Hawkmistress! A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Darren said, “I told father we were going hawking at dawn. He gave you leave to fly his racer if you would, Alderic.”

“He is generous,” said Alderic, and went quietly toward the hawk.

“Which one will you take, Darren?” asked Romilly, slipping Preciosa on to her wrist. Darren, raising his eyes to her with a smile, said, “I think you know, sister, that I take no pleasure in hawks. If father had bidden me to exercise one of his birds, I would obey him; but in honor of the holiday, perhaps, he forbore to lay any such command on me.”

His tone was so bitter that Alderic looked up and said, “I think he means to be kind, bredu.”

“Aye. No doubt.” But Darren did not raise his head as they went across to the stable, where the horses were ready.

Romilly set Preciosa on the perch as she saddled her own horse. She would not command any man to disobey her father against his conscience; but she would not ride sidesaddle on this holiday ride, either. If her father chose to punish her, she would accept whatever he chose to do.

It was sheer ecstasy to be on a horse again in proper riding clothes, feeling the cool morning wind against her face, and Preciosa before her on the saddle, hooded but alert. She could feel a trickle of awareness from the bird which was blended of emotions Romilly herself could not identify . . . not quite fear as she had come to know it, not quite excitement, but to her great relief it was wholly unmixed with the terrifying rage she had felt when she began training the hawk. The clouds melted away as they rode into the hills, and under their horses’ hooves there was only the tiniest crackling of frost.

“Where shall we go, Darren? You know these hills,” Alderic asked, and Darren laughed at them.

“Ask Romilly, not me, my-” he broke off sharply and Romilly, raising her eyes suddenly from her bird, intercepted the sharp, almost warning look Alderic gave the younger man. Darren said quickly, “My sister knows more of the hills and of the hawks than I do, Lord ‘Deric.”

“This way, I think,” she said, “To the far horse-pasture; we can fly the birds there and none will disturb us. And there are always small birds and small animals in the coverts.”

As they topped the rise they looked down on the pasture, a wide stretch of hillside grassland, dotted here and there with clumps of berry-briars, small bushes and underbrush. A few horses were cropping the bunchy grass, green with summer, and the fields and bushes were coated with clusters of blue and yellow wildflowers. Insects buzzed in the grass; the horses raised their heads in alert inquiry, but seeing nothing to disturb them, went on nibbling grass. One small filly flung up her head and came trotting, on spindly legs, toward them; Romilly laughed, slid from her horse and went to nuzzle the baby horse; she came not much higher than Romilly’s shoulder.

“This is Angel,” she said to the young men, “She was born last winter, and I used to feed her with apple scraps – no, Angel, that’s my breakfast,” she added, slapping the soft muzzle away from the pocket where the horse was trying to rummage. But she relented and pulled her knife, cutting a small slice of apple for the filly.

“No more, now, it will give you a bellyache,” she said, and the little animal, evidently taking her word for it, trotted off on her long spindly legs.

“Let us go on, or old Windy will be on us,” she said laughing, “He is out to pasture in this field. He is too old a gelding for the mares to take any notice of him, and his teeth are almost too old to chew grass; Father would have him put down this spring, but, he said he should have one last summer and before winter comes. He will send him quietly to his rest; he should not have to endure another winter of cold with his old joints.”

“I will grieve when that is my task,” said Darren, “We all learned to ride on him, he was like an old rocking-chair to sit on.” He looked with a distant sadness at the aged, half-blind pony chomping at soft grass in a corner of the field. “I think Father spared him because he was Ruyven’s first horse….”