Romilly did not slacken her speed till the moon had set; riding in the dark, letting her horse have his head, she finally eased off the reins and let him slow to a walk. She was not sure herself quite where she was; she knew she had not taken the left-hand fork she should have taken at the bottom of the hill, to set her on the way to Nevarsin - it would have been all too easy for Rory to trace her that way. And now she knew that she was lost; she would not even be sure what direction she was riding until the sun should rise and she could get her bearings.
She found an overhanging clump of trees, unsaddled her horse and tied him at the foot of one tree, then wrapped herself in the cloak and the rough blanket she had caught up in her flight, digging into a little hollow at the foot of the tree. She was cold and cramped, but she slept, even though she kept starting out of sleep with nightmares in which a faceless man who was both Rory and Dom Garris - no, but he had a look of her father too - came down at her with inexorable slowness, while she could not move hand or foot. It was certain that if Rory ever set eyes on her again, she had better have her dagger ready. But someone had thrown her dagger down into the privy pit, and she could not look for it because her only clothing was one of her blood-stained rags, and somehow or other they were holding the Festival dance in the meadow where her father had his horse-fair. . . . She was wakened by the horse, restlessly snorting and nuzzling; the sun was up and the ice melting from the trees.
She had been lucky, in her breakneck flight last night, in the dark, that her horse had not broken a leg on the frosty road. Now, soberly, she took stock.
Among the things she had snatched up last night were a frozen quarter of rabbithorn meat, which she could cook and smoke - she had no salt for it, but in this weather it was not likely to spoil. At worst she could slice thin slivers away from the frozen haunch and eat them raw, though she had little liking for raw meat. She had lost flint and steel for firemaking . . . no, what a fool she was, she had her dagger and could search for a flint when the ice was thawed off the road. She had Rory's coarse cloak instead of her own fur-lined one, but that was all to the good; it would keep her warm without exciting the same greed as her finely woven and embroidered one, lined with rich fur. She had boots and heavy leather breeches, her dagger, a few small hoarded coins in their hiding-place between her breasts - she had abandoned the pocket with its few bits; perhaps that and the good cloak would satisfy Rory's greed and he would not pursue her. But she would take no chances, and press on. In her saddle-pack she had still a few pieces of the dog-bread on which she could feed her horse; she got out one of them, and gave it to the horse, letting him chew on the coarse grain while she arranged her clothing properly - she had fled the cottage half-dressed and all put together anyhow - and combed her short, ragged hair with her fingers. Certainly she must look disreputable enough to be a runaway hawkmaster's apprentice! Now the sun was high; it would be a fine day, for already the trees were casting off their snow-pods and beginning to bud again. She shaved a few thin slices of frozen rabbithorn and chewed on them; the meat was tough and unsavory, but she had been taught that anything a bird could eat, a human could digest, and since the hawks were fed on such fare it would certainly not harm her, even if she really preferred cooked food.
She got her bearings by the climbing sun, and set off again toward the north. Sooner or later she must meet with someone who would give her the right road for Nevarsin City, and from there she could inquire the way to Tramontana Tower.
She rode all that day without setting eyes on a single person or a single dwelling. She was not afraid, for she could find food in this country and while the weather kept fine, she would be safe and well. But before there was another storm, she must find shelter. Perhaps she could sell the horse in Nevarsin, bartering him for a stag-pony and enough in ready money to provide herself with food and a few items of clothing she should have in this weather. She had thrust her feet into her boots in such haste, she had left her warm stockings.
She sighed, put her knife away, and swallowed the last of the tough meat. A few withered winter apples clung to a bush; she pocketed them. They were small and sour, but the horse would like them. High above in the sky she heard the cry of a hawk; as she watched it, circling, she thought of Preciosa. It seemed to her for a moment - but surely it was only memory or imagination? - that she could feel that faint tenuous touch she had felt with Preciosa, as if the world lay spread below her, she saw herself and her horse as tiny specks . . . Oh, Preciosa, you were mine and I loved you, but now you are free and I too am seeking freedom.
She slept that night in a long-abandoned travel-shelter, which had not been kept up since the Aldarans declared their independence of the Six Domains of the lowlands; there was not much coming and going across the Kadarin between Thendara and Nevarsin these days. But it kept the rain off, and was better than sleeping under a tree. She managed to make a fire, too, so she slept warm, and roasted some of the rabbithorn. She hoped she would find some nuts - she was tired of meat - but while she was fed, however coarsely, she could not complain. Even the dog-bread she could eat, if she must, but the horse would get more good of it than she would.
So she travelled alone for three more days. By now, she supposed, they must have abandoned the search for her at home. She wondered if her father grieved, if he thought her dead.
When I come to Nevarsin, I will leave a message for him, I will get word to him somehow that I am safe. But no doubt it will be with me as it was with Ruyven, he will cast me off and say I am not his daughter. She felt a tightness in her throat, but she could not cry. She had cried too much already, and had gained nothing from her tears except an aching head and aching eyes, till she left off crying and acted to help herself.
Women think tears will help them. I think men have the right idea when they say tears are womanish; yes, women cry and so they are helpless, but men act on their anger and so they are never without power, not wasting time or anger in tears....
She finished the last of the rabbithorn, and was not sorry - toward the end, she supposed even a dog would have to be fiercely hungry to eat it, and certainly any hawk would have turned up its beak at the stuff. On the fifth night she had only some nuts, found on an abandoned tree, and some woody mushrooms, for her supper. Perhaps tomorrow she could snare some birds, or she would meet with someone who could tell her if she was again on the road to Nevarsin - but she thought not, for this road grew ever poorer and worse-kept, and if she were nearing the biggest city in these hills, she would certainly have come to some travelled roads and inhabited parts before this!
The dog-bread was gone too, and so she stopped several hours before sunset, to let her horse graze for a while. Fortunately the weather kept fine, and she could sleep in the open. She was very tired of travelling, but reflected that she could not now return to her home even if she wished - she had no idea of the road to Falconsward. Well, so much the better; now she could cut all ties with her home.
She slept poorly, hungry and cold, and waked early. The road was so poor . . . perhaps she should retrace her steps for a distance and see if she could come to more travelled parts? She tore some rags and bound her feet with them to ease the chafing of her boots . . . heels and toe were raw and sore. High in the sky, a single hawk circled - why was there never more than one in sight at a single time? Did they keep territories like some other animals for their hunting? And again that strange flash, as if she saw through the hawk's eyes - was it her laran again? - and thought of Preciosa. Preciosa, gone, free, lost. It is strange, I miss her more than father or brothers or home....
The time for fruiting was past, but she found a few small fruits still clinging to a bush, and ate them, wishing there were more. There was a tree which she knew she could strip the outer bark and eat the soft inner part, but she was not that hungry, not yet. She saddled her horse, weary in spite of her long sleep. Slowly it was beginning to come over her that she could lose herself and even die in these lonely and utterly uninhabited forests. But perhaps today she would meet with someone and begin to find her way to Nevarsin, or some to some little village where she could buy food.
After an hour of riding she came to a fork in the road, and paused there, indecisive, aching with hunger, exhausted. Well, she would let her horse graze for a bit while she climbed to the top of a little knoll nearby and looked about, to see if she could spy out any human habitation, the smoke of a woodcutter's fire, a herder's hut even. She had never felt so alone in her life. Of course not. I have never been so alone in all my life, she thought, with wry humor, and clambered up the knoll, her knees aching.
I have not eaten well for days. I must somehow find food and fire this night, whatever comes of it. She was almost wishing she had stayed with Rory and his abominable old grandmother; at least there she had been warm and fed . . . would it really have been so bad, to marry that oaf?
I would rather die in the wilderness, she told herself fiercely, but she was frightened and hungry, and from the top of the knoll she could see only what looked like a wilderness of trees. Far away, at the furthest edge of her sight, a high mountain loomed, to the Northwest, and pale shadows around it which she knew to be snowcapped peaks . . . there lay the Hellers themselves, to which these foothills were only little lumps in the land, and beyond them, the Wall Around the World, which was, as far as she knew from traveller's tales, impassable; at least no one she had ever known had gone beyond it, and on every map she had ever seen, it delimited the very edge of known country. Once she had asked her governess what lay beyond it.
"The frozen waste," her governess told her, "No man knows. . . ." The thought had intrigued Romilly, then. Now she had had enough of wandering in unknown country, and felt that some human company would be welcome.
Although what she had seen already did not make her feel very hopeful about what she would meet with from men on the roads..
Well, she had been unlucky, that was all. She sighed, and pulled her belt tighter. It would not hurt her to go on fasting another day, though tonight she must find some food, whatever happened. She looked around again, carefully taking the bearings of the great peak - it seemed to her that there was something near the top, a white building, some kind of manmade structure; she wondered if it was castle, Great House or, perhaps, one of the Towers. Northwest; she must be careful to keep track of the angle of the sun and the passage of time so that she would not begin walking in circles. But if she followed where the road led, she would be unlikely to do that.
She should get back to her horse. She glanced up again. Strange. The hawk still hovered. She wondered, on wild surmise, if it could be the same hawk ... no. It was just that hawks were plentiful in these hills and wherever you cast your eyes on the sky, there was sure to be some kind of bird of prey within sight. For an instant it seemed as if she hovered, seeing the white pinnacle of the Tower and a faint blue lightning that struck from within ... she felt faint and dizzy, not knowing whether it was the hawk or herself that saw ... she shook herself and pulled out of the rapport. It would be all too easy to lose herself in that communion with sky and wind and cloud....
She went back to her horse and painstakingly saddled him again. At least the animal was fed. She said aloud, "I almost wish I could eat grass as you do, old fellow," and was startled at the sound of her own voice.
It was answered by another sound; the high, shrill crying of a striking hawk - yes, the hawk had found some prey, for she could feel, somewhere in her mind, the flow of warm blood, a sensation that made her mouth tickle and flood with saliva, reawakening fierce hunger. The horse startled nervously away, and she pulled on the reins, speaking softly - and then dark pinions swooped across her vision. Without thought she thrust out her arm, felt the cruel grip of talons, and fell blindly into the familiar rapport.
"Preciosa!" She was sobbing as she spoke the name. How, why the hawk had followed her through her wandering, she would never know. The shrill cry and the flapping wings roused her from her tears and she was aware that there was a good-sized bird, still warm, gripped in the bird's claws. With one hand she gripped the bird's legs, lifting the claw away from her wrist - it was bleeding a little where the claws had cut, it was her own fault, for she had no proper glove. She set the bird on the saddle, her heart pounding, and pulled out her dagger; gave head and wings to Preciosa, and while the hawk fed - praise to the Bearer of Burdens, the horse knew enough to stand quietly when his saddle was made into an impromptu perch - she plucked what was left of the carcass, struck flint and steel and made a small fire where she roasted the carcass.
She came to me when I was hungry. She knew. She brought me food, giving up her own freedom. The jesses were still clinging to Preciosa's legs. Romilly cut them free with her dagger.
If she wants to stay with me now it shall be of her free will. Never again will I bind her with any mark of ownership. She belongs to herself. But her eyes were still flooding with tears. She met the hawk's eyes, and suddenly awareness leaped between hawk and girl, a strange, fierce emotion flooding her - not love as she knew it, but pure emotion, almost jealousy. She is not my hawk. I am her girl, Romilly thought, she has adopted me, not the other way round!
The hawk did not stir when she moved toward it; balancing a little by shifting her weight from foot to foot, she stared motionless into Romilly's eyes; then gave a little upward hop and alighted on her shoulder. Romilly caught her breath with the pain as the talons tightened on her flesh, even through tunic and cloak, and immediately the grip slackened, so that Preciosa was holding her just tightly enough to keep her balance.
"You beauty, you wonder, you marvel," Romilly whispered, while the hawk craned her neck and preened the set of her feathers.
Never have I known of such a thing as this, that a hawk once set free should return. . . . and Romilly supposed it was the mark of her laran which had brought her close to the hawk.
She stayed quiet, in that wordless communion, for what seemed a long time, while Romilly finished the roasted meat, covered the fire and resaddled the horse; her hands moved automatically about her tasks, but her eyes kept coming back and her mind dropping into silent closeness to the bird.
Will she stay with me now? Or fly away again? It no longer matters. We are together.
At last she cut a branch and trimmed it, fastening it to her saddle behind, as a perch for Preciosa if she chose to stay there, and mounted, setting Preciosa on the improvised perch. Preciosa stayed quiet for a moment, then flapped her wings and rose high, wheeling just at the height of the treetop, hovering near. Romilly drew a long breath. Preciosa would not leave her entirely.
Then she drew on the horse's reins, for she heard voices; a rough man's voice proclaiming, "I tell you, it was smoke I saw," and another one protesting something. There were horse's hooves, too, and somewhere a sharp barking.
Romilly was off her horse, sliding down, leading him into the thickest part of the trees at the edge of the road. She had no wish to meet with any travellers before she could get a look at them and see what they were up to and what they looked like.
Another voice spoke, rough and male, but this time in the cultivated accents of an educated man - a lowlander, Romilly thought; he spoke like Alderic. "If anyone else travels on this road, Orain, he is no doubt in our own case, and will be as glad as we are to see another human face." The riders came into sight now, a tall man with flame-red hair, wearing ragged clothing but with a certain look of elegance - this one was no yokel like Rory. Somehow he reminded her of Lord Storn, or the elderly Lord Scathfell, though his dress was as rough as her own, his beard and hair untrimmed. The man at his side was tall too, almost gaunt, wearing a shirtcloak of antique fashion and boots that looked hand-botched together from untanned leather. On a block before him, on his saddle, a huge hooded bird, which did not look like any hawk Romilly had ever seen before, moved uneasily from foot to foot, and Romilly, still partly in rapport with Preciosa at treetop-height, felt a little shudder of anger and something like fear. She did not know what sort of bird it was, but she knew instinctively that she did not like to be around it.
Behind the two men in the lead, five or six others rode. Only the two in the vanguard had horses; the others rode an assortment of chervines, none of them very large or very good, their coats ill-cared-for and their horns ragged and rough; one or two of the stag-beasts had been crudely dehorned with a lack of skill that made Romilly wince. Her father would have turned away any hired man who kept his riding-animals in any such condition, and as for the dehorning, she could almost have done better herself! She liked the look of the two men who rode ahead, but she thought she had never seen such ruffians as the men behind them!
The gaunt, bearded man in the lead, riding at the side of the red-haired aristocrat (so she immediately styled him in her mind) got off his horse and said, "Here's trace of fire; and horse-droppings, too; there's been a rider here."
"And with a horse, in the wild?" the red-haired man inquired with a lift of his eyebrows. He glanced around, but it was the gaunt, crudely dressed man whose eyes lighted on Romilly where she stood by the horse in the thickest part of the trees.
"Come out, boy. We mean ye' no harm," he said, beckoning, and the red-haired man slid from his horse and stood by the remains of her fire. He poked about the carefully covered coals-like everyone brought up in the Hellers, Romilly was over-cautious about fire in the woods-and finally extracted a few live sparks; threw in a twig or two.
"You have saved us the trouble of making fire," he said in his quiet, educated voice, "Come and share it with us, no one will hurt you."
And indeed Romilly felt no sense of menace from any of them. She led the horse from the concealed thicket and stood with her hand on the bridle.
"Well, lad, who are ye' and whereaway bound?" asked the gaunt man, and his voice was kind. He was, she thought, not quite as old as her father, but older than any of her brothers. She repeated the tale she had thought of.
"I am a hawkmaster's apprentice - I was brought up in a Great House, but my mother was too proud to claim me a nobleman's son, and I thought I could better myself in Nevarsin; so I took the road there, but I am lost."
"But you have horse and cloak, dagger and - if I make no mistake - a hawk too," said the redhead, his grey eyes lighting on the improvised perch, to which Romilly had tied the cut-away jesses- her whole training had taught her never to throw away a scrap of leather, it could always be used for something. "Did you steal the hawk? Or what is an apprentice doing with a bird - and where is she?"
Romilly raised her arm; Preciosa swooped down and caught her lifted forearm. She said fiercely, "She is mine; no other can claim her, for I trained her with my own hand."
"I doubt you not," said the aristocrat, "for in this wild, without even jesses, she could fly away if she would, and in that sense at least, you own her as much as anything human can own a wild thing."
He understands that! Romilly felt a sudden extreme sense of kinship with this man, as if he were a brother, a kinsman. She smiled up at him, and he returned the smile. Then he looked around at the men ringing the grove, and said, "We too are on our way to Nevarsin, though the route we travel is somewhat circuitous - for reasons of caution. Ride with us, if you will."
"What Dom Carlo means," said the gaunt man at his side, "is that if we rode the main roads, there are those who'd have the hangman on us, quick!"
Were they outlaws, bandits? Romilly wondered whether she had not, in escaping Rory and taking up with these rough-looking men, walked from the trap to the cookpot! But the redhead smiled, a look of pure affection and love, at the other man and said, "You make us sound like a crew of murderers, Orain. We are landless men who lost the estates of our fathers, and some of us lost our kin, too, because we supported the rightful king instead of yonder rascal who thinks to claim the throne of the Hasturs. He assured he would have supporters enough by poison, rope or knife for all those who would not support him, and had enough lands to reward his followers, by murdering, or sending into exile, anyone who looked at him cross-eyed and did not bend the knee fast enough. So we are bound for Nevarsin, to raise an army there - Rakhal shall not have the Crystal Palace unchallenged! Him a Hastur?" The man laughed shortly. "I'll shall his head rest in that crown while any of us are alive! I am Carlo of Blue Lake; and this is my paxman and friend Orain."
The word he had used for "friend" was one which could also mean cousin or foster-brother; and Romilly saw that the gaunt Orain looked on Dom Carlo with a devotion like that of a good hound for his master.
"But if the lad is a hawk-trainer," Orain said, "I doubt not he could tell ye what ails our sentry-birds, Dom Carlo."
Carlo looked sharply at Romilly. "What's your name, boy?"
"Rumal."
"And from your accent I can tell you were reared north of the Kadarin," said he. "Well, Rumal, have you knowledge of hawks?"
Romilly nodded. "I have, sir."
"Show him the birds, Orain."
Orain went to his horse, and took the great bird from the saddle. He beckoned to two of the other men, who were carrying similar birds on their saddles; warily, Orain drew the hood from the head of the bird, being careful to stay out of reach; it jerked its head around, making pecking movements, but was too listless to peck. There was a long feathered crest over the eye-sockets, but the head was naked and ugly, the feathers unkempt and unpreened, even the creature's talons scaly and dirty-looking. She thought she had never seen such ugly fierce-looking birds; but if in good health they might have had the beauty of any wild creature. Now they just looked hunched and miserable. One of them cocked its neck and let out a long scream, then drooped its head between its wings and looked disreputable again.
Romilly said, "I have never seen birds of this kind." Though she thought they looked more like kyorebni, the savage scavenger-birds of the high hills, than any proper hunting-bird of prey.
"Still, a bird is a bird," said Carlo, "We got these from a well-wisher and we would take them as a gift to Carolin's armies, in Nevarsin, but they are failing fast and may not live till we get there - we cannot make out what ails them, though some of us have trained and flown hawks - but none of us know how to treat them when they ail. Have you knowledge of their ills, Master Rumal?"
"A little," Romilly said, trying desperately to muster her small knowledge of curing sick animals. These were sick indeed; any bird, from cagebird to verrin hawk, who will not preen its feathers and keep its feet in trim is a sick bird. She had been taught to mend a broken flight feather, but she knew little of medicining sick birds, and if they had molt-rot or something of the sort, she had not the faintest idea what to do about it.
Nevertheless she went up to the strange, fierce-looking birds, and held out her hand to the one Orain held, looking it into the eye and reaching out with that instinctive rapport. A dullness spread through her, a sickness and pain that made her want to retch. She pulled out of the rapport, feeling nauseated, and said, "What have you been feeding them?"
That was a good guess; she remembered Preciosa, sickened by insufficiently fresh food.
"Only the best and freshest food," said one of the men behind Orain, defensively, "I lived in a Great House where there were hawks kept, and knew them meat-eaters; when our hunting was poor, all of us went short to give the damned birds fresh meat, for all the good it did us," he added, looking distressedly at the drooping bird on his saddleblock.
"Only fresh meat?" said Romilly, "There is your trouble, sir. Look at their beak and claws, and then look at my hawk's. That's a scavenger-bird, sir; she should be freed to hunt food for herself. She can't tear apart fresh meat, her beak's not strong enough, and if you've been carrying her on your saddle and not let her free, she's not been able to peck gravel and stones for her crop. She feeds on half-rotted meat, and she must have fur or feathers too - the muscle meat alone, and skinned as well - wasn't it?"
"We thought that was the way to do it," said Orain, and Romilly shook her head. "If you must feed them on killed meat, leave feather and fur on it, and make sure she gets a chance to peck up stones and twigs and even a bit of green stuff now and then. These birds, though I am sure you've tried to feed them on the best, are starving because they can't digest what you've given them. They should be allowed to hunt for themselves, even if you have to fly them on a lure-line."
"Zandru's hells, it makes good sense, Orain," said Dom Carlo, blinking, "I should have seen it ... well, now we know. What can we do?"
Romilly thought about it, quickly. Preciosa had wheeled up into the sky, and hovered there; Romilly went quickly into rapport with the bird, seeing for a moment through her eyes; then said, "There is something dead in the thicket over there. I'm not familiar with your - what do you call them - sentry-birds; are they territorial, or will they feed together?"
"We daren't let them too near each other," said Orain, "for they fight; this one I carry near pecked out the eyes of that one on Gawin's saddle there."
Romilly said, "Then there's no help for it; you'll have to feed them separately. There-" she pointed, "is something dead for at least a couple of days - you'll have to fetch it and cut it up for them."
The men hesitated.
"Well," said Dom Carlo sharply, "What are you waiting for? Carolin needs these birds, and no doubt at Tramontana they'll have a leronis who can fly them, but we've got to get them there alive!"
"Ye squeamish, lily-gutted, cack-handed incompetents," Orain swore, "Afraid to get yer hands dirty, are ye? I'll set an example, then! Where's this dead thing ye spied, lad?"
Romilly began to walk toward the thicket; Orain followed and Dom Carlo said with asperity, "Go and help him, you men, as many as he needs! Will you let one man and a child drag carrion for three birds?"
Reluctantly, a couple of the men followed. Whatever animal lay dead in the thicket - she suspected it was one of the small multicolored woods chervines - it announced its presence very soon by the smell, and Romilly wrinkled her nose.
Orain said incredulously, "We're to feed that to those fine birds?" He bent down and hauled gingerly at the smelly carcass; a stream of small insects were parading in and out of the empty eye-holes, but it was not yet disintegrated enough to come apart in their hands, and Romilly took one end of the carcass and hoisted, trying to breathe through her mouth so she would not have to breathe in much of the foul smell.
"A kyarebni would think it fine fare," Romilly said, "I have never kept a scavenger-bird, but their bellies are not like those of hawks, and how would you like to be fed on grass?"
"I doubt not that y're right," said Orain glumly, "But I never thought to be handling stinking carrion even for the king's men!" The other men came and lent a hand in the hauling; Romilly was glad when it was over, but some of the men gagged and retched as they handled the stuff. Orain, however, drew a formidable knife and began hacking it into three parts; even before he was finished the hooded bird on his saddle set up a screaming. Romilly drew a long breath of relief. She did not like to think what would have happened if she had been wrong, but evidently she had been right. She took up a small handful of fine pebbly dirt and strewed it over the cut hunk of the carcass, then, hesitating - but remembering the moment of rapport with the sick bird - went and unfastened the hood.
Orain shouted, "Hey! Look out there, lad, she'll pick out yer eyes-"
But the bird, under her light hands, seemed gentle and submissive. Poor hungry thing, Romilly thought, and lifted the heavy weight - it took all her strength to set it on the ground beside the hacked carcass. With a scream, the bird plunged its beak into the carcass and tore hard, gulping down fur, pebbles, the smelly half-decomposed meat.
"You see?" said Romilly simply, and went to lift down the other bird. Orain came to help her, but the strange bird thrust angry beak at him, and he drew back, letting Romilly handle it.
When all of the birds had fed and were preening their feathers, making little croaking sounds of satisfaction, Dom Carlo lifted his eyebrow at Orain, and Orain said, "Ride with us to Nevarsin, lad, and then to Tramontana to deliver these birds to Carolin's men; and keep them healthy on the way. We'll feed you and your horse, and give you three silver bits for every tenday ye're with us while the birds stay healthy. Your hawk," he added with a droll grin, "Can no doubt hunt for himself."
"Herself," Romilly corrected, and Orain chuckled.
"Be a bird male or female, none cares except another bird of its own kind," he said. "Otherwise with humankind, aye, Dom Carlo?" And he laughed, though Romilly could not quite see the joke. "Well, what about it, boy, will ye' have along of us and the sentry-birds?"
Romilly had already made up her mind. She herself was bound, first to Nevarsin and then to Tramontana to seek her brother or news of him. This would give her protection and keep her fed. She said, "Gladly, Dom Carlo and Master Orain."
"Bargain, then," said Orain, and stuck out his calloused hand with a grin. "Now the birds have fed, shall we move out of range of the smell of their feeding, and have a bait of vittles for ourselves?"
"Sounds good," Romilly said, and went to unsaddle her horse.
The food was heavy dough, baked by the simple method of thrusting twists of the dough on to sticks and baking over the fire; and a few thick tubers roasted in the ashes. Romilly sat beside Orain, who offered her salt from a little pouch drawn from his pocket. When the meal was done, the birds hooded and taken on their saddles again - Orain asked Romilly for help with getting the hoods back on the birds - she heard one or two of the men grumbling.
"That lad rides a horse when we make do wi' a stag-pony each? What about it - shall we have it from him?"
'Try it," said Orain, turning, "and ye can ride alone in these woods, Alaric - there are no thieves and bandits in our company, and if ye' lay one finger on the boy's horse, it'll be for Dom Carlo to deal with ye'!"
Romilly felt a surge of gratitude; it seemed she had found a protector in Orain, and for the moment, facing the ragged crew, she was a little frightened.
Soon or late, though, she might have to face them on her own, without a protector....
"What are the birds' names?" she asked Orain. He grinned at her. "Does anyone name uglies like these, as if they were a child's cagebird or the old wife's pet cow?"
"I do," Romilly said, "You must give any animal with which you wish to work closely, a name, so that he will read it in your mind and know it is of him - or her - that you speak, and to her you are directing your attention."
"Is it so?" Orain asked, chuckling, "I suppose you could call them Ugly-mug One, Ugly-mug Two, and Ugly-mug Three!"
"By no means," said Romilly with indignation. The bird on her first fluttered restlessly, and she added, "Birds are very sensitive! If you are ever to work with them, you must love them-" before the open derision in the men's eyes she knew she was blushing, but went on nevertheless, "You must respect them, and care for them, and feel a real kindness for them. Do you think they do not know that you dislike them and are afraid of them?"
"And you don't?" Dom Carlo asked. He sounded genuinely interested, and she turned to him with relief. She said, "Would you mock your best hunting-dog if you wanted to have a good hunt, with him working to your word or gesture? Don't you think he would know?"
"I have not hunted since I was a young lad," Dom Carlo said, "but certainly I would not treat any beast I sought to tame to my service, with anything but respect. Listen to what the lad says, men; he's got the right of it. I heard the same from my own hawkmaster once. And surely-" he patted the neck of the superb black mare he rode, "we all have love and respect for our beasts, horse or chervine, who carry us so faithfully."
"Well," said Orain, again with that droll curl of his lip, looking down at the great gross body of the sentry-bird, "We could call this one Beauty, that one Lovely, and that one over there we might call Gorgeous. I doubt not they're beautiful enough to one another - lovesome's as lovesome does, or so my old Ma used to say."
Romilly giggled. "I think that would be overdoing," she said. "Beauty they may not have, but - let me think-I shall call them after the Virtues," she added after a moment. "This one-" she lifted the heavy bird on to its block on Orain's saddle, "Shall be Prudence. This one-" she went, frowned at the dirty perch and thrust the hooded bird on to Orain's gloved fist while she dug out her knife and scraped off a disgusting accumulation of filth and droppings. "This one shall be Temperance, and this one-" turning to the third, "Diligence."
"How are we to tell them apart?" demanded one of the men, and she said seriously, "Why, they are nothing alike. Diligence is the big one with the blue tips on her wings - see? And Temperance - you can't see it now, it's under the hood, but her crest is big and white-speckled. And Prudence is the little one with the extra toe on her feet - see?" She pointed out the features one by one, and Orain stared in amazement.
"Why, so they are different - I never thought to notice."
Romilly climbed into her saddle. She said seriously, "The first thing you have to learn about birds is to think of each one as an individual. In their manners and their habits, too, they are no more alike than you and Dom Carlo." She turned in her saddle to the redhaired man and said, "Forgive me, sir, perhaps I should have consulted you before naming your birds-"
He shook his head. "I never thought of it. They seem good names, indeed . . . are you a cristoforo, my lad?"
She nodded. "I was reared as one. And you, sir?"
"I serve the Lord of Light," he said briefly. Romilly said nothing, but was a little startled - the Hali'imyn did not come all that often into these hills. But of course, if they were Carolin's men in exile, they would serve the Gods of the Hastur-kindred. And if Carolin's armies were massing at Nevarsin - excitement caught in her throat. No doubt this was the reason Alderic was in these hills, to join the king when the time was ripe. She speculated again, briefly, about Alderic's real identity. If these were Carolin's men, perhaps they knew him and were his friends. But that was not her business and the last thing she should do was to entangle herself in any man's cause. Her father had said it, and it was true, why should it matter which rascal sat on the throne, so long as they left honest folk alone to do their own business?
She rode in the line of men, keeping rather nervously close to Orain and Dom Carlo - she did not like the way the man Alaric stared at her, and, no doubt, like the villainous Rory, he coveted her horse. At least he did not know she was a female and so he did not covet her body; and she could protect her horse, at least while she had Dom Carlo's protection.
Come to think of it, she hadn't done such a bad job of protecting her body, at that.
They rode all day, stopping at noon for some porridge made by stirring cold well-water into finely-ground porridge powder. This, with a handful of nuts, made a hearty meal. After the meal they rested for a time, but Romilly busied herself with her knife, trimming and balancing proper perches - the sentry-birds were, she could see, in considerable distress from the poorly-balanced saddle-blocks. She checked the knots in the jesses, too, and found that one of the birds had a festered place in its leg from top-tight knots, which she treated with cold water and a poultice of healing leaves. The other men were lying around in the clearing, enjoying the sun, but when Romilly came back from checking the birds, she saw that Dom Carlo was awake and watching her. Nevertheless she went on with her work. One of the men's stag-ponies was poorly dehorned and the horn-bud trickling blood at the base; she trimmed it and scraped it clean, drying it with a bit of rag and packing it with absorbent moss, then went from stag-pony to stag-pony, checking one which had been limping, and picking, with her knife-point, a little stone from between the hoof-segments.
"So," said Dom Carlo at last, lazily, opening his eyes, "You go about your self-appointed tasks well - you are not lazy, Rumal. Where got you your knowledge of beasts? You have the skill of a MacAran with them-" and he sat up and looked at her, "and I would say you had a touch of their laran as well. And now I think of it, you've a look of that clan, too." His grey eyes met hers, and Romilly felt a curious sense that he looked at her inside and out, and she quailed - could he tell, if he was one of the Gifted Hastur-kinfolk, that she was a girl? But he seemed not to be aware of her dismay, only went on looking at her - it was, she thought, as if it never occurred to him that anyone would refuse to answer him when he asked.
She said, her words stumbling over themselves, "I was-I said-brought up-I know some of them-"
"Born the wrong side of the bed? Aye, it's an old enough story in these hills, and elsewhere too," said Dom Carlo, "Which is why that ruffian Rakhal sits on the throne and Carolin awaits us in Nevarsin."
"You know the king well, sir? You seem one of the Hali'imyn."
"Why, so I am," Dom Carlo said easily, "No, Orain, don't look like that, the word's not the insult in these mountains that it would be South of the Kadarin. The boy means no harm. Know the king? I have not seen him often," Dom Carlo said, "but he is kin to me, and I hold by him. As I said, a few too many bastards with ambitions put Carolin in this difficulty - his father was too tender-hearted with his ambitious kinsmen, and only a tyrant assures his throne by murdering all others with the shadow of a claim to it. So I have sympathy with your plight, boy - if the usurper Rakhal laid hands on me, for instance, or any of Carolin's sons, their heads would soon be decorating the walls of his castle. I suppose you have some of the MacAran donas, though, or you could not handle beasts as you do. There is a MacAran laranzu in Tramontana - it is to him and his fellow workers that we mean these birds to go, in the end. Know you anything of sentry-birds, then, my boy?"
Romilly shook her head. "Not until today did I ever set eyes on one, though I have heard they are used for spying."
"True," said Dom Carlo, "One who has the laran of your family or something like to it, must work with them, stay in rapport as they fly where you wish to see. If there is an army on the road, you can spy out their numbers and report their movements. The side with the best-trained spy-birds is often the side that wins the battle, for they can take the other by surprise."
"And these are to be trained for this?"
"They must be trained so that they can be handled easily," said Carlo. "A royal gift this was, from one of Carolin's supporters in these hills; but my men knew little of them, which is why it is as if the very Gods sent you to us, who can keep them in health and perhaps gentle them a little to working."
"The one who will fly them at last should do that," Romilly said, "but I will try hard to accustom them to human hands and human voices, and keep them healthy and properly fed." And she wondered; for Ruyven was at Tramontana, so she had heard, and perhaps he was the laranzu for whose hands these birds were destined. How strangely Fate turned . . . perhaps, if she could make her way to Tramontana, her gifts could be trained to the handling of such birds. "If your men have any hunting skills, it would be well if they could bring down some medium-small game and feed it to the birds, but not too fresh, unless they can cut it up very fine and feed them skin and feathers with it..."
"I'll leave their diet to you," Dom Carlo said, "And if you have any trouble with them, tell me. These are valuable creatures and I'll not have them mishandled." He looked up into the sky, crimsoning as the great sun began to decline somewhat from noon, where, just at the very edge of sight, Romilly could see Preciosa, a tiny dark speck hovering near. "Your hawk stays near even when she flies free? How did you train her to that? What is her name?"
"Preciosa, sir."
"Preciosa," jeered the man Alaric, coming to saddle Dom Carlo's horse, "Like a wee girl naming her doll!"
"Don't mock the lad," Dom Carlo said gently, "Till you can better his way with the birds, we need his skills. And you should take better care of your own beast - a chervine can be well-kept, even if he is not a horse. You should thank Rumal for finding the stone in Greywalker's hoof!"
"Oh, an' indeed I do," said Alaric with a surly scowl, and turned away. Romilly watched with a faint frown of distaste. It seemed she already had an enemy among these men, which she had done nothing to deserve. But perhaps she had been tactless in caring for the chervine's hoof - perhaps she should simply have warned Alaric that his beast was going lame. But couldn't he see, or feel the poor thing limping? She supposed that was what it was to be head-blind. He could not communicate with any dumb brute. And with the intolerance of the very young, she thought, if he does not understand animals better than that, he should not try to ride one!
Soon after, they mounted and rode on through the afternoon. The trails were steeper now, and Romilly began to lag behind somewhat - on these paths and roads, a mountain-bred chervine was better than a horse, and there were places on the narrow mountain paths where Romilly, Orain and Dom Carlo had to dismount and lead their horses by the bridle while the men on the sure-footed stag-like riding-beasts stayed in their saddles, secure as ever. She had lived in the hills all her life and was in general not afraid of anything, but some of the steep edges and sheer cliffs over abysses of empty space and clouds made her gasp and catch her breath, biting her lip against showing her fear. Up they went, and upward still, climbing through cold layers of mist and cloud, and her ears began to ache and her breath grew shorter while her heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she could hardly hear the hooves of the horses and stag-ponies on the rocky path. Once she dislodged a stone with her foot and saw it bouncing down the cliffside, rebounding every ten or fifteen feet until it disappeared into the clouds below.
They paused and drew close together in the throat of the pass, and Orain pointed to a cluster of lights against the dusk of the next mountain. His voice was very low, but Romilly lagging with the other horses, heard him.
"There it lies. Nevarsin, The City of Snows, vai dom. Two or at the most, three more days on the road, and you will be safe behind the walls of St.-Valentine-of-the-Snows."
"And your faithful heart can rest without fear, bredu? But all these men are loyal, and even if they knew-"
"Don't even whisper it aloud, my lord-Dom Carlo," Orain said urgently.
Dom Carlo reached out and gave the other man's thin shoulder an affectionate touch.
"You have sheltered me with your care since we were children - who but you should be at my side then, foster-brother?"
"Ah, you'll have dozens and hundreds then to care for you, my-" again he paused, "vai dom."
"But none with your faithfulness," said Dom Carlo gently. "You'll have all the rewards I can give."
"Reward enough to see you where you belong again - Carlo," said Orain, and turned back to oversee the descent of the others down through the narrow defile which led away toward the bottom of the ravine.
They camped in the open that night, under a crude tent pitched beneath a tree, just a slanting sheet to keep the worst of the rain from them. As befitted a paxman, Orain kept close to Dom Carlo, but as they were spreading their blankets, and Romilly checking the birds and feeding them the last of the carrion - the men grumbled and snarled about the smell, but no one would gainsay Dom Carlo. Orain said briefly, "Rumal, you'd better spread your blankets near to us - you haven't much in the way of blankets and even wi' your cloak you'll freeze, lad."
Romilly thanked them meekly and crawled in between the two men. She had taken off only her boots - she did not want to be seen in fewer clothes than this - but even with cloak and blanket she felt chilled, and was grateful for shared blankets and warmth. She was vaguely aware, at the edge of sleep, when Preciosa swooped down and roosted within the circle of the fires; and beyond that, something else ... a faint awareness, the touch of laran - Dom Carlo's thoughts, stirring, circling about the camp to make sure that all was well with men, riding-beasts and birds.
Then she slept.