Hawkmistress!

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  "Curious goings-on for a Tower," said Romilly, whose picture of a Tower was still colored by what she had seen in Ruyven's disciplined and austere thoughts.

  He chuckled. "I spent a few years in a Tower - just enough to learn control of my laran. You must know how it is. When it began, when I was thirteen, I sometimes could hardly tell myself from a crtdmac in rut, or from going into heat with every bitch on the farm! It was very upsetting to my governess - I was still in the schoolroom then. Of course, she was a frozen-faced old viper - I won't insult my favorite dog by calling the lady a bitch! I am sure she often wished she could have had me gelded like the pack chervines, so she could go with my lessons!"

  Romilly giggled uneasily. He sensed her unease and said kindly, "I am sorry - I had forgotten you were a cristoforo and brought up to their ways. I had thought girls were different, but I had four sisters, and if I had ever entertained any feelings that girls were different and more delicate, I got over them soon enough - and I won't apologize, you are a woman from the mountains and I know from your work with the birds that you have been around animals enough to know what I mean."

  Romilly blushed, but the feeling was not unpleasant, and she remembered the high summer in her own hills near Falconsward, the world flowing with life, cattle and horses mating, so that she too had unashamedly shared the flow of nature all round her, even though, with her child's body, it had been an undifferentiated awareness, sensual but never personal. She knew he was teasing her, but she did not really care.

  Listen," said Ranald, "There are the singers." They were all in the uniform of common soldiers; four men, on tall and burly, another with shaggy, reddish-brown hair and an untrimmed patch of beard, one short and fat with a round, rosy face and a lopsided smile, and the fourth tall and gaunt, with a scrawny face and big red hands; but from his throat came the most exquisite tenor she had ever heard. They hummed a little together to find their pitch, then began to sing a popular drinking song which, Romilly knew was very old.

  Aldones bless the human elbow.

  May he bless it where it bends;

  If it bent too short, we'd go dry, I fear,

  If it bent too long, we'd be drinking in our ear..."

  They finished the catch by up-ending their tankards with a flourish to show them empty, and the soldiers roared approval and poured them all brimming mugfulls, which they drank and then began another song.

  Their songs were rowdy but not indelicate, mostly concerned with the pleasures of drink and women, and their voices were splendid; with the rest, Romilly cheered and sang along on the choruses till she was hoarse. It made her forget her own strange feelings, and she was grateful to Lord Ranald for suggesting this. At one point someone thrust a mug into her hand - it was the strong, fragrant lowlands beer, and she felt a little tipsy from it; her voice sounded good to herself - usually she had no singing voice to speak of - and she felt pleasantly dizzied and yet - not drunk enough to be off her guard. At last, it grew later and the men sought their beds, and the Windsong Brothers, full of wine and yet walking steadily, sang their last song to wild cheers and applause. Romilly had to lean on Ranald as she sought her tent.

  He drew her close to him in the bright moonlight. He whispered, "Romy - what is done under the four moons need not be remembered or regretted."

  Half-heartedly she shoved him away. "I am a Swordswoman. I do not want to disgrace my earring. You think me wanton, then, because I am a mountain girl? And Lady Maura shares my tent."

  "Maura will not leave Carolin this night," Ranald said seriously, "They cannot marry, till the Council had agreed, and will not while she is needed as his leronis, but they will have what they can; do you think she would blame you? Or do you think me selfish enough to make you pregnant, while we are in the middle of this war and your skills are as valuable as mine?" He tried to pull her into his arms again, but she shook her head, wordless, and he let her go.

  "I wish - but it would be no pleasure to me if it was none to you," he said, but he pressed a kiss into her palm. "Perhaps - never mind. Sleep well, then, Romilly." He bowed again, and left her; she felt empty and chill, and almost wished she had not sent him away....

  I do not know what I want. I do not think it is that.

  Even in her tent - and Ranald had been right, Lady Maura was not within, her blanketroll was tossed empty on the floor of the tent - she felt that the moonlight was flooding through her whole body. She crawled into her blankets, pulling off her clothes; usually she left on her undertunic at night, but tonight she felt so heated in the moonlight that she could hardly bear the touch of cloth on her feverish limbs. The music and the beer were still pounding in her head, but in the dark and silence, it seemed that she was outside in the moonlight, that she was somewhere pawing at the grass, a sweet, heady smell arising from the earth and somewhere a frantic restlessness everywhere within her.

  Sunstar, too, seemed flooded with the restlessness of the four moons and their light . . . now she was linked deep in rapport with the stallion . . . this was not new to her, she had sensed this before, in bygone summers, but never with the full strength of her awakened laran, her suddenly wakeful body . . . the scent of the grass, the flooding of life through her veins till she was all one great aching tension . . . sweet scents with a tang of what seemed to her shared and doubled senses a tang of musk and summer flowers and something she did not even recognize, so deeply was it part of herself, profoundly sexual, sweeping away barriers of thought and understanding . . . at one and the same time she was one with the great stallion in rut, and she was Romilly, frightened, fighting to break out of the rapport which she had, before this, shared so unthinking, it was too much for her now, she could not contain it, she was bursting with the pressure of the raw, animal sexuality under the stimulating light of the moons. . . . She felt her own body twisting and turning as she fought to escape, hardly knowing what it was she dreaded, but if it should happen she was terrified, she would not bear it she would be drawn in forever and never get back never to her own body what body she had no idea it was too much unendurable ... PASSION, TERROR, RUT ...NO, NO...

  Blue moonlight flooded the tent as the flap was drawn back . . . but she did not see it, she was beyond seeing, only the moonlight somehow reached her fighting body, tossing head. ...

  She was held gently in gentle arms; a voice was calling her name softly. Gentle hands were touching her.

  "Romilly, Romy . . . Romy, come back, come back . . . here, let me hold you like this, poor little one . . .come back to me, come back here . . ." and she saw Ranald's face, heard his voice softly calling her; she felt as if she was drowning in the flood of what she was not, came back gratefully to awareness of her own body, held close in Ranald's arms. His lips covered hers and she put up her arms and drew him down wildly to her, anything now, anything to keep her here safely within her own body, shut out the unendurable overload of emotion and physical sensation; Ranald's arms held her, Ranald caressed her, she was herself, she was Romilly again, and she hardly knew whether it was fear, or gratitude, or real desire, that locked her lips to his, flung her into his arms, thrusting away all the unwanted contact with the stallion, reminding her that she was human, human, she was real, and this, this was what she wanted. . . . She could read in his mind that he was startled and delighted, even if a little overcome, by her violent acceptance, and more startled yet to find her virgin, but it did not, in that shared violence of that moment, matter to either of them at all.

  "I knew," he whispered afterward, "I knew it would be too much for you. I do not think it was to me you were calling, but I was here, and I knew...."

  She kissed him thankfully, astonished and delighted. It had happened so naturally, it now seemed so sweet and right to her. A random thought, as she floated off into sleep, touched her mind at the edge of laughter.

  It would never have been like this with Dom Garris! I was perfectly right not to marry him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Carolin's army remained e
ncamped in the watercourse for three days. On the third day, Romilly went out to fly the sentry-birds again, Ranald at her side. She was quite aware that she must somehow shield her thoughts from Ruyven; he would not understand at all what had happened. He would see only that his young and innocent sister had shared her bed with a Ridenow lord, and to do her justice, Romilly was more worried that this might spoil the ability of the three of them to work together, than she was troubled by any sense of shame or regret for what she had done. Ruyven would be certain to think that Ranald had played the seducer, and it was not like that at all; he had simply pulled her free from something she had found herself quite unable to tolerate. Even now, Romilly did not know why she had found it unendurable.

  "Remind me not to look at you and smile like that," Ranald said, picking up her concern lest Ruyven should know, and she smiled back. She felt soothed and happy, able to look into the pasture by the watercourse where Sunstar and the horses were grazing and pick up her old, close communion with the stallion, with no sense of distaste or unease, no break in her warm sense of unity with Sunstar.

  Ranald made it so easy for me.

  Maura told me, about something else; horses have neither memory nor imagination. That is why I can pick up where I left off.

  Twice during these days she went and joined the Swordswomen's mess, sharing her meal with the women of the Sisterhood. Clea jeered a little at her.

  "So you are still one of us, in spite of hob-nobbing with the nobility and all?"

  "Be fair," said Jandria, "she has her work to do just as we do, and Lady Maura is as good a chaperon as a whole hostel full of our sisters. One of the handlers is her own brother, too. And if rumor tells true-" but she looked inquisitively at Romilly, "that same Lady Maura will one day be our queen - what do you know of that, Romy?"

  Romilly said, "I know no more than you. And King Carolin cannot marry until the Council gives him leave - a noblewoman of Lady Maura's station cannot marry without parental consent, and how much more if the king comes wooing? But certainly, if they have their will, there will be a marriage made."

  "And if there is not, the king will get him a bastard to make as much trouble in the kingdom as that gre'zuin Rakhal," said Tina scornfully. "Nice behavior for a leronis - I know from her waiting-woman that she spent two nights in the king's tent; what sort of chaperon is she for Romy, then?"

  Ranald had taught her to shield herself a little; so Romilly managed neither to blush nor turn away her eyes. "Between three ugly birds and my brother, do you truly think I need a chaperone, Tina? As for Maura, I have heard she is kept virgin for the Sight, and I cannot believe she would endanger that, even in a king's bed, while the war still rages; but I am not the keeper of her conscience; she is a grown woman and a leronis, and need account to no man."

  Clea made a contemptuous sound. "So she might sell her maidenhood for a crown, but not for love? Bravely done, leronis!" she made an applauding gesture. "See that you profit by her example, Romy!"

  She had thought that among these women, who were free to follow their own wills, she might have been able to speak of this thing that bad happened to her; even now, she felt, if she could speak with Jandria alone, she would like to tell her ... but Jandria was already rising to attend on Carolin's advisers, and there was no other, not even Clea, whom she had thought her friend, to whom she felt she could talk freely. Not after their scornful words. No, she would not speak of Ranald. They would not understand at all.

  She knew that she had not disgraced her earring, nor brought the Sisterhood into contempt. Her oath bound her to nothing more; and at least she had not sold herself to that elderly lecher Dom Garris in return for riches and the prospering of her father's horse-trade with Scathfell!

  So on the third day, when she went out to fly the birds, with Ruyven and Ranald, her spirits were high. The day was grey and drizzly, with little spats and slashes of gusty rain coming across the plains, and even when a rare break came in the clouds, the wind was high. The sentry-birds huddled on their perches, squalling with protest when they were put on their blocks; they did not like this weather, but they needed exercise after two days of full fed rest, and Carolin needed to know where Rakhal's armies moved in the countryside.

  "Somehow we must keep them low enough to spy through the mists," Ranald said, and Romilly protested, "They will not like that."

  "I am not concerned with their liking or the lack of it," Ranald said curtly, "We are not flying the birds for our own pleasure nor yet theirs - have you forgotten that, Romy?"

  She had, for a moment, so close she felt to the great birds. As she tossed Diligence free of her gloved hand, she went into rapport with the winged creature, flying on strong pinions, high over the ranges, then remembered, forced it into flying lower, hovering, guiding the bird eastward to where they had last seen Rakhal's armies.

  Even so, and with the bird's extra keen sight, she could not see very far; the drizzle clouded vision, so that she had to fly the bird low enough to see the ground, and the rain, slanting in from the northeast, dimmed sight further. This kind of flight bore no relationship to what she had known last time they flew, soaring in headlong flight, hovering high and letting the picture of the ground be relayed through Ranald to Carolin. Now it was slow, sullen effort, forcing the bird's will against the stubborn wish to turn tail and fly home to huddle on the perch till fine weather, then forcing it down against the instinct to fly high above the clouds.

  Sentry-birds; spy-birds. Like all of us I am a tool for Carolin's army to strike. How angry her father would be! Not only the runaway son he had disowned, but the daughter he had thought compensation for one runaway son and one worthless bookish one . . . how was Darren managing, she wondered, had he resigned himself to handling hawks and horses now?

  She had lost track of the bird, and a sharp sense of question from Ruyven recalled her to the flying in the rain, chilled and battered by the icy gusts of sleet which buffeted her ... or Diligence? She must risk flying lower, for they could see nothing through the thick curtain of wet They were linked three ways, and now she set herself to follow Temperance, flying ahead strongly toward a break in the clouds. Below them the land lay deserted, but low on the horizon she could see smoke which she knew to be Rakhal's army where it waited out the rain. Behind her she could actually feel the displacement in the air where Prudence flew at her tail. At the same time a part of her was Romilly, balanced carefully in her saddle, and a part of her still Carolin, waiting for intelligence through the minds of bird-handlers and birds.

  A speck against her sight, swiftly growing larger and larger ... of course, she should have known that they too would have had spy-birds out in this weather! She - or was it Diligence? - shifted course ever so slightly, hoping to miss unseen the oncoming bird. Was it Rakhal himself, or one of his advisers, behind the hovering wings of that bird, poised to intercept. ...

  Would it come to a fight? She could not hope to control the bird if raw instinct took over; there was not much difficulty in controlling the mind of the bird if all was well, but in danger instinct would override the shared consciousness. Temperance was still flying well ahead, and through the link with Ruyven's mind she too could see the outskirts of the enemy camp, and a wagon about which something black and sinister was hovering . . . she was not sure she saw it with her eyes; was she perceiving something through Ruyven's mind or the bird's? Birds - Maura's phrase, echoing in her mind, neither memory nor imagination - could only see with their physical sight, and could not interpret what they saw unless it concerned them directly, as food or threat.

  It was taking all of her strength to hold Diligence on course. The wagon was there, and a curious, acrid smell which seemed to sting her, whether her own nose or the bird's she was not sure; but the blackness was something she must be perceiving through one of the minds linked in rapport with the sentry-birds spying. She was vaguely curious, but so sunk in the bird's consciousness that she was content to leave it to Carolin to interpret.

>   Something was in the air now . , . danger, danger ... as if a red-hot wire had seared her brain, she swerved, shrieking and then there was a slicing pain in her heart and Romilly came with a cry out of the rapport, fighting to hold to it... pain . . . fear . . somewhere, she knew, Diligence was falling like a stone, dizzy, consciousness fading out, dying. . . . Romilly, seated on her horse, physically clutched at her breast as if the arrow which had slain the sentry-bird had penetrated her body as well. The pain was nightmarish, terrifying, and she stared wildly around her in anguished disorientation. Then she knew what must have happened.

  Diligence! She had flown her bird deliberately into the danger of those arrows, over-riding the bird's own sense of caution, its instinct to fly high and away from danger. Guilt and grief fought within her for dominance.

  Someone very far away seemed to be calling her name . . . she came up out of grey fog to see Ranald looking at her, with deep trouble in his face. She said, strangled, "Prudence .. Temperance ... get them back ..."

  He drew a long breath. "They are away from the soldiers; I sent them high up, out of range ... I am sorry, Romy; you loved her."

  "And she loved life!" she flung at him wildly, "And died because of you and Carolin - ah, I hate you all, all you men and kings and your damned wars, none of them are worth a feather in her wing-tip-" and she dropped her head in her hands and broke into passionate crying.

  Ruyven's head was still flung back, his face glazed with intent effort; he sat unmoving until a dark form dropped from the clouds, sank down to his gloved hand.

  'Temperance," Romilly whispered, with relief, "but where is Prudence-"

  As if in answer from the clouds came a shrilling cry, answered by another; two dark forms burst through the layers of mist and rain, locked together, falling joined in battle; feathers fell, and the screaming and shrilling died. A small dark limp body dropped at their horses' feet; another sped away, screaming in triumph.