Hawkmistress! by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online

Luciella, and Mallina grumbled.
    “I am tired of wearing dresses all clumsy in the seams so they can be let out when I grow half a dozen times, and all faded so everyone can see where they have been let out and the hem let down-“
    “You must just hurry and finish growing, then,” said Luciella kindly, “There is no sense making a dress to your measure when you will have outgrown it in six months wear, and you have not even a younger sister to pass it on to. You are lucky you are to have a new habit at all, you know,” she added smiling, “You should wear Romilly’s old ones, but we all know that Romilly gives her riding-clothes such hard wear that after half a year there is nothing at all left of them - they are hardly fit to pass on to the dairy-woman.”
    “Well, I ride a horse,” Romilly said, “I don’t sit on its back and simper at the stableboy!”
    “Bitch,” said Mallina, giving her a surreptitious kick on the ankle, “You would, fast enough, if he’d look at you, but nobody ever will - you’re like a broom-handle dressed up in a gown!”
    “And you’re a fat pig,” retorted Romilly, “You couldn’t wear my cast-off gowns anyway, because you’re so fat from all the honey-cakes you gobble whenever you can sneak into the kitchen!”
    “Girls! Girls!” Luciella entreated, “Must you always squabble like this? I came to ask a holiday for you - do you want to sit all day in the schoolroom and hem dishtowels instead?”
    “No, indeed, foster-mother, forgive me,” said Romilly quickly, and Mallina said sullenly, “Am I supposed to let her insult me?”
    “No, nor should you insult her in turn,” said Luciella, sighing. “Come, come, the sewing-women are waiting for you.”
    “Do you need me, vai domna?” Calinda asked.
    “No, go and rest, mestra -I am sure you need it, after a morning with my brood. Send the groom first to look for Rael, he must have his new jacket fitted today, but I can wait till he has finished his riding-lesson.”
    Romilly had been apprehensive, as she followed her stepmother into the room where the sewing-women worked, light and airy with broad windows and green growing plants in the sunny light; not flowers, for Luciella was a practical woman, but growing pots of kitchen herbs and medicinals which smelled sweet in the sun through the glass. Luciella’s taste ran heavily to ruffles and flounces, and, from some battles when she was a young girl, Romilly feared that if Luciella had ordered her riding-clothes they would be some disgustingly frilly style. But when she saw the dark-green velvet, cut deftly to accentuate her slenderness, but plainly, with no trim but a single white band at her throat, the whole dress of a green which caught the color of her green eyes and made her coppery hair shine, she flushed with pleasure.
    “It is beautiful, foster-mother,” she said, standing as still as she could while the sewing-women fitted it with pins to her body, “It is almost too fine for me!”
    “Well, you will need a good one, for hawking and hunting when the people from High Crags come for the Midsummer feasting and parties,” said Luciella, “It is well to show off what a fine horse-woman you are, though I think you need a horse better suited to a lady than old Windracer. I have spoken to Mikhail about a good horse for you - was there not one you trained yourself?”
    Romilly’s delighted gasp made her stepmother smile. She had been allowed to help her father in training three of the fine blacks from the Lanart estates, and they were all among the finest horses to grace the stables at Falconsward. If her father agreed that she might have one of those horses - she thought with delight and pleasure of racing over the hills on one of the spirited blacks, with Preciosa on her arm, and gave Luciella a spontaneous hug that startled the older woman. “Oh, thank you, thank you, stepmother!”
    “It is a pleasure to see you looking so much like a lady,” Luciella said,