Hawk Quest

by Robert Lyndon

  ‘Ready?’

  Syth loosened the drawstring and rolled the stocking over the falcon’s head. It sprang up flapping and Wayland swung it onto his fist. The falcon sat hissing, her feathers puffed out, then bated. Wayland assisted her back onto his glove and carried her into her tent. He placed her on a stone block and tied the leash to a heavy granite spindle. She jumped off and plunged against her jesses. When she realised that she couldn’t break free, she bounded back onto the block. For the first time Wayland had leisure to appreciate the marvel that was his to make or mar. She weighed twice as much as the largest peregrine he’d handled, and everything about her bespoke power. Face on, she was spotless, the thick down covering her chest and pannel as soft and white as drifted snow. Feathers like flags hung down each side of her pantalooned legs. Her large liquid eyes bored into his own as if to discern his intentions and it seemed to Wayland that fear was already giving way to curiosity. Like a courtier withdrawing from a royal presence, he backed out on his knees and closed the tent flaps.

  He crawled off to bed after supper and was asleep the moment he laid his head down. When at last he surfaced, his body felt bruised and boneless. His first returning thought was of the falcon. From her tent came regular flicking sounds. She was preening. A good sign. He tiptoed towards the shelter, speaking softly so that his appearance wouldn’t shock her too much, and cautiously opened the flaps. The falcon leaned back on her tail and hissed, but she didn’t bate.

  He closed the tent and went out into the warm day and stood blinking at the fjord. It was as calm as a millpond. Syth was washing clothes in the pool under the waterfall. She’d laid garments to dry over boulders. A fire made from a rare piece of driftwood smouldered close to the pool. In the centre of the ashes lay a clutch of large oval stones, and next to the fire stood a conical structure of woven willow covered with blankets. Wayland was still too dopey to take in these curiosities.

  Sunshine lit Syth’s smile. ‘I thought you’d never wake up.’

  Wayland knelt by the pool and dashed water into his face. ‘We’d better pack up if we’re to get back to the camp this evening.’

  ‘It is evening.’

  Wayland peered into the long rays of the sun. ‘So it is. Glum should have returned by now.’

  Syth dunked a pair of leggings into the pool. ‘He came this morning with Raul. I sent them away again.’ She turned to look at him. ‘You were fast asleep and I didn’t want to return to the camp just yet. Do you mind?’

  He shook his head and sat down beside her. He, too, had no desire to return to the Greenlanders’ camp. In the few weeks that they’d spent in the hunting grounds, the Greenlanders had turned their base into a butcher’s shambles. They’d killed three walruses and taken from them only hides and tusks, leaving the carcasses to rot on the beach. Countless seals and foxes had been treated in the same prodigal fashion, and a fifteen-foot whale had been left drifting on the tide after its hunters had stripped its blubber and removed a few massive steaks for their larder. The only quarry they’d harvested whole were auks netted at their breeding ledges and preserved in barrels of fermented whey. The stink of putrefying flesh and the cloying smell from the cauldrons used to render blubber permeated the entire campsite.

  Here the air was a tonic. ‘I’m starving.’

  Syth’s face lit up. ‘I caught a fish. Just you wait.’

  Awareness of his own hunger made Wayland realise that the falcon might be keen. Two pigeons remained. He killed one, opened the falcon’s quarters and sidled in. She shrank back, gaping defiance. Avoiding eye contact, he presented the pigeon. He didn’t expect her to take it. When she didn’t bate, he stole a look at her. She was still leaning back but she was sneaking glances at the pigeon. He began to count to ten. If she didn’t accept the food by then, he’d leave it. On the count of seven she stretched out her head and grasped the pigeon in her beak. He hung onto it. She pulled at it and then, without hesitation, stepped onto his fist. She looked at him with that piercing falcon gaze. He stayed stock still and after a few moments she bent her head and clamped her beak around the pigeon’s neck. He was so amazed that he glanced at her. She raised her head immediately, her eyes boring through his. As soon as he looked away, her attention returned to the food. She balanced on his fist as if it were a familiar perch and began plucking the pigeon.

  Incredible. He’d once trained a falcon that had fed on the fist the same day it was captured and flown free after only eleven days, but even that prodigy hadn’t possessed this haggard’s composure. Amazement turned to concern. Perhaps her tameness was caused by starvation — a weakling hawk unable to provide for herself in the wild. She didn’t look like an ailing falcon. Her crisp plumage, her bright and liquid eyes, her saffron yellow feet, the gracious way she ate — all a picture of health. Slowly he raised his hand. She flared up, the feathers on her nape standing out like a ruff. He felt her breast. Solid muscle, the keelbone hardly discernible. She nipped his finger as if to say, ‘You’re disturbing my meal.’

  When she’d eaten most of the pigeon, he set her down on her block and left her to finish the carcass at leisure. He walked out shaking his head and grinning. If he hadn’t trapped her in such a wild haunt, he would have sworn that she’d been manned before by a master falconer.

  He went up the shore to relieve himself. On his way back he stopped. Syth was haloed by a rainbow near the pool, heaping embers against the rocks in the fire. He joined her.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  He frowned at the tent of withies. A lot of work had gone into it.

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ Syth told him. ‘Do you want to eat first?’

  ‘You decide.’

  ‘Eat after,’ she said. She touched his face and examined his scar. ‘How does it feel?’

  He felt the wound with the back of his hand. ‘Hot and itchy.’

  ‘Part of it’s swollen. I think the stitches should come out. Lend me your knife.’

  She sat him down and snicked each suture in turn. Wayland tried not to flinch as she pulled them out.

  She probed the infected part. ‘This might hurt a bit. The flesh is so puffy that I can’t see the stitches properly.’

  She nicked his skin as she cut and pus squirted across her hand.

  Wayland grimaced. ‘Sorry.’

  Syth was concentrating on her task. ‘I had three brothers. The things I had to do for them. Stay still.’ She wielded the knife a few more times and then rocked back. ‘There. Do you want to have a look?’

  Wayland examined his forehead in the mirror and made a rueful face. He was scarred for life, but without Syth’s deft needlework the disfigurement would have been far worse.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘Come on.’

  She led him to the fire and pointed at the rock eggs. ‘You have to carry them into there,’ she said, indicating the wicker tent. ‘Be careful. They’re very hot.’

  Being a man, he had to test for himself by placing his fingers on a stone. He snatched them away and blew on them. Syth rolled her eyes.

  He wrapped his hands in a fleece and trotted the scorching stones into the shelter. Syth had constructed the frame around two flat boulders and she told him to pile the stones between them. To one side stood a pitcher of water.

  When the rocks were in place, she pushed him out and pulled a blanket across the entrance. ‘We mustn’t let them grow cold.’

  The dog looked on, cocking its head first to one side, then the other. Wayland returned its puzzled look and shrugged. ‘Search me.’

  Syth poked a hand out and dropped a tunic. Wayland darted a glance behind him. Out from the tent came a succession of garments, some of them discarded for the first time in weeks. Wayland ran a knuckle along his lips.

  Syth stuck her flushed face out and blinked. ‘Now you.’

  ‘Now me what?’

  Syth darted back inside. ‘Take your clothes off.’

  The dog seemed to grin at him. He
stripped off his outermost tunic. ‘All of them?’

  ‘The lot.’

  He dragged off his stinking clothes and stood with his hands crossed over his groin.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Are you bare?’

  Wayland looked around. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you can come in.’

  He parted the drape and shuffled inside. The heat from the stones beat up at him. Syth sat naked on the boulder across the firestones.

  ‘You sit there,’ she said.

  Wayland subsided on to the seat. He’d never seen a naked woman before — not completely naked. Unclothed, Syth’s body was fuller than he’d imagined. Lust jostled with puzzlement. Syth’s face was set in frowning concentration. He placed his hands across his lap.

  She picked up the pitcher. ‘I learned it from the women in Iceland,’ she said. ‘I hope it works.’

  She poured water over the stones. They spluttered and hissed and Wayland snorted as a cloud of steam scalded his sinuses. Hot mist filled the enclosure. Sweat broke out on his body. Grubby runnels worked their way down his skin.

  Her hand reached out of the fog holding a bone scraper. ‘It’s a way of cleaning. You clean me and I’ll clean you. Like this.’

  She ran the scraper down his arm and showed him the sludge that had collected on its edge. ‘You’re really dirty.’

  He took the scraper from her and slid it across her shoulder. ‘So are you.’

  ‘I’ll do you first.’

  Slowly and thoroughly she removed the ingrained dirt that had accumulated on him during the journey. ‘Stay still,’ she ordered as she worked below his waist. ‘You’ve got a nice body,’ she said. ‘Just right.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘So have you. You were such a skinny thing.’

  She laughed merrily. ‘Wayland, you certainly know how to make a woman swoon.’

  He looked away, tongue-tied. ‘I haven’t … I mean, you’re the first …’

  She stopped laughing. ‘I know.’ She sat back. ‘Finished.’ She handed him the scraper and poured more water over the stones. ‘Now me.’

  She drifted into a smiling dream as he cleansed her. ‘Turn round,’ he said huskily.

  His confidence grew and with it desire. He couldn’t keep it down. She felt it and reached for him. ‘Not yet. I’ve thought about this.’ She gave him an appreciative squeeze and giggled. ‘I know just the thing for that.’

  She seized his hand and dragged him out of the tent. She ran laughing towards the pool. Wayland dug his heels in at the edge. She plunged in screaming, throwing up handfuls of icy water. Wayland thrashed in after her. The freezing water burned. He embraced her and they stood pressed together looking up through the falling spray.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Syth said through chattering teeth. ‘Back to the steam bath.’

  The atmosphere inside the tent was soporific. Wayland and Syth studied each other without embarrassment. ‘This might be the last time for ages that we’ll see each other naked,’ Syth said. ‘I want to remember.’

  Wayland reached for her. ‘Syth.’

  ‘Not yet. We have to jump into the water again.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They plunged in and then they dried themselves and clothed themselves in clean garments. Only the sun’s afterglow remained. Watching Syth comb out her hair, Wayland felt bewitched.

  Her eyes widened. ‘The fish!’

  She’d caught a char weighing about three pounds. Wayland wrapped it in wild sorrel and buried it in the remains of the fire. They ate it sitting side by side, blankets over their shoulders, watching the slow pageant of icebergs. When the fish was gone, Syth produced a bowl containing perhaps twenty bilberries. ‘That’s all I could find. It’s still too early in the season. You have them.’

  ‘We’ll share them.’

  After they’d eaten, a gentle silence held them. Wayland had never felt so peaceful. He began to talk and Syth drew out of him all the poison of the past. She talked, too, telling him how her family had died one by one until only she remained to face the world. They pondered the trials that awaited them and pledged to face them together. Their conversation drifted to lighter topics, but everything they said was heartfelt and could never be unspoken.

  Midnight came. Wayland drew Syth down beside him and they lay in each other’s arms, each trying to guess the other’s thoughts. Simultaneously they turned their heads and kissed. During their tender clinch a skein of geese flew overhead with the air singing through their wings, but Wayland never heard them. In her prison the falcon raised each leg in turn and bit at her tethers.

  Syth drew away and looked at Wayland with cloudy eyes. ‘What about the dog?’

  He motioned with his head and the dog rose and shook itself and went away to the edge of the fjord. It lay down panting, briefly looked back at the camp and then raised its head to watch the returning sun.

  XXVI

  Midsummer passed and no report of Shearwater reached Iceland. Vallon kicked his heels and grew morose. Hero and Richard were glad when trade took them away from Ottarshall. Vallon was left with Garrick, who had the knack of knowing when to speak to the captain and when to keep out of his way. June gave way to July and Vallon’s depression deepened. So long as he’d kept moving he’d been able to stay one step ahead of his demons. Now they came crowding in on him. Each day he rose late and spent hours staring across the blasted landscape. He grew careless of his appearance.

  Rumours filtered in of a Norwegian ship wrecked on the Westman Isles. It wasn’t until the second week of July that a ship arrived from Greenland carrying news of Shearwater’s safe passage and her departure for the northern hunting grounds. Vallon’s spirits rose. Barring accidents or bad weather, the company should be back and ready to sail south by the beginning of August. With only two more weeks to get through, he shook himself out of his sloth. He resumed his English lessons and began a regime of exercise. It had been weeks since he’d practised his swordsmanship and his muscles had grown slack.

  Garrick stuffed a sealskin with straw and hung it from a woolsack frame. Vallon shaped a wooden sword of the right weight and balance and by the end of a week he was attacking the dummy with four hundred strokes daily. Two hundred with each hand. Vallon’s steel blade was lighter than most swords and he’d trained since childhood to be dextrous with either limb.

  Children from a nearby farm sometimes came to watch. One morning when Vallon was thumping the target, the children squealed and ran off to await the passage of four riders trotting down the road towards Reykjavik. Their cries brought Gisla out. When she saw the party she exclaimed in delight and hobbled after the youngsters.

  ‘What’s all the excitement about?’ Vallon asked Garrick.

  ‘Not sure, sir. The old woman said something that sounded like “the princess”.’

  Vallon wiped his sweaty forehead on his sleeve and laughed. ‘A princess? We mustn’t miss this.’

  He strolled over to the verge wearing only breeches and a shirt unlaced down his chest. The riders drew near. In front, stepping out smartly on a well-groomed grey, rode a statuesque woman in an embroidered white dress and a fur tippet. Her waist-length hair was the colour of garnets and framed a complexion as pale as chalk, as chilly as marble. A maid trotted behind her and in the rear rode two armed and well-turned-out chaperons.

  The children fell silent and stood in a row with their eyes lowered while the procession clopped by. Gisla, thrilled to pieces, curtseyed for all she was worth.

  Garrick dragged off his hat and bobbed. Enjoying the diversion, Vallon bent at the waist and swept one hand over the ground. The lady heading the procession turned smoky green eyes towards him and an expression bordering on revulsion crossed her face. She turned back to the front and flicked her reins. Her escorts pranced level. One of them had the same colouring as the lady and was clearly her brother. He didn’t so much as glance at Vallon. The other sneered down his nose.

  Vallon was
amused by their arrogance. He raised his wooden sword. ‘Good morning, gentlemen.’

  Neither of them returned the courtesy. They rode on and Vallon heard a derisive laugh. The kids cheered and ran about. Gisla twined her fingers and raised her eyes as if she’d been vouchsafed a vision of the Heavenly Queen.

  Garrick grinned at Vallon. ‘Fine-looking woman.’

  ‘Haughty,’ said Vallon. He watched her tittuping away down the road. ‘Ask the widow what makes them so high and mighty.’

  Garrick made his report over supper. ‘The lady’s name is Caitlin Sigurdsdottir, but everybody calls her “the princess”. On account of her beauty and pride. Caitlin’s an Irish name. Her family were among the first to settle in Iceland. They trace their ancestry to a warrior called Aud who sailed in the first convoy from Norway.

  ‘Anyway,’ Garrick continued, ‘it turned out that the Norwegians weren’t the first Iceland settlers. A shipload of Irish monks and farmers had set up a colony a few years earlier. This man Aud fell in love with one of the Irish women, Caitlin, and she with him. He murdered her husband to make her his own but she died giving birth to their daughter. He called the girl Caitlin, and since then all the first-born daughters have carried that name.’

  ‘What makes the family so grand?’

  ‘Wealth and lineage. Being among the first settlers, they took the best land. They own one of the largest estates on the island.’ Garrick pointed north-east. ‘Their farm’s about two days’ ride from here. They’ve also earned a reputation for fierceness. They were party to a blood feud that ran for generations until Helgi — that’s Caitlin’s brother — killed the last surviving foeman.’