Flight of the Dragon Kyn Read online

  —THE FALCONER’S ART

  The mews was dark when I arrived, save for a haze of golden lamplight that pricked the surfaces of Corwyn’s apothecary vials and illuminated his hands.

  I hesitated a moment, watching those hands, large and bluntly shaped yet deft of movement, gloved in tattered linen with the fingers cut away. Corwyn turned, nodded to me, then resumed his work: decanting a sharp-smelling purple liquid into a paste of musky herbs.

  “For bumblefoot,” he said. “Bruta suffers from it; daily we must make the salve.”

  The hearthfire dwindled low; Corwyn instructed me to stoke it. I found the bellows and pumped the smoldering coals to a rosy glow, then put on a split log from the woodpile under the eaves. The blaze crackled to life, sending out waves of gratifying warmth.

  I stole a look down the length of the mews, where the hawks drowsed on their perches. The far end, where the gyrfalcon was mewed, lay deep in shadow. But I thought I saw a dim, blurry whiteness go streaking across the dark. My heart stirred. She was mine. I could scarce believe it.

  “Draw water from the well and fetch it here,” Corwyn said, “for we have much to do.”

  I did as he bade me. Next, he had me fill a cart with fresh sawdust. I had thought to begin work with the gyrfalcon forthwith and began to feel impatient of these chores. Yet Corwyn spoke no word of the gyr. Instead, he summoned me to watch as he took up Gussie from her perch and carried her to his bench. Gussie stretched up and looked about. Her red-gold gaze met mine; she held still for a moment, then roused and began to preen.

  Corwyn ran his fingers through Gussie’s feathers—seeking out mites, he told me—and checked her eyes for running matter. He lifted each talon, explaining why he did so all the while. The bumblefoot, he said, causes a bird’s foot to swell and redden. It is best to find it when it starts and treat it then.

  Then he set Gussie on a brass scale and wrote her weight on a marked-up sheet of parchment. “For if she grows too fat, she will not fly for quarry,” he said, “but neither should she be too thin.”

  At last he slipped a small plumed hood over her head, securing it with a leather thong.

  “Why did you hood her?” I asked.

  “Often I hood them during the day, to close out distractions and keep them calm.”

  Corwyn caught me to check the sawdust beneath the hawks’ perches for signs of disease in their castings and mutes. He told me to sweep away the old sawdust and strew the floor with new as each bird was removed from its perch. At this, I felt the stirrings of rebellion inside me. When would we work with the gyr? But Corwyn, perhaps guessing my thoughts, said, “This checking is crucial work. I have always done it myself, but I think I may now entrust it to you.”

  Then Corwyn attended to each and every bird. I bit my tongue and bided until we would work with the gyr. From time to time Corwyn called me to watch him: straightening this bird’s twisted feathers with hot water, coping that one’s overgrown beak. When it came time to treat Bruta’s bumble-foot, Corwyn taught me to hold her from behind—“mugging,” he called it—and keep her still as he applied the salve. I felt the bird trembling in my arms, felt the quickened blood-beat in her breast. She tried to flap her wings, but I kept my arms clamped tightly about her and spoke to her in my mind. Gradually I felt her calm. When he had finished, Corwyn looked at me again in that measuring way of his but said nothing.

  The sun had well risen when we had done, and still Corwyn had not made so much as a move toward the back mew. Now, I thought, we must surely begin work with the gyr. But there I mistook again. He motioned me to the work-bench and set a piece of tanned goatskin before me. With a knife he scored the patterns for two jesses, with three slits in each one. “Cut these out,” he said.

  “But I thought,” I said, “we were to work with the gyrfalcon today.”

  Corwyn, holding out the knife to me, looked mildly back, only hitching one dark eyebrow the tiniest bit. “All in good time,” he said.

  I swallowed my complaint, for I did not want to find myself back at tablet weaving again. I grasped the knife impatiently and tried to guide it along the scored lines, but this work was more irksome than it appeared. The knife slipped; it cut between the scores, and the jess was ruined.

  I flung down the knife, crying, “I want to work with the gyr—not leather! You bade me come here early so we could work with her, and I have not so much as laid eyes on her. This leather work is more tedious than tablet weaving!”

  Calmly, Corwyn bent to pick up the knife from the floor. “A falconer must learn to make his own equipage,” he said levelly. “That is part of the art. Your bird will need jesses if you are to work with her.” He held out the knife again.

  I sighed and took back the knife, ashamed at my outburst. I concentrated hard on moving the blade along the scored lines and holding the leather so the knife wouldn’t slip. Six jesses I ruined; after the fourth, Corwyn told me to remove my finger rings. I did so, and my circlet as well; Corwyn put them in a sack for safekeeping.

  At last I had them, two thin leather jesses that met with Corwyn’s approval. He showed me how to put them on a bird’s leg, slipping one end of the jess through the middle slit and the other end through the slit on the first end, leaving the third slit free for attaching to a leash. I marveled how his huge hands could so easily do this fine work.

  “I haven’t jessed the gyr,” he said, “because every time I come near she hurls herself against the walls. She’s lunatic. The voyage was rough, and being pent up … some birds take it worse than others. But … do you think you can call her to fist as you did yesterday?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then call, and if she comes, turn her away from me. I’ll mug her from behind and you can jess her.”

  I hesitated. “Must we do it that way? She might … hold it against me.”

  “There is no other way with a wild bird, unless …” Corwyn considered. “Can you make her hold still while you jess her?”

  “I can’t make her,” I said, “but perhaps she will be willing.”

  Corwyn appeared to weigh this in his mind. “Well, we will try your way,” he said at last.

  He handed me a glove; I put it on. As we approached the mew, he instructed me in a quiet voice: Know before you enter exactly where the bird is; keep your gloved hand before you and your eyes on the bird; shut the door behind you; if she should fly at you, protect your face with your glove.

  I held my thoughts still as I opened the mew door. The gyr sidestepped along her perch, bobbing her head. I spoke to her softly as I shut the door behind me, then held out my gloved hand, my whole being concentrated upon her.

  “Come.”

  The mind-ripple again.

  “Come.”

  She looked straight at me, leaned forward, then she was sailing across the mew. I felt the weight of her as she alit, saw the life of her pulsing in her throat. I ached to ruffle her feathers but held back. She might consider that too familiar a gesture just yet. Her blue-black eyes gazed at me calmly; then abruptly she bent down and began cleaning her feet with her beak.

  “So,” Corwyn said softly.

  I smiled, watching the gyr.

  “I have spent days holding a wild bird with a piece of meat on my fist before the bird would trust me to look away from me and bend down to eat.”

  “I think … she can feel me,” I said.

  “So,” Corwyn said again.

  I reached for the jesses, tucked inside my sash. I pulled out the first one and tried with one hand to wrap it around her leg. My fingers felt clumsy, as if they were made of wood. The gyr cocked me a quizzical eye but did not otherwise protest. “I’m not very good at this,” I said to her. “I’m not used to doing things with only one hand, and I’m clumsy at it.” I didn’t expect her to understand, exactly. I just felt like explaining it to her.

  At last I managed to pull both ends through both slits. “This will be the last,” I promised, taking out the second jess. The gyr stretch
ed up and seemed to lean over to watch what I was doing but seemed not unduly concerned.

  Around the leg, put the end through the slit … where was it, where was it? There. Now through the second slit, and cinch it in. There. Done.

  I watched the gyr apprehensively, afraid she’d consider the jesses an affront.

  She nibbled at them for a moment, more curious, it seemed, than vexed. She stretched up, looked at me. At last she made a sound deep in her throat—a sort of chuckling, a burbling sound. She fluffed out her feathers, then settled comfortably down upon my fist.

  Chapter 9

  By night the goddess Skava dons her cloak of feathers and soars like a falcon through the sky.

  —KRAGISH MYTH

  And so I settled into the rhythm of the mews: Begin before daylight, inspect and weigh the birds, put down fresh sawdust, work with the gyr. Skava, I named her. At midday Rath and Myrra always came from their lessons, bringing meat and bread and cheese from the kitchenhouse. And afterward we must go into the field and work the birds that had not been taken up to hunt that day. Not Skava at first—she was not yet ready.

  We dared not dawdle over our meat for the days were growing short. Darkness lingered well into the mornings and crept back in before the evening meal. Soon snow lay thick upon the land, pillowing in the needlecone trees, mounding like bread loaves upon the steading roofs, making it impossible to venture beyond courtyard and barnyard without shoebaskets or skis.

  So we bolted the fare that Rath and Myrra brought, and tethered the birds to wicker cadging frames, and strapped on our shoebaskets. Then, with Corwyn carrying one frame and I the other, and Rath and Myrra lugging lures and gloves, we headed for the fields.

  A few of the less reliable birds we flew with a creance—a long, thin line attached to the falconer’s glove at one end and to the hawk’s jesses at the other. This assured that the birds would not fly away. I would hold the hawk on my glove and then Corwyn would whistle, and the bird would fly from me to the meat on Corwyn’s glove. Most of the time, that is. Sometimes a hawk flew off in another direction, or refused to fly at all. Yet on the return flight—from Corwyn to me—they nearly always came. At first, Corwyn insisted that I hold meat while calling them back, so as not to ruin their training. But after a time he laxed on this and let me summon them in my mind.

  The better-trained birds we flew to the lure, a stuffed leather bag cut in the shape of a pigeon or duck. The lure was garnished with meat, attached to a long string, and swung in circles through the air. Someone—usually Rath or I—would release a bird at some distance; it would fly and attack the lure in midswing. Swinging the lure looked simple, but I found when I tried that there was a knack to it. And you had to do it one particular way for hawks and another way altogether for falcons.

  At day’s end we four would sit round the fire in the mews, sipping a warm, sweet brew of milk and spices. Corwyn, Rath, and I repaired leashes and hoods and other leather gear. Sometimes I practiced the falconer’s knot that Corwyn had taught me to tie with one hand only. Myrra would settle down on the rushes, lean back against Corwyn’s legs, and make birds and animals out of clay. Before long, Skava had become so easy with me that she perched upon my shoulder—sometimes napping, sometimes nibbling at my hair, sometimes chiming into the conversation with a companionable burble. I sat in the flickering light, those evenings, breathing in the smoky, leather-and-sawdust-scented air, letting the sensations wash over me: tiredness, warmth, and an odd, unaccustomed feeling of content.

  From time to time Kazan would come and sit with us. Mostly he talked with Corwyn—about ships, about their home countries, about capturing and trading hawks. The king, it seemed, pressed Kazan to stay on and be his shipbuilder, but Kazan kept saying no. “This cold,” he said. “What fool would choose to live in this cold?” Corwyn shrugged and smiled ruefully, for he was compelled to stay here, as was I. Still, Corwyn seemed to like Kazan and heartily welcomed him when he came.

  Kazan never spoke to me again about calling down birds, although I was prepared in case he did. I had practiced in my mind the cold stare that I would give him and was almost disappointed that I didn’t have to use it. Indeed, Kazan hardly spoke to me. Nor did I enter into the talk when he came, but found myself drawn against my will by his stories of faraway places and adventures at sea. My glance strayed, those winter evenings, across his saffron-colored boots, to the charms on his sash, to the triangle of light above his high, flat cheekbones.

  But just before he left, Kazan always asked me about Skava. He could see her well enough upon my shoulder, yet always he asked how her training went and if she were content. And always I felt the heat of his gaze upon me. The words, when I answered him, oft went awry in my mouth. And I was glad that the hearth companions were not there to see this, for they would have misconstrued, and taken up their irksome hooting.

  My work with Skava went slowly at first. Not because of her—because of Corwyn. Before he would allow me to fly her, he insisted I spend time simply carrying her about the steading on my fist. I was to keep her with me nearly all the time, going to meals with her and even tethering her to my bedpost at night. Manning the bird, he called it. I did as he wished, except that I would not force her to wear a hood. She tolerated the jesses—even the brass bells I tethered to her legs—but she bit and struck with her feet at the hood as if she considered it an affront.

  During the first few days she would often fly off my wrist in alarm at the sight of a man or a dog or a horse. Bating, Corwyn called it. She could not fly in this wise more than a fingerlength, for I held onto her jesses, but she beat furiously at the air with her wings, and I could feel the cold trickle of her rage at me for holding her. I stopped and spoke to her softly when she did this, waiting for her to subside. At last she would stop flapping her wings and let herself fall and hang upside down by her jesses. Then I cradled her breast gently in my right hand and helped her back onto my left wrist.

  My left arm perpetually ached.

  Walking through the steading with Skava, I marked a change in the way folk regarded me. Ever since the dove-calling the common folk had treated me with deference. “Lady Kara,” they would say, and yield to me as I passed. But now they looked curiously at Skava and nodded and smiled at me. Young children trooped about me, gaping up at Skava and asking me all about her. She enthralled them, much more so than the many other trained falcons on the steading. Perhaps it was her whiteness—which was indeed rare—or perhaps her fame, since the king had given her to me. Or perhaps, I thought darkly, it was that they expected her to help me call down dragons. Even the hearth companions came to look at Skava, although they remained aloof to me. “Everybody loves you,” I said to Skava, scratching her head and throat. She ruffled her feathers complacently, accepting my praise as her due.

  The dragon hunt! If only it weren’t for that! For I was happy here—happier than ever I had been at home. My mother and my father loved me—that I knew—and my brothers also. But as for the others …

  Here, among folk who held me in esteem, I realized for the first time what a burden it had been to live despised by some and feared by most of the rest.

  Still, the prospect of this dragon hunt shadowed me everywhere and dimmed my new content. Orrik had put out a call for warriors, and now they began to arrive. Only a trickle at first: groups of three or four men. But the trickle swelled to a flood, and soon every spare span of storehouse filled up with warriors and their gear. Warriors crowded the bench-space in the hall and, as the days grew cold and dark, spilled over into a village of tents in the courtyard. By day the sky was streaked by the smokes of their fires; by night their lanterns lumined eddies of skurreling snow. The air echoed with the shouts of many men, the clopping of many horses, and the shrill, ringing clangor that sounded all day from the forge.

  You will call down dragons for the king.

  Dragons …

  Many strong men had been killed by dragons. Their breathfire, I had heard, was hotter than the
hottest forge; they were seven times taller than the tallest horse; their teeth and claws made a wolf pack seem benign. The very thought of calling dragons brought a sickening flood of fear up through my lungs to my throat.

  And yet … it was nearly as bad, when I thought of this dragon hunt, to imagine them not coming to my call. It would be a … disgrace. Folk would glare at me and whisper behind my back as they did in my home steading. The king might send me home in shame.

  It was pleasing, being well thought of. And how much more pleasing if I should prove myself a heroine. Often and often my thoughts strayed into daytime dreams of calling down dragons and purging the land of them, of winning the king’s gratitude and the adulation of the folk. Sometimes, in my imaginings, I returned to my father’s steading in a triumphal procession, and even my aunt knelt before me.

  At last the day came when Corwyn said that Skava was ready to be flown free. We had begun inside the mews, flying her from me to Corwyn, then back again when I called “Come.” Then he worked her outdoors in the afternoons with a creance line, first flying her fist to fist and then short distances to the lure. She learned quickly.

  And so this day I took up Skava from the cadge and walked alone with her to the top of a snowy knoll. We ventured farther afield these days—up into the fells to the north—to avoid the commotion at the steading. Corwyn stood at some distance with the luire; our plan was to have Skava fly once to the lure and reward her and then go home.

  But Skava had other ideas.

  “You wouldn’t fly away, would you?” I asked her as I loosed her jesses from my glove. She looked at me with a direct, impenetrable gaze, then turned and seemed to devour the landscape with her blue-black eyes. My heart was pounding; I was terrified. But Corwyn said it was always thus the first time a hawk flew free.