The Falcons of Fire and Ice - By Karen Maitland Page 0,122

bed, propped upright just as he had been last night. Even his own farts didn’t wake him. The farmer’s wife was stirring a great pot over the fire, and shot us a look of disgust that would have outdone even my Silvia’s scathing glances, and, as all the saints know, Silvia could floor a man at twenty paces with one of her withering looks.

As her husband and my two companions struggled upright, she silently handed each of us a bowl of what looked like grey glue, so thick and glutinous that I was certain it could never be coaxed from the bowl. I managed a couple of spoonfuls before the whole mess tried to crawl its way back up my throat again. I dashed out of the hall and only just made it through the door before my breakfast made its bid for freedom.

I leaned weakly against the turf wall and drew in great gulps of cold air. What the devil had been in that drink last night? I didn’t remember a thing, except for a dim memory of hating Vítor for some reason, but then that didn’t tell me much. I’d loathed the man since he first set foot on the ship.

Hinrik sauntered around the back of the house. He grinned when he saw me. ‘It was a good night, yes?’

I groaned and rubbed at my eyeballs which were as swollen and raw as if they’d been skinned. How had he managed to sleep in that fug of smoke and look so lively in the morning? The impudent puppy plainly found my misery hilarious. I would have kicked his arse just to remind him I owned him, if I could have trusted myself to do it without falling on my own backside, but the lesson would have to wait until the ground stopped tilting.

I stumbled over to a trough and dashed some water on to my face. How it hadn’t frozen, I don’t know, for it was far colder than ice. I can only guess that it was so thick with slime and dirt that nothing would make it freeze. Every animal on the farm seemed to have pissed in it, but at least the cold cleared my head a little.

Vítor emerged from the doorway. ‘Have you seen Isabela?’ he demanded as I walked back towards the house.

His face was the colour of a squashed slug and he seemed to be holding his head very stiffly as if it was thumping as much as mine, which was at least some consolation. But it couldn’t have been from the drink, for he’d taken hardly any last night, though sleeping in that fug was enough to make anyone bilious.

‘Isabela, where is she?’ he repeated impatiently.

‘Isn’t she inside?’ I said, staring around vaguely.

I couldn’t recall seeing her since I’d woken, but then it had taken all my concentration just to get my limbs to move in a vaguely co-ordinated fashion.

‘I’d hardly be asking you if she was,’ Vítor snapped. ‘Hinrik, have you seen her?’

‘She’s gone. She took some smoked puffin meat. The breakfast was not cooked then. Too early.’

Vítor leapt forward and seized Hinrik by the shoulders, shaking him till his teeth rattled. ‘She’s left? All by herself? You stupid half-wit, why didn’t you wake us? Why did you let her go?’

Hinrik was goggle-eyed with fear. I dragged Vítor off the boy and both of them stood there panting. The lad looked on the verge of taking to his heels.

‘You saw what happened yesterday,’ Vítor yelled at him. ‘She doesn’t know how to look after herself in this place.’ He took a deep breath as if he was making a great effort to regain control. ‘How long ago did she leave? Which way did she go?’

Hinrik was watching Vítor apprehensively as if he thought he would launch another attack at any moment.

‘Before the sun was up. She went …’ The lad tentatively gestured along the track which led in the direction of the mountains.

‘Did she say where she was going?’ Vítor demanded impatiently, looking as if he was about to try to shake the information out of him again. ‘Didn’t you ask?’

‘Look, we’re wasting precious time standing around here,’ I said. ‘Let’s just saddle up and go after her as quickly as we can, before she gets herself into any more danger.’ I turned to the farmer who was stumbling out of the door, his face as crumpled and creased as a whore’s petticoats. ‘Hinrik, ask him to bring us our horses,