Carolin laughed and said, "Do as you wish, hawkmistress. You have been faithful to me, and to those I love. And when you have done your duty to your laran and to your parents and to the one who would marry you, I shall expect you to come back to us in Hali." He turned and took Maura's hand, saying, "I pledged to you that we would celebrate our Mid-summer-festival in Hali, did I not? And the next moon will see us at Midsummer. If it will please you, Lady - I had thought to make the hawkmistress's marriage at the same time as her Queen's. But we can wait for that." He laughed aloud and said, "I am not so much of a tyrant as that. But one day, Romilly, you will be hawkmistress to the reigning king as you were in exile."
She bowed and said, "I thank you, sir." But her mind, ranging ahead, was already seeking the walls of Tramontana Tower.
She rejected her noble life and embraced the freedom only a man could claim. She was Romilly, who spurned humanity for its evils and jealousies and lived among the beasts of hill and forest. There was war in the lands of Darkover, but Romilly wanted none of it. Yet, male-garbed or beast-minded, she was also human. And duty to her own kind pointed her to the ultimate decision...
Hawkmistress! Page 42
