Drift: River of Falcons Book 1

The Story Begins

Life with Summer was spent gathering fruits and berries, leaves and nuts while strolling with basket in hand through the forests and meadows, or else plucking ripe fruits and vegetables from Summer's orchard and gardens. Of course, there were the medicinal herbs to be gathered and prepared into tinctures, tonics, and teas, and there were farmers and their animals to care for. But even on trips to perform a healing on a distant farm, Summer and Drift would gather good things to eat along the way.

By the time Autumn came to the valley that year, they had already put up fruits and vegetables in glass jars, and lugged bushel baskets of squash, turnips, and onions into the root-cellar. (Carrots and parsnips, too, but those were covered lightly with earth in wooden boxes to keep them fresh.) As winter approached, Summer announced that it was time to turn over the garden and plant cold-hardy greens. Snowfall came early, and the greens were only an inch high when snow buried them. Then came Remitto, Fallowmoon, the thirteenth and last month of the year.

Fallowmoon is a time to sit by the fire, exchanging stories and doing one's weaving and mending. Farmers let their fields lie fallow beneath a blanket of snow. Fishermen no longer ply the river to and from the delta for fear of ice. In the towns, shops are shuttered and people rest by the hearth, a round of cheese and a tea kettle at the ready for visitors. And those who play get out their lutes and flutes and make music for their neighbors.

Summer, however, did not go visiting. She viewed Fallowmoon as a perfect time for studying from the books she kept on a high shelf beside the fireplace, and Drift was obliged to study with her.

Long mornings passed in which the only sounds in the cottage were the scratchings of their quills and the rustlings of musty old pages. There was a tall stack of scraps of paper of varying sizes, which they had secured from a scribe in town in exchange for medicines. By the end of Fallowmoon, the pile was nearly gone, and Drift's work stood in a new pile on the other side of the worktable.

Sometimes Drift pressed Summer to teach her something more interesting than cures and remedies. "You're a witch," she'd say. "Can't you teach me magic?" Then Summer would frown and say that there was magic in herbs, good magic. "We are healers," she would say. "I'm training you in my craft. Besides, if I tried to teach you other things, they might notice, and we mustn't attract their attention, my dear. You know that."

The winter dragged on through Algorari, the Cold Moon, which is the first month of the year, and all through Fideliari, the Trust Moon; but that winter, it was hard to trust in the coming of Spring. Flux, the Spring Flood Moon, arrived with mounds of old snow still deep beneath the trees, and Drift wore snowshoes when she went out to gather fallen branches for extra firewood. To pass the time, Summer quizzed her aloud on the Falconchant names of all the animals and plants that lived in their woods, and Drift drew pictures of them.

One morning, when Drift went out to fill the bucket at the well, the sun lit up a flock of robins in the orchard. S/he hurried to peak under the lid of a sap bucket. They had put them out on maple and birch trees in anticipation of the sap running, and indeed, the bucket was full to the brim. Drift hurried back to tell Summer.

"Silvani gratias [meaning 'to the Silvan Spirits, thanks'.] Let's make pancakes from the last of our yams," Summer said, "and dribble the last of our syrup over them. Soon we'll be able to stop living from our stores." Smiling, she began to work in the kitchen. In a little while, Drift heard her chanting the Canta Vera, a traditional song of spring. Drift smiled, too, recalling the times Summer had sung it to her when she was little, and she began to sing along softly, substituting her own Commonspeak words:

Dawn comes early

Birds sing of spotted eggs.

In long grass, buds nestle