“And we’re the biggest fools,” grinned Jak. “Captured by our betters.”
Another man leaned on the handle of his spade. “There’s plenty of us. But the natives treat us well enough. I laugh at the digging. Dig, dig, dig, us merry men. We’re the slaves of the island. But we sleep well, we eat well, we laugh and we rest. We don’t believe that digging will get us anywhere except eaten by the fishes, but that’s probably better than battling Shamm.”
“I’d soonest battle Shamm,” Symon sighed.
It was a sun bronzed Edenite they had befriended, who called himself Callite the explorer. “Shamm’s a nasty place, they say. They say it’s cruel.”
“I expect they say that of us,” Jak nodded. “We were enemies. Years ago, admittedly, but there’s plenty of memories still around.”
The pits they dug lay in daisy patterns, the deep petals not yet joined to the central bud. ‘And dig deep. Deeper. Deeper. And when each little flower is so deep the oozy water comes seeping in, then you dig faster. We cheer. We dance. A little deeper, then deeper still. And we see the salt crust the mud. And then you join your petals and the ocean comes rushing in.”
“And then? We go home?”
Chuckling, “Oh, no, my friend. But it means success. It means we have reached the depth for the tunnels. We chop the trees. So instead of dig, dig, dig – it will be chop, chop, chop.”
“How delightful. What an exciting change.”
“You will shore up the sides, making safe where the water might flood. And then you dig again.”
“A tunnel to where?”
“Why – Shamm of course. One day when ‘tis all dug and finished, we creep through, all four thousand of our strong and brave men of the islands. And we conquer.”
“Have you any idea how large the population of Shamm probably is?”
“It doesn’t matter. We will have the benefit of surprise. We will leap from the ground with our knives shining.”
The chieftain of the island wore a single slipper, on his right foot. It was, all things considered, an attractive slipper. Red leather and lined in soft white fur, it was emblazoned, having been carved into the leather with knifepoint, with a picture of a crown. It was a symbolic crown since the chieftain did not wear one.
“The other foot,” proclaimed Elkade of Giardon Island, “awaits the sovereignty of Shamm. I am the natural monarch of the two islands, which must be joined.”
The king in waiting had no crown, but he had a throne made of battered stone, adorned with leaf and flower, feathers and scraps of fur in generous quantities. The throne was frequently set up at the top of the gorge where Elkade could sit for long hours, contemplating the tunnel digging below. Looking up from the chasm’s base, it was possible to see him sitting hunched, half-dreaming, and twiddling with his one slipper. The distance was too great for either to see the details of the other, but the diggers cursed cheerfully at the king, and the king gazed hopefully at the diggers.
“It just ain’t common sense,” said Symon on regular occasions, “to go digging a tunnel under the sea. It ain’t possible. And then they reckons on putting a train line through, wot’ll pop up the t’other end in Shamm. Well, I reckon that be ridiculous. Tunnels wiv trains going underwater and then joining two right separate countries. Bloody daft.”
“I don’t really care,” said Jak. “I have every intention of escaping long before the success or failure of this project is ever decided.”
“Well, tis true,” grinned Symon, “I got the key. Not wot it ain’t a real key, but I reckons tis wot they uses.”
“A real key which they don’t use,” added Jak, “would be singularly pointless.”
“Like this bloody tunnel,” Symon nodded.
“However,” Jak reluctantly picked up his spade once more, “we have to find the door which it unlocks, or we will be stuck here until the whole island collapses underwater.”
“All them native buggers got one the same,” Symon added. “So tis the right key. And all them doors gotta work on the same key. Or mayhaps there be only one door. I dunno. But tis gotta be down here or there ain’t no use fer it.”
Steam, almost as vibrant as the billows of the trains, simmered along the cliff walls. In Eden, it was now the creep of winter and this brought frost, window mullions rimed and wet cobbles slippery with ice. But the Island of Giardon was seasonless and every day brought the swelter of working under a giddy sunshine. Yet at night, even within the shelter of the chasm, it was as cold as the Eden winter. Tropical days slithered into bitter darkness when a glimmer of moonlit snow could blowin from the north, lying for less that one glorious hour of diamonds across the ground, before melting into a shimmer of steam immediately on sunrise.
A hundred nests for swaddling the hundred workers, long built and long part of the dream, housed the growing army of diggers. But the nest bushes did not feed them. Berries did not build strength or necessary muscle.
“You.” The chieftain rarely wasted words. “Hunt.” He was striding the bottom of the gorge, plodding the boundaries of the digging, but peering into some of the deeper holes. He almost walked straight into Jak, who did not move aside for him.
“A sword? Bow and arrows? Knife? And what exactly do I hunt?” Jak asked without deference or smile.
“No weapons, silly boy,” Elkade raised a finger and sniggered, “You hunt the little birds with the big birds.”
It was the only hunting skill Jak had learned as a boy, refusing to use his hounds to massacre foxes or wolves, refusing to kill deer or even rabbits, yet accepting them, roasted, on his platter, knowing that this was his father’s delight.
“Then I need leather gloves. Hands bleeding from an eagle’s claws will never dig again.” Holding his breath for one magical moment, he asked, “And if you expect me to feed the whole island this way, I cannot stay closeted within this valley. I must stand on the cliffs and fly my huntress into the bright sky above.”
The islanders regarded him with faint surprise. “You know how to do it, then?” they murmured. “You’re not afraid of those big beaks? You know what to do and what to tell the eagles?”
“I do,” said Jak. “Where do you keep your birds? How many? What types?”
“They aren’t ours,” complained Elkade, “and they live in the trees. What would you expect?”
“Untrained?”
“You want us to teach them how to jump through hoops?”
“Not exactly.” Jak sighed.
“They lives free.” Half glaring. “But they knows us. We done hunted with them over and over. Not trained. Not untrained.”
Jak was delighted. “Well, take me up.”
“Then you shut your eyes,” said another man, “and I’ll take you.”
Jak smiled and obligingly closed his eyes. He was led along the canyon base, pulled on both sides, fast enough to trip several times, but stayed upright and counted his steps. Peeping was simply an occasional squint, but sufficient to know that he marched the long distance to the valley’s western edges where it climbed a shallow slope up to a staircase cut deep in the rock. So climb the slope, then steps, and another slope. Climb more steps, steep and narrow, and finally, a gentle slope running north. And Jak was on high ground with a forest behind him, and a sudden precipice at his feet.
“Shit,” said Jak. The chieftain had not accompanied them. He had been in the gorge speaking to Jak, and yet now he was beside him, having risen to the clifftop in considerably less time. “That must have taken two hours or more, maybe three. You must have a quicker, easier way up.”
“There are several ways,” nodded Elkade, “but not for you. Be thankful we’ve let you up.”
No key had been visible, but a huge amount of energy and patience had been used.
Turning back towards the bush of thick greenery, one man pointed upwards. “Hawk.”
Another said, “Falcon. There, and there, and there.”
“Eagles,” said a third man. “Up high. Look.”
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br /> Wondering whether he was supposed to climb up and get it, Jak gazed up at the great peregrine falcon, its golden eyes staring back at him. “Will she come to call?”
“If you give food,” said one of the natives at his side. “Here. A little mouthful, but not for you, Edenite. Rabbit breast. You show the bird, and whistle. It will come if it likes you.” He handed Jak the leather gauntlets and a scrap of raw meat. “Carry on,” he said.
Jak Lydiard stood for some time, hands clasped behind his back, then raised one arm, the meat between his palm and thumb. Finally, familiarity accomplished, he whistled. Immediately the bird’s claws grasped his gauntlet, her eyes reflecting the sunbeams slanting between the trees. She bent her huge beak and tore at the rabbit breast, shaking off fur and tugging at the flesh.
Awaiting a quiet falconer’s contemplation and his bird’s swift pleasure, the thick forests stretched down from the higher hills in one direction, with open grasslands, and then to cliffs in the other direction. The sunlight pooled in dappled gold between the marching greens, blues and grisailles. No longer sleeping, the rows of feathers roused and peered down from their treetops. The men were standing on the open slopes with the wind contained and gentle at their backs and the sun suddenly vivid along each flash of steel, for every native was armed with sword and bow.
Jak scratched the top of the falcon’s head, and it did not object, but ignored him, still tearing at the meat. For a moment he was lost in dreams, remembering Lydiard, and his own long dark mews with twenty birds, each blinkered and hooded, tiny bells to their feathers, and a Master of the Mews to train them. Jak, grinning now, thought of the times he would stand on the hills beyond his home, waiting for the cadger to bring out his birds. He turned to the Islander still at his side. “So now,” he said, “tell me why you chose me for this. And since your men have clearly trained a multitude of raptors for yourselves, even wild birds permitted to fly free, why do you ask a slave to do your hunting for you, instead of doing all this yourselves?”
“Let us see first how you do,” answered the man. Now Jak stood on his own, the falcon still to his gauntlet, but instead watched the slow wheel of a wild bird high amongst the clouds – a buzzard hunting, bringing more memories, and more thoughts of freedom. The bird on his wrist was all brown beauty with her cream speckled breast and huge hungry eyes. And she gazed, unblinking, with the striking gaze of the hunter.
Two pheasants spun up from the forest floor, disturbed and alarmed. Jak stretched out his arm, releasing the falcon in pursuit, then stood in admiration, watching her sails slowly spread until she seemed no more than a speck against the high blue. The pheasant blurred into shadow, back in the undergrowth. But the falcon did not return.
There were rabbit on the far slopes, the flick of ears above the waving grass seed, but the peregrine falcon hovered, and then, without warning, stooped. She had seen a more interesting quarry. From the heights she fell, plummeting from fleck to visible majesty in the speed of her plunge. The prey was dead as her talons hit, its head crushed by the impact, the woodcock a crush of blood-stained chestnut.
The falcon returned to Jak’s gauntlet, and he fed her from his right as she perched his left, but the dead bird had already been collected by the islanders and stored in their sacks.
The bird still to his glove, he wandered alone, first to the crest of uneven undulations which divided forest from plain. He was seen by all those around who watched him with mild purpose, but he did not speak. His wandering appeared unfocused, and when his path took him deeper amongst the trees, there was no one who seemed alarmed by the momentary disappearance of his shadow.
“Tis a fine bird, my lord,” said the large man from beneath the larches. “But I’d be mighty obliged if you kept that big sharp beak on t’other side o’ where I be standing.”
Jak smiled. “Well, Master Symon. I presume you followed my tediously long walk from gorge to cliff and up to here. Or did you find another quicker way?”
“Naught so clever, my lord. I took the same path as you done. Tis sure there’s better somewhere, but till we finds it, this way be better than naught.”
“True. But one thing puzzles me.” Again, Jak scratched the falcon’s head, and it bent its neck; well fed, it was now enjoying the attention. “There seems to be nothing on the island, no building, no tavern, no houses, no palace nor prison, no towns and no trains.”
“They knows of trains,” Symon pointed out. “They wants one fer this bloody stoopid tunnel.”
“Which will take forever to build. And I’ll not sit around to play at abduction and slavery, nor become the victim myself.”
Symon leaned back against the tree trunk. “At least now we knows one way out, even if tis slow. And stealing that key weren’t no problem neither. I pumps into one o’ them natives and pinches it from his bloody pocket. We’s gonna be out within a ten-day, my lord, and I ain’t never failed yet.” He paused, grinned, and added, “Well, not quite true, as it happens. But there’ll be no mistakes this time, I gives you my word. And, begging your pardon, my lord, but tis well known as how Symon’s word is never broke.”
“I believe you, my friend.” The falcon was restless, straining and chirping. Jak turned. “But confirmation is enough.” Together they strode back to the cliff edge where the group of natives stood, chattering avidly, and another of their number flying a hawk. Raising his arm, Jak freed the falcon, watching it soar into the glare of the sunlit azure. “So why,” Jak repeated to one of the men, “was I chosen? And why were any of us chosen?”
The Islander stared belligerently at Symon. “You were not invited to the high places,” he said, half growl.
“I followed my friend,” Symon answered meekly. “Seemed like a bloody good idea. And it ain’t done no harm, nor won’t.”
The Islander turned back to Jak. “We bought you,” he said, “as a lord of Eden. We paid more for you being a lord. He can hunt with birds, says the sailor, and he can fight with a sword. We paid more for your friend too, being mighty big and strong. It seemed fair enough to give both a test.”
“And how will this help with your tunnel or your battles with Shamm?” Jak demanded.
“The big fellow will be used on the dig,’ said the native. “But you can come with us.”
“Not until I know what for,” Jak said, cold-eyed. “And I do not wish to be separated from my friend.”
The peregrine falcon had returned to Jak’s gauntlet locked her eyes to his, and delivered the third pheasant she had caught, its bedraggled feathers cresting over a crushed skull. The Islander took the pheasant but broke off one wing and returned this to Jak. “Feed your lady friend,” he smiled. “I won’t be doing you no harm, but you and our mighty Elkade must talk. We don’t often get lords here, and the king wants to see what you can teach him. As for your big strong friend,” and he indicated Symon, “he’ll not be hurt. And you’ll be back with him tomorrow. Unless, of course, we need more birds for the pot.”
Jak saw her as an arrowed blaze of scarlet, a colour that swept through the gloom of his isolation. He talked softly to her, telling her those secrets that he had told no one else yet in his life. He told her about his childhood, the woman he had not seen for long years but still believed he loved, and what he hoped, perhaps, for the future.
He flew her again, with the sky bright and unhazed. He remained within sight of, his gaoler but the native did not approach him. So Jak stood on the green slopes, bright with the colours only he saw, and flew the great peregrine falcon, aware only of the disappearance of Symon, climbing back down into the chasm.
“You would love her as I do, if you knew her,” Jak said to the bird, or perhaps just to himself. “I watched her save a sparrow hawk once, a bird nearly as beautiful as you, though less noble of course, so you must not be offended. It had injured its wing and she sewed its broken feathers to tendons and made a nest for it at the end of her own bed. I sat with her as she stitched, and some s later, I watched the bird fly free.” The
peregrine falcon sat motionless, regarding him, so he smiled. “You take me for a fool. No doubt you are right. But I had already learned a great deal about falconry as a child and loved it more than most of my knight’s tutorship, so I understood imping even then and recognised my girl’s expertise. If I close my eyes, I can see her now.”
But it was as a child he still saw her, loose curls sun moulded at just fourteen years old and before she had saved his life. It was when he was saved, and recovering, that he had allowed himself, only that once, to touch her, to know her body and see the cream velvet of her small breasts. It had haunted him ever since. He had been ill, and still weak, and a little feverish. Yet, barely more than a child himself, he had taken advantage of her innocence and childish adoration. But he was glad that he had. The memory of her had warmed his cold nights a thousand times since.
“She lives, somewhere, and thinks, sometimes, of me,” he said, “for if she had died, her colour would have left my eyes, and it has not. It is a blue like no other blue, not even the blue of the sky. It is the azure behind the sky, the blue that other blues are made from.” The peregrine falcon stared back, one slow blink, and ruffled the feathers at her neck. Jak walked with her a little higher on the slope, looking to where the long line of trees etched against the rise of the horizon, blocking the dip of the forest beyond. From there he flew the peregrine falcon one last time, sending her up in the ring to wait on, searching for the quarry she preferred, her slow wings combating the feint of the wind, a small shadow against his own face as he watched her solitary hover. “Am I truly a fool, then? To still love a girl I’ve not seen for years, and can never marry. Even if she came to me, I owe it to my station now to marry property and title. Yet I say that I believe it, and I deny it. I’ve no desire for power nor high position, so I can marry who I wish. I can marry my Freya if I ever find her and if she wants me still.”
He sat then, risking grass stains to his well-worn britches, stretching his legs, easing the toes in the worn-out boots. “Perhaps you see yourself as brown, soft mottled, golden sprigged like wildflowers,” he told the raptor’s lazy wing beat and tiny shadow, straining his gaze up into the glitter of light above. “But you are scarlet. A colour decisive and pure. As is my Freya, in her perfect blue.” Leaning back and clasping his hands behind his head, he watched the sky, eyes hooded against the glare, adoring the bird that hung there like a candle flame. “As a child, I thought everyone saw colours as I do, but now I know they do not, and I must be quite crazed. But for me, people carry their own haloes, and I see every one. Places are colour tinged, the trains rattle black stripes amongst their billowing steam, and even some words are coloured when spoken.”
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