"At the edge of the camp, there is a tent where the Swordswomen who follow Carolin are to sleep," she said. "Come with me, Romilly, and I will show you."
"I should sleep here with the birds," Romilly said with a shrug, "No hawkmaster goes out of earshot of his trained birds - I will roll myself in my cloak, I need no tent."
"But you cannot sleep among the men," said Jandria, "it is not even to be thought of."
"The king's hawkmaster is my own brother born," said Romilly, impatient now, "Are you saying that he is likely to be any damage to my virtue? Surely the presence of my older brother is protection enough!"
Jandria said with a touch of sharpness, "You know the rules for Swordswomen outside their hostels! We cannot tell everyone in the army that he is your brother, and if it becomes known that an oath-bound Swordswoman has slept alone in the tent with a man-"
"Their minds must be like the sewers of Thendara," said Romilly angrily. "I am to leave my birds because of the dirty minds of some soldiers I do not even know?"
"I am sorry, I did not make the rules and I cannot unmake them," said Jandria, "but you are sworn to obey them."
Fuming with wrath, Romilly went along with Jandria to supper and to bed in the tent allotted to the dozen women of the Sisterhood who were assigned to Carolin's army. She found Clea there, along with a strange woman from another hostel; the two were to train Carolin's men in close-quarters unarmed combat. The others were not well known to Romilly; they were among the women who had been quartered in the hostel but did not really belong to it. They were horse-handlers, quartermasters and supply clerks, and one, a short, sturdy, dark woman who spoke with the familiar mountain accent of the Hellers, was a blacksmith, with arms like whipcord, and great swelling muscles across back and shoulders that made her look almost like a man.
I cannot believe that one's virtue would be in danger if she slept naked among a hundred strange soldiers - she looks as if she could protect herself, as the Hali'imyn here say, against all the smiths in Zandru's forges!
And then she thought, resentfully, that she had been more free when she travelled in men's clothes through the Hellers with Orain and Carlo - Carolin - and their little band of exiles. She had worked along with the men, had walked alone in the city, drunk in taverns. Now her movements were restrained to what the rules of the Sisterhood thought suitable to avoid trouble or gossip. Even as a free Swordswoman, she was not free.
Still grumbling a little, she made ready for bed. It struck her again; even these free women, how petty their lives seemed! Jandria she loved, and she could speak freely with Jandria without stopping to censor her thoughts; but even Jandria was trammeled by the question of, what would the men in the army think, if the Swordswomen were not bound by their rules to be as proper and ladylike as any marriageable maiden in the Hellers? Clea, too, she respected and genuinely liked, but still she had few friends in the Sisterhood. Yet when I came among them, I thought I had found, at last, freedom to be myself and still let it be known that I was a woman, not the pretense of male disguise.
I do not want to be a man among men, and hide what I am. But I do not care much for the society of women - not even Swordswomen - either. Why can I never be contented, wherever I am?
Nevertheless, at last she was doing work for which she was fitted, and if any man offered her any insult she need not fear him as she had feared Rory. And the king himself had complimented her work with horses. Before she climbed into her bedroll, she reached out drowsily, as she had done every night of her year in the hostel, and sought for Sunstar's touch. Yes, he was there, and content King Carolin would be good to him, certainly, would appreciate his intelligence, his wondrous speed, his beauty. She reached out again, a little further, seeking for the sentry-birds on their perches. Yes, all was well with them, too, and if it was not, Ruyven at least slept near them as a proper hawkmaster should. Sighing, Romilly slept.
She had returned to the bird-handlers's tent the next morning, and with Ruyven's young apprentice, a boy of fourteen or so called Garen, they set about feeding the birds. As she was examining the bandaged spot on Temperance's leg, she sensed a stranger's presence, and in the next moment, confirming it, the birds set up the high shrilling sound they had to indicate uneasiness in the presence of a stranger.
It was a young officer, in a green-gold cape; his hair was a light strawberry-blonde, his face narrow and sensitive.
"You are the hawkmaster?"
"Do I look like it?" Romilly snapped, "Swordswoman Romilly, para servirte. Carolin's hawkmistress."
"Forgive me, mestra, I meant no insult. I am Ranald Ridenow, and I came to give orders from His Majesty; I am to lead the detachment which will move ahead of the main army this morning." His voice was crisp, but without arrogance, and he smiled a little nervously. "I was also to seek my kinswoman, Domna Maura Elhalyn." He had to raise his voice over the shrilling noise the sentry-birds were making.
"As you can see, the lady is not in my pocket," said Romilly tartly, "Nor, as far as I know, abed with my brother, but you can ask him. Now, Dom Ranald, if you would kindly move away from the birds, since they will keep up this god-forgotten noise until you are out of their sight..."
He did not move. "Your brother, mestra! Where will I find him?" He managed to sound anxious even while he was yelling to make himself heard over the noise of the nervous birds, and Romilly came and physically shoved him out of range. The sound slowly quieted to soft churring noises, then silence.
She said, "Now that we can hear ourselves think, I know nothing about your kinswoman, though my brother, the hawkmaster, spoke of a Lady Maura, now I come to think of it. I will go and - no, I need not, for here he is."
"Romy? I heard the birds - is someone bothering them?" Ruyven suddenly sighted the Ridenow officer.
"Su servo, Dom ... may I help you?"
"Lady Maura-"
"The lady sleeps in that tent yonder," said Ruyven, indicating a small pavilion nearby.
"Alone? Among the soldiers?" Ranald Ridenow's nostrils narrowed in distaste, and Ruyven smiled.
"Sir, the lady is better chaperoned by these birds than by a whole school of lady-companions and governesses," he said, "for you yourself have heard that any stranger coming near will rouse them, and if I hear them aroused, I would come to her aid, and could rouse the camp if there was danger."
Ranald Ridenow looked at the young man in the ascetic dark robe, and nodded with approval "Are you a cristoforo monk?"
"I have not that grace, sir. I am Ruyven MacAran, Fourth in Tramontana, Second circle," he said, and the young officer in the green and gold cloak acknowledged him with another nod.
"Then my cousin is safe in your hands, laranzu. Forgive my question. Do you know if the lady is yet awake?"
"I was about to awaken her, sir, as she asked, or better, send my sister to do so," said Ruyven. "Romy, will you tell Lady Maura that a kinsman seeks her?"
"It is not urgent, not at this moment," said the Ridenow lord, "But if you could awaken her, Carolin has sent orders that we are to ride as soon as possible. I have orders-"
"I will need no more than thirty minutes to be ready," said Ruyven, "Romy, you are ready for riding? Awaken the Lady Maura, and tell her."
His offhand assumption of authority nettled Romilly; so, for this arrogant lowland lordlet, she was to become errand-girl to some plains lady? "It's not that easy," she snapped, "the birds must be fed, and I'm nae servant to the lady; if ye' want her fetched and carried for, me lord, ye' can even do it yerself." She realized with horror that her strong mountain accent was back in her speech when her year in the plains had almost smoothed it away. Well, she was a mountain girl, let him make of it what he wanted. She was a swordswoman and no lowlander to bow and scrape before the Hali'imyn! Ruyven looked scandalized, but before he could speak a soft voice said;
"Well spoken, Swordswoman; I, even as you, am servant to Carolin and to his birds.." A young woman stood at the door of the small tent, covered from neck to a
nkle in a thick night-gown, her flame-red hair loose and curling halfway to her waist. "I did not have the pleasure of meeting you yesterday, Swordswoman; so you are our bird-handler?" She bowed slightly to Ranald. "I thank you for your concern, cousin, but I need nothing, unless Carolin has summoned me - no? Then, unless you wish it; lace up my gown for me as you used to do when you were nine years old, you may tell Carolin that we will be ready to ride within the hour, as soon as the birds are properly fed and tended. I will meet you in good time, kinsman." She nodded in dismissal, and as he turned away, she laughed gaily.
"So you are Romy?" she said, "Ruyven spoke to me of you on the way here, but we had no idea you would be our handler. Perhaps while we are on the road, you can get leave from your Swordswoman company to share my tent, so that we can both be near the birds at night? I am Maura Elhalyn, leronis, monitor in Tramontana to the Third Circle, and my mother was a Ridenow, so that I have some of the Serrais Gift... do you know that laran?"
Romilly said, "I do not. I know little of laran."
"Yet you must have it, if you can handle sentry-birds," Lady Maura said, "for they can be handled only with laran; they are almost impossible to work with otherwise. You have the old MacAran Gift, then? In which Tower were you trained, mestra? And who is your Keeper?"
Romilly shook her head silently. She said, "I have never been in a Tower, domna."
She looked surprised, but her manners were too good to show it. She said, "If you will excuse me for five minutes, I will go and put on my gown - I was only teasing my cousin Ranald, I can perfectly well dress myself - and I will do my part in tending the birds, as I should do; I had no intention of leaving all their care to you, Swordswoman."
She went quickly to the tent, her fingers already busy at the fastenings of her night-gown, and pushed it shut behind her. Romilly went to examine the bandages of Temperance's leg, seeing with approval that the sore spot was smooth and not at all festered. While Ruyven went to tend Diligence she said, with a frown, "Are we to have this lady to rule over us, then?"
Ruyven said, "The leronis knows better than that, Romilly. She is not familiar with sentry-birds, so she told me; yet you noted that they did not scream at her approach either. She helped to care for them on the trip from the mountains - surely you did not think I handled three birds alone?"
"Why not?" Romilly asked, "I did." Yet Maura's frank friendliness had disarmed her. "What is this Serrais laran of which she spoke?"
"I know very little about it," said Ruyven, "even in the Towers it is not common. The folk of Serrais were noted, in the days of the breeding-program among the Great Houses of the Hastur kinfolk, because they had bred for a laran which could communicate with those who are not human . . . with the trailfolk, perhaps, or the catmen, or ... others beyond them, summoned from other dimensions by their starstones. If they can do that, communicating with sentry-birds should be no such trouble. She said to me once that it was akin to the MacAran Gift, perhaps had been bred from it."
"You knew her well in the Tower?" Romilly asked with a trace of jealousy, but he shook his head.
"I am a cristoforo. And she is a pledged virgin. Only such a one would come among soldiers with no more fuss or awareness than that."
He might have said more, but Lady Maura came from her tent, dressed in a simple gown, her sleeves rolled back. Without a moment's hesitation she took the smelly basket of bird-food and took a handful, without any sign of distaste, holding it out to Prudence, crooning to the bird.
"There you are, pretty, there is your breakfast - speaking of which, Romilly, have you breakfasted? No, you have not, like a good handler, you see to your beasts first, do you not? We need not exercise them, they will have exercise enough and more today. Ruyven, if you will send an orderly to the mess, we should have breakfast brought to us here, if we are to ride as soon as all that." As she spoke, she was feeding the bird tidbits of carrion, smiling to it as if they were fragrant flowers, and Prudence churred with pleasure.
Well, she is not squeamish, she does not mind getting her hands dirty.
Ruyven picked up the thought and said in an undertone, "I told you so. In Tramontana she flies a verrin hawk and trained it herself. To the great dismay, I might add, of Lady Liriel Hastur, who is highest in rank there, and of her Keeper, Lord Doran; who both love hawking but would rather leave their training to the professional falconer."
"So she is not some soft-handed lady who wishes to be waited on hand and foot," Romilly said, grudgingly approving. Then she went to finish her work with Temperance, and when she had done, an orderly had brought food and small-beer from the mess, and they sat on the ground and breakfasted, Lady Maura, with no fuss, tucking her skirt under her and eating with her fingers as they did.
When they had finished, Ranald Ridenow appeared with half a dozen men, and the three of them loaded the sentry-birds on to blocks on their horses; the little detachment moved through the just-wakening camp, and took the road east across the desert lands toward the Plains of Valeron.
The Ridenow lord set a hard pace, though Romilly and Ruyven and the soldiers had no trouble keeping up with them. Lady Maura was riding on a lady's saddle, but she did not complain and managed to keep up. Although she did say to Romilly, at one stop to breathe the horses, "I wish I could wear breeches as you do, Swordswoman. But I have already scandalized my friends and my own Keeper, and I should probably not give them more cause for talk."
"Ruyven told me you trained a verrin hawk," Romilly said.
"So I did; how angry everyone was," Maura said, laughing, "but now, knowing you, Swordswoman, I know I am not the first nor yet the last woman to do so. And I would rather have her trained to my own hand than to a strange falconer's and then try to transfer her loyalty to me. Sometimes I have actually felt that I am flying with the bird; though perhaps it is my imagination."
"And perhaps not," Romilly said, "for I have had that experience." Suddenly, and with poignant grief, she remembered Preciosa. It had been more than a year that she had dwelt in that damned desert town, and Preciosa had no doubt gone back to the wilds to live, and forgotten her.
Yet, even if I see her no more in life, the moments of closeness we have known are part of me now as then, and there is no such thing as future or past. . . . For a moment her head swam, and she confused the moment of ecstasy with Preciosa's flight with that all-consuming moment in which she had ridden Sunstar, joined absolutely with the horse, she flew, she raced, she was one with sky and earth and stars....
"Swordswoman-?" Lady Maura was looking at her, troubled, and Romilly swiftly jerked her awareness back to the moment. She said the first thing that came into her head.
"My name is Romilly, and if we are to work together you need not say Swordswoman, so formally, every time . . ."
"Romilly," Maura said with a smile, "and I am Maura; in the Tower we do not think of rank separating friends, and if you are a friend to these birds I am your friend too."
Then the Towers have something in common with the Sisterhood, she thought, but then Ranald called the men together and they rose to ride again. She wondered why they were going so far ahead of the main army.
All day they rode, and at night made camp; the men and Ruyven slept under the stars, but there was a little tent for Lady Maura, and she insisted that Romilly must share it. They were tired from riding at a hard pace all day, but before they slept, Lady Maura asked quietly, "Why did you never go to a Tower for training, Romilly? Surely you have laran enough."
"If you know Ruyven, and how he had to come there," said Romilly, "then you will know already why I did not."
"Yet you left your home, and quarreled with your kin," said Maura, quietly insistent, "After that, I should think you would have come at once."
And so I had intended, Romilly thought. But I made my way on my own, and now have no need of the training the leronis told me I must have. I know more of my own laran than any stranger. She fell into a stubborn silence, and Lady Maura forbore to question her fu
rther.
Two days they rode, and they came out of the desert land and into green country; Romilly breathed a sigh of relief when they were able to see hills in the distance, and the evening breath of cool rain. It was high summer, but at this season frost lay on the ground at morning, and she was glad of her fur cloak at night. On the third day, as the road led over a high hill which commanded a view for many leagues around, Ranald Ridenow drew them to a halt.
"This will be the right place," he said, "Are you ready with the birds?"
Maura evidently knew what was wanted, for she nodded, and asked, "Who will you link with? Orain?"
"Carolin himself," said the Ridenow lord quietly. "Orain is not head-blind, but has not laran enough for this. And they are his troops."
Maura was blinking rapidly and looked as if she was about to cry. She said in an undertone, more to herself than Romilly, "I like this not at all, spying upon Rakhal's movements. I - I swore not to fight against him. But Lyondri has brought all this upon himself, for he too is oath-forsworn! After what he has done . . . kinsman or no . . ." and she broke off, pressing her lips tight together and saying, "Romy, will you fly first?"
"But I know not what to do," Romilly said.
"Yet you are hawkmistress . . ."
"I know the sentry-birds, habits, diet and health," said Romilly, "I have not been schooled to their use in warfare. I do not know-"
Maura looked startled, but quickly covered it, and Romilly was amazed; she is being polite to me? She said quietly, "You need only fly the bird and remain in rapport with her, seeing what she sees through her eyes. Ranald will make the link with you and so relay what you have seen to Carolin, so that he can spy out the land ahead and know what are Rakhal's movements in the land."
The name sentry-birds suddenly made sense to her, she had never really thought about it before. She took Prudence from the block, loosing with one hand the knots which secured her jesses, and lifted her free; watched her soar high into the sky. She arranged her body carefully in the saddle, leaving a part of her consciousness ... a very small part ... to make certain she did not fall from the saddle, and then....
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