Mercedes Lackey - Anthology (33 page)

 
          
"You'd
want to hide the duck while you were offering the pigeon. Only when she was
eating the pigeon would you take her up and secure
the jesses
."

 
          
"Because?"

 
          
"Because
we never want to make her think we're taking her dinner away from her. We
always want her to remember that we give her dinner."
Bern
was quite sure of himself now, and Honoria
was gratified that her lessons were being recited with real feeling, not just
by rote.

 
          
"Because?"
she prompted again, wanting him to be sure of the reasons behind everything she
taught him.

 
          
"No
falcon or hawk is faithful to anything but its best interest,"
Bern
recited confidently. "She can fly away
at any time, and will, if she thinks we aren't serving her. The falconer serves
the
bird,
the bird never serves the falconer."

 
          
Honoria
laughed. "Good—but do you know what that means?" She motioned to
Bern
to walk beside her as they made their way
back to the castle; she wouldn't hood Valeria until the bird had eaten her
fill.

 
          
"I
do now,” the boy replied.
"
I used to think you
could make a friend out of a falcon, like you can a dog, but all they ever
really do is tolerate you.

 
          
Except once in a long while you might get a bird like Freya."

 
          
"Once
in a lifetime," Honoria corrected. "And then, only if you are very,
very lucky. Stick to what is the rule for the whole mews, and continue."
Hope and even pray for a gos like Freya, and dream of one at night. Maybe
you'll get one, little fellow.

 
          
"Well,
the best you can get is tolerance—a kind of partner, but a partner that is
always waiting to see if you're going to do something she doesn't like. If you
do, she's going to leave you."
Bern
sighed, but with a note of exasperation
that tickled Honoria. "Just like Sir Gregof's bird did yesterday."

 
          
"And
what did Sir Gregof do that was wrong?" Honoria knew very well what the
night had done, but she wanted to know if
Bern
had seen it.

 
          
Bern
grinned impudently. He could; Gregof wasn't
his knight. "What didn't he do wrong? He didn't wait for the bird to get
enough height, e flushed the partridge himself so the poor fal-on had a
tail-chase, and when the falcon actu-lly caught a partridge, he ran up to it!
And since it was a partridge, and small enough to carry, that's what the falcon
did; she carried it off, and the last he saw of her was disappearing over the
hill with the partridge in her talons."

 
          
Oh,
excellent; no doubt, he has the eye and the brain to match. "Very good;
you caught all of that. Now, what do you think my father's falconer did last
night, while Gregof went off in a temper, cursing the bird and the trainer
together?" This part
Bern
hadn't seen, but she wanted to see if he'd intuit it.

 
          
"I
don't know what Heinrich did, but I know what I'd do,"
Bern
ventured slowly, as they neared the gates
of the palace. "I'd follow the falcon, slowly and quietly, until she
stopped to eat the partridge. I wouldn't go after her then, because she'd
already been offended. I'd let her eat, then I'd mark where she went to roost
for the night; she'd want to sleep right away with a full crop, but she'd do it
somewhere she felt secure, and she might be nervous without the mews walls
around her. In the morning that meal would have worn off, she'd be in a strange
place, and I'd come back before dawn with a live pigeon and a trap, but a
different trap than the way she was caught before, if she was trapped and not
taken from the nest as an eyas."

 
          
"Excellent!"
Honoria applauded, and clapped the youngster on the back with her free hand,
while he grinned up at her, a lock of hair falling impudently over one eye.
"Although with a bird as well-trained as one of Heinrich's, a lure and a
pigeon wing would probably be enough to get her. In fact, it was; he brought
her into the mews just before you arrived this morning."

 
          
"And
I bet he never lets Sir Gregof fly another royal bird!"
Bern
grinned.

 
          
"Sir
Gregof will be fortunate if he is allowed to fly anyone else's mar-hawks,"
Honoria told him severely. "Unless he comes to Heinrich and agrees to mend
his ways, and begs to be taught the proper way to serve a bird."

 
          
Bern
trudged alongside her for a few more yards,
then
asked, "But what if he just goes into the
mews and takes one?"

 
          
Honoria
frowned. "He'd better not try," she said with a touch of anger.
"I'll horsewhip him of the mews myself."

 
          
The
look on Bern's face said that the boy fully believed her—which was just as
well, because she would do just that, taking full unfair advantage of her sex
and position, knowing that as a knight and inferior, Sir Gregof would not dare
to protest, much less strike back. The birds were worth any amount of
her own
unchivalrous behavior in their defense.

 
          
As
they gained the hard-packed, icy road, and walked up the aisle of trees toward
the palace, Valeria finished the last bit of pigeon, stropping her beak on the
glove to clean it. As she settled down and relaxed, Honoria paused a moment to
slip the hood over her head. It was a common thing for young knights to gallop
their horses wildly up this road, and she didn't want Valeria to bate in
startled surprise if one did
come
pounding up
unexpectedly.

 
          
The
usual guards stood sentry on the outer walls; they were used to seeing Honoria
and her "apprentice" coming and going with hawks, and grinned and
waved congratulations to her when they saw the day's catch.

 
          
Bern
handed the duck to the first servant they
encountered once past the gate and inside the outer walls; the servant would
take it to the kitchen to add to whatever fowl were on the menu for the next
meal. Hunting wasn't just for pleasure and sport; hunting put extra provender
on the table, especially in winter, when the promise of hospitality brought
more mouths to the table. The Crown Prince, Honoria's father, never turned
guests away, but also relied somewhat on those guests to repay that hospitality
with the results of hunting parties that were as much necessity as recreation.

 
          
"All
right,
Bern
, your lesson is over for today; go back to
wait on Father while I put Valeria up," Honoria said cheerfully, as they
passed the inner walls and into the stable yard. "If tomorrow is as good
as today, and the ducks are still there, it will be your turn to take Melisande
out to hunt."

 
          
"Provided
she's in condition and fit,"
Bern
added, quite properly, though it was
obvious how excited he was, and how disappointed he'd be if the falcon wasn't
fit to fly. "Please, my lady, don't risk Melisande just to keep from
disappointing me."

 
          
"If
she's not, we'll contrive a substitute," Honoria promised on impulse.

 
          
"You're
ready for your first hunt with a real bird, and you're going to have it while
hunting weather still holds. You know, Freya is so steady as long as I'm
around, we might even have you hunt with her."

 
          
Bern
's eyes lit up at the suggestion of hunting
with the famous Freya, but he very properly bowed as he thanked her, rather
than hugging her like the child he had been when he first arrived to serve her
father. He was growing up; all too soon he'd be made a knight himself, and he'd
probably become one of the
horde
of young men who
either disapproved of her "unmaid-enly" ways, or tried to court her,
or worse, "tame" her. In any case, if that happened, she'd lose a
pleasant hunting companion.

 
          
Well,
at least he'll be a proper falconer; that's something, she consoled herself, as
he ran off to find his master. She continued on through the stable yard to the
mews, where she opened the door to Valeria's stall, took off and hung up the
leash, unhooded her, and left her loose on her perch. If Heinrich, the falconry
master, chose to weather her today, he'd come take her up later and fasten her
to one of the outdoor perches.

 
          
She
checked to see that Valeria had fresh water in her pan, and left, latching the
door behind her.

 
          
"What
fortune, my lady?" Heinrich asked, as she passed him, hard at work mending
a leash in the tiny equipment room at the end of the mews. The room smelled
pleasantly—at least to Honoria's nose—of hawk-musk, leather, and neats'-foot
oil.

 
          
"Valeria
took a hen-duck on the first stoop," Honoria replied with another flush of
pleasure. "
Bern
's to take Melisande tomorrow, if the ducks are still there."

 
          
"If
not—" Heinrich considered for a moment. "I'll salt the field with
young doves. They'll give old Melisande a good stoop, and
Bern
a success for his first hunt."

 
          
"Thank
you, Heinrich, that is very good of you," Honoria replied warmly.

 
          
Heinrich
didn't often volunteer to sacrifice his doves, for they were too valuable in
training, in catching wild birds, and in luring in lost ones. They were special
birds, guaranteed to come home to their cote if not caught, swift fliers, and
clever for their kind.

 
          
"Yon
Bern
's going to be a good one;
worth going to a bit of extra for.

 
          
Besides,
I need to do some weeding out of the last hatch, for some of them aren't up to
standard," the old, grizzled master replied gruffly, and Honoria kept her
smile to herself.
Bern
had endeared himself to Heinrich by helping out with some of the
less-pleasant tasks of the mews, on the strength of Honoria's assertion that a
real falconer knew everything there was to know about the care and condition of
his birds. When
Bern
acquired his kestrel, he even took over all of the duties of caring for
it, including cleaning its stall. His rank would have excused him from that,
but he never once shirked it, and only stopped when Heinrich told him that the
youngster had more than proved he knew what he was about, and his master needed
his services more than his bird did.

 
          
"Do
you think I should take him straight up to a real game-hawk, and skip the
merlins altogether?" she asked the master.

 
          
"You
know, lady—I think you should. Your instinct has been right with him all
along." The old man scratched his bearded chin. "Besides, we haven't
got a merlin that hasn't been spoiled by your sisters. They're either too fat,
because the silly chits will come tidbit them all the time, or too skittish to
fly this close to spring." He growled and ground his teeth. "How I'm
supposed to keep them in condition to fly and eager to hunt when they're always
sneaking bits of chicken heart to them, I'll never know."

 
          
She
nodded, pleased that he agreed with her judgment, and sighed over her sisters.
"I wish someone would give
them
larks in a cage,
or starlings, or something," she replied in answer to his plaint.
"They keep thinking the merlins are pets. If mother would let them, they'd
have the poor things on perches in the solar and try to stuff them with sugar
plums."