Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover - Hawkmistress

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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 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.
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 and 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.
But why not? Romilly asked herself in a rage. I was born with the MacAran
Gift; the laran which would give me mastery over hawk or horse or hound. Not
laran, I will never admit that I have that evil curse of the Hastur-kinfolk;
but the ancient Gift of the MacArans . . . I have a right to that, it is not
laran, not really. . . . I may be a woman, but I am as much a MacAran as my
brothers!
Again she stepped toward the hawk, the meat extended on the gauntlet, but
the hawk thrust up its head and the beady eyes stared coldly at Romilly; it
moved away, with a little hop, as far away as the dimensions of the block
allowed. She could sense that the jesses were no longer giving it pain. She
murmured small sounds of reassurance, and her own hunger came surging up
inside her. She should have brought some food in her pocket for herself, she
had seen Davin, often enough, thrust cold meats and bread into his pouch so
that he could munch on something while he waited out the long stay with a
hawk. If only she could sneak away for a moment to the kitchen or pantry-and
to the privy, too; her bladder ached with tension. Her father or brothers
could have stepped away, turned aside for a moment, undone breeches and
relieved themselves against the wall, but Romilly, though she contemplated it
for a moment, would have had too many strings and fastenings to undo, even
though she was wearing a pair of Ruyven's old breeches. But she sighed,
staying where she was.
If you can't wait out a hawk, Davin had said, you have no business around
one. That was the only real disadvantage she could think of for a girl, around
the stables, and this was the first time it had been any real disadvantage for
her.
You're hungry too, she said silently to the hawk, come on, here's food, just
because I'm hungry doesn't mean you can't eat, you stubborn thing, you! But
the hawk made no move to touch the food. It moved a little, and for a moment
Romilly feared it would explode into another of those wild bursts of bating.
But it stayed still, and after a moment she relaxed into the motionless quiet
of her vigil.
When my brothers were my age, it was taken for granted-a MacAran son should
train his own hound, his own horse, his own hawk. Even Rael, he is only nine,
but already Father insists he shall teach his dogs manners. When she had been
younger-before Ruyven had left them, before Darren was sent to Nevarsin-her
father had been proud to let Romilly work with horses and hounds.
He used to say; Romilly's a MacAran, she has the Gift; there's no horse she
can't ride, no dog she can't make friends with, the very bitches come and
whelp in her lap. He was proud of me. He used to tell Ruyven and Darren that I
would be a better MacAran than either of them, tell them to watch my way with
a horse.
But now-now it makes him angry.
Since Ruyven had gone, Romilly had been sternly turned over to her
stepmother, expected to stay indoors, to "behave like a lady." She was now
almost fifteen; her younger sister Mallina had already begun dressing her hair
with a woman's butterfly-clasp, Mallina was content to sit and learn
embroidery stitches, to ride decorously in a lady's saddle, to play with
little stupid lap-dogs instead of the sensible herding-dogs and working-dogs
around the pastures and stables. Mallina had grown into a fool, and the
dreadful thing was that their father preferred her as a fool and wished
audibly that Romilly would emulate her.
Never. I'd rather be dead than stay inside the house all the time and stitch
like a lady. Mallina used to ride well, and now she's like Luciella, soft and
flabby, she startles away when a horse moves its head near her, she couldn't
ride for half an hour at a good gallop without falling off gasping like a fish
in a tree, and now, like Luciella, she simpers and twitters, and the worst
thing is, Father likes them that way!
There was a little stir at the far end of the hawk-house, and one of the
eyasses there screamed, the wild screaming sound of an untrained fledgling
that scents food. The sound sent Romilly's hawk into a wild explosion of
bating, and Romilly, one with the mad flapping of wings, the fierce hunger
gripping like claws in her belly, knew that the hawkmaster's boy had come into
the hawk-house to feed the other birds. He went from one to another, slowly,
muttering to them, and Romilly knew it was near sunset; she had been there
since mid-morning. He finished his work and raised his head to see her.
"Mistress Romilly! What are you doing here, damisela?"
At his voice the hawk bated again, and Romilly felt again the dreadful ache,
as if her hands and arms would drop off into the straw. She struggled to keep
herself free of frenzy, fear, anger, blood-lust-blood bursting forth,
exploding into her mouth under tearing beak and talons ... and forced herself
to the low tone that would not further terrify the frenzied bird.
"I am manning this hawk. Go away, Ker, your work is finished and you will
frighten her."
"But I heard Davin say the hawk's to be released, and The MacAran's in a
rage about it," Ker mumbled. "He didna' want to lose the verrin birds, and
he's threatened Davin wi' being turned off, old man that he is, if he loses
them-"
摘要：

Hawkmistress!ADARKOVERNOVELbyMarionZimmerBradleyACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThesoldier'sdrinkingsonginPartIIIwassuggestedbytheBalladofArilinnTower,a"folksong"writtenbyBettinaHelmsandcopyright1979.ThesongAldonesBlesstheHumanElbowwassuggestedbyafolksongbythatmostprolificofauthors,Anonymous;withabowtotheBerkeley-b...

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