Hero turned. Vallon lay on his back, his sword by his side.
‘Sir, considering that he has us at his mercy, you seem remarkably unconcerned.’
Vallon didn’t answer for a moment. ‘Lady Margaret’s a determined lady, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Yes, sir. How did you know she was in the party that came to our rescue?’
‘Because I wrote giving warning of our arrival.’
Stung that Vallon hadn’t told him, Hero risked a criticism. ‘You took too great a risk, sir. You should have waited in Durham until she sent for us.’
‘I wasn’t sure how much influence Drogo wielded. Suppose we’d waited and Drogo had turned up to escort us. He would have returned to the castle with sad news – an ambush on a lonely road, the foreigners slain … ’ Vallon waved a hand.
Hero toppled back on to his bed. He was so tired that at first he missed the significance of what Vallon had said. He jerked upright. ‘You knew about Drogo, too?’
‘I made enquiries about the family in London. I’m not so foolhardy as to rush into the unknown.’
Hero crossed his arms over his chest. His mouth set in a resentful line.
Vallon’s head rolled to face him. ‘I didn’t want to burden you with more fears than you already carry.’
‘Thank you for your consideration,’ Hero said in a tight voice.
Vallon smiled. ‘If it’s any consolation, you’ve acquitted yourself better than I expected. To tell the truth, I never thought you’d get as far as the Channel.’
Hero’s lip trembled at this double-sided compliment. ‘Then you’re not angry with me.’
‘Angry for what?’
‘For leading you on this vile and unprofitable enterprise.’
‘You didn’t lead me anywhere,’ Vallon said. He reached for the lamp and nipped out the flame. ‘If anyone’s to blame, it’s that one-eyed magus we buried in the Alps.’
Wayland drew back the wattle shutter and watched the foreigners walking towards the hall. Since their arrival, the snow had fallen without pause for two days. Now the sky was ablaze with stars and the strangers cast shadows as black as ink.
A bell rasped. On Wayland’s gloved left hand, tethered by leash and jesses, sat a goshawk with its eyelids stitched together. He’d trapped her four days ago in a net baited with a dove. She was a passager, still in her juvenile plumage, her buff chest streaked with umber barbs. After jessing her and seeling her eyes, Wayland had left her undisturbed until he judged from the sharpness of her breastbone that she was keen enough to be handled. Since he had picked her up yesterday evening she hadn’t left his fist. She wouldn’t sleep until she ate. Until she ate, he wouldn’t get any sleep.
When the strangers disappeared into the hall, Wayland closed the shutter and turned. The arena for this battle of wills was a mews of riven oak lit by a single lamp. Behind a canvas drape at the opposite end, two peregrines – falcon and tiercel – dozed like small idols on a beam perch. Wayland began to pace the earth floor, four steps forward, four steps back. A brindled hound lying by his pallet tracked his movements with sleepy eyes. The dog was enormous, heavier than most full-grown men. Part mastiff, part greyhound, part wolf, its bloodline went back to the Celtic warhounds prized by Britain’s Roman invaders.
As he patrolled, Wayland drew a fillet of pigeon breast across the goshawk’s feet. She ignored it. She couldn’t see and had no sense of smell. The food was merely an irritant. Wayland stroked her back and shoulders with a quill. She didn’t react to that, either. Pinching her
long middle toe provoked a feeble hiss – nothing like the outraged gasps that had greeted the lightest touch when he caught her. He knew she was ready to eat. Some hawks fed the first night, most refused for a day or two, but only once had Wayland found a hawk that would rather starve than submit. That had been a goshawk, too – a haggard so old that its eyes had darkened to the colour of pigeon’s blood. It had spent a day and a night thrashing upside down from his glove before he cut its jesses and cast it back into the wild.
Wayland was less focused on his task than he should have been. The garrison was buzzing with stories about the strangers. A mysterious Frankish veteran of far-off wars had broken Fulk’s wrist and held a sword against Roussel’s throat. And got away with it! His servant – his catamite said some – was an astrologer who spoke every known tongue and carried medicines blessed by the Pope. Wayland was desperate to get a closer look at them, but he couldn’t leave the hut until he’d manned the hawk. Deciding to force the pace, he pulled the hawk’s right leg down with thumb and forefinger, applying pressure until she snaked her head at his hand. Her beak closed on pigeon breast instead. She wrenched off a wedge, imagining she’d got her enemy, and flicked it away. But the taste lingered. She salivated and shifted into a more balanced stance. Wayland held his breath as she inflated her feathers, swelling as if building up to a violent sneeze. She roused with a furious rattle, flicked her tail, tightened her talons and bent her head.
The dog’s eyes opened. It lifted its craggy head, listening, then sprang up in one unconsidered movement. The commotion made the hawk bate so violently that the draught of her wings blew out the lamp. In the blackout Wayland couldn’t control her twisting and flapping. He opened the shutter and by the wash of starlight managed to scoop her back on to his fist and untwist her jesses. Mouth agape, chest heaving, she squatted on his glove like a spastic chicken. Wayland knew that the setback meant the loss of another night’s sleep, but he couldn’t set her down now. If he did, all the advances he’d made would be reversed, and he’d have to go through the whole tedious process from scratch. The dog, oblivious to his reproachful growl, threatened the door, its muzzle rucked back from canines the size of small tusks.
A fist banged. ‘You’re wanted in the hall. Quick!’
Wayland half-opened the door. Raul the German stood there, panting with urgency. Wayland pointed to the hawk, then at its perch.
‘Bring it with you.’
Wayland reached for the muzzle hanging from a peg. The dog was supposed to wear it whenever it left the hut.
Raul yanked his arm. ‘No time for that.’
Wayland followed him into the rigid night. His feet slithered in icy ruts. Constellations frozen in their orbits outlined the keep. The dog padded beside him, its shoulders on a level with his hips. The hawk, stupefied by the rush of sensations, crouched on his fist.
Raul glanced back excitedly. ‘They’re talking about an expedition to Norway. If they’re after falcons, they’ll need a falconer.’ He stopped. ‘This could be our chance.’
To escape, he meant. To go home. Raul was from the Saxony coast, the main breadwinner in a sprawling family who’d lost their farm in a North Sea flood. He’d gone abroad to seek his fortune and, after various misadventures on land and sea, had taken service with the Normans as a crossbowman. A bearded, barrel-chested stump of a man with a weakness for drink, women and sentimental songs, his discipline away from the battlefield was atrocious. Ten years older than Wayland, he’d attached himself to the tall English youth, although they had little in common beyond the fact that both were outsiders.
Wayland shifted him aside. When he reached the hall, the dog lay down by the entrance without being told. He went in.
‘Hey,’ Raul called. ‘If they’re looking for volunteers, put in a word for me.’
Most of the men in the high-beamed chamber were asleep. A few fuddled faces looked up from ale cups and dice games. Drogo’s voice carried through the screen separating the communal quarters from the Count’s receiving chamber.
‘Watch it,’ one of the soldiers said. ‘They’ve been arguing for hours. The old man’s pissed.’
Wayland parted the drapes. Olbec and Margaret were seated in X-frame armchairs placed on a dais. Drogo paced in front of them, his face like a scalded pig, punching the palm of one hand to drive home some point or other. The strangers had their backs to Wayland, the Frank slouched yet alert, the Sicilian braced in nervous concentration. Wayland spotted Richard sitting alone in a corner.
‘I admit it,’ Drogo said. ‘I don’t know a lot about falcons. Hawk -ing’s too namby-pamby for my taste. Where’s the risk, where’s the danger? But I know one thing. Hawks are prey to endless ailments. They die from the smallest slight. Tie a healthy falcon down in the evening and next morning you return to find a bundle of feathers. Buy a dozen gyrfalcons in Norway and you’d be lucky if a single bird survived the journey.’
Margaret jabbed Olbec. ‘Don’t listen to him. His opinion’s warped by malice.’
Drogo spread his arms in frustration. ‘For once, my lady, set aside your prejudices and consider the practicalities. What will you feed the hawks on during the journey?’
Spots of red highlighted Margaret’s cheeks. ‘Pigeons, seagulls, sheep, fish!’
Wayland had forgotten about the goshawk. Its emphatic rouse attracted everyone’s attention. Faces turned as the hawk took a tentative bite. The taste of flesh dissolved its fear. It began a ravenous assault on the pigeon, tearing off large chunks, gasping and wheezing to force them down.
Wayland had lived close to nature and judged everything by the degree of danger it posed. The Frank’s gaze, at once piercing and indifferent, showed him to be very dangerous indeed. The Sicilian was no threat at all. His bulging eyes made Wayland think of a startled hare.
‘The falconer,’ Olbec announced.
‘I expected an older man,’ Vallon said.
Olbec had perked up. ‘Well built, though, and he has a cunning way with animals. That goshawk, for example. Trapped only a few days ago and already feeding as freely as a pet dove. I swear the boy can bewitch animals.’ The Count slurped his ale. ‘If anyone can bring the gyrfalcons safe to their destination, it’s him.’
‘Does he know what a gyrfalcon is?’ Hero asked.
Drogo uttered a contemptuous laugh. ‘Even if he did, he can’t answer. He’s as mute as a stone.’
‘It’s true that he can’t speak,’ Olbec said. ‘Elves or divers stole his tongue when he lived wild in the forest. Walter caught him when he was hunting upriver. The hounds ran him to earth outside a cave. He was clad in skins and feathers, looked more like an animal than a Christian man.’
Hero’s eyes widened. ‘How long had he been living in the wilderness?’
‘God knows. Probably since birth.’
‘Suckled by wolves,’ Hero breathed. ‘Do you call him Romulus?’
‘Romulus? We call him Wayland because that was the name carved on a cross he wore around his neck. A Danish name, but the writing was in English. He had a dog with him. Ferocious brute, big as a bull-calf. Still got it. First-rate hunting hound. That beast’s dumb, too.’
Drogo turned on Hero. ‘Because he’d cut its voice strings so that it wouldn’t betray him when he was poaching our deer. If it had been me who’d caught him, he’d have lost more than his tongue.’
‘Why did Walter show charity?’ Hero asked, addressing Olbec.
‘Ah,’ Olbec said, relishing the tale. ‘Walter said it was like a scene from a fable. When he rode up, he expected to find a wolf at bay. But no, the hounds were seated in a circle around the boy. He’d charmed them.’
‘And that dog of his had torn out the throat of the lead hound. He should have been thrown to the pack.’ Drogo’s head whipped round. ‘You see? No matter how much you feed a wolf, it keeps staring back at the forest. By God, show me that face again and I’ll have you flogged.’
Wayland lowered his eyes. His heart pounded.
‘Look at me,’ Hero said. ‘Wayland, look at me.’
‘Do as you’re told,’ Olbec ordered.
Wayland slowly raised his head.
Hero frowned. ‘He can understand speech.’
Olbec belched. ‘There’d be no point wasting house space on him if he was deaf as well as dumb.’
‘Yes, but if he once had the gift of words, they would have been English or Danish. Yet he understands French, which he must have learned in your household.’
‘Where else?’
‘What I’m saying is that even though he can’t speak, he possesses the faculty for language.’
‘Who cares,’ Margaret snapped. ‘Tell him what he has to do.’
Olbec held out his cup for a refill. ‘Listen closely, young Wayland. Sir Walter, your master, is held prisoner by barbarians in a foreign land. You must repay his kindness by helping to secure his release. His
jailer demands four falcons in return for his freedom. These falcons are larger, paler and more beautiful than any that you have seen. They dwell far to the north in a country of ice and fire, and their nature has been forged accordingly. Each year, a few of these paragons find their way to Norway. This summer you will join an expedition to that land, select the finest specimens, and care for them on their journey south.’
‘You’ll be responsible for their survival.’ Margaret added. ‘If they die, my son’s life is forfeit, and you’ll suffer the consequence.’
‘Don’t frighten the boy,’ Olbec said, patting her arm. He beckoned Wayland closer. ‘Imagine falcons so noble that only kings and emperors have title to them. White ones, as big as eagles. You’ll voyage further than most knights travel in a lifetime. On your return journey, you might even make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.’ Olbec’s eyes swam. ‘By God, I wish I was going with you.’
Most of this had passed over Wayland’s head. He tried to imagine a white falcon as big as an eagle and produced a mental picture of a swan with a hooked beak and wings like the angels his mother had described.
Drogo clapped in mock applause. ‘What an excellent choice: a dumb falconer for a dumb enterprise. Now all we need is a crew to match. Oh yes, and a leader. I know,’ he said, pointing at the figure in the shadows, ‘why don’t we send Richard?’
‘I’d go. Anything to get away from here.’
‘We’ll commission an agent,’ said Margaret. ‘A merchant adventurer experienced in the northern trade.’
‘You’ll lose control the moment he sets sail. The chances are you’d never see him or our money again.’
‘Drogo’s right.’
It took Wayland a moment to work out that it was the Frank who’d spoken.
Vallon stood. ‘If breath were wind, by now you could have blown a fleet to Norway. But no ship leaves harbour without a captain. What kind of man are you looking for? He would have to be a man you trusted through and through. A man brave enough to cut through the known hazards and resourceful enough to navigate around perils as yet unseen. He would have to be a man who, if he couldn’t find a path, would make his own. You might find a man who has one of these qualities. You won’t find a man who has them all.’