Hawkmistress! (4 page)

When the hawk bated again, Romilly did not withdraw from the fear and terror, but let herself share it, whispering half aloud, “Trust me, lovely one, you will fly free again and we will hunt together, you and I, as friends, not as master and slave, I promise you….”

She filled her mind with images of soaring free above the trees in sunlight, trying to open her mind to the memory of the last tune she had hunted; seeing the bird come spiraling down with its prey, of tearing apart the freshly killed meat so she could give the bird its share of the kill … and again, with an urgency that made her feel sick, she felt the maddening hunger, the hawk’s mind-picture of striking, fresh blood flowing into her mouth … her own human revulsion, the hawk’s hunger, so mingled in her that she hardly knew which was which. Sensing that hunger, she held out the strip of rabbithorn meat, but now the smell revolted her as much as the hawk; she felt that she would vomit.

But you must eat and grow strong, preciosa, she sent out the thought again and again, feeling the hawk’s hunger, her weakening struggles. Preciosa; that is your name, that is what I will call you, and I want you to eat and grow strong, Preciosa, so we can hunt together, but first you must trust me and eat… I want you to eat because I love you and I want to share this with you, but first you must learn to eat from my hand … eat, Preciosa, my lovely one, my darling, my beauty, won’t you eat this? I don’t want you to die….

Hours, she felt, must have crawled by while she stood there, tensed into the endless struggle with the weakening hawk. Every time the frenzied bating was weaker, the surges of hunger so intense that Romilly’s own body cramped with pain. The hawk’s eyes were as bright as ever, as filled with terror, and from those eyes it all flooded into Romilly, too, in growing despair.

The hawk was weakening, surely; if she did not feed soon, after all this struggle, she would die; she had taken no food since she was captured four days ago. Would she die, still fighting?

Maybe her father had been right, maybe no woman had the strength for this….

And then she remembered the moment when she had looked out from the hawk’s eyes and she, Romilly MacAran, had not even been a memory, and she had been something other than human. Fear and despair flooded her; she saw herself ripping off the gauntlet, beaten to take up her needlework, letting walls close round her forever. A prisoner, more a prisoner than the chained hawk, who, at least, would now and then have a chance to fly,, and to feel again the soaring ecstasy of flight and freedom….

No. Rather than live like that, prisoner, she too would let herself die….

No; there must be a way, if only I can find it.

She would not surrender, never admit that the hawk had beaten her. She was Romilly MacAran, born with the MacAran Gift, and she was stronger than any hawk. She would not let the hawk die … no, it was not “the hawk” any more, it was Preciosa, whom she loved, and she would fight for her life even if she must stand here till they dropped together and died. One more time she reached out, moving fearlessly into the bird-mind, this time aware fully of herself as a shadowy and now familiar torture in Preciosa’s mind, and the sickening, rank smell of the meat on the gauntlet … for a moment she thought Preciosa would go into another frenzy of bating, but this time the bird bent its head toward the meat on the glove.

Romilly held her breath. Yes, yes, eat and grow stronger … and then Romilly was overcome by sickness, feeling that she would vomit where she stood from the sickening rotten smell of the meat.

Now she wants to eat, she would trust me, but she cannot eat this now; perhaps if she had taken it before she was so weak, but not now … she is no carrion feeder….

Romilly was overcome by despair. She had brought the freshest food she could find in the kitchens, but now it was not fresh enough; the hawk was beginning to trust her, might perhaps have taken food from her gauntlet, if she had brought something she should actually have managed to swallow without sickness … a rat scurried in the straw, and she discovered that she was looking out from the bird’s eyes with real hunger at the little animal….

Dawn was near. In the garden outside she heard the chirp of a sleepy wraithbird, and from the cotes the half-wakened chirp of the caged pigeons who were sometimes roasted for special guests or for the sick. Even before the thought was clear in her mind she was moving, and at the back of her thoughts she heard herself say, the fowl-keeper will be very angry with me, I am not allowed to touch the pigeons without leave, but the hunger flooding through her mind, the bird-mind, would not be denied. Romilly flung away the piece of dead rabbithorn meat, flinging it on the midden; it would rot there, or some scavenger would find it, or one of the dogs who was less fastidious in feeding. There was a fluttering, flapping stir as she thrust her hand into the pigeon-cote and brought out one, flapping its wings and squawking; its fear filled her with something that was half pain and half excitement, adrenalin running through her body and cramping her legs and buttocks with familiar dread; but Romilly had been farm-bred and was not squeamish; fowl were for the pot in return for safe cotes and lifelong grain. She held the struggling bird for an instant of brief regret between her hands, then fought one-handed to hold it while she got the gauntlet on again. She thrust into the hawk-mind, without words, a swift sharp awareness of hunger and fresh food … then, with one decisive movement, wrung the pigeon’s neck and thrust the still-warm corpse toward Preciosa.

For an instant, one more time, it seemed that the bird was about to explode into a last frenzy of bating, and Romilly felt the sickness of failure … but this time the hawk bent her head and with a thrust so swift that Romilly could not follow it with her eyes, stabbed with the strong beak, so hard that Romilly staggered under the killing thrust. Blood spurted; the hawk pecked one more time and began to eat.

Romilly sobbed aloud through the flooding ecstasy of strength filling her as she felt the bird tear, swallow, tear again at the fresh meat. “Oh, you beauty,” she whispered, “You beauty, you precious, you wonder!”

When the hawk had fed … she could feel the dulling of hunger, and even her own thirst receded… she set it on the block again, and slipped a hood over Preciosa’s head. Now it would sleep, and wake remembering where its food came from. She must leave orders that food for this hawk must be very fresh; she would have birds or mice killed freshly for it until Preciosa could hunt for herself. It would not be long. It was an intelligent bird, or it would not have struggled so long; Romilly, still lightly in link with the bird, knew that now Preciosa would recognize her as the source of food, and that one day they would hunt together.

Her arm felt as if it would fall off; she slipped off the heavy gauntlet, and wiped her forehead with a sweaty arm. She could clearly see light outside the hawk-house; she had stood there all night. And as she took conscious note of the light - soon the household would be stirring - she saw her father and Davin standing in the doorway.

“Mistress Romilly! Have you been here all night?” Davin asked, shocked and concerned.

But her father’s temples were swollen with rage.

“You wretched girl, I ordered you back to the house! Do you think I am going to let you defy me like this? Come out of there and leave the hawk-“

“The hawk has fed,” said Romilly, “I saved her for you. Doesn’t that mean anything?” And then all her fury flooded through her again, and like a bating hawk, she exploded. “Beat me if you want to - if it’s more important to you that I should act like a lady and let a harmless bird die! If that is being a lady, I hope I shall never be one! I have the laran-” in her anger she used the word without thinking, “and I don’t think the gods make mistakes; it must mean that I am meant to use it! It isn’t my fault that I have the MacAran Gift when my brother doesn’t, but it was given to me so that now I didn’t have to stand by and let Preciosa die… .” and she stopped, swallowing back sobs that threatened to choke her voice entirely.

“She’s right, sir,” said old Davin slowly. “She’s not the first lady of MacAran to have the Gift, and, be the gods willing, she won’t be the last.”

The MacAran glared; but he stepped forward, took up a feather, and gently stroked the breast of the drowsing hawk. “A beautiful bird,” he said, at last “What did you call her? Preciosa? A good name, too. You have done well, daughter.” It was wrenched out of him, unwilling; then he scowled, and it was like the flood of fury flooding through the hawk.

“Get you gone from here, inside the house, and have a bath and fresh clothes - I will not have you filthy as a stable wench! Go and call your maid, and don’t let me see you beyond the house door again!” And as she slipped past him she could feel that blow he started to give her, then held back - he could not bring himself to strike anything, and she had saved the life of the hawk. But out of his rage of frustration he shouted after her at the top of his lungs, “You haven’t heard the last of this, damn you, Romilly!”

CHAPTER TWO

Romilly stared out the window, her head in her hands. The great red sun was angling downward from noon; two of the small moons stood, pale dayshine reflections, in the sky, and the distant line of the Kilghard Hills lured her mind out there in the sky, with the clouds and the birds flying. A page of finished sums, put aside, lay before her on the wooden desk, and a still-damp page of neatly copied maxims from the Book of Burdens; but she did not see them, nor did she hear the voice of her governess; Calinda was fussing at Mallina for her badly blotted pages.

This afternoon, when I have done flying Preciosa to the lure, I will have Windracer saddled, and carry Preciosa before me on ray saddle, hooded, to accustom her to the horse’s smell and motion. I cannot trust her yet to fly free, but it will not be long….

Across the room her brother Rael scuffled his feet noisily, and Calinda rebuked him with a silent shake of her head. Rael, Romilly thought, was dreadfully spoiled now - he had been so dangerously ill, and this was his first day back in the schoolroom. Silence fell over the children, except for the noisy scratching of Mallina’s pen, and the almost-noiseless click of Calinda’s knotting-pins; she was making a woolly undervest for Rael, and when it was finished, Romilly thought, not without malice, then she would only face the problem of getting Rael to wear it!

Her eyes glazed in a drowse of perfect boredom, Romilly stared out the window, until the quiet was interrupted by a noisy wail from Mallina.

“Curse this pen! It sheds blots like nuts in autumn! Now I have blotted another sheet!”

“Hush, Mallina,” said the governess severely. “Romilly, read to your sister the last of the maxims I set you to copy from the Book of Burdens.”

Sighing, recalled against her will to the schoolroom, Romilly read sullenly aloud. “A poor worker blames only the tool in his hand.”

“It is not the fault of the pen if you cannot write without blots,” Calinda reproved, and came to guide the pen in her pupil’s hand. “See, hold your hand so-“

“My fingers ache,” Mallina grumbled, “Why must I learn to write anyway, spoiling my eyes and making my hands hurt? None of the daughters of High Crags can write, or read either, and they are none the worse for it; they are already betrothed, and it is no loss to them!”

“You should think yourself lucky,” said the governess sternly, “Your father does not wish his daughters to grow up in ignorance, able only to sew and spin and embroider, without enough learning even to write ‘Apple and nut conserve’ on your jars at harvest time! When I was a girl, I had to fight for even so much learning as that! Your father is a man of sense, who knows that his daughters will need learning as much as do his sons! So you will sit there until you have filled another sheet without a single blot. Romilly, let me see your work. Yes, that is very neat. While I check your sums, will you hear your brother read from his book?”

Romilly rose with alacrity, to join Rael at his seat; anything was better than sitting motionless at her desk! Calinda bent to guide Mallina’s hand on her pen, and Rael leaned against Romilly’s shoulder; she gave the child a surreptitious hug, then dutifully pointed her finger at the first hand-lettered line of the primer. It was very old; she had been taught to read from this same book, and so, she thought, had Ruyven and Darren before her - the book had been made, and sewn, by her own grandmother when her father had first learned to read; and written in the front were the crudely sprawled letters that said Mikhail MacAran, his own book. The ink was beginning to fade a little, but it was still perfectly legible.

“The horse is in the stable,” Rael spelled out slowly. “The fowl is in the nest. The bird is in the air. The tree is in the wood. The boat is on the water. The nut is on the tree. The boy is in the-” he scowled at the word and guessed. “Barn?”

Romilly chuckled softly. “I am sure he wishes he were, as you do,” she whispered, “but that’s not right, Rael. Look, what is that first letter? Spell it out-“

“The boy is in the kitchen,” he read glumly. “The bread is in the pan?”

“Rael, you’re guessing again,” she said. “Look at the letters. You know better than that.”

“The bread is in the oven.”

“That’s right. Try the next page, now.”

“The cook bakes the bread. The farmer-” he hesitated, moving his lips, scowling at the page. “Gathers?”

“That’s right, go on.”

“The farmer gathers the nuts. The soldier rides the horse. The groom puts the saddle on the horse. Romy, when can I read something that makes sense?”