Hawkmaiden

by Terry Mancour

  They went on to discuss just how good he was at digging holes, and the boy assured her he was both proficient and enthusiastic at the task. Dara had designs on crafting a kind of awning over the doorway to the cot, and explained to Kalen where she needed the holes dug, and how deep.

  “Then we’ll get to the floor. It’s woefully uneven,” she pointed out, “and it’s dry as dust. It is dust. I think if I add some clay to it, sprinkle it with water and pack it down, I can level it out a bit with a log and make it more sturdy. That way it won’t get this rut in the center, where Widow Alma must have walked back and forth.”

  “And ferns,” Kalen reminded, “you need new ferns!”

  “I’ve got them, already,” she said, glancing upward where the bundle of dried leaves was safely out of the damp. “I was going to start laying them, when I noticed the floor . . . and noticed the wet spot in front of the door. So an awning and a resurfaced floor, and then the roof, and this cot will be ready to live in again before you know it!”

  Kalen was enthusiastic about the work, and even insisted on shaking Dara’s hand like his father did to seal a bargain. The little boy marched back down the road an hour before twilight, proud of his rising station in the world.

  Dara liked the boy. He was smart, and clever, and his eyes saw a lot. He was also inquisitive – a trait Dara had herself in abundance.

  But as the light outdoors faded and Dara was forced to go inside and light a taper, she realized that she really couldn’t use Kalen’s sudden appearance as an excuse to wait on going up the mountain. As much of a risk to her secrecy as he might be, she simply couldn’t wait any longer. She’d climbed that tall spruce partially because she wanted to see as much of the horizon as she could . . . and the sky portended clear weather in the morning, if the lore she remembered was correct.

  She would not have many more days before the eyases left the nest, and were lost to the wild forever. If she wanted one, she would have to go soon.

  Not soon, she realized, as she counted off the items she needed – and acquired. She had to go tomorrow. Before first light. There was no telling how long she could keep up her various ruses and avoid interception by someone in authority who figured out she was “up to something”. Once she had the bird, no one could stop her, she reasoned.

  But until she had the bird in her hand, she was just a little girl dreaming and playing, not a novice apprentice falconer. She had to commit.

  I’m going to do it, she realized, as she prepared to go to sleep early on a bed of ferns and blankets. I’m really going to go after that beautiful bird.

  Or die trying, another part of her whispered, forebodingly, before she fell asleep.

  Chapter Four

  Rundeval

  There was a thick mist in the air when Dara woke in the early hours of the morning. It was still dark, just before dawn. The night was still, as the nocturnal creatures began to rest and the earliest birds of morning started their first songs. She had to stir the fire to life enough to light a taper, then fed the flame just enough to boil water for tea.

  She stared into the fire while she sleepily watched the pot. For no real reason, she found herself praying.

  Flame, guide my hands and feet. May your sacred light see me safely to the top of the mountain and back again, oh Living Flame, my quest complete. To be thorough – or just desperate – she added the Vale folk’s rendition of the prayer, personified the way the pure Narasi liked to do:

  By the flame that burneth bright,

  My life in trust to thee tonight;

  Lady Briga, light my way,

  Inspire my thoughts and deeds this day!

  Dara wasn’t ordinarily a particularly religious girl – the Westwoodmens’ rites were simple and sublime and didn’t require temples or shrines other than the Flame – but when she considered that this might be her last day alive, she didn’t see the harm in invoking anthropomorphic version of her people’s patroness. The Flame was merely an incarnation of Briga . . . or was Briga an incarnation of the Flame?

  She mused on that metaphysical question over breakfast. When she had washed her face and drank a cup of tea, she assembled her gear into the bag she had brought along for the purpose.

  Including the carefully-coiled ropes she packed a bit of lunch, the three long iron nails she’d taken from storage, the hammer, her gloves, a few small bandages (just in case), a water bottle, a knife, and the basket. She fastened a long loop to the basket so it could either dangle at her side or be shortened and allowed to hang around her neck, next to her chest.

  She set out just as the sky began to pale in the east, her feet taking her to the far side of the Westwood by a circuitous route she knew would not allow her to encounter anyone, unless it was a ranger returning from walking the frontiers, as was their duty. In that case, she had reasoned, she could claim that she was searching for mushrooms in the early morn.

  Although why a girl needed over a hundred feet of stout rope to harvest mushrooms, she hadn’t quite worked out yet.

  It took an hour for her to make it to the path that led up the south side of the mountain. Dara took a deep breath and steeled herself for the ascent when she came to the boulder that marked the end of the regular path and the beginning of the mountain trail. The first part of the journey was only arduous in that it was long, and every step took her a little higher in elevation. The trail wound all over the western and southern slope of the mountain until, at the far eastern side of the southern slope, the path grew much narrower, and much rockier.

  From then on, Dara was sweating. She was a strong girl well used to hard work, but the path was harder, more a staircase of rock with occasional patches of dirt than a proper trail.

  At a small clearing about half way up the eastern slope Dara rested and drank some water. The climb was a lot harder than she’d anticipated, she realized. She felt like she’d been hiking all day, yet the sun had yet to peek over the far eastern ridge. Dara gave herself until the bright orb made an appearance, which also illuminated the trail helpfully. But she also realized she needed more leverage if she was going to make it up the increasingly steep trail.

  She found a hickory sapling not too far off the trail, and she used her knife to score it enough to break it off. It was tough work, but the difficulty she had in breaking the sapling loose gave testament to its strength, and Dara needed that strength. Once she’d trimmed off the branches and topped the sapling off, the result was a pole just over an inch thick and five feet long. A perfect walking stick, for a girl her size.

  Dara continued up the trail. It was decidedly harder, after that lovely little clearing. And much steeper. The trail went from being less stair-like and more ladder-like, as she had to employ her hands more to pull herself up.

  A brief respite offered by a hundred-yard long game trail gave Dara some hope that the worst was behind her . . . until she came to the far western side of the mountain. She realized she was already three-quarters of the way up, and she could even see the peak, from a few vantage points. But when she reached the end of the game trail, she had to ascend a much, much steeper grade. Nearly straight up. It was a daunting task, but Dara rested a bit and then tore into it. She had come this far up the mountain, she reasoned. She didn’t see the point of coming back down without a bird.

  It was light enough to see clearly, now, and the mountaintop swarmed with life around her as she climbed. Every tree she grasped for leverage seemed to have a bird or three in it, or a swarm of late autumn tid-gnats, and once she disturbed a sleepy old racquiel who was not happy with her trespassing through his neighborhood.

  And all around her the mountain was alive with birds. This time of year, when the leaves were changing, there were armies of the things around the Westwood. And first thing in the morning, they were all hungry for the night insects that had been lazy getting home.

  A perfect time for a mother Raptor to feed, Dara reasoned.

  Redoubling her efforts, she persisted at the climb until
she came to the bottom of the final cliff face. A small ledge gave her a little room – a very little room – to rest herself for a few moments on one of the last few tufts of grass and shrubbery before the mountain turned to dark rock.

  Dara eyed the cliff nervously as she drank a few more swallows from her bottle. It was almost gone, and she was barely at the top. It didn’t look so bad, she reasoned. It was a bit smooth, but the grade wasn’t that impossible, she decided. In fact, the peak was less than fifty feet away, from where she sat.

  The ropes that had been such a burden on her shoulders the entire way up she piled into a long coil, before fastening one end to her body, tying a kind of harness around her waist and shoulders. Donning her gloves and leaving her mantle behind, she began the last ascent. She began searching for a good place to anchor the rope to, and almost at once she learned why the last fifty feet to the peak were so bad.

  There were scant handholds, and the face of the rock was smooth and hard. She hadn’t climbed ten feet before she realized that there simply weren’t any more handholds, nor anything she could secure her rope to. Not where she could reach them. She tried to hammer a nail into a crack in the hard basalt, but the crack was too thin and the rock was too hard. Nor could she swing the hammer at an angle that might drive it in. She bent the iron of the precious nail in the attempt, and nearly lost it.

  She was frustrated when ten minutes of maneuvering and repositioning herself yielded no better result; she was stuck. Had she been a foot taller, or if she could get even one toe purchased on the rock, she could lift herself up to the next round of handholds above. But try as she might, there was just no way forward. She studied the matter long and hard before she gave up. She could see the handhold, tantalizingly close, but there was no way to get there.

  That’s when she spied a scraggly shrub, a type she wasn’t familiar with, lodged in a crack far above her head, less than twelve feet from the summit. If only she could get a line up there and get solid purchase, she could use it as leverage and nearly walk up the rest of the cliff.

  But that tiny tree was at least twenty feet above her. She couldn’t throw the heavy rope – or even the lighter coil she’d brought – that far. Not even if it was weighted.

  Her little arbalest, on the other hand, could throw a bolt thrice that distance, she realized.

  Dara started envisioning the plan, using her tiny crossbow to propel a bolt over the tree. If she aimed at a rock above it, she figured, and hit it at the right angle then deflecting the bolt back down on the other side of the tree shouldn’t be too difficult.

  Of course, how to attach the rope to the bolt was beyond her.

  Frustrated, irritated, but unbeaten, Dara descended the mountain after reaching her limits, leaving the rope and much of her other gear up there. She wasn’t finished, not by any stretch. She merely needed to regroup and approach the problem again, better prepared.

  It took just over half the time coming down the mountain as it had climbing it, so Dara was well on her way back to the nutwood by lunchtime. While discouraged and disappointed, she had a plan, and she had not died in the attempt.

  Yet.

  She stopped by Westwood Hall on her way. Even though she had brought her lunch, someone was baking something wonderful smelling, and Dara’s nose led her inside. She managed to cajole two meat pies from her old Aunt Lini, who baked for the Hall.

  While she was there, her sister Lista came in. Dara froze. She very much wanted to avoid her big sister. She delighted in getting her in trouble in some misguided idea that Dara was devious, just as their brother Kobb delighted in teasing them both.

  Lista was nearly old enough to be wed, now, and she had taken her father’s restrictions on market day visits with little grace. Traditionally, if a maid did not fancy any of the Westwood lads she had grown up with, the place to find a husband was Sevendor Village market – or even farther afield, if there was no decent man who showed interest at market.

  But with market days winding to a close for the winter, her sister was going mad with anxiety over the lack of social opportunities. A pretty Westwood girl had attracted the attention of prosperous young farmers at market before. Lista was determined to put herself in a position to be so noticed.

  Yet Dara understood the danger of allowing her to roam into the Vale, right now, even if she didn’t. The Castle men were always leering at the village girls, no matter how plain they were, and a fair one would attract their attention like crumbs did geese. And Lista was more beautiful than their older sister, sure to attract the leers of Sir Erantal’s lackeys. While they usually didn’t bother the Westwood women much, on account of the manor’s militancy, that didn’t stop the occasional harassment.

  Worse, if nasty old Sir Erantal spied her and took a fancy to her, there was little the Westwood could do about it, save rise in rebellion. And rise they would, she knew; if the old knight made unreasonable demands for tribute and sported with a Westwoodwoman – the Master of the Wood’s daughter, no less – then the honor of the Hall would demand an uprising. There would be bloodshed, all over her sister’s desire to kiss boys.

  Lista was in a fine fit today, Dara saw. A pretty decorative belt she’d been given by their mother’s late sister on her flowering wasn’t fitting anymore, thanks to Lista’s widening hips. It was made of copper, a kind of pretty chain design of interlinked pieces that fit around her sister’s waist.

  Or, at least, they used to. And that was the problem.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to wear this now!” Lista complained to Aunt Lini, mostly because she couldn’t go anywhere while taking pies out of the oven. Alina wouldn’t have done anything but scold her and send her away, but their oldest aunt was more sympathetic. Lista stalked behind her while she worked, the older woman giving only the most meager responses to the teenager’s ranting. “It fit fine when I tried it on two moons ago, but when I put it on this morning the catch wouldn’t fit!”

  “Oh, by the Flame, that is a pickle,” Lini clucked. “Your mother intended that for you, Flame keep her warm, and it does so suit your figure.”

  “It did,”Lista emphasized, shaking the tingling belt under her aunt’s nose. “It did look incredible! Now it won’t fit! What can I do? Wear it as a necklace?” she snorted.

  Even Dara, whose sense of femininity was dulled, according to her sisters and aunts, could tell that the belt would work poorly as such an adornment. But she noticed something else when her sister shook it.

  Bells. Tiny silver bells, each no bigger than her pinkie fingernail. Dozens of them.

  “I can fix it,” she said, before her sister could begin her next wave of ranting.

  “What?” she snapped. “Where did you come from, Little Bird? And what happened to you? Flame and smoke, you look like you fell into a pit!”

  “I’ve been working on a cot in the nutwood,” Dara reminded her. “The opportunities for a cleansing bath have been scant,” she said, sarcastically. “It’s hard work.”

  “So?”

  “So . . . I can fix your belt. Make it fit your . . . larger hips,” she said, trying not to be insulting.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my hips!” her sister screeched.

  “I didn’t say there was,” Dara replied, evenly, sipping a cup of hydromel she’d grabbed when her aunt wasn’t looking. “Clearly, the belt is at fault. I’m offering to fix it for you.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Lista demanded, arrogantly.

  “I’m good with that sort of thing,” Dara reminded her, calmly suppressing the urge to yank her sister’s dark hair so hard her head would snap back. “That’s why I’m fixing the cot. But if I string a leather thong on the back side of the belt, then the pretty part will be all that anyone sees. Plenty of belts like that have leather closures.”

  “So I’ll look like I tied my belt on with string!” she snorted, angrily.

  “No, I’ll put a bead or something on the end, make it real feminine,” promised Dara. “F
lame, I’ll even shine it up for you.”

  Lista eyed Dara suspiciously. “Why? Why would you help me?”

  Dara snorted back. “To get you to shut up about your ‘broken’ belt and your . . . hips.”

  Dara watched in fascination as her sister decided whether she wanted Dara’s help more than she wanted to be mad at her. Finally Lista thrust the belt at her. “Fine! See what you can do with it! And at least I have hips!” she said, demonstrating the fact with emphasis as she left the kitchen.

  “That girl,” her aunt said, shaking her head. “If she isn’t wed soon, she’s going to tear the whole hall down around us.”

  “Promise me,” Dara asked her kind Aunt Lini, when she was certain her sister was safely out of earshot, “that if I ever get that bad, you’ll hit me in the head when I’m not looking? And throw my body in the chasm?”

  “I’ll remind you that you gave me permission of that, don’t think I won’t!” her old aunt chuckled. “She’s too much like your mother, that one: stubborn and opinionated, and dead sure she’s always right. You’re natured more like me, and your father, for that matter,” Lini observed. “You have a good head between your ears, girl, and the Flame’s own touch on top of it,” she said, mussing her already messy red hair. “But you can’t remain a girl forever. All too soon your life will revolve around your . . . hips,” she snorted, looking down at her own. They were broad and full, testimony to the five stout cousins of Dara’s that she’d birthed, now all grown with children of their own.

  “Remember, do it when I’m not looking,” reminded Dara, as she left with a kiss and the belt and pies in hand. “It will be more compassionate if I don’t see it coming.”