“Get out there, now, and try to behave like a man for once! Take this hawk – no, not like that, damnation take you, you have hands like great hams for all your writing and scribbling! Take the hawk out there and exercise her on a lure, and if I see you ducking away from it like that, I swear I’ll have you beaten and sent to bed with bread and water as if you were Rael’s age!”
Alderic’s face was dead white and his jaw set, but he bent his eyes on the backs of his hands and did not speak. Romilly, fighting for calm- there was no sense in upsetting Preciosa again – threaded meat on the lure again. Without words, Alderic reached for the line and began to swing it high, and Romilly watched Preciosa wing off, both of them frying to ignore Darren, his face red and swollen, clumsily trying to unhood a strange hawk at the far end of the stableyard. It was all they could do for Darren now.
She thought; at least, he is trying. Perhaps that is braver than what I did, defying Father; I had the Gift, I was only doing what is natural for me, and Darren, obeying, is going against everything which is natural to him. . . . and her throat swelled as if she would cry, but she fought the tears back. It would not help Darren. Nothing would help him except trying to conquer his own nervousness. And, somewhere inside her, she could not help feeling a tiny sting of contempt . . . how could he bungle anything which was so easy and simple?
CHAPTER FOUR
Romilly did not see the first of the guests arrive for the Midsummer-feast; the day had dawned clear and brilliant, the red sun rising over just a hint of cloud at the horizon. For three days there had been neither snow nor rain, and everywhere in the courtyard flowers were bursting into bloom. She sat up in her bed, drawing a breath of excitement; today she was to fly Preciosa free for the very first time.
This was the final excruciating test for hawk and trainer. All too often, when first freed, the hawk would rise into the sky, wing away into the violet clouds and never return. She faced that knowledge; she could not bear to lose Preciosa now, and it was all the more likely with a haggard who had hunted and fed for herself in the wild.
But Preciosa would return, Romilly was confident of that. She flung off her nightgown and dressed for the hunt; her stepmother had had her new green-velvet habit laid enticingly ready, but she put on an old tunic and shirt, and a pair of Darren’s old breeches. If her father was angry, then he must be angry as he would; she would not spoil Preciosa’s first hunt by worrying about whether or not she spotted her new velvet clothing.
As she slipped out into the corridor she stumbled over a basket set in her door; the traditional Midsummer-gift from the men of the family to mothers, sisters, daughters. Her father was always generous; she set the basket inside, rummaged through it for a handy apple and a few of the sweets that always appeared there too, and thrust them into her pockets – just what she wanted for hunting, and after a moment she pocketed a few more for Darren and Alderic. There was a second basket there too; Darren’s? And a tiny one clumsily pasted of paper strips, which she had seen Rael trying to hide in the schoolroom; she smiled indulgently, for it was filled with a handful of nuts which she knew he had saved from his own desserts. What a darling he was, her little brother! For a moment she was tempted to ask him, too, on this special ride, but after a minute of reflection she sighed and decided not to risk her stepmother’s anger. She would arrange some special treat for him later.
She went silently down the hallway and joined Darren and Alderic, who were waiting at the doorway, having let the dogs outside – it was, after all, well after daylight. The three young people went toward the stable.