But stepping across the threshold into the outside world blew all such thoughts straight from her mind. Ama felt herself smiling as she stretched her arms wide, standing on an expansive black stone porch, wrapped around with pillars of the same ebony stone, and filled her chest with cold, clean air.
Sorrow nipped at her skirt hem, urging her back into motion, and Ama started off again briskly, hopping down the stairs to the hard, flat ground. “Let’s see where this path takes us, shall we?” she said to her lynx companion, and it was clear by the trot Sorrow took up that she was well pleased with this adventure.
Ama’s attention was divided by the blue of the sky, the white of the sun disc in it, the satisfying crunch of the dirt and pebbles beneath her leather shoes, the frigid breath of the cold fall air on her face, the exquisitely soft brush of her hood’s fur against her cheek, the joyful gait of the lynx at her side.
All is well, she thought suddenly, and she felt happy. She wandered, the black castle at her back, the weight of it feeling lighter and lighter the farther from it she stepped.
And then she rounded a tall bend in the hedges and found herself in an enclosed space—ten-foot hedges all around, bigger than her personal chamber but smaller than the great hall, open but for a smaller, round planter of hedges at its center, these trimmed to waist height. All of the hedges here, like elsewhere on the castle grounds, were dormant for the winter months, leaves gone, a network of branches that would grow anew with spring’s arrival. By the time the leaves had sprouted and flowers had bloomed, Ama would be a wife, and a queen.
She dismissed this thought and knelt down at Sorrow’s side. The kitten was sniffing around in the dirt, and paused to look into Ama’s eyes. Ama felt her own eyes burn with tears, as if she had been struck, as if to be looked at by the kit, with such clarity, was painful.
“This is surely a safe place to let you romp,” Ama said, and she loosed the collar from Sorrow’s neck and dropped it and the leash to the ground.
Pleased, Sorrow trotted around the space, and Ama followed her. The kitten squatted to relieve herself, her puddle of urine spreading across the dry dirt.
“Ho, what’s this?”
It was a man’s voice, suddenly, from the split in the hedge through which Ama had entered.
She turned around, instinctively grabbing closed the neck of her mantle.
“I’ve surprised you,” said the man with a grin.
It was a nice enough grin, on a handsome enough man, but neither the grin nor the man caught Ama’s attention nearly as much as the bird he carried.
It was a great black hawk, with rust-colored feathers on her wings and legs, and scaly yellow claws that ended in vicious talons. She stared at Ama with unblinking brown eyes. From her eyes to her black beak, her face was the same yellow as her feet. Her hooked beak ended in a dangerous spike. Her expression was either haughty or desperately sad—Ama could not tell which.
“You are Pawlin,” Ama said, “and this is Isolda, I presume?”
“Correct on both counts,” Pawlin said with a bow, a mocking sweep of his short cloak. He kept his hawk arm parallel with the ground as he bowed, clearly well-practiced. “And you are the lady Ama,” Pawlin said, his grin widening.
“That is what I have been told,” Ama answered.
“Clever as well as lovely,” Pawlin said, and whether it was a compliment or an assessment made no difference.
Sorrow, who had finished relieving her bladder, returned to Ama’s side on careful paws, her eyes trained on the hawk.
“Your beast is a beauty,” Pawlin remarked, and his appreciation was clear now. “Tell me about her.”
Ama knelt and scooped up the kit, who was already heavier since their arrival to the castle. “This is my Sorrow,” she said.
“An unfortunate name for a pet,” Pawlin said. “Perhaps you should consider something more . . . sporting. Bounder, for instance. Or Fleetfoot.”
Those were, Ama felt, perfectly terrible names. “Thank you for your ideas,” she demurred, “but Sorrow is her name, and so it shall remain.”
Pawlin narrowed his eyes, and Ama had the impression that he, like Emory, was not a man who often heard his ideas rebuffed.
But he was not Emory, and she had no liege with him, so she lifted her chin and dared him to say another thing about it.
“I do wonder,” Pawlin said, “who would take the prize in a contest between your beast and mine.” He stroked the sleek feathers on Isolda’s back and, Ama would swear, Isolda smiled, though a beak cannot smile.
“My Sorrow is not yet grown,” Ama said. “When she is, I am certain she would be the victor.”
“But today,” Pawlin said, and his free hand went to the jesses on his gauntlet, “I wonder about today.”
Ama watched with growing horror as Pawlin’s fingers took up the thin, knotted leather strips and began to pull.
Sorrow’s Leash
Ama clutched the lynx kitten close to her chest as Pawlin’s fingers freed the first set of leather straps. Now the hawk’s left foot was unfettered. She watched as he slowly moved toward the second set of jesses, as he prepared to pull them apart, his eyes locked on her face, his mouth grinning terribly.
“Please,” gasped Ama, uttering the word that had worked such power with Emory, “I beg you, please. My Sorrow is all I have, all that is mine.”
“All that you have?” Pawlin said, his fingers pausing midair. “What of your king?”
“Of course,” Ama said, all in a rush, “I have him, as well. I have Emory.”
“I wonder if you do,” Pawlin said, and he was not smiling now. “Indeed, I wonder if he truly has you.”
Ama had no idea what he could mean by this. Of course Emory had her—he had freed her from the dragon, he had brought her here to the castle, he had trapped her in his walls and this velvet gown and these leather shoes. She was his, sure as the sun.
“Indeed, he has,” Ama breathed, and she hated how weak her voice sounded, how much power Pawlin had, right now, in the very tips of his fingers. For if he were to pull free that last knot, then Isolda would attack, there was no doubt of that. She was a hunter, with claws and beak to catch and tear.
Would he have loosed the knot? Would she have held her own Sorrow in her arms as the great hawk tore open her throat, as Emory’s weapon had torn open her mother’s?
She was not to know, not today, for at that moment, there was a rustle once more from the divide in the hedges, and Emory appeared.
Never had Ama been so grateful to see him. A little sound like a cry slipped from her lips, and, the kitten still clutched in her arms, she ran to him.
“My king,” she said, and his arms wound around her waist, her head tucked under his chin. Between their bodies, safe now, protected, was Sorrow.
“What’s this?” boomed Emory. “My friend and my lady, in a secret meeting in this winter’s garden?” Perhaps he was jesting. Perhaps he was not. It was not possible to tell.
“I wanted to get out of doors,” Ama said, hating the sound of her own voice. “And the air was so fresh, and the day so fine, that I walked for a long time and found myself here.”
“I wonder that you did not send word for my company, or at least my consent,” Emory said. “What a disappointment.”
Ama pulled away from the crook of Emory’s neck, into which she had buried her face, and tilted her eyes to Emory’s. But he was not looking at her; he was looking at Pawlin. Ama did the same, turning to regard Pawlin, who had refastened Isolda’s jesses. His face and the bird’s were twin masks of haughty unknowableness.