She had returned to the mews, and her hand was already outstretched to take the other one and free it as well, but then the hawk’s eyes had met her own for a moment, and there had been an instant when she knew, a strong and dizzying knowledge within her, I can tame this one, I need not let her go, I can master her.
The fever which had come to the castle and struck down Davin was almost her friend. On any ordinary day, Romilly would have had duties and lessons; but the governess she shared with her younger sister Mallina had a touch of the fever, too, and was shivering beside the fire in the schoolroom, having given Romilly permission to go to the stables and ride, or take her lesson-book or her needlework to the conservatory high in the castle, and study there among the leaves and flowers-the light still hurt Domna Calinda’s eyes. Old Gwennis, who had been Romilly’s nurse when she and her sister were little children, was busy with Mallina, who had a touch of fever, though she was not dangerously ill. And the Lady Luciella, their stepmother, would not stir from the side of nine-year-old Rael, for he had the fever in its most dangerous form, the debilitating sweats and inability to swallow.
So Romilly had promised herself a delicious day of freedom in stables and hawk-house-was Domna Calinda really enough of a fool to think she would spend a day free of lessons over her stupid lesson-book or needlework? But she had found Davin, too, sick of the fever, and he had welcomed her coming-his apprentice was not yet skilled enough to go near the untrained birds, though he was good enough to feed the others and clean the mews-and so he had ordered Romilly to release them both. And she had started to obey.
But this hawk was hers! Never mind that it sat on its block, angry and sullen, red eyes veiled with rage and terror, bating wildly at the slightest movement near her, the wings exploding in the wild frenzy of flapping and thrashing; it was hers, and soon or late, it would know of the bond between them.
But she had known it would be neither quick nor easy. She had reared eyasses-young birds hatched in the mews or captured still helpless, accustomed before they were feathered to feed from a hand or glove. But this hawk had learned to fly, to hunt and feed itself in the wild; they were better hunters than hawks reared in captivity, but harder to tame; two out of five such birds, more or less, would let themselves die of hunger before they would feed. The thought that this could happen to her hawk was a dread Romilly refused to face. Somehow, she would, she must bridge the gulf between them.
The falcon bated again, thrashing furious wings, and Romilly struggled to maintain the sense of herself, not merging into the terror and fury of the angry bird, at the same time trying to send out waves of calm. I will not hurt you, lovely one. See, here is food. But it ignored the signal, flapping angrily, and Romilly struggled hard not to shrink back in terror, not to be overcome with the flooding, surging waves of rage and terror she could feel radiating from the chained bird.
Surely, this time, the beating wings had flapped into quiet sooner than before? The falcon was tiring. Was it growing weaker, would it fight its way down into death and exhaustion before it was ready to surrender and feed from the gauntlet? Romilly had lost track of time, but as the hawk quieted and her brain cleared, so that she knew again that she was Romilly and not the frenzied bird, her breathing quieted again and she let the gauntlet slip for a moment from her hand. Her wrist and shoulder felt as if they were going to drop off, but she was not sure whether it was because the gauntlet was too heavy for her, (she had spent hours holding it at arm’s length, enduring the pain of cramped muscles and tension, to accustom herself to its weight) or whether it had something to do with the frenzied beating of her wings . . . no. No, she must remember which was herself, which the hawk. She leaned back against the rough wall behind her, half-closing her eyes. She was almost asleep on her feet. But she must not sleep, nor move.