Hawkmistress! (53 page)

She had lost the impetus that had kept her moving restlessly from place to place; she sat in the clearing of the fallen log most of the day, and when night fell again she slept there.

During her sleep she heard someone calling her name; but she did not seem to know the voice. Orain? No, he would not call her; he had wanted her when he thought her a boy, but had no use for the woman she really was. Her father? He was far away, across the Kadarin, safe at home. She thought with pain of the peaceful hills of Falconsward. Yet it was there she had learned that evil art of horse-training by which she had betrayed the beloved to his death. In her dream she seemed to sit on Sunstar’s back, to ride like the wind across the grey plain she once had seen, and she woke with her face wet with tears.

A day or two later she realized that she had lost shoes and stockings, she did not remember where, that her feet were already hardening to the dirt and pebbles of the forest floor. She wandered on aimlessly, ever deeper into the forest, eating fruits, grubbing in the earth for roots; now and again she cooled her feet in a mountain stream but she never thought of washing. She ate when she found food; when once for three days together she found nothing edible, she was dimly aware of hunger, but it did not seem important to her. She no longer troubled to rub the dirt from the roots she ate; they seemed just as good to her in their coats of earth. Once she found some pears on an abandoned tree and their taste was so sweet that she felt a rush of ecstasy. She ate as many as she could but it did not occur to her to fill her pockets or to tie them into her skirt.

One night she woke when the purple face of Liriel stood over her in the sky, seeming to look down and chide her, and thought, I am surely mad, where am I going, what am I going to do? I cannot go on like this forever. But when she woke she had forgotten it again. Now and again, too, she heard, not with her ears but within her mind, voices that seemed to call, Romilly, where are you? She wondered faintly who Romilly was, and why they were calling her.

She came to the end of the woods, the next day, and out into open plains and rolling hills. Waving grasses were covered with seeds … all this country must once have been settled and planted to grain, but all around the horizon which stretched wide from west to east, from the wall of the forest behind her to the mountains which rose greyish-pink in the distance, there was no human dwelling. She picked a handful of the seeds, rubbed their coats from them, and chewed them as she walked.

High in the sky, a hawk soared, a single hawk, and as she watched, it dropped down, down, down, falling toward her with folded wings, it alighted on her shoulder. It seemed to speak in her mind, but she did not know what it was saying, yet it seemed that once she had known this hawk, that it had a name, that once she had flown beside it in the sky … no, that was not possible, yet the hawk seemed so sure that they knew one another. She reached out to touch it, then stopped, there was some reason she should not touch it with her finger … she wished she could remember why. But she looked into the hawk’s eyes, and wished she knew where she had seen the hawk before this.

She woke again that night, and again she was aware that she was certainly quite mad, that she could not wander forever like this. But she had no idea where she was, and there was no one to ask. She knew who she was, now, she was Romilly, and the hawk, the hawk which had perched on the low limb of a nearby tree, the hawk was Preciosa, but why had she sought her out here? Did she not know that she, Romilly, set the touch of her mind on bird or horse only to train it to follow humankind meekly to its own death?

It took her five days to cross the plain; she counted them, without thinking, as the face of Liriel grew toward full. When last the moon was full, she had followed Sunstar - she slammed the memory shut; it was too painful. There were plenty of the grainlike seeds to eat, and water to drink. Once the hawk brought a bird down from the sky and lighted on her shoulder, screaming in frustration; she looked at the dead bird, torn by the hawk’s beak, and shuddered. It was the hawk’s nature, but the sight of the Wood made her feel sick, and at last she flung it to the ground and walked on.

That night she came beneath the edges of another patch of forest. She found a tree heavy with last year’s nuts, and by now she had sense enough to fill her pockets with them. She was still not certain where she was going, but she had begun to turn northward when there was a choice. She moved noiselessly now through the woods, driven restlessly onward … she did not know why.

Overhead, toward evening, she heard the cry of waterfowl, flying toward the south. She looked up, soaring with them in their dizzy flight, seeing from afar where a tall white tower rose, and the glimmer of a lake. Where was she?

The moons were so bright that night, four of them shining down on her, Uriel and Kyrrdis round and full, and the . other two shining pale and gibbous, that she could not sleep. It seemed to her that when last she had seen four moons in the sky, something had happened … no, she could not remember, but her body ached with desire and hunger unslaked, and she did not know why. After a time, lying in the soft moss, she began to range outward, feeling hungers like her own all round her….

A cat crawled along a branch, and she felt the tug of the light within her, too, the flow of the life of the world, and herself with it. She could see the gleam of the great eyes, followed it with her mind while she prowled around the foot of the tree. There was a sweet, sharp, musky scent in the air now and, in the mind of the cat, she followed it, not knowing whether or not she moved or whether only the cat moved … closer and closer she came, and heard herself make a small snarling, purring cry of hunger and need … turned with a lashing of the great tail as the cat’s mate pounced down the tree trunk, with cries and frisking sounds. Her body ached and hungered and as the cat seized her mate, Romilly twisted on the moss of the ground and dug her hands into the ground, gasping, crying out…

Ranald … she whispered, hi the moment before she was lost in the wild surge of heat. The night seemed filled with the snarling, purring sound of the great cats in their mating, and she lay silent, battered down beneath it, and at last, her senses and laran overloaded, she lost consciousness.

The next morning she woke, hardly aware what had happened, feeling sick and exhausted. She did not know why, but her aimless moving through the forest had quickened pace. She must get away, get away … a nameless apprehension was on her, and when she heard, above her, the same snarling cry of the great cat, she was too numbed to be afraid. And then there was a dark flash as it slithered to the ground and stood facing her, mouth drawn back in a snarl over sharp fanged teeth. Behind it she sensed the presence of the little balls of brownish fur, hidden in the hollow tree….

The cat was protecting her young! And, she, Romilly, had blundered into the proximity of the cat’s protected territory … she blundered backward, fighting the temptation to turn and run, run away … if she did, she knew the cat would be on her in a moment! Slowly, stealthily, she drew backward, backward, trying to catch the animal’s eyes, to press on it with her laran…

Peace, peace, I mean no harm, not to you, not to your little ones. … At some time, she had done this before, something which menaced her, cold, fierce, in the snows….

Silently, silently, step after step, withdraw, withdraw … peace, peace, I mean you no harm, your cubs no harm….

Then, when she was almost at the edge of the clearing, the cat moved like a streak, with a single long leap, and landed almost at Romilly’s feet.

Peace, peace … The cat bent her head, almost laid it at Romilly’s feet. Then shock struck through her.

No, no! I betrayed Sunstar to death, I swore 1 would use that laran no more, never, never … no more of the innocent to die …

One paw lashed out like a whip; claws raked Romilly’s face, and the weight of the arm stretched her sprawling and gasping with pain; she felt blood break from her cheek and her lip. Now she has spilled my blood, will she kill me now as sacrifice to her cubs, in expiation for the death of Sunstar… .

The hoarse, soft snarling never stopped. Romilly rolled over, to protect her face. Then, as the cat sprung again, a fury of wings lashed down, and the hawk’s claws raked at the eyes of the great cat, beating wings flapping around the cat’s muzzle.

Preciosa! She has come to fight for me!

Romilly rolled free, springing up and climbing into a nearby tree. Preciosa hovered, just out of reach of the deadly claws, flapping and striking with beak and talons, until the cat, snarling softly, turned her back and vanished into the long grasses where her cubs were hidden. Her breath catching in her throat, Romilly slid down the tree and ran as far as she could in the opposite direction, Preciosa close behind her; she heard the sound of the wings and the little shrilling sound of the hawk. When she was out of range, she stopped, turned, thrust out her fist, in a gesture so familiar that she did not even make it consciously.

Preciosa!” she cried, and as the hawk’s talons closed, gently, on her arm, she remembered everything, and began to cry.

“Oh, Preciosa, you came for me!”

She washed in a stream, that night, and shook the leaf-mold and dirt from her cloak. She took off her tunic and trousers, and shook them out to air, and put them on again. She had lost, somewhere, her Swordswoman’s earring - she never knew where. With the hawk riding on her shoulder, she tried to orient herself.

She supposed the white Tower nearby must be Neskaya, but she was not certain. A day’s walk should bring her there, and perhaps she could send a message somewhere, and know what had befallen Carolin, and what the armies did. She still flinched from the thought of joining them again, but she knew someday she must return to her own kind.

Late that night, as she was looking for a dry place to sleep, and wondering how she had managed all these days alone - she thought she must have been in the woods all of three days, perhaps - it seemed that she heard someone calling her name.

Romilly! Romilly!

Search for her with laran, only so we can find her, she is hiding…

She cannot be dead. I would know if she was dead….

She recognized, vaguely, some of the voices, though it was still not clear.

If you can find her, bid her come back to us. This was a voice she knew, a voice she loved; Jandria, mourning. And although she had never done it before, somehow Romilly knew how to reach out with her mind.

Where are you? What has happened? I thought the war Was over.

It is ended, and Carolin is encamped before the walls of Hali, came the answer. But it is stalemate, for Lyondri has Orain as hostage somewhere within the city.

And Romilly did not even stop to remember her grudge, or what it had been.

I will come as swiftly as I can.

CHAPTER NINE

She slept only a little that night, and was awake and walking by daylight, sending out her laran to spy out a dwelling of men. Once in the village she sought out a man who had horses for hire.

“I must have a fast horse at once. I am of the Sisterhood of the Sword, and I am on an urgent mission for King Carolin; I am needed at once at Hali.”

“And I am His Majesty’s chief cook and bottle-washer,” jeered the stableman. “Not so fast, mestra; what will you pay?” And Romilly saw herself reflected in his eyes, a gaunt scarecrow of a woman in a tattered tunic and breeches, barefoot, her face savagely clawed and bleeding where the mountain-cat had swiped at her, the unkempt hawk riding on her shoulders.

“I have been through the war and worse,” she said. She had dwelt among animals so long she had forgotten the need of money. She searched the deep pockets of tunic and breeches and found a few coins forgotten; she spilled them out before him.

“Take these as earnest,” she said, not counting them, “I swear I will send the rest when I reach a hostel of the Sisterhood, and twice as many if you will find me a pair of boots and some food.”

He hesitated. “I will need thirty silver bits or a copper royal,” he said, “and another as token that you win return the horse here-“

Her eyes glittered with rage. She did not even know why she was in such need of haste, but she was sought for at Hali. “In Carolin’s name,” she said, “I can take your horse if I must-“

She signalled to the nearest horse; he looked fast, a great rangy roan. A touch of her laran and he came swiftly to her, bowed his neck in submission. His owner shouted with anger and came to lay his hand on the horse’s lead-rope, but the horse edged nervously away, and lashed out, kicking; circled, and came back to rub Romilly’s head with his shoulder.

“Leronis…” he whispered, his eyes widened, staring.

“That and more,” said Romilly tartly.

A young woman stood watching, twisting her long apron. At last she whispered, “My mother’s sister is of the Sisterhood, mestra. She has told me that the Sisterhood will always pay debts incurred by one of them, for the honor of them all. Let her have the horse, my husband, and-” she ran into the house, brought back a pair of rough boots.

“They were my son’s,” she said in a whisper, “Rakhal’s men came through the village and one of them killed him, cut him down like a dog, when they seized our plow-beast and slaughtered it for their supper, and he asked them for some payment. Carolin’s men have done nothing like this.”