Wayland began planning his campaign the moment he hurried away from the Emir’s pavilion. First he had to sharpen the haggard’s hunting urge by cleansing her of the internal fat she’d accumulated during her months of inactivity. Washed meat and stones was the remedy. He calculated that two days after purging her she would be ready to fly free, giving him nine or ten days to harden her muscles. Her flight at the bustards had demonstrated her innate fitness. The cold would act as a tonic. In his mind’s eye she was already raking through the sky, climbing into the clouds, stooping with destructive splendour.
Ibrahim the hawkmaster brought him back to earth. He was waiting beside the gyrfalcon’s enclosure at the far end of the tent. He shook his head and was still shaking it when Wayland reached him.
‘You wait and see,’ Wayland told him. He rummaged in his bag of hawking furniture and brought out a dozen pebbles, each about the size of a horsebean. He showed them to the hawkmaster. ‘Rangle,’ he said. He set a pot of water on the brazier and dropped the pebbles into it. When the water was scalding, he drained the pebbles and spread them on a cloth. He mimed eating them and rubbed his stomach to show that they would stir up the grease and mucus in the falcon’s crop. In the morning she would cast them up covered with glut. A four- or five-day course of stones would make her as keen as if she’d gone without food for a week.
He prepared to unhood the falcon. Ibrahim stopped his hand. He waggled a finger and went off to his store of nostrums and potions. He muttered to himself and returned with a spatula heaped with fine white crystals.
‘What’s that?’
Ibrahim didn’t say. He told Wayland to cast the falcon. With the falcon firmly gripped, Ibrahim cut a piece of pigeon breast about the size of a grape and coated it with the crystals. He opened the falcon’s beak and shoved the meat so far back in her throat that she was forced to swallow it.
He indicated that Wayland should place her on her block and give the purgative time to work. Then he retired yawning into his sleeping quarters. Wayland stayed up, watching the falcon. Only one lamp had been left burning and it was very quiet in the mews. After a while the falcon stretched her neck up and gaped. Wayland looked towards the hawkmaster’s quarters. He tried to relax. His thoughts turned to Syth. He hadn’t seen her since they’d arrived. Hero had told him she was well looked after, but why had the Emir mentioned her name? Vallon hadn’t explained. There didn’t appear to be any Seljuk women in the camp.
The falcon staggered on her perch. Wayland jumped up. She hunched over, making gagging sounds. He hurried into the sleeping chamber and shook the hawkmaster.
‘Something’s wrong with the falcon.’
Ibrahim grumbled and rolled over, pulling his blanket over his head.
When Wayland returned to the mews, he found the falcon on the ground, snaking her head back and forth. She cocked her tail and excreted a copious and foully discoloured mute. He unhooded her and moaned in panic. She’d been poisoned. He carried her up and down the mews until his arm drooped with exhaustion, then he placed her back on the block and sat watching in a stupor of despair. Her mouth leaked a greasy drool. Sinister clicking sounds came from her innards. His head sagged into his hands. The lamp burned out and his eyes closed.
Faint bars of sunlight criss-crossed the interior. Wayland blinked and saw Ibrahim’s assistants opening the mews’ ventilation flaps. The gyrfalcon’s perch was empty.
He lurched to his feet as Ibrahim emerged from the chamber where newly caught hawks were kept isolated. ‘Where is she? Is she dead?’
Ibrahim crooked a finger and Wayland followed him into the chamber. The falcon sat bareheaded on a block and the moment he entered she bated at him, bright-eyed and ravenous. The hawkmaster held out a small square of cloth. On it lay a slimy leaf of grease and fat that the falcon had disgorged while Wayland slept.
Now she was ready for her first session of exercise, said Ibrahim.
The chamber was furnished with a stool placed about ten feet from the block. Ibrahim handed Wayland a strip of meat and made him stand on the stool. Then he unhooded the falcon. ‘Call her.’ The Seljuk and the Englishman had no more than a dozen words between them, but their common interest was a shared language.
Wayland held out his fist. The falcon winnowed furiously and rowed up in strenuous flight to claim the titbit.
‘Set her down again,’ said Ibrahim. He gave Wayland another mouthful.
‘Call her.’
After three steep flights to the fist, the falcon was panting. Three more and Wayland could see that she was wondering if the reward was worth the effort. When he held out his hand for the eighth time, she refused to come.
‘Enough,’ said Ibrahim. He counted off on his fingers to show how the sessions would proceed. Tomorrow the falcon would make ten jumps, the day after fifteen. When she could jump twenty-five times without distress she would be fit enough to fly free.
Wayland had worked out his own plan, and making the falcon flog up to his fist wasn’t part of it. It was demeaning. He’d always fed the haggard her daily ration in one go. She was a wild hawk after all, used to satisfying her hunger unstintingly. Food was the only thing that bound her to him. Break that bond and she’d come to hate him.
‘Your method will take too long. I’ll fly her free tomorrow.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. Only flying will make her properly fit. I have to get her used to being carried on a horse. She has to grow accustomed to crowds. She needs to learn the terrain.’
The hawkmaster asked him if he’d flown the falcon loose.
‘Yes, and she killed a bustard at her first flight.’
He wouldn’t back down and eventually the hawkmaster agreed that he could fly the falcon free if she proved her obedience by coming immediately to the lure while tied to a creance.
They waited until late afternoon. On leaving the mews, Wayland was taken aback to find a squad of mounted Seljuks waiting to accompany them. To chase after the falcon if she flew off, Ibrahim said.
They rode out of the encampment and headed west until they came to a bald stretch of plain. The escorts sat their horses at a distance while Wayland dismounted and removed the falcon’s leash and swivel. The hawkmaster tied a line to the slits in her jesses and carried her away about thirty yards. Wayland produced a leather lure garnished with pigeon. The hawkmaster unhooded the falcon. She bobbed her head and launched off, flexing her sails half a dozen times before gliding in to the lure. Wayland knelt beside her while she ate, picked her up as she swallowed the last mouthful, and replaced her hood. He untied the line and held her out to Ibrahim.
‘Now we’ll let her take the air.’
The hawkmaster was reluctant. He’d noticed how the falcon had tried to fly off with the lure. Putting her on the wing would be too risky. He fluttered his finger in the direction of the horizon. He pulled a doleful face, pointed towards the camp and drew a finger across his throat.
‘You’re saying the Emir will have me killed if I lose the falcon.’
There was nothing in the hawkmaster’s response to suggest otherwise.
Wayland looked across the bleak plain, the sparse and withered grass. His features set. He held out his fist. ‘Take her, before it grows too dark to fly.’
This time the hawkmaster retreated a hundred yards before unhooding her. Wayland could see that her behaviour was different. After registering his presence, she began scanning around. The sky was empty, the plain lifeless, yet her gaze settled on something only she could see and she took off and beat away.
At a shout from the hawkmaster the Seljuks spurred their horses and galloped in pursuit.
It was all but dark when Wayland caught up with them. A horse warrior cantered out of the gloom and pointed behind him at a ridge. Wayland handed him the reins of his horse and made in on foot, speaking so that his approach wouldn’t alarm the falcon. She’d taken stand on a rock no more than waist high and was staring off to the north. When she turned towards him, it was as if she’d never seen him before.
Foot by foot he moved closer. She seemed lost in a dream, only noticing the food when he placed it against her feet. She looked down, looked away again. Her shoulders bunched up and Wayland grabbed her jesses an instant before she took flight. His hands shook as he fitted her leash. He knew he’d been lucky. Without the Seljuks he wouldn’t have found her before nightfall. Roosting on the rock, she would have made easy prey for wolves or jackals. Even if she’d survived until dawn, she would have woken a lot wilder than when she’d gone to rest.
He returned chastened to face the hawkmaster’s censure. But Ibrahim only told him to reduce the falcon’s rations, pointing out that when a wild bird feels the wind under its sails again, it forgets its hunger. Don’t feed or fly the falcon tomorrow, he ordered.
‘I can’t afford to miss a day,’ Wayland said. ‘The riders unsettled her. Tomorrow I’ll take her out on my own.’
Next morning he went to find Syth. She and Caitlin were accommodated in a harem tent linked to the Emir’s pavilion. A stout woman covered from head to toe came to the entrance and studied him through the slit in her veil. He asked if he could see Syth. She went away and then another woman appeared dressed in a flowing silk gown that clung to her breasts and hips, emphasising her slim and shapely figure. A scarf covered her hair and she held one end of the scarf over the lower half of her face so that all Wayland could see were her eyes outlined with black.
He felt awkward in the presence of this exotic maiden. ‘I wanted to see Syth,’ he muttered.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what I look like so soon.’
‘Syth! I didn’t recognise you. What’s that black stuff around your eyes?’
‘It’s called kohl. Don’t you like it? Where have you been?’
‘Preparing the falcon for the contest. That’s why I’m here. I need your help.’
‘Is that the only reason you came?’
‘Of course not. I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve missed you. Why didn’t you come earlier?’
‘I’m sorry. The first two nights I hardly slept, and the days have been taken up with the falcon.’
She glanced behind her. ‘I’ll have to ask.’
During her absence the stout, veiled matron guarded the entrance and watched him with a dark stare. A commotion behind her made her turn. Syth came flying out, face and hair still covered, dressed in leggings and a quilted wrapover coat. The woman shrieked and tried to grab her, but Syth dodged. Wayland tried to take her hand. She slapped it away.
‘No touching in the camp.’
They rode out with the falcon, making for the empty stretch of plain where he’d flown the day before. Wayland kept glancing at Syth. Three days’ absence had made her a stranger. She seemed more grown up. More grown up than him.
‘Can I touch you yet?’
She laughed and uncovered her face. She’d washed the kohl off and her skin had regained its bloom. She brought her horse alongside and allowed herself to be kissed. She smelled of musk and roses.
She stroked his cheek. ‘I was worried about you. I didn’t know you were safe until Vallon told me when he visited Caitlin.’
‘How is she?’
Syth laughed. ‘She loves being pampered. You should see her in her new clothes and jewellery. She’s ravishing.’ Syth noticed Wayland’s lip curl. ‘Don’t sneer. I like Caitlin. She talks a lot of sense about men. Don’t worry. She approves of you.’
Wayland wasn’t sure he liked Caitlin discussing him with Syth. ‘And Vallon?’
Syth’s smile grew mysterious. ‘Wait and see.’
The day’s flying was a failure. Wayland had more ambitious goals than making the falcon flap to the lure. He wanted her to spend a good time on the wing. She would have to mount high and fast to stand any chance of catching a crane. Ibrahim had explained how the flight was managed. The falcon would be thrown off at a crane located upwind, either feeding on the ground or passaging between feeding grounds and roost. Either way it was likely that a ringing flight would result, hunter and quarry spiralling up into the sky. Sometimes they disappeared into the clouds and the flight ended three or more miles from where it started.
Ibrahim had also described the nature of the quarry. With a wing — span of more than seven feet, cranes were powerful in level flight and as buoyant as gulls even in a flat calm. Wayland had seen them migrating through Rus, always flying above the geese, flying so high that only their faint trumpeting betrayed their wispy formations. Even if a falcon beat one in flight, killing it wasn’t easy. They weighed as much as a farmyard goose and when brought to earth they used their long bills to lethal effect.
And then there was the opposition. The sakers weighed about a third less than the gyrfalcon and their softer plumage put them at a disadvantage in rain or strong winds. By way of compensation, their sails were almost as broad as the gyrfalcon’s, giving them the ability to gain height very quickly. More important, the rival emir’s sakers were made birds, having flown as a cast for two seasons. Between them they’d accounted for more than twenty cranes. A dozen times Suleyman had matched his falcons against those of his rival, and only twice had his birds carried the day. That’s why he’d demanded two casts of gyrfalcons. That’s why Wayland mustn’t fail.
All this was going through his mind when he turned his horse into the wind and unhooded the gyr. She pulled at his glove, looking for food.
‘You have to earn it,’ he said. He rolled his fist, forcing her to take off. She flew about a hundred yards and settled on a rock. Wayland rode upwind, dismounted and showed her the lure. She came straight away. Before she reached him he hid the lure, expecting her to fly past and circle. Instead she pitched on the ground.
He picked her up and rode to another spot and she did the same, landing beside him as soon as she lost sight of the lure.
‘Perhaps she’s too hungry,’ Syth said. ‘Or not hungry enough.’
Wayland didn’t answer. A depressing truth was beginning to emerge. Gyrfalcons used their powers of flight only when they had to. In Greenland he’d noticed that they usually launched their hunts from a standing start, the falcon waiting on a perch until quarry came within range and then flying it down in a tail chase. The flight at the bustards had been an exception. Unlike peregrines, gyrs rarely sought their prey from a great height or killed from a lofty pitch.
Next day’s efforts were just as dispiriting. Hero had come out with them and Wayland vented his frustration on the Sicilian.
‘Only a week to go and she hasn’t gone above forty feet. I’d stand a better chance with a peregrine picked up in the local bazaar.’
He lapsed into fuming silence.
Hero cleared his throat and pointed across the plateau. ‘Do you think she might fly up to one of those if you baited it with food?’
Half a mile away two shepherd boys were flying kites. At first Wayland had no idea what Hero was talking about. ‘Why would she fly to a kite? It’s not natural.’
‘Nor is a leather pad with a pair of moth-eaten wings tied to it.’
Wayland locked his hands around his knees and scowled.
‘You’re right,’ Hero said. ‘What do I know about falconry?’
He’d planted the seed, though. Wayland could hear the wind droning past the kites’ taut lines. Almost against his will he looked up and studied the diamond-shaped sails.
‘Do you really think it might work?’
‘You won’t lose anything by trying. Let’s talk to them.’
They rode over and greeted the boys. Two identical packages in thick, square-cut coats. They didn’t look like Seljuks. Their features were finer and they had shocks of black hair and hazel eyes flecked with green.
‘They’re from Afghanistan,’ Hero said after speaking to them. ‘Their father’s a Seljuk auxiliary.’
He asked if he could hold a kite. One of the lads passed the line to him in an agony of shyness. Hero’s eyes widened in surprise and when he handed over, Wayland understood why. Only a gentle breeze blew, yet the kite had so much lift that he had to tense to keep his balance. He asked the boys to bring the kites down and they ran them into the wind until they fluttered to the ground. They were about three feet across, made of cotton stretched over a willow frame. Wayland held one of them in his hands and then looked at the sky.
‘Try it,’ Hero said.
‘What, now?’
‘To see if the falcon will take food from it.’
Wayland tied the lure to the kite’s bridle and handed it to Hero. ‘Hold it up with the lure about chest height.’ He crouched and unhooded the falcon. She bated away from the strange contraption. He recovered her and she bated again. ‘Lower the lure.’
Hero brought it to within a foot of the falcon. This time she recognised it and hopped up to grab it. Wayland let her eat the garnish before hooding her. ‘One more go. Stand on that rise and hold the kite as high as you can.’
The falcon was a quick learner. She flew straight to the lure and dangled from it, dragging the kite out of Hero’s hands and trampling it underfoot. The Afghan boys looked on in bewilderment as Wayland disentangled the falcon from the wreckage.
‘We’ll need a much bigger kite,’ Hero said. ‘And it would help if we could attach the lure to some kind of release mechanism. I’ll work on it.’
He asked the boys who had made the kites. They pointed to a cluster of distant tents and told him that the kites were the handiwork of their grandfather.
‘Would he make one for us? A large one.’
The older boy gave a solemn nod.
‘Tell your buyukbaba that we’ll visit him early tomorrow. We’ll bring all the materials.’
‘The falcon’s ruined their kite,’ Wayland said. ‘Is there something we can give them?’
Hero grinned. ‘I have the very thing.’ He fished in his purse and produced one of the Afghan coins that Cosmas had left him.
He presented it to the boys and they ran off over the plain.
‘They must think we’re crazy,’ said Hero.
Wayland laughed and slapped him on the back. ‘You’re a genius. I would never have thought of that in a hundred years.’
‘And in a hundred years I could never learn to shoot an arrow straight or track game.’
Wayland smiled at him. ‘We make a good team, don’t we?’
Hero nodded. ‘I only wish Richard was here.’
‘And Raul. If he’d lived, I don’t think he’d have left us at Novgorod.’
‘Nor do I.’
They left for the nomad camp at sunrise, cantering through rivers of bleating sheep and strings of groaning camels. By the time they arrived, the peaks to the south were awash with blue and gold. The two Afghan boys came racing out of their tent at a curving run, their cries bringing the rest of the family to the entrance. The stooping patriarch wearing an immense black turban must be the kite-maker. There was no sign of the boys’ father. Their mother cradled a babe-inarms and her three daughters stood beside her spinning wool on drop-spindles.
But it was the dog tethered by a stone kennel that made Wayland and Syth exchange stares. Huge, shaggy and menacing, it reared on its back legs, straining against its collar and uttering cavernous barks. It was a nursing bitch. Behind it five woolly pups wrestled with a scrap of hide.
The visitors dismounted. The boys led the horses away. Their grandfather came forward and pointed with pride at the bust on the coin Hero had given his grandsons.
‘I think he’s saying that he fought with Mahmud, Emperor of Ghazni.’
The old man led them into the tent and seated them at the hearth. The three girls withdrew to a corner, poking each other with their elbows. Syth smiled at them and they collapsed in giggles.
Hero handed the kite-maker a bolt of cotton. Wayland had obtained it through Ibrahim without trying to explain what he needed it for. He’d also acquired a bundle of canes for the frame and a couple of hundred yards of braided silk line. The kite-maker unrolled the fabric and felt it between thumb and finger, passing remarks on its quality to the woman. Hero told him that the kite would have to be as tall as a man and asked if he could construct it today.
The old man took the materials to the door where the light was better and set to work with knife, needle and thread. The woman fed her guests flatbread and curds and then they all waited in a mellow silence. The girls had gone back to their spinning and the boys were outside practising with slingshots. Through the weft of the tent Wayland could make out the distant mountains. One of the pups wandered into the tent. Before the woman could chase it out, Syth hoisted it onto her lap and smiled over her scarf at Wayland.
It was past noon when the kite-maker had finished. He would go out with them, he said, and test fly the kite and make any necessary modifications.
They set out, the kite-master carrying his youngest grandson on his saddle, the older boy riding his own horse. They halted on the plain and the grandfather laid the kite down and ran out line from a spool in a wooden frame.
‘I’ve made a release mechanism,’ said Hero. He showed Wayland a short line with a button at one end. ‘This hangs from the bottom of the bridle.’ He produced another line about ten feet long with a spring-loaded peg at one end. ‘You tie the free end to the lure and clip the peg over the button. When she grabs the food, she’ll pull the peg off. At least, that’s the idea.’
Wayland tested the mechanism, clipping the peg over the button and then pulling to see how much force was required to spring it loose. A firm tug was enough. He nodded. ‘It’s going to work.’
He attached the lure. Grandfather gave an order and the older boy ran upwind with the kite and released it. Its maker sawed at the line like an angler playing a fish and the kite shot up into the sky. The old man laughed and began to pay out line.
‘Too high,’ said Wayland. ‘Reel it in. Lower. Lower still. That’s it. Keep it there.’
The kite rode the wind sixty feet above him. He walked downwind and unhooded the falcon. She snaked a look at the kite, half spread her wings, scissored them shut, unfurled once more. Wayland let her choose her moment. His fist rebounded as she left it and beat up towards the lure.
She slashed at it and the kite jerked. The falcon had plucked the lure off. With nothing to restrain her, she just kept going.
The two boys leaped onto their horse and galloped after her. Wayland watched the falcon dwindle to a dot.
Hero winced. ‘I should have thought of that.’
‘She won’t go far. The boys will find her.’
She’d carried the lure more than half a mile and was trying to pull it to pieces when they caught up with her. Wayland picked her up and thanked the boys.
‘Have you got a spare swivel?’ Hero asked on the ride back. ‘If you have, I can add a fitting that will prevent the falcon from carrying the lure.’
‘Do you think we should have another try? I don’t want to push her too hard.’
‘Only seven days left.’
‘You’re right.’
Hero fitted an anti-carry line, tying one end to the lure, the other to a swivel. He threaded the kite line through one of the swivel rings so that when the falcon took the lure, she would be forced to descend, the ring running freely around the main line.
The sun was squatting on the horizon when the boys released the kite again. Now that they understood the game, they threw themselves into it, urging their grandfather to fly higher and higher. The old man’s toothless grin showed that he was as enthusiastic as the children.
Hero smiled at Wayland. ‘The old man says he built this kite to climb into heaven.’
‘It’s too high. Tell him to bring it down.’
Wayland rode downwind and unhooded the falcon. This time she didn’t make straight for the target. Fifty feet up she began to circle, using the wind for lift. She was as high above the kite as it was above the ground when she set her wings in a shallow stoop. She took the lure and tried to fly off with it, only to be checked by the anti-carry line. From that point, things went wrong. The kite line was stretched at too shallow an angle for the anti-carry line to run down it. The falcon hung upside down from the lure like a furious bat, fighting the upward pull of the kite. It looked awful.
‘Cut the line!’ Wayland shouted.
Hero threw out a hand. ‘Wait.’
The falcon stopped flapping and tried to fly downwind. The anti-carry line thwarted her, forcing her round in a circle. Relieved of her weight, the line began to slide. By the time she’d descended halfway, she’d worked out that it was easier to reach the ground by gyrating around the main line.
Wayland expected to find her exhausted and furious. Instead she seemed rather pleased to have wrestled the strange prey into submission.
Wayland returned to the nomads’ tent with a sense of fulfilment. The kite-maker agreed to come out with them every day until the contest. Before they parted, Syth whispered something to Hero and he tried to press another coin on the old man. The kite-maker clutched himself and turned away.
‘The leftover cloth is sufficient payment,’ Wayland said.
‘It’s not for the kite,’ said Syth. ‘I asked if I could buy one of the pups.’
The old man wouldn’t accept payment and told her to take any pup she wanted. She chose the one that had strayed into the tent and they rode off with it sitting upright on the bow of Syth’s saddle, alternately pricking its ears at the night sounds and squirming round to lick Syth’s face.
‘I’ve thought of a name for him,’ she said.
Word of the infidels’ bizarre training methods spread among the Seljuks and next day about twenty of them rode out to watch. That day the falcon flew to about three hundred feet and descended without drama. On her next outing the kite-maker ran out the full length of the line and she climbed to five hundred feet witnessed by a crowd of spectators.
There was more encouraging news waiting back at the Emir’s encampment. Suleyman’s rival had requested a four-day postponement in order to sort out a clan dispute. Suleyman was within his rights to cancel the contest and would do so if the falcon’s training had shown her unequal to the task.
Wayland didn’t even have to think. ‘Tell him to agree to the new date.’
Each day’s kite exercise honed the falcon’s powers until she was climbing a thousand feet. Seljuks came out with picnics to marvel at her prowess. With three days to go, Wayland returned home — he’d begun to think of the encampment as ‘home’ — to be met by the hawk-master. Ibrahim took him into an annexe used for storage. In it stood a large wicker cage and inside the cage stood a crane with brailed wings. The hawkmaster told Wayland that every day since the contest had been agreed, he’d sent trappers out to snare a bird. Great efforts had been expended, for cranes were hard to catch, being vigilant and unapproachable. By day they fed out on the plateau and at night they roosted in the marshes around Salt Lake. This bird had been trapped in a mist net rigged on a field of cut millet. Tomorrow Wayland would fly the falcon at the crane in circumstances that would guarantee the falcon’s success.
Wayland observed the captive’s panicked eyes. ‘Let it go,’ he said. ‘The falcon doesn’t need easy game.’
Ibrahim showed dismay. Free the crane? Ridiculous. Yes, the falcon was a good flyer. What did that prove? Catching a lure tethered in the sky wasn’t the same as tackling an equally strong flier that could climb and shift and fight back. The falcon hadn’t hunted a crane before, hadn’t even seen one. What if she turned tail at the challenge? Most falcons did. Hardly one in ten would close with such a formidable opponent even when supported by another hawk.
Ibrahim wouldn’t yield. He’d appeal to the Emir if necessary.
Wayland gave way. ‘One condition,’ he said. ‘No spectators.’
Only the hawkmaster and his assistants rode out with Wayland next afternoon. They didn’t halt until the plain lay empty to the horizon in every quarter. The underfalconers placed the crane on the ground and prepared to remove its straitjacket. Earlier they’d sewn some of its primaries together to hamper its flight. If Wayland hadn’t intervened, they would have seeled its eyes. Blinded, it would have flown straight up towards the sun.
‘I’m not flying the falcon at a blind bird,’ Wayland told Ibrahim. ‘You told me how difficult it was to catch a crane. Let’s make this trial as close to the real thing as possible.’
He and Ibrahim waited about an arrow-flight downwind. The day was overcast with a light breeze from the north. Good flying conditions. The falcon was keen. If anything, she was too keen, jumping against her jesses in anticipation of a flight.
The assistants removed the crane’s bindings. One of them held its bill. He raised a hand to signal that they were ready to release. Wayland nodded at the hawkmaster. The assistants stepped away from the crane and it staggered into flight. Ibrahim shouted and waved to scare it upwind. It found its rhythm and began to climb. Ibrahim rested a hand on Wayland’s arm and tightened his grip.
‘Now!’
‘Not yet.’
Wayland waited until the crane had climbed about fifty feet before attempting to unhood. The falcon was so excited that she clawed at his hand and twisted her head. He couldn’t slacken the braces. By the time he’d struck her hood the crane had gained another hundred feet.
Wayland had often wondered how a falcon emerging from total darkness could react with the speed of thought. She flung herself off his fist and flew low and fast over the plain before beginning to climb. The crane saw her and rose more steeply. At her superior height the breeze blew more strongly than at ground level, increasing lift. Wayland chewed on a knuckle. He’d slipped too late. The falcon was pumping up on her tail, climbing twice as fast as the crane and taking a slightly different course. But she still hadn’t gained enough height to command her quarry. Any moment the crane would use its advantage to turn downwind over the falcon.
There! The crane turned and set off downwind, the falcon still a hundred feet below it. Ibrahim wailed as the crane stroked overhead, long legs trailing. He berated Wayland for not releasing soon enough. Wayland kept his gaze on the falcon. She was still working into the wind, gaining height, and he wondered if she’d even recognised the crane as quarry. Perhaps she was looking for the kite.
The crane had a huge lead when the falcon flipped round and launched her attack. She raced back over their heads with deep strokes of her wings, still climbing at a shallow angle and still climbing when Wayland could no longer pick her out against the sky.
Ibrahim was close to tears as they set off in search. Quarry lost, falcon lost. If only Wayland had listened to him. If only the infidel hadn’t provoked fate by thinking he could master it. On and on he went until the passage of miles of empty plain crushed him into silence.
They found the gyrfalcon feeding up on the crane a league from where Wayland had slipped her. She’d already taken a good crop and she mantled as he made in to secure her. He hooded her, handed her to Ibrahim and examined her prey to work out how she’d killed it. One wing flopped loose at the elbow where she’d struck it in full flight, sending the crane spinning to the ground. Wayland checked the crane’s neck, assuming that she’d delivered the coup de grace with her beak. But the neck was uninjured. He ruffled the feathers on the crane’s body and showed Ibrahim what he’d found. The hawkmaster exclaimed in astonishment and waved his assistants over. The falcon had broken most of the ribs on the crane’s right side, extinguishing life with one slashing blow from a hind talon.
‘Yildirim,’ said Ibrahim. He pointed at the sky and described a zigzag stroke of lightning, concluding with an explosive puff of breath. ‘Yildirim.’
‘Thunderbolt,’ said Wayland, and nodded. The bird of Thor, war god of the frozen north, wielder of the lethal hammer. ‘It’s a good name.’
On the ride back the Seljuks raised their faces to the sky and sang songs in praise of the falcon. Wayland didn’t join in. Night fell, and when he saw the fires of the encampment pricking the dark, he reined in and leaned over his horse’s neck with a sigh.
Ibrahim noticed his sombre mood. ‘Why the gloomy face?’
‘It’s nothing to do with the falcon.’
Each of them had only the haziest idea of what the other was saying. Ibrahim searched Wayland’s face. ‘You’re a strange youth. Always making things more difficult than they need be. Fate will strew your path with enough problems and heartache without you creating your own.’ He wagged a finger. ‘Don’t tempt fate by flying tomorrow. Feed the falcon a light meal without castings. Let her have victory fresh in her mind when she spreads her wings for the duel.’