Swords, Sorcery, & Self-Rescuing Damsels Read online

  Swords, Sorcery, & Self-Rescuing Damsels

  Jody Lynn Nye et al.

  Published by Clockwork Dragon, 2019.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  EDITOR'S NOTE

  FALCON'S APPRENTICE

  SHE REMEMBERED

  ALIVE

  THORN GIRL

  THE PRINCESS AND THE DRAGON

  ASHNA'S HEART

  APTITUDE

  WARMASTER

  PRINCESS LAST PICKED

  YENDY LOVES RATTLESCALE

  WATER AND LIGHT

  LOW IS THE LAND

  CALAMITY

  NOT A WHISPER

  HOPE BEYOND DEATH

  BALANCING THE SCALES

  REMEMBER TO THANK YOUR HEALER

  LEGAL NOTICES

  CLOCKWORK DRAGON

  EDITOR'S NOTE

  The term “damsel in distress” originated in the late 17th century. The generally accepted meaning is a person (usually a woman) in some form of peril who requires an outside party to rescue them. Such renderings often reduce women to one or two dimensions, characterizing them as weak and useful as nothing more than a prize for defeating the enemy.

  This depiction sucks.

  Heroism is more than brute force, luck, or a dashing smile. Strength comes from many places other than muscles. I’d like to hope that my son recognizes this simple fact, and stories are an amazing way to help make that dream come true.

  Within these pages, ladies display cleverness, determination, compassion, curiosity, and more. They may need help, but they require no rescue.

  —Lee French

  FALCON'S APPRENTICE

  JODY LYNN NYE

  “Marie-Jeanne!” Father called.

  Marie-Jeanne bound the last cord around her soft boot top and tied a firm knot, then rushed out of the door of the mews into the cold spring air. Her brown braids danced on the shoulders of her gray woolen smock.

  Father looked impatient, his thinning black hair even more disarrayed than usual. He leaned on his crutch for strength. The Comte de Velay, a bulky man who would have made two of Father and Marie-Jeanne combined, loomed over the much shorter falconer. His broad, bearded face was set in a grimace. On his wrist, killer talons gripping the leather gauntlet, stood Mistinguette, the valuable young kestrel on which both Father and Marie-Jeanne had been lavishing endless attention and care. The huge white bird turned its head toward the sound of her flapping footsteps. Her fierce eyes were covered by the embroidered blue leather hood.

  It seemed that the blindfolding had not been enough to keep the kestrel from striking. Blood ran down the side of the Comte’s face. A gouge the shape of Mistinguette’s beak almost beside the liege lord’s eye told the tale. Marie-Jeanne ran for the box of clean lint and the earthenware jar of Frere Benedict’s salve that they kept in a chest just inside the door.

  “You told me she would be ready by today! Why is she not enchanted for obedience?” the Comte demanded, as Marie-Jeanne stretched her meager height up to wipe away the blood and dab the green paste on the wound. He hissed at its contact, but the pain would subside in moments, as the holy salve healed swiftly. Nothing would be left but a tiny scar.

  “As I have explained, my lord, to instill obedience in a hawk is to damage its natural instincts toward hunting,” Father said, bobbing his head humbly. No matter how many times he had told the lord that, it did not remain in de Velay’s memory. “It must keep its wild tendencies. If it becomes too tame, it sees prey animals as its equal, not its inferiors. She is ready, I swear to the good God.”

  The Comte thrust the bird back toward Father. “If it bites me again, I shall strangle it, whether it is worth two hundred livres or not!”

  “Perhaps, then, it should not go out today,” Father said, gently touching the kestrel on the backs of her legs to make her step up onto his gauntlet. “I will get your goshawk Remy ready for you.”

  “No! His grace the Bishop of Mende joins me on the field today. He brings his own falconer and his white gyrfalcon. I want to show him I have as fine a bird as he. The kestrel comes.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Father said, in resignation. He thrust Mistinguette toward his daughter.

  Marie-Jeanne accepted the bird on her unprotected arm and withdrew well away from the Comte’s reach. She cooed calming words in the kestrel’s ear and stroked her soft, speckled breast feathers. Mistinguette’s wings bated slightly, then settled into place. The hawk liked her, though its way of showing it did was kind of painful. Marie-Jeanne tried not to cringe at the sharp talons’ grip poking pinpoint holes in her skin through her woolen sleeve. She didn’t dare cry out, or the Comte might decide the hunting bird wasn’t worth his time after all. Father was the one who knew all the enchantments to communicate with and guide his charges, not she. He and the journeymen were vague when she asked them what the training entailed. Someday she would learn all of the secrets of falconry, but she had not yet!

  “Prepare it to depart,” the Comte said, grandly. “That and the minor birds for my sons and the ladies. We leave at first light. Coneys are running wild across the barley meadows. It should be a good day’s hunting.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Father said, his head keeping time with his words. “I am not yet fit after my fall during the last outing, my lord. Er, may we not await my son Emile’s return? He ought to be back today after bringing your kindly gift of the white merlin to the Bishop’s palace at Chartres?”

  “You have other apprentices,” the Comte said, dismissively, without a care for Father’s injury, though Marie-Jeanne knew that his carelessness was the reason for it. “Send one of them.”

  Father hesitated. He and Marie-Jeanne knew that though they had been trained in the spells and cantrips of falconry, none of the young men in his employ dared get near Mistinguette.

  “My daughter will go,” Father said, projecting an assurance that Marie-Jeanne was sure he didn’t feel. “She will do well.”

  “That girl?” the noble asked, his disdainful gaze searching her from her thick brown braids down the heavy woolen smock and hose to the soles of her worn leather shoes. Like Father, she was small-boned, and looked years younger than her fourteen summers. “I have seen her running in the fields like a wild animal herself. Has she ever aided on a hunt? There are dangerous creatures out there that also hunt rabbits.”

  “She will do well,” Father said again. “Only wait here a moment while I kit her up.”

  Limping on his crutch, he dragged Marie-Jeanne into the mews.

  “Shoes tied? Yes,” he said, pulling bags and boxes down from shelves on the wall opposite the falcons’ perches. “You’ll need a hat for the sun and a bag for the kills. You’re strong. You can carry plenty of coneys and small game birds. Let the men take on anything larger. Wear a heavy cloak. It looks as if it might rain. Draw the hawk under cover with you. Her temper will fray if she gets wet.”

  “Why me?” Marie-Jeanne asked, although she took her cloak down from the wooden peg on the wall. “The day is fine. I could gather strawberries for Mother. Or mushrooms. I know where there are morels.”

  “I need you to go. Today is not a day to run free. Do your duty!”

  “Send Simeon or Pierre. They have experience.”

  “Mistinguette will not behave for them,” Father said simply.

  “Father, this is the season
of La Bête!” Marie-Jeanne protested. Stories of the terrifying shaggy, fanged beast that was part boar, part wolf, who tore apart the unwary and unholy, had kept her up at night after many a bonfire party. “I heard that she was spotted again in Gévaudan, and left a body torn apart, but with no blood in it.”

  “You know the comte does not believe in such legends,” Father said. “Perhaps the bishop’s prayers will keep the monster away.” He shook his head and ran a knobby knuckle down Mistinguette’s feathery breast. “The best defense you have is here. Follow her lead. She will guard your life.”

  ~*~

  “So, have you heard the latest rumors, my lord?” the comte asked his honored guest as they trotted along together. “La Bête has struck again, it seems.”

  “Pah!” the clergyman said, waving a gorgeously gloved hand. Clean-shaven, the bishop had a long, narrow face with high cheekbones and a thin, pointed nose with arching nostrils that made him look disapproving even when he smiled. “The court of inquiry is already looking into it. The man who was killed was unpopular and rumored to have cheated many of his customers. You will see, it will turn out to be one of those. No supernatural beasts stalk here!”

  “But, my lord bishop,” put in Comtesse de Velay, “there have been many incidents of brutal killings, including innocent children, all torn apart as if by a beast.”

  The bishop crossed himself. The rest of the party followed suit immediately.

  “We fear the wolf and the boar for a good reason, my lady,” he said. “One does not have to look to Satan. Those poor children might have fallen afoul of a real beast. And we are far from Gévaudan.”

  The nobles’ huntsmen and servants shook their heads, careful to keep their skepticism out of sight of their lords. The bishop might be anointed by God and protected by divine hands, but the rest of them feared what Satan might have set loose on Earth for the rest of them.

  Marie-Jeanne had no time to tremble or look around for the fabled man-killing monster. In the trail of the nobles on their great horses, she sat astride a donkey saddled with nothing more than a couple of flour sacks padded with straw. She had to admit how fine her lord looked in his red hat and surcote, astride the steady chestnut stallion that was almost as red. The horse’s saddle looked large enough to sail on and glinted with silver. The saddlecloths were embroidered with the crook and sword symbol of Velay. The bishop had the wheatsheaf of Languedoc on his garments and his dark bay horse’s trappings, but in gold and surrounded by a shield to show his status as the overlord of the province. The ladies and gentlemen all looked so impressive in their silks and fur-lined cloaks. Servants leading or riding beasts of burden carried baskets of food and jugs of wine for an open-air feast when the sun reached its height. A pack of fine hounds milled around them, yelping to one another in excitement. Marie-Jeanne was both honored and terrified to be in their number.

  With every bounce on the rough road, Mistinguette’s claws tightened on Marie-Jeanne’s wrist. Even the thick gauntlet she now wore to protect herself from the kestrel’s talons only blunted the points, not the fierce grip. She would have bruises, she knew it. The thought of punishment by her father and the hope of a gift of money and a share of the kills from the Comte or the Bishop were all that kept her from slowing down so that the hunting party would disappear out of sight. On her back flapped the enormous leather bag to hold prey. At her hip, she had a small creel containing the lure that would attract Mistinguette back should she stray after being flown. It was baited with pieces of pigeon, which were beginning to stink in the growing warmth of the day. The kestrel could smell the meat and tried to climb down from Marie-Jeanne’s glove to get at them. Only the hanging jesses in the girl’s fist kept her from getting away.

  Spring in the Languedoc came earlier than it did to most of France. Tiny, yellow-green leaves festooned the dark brown branches of beech trees. The oaks still stood proudly naked, their shaggy, gray-brown bark silver in the slips of sunlight that penetrated through the thick forest. They were making for the barley fields, where the growing grain had already attracted pests. While the hunt would cut down on the number of rabbits, it would also trample a good portion of the crop. Father’s friends grumbled, saying they did not know which was worse. Flies swarmed to her sweating flesh. With one hand for the reins and one for the hawk, she had to ignore the itchy bites.

  “Ho!” called the hunt master. Marie-Jeanne kicked the donkey to hurry it to join the rest of the group. As soon as she could stop, she scratched her bites. The donkey lashed his tail to rid himself of the flies.

  They had paused on the outskirts of a field, next to a small house. The farmer and his family bowed and scraped apprehensively. The farmer’s wife offered small beer to the hunters to refresh them after their ride. The Comte made a face, but he didn’t spit it out. If the bishop had not been nearby, he surely would have. It was too early in the year for new wine, and peasant beer often tasted bitter.

  True to the report, brown rabbits ran to and fro among the bright shoots of barley. The Comte grinned.

  “My lord bishop, would you care to make the first strike?” he asked.

  The bishop bared his big white teeth. They made him look rather like a hare himself.

  “I shall. Robert! Bring me Matilde!”

  The bishop’s falconer sprang off his small brown horse and presented himself at his master’s saddlebow. He held up the shimmering white gyrfalcon to his lord. Before the Comte could make a similar cry, Marie-Jeanne clambered awkwardly from the donkey’s back and dragged it behind her as she hurried to present Mistinguette to his gauntleted wrist. With a quick swipe, she removed the kestrel’s hood. She got a grudging glance of approval for her pains. So far, so good. All she wanted from the day was not to disgrace herself or her father.

  “Smooth and easy, my lord,” she said. “She’s had as much jostling as she can take.”

  “I know, I know!” the comte grumbled.

  The bishop lifted his hand to the sky. The gyrfalcon needed no more urging. She opened her great wings and rose up like an angel toward the blue heavens.

  All the smaller birds in the field scattered like ashes in the wind. The rabbits continued their frolicking, unaware of death hovering above. The white falcon held in the sky for a moment as if she was painted there, then dove straight for the biggest, plumpest coney. An audible crack sounded as the hawk broke its prey’s neck. The huntsman jumped down from his horse to retrieve the dead rabbit and present it to the bishop.

  At the shock of the feathered killer, the rest of the herd scrambled for safety. Little was to be found as the rest of the party released their hawks in pursuit. Smoothly, the Comte raised his arm and loosed Mistinguette into the air. She floated away like a leaf. Lady de Velay sent a kiss after her favorite merlin. The tiny bird arrowed after the lead rabbit, veering off just as the beast leaped into a hole at the field’s edge. A dozen of its kin followed it, vanishing like drops of water down a drain.

  At once, the dogs went after it, digging at the dirt and warbling like out of tune choristers. Marie-Jeanne smiled. The rabbits would be miles away in a minute, vanished along the endless corridors of their warren.

  “Heel, sirrah! Heel!” The huntsman called in the dogs, who had caught nothing. But Mistinguette fluttered her pale wings on the air, and dove into the barley, halfway across the field. She didn’t come up again.

  “A strike, by Jesu!” the Comte said, with a laugh. “Go get it, girl.”

  “Yes, my lord!” Marie-Jeanne said. With a look for apology at the farmer, she sidled into the young grain.

  It didn’t do to charge in upon a hawk with its kill. One had to approach the bird carefully. Marie-Jeanne neared the row where she heard the sound of satisfied peeping. She parted the stalks of grain. Mistinguette looked up at her with fierce eyes, standing on the belly of the rabbit she was disemboweling.

  “Now, now, my chick,” Marie-Jeanne said in the most soothing voice she could. Father always said that hawk magic began with
eyes, hands, and voice. She began to stoop low and eased a gloved hand toward her charge. “Come to me, then. You’ll get your treat. Let me have the rabbit.” She felt in the lure pouch and brought out a chunk of pigeon flesh. “Look here! This is for you.”

  She extended the gobbet of meat toward the fierce beak. Mistinguette snatched it from her gloved fingers, leaving a gouge in the leather. Marie-Jeanne took the kestrel onto her wrist and hastily stuffed the rabbit into her bag. Flowing blood was said to attract La Bête. She glided out of the barley field and presented the hawk to the Comte.

  “A fine catch,” the bishop praised him, as Marie-Jeanne displayed the dead coney. “A bit smaller than mine, though.” The huntsman took charge of the prey, handing it off to one of his apprentices. Marie-Jeanne curtseyed and drew back.

  The Comte smiled, showing his teeth through his beard. “The day is young.” He hefted the falcon so that her wings flipped. “She will catch many more fat rabbits for me today.”

  Mistinguette shrieked in protest at the mistreatment.

  “Hand to her strings, my lord!” Marie-Jeanne cried, alarmed. “She’s going to bolt!”

  Her warning came too late. Before the comte could grab for the jesses, the kestrel shot away from him and flew into the nearest treetop.

  “Come back here!” he bellowed. “I swear, I will kill that hawk! Get her, girl!”

  Marie-Jeanne pressed her lips together. No word of criticism must escape them, but he knew how flighty the kestrel was! Keeping Mistinguette in plain sight, she went out into the open and took the lure from her bag. On a twelve-foot cord, the leather bag had been made to resemble a flying dove, but years of being stooped upon by countless birds of prey had torn it into a figure more like a blackened hedgehog. Still, the hawks recognized it and came to it, most of the time. Marie-Jeanne played out the cord and began to swing the lure in a wide circle. Mistinguette’s head went up. She saw it, of course she did, but the stubborn kestrel hunkered down again, clinging to her branch. Marie-Jeanne sighed. If only she knew the chants and spells that would bring the hawk to her wrist!