Mercedes Lackey - Anthology (38 page)

 
          
But
soon after dawn, Freya arrived, and their ruse took shape without a hitch.

 
          
Heinrich
held her quivering body and peered at her with a frown of anxiety as he
examined her, but showed no sign of guessing that her fit was only feigned.

 
          
"Warmth's
the best cure, if there's a cure to be had, my lady," he said, finally,
shaking his head in despair. "I cannot promise a cure, though. She's bad,
very bad; I've seen fits like this take a hawk off."

 
          
"If
warmth and nursing care are what she needs, I'll see to it myself,
Heinrich," the woman said firmly, and took Honoria back from the fal-conry
master. "Can you please see to the rest of my birds? I—" her voice
broke a little, and Honoria marveled at her ability to feign upset. "She's
always been so special—"

 
          
"Have
no fear, I'll see to your birds, and to young Bern and Gunther as well; do you
concentrate on her." Heinrich, greatly daring, reached out and patted her
arm awkwardly. "Now, you take her up, and put her by the fire. If anyone
can bring her back, it'll be you."

 
          
Cradling
Honoria like a baby, the woman carried her off, her body shaking with
suppressed laughter. It was only when Honoria was tucked comfortably into a
basket beside the fire in what had been her old bedchamber that the woman gave
vent to that laughter.

 
          
"Oh,
that was well done, child!" she chuckled. "I could not have managed
that 'fit' better
myself
!"

 
          
It's
a lot easier to flop around than try and manage anything like control at this
point, Honoria thought wryly, wondering if the woman could hear her thoughts as
she had heard Freya's.

 
          
"Don't
worry; you'll have control soon enough," Freya soothed. "If you slept
last night, you found out that you've got the memories of your predecessors in
your dreams. The best thing you can do at the moment is sleep as much as you
can. With every dream, you'll have better control over your body, and in two
days you'll be able to manage the same kind of short flights as a
brancher."

 
          
If
a hawk could have groaned, Honoria would have; this was certainly not what she
had imagined her life as a hawk would be!

 
          
Freya
tsked, and wagged a finger at her.
"Patience and
practice, my child!

 
          
You'll
need plenty of both! Now sleep, while I get used to being a woman again."
Another chuckle as she stood up. "This little bout of nursing and
isolation is going to serve both of us well, I think." Honoria looked up,
as Freya took off the coif she had always worn, and frowned at the uneven mass
of her hair. "What did you do to yourself? Hack this off with a hunting
knife?"

 
          
Well,
yes. Honoria gave her the same defiant look she'd given her mother at the time.
It was in the way.

 
          
Freya
shook her head and smiled. "Well, I think this exchange is going to have
an entirely unexpected and gratifying result for your parents."

 
          
Which
is?

 
          
"Your
mother will probably not die of apoplectic embarrassment after all."

 
          
For
two days, Freya pretended to nurse Honoria, banishing all maidservants from the
room on the grounds that her goshawk needed absolute quiet. Meals came up on
trays, and Freya reacquainted herself with eating human-style, as Honoria
learned to hold meat in her talons and tear at it like a hawk. There wasn't a
great deal of "taste" in her tongue; most of it came from the back of
the tongue and the throat, and not nearly as much as with a human. To her
surprise, for she had expected feeding to revolt her, she found the taste of
hot, fresh-killed flesh intoxicated her. Longer-dead meat was good, but not as
pleasurable. And she didn't at all mind eating the bits of fur and bone she
knew she had to have to keep healthy; it didn't taste of much, and the texture
wasn't in her throat long enough to bother her. It was a little odd to feel the
sense of "fullness" from just below her throat, in her crop rather
than her stomach, but she got used to that as well. What was harder to get used
to was not being able to smell anything; her nostrils only felt the chill of
the air that came into them.

 
          
"I'd
forgotten how many scents there were in the world," Freya said, burying
her face in a bouquet of flowers "someone" had left anonymously on
the tray.

 
          
She
looked like a cat drunk on catnip. "Oh, how I love the early spring
flowers!"

 
          
Honoria
turned her head upside down to look more closely at the flowers; there were
more colors there than she remembered seeing in flowers, and she was coming to
the conclusion that a hawk did see more colors than a human.

 
          
The
hawk's acuity of vision came as something of a shock, too; it was one thing to
be aware that a hawk had particularly sharp sight, it was quite another to experience
it. She saw every thread in a gown from across the room, every vein in the
petals of a tiny spring blossom, every shadowed crevice in every stone of the
window frame. Movement in particular caught her attention; there was a mouse
hole just under the great wardrobe chest in the corner, and every so often, a
mouse would venture to stick a whisker just outside it.

 
          
Presumably
the mice smelled her, and instinct warned them that there was something in the
room that would gladly eat them. But every time there was a hint of movement
under the wardrobe, Honoria's attention snapped to it.

 
          
Both
of them practiced walking; Honoria practiced both the dignified stalk and the
ungainly waddle-hop with half-spread wings. Freya practiced the management of
gowns with trailing hems. Both of them were doing better than they had thought
they would.

 
          
Freya
was also doing something else; she was changing the way she—or rather
Honoria—had always looked. All of the gowns came out of the wardrobe; those
that needed mending or cleaning were left out with the empty trays for the
servants to fix. She took scissors and evened off her hair, then—slowly and
clumsily at first, but with greater and greater deftness as time went on—she
arranged it in various styles, trying out which ones suited the relatively
short hair. Even trimmed, it still fell to the bottom of her shoulder blades,
although most grown women boasted plaits that descended to the floor.

 
          
You
look very nice, Honoria observed absently, as Freya walked gracefully back and
forth across the floor, practicing the willowy glide that the Crown Princess
had mastered so well. Nicer than I ever did. Where did that gown come from?

 
          
"It
was in the back of your wardrobe; don't you remember wearing it?" The gown
in question was of heavy damask with a train; tight in the arms, fitted to the
waist,
then
spreading out like the bell of a flower.

 
          
The
color was unusual; a faded rose. Freya wore a belt of silver links in the form
of flowers, and a necklace of carved pink quartz beads.

 
          
Not
really, Honoria said truthfully. It might have been the one I wore to
Siegfried's birthday feast; what with all tiiat went on, goions were the last
thing on my mind.

 
          
"Well,
it's very becoming. There are a dozen brand-new gowns in your wardrobe that I
don't ever remember seeing you wear." Freya took off the jewelry,
then
pulled the gown over her head, folding it and putting
it away with care in the wardrobe chest. Clad only in a shift, and barefoot,
she selected another, one that Honoria did remember. Her mother insisted on
calling it a "riding habit," but it was far too encumbering for
anyone to ride in, and she'd only worn it once.

 
          
Mother
sent me off with an entire neiv set of clothing; that's part of it. The habit,
cut very like the gown but with a sleeveless surcoat to go over it, was of deep
blue lambswood, a very fine, soft fabric. The surcoat, in a lighter blue, had
been embroidered with a fanciful heraldic hawk on the breast, and trimmed in
squirrel fur. Both had far too much skirt for Honoria's way of thinking.

 
          
Freya
put her hair up in two coiled braids, crossing over the top of her head, and
pinned the merest scrap of a veil over them. She turned to face Honoria,
holding out her arms. "Well, I'm ready to face the world. Are you?"

 
          
Why
not? Honoria hopped up onto the seat of a chair with the help of her wings,
then onto the back. I want to learn to fly!

 
          
"And
I want to see your mother's face when I come to dinner like this!" Freya
giggled,
then
pulled on a brand-new, blue-dyed hawking
glove that matched the gown, one Honoria remembered receiving, but also
remembered rejecting in favor of her old, well-worn, and supple favorite.

 
          
Freya
held out her arm, and Honoria leaped from the back of the chair, crossing the
room in clumsy wingbeats, and landing without mishap on the glove. "I'm
not going to hold your jesses; you aren't going to bate, and if for some reason
you startle, I want you to learn to land on the ground."

 
          
Fair
enough: I hate dangling by my ankles anyway. Honoria relaxed her feet,
then
set them, then relaxed her legs, feeling her feet
literally lock into position on the glove. Freya had been right; when at rest,
a hawk's talons locked so securely in whatever grip she was using that it was
nearly impossible to pry them off.

 
          
As
Freya bore her down the stairs, skirts held gracefully in one hand, hawk
balanced on the other, Honoria laughed to herself at the looks the faces of
those they passed. They would look, not recognize Freya at first,
then
stare blankly as they realized who it was but could not
reconcile that knowledge with what they saw.

 
          
It
was the same all the way across the stable yard to the mews, with one
exception. Sir Gunther was beside the mews door, as if he had been waiting for
someone—and when he saw Freya, he jumped to his feet and hurried over, face
flushed.

 
          
"Is—my
lady, is your hawk well?" he stammered, and Honoria, looking carefully at
him for the first time, knew in an instant that Freya had been right. He was in
love with her. He didn't even look at Honoria when he asked about the hawk,
only at Freya.

 
          
"Yes,
and no, I am afraid," Freya said, with a careful shading of concern in her
voice. "She has recovered from whatever struck her down, but now she is
like the youngest brancher, almost an eyas in her tameness. I fear she will
have to learn her skills all over again."

 
          
"Then
if I can be of any service at all, please, let me help!" Gunther was so
pathetically eager that Honoria felt an unaccustomed sympathy for him. Of
course, it was easy for her to feel sympathy for him; she wasn't the object of
his devotions anymore.

 
          
"You
can be of very great help, Sir Gunther!" Freya said sincerely, looking
directly into his eyes. "Especially since
Bern
has duties elsewhere, and retraining a hawk
in this way is tedious work, requiring much patience."

 
          
"Then
you have all of my help that you need, my lady!" Gunther took the hand
that Freya held out to him and kissed it, then accompanied her into the mews.

 
          
Freya
explained the hawk's "ailment" to Hein-rich, who shook his head but
admitted that he had heard of such a thing. "And the best thing to do for
her, my lady, is to train her exactly as you plan," he agreed. "God
and Saint Francis
be
praised, that she came through it
no more harmed than that!"

 
          
So
Honoria was taken with great ceremony to Freya's stall, newly cleaned again,
lest there have been some contagion there, and left on the bow-perch with a
fine pigeon. Sir Gunther escorted Freya away, with such solicitude that she
might have been the one who'd been "ill."