Jandria and Orain went off arm-in-arm toward the central tent where the banner flew, and Romilly went on in the indicated direction, feeling shy and afraid. How was she to talk to a strange laranzu? Then she straightened her back and drew herself up proudly. She was a MacAran, a Swordswoman, and a hawkmistress; she need not be afraid of anyone. They had summoned her to their aid, not the other way round. Behind the tent she saw a roughly dressed lad of thirteen or so, carrying a great basket, and if she had not seen him she could have smelled him, for it stank of carrion. On heavy perches she saw three familiar, beautiful-ugly forms, and hurried to them, laughing.
“Diligence! Prudence, love!” She held out her hands and the birds made a little dipping of their heads; they knew her again, and the old, familiar rapport reached out, clung. “And where is Temperance? Ah, there you are, you beauty!”
“Don’t get too close to them,” a somehow-familiar voice said behind her, “Those creatures can peck out your eyes; the apprentice there lost a finger-nail to one of them yesterday!”
She turned and saw a slight, bearded man, in the dark robes not unlike those of a monk at Nevarsin, scowling down at her; then it seemed as if the strange bearded face dissolved, for she knew the voice, and she cried out, incredulous.
“Ruyven! Oh, I should have known, when they said it was a laranzu from Tramontana – Ruyven, don’t you know me?”
She was laughing and crying at once, and Ruyven stared down at her, his mouth open.
“Romy,” he said at last. “Sister, you are the last person in the world I would have expected to see here! But – in this garb-” he looked her up and down, blushing behind the strangeness of the beard. “What are you doing? How came you-”
“I was sent to handle the birds, silly,” she said, “I bore them all the way from the foothills of the Hellers into Nevarsin, and from Nevarsin to Caer Donn. See, they know me.” She gestured, and they made little clucking noises of pleasure and acknowledgement. “But what are you doing here, then?”
“The same as you,” he said. “The Lord Orain’s son and I are bredin; he sent word to me, and I came to join Carolin’s army. But you-” he looked at the dress of the Sisterhood with surprise and distaste, “Does Father know you are here? How did you win his consent?”
“The same way you won consent from him to train your laran within the walls of Tramontana Tower,” she said, grimacing, and he sighed.
“Poor father. He has lost both of us now, and Darren-” he sighed. “Ah, well. Done is done. So you wear the earring of the Sisterhood, and I the robes of the Tower, and both of us follow Carolin – have you seen the king?”
She shook her head. “No, but I travelled for a time with his followers, Orain and Dom Carlo of Blue Lake.”
“Carlo I know not. But you handle sentry-birds? I remember you had always a deft hand with horses and hounds, and . I suppose hawks as well, so the MacAran Gift should fit you to handle these. Have you had laran training then, Sister?”
“None; I developed it by working with the beasts and the birds,” she said, and he shook his head, distressed.
“Laran untrained is a dangerous thing, Romy. When this is ended, I will find a place for you in a Tower. Do you realize, you have not yet greeted me properly.” He hugged her and kissed her cheek. “So: you know these birds? So far I have seen none but Lord Orain who could handle them.”
“I taught him what he knows of sentry-birds,” Romilly said, and went to the perches, holding out her hand; with her free hand she jerked the knot loose, and Prudence made a quick little hop to sit on her wrist. She should have brought a proper glove. Well, somewhere in Carolin’s camp there must be a proper falconer’s glove.
And that made her think, with sudden pain, of Preciosa. She had had no sight of the hawk since they came into this drylands country. But then, Preciosa had left her before they came to the glaciers, and rejoined her again when she had returned to the green hills. It might be that Preciosa would return to her, some day …