There was a subtly different feel to the army camp today. The great central tent where the Hastur banner had flown was being pulled down by what looked like a horde of workmen, there was confusion coming and going through the length and breadth of the camp. Leaving Sunstar with Jandria and the others who had come to help her with the stallion, Romilly hurried off to the bird-handlers quarters. She found Ruyven there, fussing with the perches installed for the sentry-birds atop pack-animals. The chervines, disliking the carrion smell that clung to the birds, were stamping restlessly and moving around with little, troubled snorts and pawings.
"I imagine," Romilly said, "that this all means that the army is about to move southward and I am to go with you."
He nodded. "I cannot handle or fly three birds alone," he said, "and there is not another qualified handler for these sentry-birds within a hundred leagues, except, God help us, for the ones who may be among Rakhal's scouts or advance guard. We have had intelligence from Hali that Rakhal is massing his own armies under Lyondri Hastur, and if he moves as we think - and that will depend to some degree upon how well you and I use the eyes of our birds - we will meet him near Neskaya in the Kilghard Hills. In fact, Lord Orain has asked if we can fly the birds out today and see what we can spy out."
"And, of course, when Orain speaks, all the army jumps to attention," said Romilly dryly. Ruyven stared at her.
"What is the matter with you, Romy? Lord Orain is a good and kindly man, and Carolin's chief adviser and friend! Do you dislike him? And with what reason?"
That recalled Romilly to herself. It was only wounded vanity; while he thought her a boy, Orain had admired her and trusted her, and when he knew her a woman, all that went into discard and she was just another nonentity, another woman, perhaps a danger to him. But that was Orain's problem and not hers; she had done nothing to deserve being ruthlessly cast out of his affections like that.
And he is the loser by it. Not I.
She said steadily, "I value Orain's gifts better than you know; I travelled with him and worked close to him for many moons. I do not think he should look down on me simply because I am a woman; I have shown I can do my work as well and skillfully as any man."
"No one doubts that, Romy," said Ruyven, in a note so conciliating that Romilly wondered how much of her hidden anger had actually shown in her face, "But Orain loves not women, and he has not had Tower teachings - we know in Tramontana that women's strengths and men's are not so different, after all. We are the first Tower who experimented with a woman for Keeper in one of our circles, and she is as skillful with the work as any man, even a Hastur. I think you, too, could benefit by such training."
"I used to think so," said Romilly, "But now I know what my laran is and my Gift. Father too must have some of this Gift, or he could not train horses as he does, and now I know how well I have inherited it."
"I would not be too quick to decide against Tower training," said Ruyven, "I too thought I had mastered my laran even in Nevarsin, but I discovered that while I kept all at bay on the front lines of the war with self, I had left undefended fortresses at my back, and through these I was almost conquered."
Romilly made an impatient gesture; the symbolism of the warrior struck her as far-fetched and unnecessary. "If we are to take the birds out and fly them, let us be about it, then. After all, if Lord Orain has given orders, Carolin's chief adviser cannot be kept waiting."
Ruyven seemed about to protest the sarcasm, but he sighed and was still. In his black robe he looked very much like a monk, and his narrow face had the detached, impassive look she associated with the Nevarsin brothers. "They will come for us when they want us. Will you make sure that Temperance's jesses are not too tight? I was afraid they were tearing an old scar on her leg, and Orain said that before you came to them, she had suffered some damage. I think your eyes are keener than mine."
Romilly went to examine the bird's leg, soothing Temperance with her ready thoughts. She found no serious trouble, but she did shift the location of the jesses around the bird's leg; the old scar did indeed look red and raw. She sponged it with a solution of karalla powder as a precaution, then turned the three hoods inside out and dusted them lightly inside with the same powder as a preventive against any dampness or infection, or the tiny parasites which sometimes got on birds and caused trouble at molting.
Ruyven said at last, "I am sorry to use my talents this way, at war, when I would rather stay peacefully in the Tower and work for our own people in the hills. But otherwise, all the Kingdoms may fall, one by one, to the tyranny of Lyondri Hastur and that wretch Rakhal, who has neither honor nor laran nor any sense of justice, but only a vicious will to power. Carolin, at least, is an honorable man."
"You say so and Orain says so. I have never seen him."
"Well, you shall see him now," said Orain, standing at the back of the enclosure; he had evidently heard the exchange. "Jandria told me of your hostel's gift to the king, and she thought it only right, Mistress Romilly, that you should present it with your own hands, so come with me."
Romilly glanced at Ruyven, who said, "I will come to," and, replacing his glove, came after them.
Why is Ruyven the king's hawkmaster and I regarded only as his helper? I am a professional Swordswoman and it is I who have the greater skill. Ruyven would rather be in his Tower, and this work is life to me. He says himself that in the Tower women are allowed to hold high offices, yet it never seems to occur to him that I, his little sister, should be treated with that kind of fairness. Carolin's armies, then, are ruled by the old notion that a man must always do any work better than the most skilled of women?
But her rebellious thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Jandria, who stood holding Sunstar by the reins. He was saddled and bridled, and as he raised his silken nose and whickered softly in recognition of Romilly, she reached out again to touch the horse's mind in greeting and love.
Jandria said, "It is an honor to the Sisterhood that we can make this splendid gift to the king, and for their sake I thank you."
"I am the one who is honored," Romilly answered in a low voice, "It has been a pleasure to work with Sunstar."
"There he is, with Lord Orain," said Jandria, and Romilly saw Orain, dressed for riding, next to a hooded and cloaked man who was walking toward them. She gripped Sunstar's reins in excitement.
"High-lord, you lend us grace," Jandria began with a deep bow. "The Sisterhood of the Sword is honored and pleased to present you with this magnificent horse, trained by our finest horse-woman. Romilly?"
She did not raise her eyes to the king's, though she was conscious of Orain's glance. She said, looking only at the horse's sleek nose, "His name is Sunstar, Your Majesty, and he is trained to all paces and gaits. He will carry you for love; he has never felt whip or spur."
"If you had his training, Mistress Romilly, I know he is well trained," said a familiar voice, and she looked up at the hooded form of the king, to look into the eyes of Dom Carlo of Blue Lake. He smiled at her surprise. "I am sorry to have the advantage of you, Mistress MacAran; I knew who you were long ago. . . ." and she remembered the moment when she had felt the touch of his laran.
"I wish you had told me, vai dom," said Orain, "I had no notion she was a girl and I made a precious fool of myself!"
Dom Carlo - no, Romilly reminded herself, King Carolin, Hastur of Hastur, Lord of Thendara and Hali - looked at Orain with open, warm affection. He said, "You see only what you want to see, bredu," and patted Orain's shoulder. He said to Romilly, "I thank you, and the Sisterhood, for this magnificent gift, and for your loyalty to me. Both are precious to me, believe me. And I have heard, too, that you are to continue with your handling of the sentry-birds whose lives you saved when we met with you on the trail to Nevarsin. I shall not forget, my-" he hesitated a moment, smiled and said, "Swordswoman. Thank you - thank you all."
Romilly touched Sunstar again, a loving and final gesture of leave-taking. "Serve him well," she whispered, "Carry him faithfully, love him as I - as I love you." She moved away from the animal, watching as the king gathered up the reins and mounted.
He has some touch of that gift. I remember well. Sunstar, then, does not go to a brutal or insensitive man, but to one who will reckon him at his true worth.
Still she was troubled. Dom Carlo had known she was a girl and had not betrayed her among the men; but he might have spared her humiliation at Orain's hands, too, by warning his friend. But then, remembering to be fair, she told herself that he might have had no notion of her feelings for Orain, and he certainly could never have guessed that she would throw herself at Orain's head - or into his bed - in that way.
Well, it did not matter; done was done. Ruyven came toward her and she presented him to Jandria.
"My brother Ruyven; the Lady Jandria."
"Swordswoman Jandria," corrected the older woman, laughing. "I have told you; rank we leave behind us when we take the sword. And your brother is-"
"Ruyven MacAran," he told her, "Fourth in Tramontana, Second Circle. Have you finished with my sister, domna?" Romilly noted that, as if automatically, he called Jandria by the formal title given an equal or superior, domna - Lady - rather than the simpler mestra which he would have used to a social inferior.
"She is free to go," Jandria said, and Romilly, frowning, followed Ruyven.
She had hoped that some time that day it would seem natural to speak to Ruyven of her departure from Falconsward. She had intended, then-how long ago it seemed!-to seek the Tower where he had taken refuge. Somehow she had expected that he would welcome her there. But this quiet, monkish stranger seemed to bear no relation whatever to the brother who had been so close to her in childhood. She could not imagine confiding in him. She felt closer now to Jandria, or even to Orain, stranger that he had now become!
She looked back briefly at Sunstar, pacing along at a stately gait with Dom Carlo - no, she must remember, King Carolin - in the saddle. A brief mental touch renewed the old communication, and she felt herself smile.
I am closer to that horse than to anything human; closer than I have ever been to anything human.
When they had done for the day, Jandria came for her.
"At the edge of the camp, there is a tent where the Swordswomen who follow Carolin are to sleep," she said. "Come with me, Romilly, and I will show you."
"I should sleep here with the birds," Romilly said with a shrug, "No hawkmaster goes out of earshot of his trained birds - I will roll myself in my cloak, I need no tent."
"But you cannot sleep among the men," said Jandria, "it is not even to be thought of."
"The king's hawkmaster is my own brother born," said Romilly, impatient now, "Are you saying that he is likely to be any damage to my virtue? Surely the presence of my older brother is protection enough!"
Jandria said with a touch of sharpness, "You know the rules for Swordswomen outside their hostels! We cannot tell everyone in the army that he is your brother, and if it becomes known that an oath-bound Swordswoman has slept alone in the tent with a man-"
"Their minds must be like the sewers of Thendara," said Romilly angrily. "I am to leave my birds because of the dirty minds of some soldiers I do not even know?"
"I am sorry, I did not make the rules and I cannot unmake them," said Jandria, "but you are sworn to obey them."
Fuming with wrath, Romilly went along with Jandria to supper and to bed in the tent allotted to the dozen women of the Sisterhood who were assigned to Carolin's army. She found Clea there, along with a strange woman from another hostel; the two were to train Carolin's men in close-quarters unarmed combat. The others were not well known to Romilly; they were among the women who had been quartered in the hostel but did not really belong to it. They were horse-handlers, quartermasters and supply clerks, and one, a short, sturdy, dark woman who spoke with the familiar mountain accent of the Hellers, was a blacksmith, with arms like whipcord, and great swelling muscles across back and shoulders that made her look almost like a man.
I cannot believe that one's virtue would be in danger if she slept naked among a hundred strange soldiers - she looks as if she could protect herself, as the Hali'imyn here say, against all the smiths in Zandru's forges!
And then she thought, resentfully, that she had been more free when she travelled in men's clothes through the Hellers with Orain and Carlo - Carolin - and their little band of exiles. She had worked along with the men, had walked alone in the city, drunk in taverns. Now her movements were restrained to what the rules of the Sisterhood thought suitable to avoid trouble or gossip. Even as a free Swordswoman, she was not free.
Still grumbling a little, she made ready for bed. It struck her again; even these free women, how petty their lives seemed! Jandria she loved, and she could speak freely with Jandria without stopping to censor her thoughts; but even Jandria was trammeled by the question of, what would the men in the army think, if the Swordswomen were not bound by their rules to be as proper and ladylike as any marriageable maiden in the Hellers? Clea, too, she respected and genuinely liked, but still she had few friends in the Sisterhood. Yet when I came among them, I thought I had found, at last, freedom to be myself and still let it be known that I was a woman, not the pretense of male disguise.
I do not want to be a man among men, and hide what I am. But I do not care much for the society of women - not even Swordswomen - either. Why can I never be contented, wherever I am?
Nevertheless, at last she was doing work for which she was fitted, and if any man offered her any insult she need not fear him as she had feared Rory. And the king himself had complimented her work with horses. Before she climbed into her bedroll, she reached out drowsily, as she had done every night of her year in the hostel, and sought for Sunstar's touch. Yes, he was there, and content King Carolin would be good to him, certainly, would appreciate his intelligence, his wondrous speed, his beauty. She reached out again, a little further, seeking for the sentry-birds on their perches. Yes, all was well with them, too, and if it was not, Ruyven at least slept near them as a proper hawkmaster should. Sighing, Romilly slept.
She had returned to the bird-handlers's tent the next morning, and with Ruyven's young apprentice, a boy of fourteen or so called Garen, they set about feeding the birds. As she was examining the bandaged spot on Temperance's leg, she sensed a stranger's presence, and in the next moment, confirming it, the birds set up the high shrilling sound they had to indicate uneasiness in the presence of a stranger.
It was a young officer, in a green-gold cape; his hair was a light strawberry-blonde, his face narrow and sensitive.
"You are the hawkmaster?"
"Do I look like it?" Romilly snapped, "Swordswoman Romilly, para servirte. Carolin's hawkmistress."
"Forgive me, mestra, I meant no insult. I am Ranald Ridenow, and I came to give orders from His Majesty; I am to lead the detachment which will move ahead of the main army this morning." His voice was crisp, but without arrogance, and he smiled a little nervously. "I was also to seek my kinswoman, Domna Maura Elhalyn." He had to raise his voice over the shrilling noise the sentry-birds were making.
"As you can see, the lady is not in my pocket," said Romilly tartly, "Nor, as far as I know, abed with my brother, but you can ask him. Now, Dom Ranald, if you would kindly move away from the birds, since they will keep up this god-forgotten noise until you are out of their sight..."
He did not move. "Your brother, mestra! Where will I find him?" He managed to sound anxious even while he was yelling to make himself heard over the noise of the nervous birds, and Romilly came and physically shoved him out of range. The sound slowly quieted to soft churring noises, then silence.
She said, "Now that we can hear ourselves think, I know nothing about your kinswoman, though my brother, the hawkmaster, spoke of a Lady Maura, now I come to think of it. I will go and - no, I need not, for here he is."
"Romy? I heard the birds - is someone bothering them?" Ruyven suddenly sighted the Ridenow officer.
"Su servo, Dom ... may I help you?"
"Lady Maura-"
"The lady sleeps in that tent yonder," said Ruyven, indicating a small pavilion nearby.
"Alone? Among the soldiers?" Ranald Ridenow's nostrils narrowed in distaste, and Ruyven smiled.
"Sir, the lady is better chaperoned by these birds than by a whole school of lady-companions and governesses," he said, "for you yourself have heard that any stranger coming near will rouse them, and if I hear them aroused, I would come to her aid, and could rouse the camp if there was danger."
Ranald Ridenow looked at the young man in the ascetic dark robe, and nodded with approval "Are you a cristoforo monk?"
"I have not that grace, sir. I am Ruyven MacAran, Fourth in Tramontana, Second circle," he said, and the young officer in the green and gold cloak acknowledged him with another nod.
"Then my cousin is safe in your hands, laranzu. Forgive my question. Do you know if the lady is yet awake?"
"I was about to awaken her, sir, as she asked, or better, send my sister to do so," said Ruyven. "Romy, will you tell Lady Maura that a kinsman seeks her?"
"It is not urgent, not at this moment," said the Ridenow lord, "But if you could awaken her, Carolin has sent orders that we are to ride as soon as possible. I have orders-"
"I will need no more than thirty minutes to be ready," said Ruyven, "Romy, you are ready for riding? Awaken the Lady Maura, and tell her."
His offhand assumption of authority nettled Romilly; so, for this arrogant lowland lordlet, she was to become errand-girl to some plains lady? "It's not that easy," she snapped, "the birds must be fed, and I'm nae servant to the lady; if ye' want her fetched and carried for, me lord, ye' can even do it yerself." She realized with horror that her strong mountain accent was back in her speech when her year in the plains had almost smoothed it away. Well, she was a mountain girl, let him make of it what he wanted. She was a swordswoman and no lowlander to bow and scrape before the Hali'imyn! Ruyven looked scandalized, but before he could speak a soft voice said;
"Well spoken, Swordswoman; I, even as you, am servant to Carolin and to his birds.." A young woman stood at the door of the small tent, covered from neck to ankle in a thick night-gown, her flame-red hair loose and curling halfway to her waist. "I did not have the pleasure of meeting you yesterday, Swordswoman; so you are our bird-handler?" She bowed slightly to Ranald. "I thank you for your concern, cousin, but I need nothing, unless Carolin has summoned me - no? Then, unless you wish it; lace up my gown for me as you used to do when you were nine years old, you may tell Carolin that we will be ready to ride within the hour, as soon as the birds are properly fed and tended. I will meet you in good time, kinsman." She nodded in dismissal, and as he turned away, she laughed gaily.
"So you are Romy?" she said, "Ruyven spoke to me of you on the way here, but we had no idea you would be our handler. Perhaps while we are on the road, you can get leave from your Swordswoman company to share my tent, so that we can both be near the birds at night? I am Maura Elhalyn, leronis, monitor in Tramontana to the Third Circle, and my mother was a Ridenow, so that I have some of the Serrais Gift... do you know that laran?"
Romilly said, "I do not. I know little of laran."
"Yet you must have it, if you can handle sentry-birds," Lady Maura said, "for they can be handled only with laran; they are almost impossible to work with otherwise. You have the old MacAran Gift, then? In which Tower were you trained, mestra? And who is your Keeper?"
Romilly shook her head silently. She said, "I have never been in a Tower, domna."
She looked surprised, but her manners were too good to show it. She said, "If you will excuse me for five minutes, I will go and put on my gown - I was only teasing my cousin Ranald, I can perfectly well dress myself - and I will do my part in tending the birds, as I should do; I had no intention of leaving all their care to you, Swordswoman."
She went quickly to the tent, her fingers already busy at the fastenings of her night-gown, and pushed it shut behind her. Romilly went to examine the bandages of Temperance's leg, seeing with approval that the sore spot was smooth and not at all festered. While Ruyven went to tend Diligence she said, with a frown, "Are we to have this lady to rule over us, then?"
Ruyven said, "The leronis knows better than that, Romilly. She is not familiar with sentry-birds, so she told me; yet you noted that they did not scream at her approach either. She helped to care for them on the trip from the mountains - surely you did not think I handled three birds alone?"
"Why not?" Romilly asked, "I did." Yet Maura's frank friendliness had disarmed her. "What is this Serrais laran of which she spoke?"
"I know very little about it," said Ruyven, "even in the Towers it is not common. The folk of Serrais were noted, in the days of the breeding-program among the Great Houses of the Hastur kinfolk, because they had bred for a laran which could communicate with those who are not human . . . with the trailfolk, perhaps, or the catmen, or ... others beyond them, summoned from other dimensions by their starstones. If they can do that, communicating with sentry-birds should be no such trouble. She said to me once that it was akin to the MacAran Gift, perhaps had been bred from it."
"You knew her well in the Tower?" Romilly asked with a trace of jealousy, but he shook his head.
"I am a cristoforo. And she is a pledged virgin. Only such a one would come among soldiers with no more fuss or awareness than that."
He might have said more, but Lady Maura came from her tent, dressed in a simple gown, her sleeves rolled back. Without a moment's hesitation she took the smelly basket of bird-food and took a handful, without any sign of distaste, holding it out to Prudence, crooning to the bird.
"There you are, pretty, there is your breakfast - speaking of which, Romilly, have you breakfasted? No, you have not, like a good handler, you see to your beasts first, do you not? We need not exercise them, they will have exercise enough and more today. Ruyven, if you will send an orderly to the mess, we should have breakfast brought to us here, if we are to ride as soon as all that." As she spoke, she was feeding the bird tidbits of carrion, smiling to it as if they were fragrant flowers, and Prudence churred with pleasure.
Well, she is not squeamish, she does not mind getting her hands dirty.
Ruyven picked up the thought and said in an undertone, "I told you so. In Tramontana she flies a verrin hawk and trained it herself. To the great dismay, I might add, of Lady Liriel Hastur, who is highest in rank there, and of her Keeper, Lord Doran; who both love hawking but would rather leave their training to the professional falconer."
"So she is not some soft-handed lady who wishes to be waited on hand and foot," Romilly said, grudgingly approving. Then she went to finish her work with Temperance, and when she had done, an orderly had brought food and small-beer from the mess, and they sat on the ground and breakfasted, Lady Maura, with no fuss, tucking her skirt under her and eating with her fingers as they did.
When they had finished, Ranald Ridenow appeared with half a dozen men, and the three of them loaded the sentry-birds on to blocks on their horses; the little detachment moved through the just-wakening camp, and took the road east across the desert lands toward the Plains of Valeron.
The Ridenow lord set a hard pace, though Romilly and Ruyven and the soldiers had no trouble keeping up with them. Lady Maura was riding on a lady's saddle, but she did not complain and managed to keep up. Although she did say to Romilly, at one stop to breathe the horses, "I wish I could wear breeches as you do, Swordswoman. But I have already scandalized my friends and my own Keeper, and I should probably not give them more cause for talk."
"Ruyven told me you trained a verrin hawk," Romilly said.
"So I did; how angry everyone was," Maura said, laughing, "but now, knowing you, Swordswoman, I know I am not the first nor yet the last woman to do so. And I would rather have her trained to my own hand than to a strange falconer's and then try to transfer her loyalty to me. Sometimes I have actually felt that I am flying with the bird; though perhaps it is my imagination."
"And perhaps not," Romilly said, "for I have had that experience." Suddenly, and with poignant grief, she remembered Preciosa. It had been more than a year that she had dwelt in that damned desert town, and Preciosa had no doubt gone back to the wilds to live, and forgotten her.
Yet, even if I see her no more in life, the moments of closeness we have known are part of me now as then, and there is no such thing as future or past. . . . For a moment her head swam, and she confused the moment of ecstasy with Preciosa's flight with that all-consuming moment in which she had ridden Sunstar, joined absolutely with the horse, she flew, she raced, she was one with sky and earth and stars....
"Swordswoman-?" Lady Maura was looking at her, troubled, and Romilly swiftly jerked her awareness back to the moment. She said the first thing that came into her head.
"My name is Romilly, and if we are to work together you need not say Swordswoman, so formally, every time . . ."
"Romilly," Maura said with a smile, "and I am Maura; in the Tower we do not think of rank separating friends, and if you are a friend to these birds I am your friend too."
Then the Towers have something in common with the Sisterhood, she thought, but then Ranald called the men together and they rose to ride again. She wondered why they were going so far ahead of the main army.
All day they rode, and at night made camp; the men and Ruyven slept under the stars, but there was a little tent for Lady Maura, and she insisted that Romilly must share it. They were tired from riding at a hard pace all day, but before they slept, Lady Maura asked quietly, "Why did you never go to a Tower for training, Romilly? Surely you have laran enough."
"If you know Ruyven, and how he had to come there," said Romilly, "then you will know already why I did not."
"Yet you left your home, and quarreled with your kin," said Maura, quietly insistent, "After that, I should think you would have come at once."
And so I had intended, Romilly thought. But I made my way on my own, and now have no need of the training the leronis told me I must have. I know more of my own laran than any stranger. She fell into a stubborn silence, and Lady Maura forbore to question her further.
Two days they rode, and they came out of the desert land and into green country; Romilly breathed a sigh of relief when they were able to see hills in the distance, and the evening breath of cool rain. It was high summer, but at this season frost lay on the ground at morning, and she was glad of her fur cloak at night. On the third day, as the road led over a high hill which commanded a view for many leagues around, Ranald Ridenow drew them to a halt.
"This will be the right place," he said, "Are you ready with the birds?"
Maura evidently knew what was wanted, for she nodded, and asked, "Who will you link with? Orain?"
"Carolin himself," said the Ridenow lord quietly. "Orain is not head-blind, but has not laran enough for this. And they are his troops."
Maura was blinking rapidly and looked as if she was about to cry. She said in an undertone, more to herself than Romilly, "I like this not at all, spying upon Rakhal's movements. I - I swore not to fight against him. But Lyondri has brought all this upon himself, for he too is oath-forsworn! After what he has done . . . kinsman or no . . ." and she broke off, pressing her lips tight together and saying, "Romy, will you fly first?"
"But I know not what to do," Romilly said.
"Yet you are hawkmistress . . ."
"I know the sentry-birds, habits, diet and health," said Romilly, "I have not been schooled to their use in warfare. I do not know-"
Maura looked startled, but quickly covered it, and Romilly was amazed; she is being polite to me? She said quietly, "You need only fly the bird and remain in rapport with her, seeing what she sees through her eyes. Ranald will make the link with you and so relay what you have seen to Carolin, so that he can spy out the land ahead and know what are Rakhal's movements in the land."
The name sentry-birds suddenly made sense to her, she had never really thought about it before. She took Prudence from the block, loosing with one hand the knots which secured her jesses, and lifted her free; watched her soar high into the sky. She arranged her body carefully in the saddle, leaving a part of her consciousness ... a very small part ... to make certain she did not fall from the saddle, and then....
. . . high into the sky, on long, strong winds, rising higher and higher. ...
All of the land lay spread out below her, like a map. She could see the curve of water below, and was dimly aware of a presence within her mind, seeing what she saw through her link with the bird. Through this mind, which she recognized as Carolin's, she began to make sense out of what she saw, although this was very distant and almost unconscious . . . most of her was soaring with the bird, seeing with keen sharpness everything which lay below.
. . . There the shores of Mirin Lake, and beyond that, Neskaya to the north, at the edge of the Kilghard Hills. And there . . . ah, Gods, another circle of blackness, not the scar of forest-fire, but where Rakhal's men have rained clingfire from the sky from their infernal flying machines! My people and they burn and die beneath Rakha's fires when it was given to me and I swore with my hand in the fires of Hali that I would protect them against all pillage and rapine while they were loyal to me, and for that loyalty they burn ...
. . . Rakhal, as Aldones lives, I shall burn that hand from you with which you have sown disaster and death on my people . . . and Lyondri I shall hang like a common criminal for he has forfeited the right to a noble death; the life he now lives as Rakha's sower of death and suffering is more ignoble than death at the hands of the common hangman....
Over the Kilghard Hills now, where the hills lie green with summer, and the resin-trees blaze in the sun ... there again a Tower rises . . . quickly, fly to the North, little bird, away from the spying eyes of Lyondri's own forsworn laranzu'in..
And there they lie, Rakhal's armies, where I can march to the East and take them unawares, unless they can spy with eyes like mine . . . and I think there are no sentry-birds now except in the far Hellers. . . .
Romilly heard the shrill crying of the bird as if from her own throat; the contact melted and for a moment she sat on her horse again, Carolin gone from her mind, Ranald Ridenow suddenly jolted out of contact, staring at her. She lurched in the saddle, swayed, and Maura said quietly, "Enough. Ruyven, your turn, I think. . . ."
Romilly had not noticed; Ruyven had loosed Temperance at the same time as Prudence. Diligence, too, was gone from Maura's saddle. She saw Ruyven slump . . . as she had done? .. . and for an instant she was part of Ruyven/Ranald/Carolin flying in rapport with the bird, swooping low over the armies, something inside her counting . . .
Horsemen and foot soldiers, so many . . . wagons of supplies, and archers, and . . . ah Gods . . . Evanda guard us, that smell I know, somewhere within their ranks they are again making clingfire . . .
By sheer force of will Romilly tore herself, exhausted, from the rapport. She was not interested in the details of Rakhal's armies. She would rather not know; the horror she had felt in Ruyven's mind, or was it Carolin's, made her feel dizzy and sick. Spent, she collapsed in her saddle, almost asleep where she sat, weak, light-headed. She noticed at the edge of her consciousness that the sun was substantially lowered, almost at the edge of the horizon, and the light was dimming enough so that the great violet disk of Liriel could be seen rising from the eastern horizon, a few nights before its full. Her mouth was dry, and her head ached and throbbed as if a dozen tiny smiths were beating on their forge-anvils inside it.
Darkness descended so swiftly that Romilly wondered if she had been asleep in her saddle; it seemed to her that one moment she looked on sunset and the next, on violet moonlight, with Liriel floating in the sky. As she came aware, she realized Ruyven was looking at her anxiously.
"You're back?"
"For some time," he said, surprised. "Here, the soldiers have food ready for you," He gestured, and she slid from her horse, aching in every muscle, her head throbbing. She did not see Maura at all. Ranald Ridenow came and said, "Lean on me, if you wish, Swordswoman," but she straightened herself proudly.
"Thank you, I can walk," she said, and Ruyven came and motioned her to sit beside them on the grass. She protested "The birds-"
"Have been seen to; Maura did it when she saw the state you were in," he said. "Eat."
"I'm not hungry," she said, shrugging it off, and rose swiftly to her feet. "I had better see to Prudence-"
"I tell you, Maura has the birds and they are perfectly all right," Ruyven said impatiently, and thrust a block of sticky dried fruit into her hand. "Eat this."
She took a bite of it and put it aside with a grimace. She knew that if she swallowed it she would be sick. From somewhere her little tent had been put up, the one she shared with Maura, and she shoved into it, aware from somewhere of Ranald Ridenow's face, white and staring, troubled. Why should he care? She flung herself down on her pallet in. the tent and fell over the edge of a dark cliff of sleep.
She knew she had not really wakened, because she could somehow see through the walls of the tent to where her sleeping body lay, all thin like gauze so that she could see through it to beating heart and pulsing veins. She waved a hand and the heart speeded up its beat slightly and the veins began to go in swirling circles. Then she flew away and left it behind her, rising over plains and hills, flying far away on long, strong wings toward the Hellers. Ice cliffs rose before her, and beyond them she could see the walls of a city, and a woman standing on a high battlement, beckoning to her.
Welcome home, dear sister, come here to us, come home...
But she turned her back on them too, and flew onward, higher and higher, mountain peaks dropping away far below, as she flew past the violet disk ... no, it was a round ball, a sphere, a little world of its own, she had never thought of the moon as a world. Then a green one lay beneath her, and the peacock crescent of Kyrrdis, dark, lighted only at the rim by the red sun, which somehow was still shining at midnight. She flew on and on, until she left the blazing sun behind and it was only a star among other stars, and she was looking down from somewhere on the world with four moons like a jeweled necklace, and someone said in her mind, Hali is the constellation of Taurus, and Hali the ancient Terran word for necklace in the Arabic tongue, but the words and the worlds were all meaningless to her; she dropped down, down slowly, and the great ship lay smashed against the lower peaks of the Kilghard Hills, and a Ghost wind blew across the peaks . .. and a little prim voice in her mind remarked, racial memory has never been proven, for there are parts of the brain still inaccessible to science . . . and then she began to fly along the rim of the Hellers. But the glaciers were breathing their icy breath at her, and her wings were beginning to freeze, the dreadful cold was squeezing her heart, slowing the wing-strokes, and then one wing, hard like ice, broke and splintered, with a dreadful shock of pain in her head and heart, and the other wing, white and frozen and stiff, would no longer beat, and she sank and sank, screaming....
"Romilly! Romilly!" Lady Maura was softly slapping her cheeks. "Wake up! Wake up!"
Romilly opened her eyes; there was a soft lantern-glow in the tent, but through it she was still freezing among the glaciers, and her wings were broken .. . she could feel the sharp jagged edges near her heart where they had shattered in the cold and splintered away....
Maura gripped her hands with her own warm ones, and Romilly, confused, came back to her own body's awareness. She felt the unfamiliar, intrusive touch . . . somehow Maura was within her body, touching it with mental fingers, checking heart and breathing . . . she made a gesture of refusal, and Maura said gently, "Lie still, let me monitor you. Have you had many attacks of this kind of threshold sickness?"
Romilly pushed her away. "I don't know what you're talking about; I had a bad dream, that is all. I must have been tired. I've never done that before with the birds, and it was exhausting. I suppose the leroni are accustomed to it."
"I wish you would let me monitor you and be sure."
"No, no. I'm all right.'' Romilly turned her back to the other woman and lay still, and after a moment Maura sighed and put out the lantern, and Romilly picked up a fragment of her thought, stubborn, but I should not intrude, she is no child, perhaps her brother . . . before she slept again, without dreams this time.
In the morning she still had a headache, and the smell of the carrion for bird-food made her as queasy - she told herself impatiently - as if she were four months pregnant! Well, whatever ailed her, it was not that, for she was as virgin as any pledged leronis. Perhaps it was her woman's cycles coming on her - she had lost track, with the army coming and her intense work with Sunstar. Or perhaps she had eaten something that did not agree with her; certainly she had no mind for breakfast. After caring for the birds, she got into her saddle without enthusiasm; for the first time in her life she thought it might be rather pleasant to sit inside a house and sew or weave or even embroider.
"But you have eaten nothing, Romilly," Ruyven protested.
She shook her head. "I think I caught a chill yesterday, sitting so still after sunset in my saddle," she said. "I don't want anything."
He surveyed her, she thought, as if she were Rael's age, and said, "Don't you know what it means when you cannot eat? Has Lady Maura monitored you?"
It was not worth arguing about. She said sharply, "I will eat some bread in my saddle as we ride," and took the hunk of bread, smeared with honey, that he handed her. She ate a few bites and surreptitiously discarded it.
Ranald was riding with the blank look Romilly knew enough, now, to associate with a telepath whose mind was elsewhere. At last he came out of it and said, "I should know how far it is to the main branch of the armies; Carolin will join with us sometime today, though they are some way behind us. Romilly, will you take your bird and see if you can spy out Carolin's armies, and see how far they are behind us?"
She felt some alarm after her last experience with the flight with birds. Yet when she flung the bird in the air and followed it with her linked mind, she found that there was none of the disquieting disorientation; to her intense relief, it was only like flying Preciosa; she could see with a strange doubled sight, but that was all. The bird's sight, keener than her own a hundred times, told her that Carolin's armies lay half a day's ride behind where she rode with their little advance party, and she could sense, but with no sense of intrusion, that Ranald had picked up then: position and relayed it to Carolin himself.
"We will camp here and wait for them," Maura said with authority, "We are all weary, and our hawkmistress needs rest."
I should not let them pamper me. I do not want Ruyven, nor Orain, nor Carolin himself, to think that because I am a woman I must be favored. Orain will respect me if I am as competent as a man. ...
Lord Ranald yawned. He said, "I too feel as if I had been dragged backward over a waterfall, after these days of hard riding. I shall be glad of the rest. And the birds need not be moved more." He gestured to the soldiers to set up the camp.