Hawk Quest (86 page)

‘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.