Hawkmistress! (25 page)

Romilly did as she was told, thrusting out her slender foot in its shabby too-large stocking. The bootmaker hummed, whistling a little tune, as he measured, scrawling down cryptic notes and numbers with a stump of chalk on the board by his bench. “When do you want these ready?”

“Yesterday,” growled Orain, “We may have to leave the city at a moment’s notice.”

The bootmaker protested; Orain haggled a few minutes, then they agreed on a price and the day after tomorrow.

“Should be tomorrow,” Orain said scowling as they left the shop, “but these workmen have no more pride in their craft these days. Humph!” He snorted as Romilly turned. “In a hurry to get back to the monastery, Rumal lad, and dine on cold boiled lentils and smallbeer? After all these days on the road, living on porridge-powder and journey-cake not much better than dogbread, I’m for a roast fowl and some good wine in a cookshop. What reason have ye to get back? The birds won’t fly away, now, will they? The horses are warm in their stable, and the monks will give them some hay if we don’t get back. Let’s walk through the town, then.”

Romilly shrugged and acquiesced. She had never been in a city the size of Nevarsin before, and she was afraid she would be lost if she explored alone, but with Orain, she might learn her way about the confusing streets. In any case she could hardly fail to find the way back to the monastery, she need only follow any street straight up the mountain - the monastery was high above the town.

The short winter day brightened, then faded again as they walked through the city, mostly in a companionable silence; Orain did not seem inclined to talk much, but he pointed out various landmarks, the ancient shrine of Saint-Valentine-of-the-Snows, the cave high on the mountain where the saint was said to have lived and died, a forge which, he said, did the best horse-shoeing north of Armida, a sweetshop where, he said with a grin, the students at the monastery chose to spend their pocketmoney on holidays. It was as if she was one of her own brothers, here and free, unconstrained by any of the laws which governed the behavior of women; she felt as easy with Orain as if she had known him all her life. He had quite forgotten the country accent, and talked in a pleasant, well-bred voice, with only the faintest trace, like Alderic’s, of a lowland accent.

She could not guess his age. He was certainly not a young man, but she did not think he was as old as her father. His hands were rough and calloused like a swordsman’s, but the nails were clean and well-cared-for, not grimy or broken like the other men who followed Dom Carlo.

He must be well-born enough, anyhow, if he had been foster-brother to the exiled Carolin. Her father, she knew, would have welcomed him and treated him with honor as a noble, and though Dom Carlo did not quite treat him as an equal, he showed him affection and respect and sought his advice in everything.

As the twilight gathered, Orain found a cookshop and commanded a meal. Romilly felt inclined to protest.

“You should not - I can pay my share-“

Orain shrugged. “I hate to dine alone. And Dom Carlo made it clear he has other fish to fry this night….”

She bent her head, accepting graciously. She had never been in a public tavern or cookshop before, and she noted there were no women present except for the bustling fat waitress who came and slapped crockery hi front of them and fussed away again. If Orain had known her true sex he would never have brought her here; if a lady, unimaginably, came in here, there would have been all sorts of deferential fuss made, they would never have taken her quite simply for granted. Far less would she be able to lounge here at ease, her feet propped on the bench across from her, sipping from a tankard of cider, while the good smell of cooking gradually filled the room.

No, it was better to remain a boy. She had respectable work, three silver bits for a tenday; no cook-woman or dairymaid could hope to command such pay for any work she could do, and she remembered that Rory’s grandmother, telling of her lost affluence, had spoken of the fact that when her husband did not seek her bed, he was sent, quite without worrying about what the dairymaid thought about it, to sleep with the dairymaid as a matter of course. Better to spend all her life in breeches and boots than have that added to the regular duties of a dairymaid’s work!

She found herself wondering if Luciella made such routine demands of her women. Well, he must at some times - there was Nelda’s son. It made Romilly uncomfortable to think of her father that way, and she reminded herself that he was a cristoforo … but would that make such a difference? In the world where she had been brought up it was taken for granted that a nobleman would have bastards and nedestro sons and daughters. Romilly had never really thought about their mothers.

She shifted uneasily in her seat, and Orain said with a grin, “Getting hungry? Something smells good in the kitchen yonder.” Half a dozen men were flinging darts at a board hung at the back of the tavern, a few others playing dice. “Shall we have a game of darts, lad?”

Romilly shook her head, protesting that she did not know the game. “But don’t let me stop you.”

“You’ll never learn younger, then,” Orain said, and Romilly found herself standing, urged to fling the darts.

“Hold it this way,” Orain instructed, “and just let it go - you don’t have to push it.”

“That’s the way,” said one of the men standing behind her in the crowd, “Just imagine the circle painted on the wall is the head of King Carolin and you have a chance at the fifty copper reis offered for his head!”

“Rather,” said a bitter voice somewhere behind the first speaker, “that the head is of that bloodthirsty wolf Rakhal - or his chief jackal Lyondri, the Hastur-Lord!”

“Treason,” said another voice and the speaker was quickly hushed, “That kind o’ talk’s not safe even here beyond the Kadarin - who knows what kind of spies Lyondri Hastur may be sending into the city?”

“I say, may Zandru plague’em both with boils and the bald fever,” said another, “What matters it to free mountain men which great rogue plants his backside on the throne or what greater rogue tries to pry his arse loose from the seat? I say Zandru take’em both off to his hells and I wish ‘im joy of their company, so that they stay south o’ the river and leave honest men to go about their business in peace!”

“Carolin must ha’ done something or they’d never kicked him off the throne,” someone said, “Down there, the Hali’imyn think the Hastur are kin to their filthy Gods - I’ve heard some tales when I travel down there, I could tell you-“

The darts had been forgotten; no one came to take a turn from Romilly. She whispered to Orain, “Are you going to let them talk that way about King Carolin?”

Orain did not answer. He said, “Our meat’s on the table, Rumal. Neighbors, maybe we’ll have another round later, but the dinner’s getting cold while we stand here gabbing,” and gestured to Romilly to put down the darts and go to their seat. When the food arrived, and Orain was cutting the meat into portions, he muttered under his breath, “We’re here to serve Carolin, lad, not defend him to fools in taverns. Eat your dinner, boy.” And after a moment, he added, still in a half-whisper, “Part of my reason for walking about town is to hear how the folk think - see how much support there is here for the king. If we’re to raise men for him here, it’s urgent there must be popular support so no one will betray us - a lot of things can be done in secret, but you can’t raise an army that way!”

Romilly put her fork into the roast meat, and ate in silence. She noted that when he spoke to her, Orain had, without thinking, dropped the rough up-country accent and spoken again like an educated man. Well, if he was the king’s foster-brother, as she had heard, that was not surprising. Carlo too must have been high in those councils and one of his loyal men - no doubt he too had lost lands and possessions when Carolin was deposed and fled to the hills. Which reminded her again-

I do not know if Carolin has enemies in the city, but he certainly has at least one in the monastery. I do not think a child like Caryl would do him any great harm, he said the king had shown him kindness; but if Carlo and Orain are expecting to meet the king within monastery watts, there is at least one pair of eyes who would recognize him. They must prevent him from coming there. And Romilly wondered why it should matter to her what happened to the exiled king. As her father had said so often, what did it matter what great rogue sat on the throne, or what worse rogue tried to unseat him?

Orain and Carlo could not follow an evil master. Whichever king they follow, he is my king too! And the story she had heard of the evil Hastur-lord Lyondri had filled her with revulsion. She thought, wryly, that without knowing it, she had somehow become a partisan of Carolin.

“Take that last cutlet, lad; you’re a growing boy, you need your food,” Orain said, grinning, and called to the serving-woman for more wine. Romilly reached for another cup, but Orain slapped her hand away.

“No, no, you’ve had enough - bring the boy some cider, woman, he’s too young for your rotgut here! I don’t want to have to carry you home,” he added, good-naturedly, “and lads your age have no head for this kind of thing.”

Her face burning, exasperated, Romilly took the huge mug of cider the woman set before her. Sipping it, she acknowledged to herself that she liked it better than the strong wine, which burned her mouth and her stomach and made her head swim. She muttered, “Thank you, Orain.”

He nodded and said, “Think nothing of it. I wish I’d had a friend to knock my head out of the winepot when I was your age! Too late now,” he added with a grin, and lifting his tankard, drank deep.

Romilly sat listening, full and sleepy, as Orain went back to the dart board; when asked to join him, she shook her head, feeling drowsy, listening to the talk around the bar.

“Well thrown! Whang in the eye of whichever king you don’t favor!”

“I heard Carolin’s in the Hellers because the Hairimyn are too soft to search for him up here - they might freeze their dainty tailbones!”

“Whether Carolin’s here or no, there are enough supporters for his rule - he’s a good man!”

“Whatever Carolin’s like, I’ll join anything which gets that bastard Lyondri the rope’s end he deserves! Did ye’ hear what he did to old Lord di Asturien? Burned over his head, poor old man, and him and the old lady by the side of the road in their night-gear and bedslippers, if one of their woodsmen hadn’t taken ‘em in and given ‘em a place to lie down in….”

After a time Romilly fell into a doze, in which Carolin and the usurper Rakhal wandered in dreams with the faces of great mountain cats, slinking through the woods and tearing at one another, and the shrill cry of hawks, as if she were soaring far above and watching the battle. She flew over a white Tower, and Ruyven was waving to her from the summit, and then he somehow took wing and was flying beside her, telling her gravely that Father would not approve of it. He said solemnly, “The Bearer of Burdens said that it is forbidden for man to fly and that is why I have no wings.” and saying it, he fell like a stone; Romilly started awake, to feel Orain lightly shaking her.

“Come, lad, it’s late, they’re closing the doors - we must go back to the monastery!”

His breath was heavy with wine, his speech slurred; she wondered if he was able to walk. However, she laid his cloak over his shoulders, and they went out into the crisp, frosty darkness. It was very late; most of the houses were dark. Somewhere, a dog barked in a frenzy, but there was no other sound, and little light in the street; only the pale and frosty light of blue Kyrrdis, low on the rooftops of the city. Orain’s steps were unsteady; he walked with one hand on the nearest house-wall, steadying himself, but when the narrow streets opened into a stair, he tripped on the cobbles and went flailing down full-length on the stone, howling with drunken surprise. Romilly helped him up, saying in amusement, “You had better hold on to my arm.” Had he made certain his companion would stay sober, so that he would have someone to guide him back to the monastery? Romilly was fairly good at finding a path she had once travelled; she managed to direct their steps upward into the shadow of the monastery.

“Do you know if Carolin is truly in the city, Orain?” she asked at last in a low voice, but he peered with drunken suspicion into her face and demanded, “Why d’ye’ ask?” and she shrugged and let it go. When he was sober she would talk to him about that; but at least the wine he had drunk would not unseal his mouth and he would not babble of his mission or plans. As they climbed the last steep street, which led into the courtyard of the monastery guest-house, he held tightly to her arm, sometimes putting a drunken arm around her shoulders; but Romilly edged away - if he held her too close he might, as Rory had done, discover that she was a woman beneath the heavy clothes she wore.

I like Orain, I would rather respect him, and if he knew I were a woman he would be like all the others. …

As they climbed he leaned on her arm more and more heavily. Once he turned aside from her, and, unbuttoning his trousers, relieved himself against a house wall; Romilly was, not for the first time, grateful for her farm upbringing which had made this something she could accept unblushing - if she had been a housebred woman like Luciella or her younger sister, she would have been outraged a dozen times a day. But then, if she had been a housebred woman, she would probably never have thought to protest the marriage her father had arranged, and she would certainly never have been able to travel with so many men without somehow revealing herself.