“This is Preciosa,” she said, pride swelling her voice, and asked Darren, “Would you like to hold her for a moment while I fetch the lures and lines? She must learn to tolerate another’s hand and voice-”
But as she moved toward him, he flinched away, in a startled movement, and Romilly, sensing how the fear in him reverberated hi the bird-mind, turned her attention to soothing Preciosa, stroking her with a feather. She said, not reproving, but so intent on what she was doing that she did not stop to think how her words would sound to another, “Never move so quickly around a hawk – you should know that! You will frighten her – one would think you were afraid of her!”
“It is only – I am not used to be so close to anything so large and so fierce,” Darren said, biting his lip.
“Fierce? Preciosa? Why, she is gentle as a puppy dog,” Romilly said, disbelieving. She beckoned to the hawkmaster’s boy. “Fetch the lures, Ker-” and when he brought them, she examined the bait, frowning and wrinkling up her nose.
“Is this what you have for the other hawks? Do you think they are carrion feeders? Why, a dog would turn away from this in disgust! I have orders that Preciosa was to have fresh-killed meat, mice if nothing better was available from the kitchens, but nothing as old and rank as this.”
“It’s what Davin had set aside for the birds, Mistress Romilly.”
Romilly opened her mouth to give him the tongue-lashing he deserved, but even before a sound was out, the hawk on her wrist bated furiously, and she knew her own anger was reaching Preciosa’s mind. She drew a long breath and said quietly, “I will have a word with Davin. I would ask no decent hawk to feed on this garbage. For now, go and fetch me something fresh-killed for my bird; if not a pigeon, take one of the dogs and find mice or a rat, and at once.”
Darren had drawn back from the frenzied flapping of wings, but as Ker scuttled away to obey orders, he said, “I see that working with the hawk has at least given you some command of that temper and tongue, Romy – it has been good for you!”
“I wish Father would agree to that,” Romilly said, still stroking Preciosa with the feather, trying to calm her. “But birds are like babies, they pick up the emotions of those who tend them, I really do not think it is more than that. Have you forgotten when Rael was a babe, that nurse Luciella had for him – no, I cannot bring her name to mind just now – Maria, Moyra, something of that sort – Luciella had to send her away because the woman’s older son drowned, and she wept when she saw Rael, and it gave him colic, so that was when Gwennis came to us-”
“No, it is more than that,” said Alderic, as they moved out of the darkness of the hawk-house into the tiled courtyard, “There is a well-known laran, and it appeared first, I am told, among the Delleray and MacAran folk; empathy with hawk and horse and sentry-bird … it was for that they trained it, in warfare in the days of King Felix. Among the Delleray folk, it was tied to some lethal genes and so died away, but MacArans have had the Gift for generations.”
Darren said with an uneasy smile, “I beg you, my friend, speak not of laran so freely when my father is by to hear.”
“Why, is he one who would speak of sweetnut-blossom because snowflakes are too cold for him?” Alderic asked with a grin. “All my life I have heard of the horses trained by The MacAran as the finest in the world, and Dom Mikhail is one of the more notable of MacAran lords. Surely he knows well the Gifts and laran of his house and his lady’s.”
“Still, he will not hear the word spoken,” said Darren, “Not since Ruyven fled to the Tower, and I blame him not, though some would say I am the gainer by what Ruyven has done .. . Romilly, now while Father is not by, I will say this to you and you may tell Mallina secretly; I think Rael is too young to keep it to himself, but use your own judgment. At the monastery, I had a letter from Ruyven; he is well, and loves the work he does, and is happy. He sends his love and a kiss to all of you, and bids me speak of him again to Father when I judge the time is right.”