The Falcons of Fire and Ice

by Karen Maitland

  ‘You can sleep in here, Isabela, it’s just big enough for you and it’ll shelter you from the wind.’

  ‘Let Hinrik have it, I prefer to sleep by the fire.’

  It was not just because Fausto had suggested it that I refused. Nothing would have induced me to crawl under that huge rock. It felt too much like the nightmares that stalked my sleep.

  Ever since we had left France, I had dreamt of that forest, and in Iceland, a land without trees, the nightmares had become more vivid than ever, but they were never quite the same. In some dreams I would be running, fleeing for my life. In others I was trying to hold on to a child, fighting desperately to keep the little one safe, shielding a baby with my own body, pleading for its life. But all the dreams ended in the same way with violent, savage death and then silence, a terrible dark and lonely silence which chilled and haunted me even in my waking hours.

  Marcos hunkered down next to me, trying to warm his hands over the tiny fire which Hinrik had managed to get burning with a flint and iron.

  ‘Fish again tonight?’ he asked dismally. ‘If you can call it fish, more like eating old shoe soles. I never thought I’d say this but I’m actually starting to crave ship’s biscuit, at least the weevils gave it some flavour.’

  I rummaged among our pitifully few stores. The smoked puffin was long gone, and there was precious little dried cod left.

  I drew out what remained and showed it to them. ‘Fish is better than nothing and tomorrow there will be nothing, unless we find something to stretch this out tonight.’

  ‘Since you were complaining about the food, Senhor Marcos, I would suggest that you and Senhor Fausto go and find us something else to eat,’ Vítor said. ‘And you, boy, make haste and find us some more fuel before this feeble little fire dies away entirely.’

  Fausto threw the stems he’d been using as a brush on to the fire, where they blazed for a few moments before collapsing into ash. ‘And what exactly will you be doing, Senhor Vítor, while we’re all toiling away to keep your belly stuffed and your bony arse warm?’

  ‘I’ll stay with Isabela and try to keep the fire going. Someone has to stay with her. It will be dark soon. It isn’t safe for her to be left alone.’

  ‘No!’ The word burst out of me in a shriek before I could stop it. The last thing I wanted was to be left alone with Vítor. ‘Let Hinrik stay with me and we’ll both collect fuel. You three go. As you say, it’ll be dark soon and you’ll all need to search if we’re to have any hope of finding anything to eat. Marcos, you said you studied herbs. There must be some kind of plant growing here we can eat.’

  ‘Herbs won’t fill our bellies,’ Fausto said before Marcos had a chance to reply. ‘Good strong meat, that’s what we need. I was always rather good at setting snares when I was a boy. I promise you shall dine like a queen tonight, fair Isabela.’ He swept off his cap in a low bow, and bounded away down the hill. ‘Look after her, lad, don’t let her out of your sight.’

  With a great deal less enthusiasm Vítor and Marcos set off too, Marcos taking care to go in the opposite direction to the other two.

  Hinrik began to feed the fire with sheep’s dung, absently dropping them in one at a time, as if he was feeding scraps of meat to a puppy. He was grinning to himself, obviously enjoying some private joke.

  ‘What’s funny?’ I asked.

  ‘Senhor Fausto is in love.’

  I smiled. ‘If he is, it certainly isn’t with Vítor, or Marcos, come to that.’

  ‘With you. He always tries to get you alone. He always tries to get near you when you walk. He watches you when you are sleeping. I have seen him. He loves you.’ Hinrik chuckled.

  A cold fist clutched at my belly at the very thought of him watching me while I lay asleep and helpless.

  ‘No, believe me, Hinrik,’ I said fervently, ‘you couldn’t be more wrong.’

  I stared at the hollow under the balancing stone. Why had Fausto urged me to sleep in there, under that great rock? What was he planning now? I would never be able to sleep again, not as long as he was anywhere near me. I glanced up at the hill top. How long would it be before the men returned? If I could just get as far as the top of the hill before they came back, once I was safely out of sight I could hide and then …

  ‘Why don’t you go and see if you can find something else to burn, Hinrik?’

  The boy shook his head. ‘Senhor Fausto said I was to stay with you.’

  ‘I need to stay with the fire to keep it burning. If I leave it, it’ll go out, but we need more fuel, lots more fuel. Hurry now, it’s nearly dark.’

  ‘Not unless you come with me. I do not want to go alone … the witch.’ His face was screwed up in anxiety. ‘They rise from the grave when the sun sets. You did not give her a stone. You should have given her a stone. She will curse us. You see, nothing will go right for us now.’

  The shadows were deepening in the ravine, the great boulders assuming almost human shapes in the twilight. In that place, I could believe anything was possible. Why hadn’t we done as Hinrik had asked, even if it was to reassure him? I didn’t need any more bad luck. I was running out of time. How many days had passed since we landed? I was losing count. A week? No, it couldn’t be, not yet! Please God, not yet!

  ‘Hinrik, are we near the place of the white falcons? How far is it to the high mountains? How many days?’

  The boy hunched away from me. ‘You must not talk of them. Not in this place. It will call the witch’s curse.’

  He refused to say more. In the end we searched for fuel together, never straying out of sight of the guttering yellow flames. We heaped our finds near the fire to dry them – more dung, dried woody roots and stems from bushes and the dried bones and skull of a sheep that must have fallen from the rocks and broken her legs. Hinrik insisted on dragging them to the fire, saying his mother had often burned bones for fuel.

  But as soon as I smelt the stench of the burning, I could only see the girl standing in the flickering torchlight of that sultry Lisbon night with the pitifully tiny casket of bones in her arms. I could hear her sobbing as the casket burst into flames on the pyre. Her mother … ? Her father … ?

  Hinrik stiffened at the sound of footsteps on rocks as Marcos stumbled back towards our camp. He tossed a small heap of woody plants down beside me.

  ‘Is that for the pot or the fire?’ I asked.

  ‘All I could find,’ Marcos said morosely.

  Before I could ask him what the plants were, Vítor reappeared, closely followed by Fausto, who threw himself disconsolately on to the ground beside the small fire, and stared into the flames, his fingers savagely plucking at the grey, wiry grass. Marcos glowered at the pair of them.

  It was obvious from Fausto’s empty hands and stony expression that he’d caught nothing. So there was really no need for Marcos to comment, but he did.

  ‘So where’s this sumptuous supper you promised us, Fausto?’

  The light from the flames flickered across Fausto’s face, showing the muscles tighten as he clenched his jaw.

  ‘There’s nothing to trap in this cursed land.’

  ‘Yet according to you we were going to dine like royalty tonight.’

  ‘So what game have you brought us for the pot?’ Fausto retorted. ‘I don’t smell it cooking, or was the boar you slaughtered with your bare hands too massive to carry back?’ He prodded the bundle of withered herbs which I was sorting through. ‘Is this what you brought back? Not even sheep could eat this. What is it anyway?’

  ‘Herbs, but if you don’t want to eat them …’

  ‘Yes, but what kind of herbs? On the ship you told us you were a physician, come here to look for new herbs for cures. I can’t say I’ve noticed you take any interest in the plants as we’ve been tramping through this wilderness. And for that matter I haven’t seen you do any physicking either. When Isabela hurt her knee it was the ship’s surgeon who attended to her, not you.’

  ‘That was a job for a bone-setter. I am no common bo
ne-setter. A physician doesn’t deal with such matters.’

  ‘So you’d let a woman suffer in agony rather than soil your hands, would you? You know what, if you are a physician, prove it.’ Fausto plunged his hand inside his scrip and drew out a couple of handfuls of wizened red berries. ‘I found these. I have no idea whether they’re poisonous, but if you’re as knowledgeable with herbs and plants as you claim, you’ll know whether or not these are safe to eat.’

  ‘Why don’t you eat them and find out?’ Marcos growled. ‘Then with luck we’ll only have four people to divide that fish among instead of five.’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea – why don’t you eat them?’

  Fausto flung himself on Marcos, seizing him by the front of the doublet and trying to cram the berries into his mouth.

  ‘Stop it!’ I yelled. ‘Leave him alone. Those berries might kill him!’

  Vítor rushed over and tried to prise Fausto off, but even so it took several minutes of Marcos pushing and kicking, and Vítor tugging, before Fausto could be persuaded to let go. All three men collapsed on to the ground, panting. Marcos spat out the berries still in his mouth, and rubbed his bruised lips. It was clear that neither man was in any mood to apologize.

  I began to gather up the withered herbs that their flaying feet had scattered, more to break the paralysing silence than with any intention of using them. But as I reached for one plant that Marcos had dragged up by its root, I caught a whiff of something that was vaguely familiar. I examined it more carefully, and sniffed at it again.

  ‘I’m sure this is valerian. The root smells like old leather when it’s freshly dug up, but more like stale sweat when it’s dried. My father uses it to cure …’ I stopped myself just in time. ‘As rat bait.’

  ‘Then it’s poison!’ Fausto clambered to his feet.

  ‘No, no,’ I said quickly. ‘It just draws the rats. They love the smell. But every apothecary has the dried root of this on his shelves. It’s a healing plant, it eases pain, but it will make you fall asleep.’

  ‘So that was your little plan,’ Fausto said triumphantly, as though he had unmasked a plot to murder the king. ‘What were you going to do, put it in the pot, then refuse to eat any yourself? What then, rob us?’

  Without warning he sprang at Marcos again, pulling his knife from his belt as he did so. Marcos leapt to his feet, but he didn’t move quickly enough and found himself backed against a rock, with Fausto’s dagger pointing directly at his heart. Hinrik took refuge behind a boulder. Vítor scrambled to his feet, but eyeing the dagger, this time made no move to intervene.

  ‘I didn’t know what it was! I swear!’ Marcos protested.

  ‘But you said you were a physician,’ Fausto yelled. ‘So you should know, that’s the point. If you are not a physician then tell us who you are.’

  He jabbed the dagger towards Marcos, and for one dreadful moment I thought he had thrust it in. I ran at him and grabbed his arm, trying to pull the dagger away.

  ‘How dare you of all people accuse Marcos of lying,’ I shouted. ‘You’ve no right to question him!’

  Fausto pushed me away with his other hand. ‘I’ve every right to find out what kind of man we’re travelling with, for all our sakes. He’s obviously got something to hide.’

  ‘I think you had better do as he says, Senhor Marcos,’ Vítor said quietly. ‘I am sure you can explain yourself. And Senhor Fausto, I suggest you stop waving that dagger about before someone gets hurt. If, as you surmise, Senhor Marcos is not a physician, then you will have no one to tend you if you manage to stab yourself in a tussle, and that could lead to a very painful and lingering death out here miles from any assistance.’

  Fausto hesitated, then with obvious reluctance lowered the knife, but he did not sheath it.

  ‘Go on then,’ he growled at Marcos. ‘What are you waiting for? Tell us.’

  Marcos was breathing heavily and his hands were trembling, but he tried to laugh it off.

  ‘There was really no need for theatrical gestures; I have nothing to hide from my fellow countrymen. I couldn’t divulge my real reason for coming here to any on the ship, nor to that man who searched us. But none of us is in a position to report each other to the Danes, are we? We all have our reasons for being here, which we would not want to make known to them.’ He raised his eyebrows, challenging Vítor, but his face gave nothing away.

  ‘The truth is I came here looking for the white falcon. I hoped to capture one of these birds and smuggle it back to Portugal.’

  I must have let out a cry for Marcos turned to me.

  ‘Yes, I know how dangerous it is. I realized that even before Hinrik here told us the night we spent with the farmer, but you see, I’m desperate enough to take that risk. I’m heavily in debt.’

  Fausto shot a startled glance at me, but Marcos appeared not to notice.

  ‘A friend of mine, a friend I trusted with my life, came to me to borrow a great sum of money. He needed it, he said, to buy a farm. He was in love, but the girl’s family wouldn’t consent to the wedding unless he could provide her with land and a respectable living. They were threatening to marry her off to a wealthy old man who had asked for her hand. He showed me the farm. It was good land, well stocked with mature vines and olives, as well as pasture. The girl was as terrified of being married off to the old man as my friend was of losing her. He assured me that once he had the girl’s dowry he would repay a third of what he borrowed from me, then another third each year until the debt was repaid.

  ‘I had nothing like the sum, but I was able to borrow it on my good name, for people knew me as a respectable notary and I was trusted by wealthy men. But it seems my friend was less than honest with me. He was in the habit of gambling and had even stolen from his employers. He laid the money I had given him on the fighting cocks, in the hope of making a fortune and replacing the money that he’d stolen before the loss was noticed, but he lost it all.

  ‘If I can’t repay the people I borrowed from, my reputation will be ruined and so will my livelihood, for no one will come to me if they think I can’t be trusted. I don’t know how to find enough money to repay them, but if I could get my hands on just one white falcon and sell it I could pay all those I owe and more besides.’

  Fausto’s gaze darted to me again before he turned back to Marcos. ‘And just how are you intending to capture these birds? You don’t appear to have brought any nets or traps.’

  ‘It would have looked a little suspicious if I had, wouldn’t it? You saw how thoroughly that little clerk searched our bundles. If he’d found nets and traps, I don’t think even he would have believed they were for capturing flocks of wild plants.’

  Fausto’s mouth twitched in a smile he couldn’t suppress. But Hinrik wasn’t laughing. He edged forward, his face pale under the sea-tan.

  ‘No, Senhor Marcos, you must not try to catch the birds. The Danes have spies everywhere. They will catch us and hang us.’

  Marcos grasped his shoulder and squeezed it gently. ‘They won’t catch me, lad. And if they do, I will tell them you knew nothing of it.’

  Hinrik shook his head at what he appeared to think was the sheer stupidity of the foreigner. ‘They hang everyone, even little boys if they are caught with their fathers. The girls and women, they tie their hands and feet then they throw them from a high cliff into the lake to drown. My mother … I watched her …’

  He scrubbed angrily at his eyes, then turned and pointed down the ravine in the direction of the witch’s cairn, though it was too dark now to see it. ‘If you try to take a falcon she will make sure you are caught. Nothing will go right now.’

  I rose and bustled across to the gently bubbling pot, hoping that food might dispel the boy’s fear. But what was in that pot was not likely to cheer anyone. I found a handful of withered thyme among the valerian Marcos had plucked, though I suspected he didn’t recognize that either. Its leaves were hairy, unlike the thyme at home, but they still had that faint familiar smell of summer, like
a wisp of perfume that you catch just for a moment when you crush an old dried rose petal. But it was only a shadow of the plant I knew which thrived under the hot sun of Portugal, and did little to add flavour to the dried cod.

  There was not the brittle spark of a star or a sliver of moon tonight to illuminate the distant mountains. A thick blanket of darkness lay across the land. The tiny pool of blood-red light from the fire was like an island in the black ocean that we heard and sensed moving around us, as the wind stirred its waves of grass and the creatures in its depths shrieked and called unseen.

  Was it really possible that three of us were here on the same quest? I hadn’t believed Fausto’s story and I wasn’t at all sure I believed Marcos. Had they both mentioned the white falcon because they knew that was why I had come here? If they were lying, then why were they really here, and more disturbingly, why were they so intent on keeping me with them? But if they were both telling the truth, if they were both searching for the white falcons, what would happen if I did catch one? Surely they would try to take it from me. To try to find a pair for myself was hard enough, but if all three of us were going after the same rare quarry …

  I glanced over at Hinrik sitting hunched miserably as close to the fire as he could. If the poor boy had been forced to watch his own mother thrown from a cliff, he certainly wasn’t going to help me find those birds, and I couldn’t blame him. I shivered, feeling again my lungs screaming in pain as they fought for air when I was drowning in that bog. If Marcos had not been there to pull me out … No, I mustn’t even think about getting caught. I must not get caught.

  We huddled round the fire spearing the meagre pieces of dried fish from the pot with the points of our knives and chewing the boiled pieces. I have never attempted to eat sheep’s wool, but I imagine the texture would not be unlike that fish, and would taste much the same too. We chewed and chewed until the mouthful was softened enough to swallow. Only hunger made us persist.

  If we couldn’t even find food now, how would I survive the winter? If I didn’t return to a port and find a passage on a ship I would be trapped here as an outlaw, unable to seek shelter in any man’s home. But of one thing I was certain: whatever it took, whatever it cost me, I would not leave without the falcons. I couldn’t come all this way to give up now, knowing it would mean my father’s certain death.