meadows.
    But he was home again at dark.
    When he stepped out of his skin and entered the cottage, he did not greet his sister with his usual embrace. Instead he said, “You did not call me to the clearing. You did not say my name. Only when I was tired and the sun had almost gone, did I know it was time to come home.”
    Hinda could not answer. She could not even look at him. For even more than his words, his nakedness suddenly shamed her. She put their food on the table and they ate their meal in silence. Then they lay down together and slept without dreams like the wild creatures of the wood.
    When the sun called Brother Hart to his deerskin once again, Hinda opened the door. Silently she ushered him outside, silently watched him change, and sent him off on his silent way to the meadows without word of farewell. Her thoughts were on the hunter, the man of the wolves. She never doubted he would come.
    And come he did, neither silently nor slowly, but with loud purposeful steps. He stood for a moment at the clearing’s edge, looking at Hinda, measuring her with his eyes. Then he smiled and crossed to her.
    He stayed all the day with her and taught her wonders she had never known. He told her tales of kingdoms she had never seen. He sang songs she had never heard before, singing them softly into her ears. He spoke again and again of his love for her, but he touched no more than her hand.
    “You are as innocent as any creature in the woods,” he said over and over in amazement.
    So passed the day.
    Suddenly it was dusk, and Hinda looked up with a start. “You must go now,” she said.
    “Nay, I