Hawkmistress! Read online

  Hawkmistress!

  A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The soldier's drinking song in Part III was suggested by the Ballad of Arilinn Tower, a "folk song" written by Bettina Helms and copyright 1979. The song Aldones Bless the Human Elbow was suggested by a folk song by that most prolific of authors, Anonymous; with a bow to the Berkeley-based folk-song trio OAK, ASH AND THORN and their manager Sharon Green.

  Although Hawkmistress!, like most of the Darkover novels, is complete in itself, requiring no knowledge of the other books in the series, those who follow the chronicles of Darkover may wish to know that it comes during the time of the Hundred Kingdoms, between Stormqueen and Two to Conquer.

  -M.z.B.

  Arrow Books Limited 17-21 Conway Street, London W1P 6JD

  An imprint of the Hutchinson Publishing Group

  London Melbourne Sydney Auckland Johannesburg and agencies throughout the world

  First published in Great Britain 1985 © Marion Zimmer Bradley 1982

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Anchor Brendon Limited, Tiptree, Essex

  ISBN 0 09 934990 6

  Book One: FALCONSWARD, in the Kilghard Hills5

  CHAPTER ONE6

  CHAPTER TWO16

  CHAPTER THREE23

  CHAPTER FOUR28

  CHAPTER FIVE38

  Book Two: THE FUGITIVE48

  CHAPTER ONE48

  CHAPTER TWO57

  CHAPTER THREE66

  CHAPTER FOUR81

  CHAPTER FIVE89

  Book Three: SWORDSWOMAN95

  CHAPTER ONE95

  CHAPTER TWO102

  CHAPTER THREE109

  CHAPTER FOUR120

  CHAPTER FIVE125

  CHAPTER SIX133

  CHAPTER SEVEN140

  CHAPTER EIGHT145

  CHAPTER NINE154

  Book One: FALCONSWARD, in the Kilghard Hills

  CHAPTER ONE

  Romilly was so weary that she could hardly stand on her feet.

  It was dark in the mews, with no light but a carefully shielded lantern hanging from one rafter; but the eyes of the hawk were as bright, as untamed and filled with rage as ever. No, Romilly reminded herself; not rage alone, but terror.

  She is afraid. She does not hate me; she is only afraid.

  She could feel it all inside herself, that terror which pounded behind the rage, until she hardly knew which was herself-weary, her eyes burning, ready to fall into the dirty straw in an exhausted heap-and what was flooding into her mind from the brain of the hawk; hatred, fear, a wild frenzy of hunger for blood and for freedom.

  Even as Romilly pulled the small sharp knife from her belt, and carefully cut a piece from the carcass placed conveniently near, she was shaking with the effort not to strike out, to pull away in a frenzy from the strap that held her-no, not her, held the hawk-to the falcon-block; merciless leathers, cutting her feet-

  The hawk bated, wings flapping and thrashing, and Romilly jerked, with a convulsive reflex action, and the strip of raw meat fell into the straw. Romilly felt the struggle inside herself, the fury and frenzy of terror, as if the leather lines holding the big bird to the block were tying her too, cutting into her feet in agony . . . she tried to bend, to search for the meat calmly, but the emotions of the hawk, flooding into her mind, were too much for her. She flung her hands over her eyes and moaned aloud, letting it all become part of her, the crashing frenzy of wings, beating, beating . . . once, the first time this had happened to her, more than a year ago, she had run out of the mews in panic, running and running until she stumbled and skidded and fell, a hand's breadth from the edges of the crags that tumbled down from Castle Falconsward to the very rocks of the Kadarin far below.

  She must not let it go so deep into her mind, she must remember that she was human, was Romilly MacAran . . . she forced her breathing back to calm, remembering the words of the young leronis who had talked with her, briefly and in secret, before returning to Tramontana Tower.

  You have a rare gift, child-one of the rarest of the gifts called laran. I do not know why your father is so bitter, why he will not let you and your sister and brothers be tested and trained to the use of these gifts-surely he must know that an untrained telepath is a menace to herself and to everyone around her; he himself has the gift in full measure!

  Romilly knew; and she suspected the leronis knew, too, but out of loyalty to her father she would not speak of it outside the family, and the leronis was a stranger, after all; the MacAran had given her hospitality, as with any guest, but had coldly refused the purpose of the woman's visit, to test the children of Falconsward for laran gifts.

  "You are my guest, Domna Marelie, but I have lost one son to the accursed Towers which blight our land and lure the sons of honest men-aye, and their daughters too-from home and family loyalties! You may shelter beneath this roof while the storm lasts, and have all that belongs to a guest in honor; but keep your prying hands from the minds of my children!"

  Lost one son to the accursed Towers, Romilly thought, remembering her brother Ruyven who had fled to Neskaya Tower, across the Kadarin, four years ago. And like to lose another, for even I can see that Darren is more fit for the Tower or the monastery of Nevarsin, than for the Heirship to Falconsward. Darren would have been still in Nevarsin, as custom demanded of a nobleman's son in the hill country, and had wished to remain; but, obedient to their father's will, returned to his duties as the Hen.

  How could Ruyven desert his brother that way? Darren cannot be Heir to Falconsward without his brother at his side. There was less than a year between the brothers, and they had always clung together as if they were twin-born; but they had gone together to Nevarsin, and only Darren had returned; Ruyven, he told their father, had gone to the Tower. Ruyven had sent a message, which only their father had read; but then he had flung it into the midden and from that moment he had never spoken Ruyven's name, and forbidden any other to speak it

  "I have but two sons," he said, his face like stone. "And one is in the monastery and the other at his mother's knee." The leronis Marelie had frowned as she remembered, and said to Romilly, "I did my best, child, but he would not hear of it; so you must do the best you can to master your gift, or it will master you. And I can help you but little in what time I have; and I am sure that if he knew I had spoken to you like this, he would not shelter me this night. But I dare not leave you without some protection when your laran wakens. You are alone with it, and it will not be easy to master it alone, but it is not impossible, for I know of a few who have done it, your brother among them."

  "You know my brother!" Romilly whispered.

  "I know him, child-who, think you, sent me here to speak with you? You must not think he deserted you without cause," Marelie added gently, as Romilly's lips tightened, "He loves you well; he loves your father, too. But a cagebird cannot be a falcon, and a falcon cannot be a kyorebni. To return hither, to live his life without full use of his laran-that would be death for him, Romilly; can you understand? It would be like being made deaf and blind, without the company of his own kind."

  "But what can this laran be, that he would forsake us all for it?" Romilly had cried, and Marelie had only looked sad.

  "You will know that when your own laran wakens, my child."

  And Romilly had cried out, "I hate laran! And I hate the Towers! They stole Ruyven from us!
" and she had turned away, refusing to speak again to Marelie; and the leronis had sighed and said, "I cannot fault you for loyalty to your father, my child," and gone away to the room assigned to her, and departed the next morning, without further speech with Romilly.

  That had been two years ago, and Romilly had tried to put it from her mind; but in this last year she had begun to realize that she had the Gift of the MacArans in fullest measure-that strangeness in her mind which could enter into the mind of hawk, or hound, or horse, or any animal, and had begun to wish that she could have spoken with the leronis about it...

  But that was not even to be thought about. I may have laran, she told herself again and again, but never would I abandon home and family for something of that sort!

  So she had struggled to master it alone; and now she forced herself to be calm, to breathe quietly, and felt the calming effect of the breathing composing her mind as well and even soothing, a little, the raging fury of the hawk; the chained bird was motionless, and the waiting girl knew that she was Romilly again, not a chained thing struggling in a frenzy to be free of the biting jesses....

  Slowly she picked that one bit of information out of the madness, of fear and frenzy. The jesses are too tight. They hurt her. She bent, trying to send out soothing waves of calm all around her, into the mind of the hawk-but she is too mad with hunger and terror to understand, or she would be quiet and know I mean her no harm. She bent and tugged at the slitted straps which were wound about the hawk's legs. At the very back of her mind, carefully blanked out behind the soothing thoughts she was trying to send out to the hawk, Romilly's own fear struggled against what she was doing-once she had seen a young hawker lose an eye by getting too close to a frightened bird's beak-but she commanded the feat to be quiet and not interfere with what she had to do-if the hawk was in pain, the frenzy and fear would be worse, too.

  She fumbled one-handed in the semidarkness, and blessed the persevering practice which had taught her all the falconer's knots, blindfolded and one-handed; old Davin had emphasized that, again and again, most of the time you will be in a dark mews, and one hand will be busy about your hawk. And so, hour after hour, she had tightened and loosened, tied and untied these same knots on twig after twig before ever she was let near the thin legs of any bird. The leather was damp with the sweat of her fingers, but she managed to loosen it slightly-not too much or the bird would be out of the jesses and would fly free, perhaps breaking her wings inside the walls of the mews, but loose enough so that it was no longer cutting into the leathery skin of the upper leg. Then she bent again and fumbled in the straw for the strip of meat, brushing the dirt from it. She knew it did not matter too much-birds, she knew, had to swallow dirt and stones to grind up their food inside their crops-but the dirty bits of straw clinging to the meat revolted her and she picked them fastidiously free and, once again, held out her gloved hand to the hawk on the block. Would the bird ever feed from her hand? Well, she must simply stay here until hunger overcame fear and the bird took the meat, or they would lose this hawk, too. And Romilly had resolved this would not happen.

  She was glad, now, that she had let the other bird go. At first she had it in her mind, when she had found old Davin tossing and moaning with the summer fever, that she could save both of the hawks he had taken three days before. He had told her to let them both go, or they would starve, for they would not yet take food from any human hand. When he had captured them, he had promised Romilly that she should have the training of one of them while he was busied with the other. But then the fever had come to Falconsward, and when he had taken the sickness, he had told her to release them both-there would be other seasons, other hawks.

  But they were valuable birds, the finest verrin hawks he had taken for many seasons. Loosing the larger of the two, Romilly had known Davin was right. A hawk like this was all but priceless-King Carolin in Carcosa has no finer birds, Davin had said, and he should know; Romilly's grandfather had been hawkmaster to the exiled King Carolin before the rebellion which had sent Carolin into the Hellers and probably ,to death, and the usurper Rakhal had sent most of Carolin's men to their own estates, surrounding himself with men he could trust.

  It had been his own loss; Romilly's grandfather was known from the Kadarin to the Sea of Dalereuth as the finest man with hawks in the Kilghard Hills, and he had taught all his arts to Mikhail, now The MacAran, and to his commoner cousin Davin Hawkmaster. Verrin hawks, taken full-grown in the wild, were more stubborn than hatchlings reared to handling; a bird caught wild might let itself starve before it would take food from the hand, and better it should fly free to hatch others of the same fine breed, than die of fear and hunger in the mews, untamed.

  So Romilly, with regret, had taken the larger of the birds from the mews, and slipped the jesses from the leathery skin of the leg; and, behind the stables, had climbed to a high rock and let her fly free. Her eyes had blurred with tears as she watched the falcon climb out of sight, and deep within her, something had flown with the hawk, in the wild ecstasy of rising, spiraling, free, free ... for an instant Romilly had seen the dizzying panorama of Castle Falconsward lying below, deep ravines filled to the brim with forest, and far away a white shape, glimmering, that she knew to be Hali Tower on the shores of the Lake . . . was her brother there, even now? . . . and then she was alone again, shivering with the cold on the high rock, and her eyes were dazzled from staring into the light, and the hawk was gone.

  She had returned to the mews, and her hand was already outstretched to take the other one and free it as well, but then the hawk's eyes had met her own for a moment, and there had been an instant when she knew, a strong and dizzying knowledge within her, I can tame this one, I need not let her go, I can master her.

  The fever which had come to the castle and struck down Davin was almost her friend. On any ordinary day, Romilly would have had duties and lessons; but the governess she shared with her younger sister Mallina had a touch of the fever, too, and was shivering beside the fire in the schoolroom, having given Romilly permission to go to the stables and ride, or take her lesson-book or her needlework to the conservatory high in the castle, and study there among the leaves and flowers-the light still hurt Domna Calinda's eyes. Old Gwennis, who had been Romilly's nurse when she and her sister were little children, was busy with Mallina, who had a touch of fever, though she was not dangerously ill. And the Lady Luciella, their stepmother, would not stir from the side of nine-year-old Rael, for he had the fever in its most dangerous form, the debilitating sweats and inability to swallow.

  So Romilly had promised herself a delicious day of freedom in stables and hawk-house-was Domna Calinda really enough of a fool to think she would spend a day free of lessons over her stupid lesson-book or needlework? But she had found Davin, too, sick of the fever, and he had welcomed her coming-his apprentice was not yet skilled enough to go near the untrained birds, though he was good enough to feed the others and clean the mews-and so he had ordered Romilly to release them both. And she had started to obey.

  But this hawk was hers! Never mind that it sat on its block, angry and sullen, red eyes veiled with rage and terror, bating wildly at the slightest movement near her, the wings exploding in the wild frenzy of flapping and thrashing; it was hers, and soon or late, it would know of the bond between them.

  But she had known it would be neither quick nor easy. She had reared eyasses-young birds hatched in the mews or captured still helpless, accustomed before they were feathered to feed from a hand or glove. But this hawk had learned to fly, to hunt and feed itself in the wild; they were better hunters than hawks reared in captivity, but harder to tame; two out of five such birds, more or less, would let themselves die of hunger before they would feed. The thought that this could happen to her hawk was a dread Romilly refused to face. Somehow, she would, she must bridge the gulf between them.

  The falcon bated again, thrashing furious wings, and Romilly struggled to maintain the sense of herself, not merging into the terror an
d fury of the angry bird, at the same time trying to send out waves of calm. I will not hurt you, lovely one. See, here is food. But it ignored the signal, flapping angrily, and Romilly struggled hard not to shrink back in terror, not to be overcome with the flooding, surging waves of rage and terror she could feel radiating from the chained bird.

  Surely, this time, the beating wings had flapped into quiet sooner than before? The falcon was tiring. Was it growing weaker, would it fight its way down into death and exhaustion before it was ready to surrender and feed from the gauntlet? Romilly had lost track of time, but as the hawk quieted and her brain cleared, so that she knew again that she was Romilly and not the frenzied bird, her breathing quieted again and she let the gauntlet slip for a moment from her hand. Her wrist and shoulder felt as if they were going to drop off, but she was not sure whether it was because the gauntlet was too heavy for her, (she had spent hours holding it at arm's length, enduring the pain of cramped muscles and tension, to accustom herself to its weight) or whether it had something to do with the frenzied beating of her wings . . . no. No, she must remember which was herself, which the hawk. She leaned back against the rough wall behind her, half-closing her eyes. She was almost asleep on her feet. But she must not sleep, nor move.

  You don't leave a hawk at this stage, Davin had told her. Not for a moment. She remembered asking, when she was small, not even to eat? And he had snorted, "If it comes to that, you can go without food and water longer than a hawk can; if you can't out-wait a hawk you're taming, you have no business around one."

  But he had been speaking of himself. It had not occurred to him, then, that a girl could tame a hawk or wish to. He had indulged her wish to learn all the arts of the falconer- after all, the birds might one day be hers, even though she had two older brothers; it would not be the first time Falconsward had passed down through the female line, from a strong husband to the woman heir. Nor was it unknown for a woman to ride out, with a docile and well-trained bird; even Romilly's stepmother had been known to ride forth, a delicately trained bird, no larger than a pigeon, adorning her wrist like a rare jewel. Although Luciella would never have touched one of the verrin hawks, and the thought that her stepdaughter would wish to do so had never entered her mind.