Hawkmistress! A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

And he is the loser by it. Not I.

She said steadily, “I value Orain’s gifts better than you know; I travelled with him and worked close to him for many moons. I do not think he should look down on me simply because I am a woman; I have shown I can do my work as well and skillfully as any man.”

“No one doubts that, Romy,” said Ruyven, in a note so conciliating that Romilly wondered how much of her hidden anger had actually shown in her face, “But Orain loves not women, and he has not had Tower teachings – we know in Tramontana that women’s strengths and men’s are not so different, after all. We are the first Tower who experimented with a woman for Keeper in one of our circles, and she is as skillful with the work as any man, even a Hastur. I think you, too, could benefit by such training.”

“I used to think so,” said Romilly, “But now I know what my laran is and my Gift. Father too must have some of this Gift, or he could not train horses as he does, and now I know how well I have inherited it.”

“I would not be too quick to decide against Tower training,” said Ruyven, “I too thought I had mastered my laran even in Nevarsin, but I discovered that while I kept all at bay on the front lines of the war with self, I had left undefended fortresses at my back, and through these I was almost conquered.”

Romilly made an impatient gesture; the symbolism of the warrior struck her as far-fetched and unnecessary. “If we are to take the birds out and fly them, let us be about it, then. After all, if Lord Orain has given orders, Carolin’s chief adviser cannot be kept waiting.”

Ruyven seemed about to protest the sarcasm, but he sighed and was still. In his black robe he looked very much like a monk, and his narrow face had the detached, impassive look she associated with the Nevarsin brothers. “They will come for us when they want us. Will you make sure that Temperance’s jesses are not too tight? I was afraid they were tearing an old scar on her leg, and Orain said that before you came to them, she had suffered some damage. I think your eyes are keener than mine.”

Romilly went to examine the bird’s leg, soothing Temperance with her ready thoughts. She found no serious trouble, but she did shift the location of the jesses around the bird’s leg; the old scar did indeed look red and raw. She sponged it with a solution of karalla powder as a precaution, then turned the three hoods inside out and dusted them lightly inside with the same powder as a preventive against any dampness or infection, or the tiny parasites which sometimes got on birds and caused trouble at molting.

Ruyven said at last, “I am sorry to use my talents this way, at war, when I would rather stay peacefully in the Tower and work for our own people in the hills. But otherwise, all the Kingdoms may fall, one by one, to the tyranny of Lyondri Hastur and that wretch Rakhal, who has neither honor nor laran nor any sense of justice, but only a vicious will to power. Carolin, at least, is an honorable man.”

“You say so and Orain says so. I have never seen him.”

“Well, you shall see him now,” said Orain, standing at the back of the enclosure; he had evidently heard the exchange. “Jandria told me of your hostel’s gift to the king, and she thought it only right, Mistress Romilly, that you should present it with your own hands, so come with me.”

Romilly glanced at Ruyven, who said, “I will come to,” and, replacing his glove, came after them.

Why is Ruyven the king’s hawkmaster and I regarded only as his helper? I am a professional Swordswoman and it is I who have the greater skill. Ruyven would rather be in his Tower, and this work is life to me. He says himself that in the Tower women are allowed to hold high offices, yet it never seems to occur to him that I, his little sister, should be treated with that kind of fairness. Carolin’s armies, then, are ruled by the old notion that a man must always do any work better than the most skilled of women?

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