had a lavish dais erected for her to perch on and placed a miniature golden crown on her head, then he ordered that the falcon’s head be struck from her body, because she had killed her sovereign lord.
In the same manner a king of England cast off his falcon, but before the falcon could seize its prey, a wild eagle, king of all the birds, stooped down upon it. The falcon dived to the ground and hid itself among a flock of sheep, and when the eagle thrust its head into the flock to find the falcon, the falcon struck the eagle hard on the head and killed it. All the knights and noblemen who rode with the king cheered and praised the brave little bird. But the king of England, hearing their praises, had the falcon hanged as a salutary lesson for anyone who might dare to dream of rebellion against the Crown.
Isabela
To mount a horse like a falconer – a falconer always mounts from the right side and with the right foot, because they hold the bird on the left fist.
I couldn’t believe what Hinrik was saying – we were allowed to stay here for only two weeks. I had just fourteen short days in which to capture the gyrfalcons! Surely, the boy had made a mistake. He’d used a wrong word. He meant months not weeks. But he was adamant, and I could see by the grin on the face of the official that it must be true. The man would hardly have advised us to go home otherwise. It was all I could do not to howl aloud with frustration and misery, but I couldn’t afford to let myself sink into despair.
I swallowed hard and tried to think. When my father and I had gone to the plains in Portugal to trap migrating hawks and falcons we had caught a dozen in just a few days. I only had to capture a pair. I must surely be able to do that in two weeks. And in any case I couldn’t afford to stay here longer than that. With every day that passed the shadow of the pyre crept closer to my father. Even before the year was up, weakened by hunger, he could die of prison fever in those fetid dungeons. And what if they were torturing him, trying to force him to confess to killing the falcons, trying to make him betray others … No, no! Even two weeks was too long. I had to find those birds now – at once.
As we walked away from the quayside we clambered up on to the rough track that wound between the little turf huts. Racks of dried fish lined the upper slopes, but their rotting guts paved the path, along with mutton bones, offal and every kind of excrement, which was trodden into the dirt. The smoke from the cooking fires stank of burning dung, charred fish bones and scorched seaweed. It made my eyes sting. Vítor, Marcos and Fausto were all holding kerchiefs over their noses and looked as if they were about to vomit, but Hinrik was grinning and sniffing the air. To him it must have been the smell of home, but I remembered the stench of another fire, a fire that smelt of burning flesh and death. I shuddered.
Then I heard it. Krery-krery-krery – it was the cry of a hunting gyrfalcon. I frantically scanned the skies. Only gulls wheeled over the dark blue water. But even as I strained to find the call again above the screams of the seabirds, I knew I wouldn’t hear it. The cry of the falcon had come not from the skies, but from somewhere deep inside me like a second heartbeat, or a tiny bubble of memory that rose and burst in my head. I gazed out across the bay towards the distant mountains, their tops hidden in the swirling grey clouds. Somehow in that moment I knew that’s where I must go. If the white falcons existed anywhere on this island that is where I would find them. But it would take days to walk there – days I did not have.
Fausto clapped a hand on Hinrik’s shoulder. ‘Now, my lad, you can start earning the money we paid for you by finding us a decent inn for the night. Even in this goats’ byre there must be one that doesn’t stink like a piss-pot and serves a good supper. My belly is howling