She glided down and guided IceFire in to the perching; she thought that the bird seemed grateful also. Tail and wings spread to brake, then the talons rasped on the wall and the wings folded. There was silence and peace from the long, long rush of air.
'Well, turn around, silly!' she snapped, for there was no one there to hear her. Birds were deaf and mute, and to speak to them was a mark of a beginner.
IceFire moved her head slightly, scanning this new place. Then she raised one foot and pivoted around. Elosa released the reins and unstrapped her harness. Gratefully she slid down to the terrace, staggering with stiffness. She picked up a chain and shackled the bird, then stepped through the bars.
Vinok was a smaller version of the castle aerie, one of the innumerable bird posts established generations ago by Vindax IV along the length of the Rand. In theory they were for the use of royal couriers and the Guard, but there were few couriers and the Guard never came. The more isolated tended to fall into ruin and neglect or were adopted by wilds, but many were maintained by local landowners for hunting lodges, as her father maintained this one. It had been recently tidied and made respectable, she noticed--undoubtedly for the royal visit.
A shadow flashed past the tower, wheeled, and flashed past again--then swooped off to regain air in the thermal for another attempt. Tuy Rorin was having trouble making ThunderClaw come to roost, and Elosa found that amusing. At the next attempt he succeeded, and the eagle settled down close to IceFire and turned at once.
'Everything all right, my lady?' he called, twisting around in the saddle.
'Seems so,' she replied, wondering why he was not dismounting.
'Then...' He pushed up his goggles and regarded her hopefully, the clean patches around his eyes giving him a comical expression. 'There are some goats on the hill, there, my lady. And ThunderClaw seems to think she's earned one.'
Elosa was about to snap a refusal, then reconsidered. Rorin's opportunities to hunt wild game would be few--taking out the birds to pick up domesticated feed animals would be all the hunting he would know. She could be gracious and give him the chance. More important, it would be poor skymanship to fly ThunderClaw home right after a kill, and that would give her an excuse to remain longer at Vinok, perhaps even through third watch, for a return tomorrow. She knew that there were ladies in the prince's party, so it would be quite proper.
'Go ahead!' she said--and ThunderClaw was gone.
Then she stamped her foot in anger, realizing that she should have made him undress IceFire first. Suppose the prince arrived and her bird was still saddled, sitting on a perch? She would have to do it herself. It would be valuable experience, she decided nervously, with no one around to see if she made a mess of it. No one around to help if she lost a hand, either.
'Don't be morbid, Elosa,' she could hear her mother saying.
The hooding poles were clearly visible, and hooding was no problem. She found the safety belts and put one on. The wall was high for her, but she managed to climb up, remembering how easy it always seemed to Rorin and the other men. There were disadvantages to being small.
Then the heart-stopping part: She must reach up under that black bag and unfasten the helmet. She had to climb back into the saddle to reach the front strap, the one near the beak. She was not sure which strap should be done first, or if it mattered. Her fingers brushed the underside of that steely beak, and she shivered; she fumbled quickly with the buckle. Done! The neck strap was easy. She pulled gently, and the helmet slid over the comb and fell loose. Well, that wasn't hard at all!
Aware that Rorin would have been finished long since, she set to work on the front saddle girth, then jumped down and did the thigh girths. The saddle slid to the floor with a satisfying flop. She picked up the equipment and slipped back through the bars with it--and was stopped short by her safety belt. There was no one there to see, but she felt herself blush at the laughter of those nonexistent watchers. Anything else? No! It was all done, and she could remove the hood.
'There you are, Icey,' she said proudly. 'Thought I couldn't do it, didn't you?' A real skywoman!
IceFire was probably wondering why it had taken so long.
No. IceFire was studying the cliff above the hillside. ThunderClaw was barely visible, but her shadow was flashing and leaping along the rocks as she stooped on her prey. The goats were hard to see at this distance, tiny bouncing dots fleeing in terror and yet somehow clinging to that nearly vertical surface in the way that only goats and flies could. Rorin would never do it, Elosa decided. She certainly would not attempt it, and she was fairly sure that Father would not either--the rock was too steep, and if a wing were to graze it, bird and rider would be instant raven meat.
ThunderClaw broke off her attack and swooped away, far below the escaping goats, gliding down the slope toward the tower, heading into the thermal to find altitude once more.
Lesson for you, Master Rorin! Would he try again? The herd had reached a vertical face and was cowering on a narrow ledge. He might try an arrow and hope to pick up the meat from the bottom of the cliff, but it was very difficult to make a bird strike at a motionless target--too difficult for Tuy Rorin, she thought.
Another shadow streaked across the cliff face, much faster. At that speed it must be a wild, and Rorin was now prey himself. Then she saw that this bird also had a rider and that he certainly knew what he was doing. An incredible stoop! One moment she had noted the shadow high above the goats, and the next instant bird and shadow and herd had merged and parted and the eagle was far below, spreading wings and curving out of its dive, clutching a goat that had surely died without ever seeing what was coming.
Unbelievable! Her father would not have attempted an attack at that speed, certainly not against a quarry on an almost-vertical cliff. She would have been impressed had it been done by a riderless wild. The men at Ninar Foan had been sneering about the palace fliers of the Royal Guard, but if that performance was typical, then it was the locals who had much to learn.
The royal party? She ran out to the terrace, safely far from IceFire, and peered aloft. There they were, eighteen or twenty of them, minute specks floating in the thermal. She could see no others, apart from the solitary hunter, and he now came rushing in on the tower, still gliding on the momentum of his dive: more fine judgment! Tail spread, talons reached--and an enormous bronze was sitting motionless on the parapet, the goat dangling from his beak, fierce gold gaze studying the aerie. It was a huge bird, bigger even than IceStriker, IceFire's father.
'Turn around, featherbrain!' a male voice roared. Elosa jumped and then laughed to herself. If an expert like this talked to his bird, then she certainly could--and would do so in future. The bronze did not turn at once; he started sidling along the parapet toward IceFire, the goat swinging limply.
'Oh, cut out the flirting!' the voice said laughingly. The blinkers snapped shut, and the bronze stopped-- and then turned! The rider had made a blinkered bird turn with foot signals, and she had never seen that done. The rider unbuckled, jumped down, and shackled his bird. Then he reached up and tied the reins back to the saddle, opening the blinkers. That was a calculated risk, she supposed, for the bird had its beak full, but her father would not have allowed it, and she noticed that the newcomer moved swiftly to the safety of the bars.
It was the prince! The prince himself!
Elosa's knees started to shake. He was very short, trim and moving easily, although he had probably spent a whole watch in the saddle. He pushed up his goggles and smiled across at her, but headed swiftly toward the staircase. What a wonderful smile! And what a skyman! She had heard that the prince could fly well--he would hardly have attempted this journey otherwise--but she had not been told that he was a master. She ought to be curtsying--no, dummy, bow in a flying suit--but he was obviously heading for the stairs.
Perhaps he needs a pee, she thought, and suppressed a giggle.
'Who are you?' he called.
'Er...I bring a message...Your...'
But the prince had vanished down through the floor, boots clattering on the steps.
Elosa's heart was trying to fight its way right out of her chest. To think of the crown prince in the abstract was one thing, but actually to see him was quite another, to see him as a flesh and blood human male. And what a male! For the first time she realized that she had been dreading this moment, fearing to have a real face superimposed forever on the ideal face she had conjured for her ideal prince, real bones and meat to replace her dream. There was only one crown prince, and she was quite prepared to accept whatever her destiny sent her-- physical attraction was something she had not been counting on. That would be a bonus.
What a handsome couple they would be!
She pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair. She told herself firmly to calm down and stop trembling.
