Robert Lyndon - Hawk Quest

Richard sobbed on the grass as if his heart would burst. Raul went into the tower to collect the supplies.

‘Look,’ Hero wheezed, pointing at a tiny silhouette on a summit miles to the south. ‘There’s the gibbet we passed on our journey here.’

Vallon straightened up, panting. ‘At the pace you travel, we’ll all be food for crows before noon. Which way now?’

Wayland pointed west, along the wall. Its course was visible for miles, rising and falling through the mist like the backbone of a sea monster.

‘Let’s go,’ Vallon said, leading off. The other runaways jerked into motion. Vallon glanced back. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Wayland gestured at the cages.

‘He wants to release the hawks,’ Raul said.

‘I don’t give a rat’s arse what he wants.’

‘Captain, Wayland does things his own way.’

‘Not any more. And that goes for you, too.’

‘Understood, sir, but we need Wayland more than he needs us. Best leave him be.’ Raul emitted a rasping belch, shouldered the basket and lurched off like a demonic pedlar. After a moment’s angry indecision, Vallon followed him.

Wayland was in no hurry. He waited until the sun rose and the cloud ocean flushed pink before opening the cage containing the goshawk. It gave him a glare, bobbed its head and rowed away into the mist. By evening it would be as wild as the day he’d caught it. He released the peregrines. He hadn’t flown them since Sir Walter’s departure more than a year ago. They spent their days blocked out in the weathering yard, fanning their wings and tracking their wild kin circling down the wind. The falcon flew heavily and landed on the tower, but the tiercel winnowed into the sky as if he’d been waiting for this moment and knew exactly what course to follow. Up and up he went, a dark flickering star that Wayland watched as if it carried his hopes and dreams. He didn’t blink until the sky closed over it.

The fugitives had reached the next milecastle. Vallon turned and gestured, then dropped his arm and led the ragtag caravan away. When they had walked out of his life, Wayland passed through the castle gate. In the long shadows the mounds and hollows in the courtyard resembled graves. His gaze wandered over the empty parapets. He smacked his palms together and the clap bounced back from the walls like an echo through time. He scratched the dog’s head. It’s just you and me now.

He frowned and went back through the gate. The faint tolling of a bell told him that the escape had been discovered. He sat down, imagining the scene at the castle — the soldiers with thumping headaches and addled eyes cursing as they tried to disentangle armour and harness with hands that seemed to have sprouted five thumbs. Their horses would be sore from yesterday’s hunt, but the Normans would use dogs to track the runaways. They wouldn’t get far. Already the mist was lifting.

Wayland shouldered his pack and set off downhill on a course that would bring him to the South Tyne miles upstream. He had no qualms about abandoning the fugitives. Vallon and Hero meant nothing to him, and Richard was a Norman and therefore a sworn enemy. He bore Raul no ill will, nor was he bound to him by friendship. He had no friends. He didn’t need friends. He was like the goshawk, a shadow in the forest, gone in the first glimpse.

In any case, there was nothing he could do to save them. He’d only agreed to Vallon’s request because it suited his own purposes. Their flight would distract the Normans while he made good his own escape. By nightfall, when they were lying hacked in pieces, he’d be safe in a forest hideaway.

As if some force was acting against his limbs, he found his steps slowing until he came to a stop. The dog watched him, ears pricked. Wayland looked back at the wall, then down into the valley. He leaned and spat. The dog, anticipating his next move, sprang away downhill. Wayland whistled and turned back towards the wall. I’m not doing it for the strangers, he told himself. I’m doing it for the look on Drogo’s face when he realises who’s outwitted him.

By the time he caught up with the fugitives it was broad daylight and only a few ribbons of mist clung to the slopes. The country on all sides was dreary common, open and almost treeless.

‘We have to get off the wall,’ Vallon gasped.

Wayland lay down and put his ear to the antique paving.

‘How far are they behind us?’

Wayland pointed at a milecastle and held up two fingers.

He scourged them on, amazed at how slowly other people moved. They were nearly at the next castle when he stopped and put a finger to his lips. Soon they all heard it — the distant belling of hounds. Hero and Richard stumbled on, throwing terrified glances behind them. They came over a rise and a flock of sheep stampeded across a part-walled enclosure below. The sheep stopped in a bunch, all looking back, the ewes stamping their feet. Two mean-looking dogs streaked over the turf. A boy and a girl emerged from behind a cairn and stared up at the fugitives.

‘That’s all we need,’ Hero groaned.

The children ran at the sheep, waving sticks and crying out. The dogs turned and chivvied the flock through a gap and down into a gulley.

Wayland stripped Raul and Hero of their cloaks. Richard cringed away. ‘Give it to him,’ Vallon said, pulling off his cape.

Wayland pushed him to the edge of the wall and pointed at the gulley.

‘He wants us to follow the sheep. Quick, before the soldiers come in sight.’

Wayland grabbed Raul and mimed the route they must take. South to the river then west to the first ford. On the other side follow the river until you reach a stream flowing in from the south. Go up the valley until the stream divides. Wait for me there.

Raul slapped Wayland’s shoulder to show that he understood, took hold of Richard and plunged off the wall. Wayland didn’t wait to see how they got on. He tied some of the runaways’ clothes to his girdle, the rest to the dog’s collar, then took from his pack a bag containing a concoction of musk and castor. He smeared the foul-smelling grease on his feet. The hue and cry drew closer.

The next section of wall ran as straight as a rule. Wayland dropped into the great ditch on the south side and broke into an easy lope, matching the dog stride for stride. A milecastle slid by. The next one stuck up like a rotten molar. Wayland scaled the broken turret and lay facing the way he had come. His breathing eased. On a stone beside him a bored or homesick legionnaire had scratched a prayer or obscenity or declaration of love. A lark sang its heart out so high in the blue that Wayland couldn’t spot it — singing at heaven’s gate, his mother would have said.

When Wayland looked down, he saw riders stitched into the landscape on each side of the wall. One, two, three. They disappeared into a dip and others took their place. When all were clear, Wayland had counted thirteen, plus four hounds.

The hounds checked at the spot where the fugitives had left the wall. One of them ran down into the sheep pasture. The others didn’t follow. Their baying intensified. A rider rode after the wayward hound and whipped it back into line. The pack drew on.

Wayland slithered down from the tower. Ahead the way divided, a broad track descending through gentler terrain to the south, the wall switchbacking along a scarp with a steep drop on the north face. A moor dotted by loughs sloped up to a forest of ancient pines. He’d been in the forest years ago with his father and they had stood at this same spot.

‘See the trees in front,’ his father had said. ‘Those are the champions, frozen in their advance by a thunderbolt thrown by Odin.’

‘Our mother says Odin and all the other gods don’t exist,’ he’d said. ‘She says there’s only one God and his son is Jesus Christ, the light of the world.’