Hawkmistress! Read Online Free PDF Page A

frame in words, but a joy deep and swelling, when her favorite bitch brought her puppies to her; the animal’s pleasure at the caress was something like the love she felt for her own father, her joy and pride at his rare praise. And even though she had felt the real pain and fear when a young horse struggled against bridle and saddle, she had shared in the communion and trust between horse and rider, and known it for real love, too; so that she loved to ride breakneck, knowing she could come to no harm while the horse carried her, and she let the horse go at her own pace and pleasure, sharing the delight in the running….
    No, she thought, it is not a violation to teach or train an animal, no more than when nurse taught me to eat porridge, even though I thought it nasty at first and wanted nothing but milk; because if she had fed me upon milk and babies’ pap after my teeth were grown, I would have been sickly and weak, and needed solid food to grow strong. I had to learn even to eat what was good for me, and to wear clothes even though, no doubt, I would sooner, then, have been wrapped in my blankets like a swaddled baby! And later I had to learn to cut my meat with knife and fork instead of gnawing at it with fingers and teeth as an animal would do. And now I am glad to know all these things.
    When the hawk bated again, Romilly did not withdraw from the fear and terror, but let herself share it, whispering half aloud, “Trust me, lovely one, you will fly free again and we will hunt together, you and I, as friends, not as master and slave, I promise you….”
    She filled her mind with images of soaring free above the trees in sunlight, trying to open her mind to the memory of the last tune she had hunted; seeing the bird come spiraling down with its prey, of tearing apart the freshly killed meat so she could give the bird its share of the kill … and again, with an urgency that made her feel sick, she felt the maddening hunger, the hawk’s mind-picture of striking, fresh blood flowing into her mouth … her own human revulsion, the hawk’s hunger, so mingled in her that she hardly knew which was which. Sensing that hunger, she held out the strip of rabbithorn meat, but now the smell revolted her as much as the hawk; she felt that she would vomit.
    But you must eat and grow strong, preciosa, she sent out the thought again and again, feeling the hawk’s hunger, her weakening struggles. Preciosa; that is your name, that is what I will call you, and I want you to eat and grow strong, Preciosa, so we can hunt together, but first you must trust me and eat… I want you to eat because I love you and I want to share this with you, but first you must learn to eat from my hand … eat, Preciosa, my lovely one, my darling, my beauty, won’t you eat this? I don’t want you to die….
    Hours, she felt, must have crawled by while she stood there, tensed into the endless struggle with the weakening hawk. Every time the frenzied bating was weaker, the surges of hunger so intense that Romilly’s own body cramped with pain. The hawk’s eyes were as bright as ever, as filled with terror, and from those eyes it all flooded into Romilly, too, in growing despair.
    The hawk was weakening, surely; if she did not feed soon, after all this struggle, she would die; she had taken no food since she was captured four days ago. Would she die, still fighting?
    Maybe her father had been right, maybe no woman had the strength for this….
    And then she remembered the moment when she had looked out from the hawk’s eyes and she, Romilly MacAran, had not even been a memory, and she had been something other than human. Fear and despair flooded her; she saw herself ripping off the gauntlet, beaten to take up her needlework, letting walls close round her forever. A prisoner, more a prisoner than the chained hawk, who, at least, would now and then have a chance to fly,, and to feel again the soaring ecstasy of flight and freedom….
    No. Rather than