The Falcons of Fire and Ice

by Karen Maitland

  Perhaps the horses had been stabled in the byre at the other end of the house. I thought I had glimpsed one earlier. I groped my way back along the wall, trying to find the door which would tell me I had reached halfway along. Then suddenly my hand connected with something soft and warm. I stifled a cry as I stepped backwards.

  ‘Isabela, so there you are! Can’t see a bloody thing.’

  The voice was slurred, but it was still recognizable. My stomach contracted. It was Fausto, the man who only a few hours ago had tried to kill me.

  ‘What do you want?’ I could hear my voice shaking.

  ‘You … looking for you. Wanted to speak to you alone. Tried earlier today … but you galloped off.’

  If I yelled for help they’d never hear it deep inside that hillside. I tried to keep calm.

  ‘It’s cold. I’m going back inside. Whatever you have to say you can say it in there.’

  ‘You’re not going back inside.’ He stretched out his arm, barring the doorway.

  I couldn’t push him aside. He was twice my weight and size. I could try to run. Once I was out there in the darkness, he’d never be able to find me, but suppose I stumbled into another bog? I shivered.

  I fought to keep the panic from rising in my chest. ‘What do you want with me?’

  ‘Come with you, of course. I know you’ve no intention of going back in there. You’re going to look for them, aren’t you?’

  ‘What … look for what?’ I stammered.

  ‘White falcons.’ He lowered his voice to an exaggerated tipsy whisper, though there was no one to hear us. ‘That’s why you were asking the lad about them. First night on the ship when I told you about the eagles … could tell that you knew more about falconry than you were admitting. That’s why you came here, isn’t it?’

  A wave of cold nausea rose in my throat. ‘I don’t know anything about birds … I came here to join my husband.’

  He chuckled. ‘Come on, a husband who didn’t trouble to come to the ship to meet you? A husband who sent you no papers? If you were married to a Dane, you’d not have to leave here for the winter. I saw the look on your face when you heard you only have two weeks. There is no husband, is there? You can tell me.’

  He attempted a clumsy pat on my shoulder. I shrank back.

  ‘We all have our little secrets, Isabela. Don’t you worry, I won’t breathe a word. Ssh!’ He leaned over me, pressing his finger to his lips. ‘Trust me, Isabela, I can help you get those birds. That farmer seems to think they’re worth a few escudos, and I’ll let you into a little secret of my own. I could do with a little gold right now.’

  ‘What happened to the diamonds? I thought you were planning to get rich finding those?’

  ‘There are no diamonds here.’

  ‘Then why come to Iceland?’

  He deflated like a pierced bladder and slumped dejectedly against the wall. He was more dulled than actually drunk, his movements slow and clumsy. If he made a grab for me I might be able to dodge him. I tried to ease away from him a little, bracing myself to run as soon as he was off guard.

  ‘Planned to go to Canada to search for diamonds, but I was … had to leave Portugal in a hurry. Costs a lot to get passage to Canada. Long voyage. Couldn’t raise the money I needed in time.’

  ‘Why did you need to leave so quickly?’

  ‘Killed a man.’

  He must have heard my gasp of fear.

  ‘Not murder, nothing like that.’ He seized my arm so suddenly I didn’t have a chance to pull away. ‘It was an accident … swear to you.’ He drew a deep breath and shook his head as if trying to clear the mist from his thoughts. ‘So happy that night. Can’t believe it all changed in the time it takes to draw breath … festival for Our Lady of Light in Sampaio. My friends and I, we just went to celebrate, same as everyone else. After the procession, people were drinking and eating in the streets. All the women were dressed in their prettiest dresses. My friend started talking to a girl, flirting with her. Everyone does it. It’s what festivals are for. Bit of harmless fun, that’s all. But her fiancé saw them together. He got jealous and shoved my friend away.

  ‘You know how it is, punches were thrown. All the lads started to take sides and join in. It was just fists at first. Then I saw one man draw a knife and come up behind my friend. I threw myself at him. There was a struggle. The next thing I knew a young man was lying on the ground, blood pouring from his guts. I was horrified. I started to back away, but someone yelled that I’d done it, and when I looked down, I saw my own hand was covered in blood. I ran then. I got away, but later I discovered the young man had died and, worse still, he was the son of a noble. His father was determined that he would settle for nothing less than the blood of the man who killed his son. No choice. Had to get passage on the very first ship I could find.’

  After the events of that afternoon I found it only too easy to believe that Fausto had killed a man, but I did not believe it was an accident, any more than him kicking my horse had been.

  Fausto was still gripping my arm. My fear spun into anger.

  ‘So you didn’t intend to come to Iceland to look for diamonds. That story you told us on board the ship about India and the eagles carrying up the diamonds from the ravine, that was a lie too, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No!’ he said hotly. ‘It’s completely true, I swear.’ He shuffled uncomfortably. ‘But it wasn’t exactly my story … a merchant told it to me. But I do know all about diamonds. I worked for a jeweller who set precious stones into necklaces, earrings, brooches and buckles for the wealthy. My master taught me how to read a stone, to assess its colour and weight, how to look for flaws and determine when and where it was cut. I can tell you what any stone is worth. If I can reach Canada, I can find diamonds. I can make a fortune. I just have to find the money to get there.

  ‘And if those birds are as valuable as that farmer seems to think … Look, this is a dangerous place for a woman alone. You can’t do this by yourself. But I can take care of you. We can find those birds together and I can help you sell them. That’s something I do know about, persuading men to buy … and there’s something else … something I must tell you. You see, the truth is –’

  ‘The truth is what, Senhor Fausto?’

  Fausto spun round. The figure standing in darkness behind him raised the little fish-oil lamp, shielding the fragile flame from the wind with his hand. Although the light was feeble, it deepened the hollows under his cheekbones and made caverns of his dark eyes, so that his head looked like a pale skull suspended in the darkness.

  ‘Vítor!’ Fausto snapped. ‘What the devil do you mean, sneaking around eavesdropping on private conversations?’

  ‘I merely chanced to overhear your last remark, Fausto. I was, in fact, in search of the young lady. She had been gone so long I feared she might have met with an accident or was unable to find her way back. It was foolish of you to venture out here without a lamp, Isabela. The ground is treacherous enough by day, but at night you could blunder into any kind of peril and no one would hear your cries for help.’

  He reached his arm round Fausto and extended his hand to me.

  ‘Come, let me escort you safely back inside into the warm.’

  I hesitated, not knowing which of the two men I feared more at that moment, but at least if Vítor was taking me back inside, he could not be intending to harm me, for now at any rate – not even he would be stupid enough to attempt to do so in front of a witness. Reluctantly I placed my hand on his and allowed myself to be drawn past Fausto.

  Vítor’s thin, spidery fingers were even colder than my own. He glanced back over his shoulder as we squeezed down the musty passageway.

  ‘Isabela, let me offer you a word of caution. You would be well advised not to trust Senhor Fausto. I fear that he and the truth are not well acquainted. Such men wear a cloak of courtesy which often conceals a dagger of malice. You should try to avoid him as much as you can until we are able to rid ourselves of him.’

&
nbsp; We are able to rid ourselves … So he intended to attach himself to me, maybe even get rid of Marcos and travel alone with me. It was almost as if Vítor was really starting to believe I was his wife. Was he planning to make it so? I had no experience of being wooed, but even I was sure that what I saw in Vítor’s eyes was certainly not love.

  And as for Fausto, had he told me that story about killing a man to let me know that he was capable of murdering me too? Had he been about to make a more explicit threat before Vítor interrupted him? If I had not been certain before, what had just happened outside had me convinced that I must get far away from both of them as quickly as I could.

  I lay huddled uncomfortably on the bed. The dried seaweed and mouldy straw which filled the pallet crunched deafeningly in my ear every time I or the woman and her children moved, releasing a sickening stench. I was determined to keep awake, but there was little danger of falling asleep. The three men lay hunched under the threadbare blankets and furs in the opposite bed stalls, with Hinrik, the farmer and his old father. I couldn’t see their faces, but I sensed that while the others might be snoring, Vítor, like me, was still lying awake.

  The blood-red glow of the embers in the fire pit drew my gaze back to it. There was a whole landscape in miniature contained in that smouldering, blackened pit – rock-strewn valleys and mountains, with veins of fire running through them, dark caves and white ash peaks. As I stared into its depths, I could almost feel I was walking through those rocks, climbing the side of that mountain, sliding into the cave.

  Krery-krery-krery!

  I started up on one elbow, staring about the hall. The cry was so close that it was as if I was again in my father’s mews. But surely the farmer was not keeping a gyrfalcon hidden in his house, after all he had said about the dangers?

  Krery-krery-krery.

  It was fainter now, but insistent as if it was screaming from a distant mountain, yet was determined its cry be heard. But where? Hinrik had said there were no falcons in these parts, and besides, the white falcon did not hunt at night.

  I half-sensed a movement, and turned my head back to the fire pit. An elderly woman was standing in front of it. In the owl-light of the hall I couldn’t see her clearly, only the shape of her blocking out the fire beyond. Was she wife to the old man in the bed? She was holding a little child by the hand, trying to push her behind her own body. She raised her other arm over her face, cringing, as if trying to ward off a heavy blow. Then, as if the blow had fallen, she crumpled into the darkness of the earth floor and was gone, leaving behind her only a cold, damp breeze which lifted a tiny flake of white ash in the fire pit and sent it soaring into the shadows above. Had I just imagined her there? Without knowing why, my fingers reached for the white finger bone hanging in the bag around my neck.

  Krery-krery-krery.

  I could barely hear it. It was only the breath of the scream, not the cry itself. But it was enough.

  Ricardo

  Summed – when a falcon has fledged and grown all her flight feathers, or has grown new feathers after the moult, and is ready to fly.

  I woke with what tasted like a beggar’s armpit in my mouth, and my head ringing like a blacksmith’s anvil. It took a few moments to realize where I was, and even longer to work out that I was lying with someone’s foot halfway up my arse and a hairy arm draped across my head. I struggled out of the tangle of groaning bodies, balding furs and musty blankets.

  There was no sign of Hinrik, but the old man snored on in his corner of the bed, propped upright just as he had been last night. Even his own farts didn’t wake him. The farmer’s wife was stirring a great pot over the fire, and shot us a look of disgust that would have outdone even my Silvia’s scathing glances, and, as all the saints know, Silvia could floor a man at twenty paces with one of her withering looks.

  As her husband and my two companions struggled upright, she silently handed each of us a bowl of what looked like grey glue, so thick and glutinous that I was certain it could never be coaxed from the bowl. I managed a couple of spoonfuls before the whole mess tried to crawl its way back up my throat again. I dashed out of the hall and only just made it through the door before my breakfast made its bid for freedom.

  I leaned weakly against the turf wall and drew in great gulps of cold air. What the devil had been in that drink last night? I didn’t remember a thing, except for a dim memory of hating Vítor for some reason, but then that didn’t tell me much. I’d loathed the man since he first set foot on the ship.

  Hinrik sauntered around the back of the house. He grinned when he saw me. ‘It was a good night, yes?’

  I groaned and rubbed at my eyeballs which were as swollen and raw as if they’d been skinned. How had he managed to sleep in that fug of smoke and look so lively in the morning? The impudent puppy plainly found my misery hilarious. I would have kicked his arse just to remind him I owned him, if I could have trusted myself to do it without falling on my own backside, but the lesson would have to wait until the ground stopped tilting.

  I stumbled over to a trough and dashed some water on to my face. How it hadn’t frozen, I don’t know, for it was far colder than ice. I can only guess that it was so thick with slime and dirt that nothing would make it freeze. Every animal on the farm seemed to have pissed in it, but at least the cold cleared my head a little.

  Vítor emerged from the doorway. ‘Have you seen Isabela?’ he demanded as I walked back towards the house.

  His face was the colour of a squashed slug and he seemed to be holding his head very stiffly as if it was thumping as much as mine, which was at least some consolation. But it couldn’t have been from the drink, for he’d taken hardly any last night, though sleeping in that fug was enough to make anyone bilious.

  ‘Isabela, where is she?’ he repeated impatiently.

  ‘Isn’t she inside?’ I said, staring around vaguely.

  I couldn’t recall seeing her since I’d woken, but then it had taken all my concentration just to get my limbs to move in a vaguely co-ordinated fashion.

  ‘I’d hardly be asking you if she was,’ Vítor snapped. ‘Hinrik, have you seen her?’

  ‘She’s gone. She took some smoked puffin meat. The breakfast was not cooked then. Too early.’

  Vítor leapt forward and seized Hinrik by the shoulders, shaking him till his teeth rattled. ‘She’s left? All by herself? You stupid half-wit, why didn’t you wake us? Why did you let her go?’

  Hinrik was goggle-eyed with fear. I dragged Vítor off the boy and both of them stood there panting. The lad looked on the verge of taking to his heels.

  ‘You saw what happened yesterday,’ Vítor yelled at him. ‘She doesn’t know how to look after herself in this place.’ He took a deep breath as if he was making a great effort to regain control. ‘How long ago did she leave? Which way did she go?’

  Hinrik was watching Vítor apprehensively as if he thought he would launch another attack at any moment.

  ‘Before the sun was up. She went …’ The lad tentatively gestured along the track which led in the direction of the mountains.

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’ Vítor demanded impatiently, looking as if he was about to try to shake the information out of him again. ‘Didn’t you ask?’

  ‘Look, we’re wasting precious time standing around here,’ I said. ‘Let’s just saddle up and go after her as quickly as we can, before she gets herself into any more danger.’ I turned to the farmer who was stumbling out of the door, his face as crumpled and creased as a whore’s petticoats. ‘Hinrik, ask him to bring us our horses, will you, quick as he can.’

  Hinrik translated and the farmer spat on to the ground and muttered something. Clearly the drink had left him with a foul hangover.

  ‘He says fetch them yourself,’ Hinrik said.

  I felt my own temper rising as fast as Vítor’s. ‘Then where are they?’

  ‘He says back with their owner by now.’

  ‘But we are the owners,’ Vítor said indignantl
y. ‘We paid a great deal for those beasts.’

  ‘How are the horses to know that?’ Hinrik giggled, then, catching sight of Vítor’s face, abruptly stopped himself.

  ‘Tether does not hold them,’ he said. ‘He says you should have taken them to the stone fold and hobbled them. Horses return home first chance they get. Everyone knows that.’

  Vítor railed furiously at the lad and followed it up with a hard clout across the boy’s head which, thinking he fully deserved it, I made no attempt to prevent. But finally, even Vítor could see that no amount of shouting or raging was going to recover the animals. In the meantime, as I reminded him, Isabela was getting further away.

  We assembled our packs, abandoning all but the essential items we could carry on our own backs, and set off in pursuit of Isabela, with Vítor still muttering that the farmer had probably stolen our beasts himself and was hiding them somewhere until we were safely out of sight. If he hadn’t been so anxious to find the girl, he said, he would have searched every inch of the place and would most assuredly do so when he returned. There was only one consolation in all this, and that was that Isabela had apparently been forced to depart on foot as well, so that I was sure it wouldn’t be long before we caught up with her.

  The Jesuits were not joking when they said this would be like a pilgrimage. Climbing up the steps of some monastery on your knees would be less painful than marching over that terrain. I’m used to city streets, not dirt tracks, and when I wasn’t sinking knee-deep in freezing mud, I was barking my shin on a rock, or flaying my legs on thorns. One of the sailors told me that when Satan saw that God had created the world, he was jealous and demanded the right to create just one little piece of land himself. He laboured hard for a week, throwing into it all the skills he had to create a piece of hell on earth, and the country he made was Iceland. Never was a truer story told.