Read Online Hawkmistress! by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Free Book Online Page B

with an uneasy smile, “I beg you, my friend, speak not of laran so freely when my father is by to hear.”
    “Why, is he one who would speak of sweetnut-blossom because snowflakes are too cold for him?” Alderic asked with a grin. “All my life I have heard of the horses trained by The MacAran as the finest in the world, and Dom Mikhail is one of the more notable of MacAran lords. Surely he knows well the Gifts and laran of his house and his lady’s.”
    “Still, he will not hear the word spoken,” said Darren, “Not since Ruyven fled to the Tower, and I blame him not, though some would say I am the gainer by what Ruyven has done… Romilly, now while Father is not by, I will say this to you and you may tell Mallina secretly; I think Rael is too young to keep it to himself, but use your own judgment. At the monastery, I had a letter from Ruyven; he is well, and loves the work he does, and is happy. He sends his love and a kiss to all of you, and bids me speak of him again to Father when I judge the time is right.”
    “Which will be when apples and blackfruit grow on the ice cliffs of Nevarsin,” said Romilly, “You were there, you know what he feels.”
    Darren shook his head. “Ah, no, sister, I am not so much a telepath as you, though I knew that he was angry.”
    Romilly turned on him, blinking in disbelief. “Can you not hear a thing unless it is spoken aloud?” she demanded, “Are you head blind like the witless donkey you ride?”
    Slow color, the red of shame, suffused Darren’s face as he lowered his eyes. “Even so, sister,” he said, and Romilly shut her eyes as if to avoid looking on some gross deformity. She had never known or guessed this, she had always taken it for granted that all her siblings shared the Gift she had come to take for granted even before she knew what it was.
    She turned with relief to Davin, who was coming through the courtyard. “Was it you, old friend, gave orders to feed the hawks on the offal of the kitchens, and not even fresh at that?” She pointed at the pan of offending refuse; Davin picked it up, sniffed disdainfully at it, and put it aside.
    “That lazybones of a lad brought this? He’ll make no hawker! I sent him for fresher food from the kitchens, but Lady Luciella says there are to be no more fresh birds killed for hawk-bait; I doubt not Ker was too lazy to catch mice, but I’ll find something fresher to exercise your hawk, Mistress Romilly.”
    Alderic asked, “May I touch her?” and took the feather from Romilly’s hand, stroking the hawk’s sleek feathers. “She is indeed beautiful; verrin hawks are not easy to keep, though I have tried it. Not with success, unless they were yard-hatched. And this was a haggard? Who trained her?”
    “I did, and am still working with her; she has not yet flown free,” Romilly said, and smiled shyly at his look of amazement.
    “You trained her? A girl? But why not, you are a MacAran. In the Tower where I dwelt for a time, some of the woman tamed and flew verrin hawks taken in the wild, and we are apt to say there, to one who has notable success with a hawk, Why, you have the hand of a MacAran with a bird….”
    “Are there MacArans in the Towers, then, that they should say so?” Romilly asked, “I knew not that there were any MacArans within their walls, until my brother went thither.”
    Alderic said, “The saying was known in my father’s time and in his father’s - the Gift of a MacAran.” The word he used was not the ordinary word in the Kilghard Hills, laran, but the old casta word donas. “But your father is not pleased, then, to have a son in the Tower? Most hill-folk would be proud.”
    Darren’s smile was bitter. “I have no gift for working with animals - and small gift for anything else, save learning; but while Ruyven was my father’s Heir it did not matter; I was destined for the monastery, and I was happy with the Brotherhood. Now he will even try to hammer this bent nail into the place