Hawk Quest by Robert Lyndon Read Free Book Online

your consideration,’ Hero said in a tight voice.
    Vallon smiled. ‘If it’s any consolation, you’ve acquitted yourself better than I expected. To tell the truth, I never thought you’d get as far as the Channel.’
    Hero’s lip trembled at this double-sided compliment. ‘Then you’re not angry with me.’
    ‘Angry for what?’
    ‘For leading you on this vile and unprofitable enterprise.’
    ‘You didn’t lead me anywhere,’ Vallon said. He reached for the lamp and nipped out the flame. ‘If anyone’s to blame, it’s that one-eyed magus we buried in the Alps.’

V
    Wayland drew back the wattle shutter and watched the foreigners walking towards the hall. Since their arrival, the snow had fallen without pause for two days. Now the sky was ablaze with stars and the strangers cast shadows as black as ink.
    A bell rasped. On Wayland’s gloved left hand, tethered by leash and jesses, sat a goshawk with its eyelids stitched together. He’d trapped her four days ago in a net baited with a dove. She was a passager, still in her juvenile plumage, her buff chest streaked with umber barbs. After jessing her and seeling her eyes, Wayland had left her undisturbed until he judged from the sharpness of her breastbone that she was keen enough to be handled. Since he had picked her up yesterday evening she hadn’t left his fist. She wouldn’t sleep until she ate. Until she ate, he wouldn’t get any sleep.
    When the strangers disappeared into the hall, Wayland closed the shutter and turned. The arena for this battle of wills was a mews of riven oak lit by a single lamp. Behind a canvas drape at the opposite end, two peregrines – falcon and tiercel – dozed like small idols on a beam perch. Wayland began to pace the earth floor, four steps forward, four steps back. A brindled hound lying by his pallet tracked his movements with sleepy eyes. The dog was enormous, heavier than most full-grown men. Part mastiff, part greyhound, part wolf, its bloodline went back to the Celtic warhounds prized by Britain’s Roman invaders.
    As he patrolled, Wayland drew a fillet of pigeon breast across the goshawk’s feet. She ignored it. She couldn’t see and had no sense of smell. The food was merely an irritant. Wayland stroked her back and shoulders with a quill. She didn’t react to that, either. Pinching herlong middle toe provoked a feeble hiss – nothing like the outraged gasps that had greeted the lightest touch when he caught her. He knew she was ready to eat. Some hawks fed the first night, most refused for a day or two, but only once had Wayland found a hawk that would rather starve than submit. That had been a goshawk, too – a haggard so old that its eyes had darkened to the colour of pigeon’s blood. It had spent a day and a night thrashing upside down from his glove before he cut its jesses and cast it back into the wild.
    Wayland was less focused on his task than he should have been. The garrison was buzzing with stories about the strangers. A mysterious Frankish veteran of far-off wars had broken Fulk’s wrist and held a sword against Roussel’s throat. And got away with it! His servant – his catamite said some – was an astrologer who spoke every known tongue and carried medicines blessed by the Pope. Wayland was desperate to get a closer look at them, but he couldn’t leave the hut until he’d manned the hawk. Deciding to force the pace, he pulled the hawk’s right leg down with thumb and forefinger, applying pressure until she snaked her head at his hand. Her beak closed on pigeon breast instead. She wrenched off a wedge, imagining she’d got her enemy, and flicked it away. But the taste lingered. She salivated and shifted into a more balanced stance. Wayland held his breath as she inflated her feathers, swelling as if building up to a violent sneeze. She roused with a furious rattle, flicked her tail, tightened her talons and bent her head.
    The dog’s eyes opened. It lifted its craggy head, listening,