Hawkmistress! (9 page)

“No more, now, it will give you a bellyache,” she said, and the little animal, evidently taking her word for it, trotted off on her long spindly legs.

“Let us go on, or old Windy will be on us,” she said laughing, “He is out to pasture in this field. He is too old a gelding for the mares to take any notice of him, and his teeth are almost too old to chew grass; Father would have him put down this spring, but, he said he should have one last summer and before winter comes. He will send him quietly to his rest; he should not have to endure another winter of cold with his old joints.”

“I will grieve when that is my task,” said Darren, “We all learned to ride on him, he was like an old rocking-chair to sit on.” He looked with a distant sadness at the aged, half-blind pony chomping at soft grass in a corner of the field. “I think Father spared him because he was Ruyven’s first horse….”

“He had a good life, and will make a good end,” said Alderic, “Unlike men, horses are not allowed to live till they are senile and half mad … if they gave men such mercy as that, I should not - there would not now be a usurper king on the throne in Hali and the king would not now be wandering in his exile.”

“I do not understand,” said Romilly. Darren frowned, but Alderic said, “You are not old enough to remember when King Felix died? He was more than a hundred and fifty, an emmasca, very old and without sons; and he had long outlived sense and wit, so he sought to put the eldest son of his youngest brother on the throne, rather than his next brother’s elder son, who was rightfully Heir. And so the Lord Rakhal, who flattered and cozened an old and senile king and got the Regents all in his hand with bribes and lies, an aged lecher from whom no woman is safe, nor, ‘tis said, the young son of any courtier who would like to curry favor, sits on the throne of the Hasturs at Hali. And Carolin and his sons wander across the Kadarin, at the mercy of any bandit or robber who would like the bounty set on their heads by our most gracious Lord Rakhal … for I will never give him the name of king.”

“Do you know the exiled king?”

Darren said, “The young prince was at Nevarsin among the monks for a time; but he fled when word came that Lord Rakhal sought him there.”

“And you support the young prince and the king in exile?” Romilly asked.

“Aye. That I do. And if some kindly courtier had relieved the ancient Felix of his life before ‘twas a burden to him, Carolin would now rule in Hali as a just king, rather than turning the holy city of the Hasturs into a cesspool of filth and indecencies, where no man dares come for justice without a bribe in hand, and upstart lordlings and outlanders wrangle and divide our land among them!”

Romilly did not answer; she knew nothing of courts and kings, and had never been even so far as the foothill city of Neskaya, far less into the lowlands, or near to the Lake of Hali. She reached for Preciosa’s hood, and then hesitated, showing Alderic the courtesy due a guest.

“Will you fly first, sir?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I think we are all as eager as you to see how Preciosa has come through her training.”

With shaking hands, Romilly slipped the hood from Preciosa’s head, watching the hawk mantling her feathers. Now. Now was the test, not only of her mastery of the hawk, but of the hawk’s acceptance of her training, the hawk’s tie to her. She felt she could not bear to see this hawk she had loved, over whom she had spent so many anxious and painful hours, fly from her and never return. It flashed through her mind, is this how Father feels now that Ruyven has gone? Yet she must try the hawk in free flight. Otherwise, she was no more than a tame cagebird, sitting dull on a block, not a wild hawk at all. But she felt tears blurring her sight as she raised her fist and felt the hawk balance a moment, then, with a single long wing-stroke, fly free.

She rose on a long, slanting arch into the sunlight, and Romilly, her mind full of anxious thoughts - will she fly well, has this long period of inactivity dulled her flight? - watched her rise. And something in her rose with the hawk, feeling the wordless joy of the morning sun on her wings, the light dazzling her eyes as she winged upward, rose, hovered, soared, wheeled and winged strongly away.

Romilly let out a long breath. She was gone, she would not return.

“You have lost her, I fear,” said Alderic at last “I am sorry, damisela.”

Loss and pain, and a sharing of ecstasy, battled in Romilly. Free flight, something of her soaring with the hawk … and then fading away in the distance. She shook her head. If she had lost the hawk, then she had never really possessed her. She thought, I would rather lose her than tie her to me against her will….

Why cannot Father see that? She knew the thought was Darren’s, because of the bitterness. Then he was not head-blind? Or was his telepathy erratic, as hers had once been, coming only rarely and when she was deeply moved… her own had strengthened when she had begun working with the animals, but Darren had none of that gift…

So Preciosa was free, and it was all an illusion. She might as well sit quietly in the house and mind her stitchery for all it would profit her to hang about the hawk-house, trying like a man to work with the birds….

And then it seemed that her heart would stop. For through the infinite pain of loss, a thread of awareness stole, high flight, the world laid out beneath her like one of the maps in her schoolbooks, only colored and curiously sharp, with a sight stronger than her own, and little flickers of life coming from here, from there, small birds in flight, small animals in the grass….

Preciosa! The hawk was still in rapport, the hawk had not flown wild! Darren said something; she did not hear. She heard Alderic saying, “Don’t waste your voice, bredu, she cannot hear you. She is with the hawk….”

Romilly sat, with automatic habit, in the saddle, upright, silent, but the real part of her soared over the high pasture, keen with hunger, in the ecstasy of the flight. Supernaturally keen, her sight and senses, aware of the life of small birds, so that she felt she was smacking her lips and almost giggled and broke out of the rapport with the absurdity of it, sudden burning hunger and a desire almost sexual in its ferocity … down. Down on long soaring wings, the beak striking, blood bursting into her mouth, the sudden fierceness of bursting life and death….

Down. Wavering down. She had just enough of her selfhood left to hold out her fist rock-steady, under the sudden jarring stop of a heavy hawk laden with her kin. She felt tears streaming down her face, but there was no time for emotion; her knife was in her free hand as she cut the head away, thrust her portion, headless rabbit, into her wallet with the free hand; all her own awareness was feeding with the greedy hawk on her portion. Alderic had loosed his own hawk, but she did not know; she was weeping outright with love and relief as she slipped the hood on Preciosa’s head.

Preciosa had come back. She had returned of her free Will, out of freedom into bondage and the hood. She choked back her tears as she stroked the hawk with the feather, and knew her hands were shaking.

What have I done to deserve this? How can I possibly be worthy of it? That a wild thing should give up her freedom for me … what can I possibly do to make me worthy enough for that gift?

Later they ate the apples and sweets that Romilly had brought, before riding back, through the growing light, to Falconsward. As the young people came through the courtyard they saw strange horses being unsaddled there, one with the banners of Aldaran of Scathfell, and knew that the highest-born of the guests had arrived.

Alderic asked, anxiously, “Is it old lord Gareth still Lord of Scathfell?”

“He is not, my lord; Gareth of Scathfell is not more than forty-nine,” said Romilly. Alderic looked relieved, and Romilly intercepted a questioning look between Darren and Alderic. Alderic said shortly, “He might well know me by sight.”

“Do you not trust to the laws of-” Darren began, frowned in Romilly’s direction, and broke off, and Romilly, bending her head over her hawk, thought; what kind of fool do they think me? I would need be deaf, blind, dumb and head-blind as well, not to know he is allied in partisanship to Carolin in exile, perhaps the young prince himself. And I know as well as he why my father must get no word of it.

“True; Old Gareth died three winters gone, sir,” Darren said, “and was half-blind at that. Will all of the folk of Scathfell be here, Romilly?”

Romilly, relieved that the tension had passed, began to recite the grown sons and daughters of the middle-aged lord of Scathfell; his Heir, yet another Gareth (“But they call him Garris, in lowland fashion,” she added), “Dom Garris is not wed, he has buried three wives; I think he is only in his thirtieth year, but looks older, and is lame with a wasting disease of one leg.”

“And you dislike him,” said Alderic, and she grinned, her impish smile. “Why, how could you possibly know that, Lord Alderic? But it is true; he is always fumbling the maidens in corners, he was not above pawing at Mallina last year, when she had not even put up her ban-….”

“Lecherous old goat!” Darren said, “Did Father know?”

“None of us wanted a quarrel with neighbors; Luciella only told Mallina and me to keep away from him if we could do so without being uncivil. Then there is Dom Edric, who is blind, and his wife Ruanna, who keeps the estate books as well as any man. And there are the young twins, Cathal and Cinhil, they are not so young either - they are Ruyven’s age; twenty-two. And Cathal’s wife, who was one of my childhood friends - Darissa Storn. Cinhil is not wed, and Father once spoke of betrothing us, but nothing came of it, which gladdened my heart - I would not want to live at Scathfell, it is like a bandit’s hold! Though I would not mind being close to Darissa, and Cinhil is a nice enough boy.”

“It seems to me you are over young to be wedded,” said Alderic, and Darren laughed. “Women marry young in these hills, and Romilly is fifteen. And, I doubt not, she thinks it long till she is in a home of her own, and out from Luciella’s guidance - what’s the ancient saying, where two women rule a hearthfire, the thatch may burn with the sparks flying… yet I think Father could do better for Romilly than a younger son, a fourth son at that. Better lady in a cottage than serving-woman in a castle, and when Dom Garris weds again - or if old Scathfell should take a wife - Cinhil’s wife would be lowest of all, not much better than waiting-women to all the rest. Darissa was pretty and bright when she was wedded, and now she looks ten years older than Cathal, and all out of, shape with bearing children.”

“I am in no haste to marry,” Romilly said, “And there are men enough, I suppose, in these hills; Manfred Storn is Heir to Storn Heights, and he is about Darren’s age, so it’s likely, when I am old enough to many, Father will speak to old Lord Storn. The folk of High Crags will be coming too, and they have a couple of unmarried sons and daughters, it’s likely that they will marry Rael into that kindred, or me.” She shrugged. “What does it matter, after all? Men are all alike.”

Alderic chuckled. “By those words I know how young you are, Mistress Romilly - I hope your father does not seek to have you married till you are old enough to distinguish between one man or another, or you may awaken some day and discover you are married to the very last man on earth you would have sought for husband. Shall we go in the house? The sun is high, and your stepmother said something of a festival breakfast - and I smelled the cooks making spicebread as we passed the kitchens!”

Romilly only hoped, now, that she could get up to her room unobserved, to change her clothing and bathe before the festal meal. But, coming around a corridor, she almost bumped into a tall, pale, fattish man with fair hair, coming from the big bathing-room with hot pools, fed by volcanic springs. He was wrapped in a loose robe and his hair was damp and mussed; he had evidently gone to soak away the fatigue of riding. Romilly curtseyed politely as she had been taught, then remembered that she was wearing breeches - curse it! If she had gone on about her business he might simply have taken her for an out-of-place servant boy on some errand. Instead his pale flabby face tightened in a dimply creased smile.

“Mistress Romilly,” he said, his eyes sliding up and down her long legs, “An unexpected pleasure. Why, what a pair of legs you have, girl! And you have - grown,” he added, the pallid china-blue eyes resting on the straining laces of the old tunic pulled over her full breasts, “It will be a pleasure to dance with you tonight, now I have had the delights of seeing what so many women so carefully conceal from their admirers. …”

Romilly flushed, feeling heat in her face, ducked her head and escaped. Through the scalding heat flooding to her ears, she thought, wretchedly, Now do I know what Luciella meant, that I was too big to run about in breeches - I might as well be naked, the way he looked at me. All her life she had run about in her brother’s clothes, as free of self-consciousness or shame as if she were another lad; now, under the man’s lustful eyes, she felt as if her body had actually been rudely handled; her breasts prickled and there was a curious crawling sensation lower down in her belly.

She took refuge in her room, her heart pounding, and went swiftly to the washstand, splashing her hot face with cold water to cool it.

“Luciella was right Oh, why didn’t she tell me?” she wondered wretchedly, then realized that there was no way to speak of it, and if she had been told, without this experience, she would only have laughed it away. Her hands were still shaking as she undid the laces of the boy’s tunic, dropped the breeches to the floor, and for the first time in her life, looked clearly in the mirror and saw her body as a woman’s. She was still slender, her breasts scarcely rounded, the hips scarcely more flared than a boy’s, and the long legs were really boyish. But, she thought, if ever I wear boy’s clothes again, I shall be sure they fit me loosely enough that I truly look like a male.