Hawkmistress! (22 page)

“I’ll leave their diet to you,” Dom Carlo said, “And if you have any trouble with them, tell me. These are valuable creatures and I’ll not have them mishandled.” He looked up into the sky, crimsoning as the great sun began to decline somewhat from noon, where, just at the very edge of sight, Romilly could see Preciosa, a tiny dark speck hovering near. “Your hawk stays near even when she flies free? How did you train her to that? What is her name?”

“Preciosa, sir.”

“Preciosa,” jeered the man Alaric, coming to saddle Dom Carlo’s horse, “Like a wee girl naming her doll!”

“Don’t mock the lad,” Dom Carlo said gently, “Till you can better his way with the birds, we need his skills. And you should take better care of your own beast - a chervine can be well-kept, even if he is not a horse. You should thank Rumal for finding the stone in Greywalker’s hoof!”

“Oh, an’ indeed I do,” said Alaric with a surly scowl, and turned away. Romilly watched with a faint frown of distaste. It seemed she already had an enemy among these men, which she had done nothing to deserve. But perhaps she had been tactless in caring for the chervine’s hoof - perhaps she should simply have warned Alaric that his beast was going lame. But couldn’t he see, or feel the poor thing limping? She supposed that was what it was to be head-blind. He could not communicate with any dumb brute. And with the intolerance of the very young, she thought, if he does not understand animals better than that, he should not try to ride one!

Soon after, they mounted and rode on through the afternoon. The trails were steeper now, and Romilly began to lag behind somewhat - on these paths and roads, a mountain-bred chervine was better than a horse, and there were places on the narrow mountain paths where Romilly, Orain and Dom Carlo had to dismount and lead their horses by the bridle while the men on the sure-footed stag-like riding-beasts stayed in their saddles, secure as ever. She had lived in the hills all her life and was in general not afraid of anything, but some of the steep edges and sheer cliffs over abysses of empty space and clouds made her gasp and catch her breath, biting her lip against showing her fear. Up they went, and upward still, climbing through cold layers of mist and cloud, and her ears began to ache and her breath grew shorter while her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she could hardly hear the hooves of the horses and stag-ponies on the rocky path. Once she dislodged a stone with her foot and saw it bouncing down the cliffside, rebounding every ten or fifteen feet until it disappeared into the clouds below.

They paused and drew close together in the throat of the pass, and Orain pointed to a cluster of lights against the dusk of the next mountain. His voice was very low, but Romilly lagging with the other horses, heard him.

“There it lies. Nevarsin, The City of Snows, vai dom. Two or at the most, three more days on the road, and you will be safe behind the walls of St.-Valentine-of-the-Snows.”

“And your faithful heart can rest without fear, bredu? But all these men are loyal, and even if they knew-“

“Don’t even whisper it aloud, my lord-Dom Carlo,” Orain said urgently.

Dom Carlo reached out and gave the other man’s thin shoulder an affectionate touch.

“You have sheltered me with your care since we were children - who but you should be at my side then, foster-brother?”

“Ah, you’ll have dozens and hundreds then to care for you, my-” again he paused, “vai dom.”

“But none with your faithfulness,” said Dom Carlo gently. “You’ll have all the rewards I can give.”

“Reward enough to see you where you belong again - Carlo,” said Orain, and turned back to oversee the descent of the others down through the narrow defile which led away toward the bottom of the ravine.

They camped in the open that night, under a crude tent pitched beneath a tree, just a slanting sheet to keep the worst of the rain from them. As befitted a paxman, Orain kept close to Dom Carlo, but as they were spreading their blankets, and Romilly checking the birds and feeding them the last of the carrion - the men grumbled and snarled about the smell, but no one would gainsay Dom Carlo. Orain said briefly, “Rumal, you’d better spread your blankets near to us - you haven’t much in the way of blankets and even wi’ your cloak you’ll freeze, lad.”

Romilly thanked them meekly and crawled in between the two men. She had taken off only her boots - she did not want to be seen in fewer clothes than this - but even with cloak and blanket she felt chilled, and was grateful for shared blankets and warmth. She was vaguely aware, at the edge of sleep, when Preciosa swooped down and roosted within the circle of the fires; and beyond that, something else … a faint awareness, the touch of laran - Dom Carlo’s thoughts, stirring, circling about the camp to make sure that all was well with men, riding-beasts and birds.

Then she slept.

CHAPTER THREE

In the clear dawnlight, moving around the clearing to fetch water for the birds, and taking stock - one of the men should hunt today, to kill something for the sentry-birds, although already they looked better and were preening their feathers and cleaning their feet - Romilly could see the walls of Nevarsin, clear in the light as if they were made of snow or salt. An ancient city, built into the side of the mountain, just below the level of the eternal snow; and above them, like the very bones of the mountain projecting through the never-ending snow, the grey walls of the monastery, carved from living rock.

One of the men whose name she did not know was fetching water for porridge; another was doling out grain for the horses and chervines. The one called Alaric, a heavy glowering man, roughly clad, was the one she feared most, but she could not avoid him completely, and in any case, he must have some feeling for the sentry-birds, he had carried one of them on that crude perch before his saddle.

“Excuse me,” said Romilly politely, “but you must go out and kill something for the sentry-birds; if it is killed this morning, by night it will be beginning to decay, and be right for them to eat.”

“Oh, so,” snarled the man, “So after one night with our good leader you now think yourself free to give orders to men who’ve been with him this whole hungry year? Which of them had you, or did they take turns at you, little catamite?”

Shocked by the crudeness of the insult, Romilly recoiled, her face flaming. “You’ve no right to say that to me; Dom Carlo put me in charge of the birds and bade me see they were properly fed, and I obey the vai dom as you do yourself!”

“Aye, I may say so,” the man sneered, “Maybe you’d like to put that pretty girl-face and those little ladylike hands to-” and the rest of the words were so foul that Romilly literally did not understand what he meant by them, and was perfectly sure she did not want to know. Clinging to what dignity she could - she honestly did not know how one of her brothers would have reacted to such foulness except, perhaps, by drawing a knife, and she was not big enough to fight on even terms with the giant Alaric - she said, “Perhaps if the vai dom himself gives you his orders you will take them,” and moved away, clenching her teeth and her whole face tightly against the tears that threatened to explode through her taut mouth and eyes. Damn him. Damn him! I must not cry, I must not….

“Here, here, what a face like a thundercloud, my lad?” said Orain, his lean face twisted with amusement, “Hurt? What ails ye-“

She clutched at the remnants of self-possession and said the first thing that came into her head.

“Have you a spare glove I can borrow, Uncle?” She used the informal term for any friend of a father’s generation. “I cannot handle the sentry-birds with my bare fist, though I can manage a hawk; their talons are too long, and my hand is bleeding still from yesterday. I think I must fly them on a line to try and let them hunt for small animals or find carrion.”

“A glove you shall have,” said Dom Carlo behind them, “Give him your old one, Orain; shabby it may be, but it will protect his hand. There are bits of leather in the baggage, you can fashion one for yourself tonight. But why must you fly them? Why not give orders to one of the men to catch fresh food for them? We have hunting-snares enough, and we need meat for ourselves too. Send any of the men to fetch fresh food-” and as he looked on Romilly, his reddish eyebrows went up.

“Oh, is that the way of it?” he asked softly, “Which of them was it Rumal?”

Romilly looked at the ground. She said almost inaudibly “I don’t wish to make trouble, vai dom. Indeed, I can fly them, and they should have exercise in any case.”

“No doubt they should,” Carlo said, “So fly them for exercise, if you will. But I’ll not have my orders disobeyed, either. Give her a glove, Orain, and then I’ll have a word with Alaric.”

Romilly saw the flash of his eyes, like greyish steel striking fire from flint; she took the glove and, head down, went to take down Temperance from her block, attach the lure-lines and set them up to fly. She found a cast feather and used it to stroke the bird’s breast, at which the great wicked head bent and dipped with something like pleasure; she was making a good beginning at accustoming the large, savage birds to human touch and presence. When she had flown Temperance and watched her pounce on some small dead thing in the grass, she stood and watched the sentry-bird feed; standing on one foot, tearing with beak and claw. Later she flew Diligence in the same way; then - with relief, for her arm was growing tired - the smaller, gentler Prudence.

They are ugly birds, I suppose. But they are beautiful in their own way; strength, power, keen sight … and the world would be a fouler place without birds like this, to clear away what is dead and rotting. She was amazed at the way in which the birds had found, even on lines like the lure-lines, their own food, small carcasses in the grass, which she herself had not seen or even smelled. How had the men managed to ignore their real needs, when it was so clear to her what they wanted and needed?

I suppose that is what it means to have laran, Romilly thought, suddenly humbled. A gift which had been born in her family, for which she could claim no credit because it was inborn, she had done nothing to deserve it. Yet even Dom Carlo, who had the precious laran too - everything about the man spoke of easy, accustomed power - could not communicate with the birds, though he seemed able to know anything about men. The gift of a MacAran. Oh, but her father was so wrong, then, so wrong, and she had been right, to insist on this precious and wonderful Gift with which she had been dowered; to ignore it, to misuse it, to play at it, untrained - oh, that was wrong, wrong!

And her brother Ruyven had been right, to leave Falconsward and insist on the training of his natural Gifts. In the Tower he had found his proper place, laranzu for the handling of sentry-birds. One day that would be her place too…

Prudence’s scream of anger roused Romilly from her daydream and she realized that the sentry-bird had finished feeding and was tugging again at the lure-line. Romilly let her fly in circles on the line for a few moments, then made contact with the bird and urged her gently back to the ground; she hooded her, lifted her (grateful for the glove Orain had given her, for even through the glove she could feel the fierce grip of the huge talons) and set her back on the block.

As she made ready to ride, she thought soberly of the distance still ahead of them. She would keep as close to Orain as she could; if Alaric should find her alone… . and she thought, with terror, of the vast and empty chasms over which they had come the day before. A false step there, a slight nudge, and she would have followed that stone down over the cliff, rebounding again and again, broken long before she reached the final impact at the bottom. She felt faint nausea rising in her throat. Would his malice carry him so far as that? She had done him no harm….

She had betrayed his incompetence before Dom Carlo, whom he evidently held in the highest respect. Remembering Rory, Romilly wondered if there were any men anywhere, alive, who were motivated by anything other than malice and lust and hatred. She had thought, in boy’s clothing, she would be safe at least from lust; but even here, among men, she found its ugly face. Her father? Her brothers? Alderic? Well, her father would have sold her to Dom Garris for his own convenience. Alderic and her brothers? She really did not know them at all, for they would not have shown their real face to a girl whom they considered a child. No doubt they too were all evil within. Setting her teeth grimly, Romilly put the saddle on her horse, and went about saddling the other horses for Orain and Dom Carlo. Her prescribed duties demanded only that she care for the birds, but as things were now, she preferred the company of horses to the company of humankind!

Dom Carlo’s kindly voice interrupted her reverie.

“So you have saddled Longlegs for me? Thank you, my lad.”

“She is a beautiful animal,” Romilly said, giving the mare a pat.

“You have an eye for horses, I can see; not surprising, if you are of MacAran blood. This one is from the high plateaus around Armida; they breed finer horses there than anywhere in the mountains, though I think sometimes they have not quite the stamina of the mountain-bred. Perhaps it does her no kindness, to take Longlegs on these trails; I have often thought I should return her to her native country and get myself a mountain-bred horse, or even a chervine for this wild hill country. Yet-” his hand lingered on the glossy mane, “I flatter myself that she would miss me; and as an exile, I have not so many friends that I would be willing to part with one, even if she is a dumb beast. Tell me, my boy; you know horses, do you think this climate is too hard on her?”