The Priest of Blood by Douglas Clegg Read Free Book Online Page A

hunt pearls. My sister took sick and died last winter, and my little brother went soon after. My mother is a wanton, and sleeps with even the clergy for scraps of mutton and pork, but I do not blame her, for she has many mouths to feed. I have but one small talent. And that is for falcons and doves, sir. The birds of the air. I speak to them, in my own way, and they understand me. And they hunt with me.”
    “So please God if you lie now, I will do more than cut out your tongue,” he said.
    “I do speak to the birds.”
    “They listen to you?”
    I nodded. “The rock and mourning doves. The falcons, too. I trained a raven to speak by splitting its tongue, and I once raised a hawk to bring fish from the river.” This was all true, and had been taught me by my grandfather when I was barely able to speak. The only lie within it was that the birds usually escaped to the Forest once they were of an age, although I could call them to me through whistles and caws now and then.
    “Tell me, what did your raven say with his language?”
    “He repeated the ‘Ave Maria,’” I said, which was true, and made the huntsman laugh like a crash of thunder. “Not every word of it,” I said. “Just the first part. His Latin is not as good as our priest’s. He flew beside old women as they knelt to pray at Mass, and it was the only thing he would learn. The farmers nearby think he is the spirit of a damned soul, for he now haunts the old burial grounds, repeating the words again and again.”
    When he had stopped laughing he lowered me to the ground and scruffed my hair with his rough fingers.
    “I would love to meet this praying bird,” he said. “You hunt in the Forest?”

    2

    It was against the law to enter the baron’s forest, despite the fact that I—and all in my family—had been doing so since my memory had begun. A family of bastards might all be slaughtered by a servant of the baron or the duke if caught with a boar’s head in the home. Poachers, if discovered, were hanged or drowned, depending on the availability of a gibbet or a pond and a sack. Now and then, a poacher was allowed to live as an example to others, and I’d seen one once, his hands cut off at the wrist, his nose also cut off. There was a man named Yannick, who wandered door to door, begging for morsels, because he’d stolen a rabbit from the Great Forest. His hands had been chopped off, as well as the toes on his feet and his left ear. I did not want any such fate to befall me or my family. One did not break the law lightly. So I lied a bit.
    “No, sir. I hunt in the fields by the cottage. I hunt rat and rabbit and other small creatures of the marsh and field that are not owned by the king or baron.”
    “You speak well for a meadowlark.”
    “My grandfather taught me to speak well.”
    “Your grandfather is alive?”
    “No, sir.”
    “What was his name?”
    When I mentioned my grandfather’s name, the huntsman nodded. “Tell me, how did the old man die?”
    I told him of the day in the field, and of the ravens and doves, as well as the flocks of birds that seemed to be everywhere at his death, though I, perhaps, exaggerated the tale as it went.
    “Did your grandfather mention his time in the wars?”
    I shook my head.
    “I knew him,” the huntsman said. He half smiled. “Ronan was a fine soldier of his day.” Then his mood darkened. “And your mother is his daughter?”
    Again, I nodded.
    “Armaela.” When he said her name, it sent a slight chill through me. I had never heard a man say her name without trying to bed her. “I knew her, many years ago,” he said. “You must not speak ill of her. Your family truly was once a great one. Perhaps you have greatness in you, though your kind has fallen from favor in these present times. Let this be an understanding between us, boy, should you think ill of any for whom life’s fortunes have turned. Misfortune is the world. Those who are kings today may be knaves by sunrise tomorrow.