by Kate Elliott
“It’s just a small thing, and I don’t think it would be too hard. . . it’s just. . . I would like know how Nallo is faring.”
“I DON’T LIKE you,” said Nallo. “So quit bothering me.”
“Eiya! I was just trying to be nice.” The young reeve took his bowl of soup and his inane banter, obviously meant to impress her, and walked over to another table in the eating hall where he was greeted with friendly cheers.
She thought herself shed of them, able to eat the spicy cawl-flower soup in peace without a bunch of chattering pleasantries, when another cursed reeve plopped down beside her.
“I don’t like Siras either,” said this man. “All that glad-handing talk, like a cursed entertainer.” He placed his bowl on the table, nudged it to the right, and stared at the dumpling floating in the center surrounded by limp cawl petals and specks of bright red pepper. “Did they replace the cook? This looks more appetizing than the last meal I ate here.”
“I wouldn’t know. I only got here yesterday. And I plan to leave tomorrow.”
He chuckled. “Don’t you remember me? I’m Volias.”
“Yes, I remember you. You made me leave the children I’m responsible for and come here to Argent Hall, where I don’t want to be. And since I’m not planning to stay, I don’t see why I should have to remember anyone’s name.”
“You’re very irritating and rude,” he said appreciatively. “Will you promise me you’ll be this rude to the marshal?”
Nallo wasn’t used to people smiling at her. It made her suspicious. “Why do you want me to be rude to him?”
“Because I don’t like him. Not enough people are rude to him, just because he’s charming and good looking. How like them not to see past his handsome face to the insufferably smug and self-righteous man beneath!”
“Will being rude to him help me get out of here?”
He laughed. She wasn’t a good judge of laughter. She couldn’t tell if he was laughing sympathetically, or if he was laughing at her, and that made her bristle.
“Why are you so ill-tempered?” he asked.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“ ‘A look’s as good as a hundred words,’ as it says in the tale. Have you always been this way?”
“So they tell me!” She turned her attention back to her soup, sipping cautiously, but it had just the right sting of pepper to really make your eyes open as you swallowed the rich broth.
He tried his own.
“This is good,” he added, as if she weren’t ignoring him. “Listen, Nallo. The gods marked you the moment that eagle chose you, or the eagle chose you because the gods marked you. It’s hard to know how that works. You can no more walk away than you can expect to see your dead husband walking among the living. Keep your ill temper and your rudeness if you wish. It’ll intimidate people, once you get out into the world as a reeve. But the sooner you accept that you can’t leave, the better it will be for you. Although why I bother to tell you, I don’t know. I’m leaving tomorrow anyway, to return to Clan Hall. I won’t have to deal with your sulks and outbursts, although I’ll miss them. I like you.”
She was finding it hard to breathe because the air had gotten so thick and the pepper in the soup was stronger than she’d realized, making her eyes water. “No one likes me.”
“That sister was bawling her eyes out when you took your leave of them—”
“She’s my husband’s daughter, not my sister. I don’t have any obligation toward them now their father is dead.”
“Which is why you are mad at me for taking you away from them. Hrm, that makes sense. Anyway, presumably your husband liked you.”
“He tolerated me. He needed a second wife quickly because the first died in childbed. I’m the prize he got!” Her voice had risen. Folk seated at other tables looked at her and quickly away when she glared at them.
“Here, now,” said Volias with a sneer. “If you feel a little more sorry for yourself, even I might begin to dislike you despite your wonderful ability to say cutting things to people deserving of a cut like that idiot, Siras, who fancies himself a future marshal just because the fawkners here pet him so and signed him up to run errands for the marshal. So how many people do you suppose are dead already, and how many more do you suppose are going to die, with the way things are these days? Maybe we need reeves right now. Maybe we need the work reeves can do. Maybe the gods are desperate enough to touch you, or maybe you’re just someone who could be a good reeve. Think about it.”
Now he did ignore her, working at his bowl in silence. The hum of other conversations surrounded them. The hall had windows open to a courtyard. Rain pattered on the pavement outside. Lamp flames trembled under the breeze raised by the twilight rains. The hall easily sat two hundred; truly, Nallo had never in her life been under a roof so large because not even Sapanasu’s temple in her village had been anywhere this big. She might as well be outside as inside because there was so much loft hidden by darkness up in the open rafters. And yet it did smell like indoors: the shavings that covered the floor to keep down dust and mess had been mixed with herbs to sweeten the air. The scent reminded her of home.
Home.
Not the house where she had grown up, which had smelled of goats, but her husband’s house. His was not a violent or expansive temperament. He was quiet and kind, and he liked things to be tidy and pleasant, and yet unlike the landlady, he didn’t fuss unnecessarily to make a point that it must be done his way or not at all. He was a good ropemaker, a true artisan, because he had an eye for detail and a real love for doing things right just because that’s what satisfied him. She had respected him, but she had never loved him.
Overcome with feelings she did not understand and could not explain, she slumped forward with her elbows on the plank table and covered her face with her hands.
“Making the women cry again, Volias?”
“I’m the only one she’ll talk to. She probably saw you coming. It’s enough to make me weep.”
She lifted her head. Volias lifted his bowl to his lips and slurped down the last of the broth. The marshal was standing behind him, holding the short staff carried by all reeves. He was a good-looking man; you just couldn’t help noticing that every time you set eyes on him. When he saw that Nallo had looked up, he smiled, a look calculated to melt people’s hard hearts.
She scowled. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
Volias set down the bowl with a clunk. “My heart, have I told you recently that I love you?”
This was not worth replying to, nor did her harsh words have the effect she hoped for.
“You two are well matched,” said the marshal in such a genial way that she wanted to slap the good humor off his handsome face.
“She and I?” said Volias. “I’m flattered you think so.”
“No, I meant her and the eagle. A worse-tempered raptor I’ve never encountered in my life, which is why I need to talk to you right now, Nallo. You’ll come with me.” Under that charm lay an implacable temper, maybe worse than her own once roused, and she knew all at once that she dared not cross him. She shoved the bowl away and got up from behind the bench.
“That just goes over to the table, there,” said the marshal helpfully, pointing to a table where other bowls and utensils had been stacked. All of the other people in the hall—reeves and fawkners and hirelings—had turned to watch the encounter. Aware of their scrutiny, she stalked to the table and set down the things before walking to the door, where he waited for her. Volias came with him, the two men talking in low voices.
“—I think it’s a risk with that eagle,” Volias was saying, “and I’m surprised you—”
The marshal nudged him.
He broke off.
“I’m here,” said Nallo needlessly. Sometimes she didn’t even know why these griping phrases popped out of her mouth. “What do I have to do to convince you I’m not the right person to be a reeve? That I don’t want to be here?”
“Oh,
you’ve convinced me you don’t want to be here,” said the marshal. “But as you’ll discover, how you feel about your situation doesn’t actually matter.”
“There’s no sign of that eagle.”
“That eagle’s just flown in, and she’s in no better temper than you are.”
“The hells,” swore Volias.
“That’s right,” said the marshal. “Quicker is better. Come on.”
Rather than walking across the courtyard through the rain, he skirted the edges of a quadrangle of wooden buildings: the eating hall, the fawkner’s warehouse and shop, the barracks, and the back wall of one of the high lofts, like a byre for beasts, where eagles quartered. Eaves sheltered them from the rain but the wind sprayed moisture over them. She welcomed the cool spatter. The Flower Rains at the beginning of the year were her favorite, a cleansing draft to cool what burned and tore at her insides. Angry, she followed the marshal through a narrow alley between two buildings and halted on the edge of the vast parade ground.
Four fawkners stood against the far wall of the north loft, under the eaves. One clasped her right hand to her left arm as though she’d been raked. Another held a hood, ties dangling, as they all stared despairingly toward the center of the parade ground. The yard was cleared of all eagles save one, who clutched a perch and stared belligerently at the fawkners. The idiots hadn’t even gone in to examine her wound; dried blood and fresh glimmers discolored one wing.
“She’s really angry,” said Volias. “You know what she did to—”
“Let me finish,” said Joss to Volias. “Nallo, do you recognize that eagle?”
“That’s the one that protected us on the trail. Can’t you see its injury? Why isn’t anyone helping it? I thought these fawkners knew everything about eagles.”
“They need to hood it first.”
“Why don’t they?”
“She’s really angry,” repeated Volias.
She did look angry, with her neck feathers puffed out and the rest of her slicked down.
“They need that hood on so they can treat her injury,” said the marshal. “She’ll settle down then.”
Volias frowned. “You can’t mean you’ll send Nallo out—”
“If that injury isn’t treated properly, the eagle will not survive. If the eagle dies, Nallo dies.”
“You’re saying that to scare me. To get me to agree.” It was ridiculous the way they were all scared of the big eagle, not that she wasn’t a frightening sight when you really compared how puny the humans looked compared to the magnificent size and weapons of the raptor. But Nallo had sheltered under that vicious beak before; the bird had saved Jerad from the bandits.
With a grunt of disgust, she strode over to the huddled fawkners. “Give me the hood.”
Blood stained the skin of the woman clutching her arm. “She’s favoring her right leg,” she said, calm as you please, “which is what saved me from worse. If she strikes, she’ll strike with her left. Watch for the talons.”
A man handed her the heavy leather contraption.
“How do I get this on?”
“That part fits around the beak,” said the injured woman. “Just get the eyes covered. Once she settles, we’ll do the rest until you’ve learned more.”
One of the other fawkners, a short, fine-boned man, whistled under his breath and shook his head, but the rest simply watched as she took a step back.
“Oh, I see,” she said as she opened it out. The leather was soft and pliant, heavy because there was so much of it, and there was an obvious hole for the beak. She’d grown up dealing with goats. This couldn’t be that different.
Yet as she approached the eagle, whose fierce gaze fixed on her, her heart raced until her ears throbbed. That beak was big enough to rip off her head.
The eagle moved, a swipe with her talons. Nallo leaped back out of range as, behind her, a man groaned and many voices gasped.
“Just keep going.” That was the marshal, calling encouragement. “If she’d meant to hook you, she’d have made contact. You’re much slower than she is.”
“Isn’t he the cheerful one,” said Nallo to the bird, taking courage in irritation. What a prancing idiot that marshal was! “Although by the look of you, I suppose it’s true. Or I hope it’s true.” If she kept talking she didn’t have to think about how scared she was. “If you really wanted to bite my head off, I don’t see how I could escape you.”
Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward. The eagle raked again, but she was slow and jerky.
“Stop that!” She was on her toes ready to bolt with a knot in her throat she had to squeeze the words past. Even so, feeling stuck between all those cursed reeves and fawkners expecting her to do what she didn’t want to do, and the huge raptor looking furious with everyone, made her temper rise even more. If that was possible. But not at the poor bird.
“Here, now, you recall me. We met up in the Soha Hills. You gave the boy shelter, didn’t you, and I appreciate it as I think I said then so I don’t know what you’re slashing at me for now. I never did you any harm!”
It drew up one leg. Its neck feathers eased.
That seemed less threatening. She went on.
“So if you want that wing looked at, you’d best be cooperative. Not that I can’t see that you dislike all of them, and I surely can’t blame you for doing so since they seem an unlikable lot to me, too.”
It lowered its head. A feathered brow ridge gave her a grouchy look, as if she were saying, “What took you so long?”
The hood was bulky, and Nallo tried to sling it over. The eagle lifted her head, and leather spilled off and flopped to the dirt with a thump.
“Be still! Do you want that injury tended to, or not?”
As she bent over to grab the hood, she heard a sharp hiss, a whispering, the shifting of many feet. Rising, she swung around.
All kinds of folk had crowded under the eaves to watch. There were a dozen more fawkners, some armed with staves and long padded spears and hook-bills, and too many reeves and hirelings to count. The eagle lowered her leg to get better purchase on the perch. Nallo sensed her contempt and impatience and pain.
“Yes, may they all rot in the hells, idiot gawkers! Just let me get this thing—oof!—” She heaved. “—up over your head and—” Tugged awkwardly, one leather thong briefly clamped in her teeth to keep it out of her face. “—sheh! keep your head down!—and you won’t have to look at their ugly faces anymore. There!”
The eagle was hooded, although the straggling ends needed tying off. Nallo beckoned to the fawkners. “Don’t just gawp there! How do you fix this thing so she can’t scrape it off?”
Three started forward, including the woman with the torn arm. They grabbed the leather ties at the back of the hood and, while the eagle still had her head lowered, tightened them.
“These ties are called the brace,” explained the injured fawkner. “You stayed calm.”
“Best get that arm tended to, Rena,” said the small fawkner, taking charge. “Aras, can you run and get the salve? I’ll need the imping needle and—Eiya!—just bring the lot of it. What’s your name again?”
When no one answered, Nallo realized he was talking to her. “I’m called Nallo.”
“Well done. Tumna’s famous for having an uncertain temper at the best of times, but you handled her well. Better than Horas ever did.”
“Who is Horas?”
“Her last reeve.”
“What happened to him?”
Tumna dipped her head, huge beak probing the air as the marshal and Volias walked over.
“Keep talking,” said the small fawkner. “She likes the sound of your voice.”
“Tumna, don’t fret, they’re coming although I must say they’re slow about it and why all these staring fools have to stand here and stare so rudely is beyond my understanding. How badly is her wing injured?”
The fawkner was grinning, although she couldn’t figure what he thought was so funny. “She can fly on
it, so that’s one thing. But we’ve got bleeding even after this long because she’s not resting properly. As you can see, she’s still in pain and not healing as she ought.”
“Volias,” Nallo said, “can’t you just chase these people off? Don’t they have anything better to do?”
He said, to the marshal, “You’re a hard man, Joss. I didn’t know you had it in you. I thought sure the cursed bird was going to rip—”
“Shut up, Volias,” said the marshal in a flat voice.
“I’ll take it from here, Marshal,” said the small fawkner in the manner of a man rushing to fill a gap.
“What was he going to say?” Nallo demanded.
“Rip off the hood,” said the marshal. “They’re trained to accept the hood when they first come to the hall. An eagle like Tumna or my Scar is accustomed to it. It eases them, helps them settle if they’re injured or exhausted. An eagle tumbles quick from keen-set to frail-set.”
“If you don’t mind,” said the fawkner, “we’ll get her settled.”
Thus dismissed, she had no choice except to walk with the marshal out of the parade ground and down an alley between storehouses. The reeve hall was a prosperous place, with plenty of impressive buildings to house its reeves, fawkners, assistants, hirelings, slaves, and eagles, and to store the provisions necessary to maintaining the hall.
“What happened to her other reeve?” she asked as her feet kicked up chalky dirt.
Volias coughed.
The marshal said, “Dead in the recent battle.”
“Do eagles mourn their reeves when they go?”
“Hard to say. We like to think so.”
“Do reeves mourn their eagles?”
He sighed as he looked at her. “Reeves don’t survive the death of their eagles.”
“You can’t mean it. How old can an eagle get?”
“Hall records show that the longest known life span of an eagle encompassed six reeves, although only one of those reeves lived to old age.”
“Do you mean if I agree to become a reeve and that eagle dies, that I’ll die?”
“You already are a reeve.”
“Is this how you force people to agree to become reeves? Because they think they have to? We’re no better than slaves. I’d have better luck walking to Olossi and trying to get a husband from those foreigners. At least I’d be my own mistress, able to do what I wanted.”
