Chapter 14
The hawk’s feet were astonishingly hot. Farrell had braced himself for the skeletal clench on his fist, for the great black eyes considering him as if he had answered some strange want ad—look away a little, Frederik said not to stare—and even for the improbably soft breast feathers, smelling first like nutmeg and fresh straw, and then like old, clean bones in the sun. But he had only imagined the power and sharpness of the talons; never the heat shocking through the borrowed buckskin gauntlet, pulsating so immediately against him that he might have been balancing the redtail’s snaredrum heart on his skin. He let his breath out at last, and the Lady Criseyde placed her arm behind the hawk’s ankles, nudging very gently until the bird stepped back onto her glove. Farrell said, “How beautiful.”
“Actually, you’re not seeing her at her best,” the Lady Criseyde said. “She started molting early this year, just to be contrary, and she’s so old and out of shape she probably couldn’t get off the ground on a bet. Could you, Strega?” The redtail said kack in a thoughtful way, still debating whether to hire Farrell.
Behind him, Duke Frederik answered for her, “Good madame, five bucks says she takes a rabbit ere Micaela comes anywhere near a grouse.” He was adjusting the leather traces on the hood of a huge dark bird, taller and much wider-shouldered than the redtail Strega, with a hulking, ominous dignity that made Farrell think of Julie’s motorcycles. The dark hawk was irritable under Frederik’s hands, stamping and suddenly rousing every feather with the clatter of a Venetian blind. Frederik whispered and crooned her quiet; then he announced, “Okay, I think we ought to move out. Lord Garth and the Lady Aiffe don’t seem to be coming, and the dogs are getting crazy. In the name of King Bohemond and St. Whale, let’s roll.”
There were nine of them, all in full costume, at the rendezvous point, along with two dogs and six birds—only Farrell, Julie, and Hamid ibn Shanfara had none. To the left, hidden by a windbreak of eucalyptus, the Coast Highway buzzed and muttered; directly ahead, summer-stubbly grassland, parched gray-green and gray-blue, stretched away toward an uncertain horizon. The members of the Falconer’s Guild moved in brisk solitude, each one sharing a windowless silence with the hooded creature hunched on his fist. Frederik alone remained cheerfully conversational, paying no obvious attention at all to Micaela, except to stroke her legs slowly now and then. “She’s a Canadian gyrfalcon,” he told Farrell and Julie. “They’re the biggest of the falcons and the fastest. She can’t dive like a peregrine, but on the flat, nothing comes near her.”
“Weren’t they reserved for emperors?” Julie asked.
Frederik shook his head. “Kings. Emperors and popes got to fly eagles. I had a golden eagle once, but I lost him.” For a moment his dark, asymmetrical face turned as private as the other faces. “His name was Saladin. I had no business with him. Hamid remembers.”
“You going to tell me what I remember now?” Hamid asked mildly. He was dressed entirely in flowing white, turban to sandals, except for the red-hilted dagger thrust into his white sash. He went on, “What I do remember is, you didn’t lose that eagle. You let him go.”
Frederik did not answer. The Lady Criseyde said quietly, “It’s the same thing, really. You’re always saying good-bye to hawks; every time you flip them off the fist, you have to say good-bye. It doesn’t matter how well you know them—they’re never yours to lose or to let go. They’ll come back if they feel like it. It’s always their choice.”
The two pointers trotted along with a sedateness that surprised Farrell, who had never seen a professional bird dog at work. Dry grass pricked through the lacings of his soft shoes as he walked. Looking around at his companions in their cloaks and doublets and trunk-hose, cradling their hawks on one arm and their spike-tipped block perches with the other, he felt as if he were part of a religious procession on its way to reenact some vaguely sinister passion, whose lost significance only Hamid knew now. The impression was heightened by the fact that Hamid was telling him the story of St. Whale, the League’s patron, who came up out of the sea and walked like a man.
“And St. Whale went up and down, doing great wonders in the land,” Hamid half sang in the rough, carrying murmur that he used for reciting League legends. “For he healed the sick, and he raised the dead, and he spoke to volcanos and made them be still. And he comforted the wronged and the helpless and was their protector. Hail St. Whale, walking on his tail.” The last phrase recurred constantly, like a refrain.
Julie said, “I don’t remember the bit about the volcanos.” She was barely in costume, wearing tights, a loose smocklike blouse far too big for her, and an absurd purple beret, the size of a medium pizza, that had been Farrell’s once. The Lady Criseyde was letting her carry Strega, and she held the redtail close to her face, which worried Farrell.
“Just now put it in,” Hamid said in his normal voice. “Got real tired of him planting apple trees and inventing tofu.” He fell back into the ritual cadences of the legend. “Yet behold, the mighty came together, and they said, one to the other, ‘Shall it continue so? Shall a sea beast with no understanding have the name of a miracle worker and draw away our subjects’ love unto himself? Nay, nay, not hardly, Jack.’ But the people said, Hail St. Whale, walking on his tail.”
A rabbit bolted out of a greasewood thicket under the noses of the dogs, ran frantically parallel to the company for a moment, then vanished unmolested down a hole at the base of a live oak. It was the first sign of life that Farrell had seen in those crackling fields, and he had begun to wonder what the hawks would do for prey. Duke Frederik pointed, saying, “Overrun with them. All kinds of quail, too, and partridges. The guy stocked the place with chukars and pheasants years ago, trying to get the hunters to come out. It never really took—I think we’re about the only people who hunt here anymore—but it’s a candy store, if you happen to be a hawk.” He put his ungloved free fist gently against Micaela’s beak. She bit it briefly, but then rubbed her beak on his knuckles in an odd, twisting caress.
Hamid chanted, “Now therefore the great gave their orders, that every knight in the land should ride against St. Whale, and every one rode accordingly, save for three knights who would not do so, for very shame, and these were slain. And they called on every weapon in the land, every sword and spear, dagger and axe and pike, every farmyard cudgel and sickle, that each of them should deal St. Whale a deadly blow. And this was done, except for seven swords that would not be used thus, and those of their own wills bent their blades and indeed became the only swords in human history ever transformed into ploughshares. Let us hail St. Whale, walking on his tail.” He smiled at Farrell, showing just the tips of his teeth.
Duke Frederik halted on a slight rise, spiking the block perch into the earth as if he were claiming a continent for a king. He placed Micaela on it, but did not remove her hood. The dogs were showing excitement for the first time, leaning hard into their leashes and moaning softly. Farrell turned to see the other falconers swiftly setting up their own birds on their perches; the effect was still uneasily devotional on that tawny hillside. The bells on the hawks’ legs shivered in the little hot breeze, sounding like those of a distant caravan.
At this shoulder, Hamid went on, indifferent to anything but story. “Now where St. Whale fell, his martyr’s blood soaked into the ground, and strange flowers sprang up instantly, such as had never been seen before. And they blossomed scarlet, with double petals like the flukes of a sounding whale, and they blossom still on that holy spot, every year on the day of the Whalemas Tourney. And each knight who takes part will wear one of those flowers at his crest, for this is how we remember St. Whale and honor him.” Several of the falconers joined him in the muttered refrain. “All hail St. Whale, walking on his tail.”