Hawkmistress! A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

A tall dignified man in the bulky brown robe and cowl of a monk gestured them inside. Romilly hesitated; she had been brought up a cristoforo and knew that no woman might enter into the monastery, even in the guest-house. But she had chosen this disguise and now could not repudiate it. She whispered a prayer – “Blessed Bearer of Burdens, Holy Saint Valentine, forgive me, I mean no intrusion into this world of men, and I swear I will do nothing to disgrace you here.”

It would create a greater scandal if she now revealed her real sex. And she wondered why women were so strongly prohibited. Did the monks fear that if women were there they could not keep to their vows of renunciation? What good were their vows, if they could not resist women unless they never saw any? And why did they think women would care to tempt them anyhow? Looking at the lumpy little monk in the cowl, she thought, with something perilously near a giggle, that it would take more charity than even a saint, to overlook his ugliness long enough to try and tempt him!

There were comfortable stables for all their riding-animals, and an enclosed stone room where Romilly found blocks and perches for her birds.

“You can go into the city and buy food for them,” Orain said, and handed her some copper rings, “But be back in good time for supper in the guest-house; and if you will, you may attend the night prayers – you might like to hear the choir singing.”

Romilly nodded obediently, inwardly delighted; Darren had spoken once of the fine singing of the Nevarsin choir, which he had not, in his days as a student, been musical enough to join; but her father, too, had spoken of one of the high points of his life, when he had attended a solemn service in the monastery and heard the singing of the monks. She hurried out into the city, excited and a little scared by the strange place; but she found a bird-seller, and when she made her wants known to him, he knew at once the proper food for the sentry-birds; she had half expected to have to carry a stinking, half-rotted carcass back through the city, but instead the seller said that he would be pleased to deliver the food to the guest-house stables. “You’ll be lodged in the monastery, young man? If it is your will, I can have proper food delivered every day for your birds.”

“I shall ask my master,” she said, “I do not know how long they propose to stay.” And she thought this was a fine thing, that such services should be provided; but when he told her the price she was a little troubled. Still, there was no way she could go outside the walls and hunt for food for them herself; so she arranged for the day and for tomorrow, and paid the man what he asked.

Returning through the city streets, grey and old, with ancient houses leaning over the streets and the walls closing around her, she felt a little frightened. She realized that she had lost contact with Preciosa before they entered the gates of Nevarsin; the climate here was too cold for a hawk . . . had Preciosa turned back to a more welcoming climate? The hawk could find no food in the city . . . there was carrion enough in the streets, she supposed from the smell, but no fresh living food for a hawk. She hoped Preciosa was safe….

But for now her charge was the sentry-birds; she saw to their feeding, and there was a large cobbled court where she could exercise them and let them fly. At the edge of the court while she was flying them in circles on the long lines – they screamed less, now, and she realized they were becoming accustomed to her touch and her voice – she saw, crowded into the edges of the court, an assembly of small boys. They all wore the bulky cowled robes of the monastery. But surely, Romilly thought, they were too young for monks; they must be students, sent as Ruyven, then Darren, had been sent. One day, perhaps, her brother Rael would be among them. How I miss Rael!

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