Hawkmistress! A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Then she slept.

CHAPTER THREE

In the clear dawnlight, moving around the clearing to fetch water for the birds, and taking stock – one of the men should hunt today, to kill something for the sentry-birds, although already they looked better and were preening their feathers and cleaning their feet – Romilly could see the walls of Nevarsin, clear in the light as if they were made of snow or salt. An ancient city, built into the side of the mountain, just below the level of the eternal snow; and above them, like the very bones of the mountain projecting through the never-ending snow, the grey walls of the monastery, carved from living rock.

One of the men whose name she did not know was fetching water for porridge; another was doling out grain for the horses and chervines. The one called Alaric, a heavy glowering man, roughly clad, was the one she feared most, but she could not avoid him completely, and in any case, he must have some feeling for the sentry-birds, he had carried one of them on that crude perch before his saddle.

“Excuse me,” said Romilly politely, “but you must go out and kill something for the sentry-birds; if it is killed this morning, by night it will be beginning to decay, and be right for them to eat.”

“Oh, so,” snarled the man, “So after one night with our good leader you now think yourself free to give orders to men who’ve been with him this whole hungry year? Which of them had you, or did they take turns at you, little catamite?”

Shocked by the crudeness of the insult, Romilly recoiled, her face flaming. “You’ve no right to say that to me; Dom Carlo put me in charge of the birds and bade me see they were properly fed, and I obey the vai dom as you do yourself!”

“Aye, I may say so,” the man sneered, “Maybe you’d like to put that pretty girl-face and those little ladylike hands to-” and the rest of the words were so foul that Romilly literally did not understand what he meant by them, and was perfectly sure she did not want to know. Clinging to what dignity she could – she honestly did not know how one of her brothers would have reacted to such foulness except, perhaps, by drawing a knife, and she was not big enough to fight on even terms with the giant Alaric – she said, “Perhaps if the vai dom himself gives you his orders you will take them,” and moved away, clenching her teeth and her whole face tightly against the tears that threatened to explode through her taut mouth and eyes. Damn him. Damn him! I must not cry, I must not….

“Here, here, what a face like a thundercloud, my lad?” said Orain, his lean face twisted with amusement, “Hurt? What ails ye-”

She clutched at the remnants of self-possession and said the first thing that came into her head.

“Have you a spare glove I can borrow, Uncle?” She used the informal term for any friend of a father’s generation. “I cannot handle the sentry-birds with my bare fist, though I can manage a hawk; their talons are too long, and my hand is bleeding still from yesterday. I think I must fly them on a line to try and let them hunt for small animals or find carrion.”

“A glove you shall have,” said Dom Carlo behind them, “Give him your old one, Orain; shabby it may be, but it will protect his hand. There are bits of leather in the baggage, you can fashion one for yourself tonight. But why must you fly them? Why not give orders to one of the men to catch fresh food for them? We have hunting-snares enough, and we need meat for ourselves too. Send any of the men to fetch fresh food-” and as he looked on Romilly, his reddish eyebrows went up.

“Oh, is that the way of it?” he asked softly, “Which of them was it Rumal?”

Romilly looked at the ground. She said almost inaudibly “I don’t wish to make trouble, vai dom. Indeed, I can fly them, and they should have exercise in any case.”

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