Peter Beagle - The Folk Of The Air

Frederik said, “Look at her. She balances between habit and what we’d call madness, and for her there’s no such thing as the future. I don’t think there’s really any present, either—there’s just the endless past going around and around her, over her and through her. When I hold her on the glove—” He indicated the leather jesses that leashed the falcon’s ankles. “—she’s more or less tied to my present, but the moment I let her go, she circles up into her real time. Her real time, where I never existed and where nothing’s extinct.”

“And where fried pork rinds haven’t been invented yet,” the Lady Criseyde added. “That bird is not going anywhere they don’t have fried pork rinds.” Julie was sitting on the ground, sketching Micaela in the act of mantling, right wing and leg extended as far as possible. Farrell stood by her, sneaking side glances as she brought up the shadow of the great wing bones, the precise brown barring of the underfeathers, and the taut splay of the black primaries. Without looking at him, she said, “They ought to be here. It makes me very nervous that they aren’t here.”

“Aiffe,” Farrell said.

Julie nodded. “And her father. He started the Falconers’ Guild, he never misses anything to do with hawks. It just bothers me.” Her two pencils, alternating rapidly, managed to suggest the curious dusty moth bloom on Micaela’s plumage.

“Probably hatching up something nasty for the war. Isn’t he supposed to be one of the captains this year?”

“In theory. Something else that makes me nervous is people watching me work.”

Farrell moved pointedly aside, further than he needed to. She had been increasingly short with him since their night encounter with Micah Willows, and he had responded with injured huffiness. He said, “If you mean Aiffe’s going to be the real captain, she can’t come to the war. Even I know that.”

Julie did not answer. Hamid flowed gracefully into the silence, saying, “Yeah, well. That’s kind of what the war’s about this year.” The Spanish wizard, still gesticulating into a seemingly empty sky, stepped in a rabbit hole and broke his binoculars. Hamid said, “The war will be fought to determine whether or not Garth de Montfaucon’s daughter can go to the war. Lord Garth issued the challenge last week, and Bohemond gave Simon Widefarer leave to accept. The kings don’t fight in the wars, but they have to approve time, place, ground rules, and cause. Bohemond settled on Cazador Island, first week in August.”

The wizard’s falcon eventually stooped to take a partridge, and the Lady Criseyde went forward with Strega crouching on her wrist. Farrell said hesitantly, “But not this war. If her side wins, she gets to come to the next one. If she wins.”

Hamid lifted one shoulder. “Considering she’s shown up at the last two, it’s kind of a fine point.” Julie turned to him quickly, startling Micaela, who promptly bated off Frederik’s fist, but scrambled back up unaided, hissing and flapping her wings. Hamid continued, “See, if she’d just be a good girl and keep on going in disguise, they’d be so happy to let it go. Like all the other times.” He smiled his narrow, alarming smile. “But Aiffe’s got something a little else in mind. She may not be anybody’s Helen of Troy, but she is damn sure the only adolescent I know who’s getting to have her very own war fought over her. You think she’ll miss that? I wouldn’t miss it.”

Strega was justifying the Lady Criseyde’s earlier cynicism, completely ignoring the rabbits that were flushed for her and showing no inclination to do anything as foolishly wearying as flying, let alone taking prey. She had to be literally shaken off the fist and each time she grumbled along for no more than thirty yards before plumping down abruptly to huff out her feathers and talk to herself. The Lady Criseyde finally picked her up, telling Frederik, “I’ll try her again last, after Micaela. Some of us are just spoiled beyond belief.” Over her shoulder Farrell saw three figures coming across the field.

Nicholas Bonner was carrying a bird, brandishing it like a torch on a block perch almost as long as himself. Farrell took it at first for a hawk, damn big hawk too, even this far away . Then Julie made a sound, and Farrell let himself register the round, concave face, round eyes as big and hard and shadowless as military brass buttons, and the twin tufts that resembled wild, theatrically slanted eyebrows more than horns or ears. It sat motionless, never once hooting or spreading its wings; but on Duke Frederik’s glove, Micaela the gyrfalcon suddenly screamed like a bent nail tearing out of a board.

Looking left and right, Farrell saw that every hawk was being hastily hooded by its owner to keep it calm in the presence of the owl. Micaela herself was the only exception. Duke Frederik held her gently against his chest, murmuring her silent, watching Aiffe, Nicholas, and Garth de Montfaucon approach. Somebody complained, “You can’t fly one of those things. I never heard of anybody flying one of those.” Julie closed her sketch pad and came to stand beside Farrell. The back of her hand brushed his, as shockingly cold as the hawks’ feet were hot.

Aiffe almost danced the last dozen yards, skipping ahead of her companions to pounce into a deep curtsy before Duke Frederik and the Lady Criseyde. “Pardon, pardon, pardon,” she cried in her sweet, twangling whine. “The tardiness was most shameful, yet truly no fault of ours. The great wood-devils are none so easy to come by, search as a poor witch will.” She was dressed heavily for the summer day in burgundy velvet that hung like a sandwich sign on her thin frame. Yet she moved with graceful assurance in it, standing up swiftly to fling one arm wide, gesturing toward the horned owl sitting so still on Nicholas Bonner’s perch. She said, “My lord, gentles all, will you not now welcome me into your most noble fellowship? I mean, do I have a bird here or do I have a bird?” Behind her, Nicholas Bonner smiled at Farrell like an old friend.

Micaela screamed at the owl again, and Frederik drew his cloak partly around her. “Lady Aiffe, this is more than a marvel.” The only change that Farrell could hear in his even voice was a lowering in pitch and an early-morning roughness in the tone. “To hold such a creature as this—”

“Without jesses,” Aiffe interrupted loudly. “Take note, everyone, nothing commands my wood-devil, nothing keeps him out in fullest daylight among his enemies, nothing but our agreement.” The genuine dignity informing her own voice kept being sabotaged by spiteful delight, shredding into laughter like a torn sail in a storm. Yet when she said, “Now we will go hunting with you,” there was the slightest questioning tilt to the words, the smallest temblor of vulnerability, touching Farrell by surprise. She wants in so terribly .

Duke Frederik said, “We are the Falconers’ Guild. Even if your bird might by arts magical be trained to fly from the fist, for there’s no owl born could ever learn to wait on—”

“Either one,” she challenged him joyously. “Either way. If I bid him circle over my head all the day, at a mile’s height or a handbreadth, then circle he shall until I cry stoop and take . What would you have him do, my masters? We are at your orders, he and I.”

In the silence that followed, the horned owl hooted for the first time, still not moving except to close its eyes. The breeze shifted in the same moment, bringing Farrell the owl’s cold indoor smell, rooms where you put things you don’t want to think about . The Lady Criseyde began to say, “By every form and law of our fraternity—”

But Garth de Montfaucon’s voice raked across hers like a slash of brambles. “The law? I founded this wretched guild, and you would read me its regulations? There is nothing in the law forbidding my daughter’s bird to hunt with your own, and right well you know it, my lord Duke.” He had stepped in front of Aiffe and was glaring at Frederik, his gaunt, tight face twisting like a drill bit. He said, “All that is required, all , is that the bird be of age and condition to take prey. There is not a single word concerning species. She could fly a duck if she so chose, and if its disposition were suitable, and none to bar her. You know this.”