Hawkmistress! A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

“My dearest, my dearest, Orain would not have you surrender.”

“Avarra protect me, I know that – but ah, if I could only kill him quickly-”

Inside the tent again he said with implacable fury, “I cannot let them blind him, geld him, flay him. If we can think of nothing this night, tomorrow at dawn I storm the city with everything I have to throw at them. I will send word that no citizen will be harmed who does not raise hand against me, but we will search every house till we find him; and at least there will be a swift end to his torment And then the tormenters will come into my hands.”

Yet Romilly knew, watching him, that Carolin was a decent man; he would do nothing worse, even to Lyondri Hastur, than to kill him. He might hang him, ignobly, and expose his corpse for a warning, rather than giving him a nobleman’s swift death by the sword; yet Lyondri would still be in better case than Orain, should it go on so far. Carolin sent word quietly through the army to make ready to storm the gates at dawn.

“Can your hawk see well enough in the dark to lead us to where Rakhal hides with his torturers? I do not think he did this by himself, alone-” he gestured weakly at the little packet.

“I do not know,” said Romilly quietly, but while they spoke, a plan had been maturing in her.

“How many men watch the city walls?”

“I do not know; but they have sentry-birds all along the wall, and fierce dogs, so that if anyone tries to sneak into the city by breaking the side gates – we tried that once – the birds and the dogs set up such a racket that every one of Rakhal’s men is wakened and rallies to that spot,” he said despondently.

“Good,” said Romilly quietly. “That could hardly be better.”

“What do you say-”

“Think, my lord. My laran is of small use against men. And you say Rakhal’s leronyn have guarded the city against our laran – laran such as your men use. But I fear no bird, no dog ever whelped, nothing that goes on four legs or flies on a wing. Let me go into the city alone, before dawn, and search that way, my lord.”

“Alone? You, a girl-” Carolin began, then shook his head.

“You have proved again and again that you are more than a girl, Swordswoman,” he said quietly. “It is worth a risk. If it fails, at least we will have some notion before dawn where to strike first, so they will have to give him a quick death. But let the night fall first; and you have had a long ride. Find her some proper food, Jandria, and let her go and sleep a little.”

“I could not sleep-” Romilly protested.

“At least, then, rest a little,” Carolin commanded, and Romilly bent her bead.

“As you will.”

Jandria took her to the tent of the Swordswomen, then, and found her food and fresh clothing.

“And washing-water and a comb,” Romilly begged, so Jandria brought her hot water from the army’s mess fires, and Romilly washed, combed out her tangled hair – Jandria, who helped her, finally had to cut it very short – and climbed gratefully into the clean soft underlinen and fresh tunic and breeches. She had no boots except the countrywoman’s, but she put clean stockings on her feet under them. What a relief it was, to be clean, dressed, to eat cooked food, to be human. . . .

“And now you must rest,” Jandria said, “Carolin commanded it. I promise you, I will have you called at the midnight hour.”

Romilly lay down beside Jandria on the blanket roll. The light of the waning moon came into the tent, and Romilly thought, with a great sadness, of Ranald lying beside her when last the moons were full. Now he was dead, and it seemed so bitter, so useless. She had not loved him, but he had been kind to her, and she had first accepted him as a man, and she knew she would remember him and mourn for him a little, forever. Jandria lay silent at her side, but she knew that Jandria, too, mourned; not only because of Orain’s peril, but for Lyondri Hastur who had once been to her what Ranald was to Romilly herself, the first to rouse womanhood and desire. And she could not even think of him with the sweet sadness of the dead; he had gone further from her, become a monster – she put her arms around Jandria, and felt the woman shaking with grief.

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