Darren made ineffectual movements to quiet the bird, finally getting her to something like quiet on his glove. But his voice broke into falsetto as he said, “It’s not-not fair, sir. Father, I beg you-Romilly trained that hawk herself, and with her own laran-”
“Silence, young man! Don’t you dare speak that word in my presence!”
“Refusing to hear it won’t make it less true, sir. It’s Romilly’s hawk, she trained it, she earned it, and I don’t want it – I won’t take it from her!”
“But you will take it from me,” said The MacAran, his jaw thrusting forth, his jutting chin hard with fury, “How dare you say a hawk trained at Falconsward in my own mews is not mine to give? Romilly has been given hawks by her promised husband. She needs not this one, and you will take it or-” he leaned toward Darren, his eyes blazing, his breath coming and going in rough harsh noises, “Or I will wring its neck here before you both! I will not be defied here in my own mews!” He made a threatening gesture as if to carry out his threat here and now, and Romilly cried out.
“No! No, Father – no, please! Darren, don’t let him – take the hawk, it’s better for you to have it.”
Darren drew a long, shaking breath. He wet his lips with his tongue, and settled the hawk on his arm. He said shakily, “Only because you ask me, Romilly. Only for that, I promise you.”
Her eyes burning, Romilly turned aside to take up one of the tiny, useless hawks that had been Dom Garris’ gift. At that moment she hated them, the little half-brained, stupid things. Beautiful as they were, elegantly trapped, they were only ornaments, pretty meaningless jewels, not real hawks at all, no more than one of Rael’s carven toys! But it was not their fault, poor silly little things, that they were not Preciosa. Her heart yearned over Preciosa, perched unsteadily on Darren’s awkward wrist
My hawk. Mine. And now that fool of a Darren will spoil her . . . ah, Preciosa, Preciosa, why did this have to happen to us? She felt that she hated her father too, and Darren, clumsily transferring Preciosa from his glove to the block on the saddle. Tears blurred her eyes as she mounted. Her father had called for his great rawboned grey; he would ride with them, he said wrathfully, to make sure Darren used the hawk well, and if he did not, he would learn it as he had learned his alphabet, beaten into him with The MacAran’s own riding-crop!
They were all silent, miserable, as they rode down the pathway from the peaks of Falconsward. Romilly rode last, staring in open hatred at her father, at Darren’s saddle where Preciosa perched restlessly. She sent out her consciousness, her laran – since the word had been used – toward Preciosa, but the hawk was too agitated; she felt only a blur of confusion and hatred, a reddish-tinged rage that blurred her mind, too, till she had all she could do to sit in the saddle.
All too soon they reached the great open meadow where they had flown their hawks that day – only then it had been Alderic with them, a friendly face and helping hands, not their furious father. Awkwardly, pinching her in his haste, Darren took the hood from Preciosa’s head, raised her on his fist and cast her off; Romilly, reaching out her senses to merge with the rising hawk, felt how fury dropped away as Preciosa climbed the sky, and she thought, in despair, Let her go free. She will never be mine again, and I cannot bear to see her mishandled by Darren. He means well, but he has no hands or heart for hawks. As she sank into the hawk’s mind and heart, her whole soul seemed to go into the cry.
Go, Preciosa! Fly away, fly free – one of us at least should be free! Higher-higher-now, turn and go-
“Romilly, what ails you?” Her father’s voice was filled with asperity, “Get your bird out, girl!”
She brought herself painfully back to the moment, her practiced hands loosing the embroidered hood. The little hawk, shining like a jewel in the red sunlight, angled off, high on the wind, and Romilly watched, not seeing – her eyes were blurred with tears, her whole awareness with Preciosa.