Hawkmistress! (34 page)

“Who is the tall skinny man riding behind him?” someone asked, and Romilly, who would have known him even in darkness with his face hidden, said, “His name is Orain, and I have heard he is one of Carolin’s foster-brothers.”

“I know him,” said one of the girls, “he came to visit Jandria, someone told me that he was one of her kin, though I don’t know whether to believe it or not.”

Romilly watched the horses, men, banners moving by, with detachment and regret. She might still have been riding with them, had she gone to her own bed in the stable that night, still at Orain’s side, still treated as his friend and equal. But it was too late for that. She turned about sharply and said, “Let’s go inside and finish our work - I have seen horses enough before this and a king is a man like other men, Hastur or no.”

The armies, she heard, were being moved to a great plain outside Caer Donn. A few days later, she was summoned to Janni, and when she went out into the main room where she had met Janni first, she saw Orain again, with Caryl at his side.

Orain greeted her with some constraint, but Caryl rushed at once into her arms.

“Oh, Romilly, I have missed you! Why, you are dressed like a woman, that is good, now I will not have to remember to speak to you as if you were a boy,” he said.

“Dom Carolin,” Janni said formally, and he turned his attention respectfully to her.

“I listen, mestra,” he said, using the politest of terms for a female inferior in rank.

“The Lord Orain has commissioned me to escort you to Hali and return you, under safe-conduct, to your father,” she said, “and there are two choices before you; I am prepared to treat you as a man of honor, and to ask your preference, instead of making the decision for you. Are you old enough to listen to me seriously, and to answer sensibly and keep your word?”

His small face was as serious as when he had sung in the chapel at Nevarsin. “I am, mestra Jandria.”

“Well, then, it is simple. Shall I treat you as a prisoner and have you guarded - and, make no mistake, we are women, but we shall not be careless with you and allow you to escape.”

“I know that mestra,” he said politely, “I had a governess once who was much harsher with me than any of the masters and brothers in the monastery.”

“Well, then,” said Janni, “Will you be our prisoner, or will you give us your parole, not to attempt to escape our hands, so that you may ride beside us and take such pleasure in the trip as you can? It will not be an easy journey, and it will be simpler if we can allow you to ride without watching you every moment of the night and day, nor have you tied up at night. I will have no hesitation in taking the word of a Hastur, if you give me your parole of honor.”

He did not answer at once. He asked, “Are you my father’s enemies?”

“Not particularly,” said Janni, “Of your father, my lad, I know only what I have been told; but I am Rakhal’s enemy, and your father is his friend, so I trust him not. But then, I have not asked for his word of honor, either. I am dealing with you, Dom Carolin, not with him.”

He said, “Is Romilly coming with us?”

“I thought to put you in her charge, since she has travelled with you before, if that is agreeable to you, young sir.”

He smiled then, and said, “I would like to travel with Romilly. And I will gladly give you my word of honor not to try and escape. I could not travel through the Hellers alone, whatever happened. I promise you, then, mestra, to be at your orders until I am returned to my father’s hands.”

“Very well,” Janni said, “I accept your word, as you may accept mine, that I will treat you as I would one of my own sisters, and offer you no indignity. Will you give me your hand on it, Dom Carolin?”

He held out his hand and took hers. Then he said, “You need not call me Dom Carolin, mestra. That is the name of the former king, who is my father’s enemy, though he is not really mine. I am called Caryl.”

“Then you shall call me Janni, Caryl,” she said, smiling at last, “and you shall be our guest, not our prisoner. Romy, take him to the guest-room and make him comfortable. Orain-” she raised her eyes to her cousin, “we shall set out tomorrow, if the weather allows.”

“I thank you, cousin. And you,” he added, turning to Romilly, bending ceremoniously - like a courtier, she thought - over her hand. She thought, heart-sore, that a few days before, he would have taken leave of her with a rough hug. She hoped, suddenly and passionately, that she and Orain would never meet again.

They rode out of Caer Donn very early in the morning, and had been more than an hour on the road before the red sun rose, huge and dripping with mist. Caryl rode on the pony Jandria had found for him, side by side with Romilly’s horse; behind them were six women of the Sisterhood, leading, on long pack-reins, a dozen good horses which, they said, were for the armies in the South. They did not say which armies, and Romilly carefully did not ask.

It was good to be riding free again in the sunlight, without the cold and storms of her earlier journey through the Hellers. They stopped at noon to feed the horses and rest them for a little, then rode on. In late afternoon they made camp, and at Jandria’s command, one of the pack-horses was offloaded, and as two women sat about making fire, Janni called to Romilly.

“Come here and help me, Romy, with this tent.”

Romilly had no notion of how to set up a tent, but she obediently hauled ropes and drove in pegs where Janni ordered, and within a minute or two a large and roomy shelter of waterproof canvas was ready for them. Blanket-rolls were spread out within it, and under its hanging flap the evening drizzle could not dampen their fire or their supper. Very soon porridge was cooked, hot and savory with sliced onions frizzled in the fat of a roast fowl, and the women sat cross-legged on their bed-rolls, eating their food out of wooden bowls which had come out of the same pack.

“This is nice,” said Caryl admiringly, “Men never make a camp as comfortable as this.”

Janni chuckled. “There is no reason they should not,” she said, “They are as good at cookery and hunting as we women are, and they would tell you so if you asked them; but maybe they think it unmanly to seek for comfort in the fields, and enjoy hard living because it makes them feel tough and strong. As for me, I have no love for sleeping in the rain, and I am not ashamed to admit I like to be comfortable.”

“So do I,” said Caryl, gnawing on the ends of his bone, This is good, Janni. Thank you.”

One of the women, not one that Romilly knew well, whose name was Lauria, took a small hand-harp from her pack and began to play a tune. They sat around the fire, singing mountain ballards, for half an hour or so. Caryl listened, bright-eyed, but after a time he fell back, drowsily, half asleep.

Janni signed to Romilly, and said, ‘Take off his boots, will you, and get him into his sleeping-roll?”

“Of course,” Romilly said, and began to pull off Caryl’s boots. He sat up and protested sleepily. Lauria said, grumbling, “Let the boy wait on himself, Romy! Janni, why should one of our sisters wait on this young man, who is our prisoner? We’re no subjects or servants to the Hastur-kind!”

“He’s only a boy,” Janni said, placatingly, “and we’re being well-paid to care for him.”

“Still, the Sisterhood are no slaves to one of these men,” grumbled Lauria, “I wonder at you, Janni, that for money you’d take a commission to escort some boy-child through the mountains.”

“Boy child or girl, the boy cannot travel alone,” said Janni, “and needs not be drawn into the quarrels of his elders! And Romilly is willing to care for him.”

“I doubt not,” said one of the strange women with a sneer, “One of those women who still think her duty in life is to wait on some man, hand and foot -she would disgrace her earring-“

“I look after him because he is sleepy, too sleepy to wait on himself,” Romilly flared, “and because he is about the age of my own little brothers! Didn’t you look after your own little brother if you had one, or did you think yourself too good to look after anyone but yourself? If the Holy Bearer of Burdens could carry the World-child on his shoulders across the River of Life, shall I not care for any child who comes into my hands?”

“Oh, a cristoforo” sneered one of the younger women, “Do you recite the Creed of Chastity before you sleep, then, Romy?”

Romilly started to fling back an angry retort - she made no rude remarks about the Gods of others, they could keep their mouths off her own religion - but then she saw Janni’s frown and said, mildly, “I can think of worse things I might be saying.” She turned her back on the angry girl, and went to spread out Caryl’s blanket beside her own.

“Are we to have a male in our tent to sleep with us?” the girl who had protested asked angrily, “This is a tent for women.”

“Oh, hush, Mhari, the boy can hardly sleep out in the rain with the horses,” Janni said crossly. “The rule of the Sisterhood is intended for common sense, and the boy’s no more than a baby! Are you fool enough to think he’ll come into our blankets and ravish one of us?”

“It is a matter of principle,” said Mhari sullenly, “Because the brat is a Hastur, are we to let him intrude into a place of the Sisterhood? I would feel the same if he were no more than two years old!”

“Then I hope you will never have the bad taste to bear a son instead of a daughter,” said Janni lightly, “or will you, out of principle, refuse to feed a male at your breast? Go to

sleep, Mhari; the child can sleep between me and Romilly, and we’ll guard your virtue.”

Caryl opened his mouth; Romilly poked him in the ribs, and he subsided without speaking. She saw that he was trying not to giggle aloud. It seemed a little silly to her, but she supposed they had their rules and principles, just as the brothers of Nevarsin did. She lay down beside Caryl, and slept.

She found herself dreaming, clear vivid dreams, as if she flew, linked in mind with Preciosa, over the green, rolling hills of her own country. She woke with a lump in her throat, remembering the view of the long valley from the cliffs of Falconsward. Would she ever see her home again, or her sister or brothers? What had they to do with a wandering swordswoman? Her ears ached where they had been pierced. She missed Orain and Carlo and even the rough-tongued Alaric. As yet she had made no friends among these strange women. But she was pledged to them for a year, at least, and there was no help for it. She listened to Caryl, sleeping quietly at her side; to the breathing of the strange women in the tent. She had never felt so alone in her life, not even when she fled from Rory’s mountain cabin.

Five days they rode southward, and came to the Kadarin river, traditional barrier between the lowland Domains and the foothills of the Hellers. It seemed to Romilly that they should make more of it, going into strange country, but to Janni it was just another river to be forded, and they crossed with dispatch, at a low-water ford where they hardly wetted their horses’ knees. The hills here were not so high, and soon they came to a broad rolling plateau. Caryl was beaming; all the trip he had been in good spirits, and now he was ebullient. She supposed he was glad to be coming home, and glad of the long holiday that had interrupted his studies.

Yet Romilly felt uneasy without mountains surrounding her; it seemed as if she rode on the flat land, under the high skies, like some small, exposed thing, fearfully surveying the skies here as if some bird of prey would swoop down on them and carry her away with strong talons. She knew it was ridiculous, but she kept uneasily surveying the high pale skies, filled with rolling violet cloud, as if something there was watching her. At last Caryl, riding at her side, picked it up with his sensitive laran.

“What’s the matter, Romy? Why do you keep looking at the sky that way?”

She really had no answer for him and tried to pass it off.

“I am uneasy without mountains around me - I have always lived in the hills and I feel bare and exposed here… .” she tried hard to laugh, looking up into the unfamiliar skies.

High, high, a speck hovered, at the edge of her vision. Trying to ignore it, she bent her eyes on the rough-coated grass, only lightly frosted, at her feet.

“What sort of hawking is there on these plains, do you know?”

“My father and his friends keep verrin hawks,” he said, “Do you know anything of them? Do they have them across the river, or only those great ugly sentry-birds?”

“I fly a verrin hawk,” Romilly said, “Once I trained one-” and she looked uneasily around again, her skin prickling.

“Did you? A girl?”

The innocent question nibbed an old wound; she snapped at him, “Why should I not? You sound like my father, as if because I was born to wear skirts about my knees I had neither sense nor spirit!”

“I did not mean to offend you, Romy,” said Caryl, with a gentleness which made him seem much older than his years. “It is only that I have not known many girls, except my own sister, and she would be terrified to touch a hawk. But if you can handle a sentry-bird, and calm a banshee as we did together, then surely it would take no more trouble to train a hawk.” He turned his face to her, watching with his head tilted a little to one side, something like a bird himself with his bright inquisitive eyes. “What are you afraid of, Romy?”

“Not afraid,” she said, uneasy under his gaze, then, “Only - as if someone was watching me,” she blurted out, not knowing she was going to say it until she heard her own words. Realizing how foolish they were, she said defensively, “Perhaps that is only because -the land is so flat - I feel - all exposed-” and again her eyes sought the sky, dazzled by the sun, where, wavering at the very edge between seen and unseen, a speck still hovered … I am being watched!