Mercedes Lackey - Anthology (10 page)

 
          
Wren
began to scream the moment they brought the hawk into the room.
To scream and to leap from chair to bed to table to chair.
Had it been open, she'd have gone straight out the window. As it was, she
bounced off the shutters more than once. And she kept up the cacophony until
Adelia threw the bedquilt over her, whereupon Wren dropped to the floor and lay
silent and panting.

 
          
"Obviously
someone will have to sleep in the barn tonight," Adelia snarled.

 
          
Nairn
bowed,

 
          
"Not
you! That's a valuable bird," she said. "I won't risk its being
stolen.

 
          
"And
don't get any ideas," Adelia warned him as she noted a flicker of interest
spark in those sherry-brown eyes. "You will only be here to see that this
bird is well tended."

 
          
The
sorceress turned and contemplated Wren where she lay quietly beneath the
blanket, then the gently steaming tub of scented water, and finally she turned
back to look into the interested eyes of her falconer.

 
          
"Put
that down," she said, indicating the goshawk. "Then go and tell the
landlord that I'll need a curtain set up to run across the room. If we can keep
Wren from seeing the bird, she should keep quiet."

 
          
She
could have created some sort of barrier magically, but Adelia never wasted
power if there was a more mundane way of doing things.
Particularly
if the doing required no effort on her part.

 
          
Nairn
settled the hawk on its perch, bowed, and left the room. Adelia smiled, pleased
with her purchases. She could hardly wait to see what he and the hawk combined
would become.

 
          
Now
I think on it, the girl I combined with Wren was a coward. She remembered the
pale, tear-stained face with disgust. The spell had been designed to put the
bird personality uppermost, but the shy little bird and the cowardly girl had
only accentuated each other's defects. This time, she thought happily, I should
have much better results.

 
          
Adelia
carried her hawk on her wrist for the first few miles of the journey home,
wearing the too large gauntlet over her own exquisitely embroidered glove.

 
          
Wren,
blindfolded, rode behind her, clutching the high rim of the sidesaddle and
trying not to slide off. Every now and again, Nairn, walking beside them, put a
hand beneath the girl's foot and hoisted her back up.

 
          
"Should
we feed him?" Adelia asked Naim.

 
          
"Nay, my lady.
From the look of his crop, he'll be all
right for a while. And the hawk seller told me he hadn't been trained. While
I'm sure he could find himself some dinner with no problem, getting him back to
hand would be impossible."

 
          
She
looked down on him and allowed herself a very small smile.

 
          
"I
can do many things that others consider impossible, Naim. You would do well to
remember that."

 
          
He
bowed, and she laughed at his ridiculous courtly manners. Then she pulled up
her horse.

 
          
"You
were right, the bird grows heavy. Take him." She lowered her arm, and
raised her brows when Naim sought to remove the glove with the bird. "Take
him, I said," Adelia commanded.

 
          
The
relsk stone did its work and Naim brought his bare hand up immediately and
touched the hawk behind the ankles.

 
          
As
soon as its talons clamped down on the man's arm, blood began to flow.

 
          
"Ah,"
she said, stripping off the glove and dropping it. Immediately it filled as
though an arm were wearing it and it floated into position behind the hawk.

 
          
When
the bird had stepped onto it, she said, "Now put your arm inside the
glove."

 
          
Wincing,
Naim did so. She rode on, unconcerned.

 
          
"Have
you a shed where we can keep the bird, my lady?" he
asked,
his voice thick with pain.

 
          
"Yes,
but why can we not keep him in the house?"

 
          
"He
is still half wild and would be frightened to be among us. The dark and quiet
of the shed will be soothing for him, and he will learn that when I come, there
will be food and something to relieve his boredom. These are the first steps to
forming a bond." The hawk shifted, and Naim drew in a rasping breath.

 
          
Adelia
frowned. "I do not like it that he should be fearful."

 
          
"It
is his nature, my lady. Those creatures that do not fear humans don't live to
breed."

 
          
She
laughed at that,
then
fell silent for awhile,
"When we return home," she said at last, "I will have Wren tend
to your hand." She couldn't use wounded flesh in her experiments. Still,
by the time she'd gathered the needed ingredients, these slight punctures
should be healed.

 
          
A
week later Adelia flung down Nairn's hand in disgust.

 
          
"Why
are these wounds not healed?" she demanded.

 
          
"They're
very deep," Nairn answered. "One of the punctures went right to the
bone, I'm sure."

 
          
She
glared at him, hands on her hips. "Well, this is very inconvenient!"
He bowed and she spun away from him with an impatient tsk
!.
"I detest delay," she snapped. "Absolutely detest it!"

 
          
Nairn
opened his mouth to speak, closed it, frowned,
then
licked his lips. "My lady," he said at last, "I must speak to
you on a matter of some concern to me."

 
          
Adelia
cast a disdainful glance over her shoulder and asked, "Of what matter
could a matter of concern to you, be to me?"

 
          
He
bowed, and her brows snapped down into a frown. She decided that she didn't
like all this bowing. A mere nervous tic, she thought contemptuously. A habit,
like clearing one's throat before speaking or always saying, "
therefore
." It is an imperfection. And I do not like it
that my subject should have an imperfection. Working with imperfect material
had created the disaster that was Wren.

 
          
"I
am the son of Baron Tharus of Arpen. If you will but send to him, he will
ransom me, I know. Whatever price you ask, he will pay it." Nairn gazed at
her most earnestly.

 
          
"Hmph,"
she said, turning to look at him. "You are the son of a baron?" '

 
          
"Yes,
my lady."

 
          
"Don't
bow," she cautioned him. "So you are familiar with the use of a sword
and lance?"

 
          
"Yes,
my lady."

 
          
Oh,
excellent!
she
thought, hugging the information to
her. I must translate those skills to my new creature. I knew I'd made the
right choice in this slave!

 
          
"And
how did the son of a baron come to be in a slavepen?" she asked in idle
curiosity.

 
          
"I
was kidnapped," he replied, "and carried over the border."

 
          
"Oh, really?
Well," she said and brought her hand
to her face, "I don't imagine your father wants you back, then."

 
          
"I
promise you that he does," Nairn insisted, somewhat piqued. "I am his
only son and his heir."

 
          
"Then
don't you find it odd that your kidnappers never applied to your doting papa
for this ransom you so confidently promise. I doubt the slave dealer gave them
as much as I paid for you, and I assure you, Nairn, you weren't very
expensive." She smiled, knowing by the look in his eyes that she'd shaken
him, at least for a moment, and it amused her tremendously.

 
          
“I
have an enemy who may have paid them to do it," he said slowly.

 
          
In
a sudden shift of mood Adelia became bored by the subject, and she cut him off
with a graceful gesture.

 
          
"It
doesn't matter!" she said dismissively. "I don't need your pathetic
ransom. I can provide for myself very well. And have I not said that I detest
delay? I don't need gold, I need you. So put any thought of leaving here out of
your head." Adelia spun on her heel and moved toward the door of the
parlor.

 
          
"Wren
told me what you did to her," Nairn shouted.

 
          
Adelia
stopped like one struck in the back by a dagger, and looked toward the kitchen
as though she could see through the wall. Then slowly, she turned toward him.
"Wren speaks?' she said in astonishment
. "
Aye,"
he said defiantly.

 
          
"Just not to you."
"Huh," she said, and
quirked her lips downward. "And your point is?"

 
          
"My
point is that I am a nobleman! It cannot be that I am meant to be destroyed by
your evil magic!" he cried. "There are standards in the treatment of
nobleman that every right thinking king or duke will acknowledge. You have no
right to do this to me!"

 
          
"But,
Nairn," she said gently, taking a step toward him, "you aren't a
nobleman. You are a slave. And I have every right to do with my property
whatever I wish.
As every right thinking
king or duke
would agree." Adelia gave him a taunting smile. "Did you not have
slaves in your father's house, Nairn?"

 
          
He
glared at her, breathing hard.

 
          
Adelia
enjoyed his obvious anger, and his helplessness to act upon it.

 
          
"No
doubt you embraced them as your brothers, treated them as equals. What a
paradise your father's house must have been," she sneered, spreading her
arms wide, "with everyone living in perfect harmony."

 
          
Nairn
lowered his eyes, his cheeks flushed with fury or shame.

 
          
"Oh, no?"
Adelia stepped closer, lowered her head
in an attempt to look into his eyes. "Did you beat them? Humiliate them?
Let them go hungry?"

 
          
"Yes,"
he whispered.

 
          
"And
yet you expect better." Adelia quirked the corners of her mouth downward.

 
          
"I
fear you will be disappointed, Nairn."

 
          
He
merely glared at her from under lowered eyebrows.

 
          
"Go,"
she said. "Tend my hawk. Feed it, make friends with it, do whatever you
must to keep it alive and healthy."

 
          
Nairn
gave her a surly glance,
then
stomped out of the room.
Ruefully, she watched him go.

 
          
So
Wren can
speak,
Adelia thought. And she knows and
understands, at least a little, what's happened to her.
Hmph.
Well, that's useful to know, but somewhat annoying, too. Nairn might well prove
a handful over the next few days if he believed she intended to destroy him. I
would rather he had remained ignorant of his fate.