STAGS 5, page 12
I know what you saw. I’m so sorry. I want to explain.
But I didn’t even know how I would begin to explain it. I knew what had prompted the kiss – I’d been devastated at the thought that Henry might go to prison, and I’d admitted that I cared for him. But I couldn’t see how I’d justify all that to Shafeen – surely to admit I had feelings for Henry would make things even worse. It was true that I didn’t instigate the kiss, but even the HAWK would’ve been able to see that I didn’t exactly pull away either. For the thousandth time I relived the moment – Henry’s body pressed against me, his lips on mine, his hands in my hair, my hands in his. That kiss had shattered me, blown me apart, and I had no idea how to put myself together again. And if I was absolutely honest with myself, almost as devastating as the thought that it had happened was the thought that it must never happen again. In order to push that uncomfortable thought away, I picked up the phone again and added a deliberate lie.
I want you and only you x
I pressed send, but the phone, as if it knew I was fibbing, just put that little clock icon in the bottom right of the text box, which meant it was waiting for a signal to send. It was almost as if the device itself was saying, Greer, I’m going to give you time to think about this.
There was a knock at my door, and when I opened it Henry stood outside. Of course. Who else would it be? My treacherous heart sped up, and my treacherous hands reached to arrange my wet hair.
He didn’t even have the grace to look sheepish. He looked well rested, happy and as handsome as ever in his country walking clothes. I supposed last night was as big a triumph for him as it was a disaster for me.
‘You’d better come in,’ I growled ungraciously.
He bounced into the room, all Tiggerish. ‘I thought you’d be awake.’
‘You try having a restful lie-in if you think it’s the day of your death.’
He went straight to my wardrobe and started chucking clothes on the bed. ‘I suspected you might be in a pessimistic mood,’ he said. ‘So we’re going on a little trip to take your mind off things. In view of last night’s events, I’ll let you select the underwear.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ I fingered the garments on the bed. Tough twill trousers, checked shirt, padded green waistcoat, Barbour. Good country clothes, just like his. Where are we going?’ I looked up hopefully ‘The Peel Tower?’
‘Too dangerous. We can’t go there again, not after what Cass said. What if she sees us? Or even worse, comes and joins us?’
A lump rose to my throat. ‘If something happens to me tonight, I will never get the chance to explain to Shafeen.’
He looked serious for the first time. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you tonight. I’d rather die myself than let that happen.’
That reminded me. ‘When I was dancing with Louis last night, he all but admitted to poisoning your father on Boxing Day.’
For a moment Henry looked furiously angry. But then you could almost see him mentally parking this revelation to act on later. ‘Did he indeed?’ he said lightly.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Be careful what you eat and drink while you’re here. He’s got rid of one obstacle; I wouldn’t bet against him trying to get rid of another.’
‘Well, he won’t have been anywhere near this.’ He shook two brown paper packets at me. ‘I’ve packed us breakfast myself. Straight from the kitchen.’
‘I didn’t know you could cook,’ I said, with some surprise.
‘I don’t know that I can,’ he replied. ‘I may have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I do know how to make a sandwich.’
I detected another change in him. I couldn’t imagine the old Henry making a snack for himself rather than getting a servant to do it. Was this to do with me too? I decided that after the events of last night I needed to see Henry as a project, not a person. I was an intervention, and he was my personal outreach programme. All those other, dangerous feelings had to be kept at bay. I was with Shafeen – if he’d still have me – and that was that.
‘Come on,’ said Henry. ‘Day’s wasting.’
‘Come on where?’
‘Get dressed and all will be revealed. I’ll see you downstairs, under the pistols.’
When he’d gone I looked at the clothes he’d assembled. I didn’t really feel like a jaunt, but what else was I going to do all day? Sit around and wait for sunset and the inevitable attempt on my life? I started, rapidly, to dress.
In less than five minutes I joined Henry under the crossed pistols in the entrance hall, the Judas and Jesus pair from Aadhish’s diary. ‘Where are we going?’
‘We’re going hawking. I thought it was better than you moping about all day. The Red Hunt doesn’t start until this evening so that’s quite a lot of moping,’ he said, echoing exactly what I’d been thinking. And if I wasn’t consumed with guilt about Shafeen and God-knows-what about Henry, I would have been madly interested. I loved the idea of hawking – had been fascinated by the working-class falconry of films like Kes, and the much posher falconry of films like Elizabeth. So even I perked up when we crossed the green inner courtyard of the castle and followed the curtain wall round to the falconers’ mews. We walked through an attractive walled garden, which captured the early-morning sun, into a long, low building, which had clearly been here as long as the castle itself.
‘Here we are,’ said Henry. Beyond a studded, wooden door was an interior lit by arched windows. Hawks of various sizes turned their heads sharply as we entered, fixing us with their yellow eyes and shifting on their blocks.
There was a heavy-set middle-aged guy scattering fresh-smelling sawdust under each perch. To my surprise he was wearing a faded kilt – clearly that famous garment was not just for fancy ballrooms but for the working day too.
Henry hailed him. ‘Hello, Murdo.’
The guy shoved his tweed cap to the back of his head and started chuckling. ‘Well, Mr Henry. I heard you’d come back. Must be two years since I seen you. You’re a sight for sore eyes.’
‘So are you, Murdo.’ Henry shook the man’s hand warmly. I’d never seen him be so nice to a servant before. I noticed the two men shook with their left hands, and I remembered Shafeen telling me once that this was how swordsmen shook, as they had their swords in their right hands. In this case it was not because Murdo was holding a sword, but he did have a stiff leather glove on one hand, which went all the way up to his elbow. ‘This is Greer.’ I noticed, gratefully, that Henry didn’t give my surname – or, as it was known here, my clan name. Murdo nodded cheerfully at me. ‘Mistress.’
‘Murdo is Castle MacLeod’s Master Falconer,’ Henry said, with some reverence. ‘Can we take Regina out?’ he asked, almost deferentially. I got the idea that when you were in the mews, the Master Falconer was king, and no one, not even the heir to the family, could just walk off with a bird whenever he wanted.
‘That you can, Mr Henry. She’s not fed yet, so she’ll be nice and sharp. There’s a couple o’ gauntlets on the hooks there.’ Henry took down two stiff leather gloves from the wall, and we walked along the perches, the birds shifting their feet and fluttering their wings at our presence.
‘Don’t look them in the eye,’ warned Henry as we walked. ‘They don’t like it.’
‘Divas,’ I joked. ‘Just like movie stars.’
We stopped in front of a particularly beautiful bird with petrol-blue feathers, a creamy white breast and gorgeous eyes like nuggets of amber. At the sight of Henry she began to whicker, making a bubbling, throaty little chuckle in her throat. Henry caressed her breast feathers with the back of his scarred fingers. ‘Hello, Regina,’ he said. ‘She remembers me,’ he called to Murdo.
‘Aye, they’ve good memories, Mr Henry. Better’n men.’
Henry looked genuinely touched. ‘I was there when she was made, you see. Murdo and I took her out her very first time.’
‘Made?’ I asked.
‘Taught to kill.’
‘Ha.’ I nodded sagely. ‘Just like gangsters.’
‘What?’
‘They use the same terminology in movies like Goodfellas. You’re “made” once you’ve committed a murder.’
‘Ah,’ said Henry. ‘Well, there you go. Normally young hawks are “made” by the older ones. But if a falconer trains an eyess – a hawk taken from the nest – he’s got to show her how instead. Now,’ he said, ‘we need to hood her and put her in a basket.’ He brought over something that looked like a cat basket but taller. I was slightly disappointed. ‘I thought she’d ride on our wrists, like you see in films.’
Henry smiled and gave me one of the gloves. ‘Well, let’s have a go. If she comes to you, grab hold of the jesses – those are the leather straps attached to her feet, with the bells on.’
I pulled on the stiff gauntlet and Henry guided my arm until it was level with the block. I gathered the jesses, and the hawk, after considering me for a moment, hopped onto the glove. My wrist nearly hit the pavings, she was so heavy. Regina promptly lost her footing and dangled upside down, enormous wings spread and flapping, shrieking bloody murder. ‘You’re witnessing what we call a “bate”,’ shouted Henry above the row, ‘which is a full-on hawk tantrum. Keep her steady. They don’t like changing levels.’
‘I’m trying,’ I complained, regaining my balance as the hawk righted herself on my wrist, fluttering her feathers angrily. ‘I don’t mean to fat-shame your hawk, but she weighs a ton.’
‘And that,’ he said, ‘is why the basket. It’s all very well to carry them for a bit, but with anything bigger than a merlin, your arm would soon get tired.’
‘A merlin?’
‘The littlest hawk. Hold her steady – I’ll hood her.’
He slipped a little leather hood, sewn with ornamental stiches and decorated with feathers, over Regina’s head and transferred the hawk to the basket. The hood worked some sort of magic because despite that hissy fit on my wrist she went into the basket with no fuss at all. ‘Do you trust us to take her out without you, Murdo?’ Henry called across to the Master Falconer.
‘Aye, that I do,’ he said with a twinkle. ‘Never seen such a natural with a hawk,’ he said to me. ‘Regina and Mr Henry are kindred spirits.’
Henry packed a leather satchel with various other bits and pieces I couldn’t identify, and we took the basket out through the precincts of the castle. We walked to the craggy cliffs a little way along the coast. The day was sunny, but a strong sea breeze blew, whipping my hair around my face. ‘Right,’ said Henry. ‘Let’s get Regina out.’
He talked to her quietly as he handled her, low-voiced all the time – his tone at an even pitch, his calm chatter soothing the hawk. ‘If you hold her for a sec, we’ll try to get her to stoop to the lure,’ he said, a sentence that was incomprehensible to me. I took Regina on my glove, holding tight to the jesses, while he produced from the satchel a bizarre-looking object that looked a lot like a dead bird.
‘What the hell is that?’
‘This is the lure,’ he said. ‘It’s a canvas bag half full of sand. These are a pair of chicken wings, attached to the sides, and I’ve wrapped some strips of mouse meat around it.’
‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Now what?’
‘Now,’ he said, attaching a leather leash to the bag, ‘I’m going to go a little distance away. When I start swinging the lure you take Regina’s hood off, and she’s going to fly to me when I whistle.’
He walked away across the seagrass, and when he was probably a hundred metres away he turned to face me. I could see he had a small silver whistle dangling from his lips like a cigarette. He began to swing the lure in a wide vertical circle, and I suddenly remembered this strange ballet from the movie Kes. Slightly nervously, I took off Regina’s little leather hood. The hawk looked about her, spotting her falconer at once. After a few revolutions of the lure Henry blew the whistle and Regina took off at pace, with an immense wingbeat that all but knocked me over. She flew like a bullet at the gross mock-bird Henry was swinging, but at the last moment, as her talons stretched, Henry swung the lure in a wide arc around his body and began to circle on the other side. The hawk checked, banked around and came back for another go, bells jingling, and Henry did the same again. After the third dummy strike he lowered the lure, and instinctively I held out my fist, just in time to let Regina land. She clutched my forearm, swung a little and settled, beak open and panting. We looked at each other with pride. Henry ran to us and fed her something unspeakable from the satchel. ‘A chicken neck,’ he said, laughing at my expression. ‘They don’t eat birdseed, you know.’
I laughed too, with sheer exhilaration. I was hooked. I loved hawking, and I loved having Regina on my wrist. I grinned at Henry. ‘I feel so Medieval I could burst.’
‘You look it too.’ Henry grinned back. ‘It’s the bob, I think. You look like a young Joan of Arc.’
I breathed in the fresh air happily. It was ridiculous to be so content, what with the Order of the Stag gunning for me and the whole Shafeen situation, but, so far as living in the present went, it would be hard to find a more perfect moment. The loveliness of the day, the hawk on my wrist, the natural beauty of the sea and the cliffs, and the man-made beauty of the castle in the distance; whatever dark fate awaited me that night it was a hell of a last day to live, if that was what it was.
‘Let’s try her on some live prey, now she’s got her eye in,’ said Henry. He took Regina to his wrist and flew her at a passing gull. Hopped up by her adventures with the lure, Regina gave chase at once, mounting high above her prey far beyond the cliff edge and over the open sea. Henry bit his lip as he watched with far-seeing blue eyes. Regina and the gull were mere dots in the stinging blue, the hawk’s bells growing fainter.
‘Will she get him?’ I asked anxiously.
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘He’s a black-headed gull, so quite small. Not one of those enormous white herring gulls you see. If she strikes over the water though, she might lose him. She needs to drive him back inland.’
As if Regina had heard her master she switched and drove the panicked gull back towards us. The hawk dropped like a stone, yellow feet splayed like stars, and struck hard and once. Falcon and gull hit the deck in a confusion of feathers. Henry ran to Regina and picked her up from the tough seagrass, carrying her back to me. The hawk sat proudly on his wrist, clutching her grisly trophy.
‘Ugh,’ I said, with a queasy glance at Regina’s prey. ‘Why did you chop the gull’s head off?’
‘That wasn’t me,’ said Henry. ‘That was her. Hawks hunt with their feet – she would have taken its head off when she struck.’
Jeez. The hunt really was cruel in all its forms, and I couldn’t help identifying with the poor gull. But at the same time, I had to admit there was something beautiful – and natural – about what I’d just witnessed.
‘Let’s peg her out and let her have her lunch,’ said Henry. ‘And we should have ours.’ He threaded Regina’s leash through a wooden peg, which he drove firmly into the grass, and she settled quite happily to strip what remained of her quarry.
I hadn’t realised how starving I was, because of course lunch was breakfast too. We sat in the sun and devoured our sandwiches with the same gusto with which Regina devoured her gull. While we ate Henry talked to me about falconry and taught me ‘hawk talk’ – there was so much terminology to get your head around. Wings were called ‘sails’, talons ‘petty singles’. Female hawks were falcons, male hawks tiercels. There was even a falconer’s knot, which you could tie with one hand, while your hawk sat on the other. He told me about the stages of the flight of a hawk – it would mount, circle, soar, ‘wait on’ the prey and then stoop in a sudden dive. And there was always a chance that a hawk would ‘rake away’ – just fly off and return to the wild. ‘Then they become a passager again,’ said Henry, a little sadly.
‘Passenger?’
‘Passager. A wild hawk.’
We sat in a friendly silence, windburned and happy, munching away. The sandwiches, doorsteps of soft bread stuffed with ham and cheese, were actually delicious. I looked approvingly at Henry, as the breeze ruffled his blond hair. ‘I think you might have a talent for cookery,’ I said. ‘Maybe you should consider ditching the servants and doing a bit more for yourself.’
He smiled. ‘Maybe I will.’ He got up and brushed the crumbs off his country clothes. ‘Come on. Let’s try to fly her once more before we go back.’
This time Henry flew Regina from his wrist – the other way this time, inland in the direction of the Peel Tower. We watched the hawk mount, soar and circle, just as Henry had said, and scout the ground with her sharp eyes, looking for some unfortunate mouse or vole.
But then, a dark shadow overhead. I squinted into the sun. Had some other, bigger raptor come to hover even higher than Regina and take her down?
I was half right. It was not a hawk, but the HAWK. Sleek and forbidding, in a black cruciform, the single red eye shining and the rotors spinning like blades, the HAWK hovered, waiting. Regina was spooked and shrieked at the sight of the drone. She circled, flapping clumsily, and dropped out of the sky like a stone.
22
Regina landed on Henry’s fist, shifting and muttering, unsettled by the strange predator in her skies.
The HAWK, just as it had done the night before, hovered nosily for a moment, then banked and whirred back in the direction of the Peel Tower.
I felt like the sun had gone in – the lovely day was now ruined. I couldn’t help thinking about how our little outing must look to Shafeen. That after that kiss at the ball I was off in the beautiful Highlands with Henry, doing montage-y stuff and looking for all the world as if we were together. I wished I could hold up a bunch of cue cards to the sky, Love Actually style, and say:
I’m not really with Henry
We’re not together
I’m yours
Henry soothed the hawk on his fist. ‘I don’t think she’ll go up again today,’ he said, hooding her and slipping the leather leash through the jesses. ‘The drone frightened her. Plus she’s full, and that loses them their edge. They hunt for food, not sport.’
