Hawkmistress! A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Maura still looked at her uneasily, but at last, to Romilly’s relief, she sighed and turned away.

“Look,” Carolin said, and pointed, “Are you sure that your illusion has worked?”

Romilly looked up, her breath almost stopping; Sunstar was rushing toward them, his head flung up, his legs seeming hardly to touch the ground as he bolted. Maura lifted her hand. “Wait,” she said, and as Sunstar reached the corner of the meadow he stopped short, placing all four feet together as if truly on the edge of a cliff, his head lowered, foam dripping from his teeth as if in mortal terror. He shuddered with fear, then snorted, backed away, tossed his head and raced away in the other direction.

“The illusion will hold them tonight, at least,” Maura said.

“But he is so frightened,” Romilly protested; she was dripping with the stallion’s sweat of fear.

“Neither memory nor imagination,” said Maura quietly. “You have both, Romy, but look at him now.” And, indeed, Sunstar was quietly cropping grass; he stopped, sniffed the wind and began to move closer to a group of mares silently grazing in the meadow.

“He will improve the quality of your royal stables,” said Orain jocularly, “and any mare he covers tonight will have a foal worthy of those same stables, I doubt not.”

Carolin chuckled. “He is welcome to his sport, old friend. We who are responsible for this war-” he touched Maura gently, only on the shoulder, but the look that passed between them made Romilly blush, “must wait for a while for our satisfactions; but they will be all the dearer for that, will they not, my love?”

She only smiled, but Romilly physically turned her eyes from the intensity of that smile.

That night Jandria came and asked Romilly if she wished to join the Swordswomen’s mess again, now that she was not riding ahead of her special detachment with the birds. It was evident from Jandria’s voice that she expected Romilly to be overjoyed at being allowed again to join her sisters, but Romilly was too weary and raw-edged for the chatter, the noise and giggling of the young women of the Sisterhood, eager to sleep away from their communal tent. She made the excuse that she was still needed among the birds.

“And you need not fear that I am improperly guarded,” she said sourly, “for between the Lady Maura and my monkish brother, I might as well be a priestess of Avarra on her guarded isle where no man may come without the Dark Mother’s death-curse!”

She could see that Jandria was still troubled, but the older woman only embraced her. She said, “Rest well, then, little sister. You look so weary; they have demanded much of you in very little time, and you are still young. Be sure to eat a good supper; I have known leroni before this, and to replenish their energies after their work, a fragile little girl will eat enough to satisfy three wood-cutters! And sleep long and soundly, my dear.”

She went away; Romilly fed the birds, with Ruyven’s help, and even Lord Ranald, she noted with satisfaction, did not shirk his share of the tending. But the smell of their carrion food which the army hunters had brought her, made her feel queasy again, and although Carolin had sent a good haunch of roast chervine from his own tables, with his compliments to his bird-handlers, she could hardly eat and only shoved the food around on her plate.

By the time the camp was completely settled for the night, it was well past sunset, but the night was lighted with three full moons, and the fourth was a half-filled crescent.

“Four moons,” said Lord Ranald, laughing, “What madness shall we do? They say in Thendara, What is done under four moons need not be remembered or regretted…

Ruyven said with frozen courtesy, “Such nights are sacred, friend; I shall spend much of my night in sacred silence and meditation, if Carolin’s soldiers-” he gestured to where, faintly and downwind, he could hear the sound of a rryl and loud, untuneful voices all shouting the chorus of a popular drinking song, “will allow me a little peace.”

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