The Falcons of Fire and Ice (40 page)

‘I’m sure this is valerian. The root smells like old leather when it’s freshly dug up, but more like stale sweat when it’s dried. My father uses it to cure …’ I stopped myself just in time. ‘As rat bait.’

‘Then it’s poison!’ Fausto clambered to his feet.

‘No, no,’ I said quickly. ‘It just draws the rats. They love the smell. But every apothecary has the dried root of this on his shelves. It’s a healing plant, it eases pain, but it will make you fall asleep.’

‘So that was your little plan,’ Fausto said triumphantly, as though he had unmasked a plot to murder the king. ‘What were you going to do, put it in the pot, then refuse to eat any yourself? What then, rob us?’

Without warning he sprang at Marcos again, pulling his knife from his belt as he did so. Marcos leapt to his feet, but he didn’t move quickly enough and found himself backed against a rock, with Fausto’s dagger pointing directly at his heart. Hinrik took refuge behind a boulder. Vítor scrambled to his feet, but eyeing the dagger, this time made no move to intervene.

‘I didn’t know what it was! I swear!’ Marcos protested.

‘But you said you were a physician,’ Fausto yelled. ‘So you should know, that’s the point. If you are not a physician then tell us who you are.’

He jabbed the dagger towards Marcos, and for one dreadful moment I thought he had thrust it in. I ran at him and grabbed his arm, trying to pull the dagger away.

‘How dare you of all people accuse Marcos of lying,’ I shouted. ‘You’ve no right to question him!’

Fausto pushed me away with his other hand. ‘I’ve every right to find out what kind of man we’re travelling with, for all our sakes. He’s obviously got something to hide.’

‘I think you had better do as he says, Senhor Marcos,’ Vítor said quietly. ‘I am sure you can explain yourself. And Senhor Fausto, I suggest you stop waving that dagger about before someone gets hurt. If, as you surmise, Senhor Marcos is not a physician, then you will have no one to tend you if you manage to stab yourself in a tussle, and that could lead to a very painful and lingering death out here miles from any assistance.’

Fausto hesitated, then with obvious reluctance lowered the knife, but he did not sheath it.

‘Go on then,’ he growled at Marcos. ‘What are you waiting for? Tell us.’

Marcos was breathing heavily and his hands were trembling, but he tried to laugh it off.

‘There was really no need for theatrical gestures; I have nothing to hide from my fellow countrymen. I couldn’t divulge my real reason for coming here to any on the ship, nor to that man who searched us. But none of us is in a position to report each other to the Danes, are we? We all have our reasons for being here, which we would not want to make known to them.’ He raised his eyebrows, challenging Vítor, but his face gave nothing away.

‘The truth is I came here looking for the white falcon. I hoped to capture one of these birds and smuggle it back to Portugal.’

I must have let out a cry for Marcos turned to me.

‘Yes, I know how dangerous it is. I realized that even before Hinrik here told us the night we spent with the farmer, but you see, I’m desperate enough to take that risk. I’m heavily in debt.’

Fausto shot a startled glance at me, but Marcos appeared not to notice.

‘A friend of mine, a friend I trusted with my life, came to me to borrow a great sum of money. He needed it, he said, to buy a farm. He was in love, but the girl’s family wouldn’t consent to the wedding unless he could provide her with land and a respectable living. They were threatening to marry her off to a wealthy old man who had asked for her hand. He showed me the farm. It was good land, well stocked with mature vines and olives, as well as pasture. The girl was as terrified of being married off to the old man as my friend was of losing her. He assured me that once he had the girl’s dowry he would repay a third of what he borrowed from me, then another third each year until the debt was repaid.

‘I had nothing like the sum, but I was able to borrow it on my good name, for people knew me as a respectable notary and I was trusted by wealthy men. But it seems my friend was less than honest with me. He was in the habit of gambling and had even stolen from his employers. He laid the money I had given him on the fighting cocks, in the hope of making a fortune and replacing the money that he’d stolen before the loss was noticed, but he lost it all.

‘If I can’t repay the people I borrowed from, my reputation will be ruined and so will my livelihood, for no one will come to me if they think I can’t be trusted. I don’t know how to find enough money to repay them, but if I could get my hands on just one white falcon and sell it I could pay all those I owe and more besides.’

Fausto’s gaze darted to me again before he turned back to Marcos. ‘And just how are you intending to capture these birds? You don’t appear to have brought any nets or traps.’

‘It would have looked a little suspicious if I had, wouldn’t it? You saw how thoroughly that little clerk searched our bundles. If he’d found nets and traps, I don’t think even he would have believed they were for capturing flocks of wild plants.’

Fausto’s mouth twitched in a smile he couldn’t suppress. But Hinrik wasn’t laughing. He edged forward, his face pale under the sea-tan.

‘No, Senhor Marcos, you must not try to catch the birds. The Danes have spies everywhere. They will catch us and hang us.’

Marcos grasped his shoulder and squeezed it gently. ‘They won’t catch me, lad. And if they do, I will tell them you knew nothing of it.’

Hinrik shook his head at what he appeared to think was the sheer stupidity of the foreigner. ‘They hang everyone, even little boys if they are caught with their fathers. The girls and women, they tie their hands and feet then they throw them from a high cliff into the lake to drown. My mother … I watched her …’

He scrubbed angrily at his eyes, then turned and pointed down the ravine in the direction of the witch’s cairn, though it was too dark now to see it. ‘If you try to take a falcon she will make sure you are caught. Nothing will go right now.’

I rose and bustled across to the gently bubbling pot, hoping that food might dispel the boy’s fear. But what was in that pot was not likely to cheer anyone. I found a handful of withered thyme among the valerian Marcos had plucked, though I suspected he didn’t recognize that either. Its leaves were hairy, unlike the thyme at home, but they still had that faint familiar smell of summer, like a wisp of perfume that you catch just for a moment when you crush an old dried rose petal. But it was only a shadow of the plant I knew which thrived under the hot sun of Portugal, and did little to add flavour to the dried cod.

There was not the brittle spark of a star or a sliver of moon tonight to illuminate the distant mountains. A thick blanket of darkness lay across the land. The tiny pool of blood-red light from the fire was like an island in the black ocean that we heard and sensed moving around us, as the wind stirred its waves of grass and the creatures in its depths shrieked and called unseen.

Was it really possible that three of us were here on the same quest? I hadn’t believed Fausto’s story and I wasn’t at all sure I believed Marcos. Had they both mentioned the white falcon because they knew that was why I had come here? If they were lying, then why were they really here, and more disturbingly, why were they so intent on keeping me with them? But if they were both telling the truth, if they were both searching for the white falcons, what would happen if I did catch one? Surely they would try to take it from me. To try to find a pair for myself was hard enough, but if all three of us were going after the same rare quarry …

I glanced over at Hinrik sitting hunched miserably as close to the fire as he could. If the poor boy had been forced to watch his own mother thrown from a cliff, he certainly wasn’t going to help me find those birds, and I couldn’t blame him. I shivered, feeling again my lungs screaming in pain as they fought for air when I was drowning in that bog. If Marcos had not been there to pull me out … No, I mustn’t even think about getting caught. I must not get caught.

We huddled round the fire spearing the meagre pieces of dried fish from the pot with the points of our knives and chewing the boiled pieces. I have never attempted to eat sheep’s wool, but I imagine the texture would not be unlike that fish, and would taste much the same too. We chewed and chewed until the mouthful was softened enough to swallow. Only hunger made us persist.

If we couldn’t even find food now, how would I survive the winter? If I didn’t return to a port and find a passage on a ship I would be trapped here as an outlaw, unable to seek shelter in any man’s home. But of one thing I was certain: whatever it took, whatever it cost me, I would not leave without the falcons. I couldn’t come all this way to give up now, knowing it would mean my father’s certain death.

Even now he was lying in the Inquisitor’s jail in Lisbon, deep in the earth. Were they hurting him? Torturing him? Did he have food in his belly tonight or clean water to slake his thirst? I felt suddenly guilty that I had complained about the tastelessness of the fish. My father and many like him would have been glad of just a fragment of what I’d forced down my ungrateful throat. I had the clean cold streams to drink; I had sweet fresh air to breathe, while they lay in dungeons so fetid that every breath they drew in choked them. And my mother, where was she, and what was she eating tonight?

‘Listen!’ Vítor whispered urgently. ‘There’s someone moving about out there. Scatter. Hide yourselves.’

We scrambled behind rocks, and crouched low. I was thankful for the darkness that concealed us, but also cursing it for I could see nothing and was terrified I had put myself directly in the path of whoever was moving towards us.

Someone called out softly and we held our breath, not daring to move. There was a muttered exchange in words I didn’t understand. It sounded as if there were two men close by.

‘Who are they, boy?’ Vítor whispered to Hinrik.

‘Icelanders. They say they are friends.’

‘We have no friends here,’ Vítor said.

The same young voice called out again.

‘He says they’ve come to help. He says we must hurry! We must come now.’

None of us moved or made a sound. I cautiously peered around the rock. Two men were standing beside the fire. I couldn’t see their faces.

‘Stay here,’ Vítor whispered fiercely. ‘Not you, boy, you’re coming with me.’ He grabbed Hinrik by the back of his jerkin and pulled him out from behind the rocks. They took a few paces towards the fire, Vítor’s fist clenched tightly around the hilt of his dagger.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

The younger of the two knelt down and, as if to show he was no threat, warmed his hands over the glowing dung. The firelight lit up his smooth cheek and the red-gold of his hair. He spoke rapidly and quietly. Hinrik whispered back. Vítor shook his shoulder to remind him to translate.

‘He says his name is Ari. The man is Fannar. He has a farm two valleys from here.’

‘What do they want with me?’ Vítor demanded.

‘He asks if we have a girl with us and two other men.’

Hinrik seemed to be on the verge of answering this question himself, but Vítor jerked him backwards.

‘Tell him no. Say there are just two of us.’

Ari frowned, looking round at the rocks as if he could see me hiding. The older man, Fannar, bent his head close to the lad and they muttered together.

Ari turned back to Hinrik, gesticulating as he spoke.

‘He says Danes on horseback are tracking three men and a girl who attacked their sons. When they catch them they will tie them to the horses and run them back. It is what they always do. Most die before …’ Hinrik was plainly so terrified he could not bring himself to translate what would happen to us, if we survived long enough to reach a town.

‘Tell them if I see these people, I’ll warn them.’ Vítor was still giving nothing away.

Ari sighed, plainly exasperated by the game, and spoke again to Hinrik.

‘Ari says if he can find you, the Danes can too. They are fools, but not dead fools. They can see the glow of a fire in the dark and smell smoke and fish cooking. They know only an outlaw would be camping out at this season. If we want his help, Fannar will give it.’

‘And why would this Fannar risk his own life to help strangers?’ Vítor asked.

‘Fannar hates the Danes and they say …’ Hinrik hesitated, exchanging glances with the older man, ‘He has heard the girl is of the old faith.’

‘And he is of the old faith, the Catholic faith?’ Vítor said carefully.

Marcos suddenly stepped into the circle of firelight. ‘What are you playing at, Vítor? The three of us can’t fight off armed men on horseback. These men are offering to help us.’

Vítor tried to say something, but Marcos took a step forward, pushing him aside and addressing himself to Hinrik. ‘Tell them we’re the ones the Danes are hunting, but we didn’t attack them, they were trying to rape the girl.’

I rose from my hiding place and edged forward a few paces. ‘It’s true. They were only trying to help me.’

When Hinrik translated the older man nodded and grunted, as if he had guessed as much, then spoke to Hinrik, gesturing to him with an impatient wave of his hand to tell us.

‘Fannar says those boys are evil. But what can you expect with such fathers? But it is not safe here. He says he will hide us until the Danes have moved on. But we must come now. We –’

Fannar grabbed Hinrik and clapped a broad, meaty hand across the lad’s mouth. The boy struggled until Fannar whispered something, then he stood rigidly still. Ari motioned us to be silent. We all stood still, listening.

‘Hestur!’ Ari whispered.

Just at that moment I heard it too, drifting up from the bottom of the ravine, the unmistakable ring of horses’ shoes striking stones and the creaking of leather. Before any of us could move, Ari had tipped the contents of the pot over the fire, extinguishing the flames with a hiss of fishy steam.

I felt my hand grabbed by someone in the darkness. For a moment, frightened it might be Fausto or Vítor, I resisted, but then realized it was Ari. He was pulling me between the rocks, as if he could see exactly where we were going. I was running blind, stumbling and slipping. I didn’t know if the others were following or not. All I could do was cling to Ari’s hand and trust him. The ravine was filled with the sound of hooves, shouts and yells as the riders urged their mounts up the steep track. But we did not stop to look back. We ran for our lives into the darkness.