"It wasn't Romilly's idea, father," said Caryl, and Romilly knew that he had thought about, and rejected, telling his father that Orain had been angry about it; it was no time to bring Orain's name up at all. And Romilly knew, too, from the almost-imperceptible added clenching of the Hastur-lord's jaw, that he heard perfectly well what his son had not said, and it seemed that a shadow of his voice, faraway and eerie, said almost aloud in Romilly's mind, Another score against Orain, who was my sworn man before he was Carolin's. I should keep this woman hostage; she may know something of Orain's whereabouts, and where Orain is, Carolin cannot be far.
But by now the boy could read the unspoken thought, and he looked up at his father in real horror. He said in a whisper, "You pledged your word. The word of a Hastur," and she could almost see his shining image of his father crack and topple before his eyes. Lyondri Hastur looked from his son to the woman. He said, in a sharp dry voice, "Swordswoman, know you where Orain rides at this moment?"
She knew that with his harsh eyes on her she could not lie, he would have the truth from her in moments. With a flood of relief she knew that she need not lie to him at all. She said, "I saw Orain last in Caer Bonn, when he brought Caryl -Dom Carolin - to the hostel of the Sisterhood. And that was more than a tenday ago. I suppose by now he is with the Army." And, though she tried, she could not keep from her mind the picture of the army passing at the end of the street, the banner of the Hasturs, blue and silver, and Orain riding at the side of the unseen king. Lyondri would not consider him king but usurper....
I have made promises I could not keep ... I knew not what manner of man I served, that I have become Rakhal's hangman and hard hand . . . and with shock, Romilly realized that she was actually receiving this thin trickle of thoughts from the man before her; or was this true at all, was she simply reading him as she read animals, in the infinitesimal movements of eyes and body, and somehow co-ordinating them with his thoughts? She was acutely uncomfortable with the contact and relieved when it stopped abruptly, as if Lyondri Hastur had realized what was happening and closed it down.
I have read thoughts, more or less, much of my life, why should it disturb and confuse me now?
The Hastur-lord said with quiet formality, "I owe you a reward for your care of my son. I will grant anything save for weapons which might be used against me in this unjust war. State what you wish for his ransom, with that one exception."
Jandria had prepared her for this. She said firmly, "I was to ask for three sacks filled with medical supplies for the hostels of the sisterhood; bandage-linen, the jelly which helps the clotting of blood, and karalla powder."
"I suppose I could call those weapons, since no doubt they will be used to aid those wounded in rebellion against their king," Lyondri Hastur mused aloud, then shrugged. "You shall have them," he said, "I will give my steward the orders, and a pack-animal to take them back to your camp."
Romilly drew a soft sigh of relief. She was not to be imprisoned, then, or held hostage.
"Did you believe that of me?" asked Lyondri Hastur aloud, dryly, then gave a short, sharp laugh. She saw it in his mind again, two telepaths could not lie to one another. She was fortunate that he did not wish his son disillusioned about his honor.
Romilly found herself suddenly very grateful that she had not encountered Lyondri Hastur when Caryl was not by, and when he did not wish to keep his son's admiration.
"But, father," Caryl said, "This is the woman with the hawk, who let me fly her - can I have a hawk of my own? And one day, I wish Mistress Romilly to be my hawkmistress."
Lyondri Hastur smiled; it was a dry, distant smile, but nevertheless, a smile, and even more frightening than his laugh. He said, "Well, Swordswoman, my son has taken a fancy to you. There are members of the Sisterhood in my employment. If you would care to stay here and instruct Carolin in the art of falconry-"
She wanted nothing more than to get away. Much as she liked Caryl, she had never met anyone who so terrified her as this dry, harsh man with the cold laughter and hooded eyes. Grasping for an honorable excuse, she said, "I am - I am pledged elsewhere, vai dom."
He bowed slightly, acknowledging the excuse. He knew it was an excuse, he knew what she thought him, and he knew she knew. He said, "As you wish, mestra. Carolin, say goodbye to your friend and go to greet your mother."
He came and gave her his hand in the most formal way. Then, impulsively, he hugged her. He said, looking up to her with earnest eyes, "Maybe when this war is over I will see you again, Romilly - and your hawk. Give Preciosa my greetings." Then he bowed as if to a lady at court, and left the room quickly, but she had seen the first traces of tears in his eyes. He did not want to cry in front of his father; she knew it.
Lyondri Hastur coughed. He said, "Your pack-animal and the medical supplies will be brought to you at the side door, near the stable. The steward will show you the way," and she knew that the audience with the Hastur-lord was over. He gestured to the functionary, who came and said softly, "This way, mestra."
Romilly bowed and said, "Thank you, sir."
She turned, but as she was about to follow the steward, Lyondri Hastur coughed again.
"Mistress Romilly-?"
"Vai dom?"
'Tell Jandria I am not quite the monster she fears. Not quite. That will be all."
And as she left the room, Romilly wondered, shaking to her very toenails, what else does this man know?
CHAPTER THREE
When Romilly delivered the message from Lyondri Hastur to Janni - "Tell her I am not the monster she thinks me, not quite," Jandria said nothing for a long time. Romilly sensed, from her stillness, (although she made a deliberate effort, her first, not to use her laran at all) that Jandria had several things she would have said; but not to Romilly. Then, at last, she said, "And he gave you the medical supplies?"
"He did; and a pack animal to carry them."
Janni went and looked them over, saying at last, tight-lipped, "He was generous. Whatever Lyondri Hastur's faults, niggardliness was never one of them. I should return the pack animal - I want no favors from Lyondri - but the sober truth is that we need it. And it is less to him than buying his son a packet of sweets in the market; I need suffer no qualms of conscience about that." She sent for three of the women to look over the medical supplies, and told Romilly she might return to her horses. As an afterthought, as Romilly was going out the door, she called her back for a moment and said, "Thank you, chiya. I sent you on a difficult and dangerous mission, where I had no right at all to send you, and you carried it off as well as any diplomatic courier could have done. Perhaps I should find work better suited to you than working with the dumb beasts."
Romilly thought; I would rather work with horses than go on diplomatic missions, any day! After a minute or two she said so, and Jandria, smiling, said, "Then I will not keep you
from the work I know you love. Go back to the bones, my dear. But you have my thanks."
Freed, Romilly went back to the paddock and led out the horse she was beginning to break to the saddle. But she had not been at the work very long when Mhari came out to her.
"Romy," she said, "saddle your own horse and two pack animals, at once, and Jandria's riding-horse. She is leaving the hostel tonight, and says you must go with her."
Romilly stared, with one hand absent-mindedly quieting the nervous horse, who did not at all like the blanket strapped to his back. "To leave tonight? Why?"
"As for that, you must ask Janni herself," said Mhari, a little sullenly, "I would be glad to go wherever she would take me, but she has chosen you instead, and she bade me make up a packet of your clothes, and four days journey-rations too."
Romilly frowned with irritation; she was just beginning to make some progress in gentling this horse, and must she interrupt the work already? She was sworn to the Sisterhood, but must that put her at the mercy of some woman's whim? Nevertheless she liked Jandria very much, and was not inclined to argue with her decisions. She shrugged, c
hanged the long lunge-line for a short leading-rope and took the horse back into the stable.
She had finished saddling Jandria's horse, and was just putting a saddle-blanket on her own, when Jandria, cloaked and booted for riding, came into the stable. Romilly noticed, with shock, that her eyes were reddened as if she had been crying; but she only asked "Where are we going, Janni? And why?"
Jandria said, "What Lyondri said to you, Romy, was a message; he knows that I am here; no doubt he had you followed to see where the Sisterhood's hostel was located outside the walls of Hali. Simply by being here, I endanger the Sisterhood, who have taken no part in this war; but I am kin to Orain and he might somehow think to trace Orain through me, might think I know more of Orain's plans - or Carolin's - than I really do. I must leave here at once, so that if Rakhal's men under Lyondri come here to seek me, they can say truthfully, and maintain, even if they should be questioned by a leronis who can read their thoughts, that they have no knowledge of where I have gone, or where Carolin's men, or Orain, may be gathered. And I am taking you with me, for fear Lyondri might try to lay hands on you, too. These other women - he knows nothing of them and cares less; but you have come under his eyes, and I would just as soon you were out of his field of notice ... I would rather not have you at the very gates of Hali. Besides-" her smile was very faint, "Did you not know? A woman of the Sisterhood does not travel alone, but must be companioned by one, at least, of her sisters."
Romilly had not thought of that - Jandria was Orain's kin, and Lyondri Hastur could use her for hostage, too, even if he did not, as Jandria had feared, mean to put her to death. She said formally, "A ves ordres, mestra," and finished saddling her horse.
"Go into the hostel and get yourself some bread and cheese," Jandria said, "We can eat as we ride. But be quick, little sister."
Is there need for such haste as that, or is Jandria afraid without reason? But Romilly did not question her; she did as she was told, returning with a loaf of bread and a great hunk of coarse white new cheese, which she stowed in her saddlebag - she was not hungry now, Jandria's message had effectively destroyed her appetite, but she knew she would be glad of it later. She had a bag of apples, too, which the cook had given her.
She did ask, as they led out their horses to mount, "Where are we going, Janni?"
"I think it would be safer if you did not know that, not just yet," said Jandria, and Romilly saw real fear in her eyes. "Come, little sister, let us ride."
Romilly marked that they rode northward from the city, but the trail soon curved, and Jandria took a small, little-travelled road, hardly more than the track left by mountain chervines, which wound upward and upward into the hills. Before long Romilly had lost all sense of direction, but Jandria seemed never to hesitate, as if she knew precisely where she was going.
Before long they began to ride under the cover of heavy forested slopes, and Jandria seemed to relax a little; after an hour or so she asked for some of the bread and cheese, and ate it with a good appetite. Romilly, chewing on the coarse crust, began to wonder again, but did not ask.
At last Jandria said, mounting again and taking the lead-rope of the pack animal, "Even a sentry-bird cannot spy us out here. I know not if Lyondri has such birds trained to his use - they are not really all that common - but I thought it better to keep under cover till the trail was well and truly lost; all Gods forbid I should lead him straight to Carolin's armies."
"Is that where we are going?"
"The Sisterhood has a cohort of soldiers there," said Jandria, "and your skills may be needed to train horses for the army. And I doubt not that the Sisterhood with Carolin's army can make use of me, somehow or other. If Lyondri knew I was in the hostel - as he must have known or he would not have sent that message - then he might think, or Rakhal might think for him, that if he kept watch on me, I might lead him straight to Carolin's rendezvous; even if he could not tear the knowledge of that rendezvous straight from my mind without even a leronis to aid him. So I hastened to get out of there, and into the cover of the forest, so that he could not set watch on the hostel and give orders to have me followed. I may possibly have moved faster than he, for once; and it may be that we are already safe." But she glanced apprehensively down the trail where they had come, and then, even more apprehensively, at the sky, as if even now Lyondri's sentry-birds could be hovering there to spy them out And her fear made Romilly frightened too.
That night they camped still within the shelter of the forest, and Jandria even forbade a cooking-fire; they ate the cold bread and cheese, and tethered the animals under a great tree. They spread their blankets beneath another, doubled for warmth (although the mountain-bred Romilly found it reasonably warm) and Romilly slept quickly, tired from riding. But she woke once in the night to hear soft sounds as if Jandria was crying. She wished, wretchedly, that she could say something to comfort the other woman, but it was a trouble far beyond her comprehension. At last she slept again, but woke early to find Jandria already up and saddling the horses. Her eyes were dry and tearless, her face barricaded, but the eyelids were red and swollen.
"Do you think we can risk a fire this morning? I would like some hot food, and if we are not pursued by now, surely we must have gotten away," Romilly said, and Jandria shrugged.
"I suppose it makes no difference. If Lyondri truly wishes to find me, I am sure he would not need trackers, seeing that he read my thoughts of him so far away. It would not be Lyondri who pursued us, but Rakhal, in any case." She was silent, sighing. "Build us a fire, and I will cook some hot porridge, little sister. I have no right to make this trip harder for you with my causeless fears and dreads; you have travelled so long and hard already, Romy, and already I have you off again when you thought you had found a place of repose."
"It's all right," Romilly said, not knowing what to say. She would rather travel with Jandria than remain in the hostel with the strange women among whom she had made no friends as yet. She knelt to kindle a fire. But when they were eating hot porridge, and their horses munching at ease in the grass, Romilly asked, hesitantly, "Do you grieve for Lyondri?" What she was wondering, was this; Lyondri had been her lover, was she still bound to him? Jandria seemed to know what she meant, and sighed, with a small sad smile.
"My grief, I suppose, is for myself," she said at last. "And for the man I thought Lyondri was - the man he might have been, if Rakhal had not seduced him with the thought of power. That man, the man I loved, is dead - so long dead that even the Gods could not recall him from whatever place our dead hopes go. He still wants my good opinion - so much the message, or warning, meant - but that could be no more than vanity, which was always strong in him. I do not think he is all evil," she said, and stumbled a little over it, "The fault is Rakhal's. But by now he must know what Rakhal is, and still follows after him. So I cannot hold him guiltless of all the atrocities done in Rakhal's name."
Romilly asked, shyly, "Did you know them both - Carolin and Rakhal? How did Rakhal come to seize his throne?"
But Jandria shook her head. "I do not know. I left court when Rakhal still professed to be Carolin's most loyal follower, accepting all the favors Carolin showered on him as his dearest cousin who had been fostered with him."
"Carolin must be a good man," said Romilly at last, "to inspire such devotion in Orain. And-" she hesitated, "in you."
She said, "But surely when you were with Orain, you met with Carolin?"
Romilly shook her head. "I understood the king was at Nevarsin; but I did not meet with him."
Jandria raised her eyebrows, but all she said was, "Finish your porridge, child, and rinse the dish in the stream, and we shall ride again."
Silently, Romilly went about her work, saddling the horses, loading what was left of their food. But as they mounted, Jandria said, so long after that Romilly had almost forgotten what she asked, "Carolin is a good man. His only fault is that he trusts the honor of the Hasturs without reason; and he made the mistake of trusting Rakhal. Even Orain cou
ld not tell him what Rakhal was, nor could I; he thought Orain was only jealous. Jealous - Orain!"
"What is Rakhal like?" asked Romilly, but Jandria only shook her head.
"I cannot speak of him fairly; my hate blinds me. But where Carolin loves honor above all things, and then he loves learning, and he loves his people, Rakhal loves only the taste of power. He is like a mountain-cat that has had a taste of blood." She climbed into her saddle, and said, "Today you will take the pack-animal's leading-rope, and I will ride ahead, since I know where we are going."
When they had come out from under the cover of the forest, Romilly had again the faint far sense of being watched; that trickle of awareness in her mind that told her Preciosa was watching her; the hawk did not descend to her hand, but once or twice Romilly caught a glimpse of the bird hovering high in the sky, and knew she was not alone. The thought warmed her so deeply that she was no longer aware of fear or apprehension.
She and I are one; she has joined her life to mine. Romilly was dimly aware that this must be something like marriage, indissoluble, a tie which went deep into the other's body and spirit. She had no such tie for instance with her present horse, though he had carried her faithfully and she wished him well and thought often of his welfare.
The horse is my friend. Preciosa is something else, something like a lover.
And that made her think, shyly and almost for the first time, what it might be like to have a lover, to have a bond with someone as close to her as the hawk, tied in mind and heart and even in body, but someone with whom she could communicate, not as the MacArans did with their horses and hounds and hawks, across the vast gulf that lay between man and horse, women and hawk, child and dog, but with the close bonding of species. Dom Garris had wanted her, but his lecherous glances had roused nothing in her but revulsion; revulsion doubled when it was Rory, who would as soon have cut her throat for her horse and cloak and a few coppers, but had wished to bed her as well.