Hawkmistress! A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

“Your father has given strict orders,” Gwennis said, “Lady Luciella made me throw them out – they’re hardly fit for the hawkmaster’s boy now, those old things. Your new habit’s being made, and you can wear your old one till it’s ready, my pet” She pointed to the riding-skirt and tunic laid out on Romilly’s bed. “Here, my lamb, I’ll help you lace it up.”

“You threw them out?” Romilly exploded, “How dared you?”

“Oh, come, don’t talk like that, my little love, we all have to do what Lady Luciella says, don’t we? That habit still fits you fine, even if it’s a little tight at the waist – see, I let it out for you yesterday, when Lady Luciella told me.”

“I can’t ride Windracer in this!” Romilly wadded up the offending skirts and flung them across the room. “He’s not used to a lady’s saddle, and I hate it, and there aren’t guests or anything like that! Get me some riding breeches,” she stormed, but Gwennis shook her head sternly.

“I can’t do that, lovey, your father’s given orders, you’re not to ride in breeches any more, and it’s about time, you’ll be fifteen ten days before Midsummer, and we must think now about getting you married, and what man will want to marry a hoyden who races around hi breeches like some camp-follower, or one of those scandalous women of the Sisterhood, with sword and ears pierced? Really, Romy, you should be ashamed. A big girl like you, running off to the hawk-house and staying out all night like that – it’s time you were tamed down into a lady! Now put on your riding-skirts, if you want to ride, and let’s not have any more of this nonsense.”

Romilly stared in horror at her nurse. So this was to be her father’s punishment Worse, far worse than a beating, and she knew that from her father’s orders there would be no appeal.

I wish he had beaten me. At least he would have been dealing with me, directly, with Romilly, with a person. But to turn me over to Luciella, to let her make me into her image of a lady….

“It’s an insult to a decent horse,” Romilly stormed, “I won’t do it!”

She aimed a savage kick at the offending habit on the floor.

“Well, then, lovey, you can just stay inside the house like a lady, you don’t need to ride,” said Gwennis complacently, “You spend too much time in the stables as it is, it’s time you stayed more in the house, and left the hawks and horses to your brothers as you should.”

Appalled, Romilly swallowed down a lump in her throat, looking from the habit on the floor to her beaming nurse. “I expected this of Luciella,” she said, “she hates me, doesn’t she? It’s the sort of spiteful thing Mallina might do, just because she can’t ride a decent horse. But I didn’t think you’d join with them against me, Nurse!”

“Come, you mustn’t talk like that,” Gwennis said, clucking ruefully, “How can you say that about your kind stepmother? I tell you, not many stepmothers with grown daughters are as good to them as Lady Luciella is to you and Mallina, dressing them up in beautiful things when you’re both prettier than she is, knowing Darren’s to be Lord here and her own son only a younger son, not much better than a nedestro! Why, your own mother would have had you out of breeches three years ago, she’d never have let you run around all these years like a hoyden! How can you say that she hates you?”

Romilly looked at the floor, her eyes stinging. It was true; no one could have been kinder to her than Luciella. It would have been easier if Luciella had ever showed her the slightest unkindness. I could fight against her, if she was cruel to me. What can I do now?

And Preciosa would be waiting for her; did Gwennis really think she would leave her own hawk to the hawkmaster’s boy, or even to Davin himself? Her hands shook with fury as she pulled on the detested habit, threadbare blue gabardine and in spite of Gwennis’s alterations, still too tight in the waist, so that the lacings gaped wide over her undertunic. Better to ride in skirts than not to ride at all, she supposed, but if they thought they had beaten her this easily, they could think again!

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