Curse of the Purple Pearl

by Adrian Speed

  “My apologies for that delay.” Sir Reginald spoke in French as they approached, and doffed his hat to them. Not the French of the twenty-first century that I was used to, but Middle French, half-way between French and Latin with some German thrown in for good measure. I followed it easily enough between the two languages I knew.

  Gerome inclined his head in return. “We are at your lordship's pleasure. And begging your pardon, we took the advantage when you and her ladyship were flushing out the game.” Gerome pointed to some pheasants tied up against his saddle.

  Sir Reginald nodded. “Eminently sensible. Shall we begin?”

  “At your lordship's pleasure.”

  “But your lordship will get the best sport if we head up that hill, half a mile yonder,” Jean nodded to a hill a few fields away. It rose up steeply and flattened out into a plateau dotted with oak trees. “And the best view as well, in these parts.”

  The horses scaled the hill with the spaniels snuffling around in the undergrowth being restrained with a shout from chasing every squirrel and sparrow they saw. A flock of sheep had taken up station on top of the hill but they kept a wary distance from the riders, falling over each other to stay as far away from them as possible yet not leaving the hilltop at the same time.

  “I believe you've hawked with us before, my lord?” Jean asked when they reached the top of the hill. He held up a leather glove.

  “I have indeed.” Sir Reginald took the hardened brown leather glove, too tough even for an eagle's claws to cut through, and slipped it onto his hand.

  “Did you fly the goshawk last time?”

  “I did.”

  “I thought so, milord, then hopefully Margaret will remember you,” Jean took the hood off the goshawk and held it steady. Bright, brilliant eyes fixed Sir Reginald with a hard glare. She did not try to murder him. “She seems to remember you.”

  “Here, Margaret,” Sir Reginald offered his wrist and the bird flew to it without a second thought.

  “Well that's excellent sir.” Jean didn't smile, but looked as close to smiling as his stony face was capable. “Let's tether her to your saddle and we'll go over what's changed since you last flew her.”

  I rested back in my saddle and watched Sir Reginald get reacquainted with his bird, a magnificent creature as tall as Sir Reginald's arm from fingertip to elbow, with its chest a chequer-board of black and white squares, its back and head covered in slate grey feathers, and two huge wide eyes.

  “Milady?” Gerome broke me out of my thoughts. I turned in the saddle to see the other falconer approach.

  “You haven't flown a bird before have you?”

  “No, total beginner,” I said, slipping into modern French. “It's my first time,” I rallied.

  “Well what I have here, milady,” he said, indicating the bird on his wrist, “is a red-tailed hawk.” It was smaller than the goshawk, and a more dirty brown colour. “Tradition says a kestrel is the bird to start with, but they're far too delicate for real sport, and the red-tail is an even-tempered bird. Do you think you'd be all right with a hawk?”

  “Er, yes, I’ll give it a go,” I said, stuttering as I tried to contain my nerves.

  “Now the key thing here,” Gerome spoke as if he was talking to a child, “is to go slow with her. Birds of prey aren't like dogs, milady. They get scared easily, and when they get scared they fight you. What you need to do is convince them you're not a threat. You're just two hunters going the same way and working together. Understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “So, milady, I'm going to take Mary's hood off, and keep a good hold of her tether,” Gerome said in the slow voice of an instructor. “She's going to get a good look at you, and decide what she thinks of you. Don't look her directly in the eye, that'll frighten her. If Mary likes the look of you, we'll try you holding her and see where we go from there.”

  “How do we know if Mary likes the look of me?” I put my head on one side and looked at the hooded hawk.

  “Oh that's easy milady. We'll know she likes you if she's not trying to claw your eyes out.”

  Over half an hour later I finally had the hawk on my wrist. For a bird of such massive power and strength it was surprisingly light. The heaviest part was the protective glove. I also had a small pouch of chopped rabbit, to reward the bird whenever it did what was asked. After five minutes of having the bird on my wrist I realised the hardest part of falconry was holding my arm straight. After ten minutes I was forced to hold one arm up with the other.

  “Will you be hunting for food or sport today milord,” Jean asked Sir Reginald.

  “We do already have three brace of pheasant,” I said, nodding to the half dozen birds hanging from Gerome's saddle.

  “Oh it's hardly fair to hunt if not for food,” Sir Reginald said. “Even a lark can be roasted into something interesting. Food, Jean, definitely food. Let's give back a little something to our host.”

  “As you wish my lord, then with your permission, I'll go down into the valley with the dogs and beat out some game,” Jean touched his cap.

  Gerome nodded to Jean as he descended the hill. “I'll stay up here and advise our learner.”

  Sir Reginald turned to me as I tried to avoid Mary’s razor-sharp beak. “The key thing to remember, Hannah, is that you're not controlling your falcon. It isn't a spear you’re throwing or an arrow you’re firing. It’s a companion, a friend you’re hunting with. You don't tell the bird what to do; you merely provide the opportunity to do what comes naturally and reward it when it returns after a kill.”

  “That's one way to look at it milord,” Gerome coughed slightly.

  Jean reached the bottom of the hill and alighted from his horse. He drew a stick and thrashed at the undergrowth, following the hedgerow and beating the stick against the wood. It erupted with song birds.

  “One for your hawk perhaps, milady,” said Gerome, noting the hawk's sudden turn of the head and fixation on the distant birds.

  “OK.” I reached for the tether that kept Mary trapped.

  “Just unhook her gently and then lift your wrist as if you were bouncing a baby for burping,” Gerome instructed. “Mary will know what to do.”

  With baited breath I unhooked the eyelet holding Mary down. The hawk wasn't looking at me; it was fixated on the distant birds. I took a deep breath, suppressed the voice in my head reminding me that Mary was nothing but a small angry dinosaur, and gave a lurch with my wrist.

  Mary exploded into the air in a flurry of feathers. Before I could even blink the bird was beating for height further up into the sky, leaving behind the dry, scratchy smell of feathers I had previously only associated with chickens.

  “Care for an eye-glass?” Sir Reginald fished in his pocket for a small brass telescope. I took it and extended it to about six inches. It didn't seem like much, but it almost doubled the detail I could see.

  “She's still climbing,” I said in surprise.

  “Yes, milady. Mary likes to be up high. And wouldn't you, if you could fly so far?”

  Mary was almost a speck to the eyes of Sir Reginald and Gerome, and I could only see a little better with the eye-glass. It looked almost as if the hawk was trying to disappear into the clouds.

  “Any second now, milady. Watch for it,” Gerome said gently.

  As if a string buoying Mary up snapped, the bird plummeted out of the sky without warning, wings streaming behind her, talons outstretched. In less than a second she fell to the valley and struck something in the grass.

  “What did she get?” Sir Reginald craned his neck. “I thought she'd go for one of the hedgerow birds.”

  “Probably a hare or a rabbit milord,” Gerome said. “A hawk can see much finer than we can.”

  “I think it's a rabbit,” I said, staring into the glass. “What's the difference?”

  There was a long pause. Gerome coughed to break the silence. “A hare's a lot bigger for a start, milady, and it's a different colour, and its back legs are a diffe
rent shape, and—”

  “I'd probably better take the eye-glass back,” Sir Reginald held out a hand. “Mary will be coming back in a few moments.” I passed back the telescope.

  “Does she bring the kill back with her?” I asked.

  “No milady, that would tire the bird out too quickly,” Gerome said. “A dog collects the kills. That's why we sent them down with Jean.”

  “I see.” I held out my wrist again, despite the complaints of my left bicep and lower arm. Mary was already coming back, flapping low over the fields as she climbed up the hill.

  “Reward her with a piece of meat,” said Gerome as Mary settled down onto my wrist. “Helps get her more used to you. But don't let her see where you keep the pouch,” he warned. My hand froze half-way there. “Or she'll just claw past you to get at it.”

  “Understood.” I nodded and waited until the hawk’s gaze was on the landscape again; then, when I was certain I had a free moment, I slipped a piece of diced rabbit onto the glove. Mary guzzled it gratefully.

  “Now let's see what you can do, Margaret,” Sir Reginald tossed his wrist and the goshawk broke into the air. “Bring us back a fat bustard,” he called. “Or a swan.”

  “Swan'd be a challenge for a goshawk milord,” Gerome warned.

  “Nothing wrong with being ambitious,” Sir Reginald said, opening up his spyglass. “And it looks like she already has her eyes set on something.”

  We hunted for the rest of the morning. A healthy pile of small mammals and numerous bird species was collected by Jean's horse. Rabbit, hare, partridge, quail, pheasant, and one swan were tied up by their necks against the saddle, enough meat to feed the chateau for a week at least.

  “You're getting the hang of this, milady,” Gerome said appreciatively as I sent my hawk into the sky again. “We'll have to get you a bigger hawk next time we come out. Let you tackle some of the more exciting birds. I know a few places nearby where herons roost, they put up the most amazing fight.”

  “I don't like to hunt animals I don't have a use for,” Sir Reginald said.

  “Well, their feathers make good quills milord.”

  “I'm getting quite attached to Mary, in any case,” I said as I watched the hawk wheel in the sky.

  “Aye, but more sport can be had–”

  “I have been giving some thought to Marcus Aurelius,” Sir Reginald said in Latin, simultaneously cutting off Gerome and preventing the falconer from listening in.

  “Sorry Gerome,” I gave him a sad smile and turned to Sir Reginald.

  “The more I think on it the more I think the Purple Pearl is the key to it all, you know,” Sir Reginald scanned the skies with his spyglass, watching the goshawk.

  “I know you do.”

  “I mean even when I remove my own curiosity about the pearl,” Sir Reginald snapped. “If one comes across an elderly man slumped over his desk with no signs of a struggle and no obvious signs of poison, what does one think?”

  “Heart attack, or a stroke or something like that,” I admitted.

  “Precisely, natural causes. And that is exactly what I thought when I heard about his death.”

  “And what Quintinius Cassius thought.”

  “So the pearl has to be the motive. If we find the pearl we find the murderer, if we find the murderer we have the motive.”

  “That's not usually the way investigations go,” I laughed.

  “Well Commodus is the only one with a motive and he would have inherited the ring in any case. Who would want to steal that ring?”

  “The slave Actis might,” I said. “As Commodus suggested, slaves rarely get remembered in wills, so he could have just been after a legacy.”

  “If he wanted something like that, why wouldn't he just steal a book, or some item of that nature?” Sir Reginald frowned. “An item that Commodus wouldn't notice. No slave needs a million-sesterces pearl.”

  “It is a puzzle,” I admitted.

  “It's a puzzle that is beginning to try my patience,” Sir Reginald muttered. “Never before have the puzzle pieces refused to order themselves like this. I can't possibly be missing anything and yet I cannot puzzle it out.”

  “Milord, your bird!” Gerome's voice increased in panic. Sir Reginald snapped back to reality in just enough time to prepare his wrist for his goshawk. He had been staring at empty sky for almost the entire conversation.

  “Sorry, Gerome,” Sir Reginald said in French, shaking his head as if to free himself of sleepiness. “I was a world away.”

  “It's an impressive skill you have, milord,” Gerome said, his face glowing with reverence. “You speak God's language better even than the priest.”

  “I don't doubt that,” Sir Reginald muttered, but dipped his hat to the falconer and said much more loudly. “Thank you Gerome.”

  “Excuse me, Gerome,” I leant close to the falconer and pointed. “That isn't the Count of Bar's banner, is it?”

  “Where milady?” Gerome strained to follow where I was pointing. Three miles away a distant strip of mud separated two fields, what passed for a road around here.

  “It's scarlet,” I said, squinting at a smudge in the distance. “I think.”

  “You have the eyes of a hawk milady, I see nothing,” Gerome shrugged helplessly.

  “Gerome, take Margaret,” Sir Reginald ordered. She hopped to Gerome's wrist. Sir Reginald slipped the small spyglass into his pocket and from another pocket pulled out a much larger glass, a telescope as one would need in the navy. It extended to almost a foot in length. “If it's not the Count's men we should endeavour to intercept them,” he said while focusing the telescope. “It would not be the first time the lords of France have made war with each other under the king's nose, but a firm word from Sir Reginald Derby might convince them to...” His voice trailed away.

  “Milord?” Gerome asked. Margaret fluffed her feathers in irritation.

  “Sir Reginald?” I stared at his face set hard as stone.

  Sir Reginald ripped off the falconer's glove in an instant and threw it at Gerome.

  “Thank you Gerome but I am afraid we must finish our session for today.” He spoke so quickly the words took a moment to process after he was finished. He ripped the tether off the saddle and threw it and the pouch at the falconer. “Continue hawking if you like, or return to the castle at your leisure,” Sir Reginald spurred his horse. “Hannah, I hope you haven't overtired that stallion! We have business to attend to!” These last words were a distant cry from the bottom of the hill as he galloped away.

  “What?” I struggled to follow suit, handing back my falconry supplies to poor confused Gerome and spurring my horse down the hill. I cantered past a bewildered looking Jean who was collecting the last of our carcasses and spurred my horse to follow the disappearing figure of Sir Reginald. Mary called after us angrily from high overhead.

  Martinique's muscles moved like engine pistons as he tore up the ground to catch up with Sir Reginald. The world blurred, but somehow, however impossible, Sir Reginald's horse was moving even faster.

  “Sir Reginald!” I yelled when I was finally in earshot. The motion of the horse added ululations to my cry. “What's the hurry? What's going on?”

  “That banner!”

  “The scarlet one? What's important about that?” I yelled over the snapping of his flapping coat tails as I finally drew level.

  “My dear, it’s not the colour that’s important. It's what's on it.”

  “Why? What is on it?!” I called back.

  Sir Reginald laughed, “A purple pearl!”

  Chapter IX

  The Count of Bar did his best to keep the roads on his lands in good repair but there was only so much medieval civil engineering would allow. They were little more than churned mud and packed gravel. Ironically the lesser travelled paths stayed in best repair, grass holding them together and keeping them easy to navigate. This worked to our advantage. We tore across open country, ripping up turf in our wake, while the marching figures un
der the distant banner of the Purple Pearl struggled to keep pace, navigating mud churned into banks and pot holes deep enough to lose a hippopotamus.

  “Halloo,” Sir Reginald called across the fields. “Halloo there!” One or two heads turned; the column, of about fifty, didn't stop. Most of them were dressed in the rough wool and grimy faces of servants. A dozen were knights in glittering steel armour leading their horses on foot through the mud. Four priests, in white vestments as clean and fresh as the first winter's snow, clasped their hands together and chanted in Latin. One of them glared at Sir Reginald, whose presence was putting them off.

  In the centre of it all, four men carried a strong-box of ornately decorated walnut with gold and brass fittings; clearly an object of great reverence for all those in the column. The banner flew above it and the heavy canvas creaked on its ash spar.

  “Hello there,” Sir Reginald drew up sharply in front of them. The column came to a reluctant, ragged halt. I took up station next to Sir Reginald, watching the knights warily. They already had hands on sword hilts. Patience was clearly not a virtue they cultivated.

  “Clear the road!” The knight at the head of the column pulled off his helmet. Hair dark as compost spilled out around a white almond face. “By order of Sir Steven of Ely!” He held up a long document ending in a wax seal the size of a cat's head, trailing navy blue ribbons.

  “Are you he?”

  “I am.”

  “You are armed men on the land of Edward, Count of Bar,” Sir Reginald ignored the knight's order. “While I wish no insult to you as honoured knights, I must ask, does he know you are here?”

  “Edward, Count of Bar is in the Holy Land fighting the infidel,” said the knight who called himself Sir Steven. “If he knows we are here he has remarkable eye-sight.”

  “His steward and son, Henri, is here, however.”

  “Are you he?”

  “I am his friend, and visitor in these lands. I am Sir Reginald Derby.” One of the priest's heads snapped up at the mention of the name and glared.