“I value that more than most, perhaps, since I have been privileged to have but one such companion, one single sister of my soul. I had no siblings, and even were there girls of my age in the neighboring Dales, distance would have prevented much interaction between us while we were very young. As for our own people's offspring, my father did not believe it well for me to mix too freely with them, the more so once he had reconciled himself to the fact that there would be ho son to rule after him.
“I filled my days well, but still I longed for some true comrade as I grew older, someone to share the experiences of life and growth with me. It was as if the Amber Lady had wielded her Power for me when I came across the place to which we are going and discovered there a girl of my own age who loved Seakeep even as I did and who held interest in many of the things which gripped my heart and mind. She even shared my name.”
She smiled at the memory of their meeting but almost immediately grew grave again.
“She is not human, or entirely human, as we define ourselves, and even then, as a child, she knew enough to want to keep apart from our kind, a shyness she still retains.”
Una heard the quick indraw of his breath and nodded.
“There might have been very great peril for me in that meeting, but I was fortunate. I was also not an utter fool. As dearly as I yearned for this friendship, I went to both my mother and my nurse, who was a wisewoman of very great ability. They met my other Una and gave their approval to my continuing to visit with her, but they are the only ones I have ever brought to see her.”
Tarlach's eyes were dark with trouble.
“If this … Una is innocent of evil, why have you thought it necessary to conceal your association with her?”
“Partly because it was her wish, as I have mentioned, partly because of my own position. A Holdlord's daughter must always act and think with respect to her Dale, and I was heir as well. I could not afford to let myself be thought too strange or have it rumored that I had truck with things better left alone. That I have a strong gift for healing which extends well beyond the training every wellborn girl receives in that art as part of her education was welcomed since that is both a distinct benefit to all and is an accepted duty of my sex and rank, but no other ability or connection that so much as hinted of Power would be so regarded.”
“No speech with animalkind and no friendships among the Old Ones?”
“Either might be sufficient to have caused objection to my coming into my own.”
“Power in one form or another shows in many Dale families,” he reminded her. “It rarely appears to arouse much resentment.”
“Aye, but that comes as a gift—or curse—from of old. There are no such traditions in our house, no ancient melding with those not of our race or kind.”
“What is hallowed by time elsewhere would meet a very different reception here as a present-day innovation?”
“Given the nature of most people, aye, particularly now. The fact of a woman's holding rule to herself so long is in itself an oddity resented to some extent by many.”
His eyes, measured her.
“Yet you are willing to bring me to your friend?”
“I must. I cannot have you unsure of me if it comes to pass that you are forced to fight for me. You have to be certain, in your heart at least, that I stand with the Light and not the Dark.”
His head bowed.
“I would I could tell you I entertained no such suspicions against you.”
“You must have them, being what you are.”
“We do have reason, Lady,” he said softly.
“I do not even imagine otherwise, not after having come to know you a little,” she said with sadness.
“You do not ask those reasons?”
“I have no right to ask,” Una answered. “That is Falconer history and Falconer business alone.”
Tarlach was silent for several minutes.
“Before we came to the land where we established our Eyrie, we, the men of my race, were enslaved.” His eyes closed at the recalling of that ancient horror. “You cannot conceive the depth of that bondage forced on us by an adept of the Dark path. It was an Old One, not human though human enough in appearance, who held us in. such thrall, but for all her store of Power, she was unable to work her will on us directly. To accomplish that, she needed to use our females. Every woman was a vessel to serve as her tool, and those she utilized became even as she, dark and cruel, living only to exalt themselves and to grind and degrade …
“Eventually, at great cost, we broke free, and the surviving remnant fled north, borne in Sulcar ships, taking with them those of their women that were still alive but treating with them even as we do today.
“We had escaped, you see, but our victory was only partial. The Dark One was foiled. She was captive, but she was not dead. Her will lived and ever sought the woman who would shed for her the blood that would release her. Then she would be after us again.—Apparently, no other race could serve her particular needs.—We durst not let ourselves grow attached to or involved with any woman again, for it would be through such close association that her Power would close on us again should she indeed gain her release. Over the years, the centuries,” he shrugged, “need became virtue, I suppose. Contempt and hate took the place of any longing our forebears must have felt for a warmer, gentler life among our own. That ill feeling soon expanded to include all of your sex, as was probably inevitable considering the number of women who are wielders of Power in Estcarp, the great number of women who are potentially most perilous to us.”
He stopped speaking suddenly as a thought came to him with all the force of a diving falcon.
“Our females must be afraid of her return, too, more intensely than we. Maybe that is why they never made an effort to seek other lives in number, although Estcarp lay near enough for them to have gained refuge there.” He stared fixedly into the distance. “They have worse to dread than us. We were enslaved, but we remained still men, still ourselves. Those who served her purpose were not what they had been. Identifiable traits remained, aye, but in person, in soul, they were altered even as those who accepted the Kolder's jewels were changed and bound.”
“All your women were so chained?” she asked softly.
“No. Our history is clear on that. She attempted to seize only the ones she specifically required, and most of those she did call refused her, dying of that refusal, but always a few responded or were compelled to respond. That was her Power and our undoing, that no Falconer woman could deny her, or survive making good that denial, and each one so claimed could then chain the men associated with her.”
“So, once out of the trap, you determined to allow yourselves no associations at all?”
“Could you risk drawing that doom down on yourself a second time?” he countered.
“No. I could not, even at so great a price.” Una was still for a moment. “Perhaps your answer, for male and female alike, lies in taking partners from among other peoples. You indicate that your foe seemed to want or require those of your blood to work her will.” She eyed him pensively. “A species unable to change to some extent is doomed, for the time when some change is required will inevitably come. That holds true for people as well as beasts, I think.”
“Perhaps, and perhaps some of my kind might eventually be convinced to risk that course rather than face complete extinction, but, Lady, do you see the women of any other race coming to us? Our ways are viewed with a hearty dislike by your sex, and who would be foolish enough to imagine a yielding to need also guarantees an altering of heart? It would be too much to think that attitudes generations in the building could be banished in an instant because some of us accepted the necessity of such a move and broke with the rest of our fellows to make it.” Were banished by the rest … “It will not come to that.”
“No? Then I do fear for you. Your villages are in Estcarp now. Old history will not hold forever against the examples of another, richer life open for the vi
ewing but a short ride away. Add to that the losses your men must have suffered since the Kolder came, and your kind is in major, maybe mortal, trouble, whether you admit and face it or nay.”
She studied Storm Challenger for a moment as he sat regally upon the perch before the man.
“I should not be sorry to see some of your ways gone, but, Falconer, what you have achieved with these valiant birds must not be lost. That would be to the impoverishment of this whole world.”
Tarlach did not know whether to stare at the woman in awe or curse her for naming this fear of his as accurately as if she had drawn it directly from his mind. A chill ran through him at the sudden thought that she might have done precisely that.
He chose silence and a quick move from the sensitive subject before she should also divine his pain and his hopelessness of ever rising from the blow dealt to his race by the destruction of their base.
“What must be endured shall be,” he told her with a finality that allowed for no further discussion. “But what of yourself, Lady? I am … curious about your gift. You can apparently treat with the falcons much as we do. Can you do as much with all other animals?”
“Aye and no both. Each kind is different, and the thoughts of some touch more readily than others with mine. Your falcons are wonderful. I had never imagined to find mindways so complex and deep in any other being save a cat, and I usually do not draw very closely with birds.”
She hesitated.
“I meant no harm or insult to you in addressing them. Since they returned my initial courtesy greeting without reserve, I assumed I did no wrong.”
“You concealed from us your ability to talk to them,” he pointed out.
“From habit, as I do from everyone. It was no evil intent or deed that I was trying to hide.”
“I yield to that,” he said after a moment. “You can speak with all or most warm-bloods to some extent. What about things whose blood runs cold?”
“With some of the scaled, ones and those creatures dwelling in both water and on land, but I have no contact or almost none with insects or fish or other beings like to them.” She guessed the question he did not voice. “I have no such ability whatsoever with our own kind.”
The man had the control and the grace to mask his relief.
“You have formed no individual friendship such as we share with our winged brothers and sisters?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I have not been so blessed. Though all will speak with me, none have permitted me to come that close.—Your falcons actually do choose the warrior with whom they will ride, do they not?”
“Aye, but they are also taught from the egg to seek such a comrade among us. Other creatures do not expect that sort of relationship from humans. Try making the initial move yourself. Choose a being you respect and can love and reach out to.it.” He paused. “A.cat would be a sound choice. You indicate a preference for them, and they are regarded not only as acceptable companions for humans but ones for whom a great deal of fondness can be shown. With one of them, you need not reveal the true nature of your association.” Tarlach smiled. “They are small as well. That is a distinct advantage if you want to keep your comrade beside you in hall and bower.”
She laughed·
“A point well taken, Bird Warrior! I shall bear it in mind.” She sobered. “And the rest of what you have said. If such a friendship can truly be mine, rest assured that I shall do all in my power to win and be worthy of it.”
The silence between them was different now, companionable and ever ready to lift, as it frequently did under the wonder, of the country through which they were riding.
This was the high-mountained interior of her rugged hold, and Una, knowing the Falconer's delight in such terrain, set a course up a steep slope to a crest from which they could see for miles before them. Higher peaks behind hid the ocean from them, but the rocks and forests, the barer, sweeping expanses of heather, furze, and fern, the small, wild streams racing into impossibly clear lakes, the low places green with sweet grass or dark with bog growth were as grand in themselves and tore at heart and mind with all the sea's more familiar force.
Tarlach felt a twinge of guilt at the strength of the emotion rising within him, as if he were betraying the Eyrie and all his dead stronghold had meant.
“There are other mountains far higher,” he said sharply to counter it.
“Probably, and grander, too,” she agreed, “yet I think I should not love them as well if I were set in their midst now. These have been my friends since my infancy, and their beauty has become my standard for all that is fair.”
He forced himself to relax. Una had done him no wrong. She was not responsible for his weaknesses and should not have to bear with his temper if some difficulty of his own momentarily discomforted him.
“It is so with me as well,” he told her. “I was born amidst highlands, and I am drawn by them to this day.” The Falconer smiled softly and naturally. “Since coming here, though, the ocean has managed to put her spell on me as well, which she had never been able to do before.”
He glanced at her.
“Your Seakeep has magic, Lady Una. I grant you that.”
The woman looked out over her world.
“Aye,” she murmured, “magic that can set one's heart at peace.”
Una's attention was fixed upon her Dale, but it was at the Holdlady herself that .the mercenary captain was looking, and she glanced at him with some surprise when she sensed the direction of his gaze.
“Is anything amiss?”
He flushed a little, for he had not realized he had been studying her so intently.
“No, Lady. I was thinking about your relationship with your land,” he added hastily. “It is most uncommon.”
“Surely my feeling for that is not so strange? I should imagine most Holdlords share it.”
Tarlach shook his head.
“No,” he replied slowly, “that is not true, at least not among those with whom I have had contact. They see their domains with the eyes of rulers or farmers or herdsmen and, naturally, as soldiers, and all, of course, see in them their homes and their roots and cherish them for that reason, but your look just now was that of a lover.”
A sudden chill gust of wind caused him to glance skyward, Dark clouds seemed to be materializing out of the erstwhile vividly blue dome.
Tarlach sighed inwardly. Storms came on very quickly in these mountains, and by the look of it, there was no hope of returning to the tower before this one opened up. They would have to go to earth somewhere and wait it out, that or ride on and take a soaking.
He turned to his companion.
“Do we run or dive for cover?”
“Both. Our goal is near and will provide us with good shelter.”
Hardly had she finished speaking than she sent her mare over the crest and began racing downslope at a pace which would have frightened many a fairly daring man.
The warrior watched her a moment before following after her. Whatever her other talents or lack of them, Una of Seakeep was as skilled with a horse as anyone he had ever met.
They had not been traveling long at this furious pace before the woman's mare leaped, almost flew, over a high hedge and disappeared from his sight. In another moment, Tarlach had joined her.
His eyes widened a little. They were within a very small field enclosed on all sides by a tall fence of mixed growth, its lowest point being that at which they had made their entry.
The grass was high and had obviously never been seriously grazed, but it was the wall of vegetation surrounding them which held his attention. Holly, fuchsia, mountain ash, and rhododendron rose up together in one seemingly continuous mass, while heather, broom, and an almost bewildering variety of smaller hedge plants, many brilliantly flowered, filled every space the larger growth left free.
Roses were here, too, wild roses, and, along the wall facing them, tiny, deep pink climbers that had clambered to the very top of the trees
supporting them and were cascading in vivid sprays through their branches. In other places fragrant patches of honeysuckle provided a similarly dramatic display.
“This is incredible,” he said softly after a moment's silence. “But how came it to be? You cöuld never have done all this. Not even the roses could have been brought to this state in the full of your lifetime, and these trees …”
Una laughed.
“Of course I did not set them! I have done some pruning, right enough, but that is the extent of my interference with nature's handwork here.”
“She had some other help, then. Many of these plants may be feral now, but they are not so in themselves. Human hands, some hands, put them or their ancestors in this place.”
Several great drops of rain struck them, and Una caught his hand.
“Come, or we shall be drowned despite all our horses’ efforts!”
What about them?'’ he asked as he allowed himself to be drawn after her.
“They shall be fine. See, they are standing under cover already.”
She led her companion into the shelter of a great holly. The leaves and branches were thick around and above them and seemed to form a natural tunnel leading into the very heart of the hedge.
They followed this to its end at the base of the ancient tree. Here, the branches lifted so that there was room in plenty for the mercenary to stand erect. A low, rather long grey rock stretched before the trunk, its top slightly rounded and comfortably smooth.
The Daleswoman seated herself on this and smiled up at him.
“Welcome to the Bower.”
He sat beside her. It was an effort to conceal his nervousness, although objectively, he found nothing amiss with the place. What Una had already told him about her namesake was enough to set him on edge.
“When did you discover it?”
“As a child, shortly after I found the field. I was a dreadful little thing for burrowing in those long-gone days. Listen! You can hear the rain falling all around us, but scarcely a drop is coming through. It takes a proper deluge to penetrate this far.”