Susan Krinard - Lord of the Beasts

“There is something you can do now,” he said. “Sir Reginald is a bit frightened by so much change. If you could care for him until he has settled in …”

Ivy blinked, emerging from some inner world of her own, and nodded. “O’ course. I’ll look after ‘im.” She bent down and coaxed the spaniel from under the wagon. “You stick wiv me, Reggie, and you’ll be just foin.”

Donal nodded to Benjamin, who led the horse and wagon off to the stables. Still murmuring to Sir Reginald, Ivy followed Donal up to the house, passing the border of flowers Benjamin had planted along the path. He opened the door to the cozy kitchen and let Ivy look around.

“We live simply at Stenwater,” he said. “Benjamin and I share the cooking duties, and we have a cleaning woman and laundress come in once a week. Benjamin cares for the larger animals … we have several horses and a pony you might ride, if that suits you.”

“‘Ow many animals ‘ave you?” Ivy asked, her gaze moving hungrily about the room with its hanging pots and massive box stove.

“Oh, a score of dogs, and as many cats … most live in the byre and stables … several milch cows, a small flock of sheep and a dozen cattle up on the fells … six horses and the pony … ten pigs, at last tally. Perhaps forty chickens.” He cocked his head, surveying the farm in his mind. “Sometimes we have a fox or a badger visiting us, if they need tending. I’ve never tried to count the mice.”

Ivy giggled, a burst of nervous sound that seemed to relieve some internal pressure. “D’you eat ’em … the sheep ‘n’ cows ‘n’ pigs, Oi mean?”

“Since I consider them my friends, it would hardly be fair, would it?”

“Then ‘ow d’you keep from starving?”

“You would be surprised how much nutrition one can derive from the fruits of the earth,” he said. “Our chickens are willing to provide us with eggs in plenty, and our cows are happy to supply all the milk we can drink.”

Ivy considered this for several moments. “Oi guess Oi’d rather not eat yer friends, either.”

Donal laughed, took her face between his hands and kissed her forehead. She jumped back, regarding him with something akin to shock.

Donal sobered instantly. “I’m sorry, Ivy. I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s awroight,” she said, glancing away. “You just surprised me, is all.”

Of course he had surprised her. She’d likely received far more blows than kisses in her short lifetime. And he was not in the habit of doling out caresses to any creature whose skin was not covered in fur or feathers.

Nevertheless, though Ivy would not be with him long, he must remember that she was human. Whatever affection he might hold for her or any other person, the communion he enjoyed with the animals could never be shared with a member of her species.

After he had shown Ivy the kitchen and parlor, he led her through the hall to the bedchambers. The room he kept for guests had a window that looked out on the informal garden, and it was furnished with a brass four-poster adorned with a hand-quilted coverlet.

“This will be your room,” Donal said. “If there is anything it lacks, you must tell me.”

Ivy crept through the doorway and slowly set Sir Reginald down on the braided rug. “This … is fer me?”

“Yes. I’m sure you will want things … suitable for a young girl. What we can’t purchase in the local village we will surely find in York.”

Ivy scarcely seemed to hear him. She approached the bed warily, ran her hands over the coverlet, and cautiously sat down. Sir Reginald jumped up beside her and immediately made a comfortable nest out of one of the pillows. He sighed in complete contentment.

“Mine,” Ivy breathed. She rubbed her fist across her eyes, shot from the bed and hurled herself at Donal. Her thin arms closed around him with desperate strength.

“Thank you,” she whispered into his waistcoat. “I don’t know … how I can ever repay you.”

Once again her rookery accent had vanished, but Donal was too startled to give much thought to the transformation. He patted her back awkwardly.

“You owe me nothing,” he said. “But I do think you have had enough stimulation for one day. If you and Sir Reginald would care to rest, I’ll fetch your luggage and see what I can find in the kitchen.”

She pulled back and studied his face. “You won’t leave me?”

“If I leave the farm, it will only be for a short time, and Benjamin will be here.”

“I want you to show me the animals. Your friends.”

“After you’ve rested.”

Her lower lip jutted with incipient rebellion, but she thought better of it. With a final sniff she returned to the bed and drew back the coverlet. She crawled under the sheets, holding very still as if she feared her mere presence might sully such luxury. Sir Reginald tucked his body against her, one long, fringed ear draped across her chest.

“Sleep,” Donal said, backing out the door. “I’ll wake you in time for dinner.”

But her eyes were already closed, and she didn’t stir again. Donal shut the door and walked silently back down the hall. He met Benjamin in the kitchen, checked the contents of the larder, and asked the old man to prepare a simple but hearty meal. Then he left the house and began his rounds.

The old gelding and the pony in the stable greeted him with whinnies of welcome, telling him of the new litter of kittens born in the loose box. The proud mother cat put in an appearance and allowed Donal to examine the babies. He cradled each tiny, blind body in his hand and felt the new seeds of consciousness beginning to awake.

His next stop was the byre, where the elder cows chewed their cud and gossiped in their bovine way about their youngest sister and her knobby-kneed calf. A quintet of canines followed Donal to the home pasture and maintained a polite distance as he called upon the other horses and cattle, checking hooves and eyes and ears and assessing the gloss of sunwarmed coats. He climbed alone up the fell, standing quietly while the sheep gathered about him and nuzzled his coat and trousers.

Nothing had changed in his absence. All was as it should be, the animals absorbed in the continual “present” of their lives, altering little from one hour, one day, one year to the next. They trusted in the natural order of the universe. And like Nature herself, moor and fell and beck would persevere for a thousand generations, their metamorphoses measured not in decades, but eons.

No, Donal’s world had not changed. Only he was different. With every step that he walked across the rolling pastures or scaled the low stone walls, he felt it grow—the strange, undeniable sense that the unnamed thing his life had always lacked lay beyond this spare, immutable landscape, somewhere in the sweeping veldt of Africa, the high desert of Mongolia or the jungles of Brazil.

And what of Tir-na-Nog? he asked himself . What if that is what you truly seek? Endless beauty and freedom from responsibility in a land humanity can never taint with its madness …

A land that had banished his father for daring to be “human.” A country Donal had rejected in favor of the challenges of a mortal existence, the chance to do good where it was most needed. To return to the Land of the Young was to surrender his humanity.

And would that be so terrible a price?

Donal descended the fell as twilight settled over the dale and the farm buildings. The scent of cooking drifted up to him on the breeze. Soon the comfortable routine he and Benjamin shared, sitting at the kitchen table in their customary silence, would be broken. Ivy would be there. And tomorrow he must go to the local farmers and learn which family was best suited to caring for a bright but troubled child….