Romilly chuckled. “Luciella would have much to say about that,” she told him, “but put Ker to feeding the pigs or tending the kennels, and surely there must be someone on the estate who has some hawk-sense!”
Darren grinned mirthlessly. He said, ‘Try Nelda’s boy Garris; he was festival-got, and rumor speaks wide about who had his fathering. If he’s good with the beasts, it will bring him under my father’s eye, which Nelda was too proud to do. Once I suggested he should be put to share lessons with Rael, and our great Lady and Mistress Luciella had fits – one would think I’d suggested bringing the pig-boy in to dine at the high table.”
“You should know that Luciella hears only what she wants to hear,” said Romilly. “Perhaps she thought that bastardy is like fleas, catching. . . .” She fumbled for the lures and lines, cumbered with Preciosa’s weight on her wrist. “Damnation, Darren, can’t you hold her for me a moment? If not, for charity’s sake, at least thread the meat on the lure – she smells it and will go wild in a moment!”
“I will take her, if you will trust me with your hawk,” said Alderic, and held out his arm. “So, will you come to me, pretty one?” Carefully, he lifted the nervous hawk from Romilly’s wrist to his own. “What is it you call her, Preciosa? And so she is, are you not, precious one?”
Romilly watched jealously as the hooded hawk settled down comfortably on Alderic’s wrist; but Preciosa seemed content and she turned to tying the line around the meat, so that Preciosa could not snap it away too swiftly, and must bring it down to the ground to eat, as a good hunting-hawk must learn to do; badly tamed hawks tended to snatch food from a lure in midair, which taught them little about hunting practice. They must be taught to bring the prey down to their master, and to wait until the meat was given to them from the hand.
“Give me the line and lure,” said Darren. “If I can do nothing else, I can at least throw out the lure.”
Romilly handed it to him with relief. “Thank you – you are taller than I, you can whirl it higher,” she said, and took Preciosa again on her wrist. One handed, she slipped the hood from the hawk’s head, raising her arm to let it fly. Trailing its lines, the hawk rose higher, higher – coming to the end of the line, Romilly saw it turn its head, see the flying, whistling lure – swiftly, dropping with suddenly folded wings, it descended on the lure, seizing it with beak and talons, and dropped swiftly to Romilly’s feet. Romilly gave the sharp whistle which the hawk was being taught to associate with food, and scooped Preciosa up on her glove, tearing the food from the lure.
Preciosa was bending so swiftly to the food that she hopped sidewise on Romilly’s arm, her claws contracting painfully in the girl’s thinly-clad forearm above the gauntlet. Blood burst out, staining her dress; Romilly set her mouth and did not cry out, but as the crimson spread across the blue fabric, Darren cried out sharply.
“Oh, sister!”
Preciosa, startled by the cry, lost her balance and fell, bated awkwardly, her wings beating into Darren’s face; Romilly reached for her, but Darren cried out in panic and flung up his hands to ward away the beak and talons which were dangerously close to his face. At his scream, Preciosa tottered again and flew upward, checking with a shrill scream of rage at the end of her lines.
Her jaws set, Romilly hissed in a whisper “Damn you, Darren, she could have broken a flight-feather! Don’t you know better than to move that fast around a hawk? Get back before you frighten her worse than that!”
Darren stammered “You-you-you’re bleeding-”
“So what?” Romilly demanded harshly, shoved him back with a rough hand, and whistled softly, coaxingly to Preciosa. “I might better bring Rael into the hawk-house, you lackwit! Get out of here!”
“And this is what I have for a son and heir,” said The MacAran bitterly. He was standing in the door of the hawk-house, watching the three young people unseen. His voice, even in his anger, was low – he knew better than to raise his voice near a frightened bird. He stood silent, staring with his brows knitted in a scowl, as Romilly coaxed the hawk down to her wrist and untangled the lines. “Are you not ashamed, Darren, to stand by while a little girl bests you at what should come by instinct to any son of mine? But that I knew your mother so well, I would swear you had been fathered by some chance – come beggar of the roads. . . . Bearer of Burdens, why have you weighted my life with a son so unfit for his place?” He grabbed Darren’s arm and jerked him inside the hawk-house; Romilly heard Darren cry out and her teeth met in her lip as if the blow had landed on her own shoulders.