Hawkmistress! (36 page)

And even as she looked, she saw the lean, starved figure of a predator slinking silently through the streets; and while they looked, it moved more slowly, subsided, lay down in its tracks, still stirring feebly, without a cry.

Jandria said curtly, “Bonewater-dust. Where that stuffs been scattered from the air, the land dies, the very houses die; should we ride through there, we would be in no better case than that woods-cat before many nights. Turn about - best not come too near; this road is closed as if a nest of dragons guarded it; or better, for we might somehow manage to fight even dragons, but against this there’s no fighting, and for ten years or more this land will lie accursed and the very beasts of the forests be born awry. Once I saw a mountain-cat with four eyes and a plains chervine with toes for hooves. Uncanny!” She shuddered, pulling her horse around. “Make as wide a circle as we can around this place! I’ve no wish to see my hair and teeth fall out and my blood turn to whey in my veins!”

The wide detour added two or three days to their ride, and Janni warned Romilly not to fly Preciosa.

“Should she eat of game tainted by that stuff of war, she would die, but not soon enough to save her great suffering; and should we eat of it, we too might lose hair and teeth if no worse. The taint of the foul stuff lingers long in all the country round, and spreads in the bodies of predators and harmless beasts who wander through the blighted countryside. She can fast for a day or two more safely than she can risk hunting too close to that place.”

And so for two days Romilly carried Preciosa on her saddle, and, though she had sworn to herself that she could never again confine her freed bird, she yielded to fear at last and tied jesses about her legs.

I dare not let you fly or you would eat of game which would kill you, she tried miserably to form a picture in her mind which the hawk could clearly see, of the game glowing with that unhealthy and poisonous glow, and although she was not sure she had made contact with the bird’s mind, for the hawk sulked and brooded on the saddle, she did not fight the bonds, and rode with her head tucked under her whig; Romilly could feel the fierce hunger pulsing within her, but she seemed willing to ride thus chained for her own protection.

At last it seemed that they were out of danger, though Janni warned all the women that if they should begin to comb out handfuls of hair, or their teeth should loosen, they should tell her at once; she thought they had made a wide enough circle around the tainted land; “But none can be sure with that deadly stuff,” she warned, and rode on, her jaw clenched hard. Once she said to Romilly, with a brief glance that made Romilly think of her hawk, closed-in and brooding, her eyes swiftly hooded, “Orain was fostered in that village. And now no man will be able to live in it for a span of years and perhaps more. All the Gods blast Lyondri and his devil weapons!”

Romilly cast a quick glance at Caryl, but either he had not heard, or concealed it. How heavy a weight the boy must carry!

They camped a little early that night, and while the women were setting up the tent, Janni called Romilly away from the camp.

“Come with me, I need to talk to you. No, Caryl, not you,” she added, sharply, and the boy fell back like a puppy that had been kicked. Janni led Romilly a little away from the camp, and motioned to her to sit down, lowering herself crosslegged to the rough soft grass.

“Any sign of loosening teeth, falling hair?”

Romilly bared her teeth in a smile, then raised her hand and rugged graphically at her abort hair. “Not a bit of it, Janni,” she said, and the woman breathed a sigh of relief.

“Evanda be praised,” she said, “Who has guarded her maidens. I found some loose hair this morning when I combed my hair, but I am growing old and must look to falling hair as a woman’s lot in age. Still I could not help fearing that we had not ridden wide enough round that cursed site. What madman will destroy the very land of his own vassals? Oh, yes, I have ridden to war, I can see burning a croft - though I like it not to kill the humble folk because of the wars of the great and mighty - but a croft, burned, can be rebuilt, and crops trampled down can be grown again when the land is at peace. But to destroy the very land so no crops will grow for a generation? Perhaps I am too squeamish for a warrior,” she said, and fell for a moment into silence. At last she asked, “Have you had trouble with your prisoner?”

“No,” said Romilly, “he is glad to be coming home, but he has scrupulously minded his parole.”

“I thought as much, but I am glad to hear you say it,” said Jandria. She loosened the cheap silver buckles on her cloak and flung it back, sighing as the wind ruffled her thick hair. Her face seemed lined and weary. Romilly said with swift sympathy, “You are so tired, Jandria. Let me take your part in the camp work tonight, and go to rest in your tent now. I will bring your evening meal to you in your blanket-roll.”

Janni smiled. “It is not weariness which weighs on me, Romilly; I am old and hardened to travel and camp, and I have slept in places far more comfortless than this without a whimper. I am troubled, that is all, for good sense tells me one thing and honor tells me another.”

Romilly wondered what trouble lay on Janni, and the woman smiled and reached for her hand. She said, “Young Carolin is in my care, and honor bids that I be the one to convey him to his father. Yet I thought perhaps I would send you to deliver the lad within the walls of Hali city to the hands of the Hastur-lord.”

Romilly’s first thought was that she would have a chance to see within the walls of the great lowland city; her next, that she would be very sorry to part with Caryl. Only after that did she realize that she would also have to meet with that great rogue Lyondri Hastur.

“Why me, Janni?”

Jandria’s heavy sigh was audible. “Something you know of courtly ways and the manners of a Great House,” she said. “I feel traitor to the Sisterhood to say as much, having sworn to leave rank behind me forever. Mhari, Reba, Shaya - all of them are good women, but they know no more than the clumsy manners of their fathers’ crofts, and I cannot send

them on such a mission of diplomacy. More than this, for the safety of all of us.” Her strained smile was faint, hardly a grimace. “Whatever I said to Orain, Lyondri Hastur would know me if I wore banshee-feathers and did the dance of a Yaman in a Ghost Wind! I have no wish to hang from a traitor’s gallows. Carolin, and Orain too, were among those Lyondri loved best, and those whom he pursues with the greater fury now. Carolin, Orain, Lyondri and I - we four were fostered together.” She hesitated, sighed again and at last said, “Orain does not know this; he never wished to see what befell between man and maiden, and he did not know - hell’s fire,” she burst out, “Why does it shame me to say that Lyondri and I lay together more than once, before I was even fully a woman. Now I have turned from him to my own kindred, I think it would give him pleasure to hang me, if my death would give pain to Carolin or to Carolin’s sworn man! Nor can I bear to meet him - Avarra comfort me, I cannot but love him still, almost as much as I hate!” She swallowed and looked at the ground, holding tight to Romilly’s hand. “So now you know why I am too cowardly to meet with him, however sworn he may be with his flag of truce - he might spare me for our old love, I do not know.”

“It is not needful, Janni,” said Romilly gently, feeling the woman’s pain, “I will gladly go. You must not risk yourself.”

“Seeing you - do you understand this, Romilly? - Lyondri and Rakhal see only a stranger, and more than that, one Caryl loves well, someone who has been kind to his son; and they know only that you are an envoy of the Sisterhood, not a rebel or one sworn to Carolin. Be clear, Romilly, I send you into danger - it may be that Lyondri will not honor his pledged word of safety for the courier who brings his son; but you may risk nothing worse than imprisonment. Lyondri may kill you; he would certainly lose no chance for revenge against me.”

Danger for her, against certain death for herself? Romilly hesitated just a moment, and Janni said wearily, “I cannot command you to this risk, Romilly. I can only beg it of you. For I cannot send Caryl alone into the city; I pledged he should be safely delivered into his father’s very hands.”

“I thought he had sworn safe-conduct.”

“Oh, and so he has,” said Janni, “But I trust that no further than Lyondri sees his advantage, which he saw ever… .” and she covered her face with her hands. Romilly felt weak and frightened. But the Sisterhood had taken her in when she was alone, sheltered and fed her, welcomed her with friendliness. She owed them this. And she was a sworn Swordswoman. She said, tightening her hand on Janni’s, “I will go, my sister. Trust me.”

Before they rode into the city, Caryl washed himself carefully at a stream, begged a comb from one of the women and carefully combed his hair and trimmed his nails. He dug from his saddlebags his somewhat shabby clothes - for the last few days he had been wearing bits and pieces, castoff trousers and tunic of one of the women, so that he could wash his own in one of the streams and have them clean for his return to court, though nothing could make them look like proper attire for a prince.

He said with regret, “Father sent me a new festival costume before Midwinter-night, and I had to leave it in the monastery when I left so suddenly. Well, it can’t be helped, this is the best I have.”

“I will cut your hair, if you like,” Romilly offered, and trimmed his curling hair to an even length, then brushed it till it shone. He laughed and told her he was not a horse to be currycombed, but he looked at himself with satisfaction in the stream.

“At least I look like a gentleman again; I hate to be shabby like a ruffian,” he said. “Mestra Jandria, will you not come with us? My father could not be angry with anyone who had been so kind to his son.”

Jandria shook her head. “There were old quarrels between Lyondri and me before you were hatched or Rakhal sought out Carolin’s throne, dear boy; I would rather not come under your father’s eye. Romilly will take you.”

“I will be glad to ride with Romilly,” said Caryl, “and I am sure my father will be grateful to her.”

“In the name of all the Gods of the Hastes, boy, I hope so,” said Jandria, and when Caryl bent over her hand in his courtly manner, she pressed it. “Adelandeyo,” she said after the manner of the hill women, “Ride on with the Gods, my boy, and may They all be with you, and with Romilly.”

Only Romilly, seeing the tensing in Janni’s jaw, the tremble in her eyes, knew that Janni was thinking, Gods protect you, girl, and may we see you again safe out of Lyondri Hastur’s hands.

Romilly clambered into her saddle. With a clarity not usual to her unless she was in rapport with her hawk and seeing all things through her laran and not her eyes, she saw the clear pale sky, the tent of the Sisterhood; heard thwacks where Mhari and Lauria were practicing with the wooden batons they used for swords, saw two other women slowly working through the careful training moves of unarmed combat, the dancelike ritual which trained their muscles to work without thought in defensive movement. She could still see smoke from the breakfast fire and felt alerted and frightened - smell of smoke when no food was cooking? - before she remembered that they were not now in the forest and there was, in this green meadow, no chance of wildfire.

She had made herself tidy, with her best cloak, the one Orain had bought for her in the Nevarsin market - though now she felt sore and raw-edged about his gift, she had nothing else nearly so good or so warm - and had borrowed the cleanest tunic she could find in the camp from one of the swordswomen. She was conscious of the still-stinging earrings in her ears, mercilessly revealed by her short hair. Well, she told herself defensively, I am what I am; a woman of the Sisterhood of the Sword - even though I am not very good with it yet - and Lyondri Hastur can just accept me as an emissary under safe-conduct; why should I worry about whether I look like a lady? What is Lyondri to me? And yet a little voice that sounded like Luciella’s was saying in her mind, with prim reproach, Romy, for shame, boots and breeches and astride like a man, what would your father say? Mercilessly she commanded the voice to be quiet.

She clucked briefly to her horse and nodded to Caryl, who drew his horse into an easy trot beside her own.

Hali was an unwalled city, with broad streets which were uncannily smooth under foot; at her puzzled look, Caryl smiled and told her they had been laid down by matrix technology, without the work of human hands. At her skeptical glance he insisted, “It’s true, Romy! Father showed me, once, how it can be done, laying the stones with the great matrix lattices under ten or twelve leroni or laranzu’in. One day I will be a sorcerer as well and work among the relays and screens!”

Romilly was still skeptical, but there was no use at all in challenging what a child’s father had told him, so she held her peace.

He directed her through the streets, and it was all she could do to keep from staring about her as if she were the freshest of country bumpkins, hardly away from the farmyard; Nevarsin was a fine city, and Caer Donn as well, but Hali was wholly different. In place of steep, cobbled streets and stone houses crowded together as if huddling under the great crags of the Hellers or of Castle Aldaran, there were broad streets and low open dwellings - she had never seen a house which was not built like a fortress to be defended, and wondered how the citizens could sleep secure in their beds at night; not even the city was walled.

And the people who walked in these streets seemed a different race than the mountain people - who were strongly built, clad in furs and leather against the bitter chill, and seemed hard and fierce; here in this pleasant lowland city, finely dressed men and women strolled the broad streets, wearing colorful clothing, embroidered tunics and brightly dyed skirts and veils for the women, colorful long coats and trousers for the men, and thin cloaks of brilliant colors, more for adornment than for use.