Hawk Quest (88 page)

‘He wants to know how the falcon will perform,’ Hero said.

‘Tell the Emir that, due to his Excellency’s generosity and the skills of his hawkmaster, the falcon is at the peak of her powers and is equal to whatever challenge presents itself. God willing.’

Suleyman felt under the falcon’s wings, assessing muscle tone. He said something to Ibrahim and the hawkmaster bowed. One last searching look at Wayland and the Emir wheeled his stallion. Trumpets blared and the horsemen began to flow out of the arena.

Hero grinned at Wayland. ‘How far you’ve come. When we first
met, you couldn’t speak. Now you’re exchanging diplomatic niceties with a Seljuk emir.’

The army fanned out under an ice-blue sky and commenced to kill every wild animal in its path. It was some time before Wayland realised that the slaughter was methodical, an exercise for war. Spotters carrying flags had been sent out to locate quarry. One of them signalled from the skyline ahead and a trumpet blast brought the field to a stop. Another note and the wings of the army detached themselves with precision and advanced at a canter. They disappeared over the horizon, leaving the plain in front empty. The two emirs waited at the centre of the line with their retinues.

Distant bugles sounded. A puff of dust rose on the horizon and the first horsemen of the returning advance party appeared, streaming over the skyline in two lines a mile apart. A herd of gazelles raced into view between them. Behind the gazelles, rising from the earth, rode the rest of the Seljuks in crescent formation, driving the quarry between the horns. Suleyman pointed right and left with his mace and two more squadrons peeled off, galloping forward to prevent the game from breaking around the flanks. Every fifty yards one of the Seljuks dropped out, until by the time the foremost riders had linked up with the tips of the horns, they’d thrown a cordon around the quarry. They began to tighten it, waving flags, forcing the gazelles towards a funnel between the two emirs.

Thirty gazelles entered the corridor and so sure was the aim of the waiting archers that not a single animal broke through to the rear.

Walter rode over to Vallon. ‘Now you know what we faced at Manzikert.’

They moved on and Wayland’s recollection of events became disjointed. The Seljuks staged impromptu horse races and archery matches. They flushed a jackal in a dry riverbed and thirty riders lashed their horses in pursuit, Suleyman’s men on one bank, Temur’s on the other. One of Suleyman’s men drew ahead of the quarry. Twisting right round in his saddle he shot straight back over his horse’s tail and hit the jackal square in the chest. Suleyman showered silver on the marksman.

The two emirs selected saker falcons and cast them off at hares and bustards put up by the advancing army. Wayland thought it poor
sport. The falcons coursed the hares, buffeting them until their wits were so scattered that they didn’t know which way to turn. The flights at bustards were tail chases that rarely rose above fifty feet. If the quarry put in to cover, the Seljuks kicked it up and flew it again, repeating the process until the bustard was brought down or escaped.

‘It’s a rat hunt,’ Wayland told Vallon. ‘I’m not going to fly my falcon like that.’

‘Careful. First, it’s not your falcon. Second, the Emir hunts in any way he pleases.’

A trumpeter signalled the end of the morning’s entertainment. Servants erected a kiosk and the two emirs dined on skewered lamb and rice, figs, melons and pomegranates, walnuts in syrup, sherbets cooled with ice brought from the twin peaks.

Wayland picked at his own meal and then withdrew from the bustle, worried that the commotion would unsettle the falcon. A figure slipped down beside him.

‘Don’t look. I’m not supposed to be here.’

‘Syth!’

‘I would have joined you earlier if the puppy hadn’t pissed on my leggings. I had to change and then wait for a chance to sneak out.’

Their hands slid towards each other.

The breeze had strengthened from the north-west and the servants striking camp struggled with the flapping tent panels. The army resumed its advance, skirting the southern shore of Salt Lake. The sun was in steep decline and the serious business was about to begin.

Two scouts breasted a ridge and the army halted. One of the scouts stayed put, while the other galloped towards the emirs to make his report. Ibrahim listened in and told Wayland that outriders had spotted a large gathering of cranes feeding on the other side of the ridge.

They advanced. Wayland heard the cranes’ clarion calls long before he saw them, flocked in their thousands along both sides of a river flowing into Salt Lake.

It was too risky to slip at such a huge number, Ibrahim said. The falcon would be intimidated. Even if flown in a cast, the birds would lose sight of each other in the storm of wings.

‘Who takes the first flight?’

‘Temur, at his own request. The wind will soon be too strong for his sakers.’

Wayland was relieved. If the emir’s falcons failed to kill, the pressure would be off the gyrfalcon.

Half the field advanced in two files and rode a wide circle around the cranes. As the horsemen tightened the circle, some of the cranes stopped feeding and stretched their necks up. Another circuit and the flocks closest to the riders took off with clanging cries. Their alarm communicated itself to other groups. One after the other they flew off. Only about thirty cranes remained when the horsemen halted their encirclement. Ibrahim pointed at the smallest group, indicating that it was the target.

Falcon on fist, Temur cantered upwind towards the quarry. At his side rode another falconer carrying the second saker. They closed to within a furlong before the cranes rose, springing into the air as if their wings were operated by strings and levers. As the last of them cleared the ground, Temur whooped and threw off his falcon.

It flew with speed and purpose, making height to block the cranes’ escape downwind. The five birds in the group scattered, the saker staying true to the quarry she’d singled out. Sensing that they weren’t the target, the other cranes slipped downwind to safety. Only then did the emir’s falconer release the second saker.

Wayland watched fascinated as the two falcons shepherded their quarry into the wind. Temur’s bird strove to pressure the crane, while her partner flew her own course, intent on gaining height. Realising that it couldn’t get past them, the crane sought escape in the sky. It began to ring up, turning in small spirals, the sakers cutting larger circles beneath it. They rose like carousel figures, the wind drifting them south-east. Wayland urged his horse into a canter to keep up. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the difference in the size of the birds made it difficult to judge which one had the ascendancy.

The sakers were no bigger than swallows when one of them put in a jabbing stoop that made the crane sideslip. The stoop was a feint. The falcon threw up, sunlight flaring from her undersides as she rolled over for a second attack. Her partner continued to ring higher. Another sharp dive and the crane rolled and kicked out its legs. It had just recovered when the second falcon delivered a long stoop from a different direction. The tempo quickened, both falcons rising and
falling like hammers, never quite making contact. Each feint drove the crane lower. Wayland no longer knew which falcon was which. One of them put in a stoop that connected, drawing a cheer from Temur’s supporters and leaving a puff of feathers drifting in the wind.

The crane decided it was beaten and plummeted with upstretched wings. Wayland had lost sight of one of the falcons. The saker that had feathered the crane poised herself above her quarry, taking aim before hurling down. This time Wayland heard the impact and saw the crane stagger. While he was still watching the saker throw up for the next attack, her partner swept down and bound to the crane’s back. Hunter and hunted fell in a wild whirligig. The second saker tore into the crane and all three birds dropped like wreckage. The horizon tilted back into Wayland’s view. Crane and falcons were spinning to earth at a speed that threatened destruction for all three. Less than fifty feet from the ground the falcons released their quarry. The crane landed with a thump and turned to face its foes with stabbing bill and flailing wings. One of the sakers grabbed it from behind, bowling it over. It lashed out with its feet and then Wayland lost sight of it as a dozen Seljuks galloped up. One of them vaulted off his horse. It was Temur himself. Squeezing through the scrum, Wayland arrived to find the crane dead and the emir with knife in hand encouraging his sakers to feed on its exposed heart. Buglers celebrated the kill. Temur looked round with a manic grin.

Wayland turned and found Vallon. He gave a rueful smile. ‘That’s going to take some beating.’

Some of the Seljuks had ridden after the main flock of cranes and marked down a dozen birds in a small marsh close to Salt Lake. Wayland waited at the southern edge while a hundred mounted beaters combed the reed beds. The wind was blowing hard enough to raise licks of snow from the ground. Ibrahim kept repeating instructions that Wayland couldn’t understand. All he could gather was that he mustn’t make any move without the Emir’s command. Suleyman and his senior officers had stationed themselves about forty yards away. The Emir pointed his mace at Wayland, reinforcing Ibrahim’s warning.

The gyrfalcon’s keenness made her difficult to manage. Every movement on Wayland’s part she interpreted as the prelude to flight,
making her lunge and paddle at the air. He’d removed the swivel and looped the leash through the slits in her jesses. Remembering the difficulty he’d experienced when casting her off at the disabled crane, he slackened her hood so that he could whip it off at a moment’s notice.

He concentrated on the Seljuks working their way through the marsh. It was a good set-up. Salt Lake lay more than a mile upwind, its swamps the obvious sanctuary for any crane flushed ahead of him. None had showed itself yet, and the beaters had already combed half the marsh. Fear of committing the falcon to flight began to give way to anxiety that he wouldn’t get a flight at all.

Four ducks sprang quacking from the marsh and cut upwind. At the furthest point of their outrun, they seemed to tread air and then hurtled back as though pulled by cords. The falcon heard them arrow past and bated blind at them. Wayland’s horse shied. He tried to gather it, while struggling to swing the falcon back onto his fist. She’d tangled her leash around the jesses and in her struggles she dislodged the hood. It was the stuff of nightmare – a skittish horse and an unruly falcon, the possibility of game rising at any moment. One of the underfalconers grabbed the horse’s bridle. Wayland slid off and looked for the hood. The horse had trampled it. Ibrahim shoved a spare into his hand and he crammed it on.

Someone shouted and pointed south. Three hundred feet above the plateau and half a mile downwind, a solitary crane was making a leisurely passage towards Salt Lake. Wayland finished unravelling the falcon’s leash. She was panting, but the crane had a lot of air to cover and the haggard would have regained her composure by the time the quarry got upwind.

Ibrahim’s shout jarred him out of his calculations. Wayland looked to see the Emir lashing down with his mace, giving the order to release the falcon.

Wayland couldn’t believe it. ‘That’s crazy! The crane will turn tail before the falcon gets anywhere near it.’

‘Do what you’re told,’ Vallon yelled.

Wayland rode up to Ibrahim. ‘Tell the Emir to wait until the crane passes over our heads.’

Suleyman was riding towards him. Ibrahim headed him off. They shouted at each other, the hawkmaster pointing first at the crane and then at the lake, Suleyman staring at Wayland with an expression that
would have made most men fall to their knees and beg mercy. The Emir swept out a hand in fury. With one last glare at Wayland, he pulled his horse round and rode off fifty yards.

Wayland tried to put it out of mind. The crane drew on, gaining height. She must have been at more than five hundred feet when she passed overhead. Wayland drew the leash from the jesses. He watched the Emir, waiting for the order to slip. Suleyman glowered ahead as if he’d lost interest in the proceedings. The crane had worked two hundred yards into the wind. Wayland waited, throwing increasingly anxious glances at the Emir. The crane was now four hundred yards upwind and the Emir hadn’t glanced up.

‘What’s keeping him?’ he asked Ibrahim. ‘If he waits any longer, the crane will have too big a lead.’

Suleyman turned and flicked his mace.

Wayland reached for the falcon’s hood.

Ibrahim lunged for his hand. ‘No!’

‘I don’t understand.’

Faruq shouted something. ‘The Emir’s ordering you not to fly,’ Hero called. ‘He says the crane’s too high.’

Wayland exploded with frustration. ‘He knows nothing. No wonder Temur always beats him.’

Vallon galloped over. ‘Don’t make matters any worse for yourself.’

Wayland glared at Suleyman, then he looked at the crane and with no further thought he struck the falcon’s hood and cast her into the wind.

Vallon was too appalled to speak. Hero clutched his face. ‘What’s got into you?’

‘What’s got into me? I brought the falcon two thousand miles for the Emir to fly at cranes. First he orders me to take on an impossible slip then, when I’m in the ideal situation, he forbids me to slip at all.’

Suleyman might have struck him down on the spot if his attendants hadn’t drawn his attention to the gyrfalcon. She was climbing up on her tail, making height at a tremendous rate. She’d closed the gap by half before the crane noticed the threat and quickened its pace. The falcon kept going, levelling off in order to power ahead of her quarry and cut it off from cover. Wayland spurred his horse after them. The falcon made its point and eased off, waiting for the crane’s next move. Although the quarry still had several hundred feet advantage, the
falcon had gained enough height to command the airspace below, whether the crane flew upwind or down. It took the only route left open and began to ring up like a feather trapped in a thermal. The falcon followed, buffering up in steps, sometimes taking the opposite direction from its quarry. Already they were so high that Wayland had to tilt his head back to keep them in view. Up and up, the falcon scintillating in the golden light. Wayland’s neck ached from the effort of keeping them in sight. The crane was no bigger than a bee pestered by a fly. Wayland blinked to clear his vision because soon a blink would be long enough to lose them. The bee shrank to the size of a fly; the fly became a gnat. The gnat disappeared, leaving only one tiny speck in the sky. Then nothing. Wayland’s eyes were so sharp that he could spot a pigeon a mile away, yet the two birds had simply vanished into space.