Hawkmistress!

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

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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 Hills 5

CHAPTER ONE 6

CHAPTER TWO 16

CHAPTER THREE 23

CHAPTER FOUR 28

CHAPTER FIVE 38

Book Two: THE FUGITIVE 48

CHAPTER ONE 48

CHAPTER TWO 57

CHAPTER THREE 66

CHAPTER FOUR 81

CHAPTER FIVE 89

Book Three: SWORDSWOMAN 95

CHAPTER ONE 95

CHAPTER TWO 102

CHAPTER THREE 109

CHAPTER FOUR 120

CHAPTER FIVE 125

CHAPTER SIX 133

CHAPTER SEVEN 140

CHAPTER EIGHT 145

CHAPTER NINE 154

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.