She nodded, her mouth full — deliberately copying how Eric ate, rather than abiding by the appropriate — and ladylike — table manners she used at home. “Eric’s teaching me his business. Can’t do that sort of thing in skirts. Have to say, I like it! I may never go back to skirts again!”
“I’m putting it about that I’m training an assistant,” Eric explained. “If people think there’s going to be a man regularly patrolling at night as well as by day, they’ll be less inclined to prowl the woods by dark. It won’t matter when she leaves — she’ll have been seen with me for two months, and people will assume she’s still here.”
Sebastian looked worried, his brows creased, and his eyes clouded with concern. “But will you have time for magic lessons now? I mean, if Eric is taking you out on his rounds. If that is what you want to do, I don’t want to interfere, but I promised the Godmother I would see to it you got all the magic lessons I could give you — ”
Eric guffawed. “Don’t fret. Abel’s mine in the morning. You get her in the afternoon.”
Sebastian tilted his head the other direction. “Abel?”
“Abel. Bella. It’s what we’re calling me so they think I’m a boy,” Bella said with a guffaw. “Poachers are getting bolder — that’s why Eric’s putting it about he’s training an Under-Keeper.” She jabbed her thumb at her chest. “I think I can do a convincing job of it.”
Sebastian blinked, then she saw something dawn on him, though what, she couldn’t tell. He nodded cautiously. “Right, then, Abel, Eric. I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Or after, if we’re a bit late.” She finished an instant before Eric did, and shoved away from the table. “All right! I’m ready! Let’s go put the fear of the devil into those bastards, since God doesn’t scare them!”
They were “in luck” — though it wasn’t very lucky for the poor fellow they caught — for one of them must have noticed Eric’s absence in the woods over the past three mornings and changed his own routine. She was the one that noticed the telltale, furtive movement into cover, and pointed it out to Eric. She hated to — she knew this was going to get ugly when the man was caught — but she also knew the fact she’d seen the man before Eric had was just pure luck. The Tradition would see to it that she became a good Gamekeeper — she was beginning to think that it was due to The Tradition that she had mastered riding the hunter, using the crossbow and defending herself so quickly.
Which made her wonder, had it been luck, or had it been The Tradition that let her spot the man?
It doesn’t matter. What matters is what I do, not how it gets done, as long as I keep making Eric treat me and think of me like a boy.
But Eric was giving her directions, his horse pressed up against hers, his voice pitched low and soft so it wouldn’t carry. “You ride down that way, and keep your eyes on that trapline — see it? There’s a fat hare in the noose right there — ”
She nodded.
“Don’t look away from the traps. He’ll be watching you, anxious about his traps, and forget about me. I’ll circle around behind him, and run him down if I have to.”
She felt sick inside, knowing that he would do exactly that, but nodded, clucked to her horse and carefully steered him through the snow-covered bushes in the direction of that dead hare.
She couldn’t help it; this wasn’t just a lawbreaker to her, this was a person. Just how desperate was this poacher? Did he have half-starved children at home? Or was he purely poaching for profit?
Wait, Eric had said “trapline” — and now, as she stood up in her stirrups for a better view, she could see four more snares from the vantage of the saddle, two of them with something in them. A poor man couldn’t afford that much wire —
“Got you!” Eric shouted in triumph.
She snatched up her crossbow as the horse responded to Eric’s shout by pivoting on his heel and lurching toward the sound of Eric’s voice. There was only the sound of Eric’s voice this time, raised in altercation. The horse plunged through the snow, snorting with excitement. Evidently he was used to this sort of thing. She stuck to him like the proverbial burr, as firm in the saddle now as she had been uneasy a few days ago. As she cleared the trees that were between her and the men, she saw that Eric was still in the saddle, holding a man by the collar, and mercilessly beating him with a short, stout club as he covered his head with his arms and tried to escape, crying out with pain.
But a savage blow brought him down into the snow, and Eric leapt from the saddle to finish the job, ending with a vicious kick to the ribs. While the man lay there, only semiconscious, Eric lifted a heavy string of rabbits and hares from behind the bushes the man had been hiding in and fastened it to the back of his saddle.
Her horse whickered, and Eric turned to grin at her. “Abel, go collect those snares as I showed you. I’m going to have a little discussion with our friend here about why it isn’t wise to steal someone else’s game. When you’ve finished, come back. I want you to see how it’s done proper.”
It was quite a long trapline. She found more than twenty snares, and a total of six more rabbits and hares. It was obvious this was a man looking to turn a profit; no one could eat this much meat, no matter how big his family was. She felt a little better about her part in all this.
But when she returned, and saw Eric bending over the man with a knife, for one horrified moment she thought —