“I know very little about it,” said Ruyven, “even in the Towers it is not common. The folk of Serrais were noted, in the days of the breeding-program among the Great Houses of the Hastur kinfolk, because they had bred for a laran which could communicate with those who are not human . . . with the trailfolk, perhaps, or the catmen, or … others beyond them, summoned from other dimensions by their starstones. If they can do that, communicating with sentry-birds should be no such trouble. She said to me once that it was akin to the MacAran Gift, perhaps had been bred from it.”
“You knew her well in the Tower?” Romilly asked with a trace of jealousy, but he shook his head.
“I am a cristoforo. And she is a pledged virgin. Only such a one would come among soldiers with no more fuss or awareness than that.”
He might have said more, but Lady Maura came from her tent, dressed in a simple gown, her sleeves rolled back. Without a moment’s hesitation she took the smelly basket of bird-food and took a handful, without any sign of distaste, holding it out to Prudence, crooning to the bird.
“There you are, pretty, there is your breakfast – speaking of which, Romilly, have you breakfasted? No, you have not, like a good handler, you see to your beasts first, do you not? We need not exercise them, they will have exercise enough and more today. Ruyven, if you will send an orderly to the mess, we should have breakfast brought to us here, if we are to ride as soon as all that.” As she spoke, she was feeding the bird tidbits of carrion, smiling to it as if they were fragrant flowers, and Prudence churred with pleasure.
Well, she is not squeamish, she does not mind getting her hands dirty.
Ruyven picked up the thought and said in an undertone, “I told you so. In Tramontana she flies a verrin hawk and trained it herself. To the great dismay, I might add, of Lady Liriel Hastur, who is highest in rank there, and of her Keeper, Lord Doran; who both love hawking but would rather leave their training to the professional falconer.”
“So she is not some soft-handed lady who wishes to be waited on hand and foot,” Romilly said, grudgingly approving. Then she went to finish her work with Temperance, and when she had done, an orderly had brought food and small-beer from the mess, and they sat on the ground and breakfasted, Lady Maura, with no fuss, tucking her skirt under her and eating with her fingers as they did.
When they had finished, Ranald Ridenow appeared with half a dozen men, and the three of them loaded the sentry-birds on to blocks on their horses; the little detachment moved through the just-wakening camp, and took the road east across the desert lands toward the Plains of Valeron.
The Ridenow lord set a hard pace, though Romilly and Ruyven and the soldiers had no trouble keeping up with them. Lady Maura was riding on a lady’s saddle, but she did not complain and managed to keep up. Although she did say to Romilly, at one stop to breathe the horses, “I wish I could wear breeches as you do, Swordswoman. But I have already scandalized my friends and my own Keeper, and I should probably not give them more cause for talk.”
“Ruyven told me you trained a verrin hawk,” Romilly said.
“So I did; how angry everyone was,” Maura said, laughing, “but now, knowing you, Swordswoman, I know I am not the first nor yet the last woman to do so. And I would rather have her trained to my own hand than to a strange falconer’s and then try to transfer her loyalty to me. Sometimes I have actually felt that I am flying with the bird; though perhaps it is my imagination.”
“And perhaps not,” Romilly said, “for I have had that experience.” Suddenly, and with poignant grief, she remembered Preciosa. It had been more than a year that she had dwelt in that damned desert town, and Preciosa had no doubt gone back to the wilds to live, and forgotten her.