Ice, Iron and Gold

by S. M. Stirling

  "Then why is he here for sale?" Adelia demanded in exasperation.

  "Because, my Lady, many falconers prefer to train their own birds."

  She frowned. All this talk of training was unexpected, and indeed was useless since she never intended to hunt with the bird. Still, as a predator, it might need specialized care. Certainly it would need more than a seed cup and a little water. With a deep sigh, she resolved to pay heed to the hawk seller's concerns. Besides, she would need a male slave on hand, she might as well get some use out of him.

  "Where might I find a servant skilled in the ways of hawks?" she inquired.

  The hawk seller gave her directions and she tsked in disgust. The slave mongers were on the opposite side of the fair from the animal sellers.

  One would think that they would keep all the livestock together, Adelia growled within her mind.

  In less than two hours she returned with her purchase. The man she had bought was in his mid-twenties, only a little taller than herself, but with a muscular warrior's build. He had a thick head of rough-cut black hair and a short, curly beard. It was his shrewd, narrow, sherry-wine eyes that had decided her to buy him, though, over the older fellow the slave dealer told her was also familiar with hawks. Around his neck hung a relsk stone, the spell that rendered him obedient despite the pride with which he carried himself.

  "My name," he murmured to her as they approached the hawk seller, "is Naim."

  His name is Naim, she thought, amused. Naim was a word in the ancient tongue meaning an amount so small as to be nothing at all.

  She walked up to the hawk seller and, ignoring the customer he'd been speaking with, the one she'd interrupted twice now, announced, "I believe that this person should satisfy you. Ask him what you will of caring for hawks." She glanced at Naim. "And he'd better satisfy you." She deliberately left it unclear as to whether this was a threat against Naim or the hawk seller.

  She wandered idly around, examining the little kestrel that had first been shown to her. A pretty thing, but, she sniffed, female. Adelia listened without much interest as the two men talked, exchanging terms like "creance" and "tiercel." At last they settled down to dicker on price. Adelia crossed her arms beneath her breasts and raised one brow. Still, though she had not given him permission to do so, she allowed Naim to speak for her in obtaining the bird.

  At last the two men shook hands. Naim turned to her to obtain money, while the hawk seller went into his little booth and returned with a heavy glove, a perch, and what looked like a leash.

  Naim put on the glove and touched the back of the hooded hawk's ankles. The bird stepped back automatically, caught his balance, and settled on this temporary perch.

  "I wanted to carry him," Adelia complained, chagrined.

  "Of course, my Lady," Naim said soothingly. "But he's heavy, perhaps two pounds in weight, and he is a bird. I should hate to see him soil your beautiful gown."

  She smiled slightly at the manipulative courtesy of his response and wondered where he'd learned it.

  "No matter," she said with a shrug, and led the way to the inn proud as a queen at the head of a procession. Being followed by a handsome young man carrying a hawk was far more in keeping with her vanity than the attendance of the wretched Wren. I shall definitely have to do something about her, the sorceress thought.

  Wren began to scream the moment they brought the hawk into the room. To scream and to leap from chair to bed to table to chair. Had it been open, she'd have gone straight out the window. As it was, she bounced off the shutters more than once. And she kept up the cacophony until Adelia threw the bedquilt over her, whereupon Wren dropped to the floor and lay silent and panting.

  "Obviously someone will have to sleep in the barn tonight," Adelia snarled.

  Naim bowed.

  "Not you! That's a valuable bird," she said. "I won't risk its being stolen. "And don't get any ideas," Adelia warned him as she noted a flicker of interest spark in those sherry-brown eyes. "You will only be here to see that this bird is well tended."

  The sorceress turned and contemplated Wren where she lay quietly beneath the blanket, then the gently steaming tub of scented water, and finally she turned back to look into the interested eyes of her falconer.

  "Put that down," she said, indicating the goshawk. "Then go and tell the landlord that I'll need a curtain set up to run across the room. If we can keep Wren from seeing the bird, she should keep quiet."

  She could have created some sort of barrier magically, but Adelia never wasted power if there was a more mundane way of doing things. Particularly if the doing required no effort on her part.

  Naim settled the hawk on its perch, bowed, and left the room. Adelia smiled, pleased with her purchases. She could hardly wait to see what he and the hawk combined would become.

  Now I think on it, the girl I combined with Wren was a coward. She remembered the pale, tear-stained face with disgust. The spell had been designed to put the bird personality uppermost, but the shy little bird and the cowardly girl had only accentuated each other's defects. This time, she thought happily, I should have much better results.

  Adelia carried her hawk on her wrist for the first few miles of the journey home, wearing the too large gauntlet over her own exquisitely embroidered glove.

  Wren, blindfolded, rode behind her, clutching the high rim of the sidesaddle and trying not to slide off. Every now and again, Naim, walking beside them, put a hand beneath the girl's foot and hoisted her back up.

  "Should we feed him?" Adelia asked Naim.

  "Nay, my Lady. From the look of his crop, he'll be all right for a while. And the hawk seller told me he hadn't been trained. While I'm sure he could find himself some dinner with no problem, getting him back to hand would be impossible."

  She looked down on him and allowed herself a very small smile.

  "I can do many things that others consider impossible, Naim. You would do well to remember that."

  He bowed, and she laughed at his ridiculous courtly manners. Then she pulled up her horse.

  "You were right, the bird grows heavy. Take him." She lowered her arm, and raised her brows when Naim sought to remove the glove with the bird. "Take him, I said," Adelia commanded.

  The relsk stone did its work and Naim brought his bare hand up immediately and touched the hawk behind the ankles. As soon as its talons clamped down on the man's arm, blood began to flow.

  "Ah," she said, stripping off the glove and dropping it. Immediately it filled as though an arm were wearing it and it floated into position behind the hawk. When the bird had stepped onto it, she said, "Now put your arm inside the glove."

  Wincing, Naim did so. She rode on, unconcerned.

  "Have you a shed where we can keep the bird, my Lady?" he asked, his voice thick with pain.

  "Yes, but why can we not keep him in the house?"

  "He is still half wild and would be frightened to be among us. The dark and quiet of the shed will be soothing for him, and he will learn that when I come, there will be food and something to relieve his boredom. These are the first steps to forming a bond." The hawk shifted, and Naim drew in a rasping breath.

  Adelia frowned. "I do not like it that he should be fearful."

  "It is his nature, my Lady. Those creatures that do not fear humans don't live to breed."

  She laughed at that, then fell silent for a while. "When we return home," she said at last, "I will have Wren tend to your hand." She couldn't use wounded flesh in her experiments. Still, by the time she'd gathered the needed ingredients, these slight punctures should be healed.

  A week later Adelia flung down Naim's hand in disgust.

  "Why are these wounds not healed?" she demanded.

  "They're very deep," Naim answered. "One of the punctures went right to the bone, I'm sure."

  She glared at him, hands on her hips. "Well, this is very inconvenient!" He bowed and she spun away from him with an impatient tsk! "I detest delay," she snapped. "Absolutely detest it!"
/>
  Naim opened his mouth to speak, closed it, frowned, then licked his lips. "My Lady," he said at last, "I must speak to you on a matter of some concern to me."

  Adelia cast a disdainful glance over her shoulder and asked, "Of what matter could a matter of concern to you, be to me?"

  He bowed, and her brows snapped down into a frown. She decided that she didn't like all this bowing. A mere nervous tic, she thought contemptuously. A habit, like clearing one's throat before speaking or always saying, "therefore." It is an imperfection. And I do not like it that my subject should have an imperfection. Working with imperfect material had created the disaster that was Wren.

  "I am the son of Baron Tharus of Arpen. If you will but send to him, he will ransom me, I know. Whatever price you ask, he will pay it." Naim gazed at her most earnestly.

  "Hmph," she said, turning to look at him. "You are the son of a baron?"

  "Yes, my Lady."

  "Don't bow," she cautioned him. "So you are familiar with the use of a sword and lance?"

  "Yes, my Lady."

  Oh, excellent! she thought, hugging the information to her. I must translate those skills to my new creature. I knew I'd made the right choice in this slave!

  "And how did the son of a baron come to be in a slavepen?" she asked in idle curiosity.

  "I was kidnapped," he replied, "and carried over the border."

  "Oh, really? Well," she said, and brought her hand to her face, "I don't imagine your father wants you back, then."

  "I promise you that he does," Naim insisted, somewhat piqued. "I am his only son and his heir."

  "Then don't you find it odd that your kidnappers never applied to your doting papa for this ransom you so confidently promise? I doubt the slave dealer gave them as much as I paid for you, and I assure you, Naim, you weren't very expensive." She smiled, knowing by the look in his eyes that she'd shaken him, at least for a moment, and it amused her tremendously.

  "I gave an enemy who may have paid them to do it," he said slowly.

  In a sudden shift of mood Adelia became bored by the subject, and she cut him off with a graceful gesture.

  "It doesn't matter!" she said dismissively. "I don't need your pathetic ransom. I can provide for myself very well. And have I not said that I detest delay? I don't need gold, I need you. So put any thought of leaving here out of your head." Adelia spun on her heel and moved toward the door of the parlor.

  "Wren told me what you did to her," Naim shouted.

  Adelia stopped like one struck in the back by a dagger, and looked toward the kitchen as though she could see through the wall. Then slowly, she turned toward him.

  "Wren speaks?" she said in astonishment.

  "Aye," he said defiantly. "Just not to you."

  "Huh," she said, and quirked her lips downward. "And your point is?"

  "My point is that I am a nobleman! It cannot be that I am meant to be destroyed by your evil magic!" he cried. "There are standards in the treatment of noblemen that every right-thinking king or duke will acknowledge. You have no right to do this to me!"

  "But, Naim," she said gently, taking a step toward him, "you aren't a nobleman. You are a slave. And I have every right to do with my property whatever I wish. As every right-thinking king or duke would agree." Adelia gave him a taunting smile. "Did you not have slaves in your father's house, Naim?"

  He glared at her, breathing hard.

  Adelia enjoyed his obvious anger, and his helplessness to act upon it.

  "No doubt you embraced them as your brothers, treated them as equals. What a paradise your father's house must have been," she sneered, spreading her arms wide, "with everyone living in perfect harmony."

  Naim lowered his eyes, his cheeks flushed with fury or shame.

  "Oh, no?" Adelia stepped closer, lowered her head in an attempt to look into his eyes. "Did you beat them? Humiliate them? Let them go hungry?"

  "Yes," he whispered.

  "And yet you expect better." Adelia quirked the corners of her mouth downward. "I fear you will be disappointed, Naim."

  He merely glared at her from under lowered eyebrows.

  "Go," she said. "Tend my hawk. Feed it, make friends with it, do whatever you must to keep it alive and healthy."

  Naim gave her a surly glance, then stomped out of the room. Ruefully, she watched him go.

  So Wren can speak, Adelia thought. And she knows and understands, at least a little, what's happened to her. Hmph. Well, that's useful to know, but somewhat annoying, too. Naim might well prove a handful over the next few days if he believed she intended to destroy him. I would rather he had remained ignorant of his fate.

  Not that knowing it would change anything. Adelia gave a little huff of annoyance. Then decided that she would keep Wren a little longer. The girl was hopeless at most things. But she does my hair so beautifully. Doubtless a carryover of her nest-building abilities.

  Well, there were worse reasons to keep someone alive.

  She contemplated the necessary delay while Naim continued healing and sighed. A few days shouldn't make that much difference, she thought. Adelia calculated planetary influences in her head and frowned, not greatly liking the results. There would be ample power to draw on, but nothing that especially favored her; ever the most important part of the equation where the sorceress was concerned.

  "I want you to show me my hawk," Adelia said, coming up behind Naim.

  He started and turned, frowning, made a slight move as though to bow, thought better of it and did not.

  "He has only seen me for days now, my Lady," Naim said. "It would not be good for his training to introduce a new person into his life just now."

  Adelia smiled brightly and nodded.

  "I don't care," she said. "I have never seen my hawk without that stupid-looking thing on its head, and I want to look at it."

  "It would cause delay, my Lady."

  She stepped close to him and held his gaze with her own. "Are you trying to manipulate me, Naim?"

  "No, my Lady." He seemed genuinely confused.

  Ha, so it really would affect the hawk's training. How very fortunate that it doesn't matter.

  She gestured for Naim to take her to the shed, and they moved off.

  "Have you given any further thought to what I told you, my Lady?" he asked as they walked along.

  "Of course not, Naim. And we will not speak of it again."

  Naim compressed his lips and walked on. He opened the door and stood aside for her.

  "Oh!" Adelia gasped in astonished dismay.

  At her entrance the tethered hawk had flattened the feathers on its body, but those that framed its head flared in a sunburst around its staring, blood-red eyes. The hawk's beak gaped half open as though eager to rip at her flesh.

  She took a step backward and looked at Naim in horror.

  "Its eyes are red? The other hawks didn't have red eyes! This is most unexpected." That rotten-hearted hawk seller never mentioned those freakish eyes. "What's wrong with it?" she demanded of Naim. I'll give that hairy fool red eyes if he's sold me a sick bird! I'll pluck them out and feed them to him!

  "The bird is perfectly normal, my Lady. His eyes will darken as he ages, but all goshawks have red eyes." Naim couldn't help the superior little smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth. The lady sorceress was so very startled.

  Adelia looked up at him, gazing into his eyes intently as though searching for some great meaning there. Pleased, he turned the full force of his very charming smile upon her.

  I'll have to keep Naim's eye color, she thought. Size. Size will be a consideration as well. Hmm. Perhaps I'll import Naim's eyes entirely, just as they are. But she was not pleased. She'd hoped to use the hawk's vastly superior vision, but . . . the hideous color and freakishly large orbs would be impossible to live with.

  Adelia sighed, and Naim closed his eyes and lowered his head, seeking her lips.

  "Back!" she snapped, her voice like a whip-crack.

  Naim alm
ost leaped away from her, his eyes wide.

  "What is the matter with you?" She looked at him as if he'd gone mad. "Is this some ploy to get me to send you back to your papa?"

  "No, no," he stammered. "It's . . . when you looked into my eyes like that . . ."

  "By all that lives," she said in wonder, "you are a vain and foolish little man." Then she laughed. Oh, dear, she thought. I do hope he'll be as amusing when I've changed him.

  And laughing, she walked back to the house, where Wren stared in wonder at her as she came through the door.

  "Ah. So you're here," Adelia said, smiling. "The time has come at last."

  Naim stood in the door of her spell-casting chamber, his face somewhat pale.

  "Go away, Wren."

  The servant girl, who'd summoned Naim at Adelia's command, gave him one last, desperate look and flitted off. Adelia grinned conspiratorially at him.

  "She spoke to me, you know. On your behalf." She was genuinely delighted to have heard Wren's voice, which was high and sweet. "She wished me to spare you. And I'm so pleased that she dared to speak up that I've decided I shall. Come in," she gestured him forward.

  "Do . . . do you mean it?" he asked, looking very young in his relief.

  "Yes," she said, bustling about. "Sit there." She indicated a chair set within a complicated design. "Step through the break I've left in the pattern."

  He looked nervously at the chair and then back at her where she mixed something in a cup. The hawk, hooded, sat on its perch inside an identical design.

  "You're going to let me go?" he asked.

  "No, of course not." Adelia glanced over her shoulder at him. "I told you to sit down."

  Naim simply stood and stared at her. He swallowed visibly, looking stunned.

  "Sit!" she told him in a voice of command.

  Naim took a deep breath and then reluctantly, fighting the compulsion of the relsk stone around his neck, moved to the chair.