Shaken and sick, she stepped back, letting the dead carcass fall to the floor. Was that how the hawk regarded her? She should have let the hawk fly, she could never live with such hatred . . . do all the animals we master hate us like that? Why, then, a trainer of horses and hounds is more evil than a molester of children . . . and he who takes a hawk from the sky, to chain it on a block, he is no better than a rapist, a violator of women. . . . But the bating, struggling hawk was off her perch this time, and Romilly moved forward, patiently adjusting the block so that the hawk could find a secure place to stand, until it found its feet and balanced securely again.
Then she stood silent, trying not to trouble the hawk even with breath, while the battle went on inside her mind. Part of her fought with the chained hawk, terror and rage contending for place, but Romilly, in her own struggle for interior calm, filled her mind with the memory of the last time she had hunted with her own favorite falcon . . . soaring upward with it, striking, and something inside her remembered clearly that sudden feeling, which in herself would have been pride and pleasure, as the hawk fed from her glove . . . and she knew it would have been stronger still if she herself had trained the hawk; that pleasure in accomplishment, that sense of sudden union with the bird, would have been deeper still.
And she had shared the delight, inarticulate, impossible to frame in words, but a joy deep and swelling, when her favorite bitch brought her puppies to her; the animal’s pleasure at the caress was something like the love she felt for her own father, her joy and pride at his rare praise. And even though she had felt the real pain and fear when a young horse struggled against bridle and saddle, she had shared in the communion and trust between horse and rider, and known it for real love, too; so that she loved to ride breakneck, knowing she could come to no harm while the horse carried her, and she let the horse go at her own pace and pleasure, sharing the delight in the running….
No, she thought, it is not a violation to teach or train an animal, no more than when nurse taught me to eat porridge, even though I thought it nasty at first and wanted nothing but milk; because if she had fed me upon milk and babies’ pap after my teeth were grown, I would have been sickly and weak, and needed solid food to grow strong. I had to learn even to eat what was good for me, and to wear clothes even though, no doubt, I would sooner, then, have been wrapped in my blankets like a swaddled baby! And later I had to learn to cut my meat with knife and fork instead of gnawing at it with fingers and teeth as an animal would do. And now I am glad to know all these things.
When the hawk bated again, Romilly did not withdraw from the fear and terror, but let herself share it, whispering half aloud, “Trust me, lovely one, you will fly free again and we will hunt together, you and I, as friends, not as master and slave, I promise you….”
She filled her mind with images of soaring free above the trees in sunlight, trying to open her mind to the memory of the last tune she had hunted; seeing the bird come spiraling down with its prey, of tearing apart the freshly killed meat so she could give the bird its share of the kill . . . and again, with an urgency that made her feel sick, she felt the maddening hunger, the hawk’s mind-picture of striking, fresh blood flowing into her mouth . . . her own human revulsion, the hawk’s hunger, so mingled in her that she hardly knew which was which. Sensing that hunger, she held out the strip of rabbithorn meat, but now the smell revolted her as much as the hawk; she felt that she would vomit.