Hawkmistress!

  But why not? Romilly asked herself in a rage. I was born with the MacAran Gift; the laran which would give me mastery over hawk or horse or hound. Not laran, I will never admit that I have that evil curse of the Hastur-kinfolk; but the ancient Gift of the MacArans . . . I have a right to that, it is not laran, not really. . . . I may be a woman, but I am as much a MacAran as my brothers!

  Again she stepped toward the hawk, the meat extended on the gauntlet, but the hawk thrust up its head and the beady eyes stared coldly at Romilly; it moved away, with a little hop, as far away as the dimensions of the block allowed. She could sense that the jesses were no longer giving it pain. She murmured small sounds of reassurance, and her own hunger came surging up inside her. She should have brought some food in her pocket for herself, she had seen Davin, often enough, thrust cold meats and bread into his pouch so that he could munch on something while he waited out the long stay with a hawk. If only she could sneak away for a moment to the kitchen or pantry-and to the privy, too; her bladder ached with tension. Her father or brothers could have stepped away, turned aside for a moment, undone breeches and relieved themselves against the wall, but Romilly, though she contemplated it for a moment, would have had too many strings and fastenings to undo, even though she was wearing a pair of Ruyven's old breeches. But she sighed, staying where she was.

  If you can't wait out a hawk, Davin had said, you have no business around one. That was the only real disadvantage she could think of for a girl, around the stables, and this was the first time it had been any real disadvantage for her.

  You're hungry too, she said silently to the hawk, come on, here's food, just because I'm hungry doesn't mean you can't eat, you stubborn thing, you! But the hawk made no move to touch the food. It moved a little, and for a moment Romilly feared it would explode into another of those wild bursts of bating. But it stayed still, and after a moment she relaxed into the motionless quiet of her vigil.

  When my brothers were my age, it was taken for granted-a MacAran son should train his own hound, his own horse, his own hawk. Even Rael, he is only nine, but already Father insists he shall teach his dogs manners. When she had been younger-before Ruyven had left them, before Darren was sent to Nevarsin-her father had been proud to let Romilly work with horses and hounds.

  He used to say; Romilly's a MacAran, she has the Gift; there's no horse she can't ride, no dog she can't make friends with, the very bitches come and whelp in her lap. He was proud of me. He used to tell Ruyven and Darren that I would be a better MacAran than either of them, tell them to watch my way with a horse.

  But now-now it makes him angry.

  Since Ruyven had gone, Romilly had been sternly turned over to her stepmother, expected to stay indoors, to "behave like a lady." She was now almost fifteen; her younger sister Mallina had already begun dressing her hair with a woman's butterfly-clasp, Mallina was content to sit and learn embroidery stitches, to ride decorously in a lady's saddle, to play with little stupid lap-dogs instead of the sensible herding-dogs and working-dogs around the pastures and stables. Mallina had grown into a fool, and the dreadful thing was that their father preferred her as a fool and wished audibly that Romilly would emulate her.

  Never. I'd rather be dead than stay inside the house all the time and stitch like a lady. Mallina used to ride well, and now she's like Luciella, soft and flabby, she startles away when a horse moves its head near her, she couldn't ride for half an hour at a good gallop without falling off gasping like a fish in a tree, and now, like Luciella, she simpers and twitters, and the worst thing is, Father likes them that way!

  There was a little stir at the far end of the hawk-house, and one of the eyasses there screamed, the wild screaming sound of an untrained fledgling that scents food. The sound sent Romilly's hawk into a wild explosion of bating, and Romilly, one with the mad flapping of wings, the fierce hunger gripping like claws in her belly, knew that the hawkmaster's boy had come into the hawk-house to feed the other birds. He went from one to another, slowly, muttering to them, and Romilly knew it was near sunset; she had been there since mid-morning. He finished his work and raised his head to see her.

  "Mistress Romilly! What are you doing here, damisela?"

  At his voice the hawk bated again, and Romilly felt again the dreadful ache, as if her hands and arms would drop off into the straw. She struggled to keep herself free of frenzy, fear, anger, blood-lust-blood bursting forth, exploding into her mouth under tearing beak and talons ... and forced herself to the low tone that would not further terrify the frenzied bird.

  "I am manning this hawk. Go away, Ker, your work is finished and you will frighten her."

  "But I heard Davin say the hawk's to be released, and The MacAran's in a rage about it," Ker mumbled. "He didna' want to lose the verrin birds, and he's threatened Davin wi' being turned off, old man that he is, if he loses them-"

  "Well, Father's not going to lose this one, unless you frighten her out of her senses," Romilly said crisply, "Go away, Ker, before she bates again-" for she could feel the trembling build in the bird's body and mind, she felt if that flapping frenzy exploded again she would collapse with exhaustion, scream herself in fury and frustration. It made her voice sharp. "Go away!"

  Her own agitation communicated itself to the bird; it burst into the frenzied flapping of wings again, surges of hatred and terror coming and going, threatening to drown all her own awareness and identity. She fought it, silently, trying to cling to calm, to send out calm to the terrified bird. There, there, lovely one, no one shall harm you, see, here is food , . . and when she knew who or where she was again, the boy had gone.

  He had left the door open, and there was a draught of cold air from the evening mists; and soon the night's rain or snow would start to fall-damn the wretch! She stole for a few seconds on tiptoe away from the block to draw the door closed-it would avail her nothing to tame this hawk if all the birds died with the cold! Once away from the bird's side, she began to wonder what she was doing here and why. How was it that she thought that she, a young woman, could accomplish something at which even the skilled Davin failed two out of five times? She should have told the boy that the bird was at the end of exhaustion, have him come and take over ... she had seen what he could do with a wild, raging, exhausted stallion from the wild herds of the ravines and outer hills. An hour, maybe two, with her father at one end of a lunge line and the stallion at the other, and he would come to the bridle, lower his big head and rub it against The MacAran's chest.. . surely he could still save this bird, too. She was weary and cold and exhausted, she longed for the old days when she could climb into her father's lap and tell him all her troubles....

  Then the voice struck through to her, angry and cold-but there was tenderness in it too; the voice of Mikhail, lord of Falconsward, The MacAran.

  "Romilly!" he said, shocked but compassionate, "Daughter, what do you think you are doing? This is no task for a maiden, manning a verrin hawk! I gave orders to that wretch Davin and he lies slack in bed while one hawk is mishandled by a child, and the other, I doubt not, starved on its block...."

  Romilly could hardly speak through the tears threatening to surge up inside her and break her control.

  "The other hawk flies free to hatch more of her kind," she said, "I released her myself at dawn. And this one has not been mishandled, Father-"

  At the words and movement the hawk bated again, more fiercely than before, and Romilly gasped, struggling to keep her sense of self against the fury of thrashing wings, the hunger, the blood-lust, the frenzy to break free, fly free, dash itself to death against the dark enclosing beams .. . but it subsided, and Romilly, crooning to the bird, sensed another mind touching hers, sending out waves of calm . . . so that's how Father does it, she thought with a corner of her mind, brushed a dripping lock of hair out of her eyes and stepped toward the hawk again.

  Here is food, come and eat... nausea rushed through her stomach at the smell and sight of the dead meat on the gauntlet. Yes, hawks fee
d on fresh-caught food, they must be tamed by starvation into feeding on carrion....

  Abruptly the touching of minds, girl, man, hawk, broke, and Mikhail of MacAran said harshly, "Romilly, what am I to do with you, girl? You have no business here in the hawk-house; it is no work for a lady." His voice softened. "No doubt Davin put you up to this; and I'll deal with him. Leave the meat and go, Romilly. Sometimes a hawk will feed from an empty block when she's hungry enough, and if she does we can keep her; if not, Davin can release her tomorrow, or that boy of his can do something for once to earn his porridge! It's too late tonight for her to fly. She won't die, and if she does, it won't be the first hawk we've lost. Go in, Romilly, get a bath and go to your bed. Leave the hawks to the hawkmaster and his boy-that's why they're here, love, my little girl doesn't need to do this. Go in the house, Romi, child."

  She swallowed hard, feeling tears break through.

  "Father, please," she begged, "I'm sure I can tame her. Let me stay, I beg of you."

  "Zandru's hells," the MacAran swore, "If but one of your brothers had your strength and skill, girl! But I'll not have it said that my daughters must work in mews and stable! Get you inside, Romilly, and not another word from you!"

  His face was angry and implacable; the hawk bated again, at his anger, and Romilly felt it surging through her too, an explosion of fury, frustration, anger, terror. She dropped the gauntlet and ran, sobbing with rage, and behind her, her father strode out of the mews and locked it behind him.

  Romilly went to her room, where she emptied her aching bladder, ate a little bread and honey and drank a cup of milk from the tray one of the serving-women brought her; but her mind was still with the chained, suffering, starving hawk in the mews.

  It would not eat, and soon it would die. It had begun, just a little, to trust Romilly . . . surely, the last two or three times it had bated, before her father had disturbed them, it had quieted sooner, feeling her soothing touch. But now it would surely die.

  Romilly began to draw off her shoes. The MacAran was not to be disobeyed, certainly not by his daughter. Even Ruyven, six feet tall and almost a man, had never dared open disobedience until the final break. Romilly, Darren, Mallina-all of them obeyed his word and seldom dared even a look of defiance; only the youngest, spoilt little Rael, would sometimes tease and wheedle and coax in the face of his father's edicts.

  In the next room, past the glass doors separating their chambers, Mallina already slept in her cot, her pale-red hair and lacy nightgown pale against the pillow. Lady Calinda had long gone to her bed, and old Gwennis drowsed in a chair beside the sleeping Mallina; and although Romilly was not glad of her sister's illness, she was glad that the old nurse was busy about her sister; if she had seen Romilly in her current state - ruefully, Romilly surveyed her filthy and sweat-soaked clothes - there would have been an argument, a lecture, trouble.

  She was exhausted, and thought longingly of clean clothes, a bath, her own soft bed. She had surely done all she could to save the hawk. Perhaps she should abandon the effort. It might feed from the block; but once it had done that, though it would not die, it could never be tamed enough to feed from the hawker's hand or gauntlet, and must be released. Well, let it go then. And if, in its state of exhaustion and terror, it would not feed from the block, and died . . . well, hawks had died before this at Falconsward.

  But never one with whom I had gone so deeply into rapport. ...

  And once again, as if she were still standing, exhausted and tense, in the hawk-house, she felt that furious frenzy building up again . . . even safely tied to the block, the hawk in her terrified threshing could break her wings . . . never to fly again, to sit dumb and broken on a perch, or to die ... like me inside a house, wearing women's clothes and stitching at foolish embroideries. ...

  And then she knew she would not let it happen that way.

  Her father, she thought with detachment, would be very angry. This time he might even give her the beating he had threatened last time she disobeyed him. He had never, yet, laid a hand on her; her governess had spanked her a time or two when she was very small, but mostly she had been punished with confinement, with being forbidden to ride, with harsh words or loss of some promised treat or outing.

  This time he will surely beat me, she thought, and the unfairness surged within her; I will be beaten because I cannot resign myself to let the poor thing die or thrash itself to death in terror....

  Well, I shall be beaten then. No one ever died of a beating, I suppose. Romilly knew already that she was going to defy her father. She shrank from the thought of his rage, even more than from the imagined blows, but she knew she would never be able to face herself again if she sat quietly in her chamber and let the hawk die.

  She should have released them both yesterday at dawn, as Davin said. Perhaps she deserved a beating for that disobedience; but having begun, it would be too cruel to stop now. At least, Romilly thought, she could understand why she was being beaten; the hawk would not understand the reasons for the long ordeal till it was finished. Her father himself had always told her that a good animal handler never began anything, with hawk or hound or horse, that he could not finish; it was not fair to a dumb creature who knew nothing of reason.

  If, he had told them once, you break faith with a human being for some reason which seems good to you, you can at least explain to him or her. But if you break faith with a dumb creature, you have hurt that creature in a way which is unforgivable, because you can never make it understand. Never in her life had Romilly heard her father speak of faith in any religion, or speak of any God except in a curse; but that time, even as he spoke, she had sensed the depths of his belief and knew that he spoke from the very depths of his being. She was disobeying him, yes; but in a deeper sense she was doing what he had taught her to think right; and so, even if he should beat her for it, he would one day know that what she had done was both right and necessary.

  Romilly took another swallow of water - she could face hunger, if she must, but thirst was the real torture; Davin usually kept a water pail within reach when he was working a hawk, and Romilly had forgotten to set a pail and dipper within reach. Then she slipped quietly out of the room. With luck, the hawk would "break" before dawn - would feed from the gauntlet, and sleep. This interruption might lose the hawk, she knew - if it did not soon feed, it would die - but at least she would know that she, who had confined it there, had not been the one to break faith and abandon it to death.

  She had already left the chamber when she turned and went back for her flint-and-steel lighter; doubtless, her father or the hawkmaster's boy would have extinguished the lantern and she would have to relight it. Gwennis, in the room beyond the glass doors, stirred and yawned, and Romilly froze, but the nurse only bent to feel Mallina's forehead to see if her fever had broken, sighed, and settled back in her chair without a glance in Romilly's direction.

  On noiseless feet, she crept down the stairs.

  Even the dogs were sleeping. Two of the great grey-brown hounds called Rousers were asleep right across the doorway; they were not fierce dogs, and would not bite or attack even an intruder unless he offered to hurt them, but they were noisy creatures, and in their friendly, noisy barking, their function was to rouse the household against intruder or friend. But Romilly had known both dogs since they were whelped, had given them their first solid tidbits when they left off sucking their dam; she shoved them slightly away from the door, and the dogs, feeling a familiar and beloved hand, only snuffled a little in their sleep and let her pass.

  The light in the hawk-house had indeed been extinguished. As she stepped across the doorsill she thought of an old ballad her own mother had sung in her childhood, of how, at night, the birds talked among themselves when no human creature was near. She found she was walking tip-toe, half expecting to overhear what they might be saying. But the birds in the mews where the tame ones were kept were only hunched forms on the blocks, fast asleep, and she felt from them only a confused silen
ce.

  I wonder if they are telepathic among themselves, she wondered, if they are aware of one another's fear or pain? Even the leronis had not been able to tell her this. Now, she supposed, most of the birds, at least, were head-blind, without telepathic awareness or laran, or they would all be awake and restless now; for Romilly could still feel, beating up at her in waves of dread and fury, of hunger and rage, the emotions of the great verrin hawk.

  She lighted the lamp, with hands that shook. Father had never believed, then, that it would feed from the block; he certainly knew that no hawk would feed in darkness. How could he have done that? Even if he was angry with her, Romilly, he need not have deprived her hawk of its last chance at life.

  Now it was all to do again. She saw the dead meat lying on the block; unpecked, untouched. The hawk had not fed. The meat was beginning to smell rancid, and Romilly had to overcome her own revulsion as she handled the dead thing- ugh, if I were a hawk I wouldn't touch this carrion either.

  The hawk bated again in its frenzy and Romilly stepped closer, crooning, murmuring calm. And after a few seconds the thrashing wings quieted. Could it be that the hawk remembered her? Perhaps the interruption had not wholly wrecked her chances. She slid her hand into the gauntlet, cut a fresh strip of meat from the carcass and held it out to the bird, but again it seemed that the disgust of the dead smell was more sickening and overpowering than it had been.

  Was she feeling, then, what the hawk felt? For a moment, in a dizzy wave of sickness, Romilly met the great yellow-green eyes of the bird, and it seemed to her that she was badly balanced on some narrow space without any proper place to stand, unfamiliar leather chafing her ankles, and that some strange and hateful presence was there, trying to force her to swallow some revolting filthy mess, absolutely unfit to eat . . . for a split second Romilly was again a child too young to speak, tied into her high chair and her nurse was spooning some horrid nasty stuff down her throat and she could only struggle and scream....