Hawkmaiden (2 page)

“Then I’ll get a hatchling,” she decided.  “If they can be trained to hunt . . .”

“You’re dreaming again, Little Bird,” Kyre laughed, as he started to descend the tree.  She almost took exception at the nickname she’d borne since youth, but not against Kyre.  She adored her oldest brother. “You’d need wings of your own to get to that nest.  Look at it.  
No one
climbs Rundeval.  That’s why the Westwood stops at that ridge.”

“It’s not impassable,” she reminded him.  “People have climbed it before!”

“No, but the high pass isn’t easy.  I’ve been two-thirds of the way up, and it was hard as Anira’s biscuits.  And from the pass you’d have to . . . wait, why am I even
telling
you this?”

“Because I’m curious,” she urged.  “And you
love
me.  And if anyone could get up there, Kyre,
you
could.  Now tell me, once you got to the pass . . . ?”

“Once you got to the pass you’d have to make your way west, over those rocks, and then do a vertical climb up . . . hells, from here I’d say it was at least sixty, seventy feet – and that’s only got you partway there.”

“And then what would I have to do?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted.  “I’ve never been as far, myself.  
Why
do you want to train a falcon, Dara?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she asked, noting exactly where the bird had landed and committing it to memory.  “I mean, falconry is a noble sport.  If I could get Uncle Keram  to teach me how, then I’d have a trade . . . and I wouldn’t have to worry about growing up so much.”

Her Uncle Keram was her favorite, perhaps because after her mother died, her father had been nearly heartbroken.  Keram and Anira had only three children of their own, before the midwives told them sadly that they would have no more.  So as a baby they had served as surrogate parents while her father worked through his grief.  Dara shared a very close relationship with her uncle as a result.  Less so, with her stern Aunt Anira.  

That was part of the problem.  Aunt Anira felt she should be preparing to go courting, at her age.  As a daughter of the Master of the Westwood, her aunt constantly reminded her, she would be highly prized among the folk of the Vale.  That prospect frightened Dara.  She had only given up playing with dolls last year.  She was not ready to even think about such things as husbands and children.  Her reluctance to consider the matter had been the cause of much friction between herself and her foster mother.

“Don’t worry, Father isn’t ready to marry you off just yet, Little Bird,” he laughed, guessing her thoughts.  

“No, but he
could,
” she reminded him.  “Just ask Aunt Anira.  He did it to Leska!”  Leska was their eldest sister, and had been married to a boy from Gurisham the year before.  She had always been eager to trade the Westwood for life in a village, and when she had met a husky farmer lad at market she had quickly persuaded their father to make the arrangements.

“Yes, but Leska was eighteen, not twelve, and she loved the boy, and she was
Leska
. . . can you really see her doing well in the Westwood?  She’s been pestering Father to find her a husband since she was fourteen.  She
should
be near Mother’s kin, and be a farmer’s wife.  Far,
far
away from here,” he added.  Leska had not been the easiest older sister to get along with.

Dara couldn’t help giggling.  “Yes, I can see your point.  At least you never had to share a room with her!  But if I knew falconry,” she reasoned, “then Father wouldn’t even have a reason to consider it.”

“Not unless you wanted to,” agreed Kyre.  “If you had a real trade, you could forestall it awhile, at least.  You know, you might not mind being wed, one day . . . in fact, you’re about the only girl I know who
isn’t
consumed by the idea.”

“The thought of being chained to some peasant oaf in Sevendor or Genly . . . it makes me consider taking holy orders,” she confessed.  

“Father would never marry you against your will,” Kyre assured her.  “Nor me, for that matter.  And I hear he’s had offers,” he added, slyly. As heir to the yeomanry,
of course
Kyre had had offers.  It only made sense.  But the idea of her oldest brother married off to some girl she didn’t even know made Dara angry for some reason. “But I don’t—”

“KYRE!”
came a shout from across the fields, interrupting their lazy discussion.  The spruce they were in was on the edge of the Westwood Hall compound, just by the hedge that shielded the main yard from the woods, proper.  From this spot, if you climbed the big spruce high enough, you could see both the grand stone Hall as well as see over the rocky ridge that separated the Westwood from Sevendor Castle.  A good place to daydream, and a popular place for Dara and her siblings.

The shout was loud, male, and alarmed.  Dara wondered what was happening.  It was a good three hundred yards to the manor house, but when the brass bell that hung from the peak of the barn started ringing that only meant trouble, she knew, if it wasn’t the three bells that signaled mealtime.  

She and Kyre looked at each other for a split second before moving.

Kyre dropped from his perch soundlessly and was sprinting across the meadow like a hare.  Dara followed more slowly, more clumsily, and with more trepidation.  She didn’t want to slip and add more drama to whatever it was that was unfolding.  That was the
emergency
bell, she realized, the one suspended from the watchtower.  Not the dinner bell.

In fact, she noted as she landed on her hands and feet, the rest of the manor was already headed in to the Hall from the shops, sheds, and yards of the settlement as fast as they could.  She pushed her legs to follow her swift-footed brother through the gateway and into the outer yard and found her older cousin Larvan standing there, holding his bow and quiver and looking grim.  

Holding
two
bows, she realized.  He handed the other one to Kyre with just a hint of deference – Kyre was younger than Larvan, but he was the Master of the Wood’s heir, as his silver wolf’s head ring designated, destined to inherit his father’s important office and the manor in his time.

“It’s a man from the
castle
,” Larvan said, distastefully.  “He’s on the other side of the ravine.  He’s demanding that your father deliver his
proper
tribute.”

“And Father . . . ?”

Larvan smiled mirthlessly.  “He is not inclined to make that delivery,” he said, simply.

Dara’s heart sank.  That could mean fighting.  And fighting could mean killing.

“It’s been brewing for a while,” Larvan said, as they walked back to the manor.  Kyre strapped on his quiver and took a short sword from his cousin to set beside it on his belt, before he strung his bow.  “Sir Erantal has sent three men to demand tribute this year.  Father has sent two of them back empty-handed.”  

That was news to Dara – she hadn’t been aware of the visits.  Then again, most manor business was conducted around the Flame, and she was rarely involved in those matters, being twelve, female, and precociously curious.

“Why only two?” she asked, dumbly.  The boys looked at her.  

“The third seems to have . . . tripped and fallen into the ravine,” Larvan said, quietly.  “It’s a shame.  Everyone knows how
treacherous
that bridge can be.”

Dara realized he was being sarcastic . . . and that the third representative from the castle had never returned from his duty.  That made her feel a little ill.  She knew her Father had to do such things, to protect the Westwood from the knight-in-residence at the castle, but this was the first time she had heard of him actually having someone . . .
killed.
It sent a chill up her spine.

“Aren’t we
supposed
to pay tribute to the castle?” she asked, trying not to sound stupid.  If it had been one of her other, more obnoxious cousins that might have been a risk, but Larvan had always been nice to her.  

“Aye, and they are supposed to guard the people and ensure their welfare . . . and old Sir Erantal hasn’t done a thing when folk are starving in the castle’s own village.”  Kyre sounded disgusted.  “The harvest was poor this year, and he took more than his share.”

“But how does that concern the Westwood?” she asked.

“Simple: he wants more. From everyone.  But if we allow Sir Erantal to run roughshod over his own people without protest, he’ll soon do it to us, too,” explained Larvan.  “Besides, your father hates the sight of the man.  Says he’s not fit to be the lord of winesops, much less a proper lord.”  That was a frequent topic of conversation around the Flame, she knew, though she had never dared participate in it.  

Sir Erantal was holding the domain in the name of the Duke.  Theoretically, the Duke was their lord . . . but Sir Erantal was who the Duke had hired to run the domain until it was given away or sold or inherited or bequeathed to a proper lord.  At which point, her Uncle Keram had said, cynically, they’d likely hire someone just as bad as Sir Erantal to run the place as castellan.

“There are three or four of them, this time,” Larvan informed his cousin as they strode resolutely toward the manor hall.  “Armed and armored,” he added, grimly as they rounded the corner and strode into the yard.  Dara followed behind, because no one had told her not to, yet.

“That’s not good,” frowned her brother. Dara was just about to say something similar, when Kyre suddenly turned to her. “Dara, get up to your room,” he ordered.  “I doubt it will come to fighting, but if it does . . . well, you’ll get the best view from your window,” he pointed out.  

It was a blatant ploy to keep her out of trouble, she knew . . . but she also knew that if Kyre thought she might be in the way, she should probably stay out of the way.

“Be careful!  Flame guide you!” she urged, as she watched them walk through the courtyard toward the bridge yard.  Kyre turned around and gave her a confident smile.

“Don’t worry,” he dismissed, “when they see how many archers are on this side of the ravine, they’re going to reconsider crossing that bridge.”

She nodded, but she didn’t stop worrying.  It was happening again.

The Westwoodmen had always been outsiders in Sevendor Vale, though they had been here in the Westwood since before it
was
Sevendor Vale.  

When the first Narasi lords from the east and south had come to the Uwarri hills, the Westwood men had been there for centuries, already, behind the jagged chasm that protected their four-hundred acre estate.  Their customs and manner of speech were different from the Narasi folk who had settled to farm grain in the more arable regions of the valley.  The rest of the Vale’s villages and hamlets were wary of the manor’s odd folk and that suspicion was mutual . . . despite two centuries or more of occasional intermarriage.

The key to the Westwood’s ability to maintain its independence, as Dara’s father had lectured her family often enough, was the position of its holding.  The great manor hall was situated on a rocky outcropping facing a cliff over a forty-foot deep (deeper, in some places, it was said), twenty-foot wide (and much wider, at the northern end) chasm that split the rocky woodlands in the western end of the valley from the rest.  

The ravine spanned the entire western end of the vale.  The land behind it was higher than the rest of the vale, and remained thickly wooded while the rest of the domain was slowly but surely deforested.  The Westwoodmen did not farm, as the other Sevendori did, apart from a few vegetable gardens.  They hunted, gathered, fished, trapped, tanned leather and cultivated the forest for lumber, trading their products to the farmers of Sevendor for grain. But the ravine kept them forever apart from the folk who farmed the lands beyond it.

The bridge that connected the Westwood with the rest of Sevendor was narrow, a moveable contraption of wood and rope, without rail or rest.  It was designed to present the flanks of whoever crossed it to the archery of the Westwoodmen.  And, of course, should the Master of the Wood order his men to retract the bridge it would be extremely difficult to cross if anyone stood in arms at the Hall.

So when Sir Erantal sent men from Sevendor Castle to treat with the Master, they were not doing so from a position of strength.  Dara hurried up the stairs to her loft, high in the older part of the manor hall, which faced out over the chasm.  From where she was she could see the bridgehead very clearly with her sharp eyes . . . and the men standing upon it.

Lord Erantal’s men were mail-clad men-at-arms, and Dara’s heart raced when she saw their deadly-looking longswords at their sides.  Soldiers.  But these were no knights – Sir Erantal was the only knight in Sevendor and he was hardly the picture of chivalry.  These were hired swords, men barely better than bandits, who had taken Erantal’s coin for the job of squeezing more tribute from the folk of the Vale from the castle garrison.

One of the four wore a full helmet, as opposed to the iron pots the others wore.  He also wore a faded yellow baldric over his shoulder.  That meant he was some sort of castle official, Dara suspected.  The man looked strong but brutish, and he surveyed her home with a sneer of contempt that raised her ire the moment she saw it