Carolin is like a horse . . . with her love of Sunstar and of the other horses, it never occurred to Romilly that she was being offensive to the king. . . . While Rakhal and Lyondri are like banshees who prey on living. Suddenly, for the first time in the year she had been among the Swordswomen, Romilly was glad that Preciosa had abandoned her.
She too preys on the living. It is her nature and I love her but I could not, now, endure to see it, to be a part of it!
She dressed herself, drew the hood of her thickest cloak over her head, and went to tend Temperance. Her first impulse was to leave her to Ruyven: she felt that the sight of the empty perches of Prudence and Diligence would rewaken all the horror and dread of their deaths. But she was sworn to care for them, she was the king’s hawkmistress, and Ruyven, though he cared dutifully for the birds, did not love them, as she did.
Temperance sat solitary on her perch, huddled against the chilly dampness; the perches were sheltered but there was no protection against the wind, and Romilly decided to move the bird inside the tent in which neither she nor Maura had slept now for several nights; Temperance was the only remaining sentry-bird with Carolin’s armies, and if she took cold in this damp and drizzly weather, she could not fly. Romilly shrank from the memory of her last flight, but she knew that she would, as her duty commanded, fly the bird again, even into danger. Not gladly; that gladness had been a part of innocence and it was gone forever. But she would do it, as duty demanded, because she had seen warfare and known a hint of what would befall the folk of these hills under Lyondri Hastur’s harsh rule.
Lyondri did not wish – she knew this from her brief contact with him – to be only Rakhal’s executioner. Tell Jandria, he had said, that I am not the monster she thinks me. Yet he believed that this was his only road to power, and therefore he was as guilty as Rakhal.
He is Carolin’s kinsman. How can they be so unlike?
As she was caring for Temperance, there was a step outside the tent, and she turned to see a familiar face.
“Dom Alderic,” she cried, but before he had more than a moment to stare at her in surprise, Ruyven hurried to greet Alderic with an enthusiastic kinsman’s embrace.
“Bredu! I should have known you would hurry to find us here – does your father know?”
Alderic Castamir shook his head and smiled at his friend. He said, “I am recently come from Falconsward; your father gave me leave to go, though not willingly; you should know that Darren has returned to the monastery.”
Ruyven sighed and shook his head. “I would so willingly have yielded my place as Father’s heir to Darren, and hoped, when he was not in my light, that Father would come to see his true worth… .”
“His own worth,” Alderic said quietly. “Darren has small love for horses or hawks, and no trace of the MacAran Gift. He cannot be blamed for what he is not, any more than you for what you are, bredu. And I think The MacAran has had to grant that you cannot forge a hammer from featherpod fluff, nor spin spider-silk even from precious copper. Darren’s skills are otherwise, and The MacAran has sent him to Nevarsin, to complete his schooling; one day he shall be Rael’s steward, while Rael – I have already begun to teach him to work with horses and hawks.”
“Little Rael!” marvelled Ruyven, “When I left Falconsward he was still at Luciella’s knee, it seemed! Yet I knew he would have the MacAran Gift; I think I was blinded about Darren because I love him and I wanted so much for him to have the Gift, that I might be free. Well, Darren has found his place, as I mine.”
Alderic came and bent over Romilly’s hand. “Mistress Romilly,” he said gently, and Romilly corrected him: