“Well, you should have been drinking more,” he said easily, and guided them in the dance into one of the long galleries that led away from the hall. “Here, give me a kiss, Romy-”
“I am not Romy to you,” she said, and pulled her head away from him, “and if you had not been spying about where you had no right to be, you would not have seen me in my brother’s clothes, which I wear only in the sight of my little brothers. If you think I was showing myself to you, you are very much mistaken.”
“No, only to that haughty young sprig of the Hali’imyn who was squiring you to the hunt and hawking?” he asked, and laughed. She said, twisting her rumpled hair free, “I want to go back to the hall. I did not come out here with you of my own will, I just did not want to make a scene on the dance floor. Take me back to the hall, or I will shout to my brother now! And then my father will horsewhip you!”
He laughed, holding her close. “Ah, on a night like this, what do you think your brother will be doing, then? He would not thank you for calling him away from what every young man will be about, on Midsummer-Night. Must I alone be refused? You are not such a child as all that. Come, give me a kiss then-”
“No!” Romilly struggled away from his intruding hands, crying now, and he let her go.
“I am sorry,” he said gently, “I was testing you; I see now that you are a good girl, and all the Gods forbid I should interfere with you.” He bent and dropped a suddenly respectful kiss on her wrist. She swallowed hard, blinked back her tears and fled from the gallery, back through the hall and upstairs, where she bundled off her festival gown and hid beneath her warm quilts, sobbing.
How she hated him!
CHAPTER FIVE
Every year The MacAran held his great Midsummer-feast as preliminary to a great market in hawks, trained dogs and horses. On the morning after the Festival, Romilly wakened to the great bustle in the courtyard, and men and women thronging, while on the field beyond the enclosed yard, horses were neighing as men put them through their paces, and men and women were coming and going. Romilly dressed quickly in an old gown – there were still guests, so there could be no thought of borrowing a pair of Darren’s breeches – and ran down. Calinda, meeting her on the stairs, gave a rueful laugh.
“I knew I should get no work out of Rael this day – he is beyond me, his father must send him soon to Nevarsin for teaching by men who can handle him,” she said, “But must you, too, hang about the market, Romilly? Ah well-” she smiled kindly at her charge, “Go if you will, I shall have the whole day to work with Mallina on her penmanship – she takes guidance better when you and Rael are not there to hear. And I suppose you would not mind your book if your heart and thoughts were all out in the courtyard. But you must work all the harder tomorrow,” she said firmly, and Romilly hugged the older woman with a vehemence that left her breathless.
“Thank you, Calinda, thank you!”
She picked her way carefully through the trampled mud of the courtyard and into the field. Davin was displaying the flight to a lure of one of the best-trained hawks, a great bird in whose training Romilly had played no small part; she stood watching in excitement till Davin spotted her.
“And this hawk is fierce and strong, but so gentle that even a young maiden could fly her,” Davin said, “Mistress Romilly, will you take the bird?”
She slid the gauntlet over her arm and held out her wrist; he set the bird on it, and swirled the lure, and the bird took off, quickly climbing the sky, then, as the whirling leather thong with the meat and feathers came swooping down, striking so quickly that eyes could hardly follow the swift strike. Romilly picked up bird and lure and stood feeding the hawk from her free hand, to the accompaniment of little cries of amazement and delight