Hawksmaid (5 page)

T
HE NEXT DAY
F
YNN
came by to fetch Matty just as dawn broke. They were on their way to meet the boys. They had not gone far when Fynn found the droppings of a large deer and became determined to track it. Matty followed him with growing impatience, and, after almost half an hour when no deer could be spotted and the track had more or less dissolved into nothingness, Matty went up and
tugged on his sleeve.

“Fynn, let's go. The deer must have disappeared. Come on,” Matty urged, but Fynn walked on stubbornly. “Fynn, can't you put down that bow for a moment? Besides, you know there've been royal foresters spotted around here.”

“My pa says they only come by once or twice a month.”

“Let's meet the boys.”

“Not yet. If I can't get this deer, I'll get something else with my bow.” To taunt her, he added, “I don't have to wait on a falcon.”

“Falconry, Robert Woodfynn, is an
art
as well as a method of gathering food.”

“So is hunting, Matilda Fitzwalter.”

“No, not really. It has no subtlety.”

“Don't use big words. Just because you can read and write better than any of us doesn't give you the right to use big words.”

“All right. Archery is a crude form of hunting. You don't have to feed a bow, care for it, and learn its ways.”

“That just proves how little you know about wood, Mistress Matilda.”

“Don't call me Mistress Matilda. I don't like it.”

“Oh, don't get your breeches in a twist.”

“What?” Matty exclaimed. “Since when do girls wear breeches? I thought you knew better than that, Robin Woodfynn!”

“Well, your whatevers,” he replied, blushing to the root of every hair on his head.

 

Now, as Matty walked through the meadow grass, she stopped suddenly. Just ahead in the heather she thought she caught a flash of white. There was a sudden blurring, then a speck of gold, as if a tiny piece of the sun had tumbled down to earth.

Matty began to creep quietly up to the clump of heather.
Something's caught!
In the next moment she heard a frantic beating, followed by a series of weak calls that sounded like
eep-eep-eep
. There was something in the thin sound that made Matty guess that it was a food call of some sort. When she was nearly upon the heather, she looked down and gasped. She was staring at the dark-brown feathers of a merlin, a newly fledged merlin! And each time it blinked, there was a tiny flash of gold in its dark eyes.

Matty could tell that the merlin was in poor
condition. She judged it to be a female by its color. Every time the bird beat her wings Matty could glimpse the lighter brown-and-white speckles of its breast and underwings. But there were hunger streaks too. The
eep-eep
vocalizations had definitely been desperate calls for food. The merlin had become ensnared in the remnants of netting from a trap of some sort, but it also had the shreds of jesses on one leg. Matty realized that this bird was exactly what her father had described—a frustrated falconer's castoff. But so soon? she wondered. It seemed, even with the hunger streaks, to have recently grown feathers.

The bird went into a complete panic as it looked up at Matty, giving a loud
ki-ki ka-ka
cry of alarm. Matty had to think fast. Looking at the bird, she saw a bedraggled, starving creature but she also saw something more. The tiny flash of gold in the dark eyes again! “Marigold,” she whispered. This merlin
had
to live. Her father had said that to truly become a great falconer one needed a merlin. This bird could become the means of achieving all her deepest hopes. Their destinies just maybe were intertwined.

Taking the hem of her dress and giving a quick glance around for Fynn, she began to tear it apart.
But the fabric was tough homespun. “No, no, this is not working,” she muttered. Then quickly, she lifted her skirts and pulled off her underskirts. Made of a softer material, they easily ripped. She had to hood this bird, and if it had to be with her garments so be it! Hooding the bird was the only way to calm her, and once calmed, she would be named! Yes, Matty would croon this name,
Marigold
, softly to the young bird until she recognized it as her own.

On her first attempt all she got was an angry stab in the palm of her hand. Weak as the merlin was, it was not afraid. It was angry and ready to attack.

Matty finally succeeded in twisting a scrap of cloth around the young hawk's head. She would have to leave the mesh tangled around the bird's foot for now.

She began to take the merlin to the castle, whispering softly.

“Whatcha got there, Matty?” Fynn said, coming up to her and looking down at the bundle in her hands with the mesh trailing from it. The merlin had calmed down quite a bit, but at the sound of a new voice she began to bate and flutter.

“Sssh!” Matty said.

“But what is it?”

“Can't you tell, Fynn?”

“Come on. Whatcha got?”

“So you really want to know?”

“Yes, Matty, I really want to know.”

“It's my—whatevers—in a twist!” She smiled slyly. Then both Matty and Fynn blushed madly. For indeed Fynn was staring straight at these most intimate of feminine garments and Matty had dared to joke about it.

Then Fynn reached out and tucked a dark curl that had escaped from behind her ear. He left his hand behind her ear for a moment too long.

“I've got to be getting on,” she said, and dipped her chin so he could not see the confusion in her eyes.

When she had walked on several paces and finally collected herself, she turned back and gave him a dazzling smile. “I found a merlin. They say they are the cleverest and the most ambitious of birds. Some say the noblest of all hawks.”

“Well, then this bird has met its match for a mistress, I daresay!” Fynn replied, his voice suddenly husky. Matty felt her heart race. She shut her eyes for a second and then continued walking.

A
S
M
ATTY MOUNTED THE
stairs after a day's hunting with Lyra, she could hear the hawks in the mews. Their muted caws and chirps, their talons making little scratching noises on their perches was a wonderful music: it dispelled the darkness of the stone and lightened the shadows of the castle.

The moment she passed through the doorway she felt calm. This was the only place she was really at home. The room itself was large and circular. Several perches radiated from notches in the stone wall like
the spokes of a wheel. Lyra returned to her perch closest to one of the windows. Beside her perched the kestrel Morgana. Next to her was Ulysses, then Moss, and finally Marigold.

The walls of the circular chamber were divided into three sections. The birds occupied the largest section that went halfway around the tower. The two remaining sections were almost equal in size. The first was lined with benches on which an assortment of hawking equipment had been neatly laid—leashes; boxes with imping needles; waxed thread; a few pots filled with ointments, powders, and oils; small knives; and a stone slab on which to cut up tiny morsels of mouse or whatever meat was on the day's menu. Sometimes she was lucky and caught a small rat in one of her traps. At one end of the benches there were two huge basins for bathing the birds. One was filled with water, the other with sand for dust baths in cold weather. Above the benches were neat rows of pegs from which hung several jesses and other equipment. Then above these pegs was a shelf for the tiny, beautiful leather hoods. Some of these hoods were quite old, going back scores of years. All were painted in the Fitzwalter colors of crimson and green. The third section was Matty's own space: a bed shoved into a wall
niche, a few pegs, and a basin for slops.

Twenty feet above, under the cone of the turret's roof, Fynn had helped Matty hoist a platform that supported cages on its cross arms. It was a perfect loft space for molting birds. When raptors molt, they become finicky and sometimes cantankerous. It was best for them to be separated from the other hawks at such times.

Matty kept the tower room immaculate. On the floor beneath the birds' perches was a thick layer of sawdust and wood shavings from the days when the castle had employed a sawyer to cut their firewood. Mattie covered this layer with rushes, strewed it with dried herbs—sage, chamomile, hyssop, and balm—and changed it often. She scraped the perches regularly and swept the chamber daily, scrubbing the stones weekly. The birds themselves were groomed and trimmed and clipped; their beaks and talons coped, or filed and snipped. When the shaft of one of their feathers was bent, Matty straightened it by pressing it with cloths soaked in hot water. If it was broken off, she had her supply of molted feathers carefully arranged in the special box. To Matty the world within the tower mews was as perfect a place as one could be if not outside
hunting with the hawks or in the forest of Barnsdale with Fynn and the boys. It was a place of order, where living things were cared for and respected. It was the kind of world, Matty thought, that Richard could make if he would return as king.

It had been more than two weeks since she had brought Marigold back to the castle. And for those two weeks Matty had spent nearly every hour with her, only leaving to hunt for food. She sensed that Lyra and Morgana were a bit jealous of her attention to the little merlin. Ulysses was a bird of extreme patience and maturity. He and Moss seemed to understand completely what it took to raise a young hawk. Moss knew better than any of them what was required to teach a young one, for she had taught Matty. Her devotion was ardent, almost maternal, and what was dear to Matty was unquestionably dear to Moss.

When Matty had found Marigold in the meadow, she was not even sure the merlin would survive. The young bird needed loving attention. Hunger, already shown by the streaks in her plumage, threatened to weaken every important flight feather in Marigold's body.

If the young merlin had been previously trained,
it counted for nothing. Matty had to begin all over again—hooding her, carrying her practically every available waking moment, talking constantly so that Marigold would know her voice. Matty tried to feed the merlin freshly caught mice, but feeding a merlin was not a simple matter. Her father had explained that a merlin's diet had to be carefully monitored in relation to its growth because of the bird's active nature and its rapid heartbeat. To calculate the growth, it was necessary to measure the bird's wings each day and then weigh the food. Within the two weeks since she had found Marigold, Matty's skill in mathematics had leaped forward.

But this merlin challenged her at every opportunity, and it was lucky that Matty lived in the tower mews so that she could be with Marigold all night, as was required in these first critical weeks of her training. During those long vigils as the moon rose and set, Matty often thought of that odd conversation she had with Fynn on the day she found the merlin. There had been her bold banter, which now hardly seemed all that bold. But then Fynn had touched her, tucked the lock of hair behind her ear. That moment she played and replayed in her head. The memory sent shivers
through her. She could not recall the words, but she could almost hear the tone of his voice. It was different; it wasn't that I'm-so-clever tone. Not a trace of raillery or ribbing. Fynn had sounded, for one of the few times in his life, very serious. They had both, she guessed, grown in more ways than one.

Matty was now twelve and a half years old. In the years since the raid the birds, too, had matured. They recognized her voice and the way she breathed. A mysterious link had been forged between the girl and the birds, an intimacy and trust beyond what most falconers could imagine.

Marigold was already beginning to bond with Matty. And though the merlin was still far from tamed, a mutual respect had grown between them. By the third week of her training, Marigold had stopped her bating, or temper tantrums, during which she would leap from Matty's fist in headlong dives of rage and defiance.

Now Matty cooed and sang as she softly approached her merlin. “Marigold,” she whispered. “Marigold!” Ah! The small hooded head turned toward her, and the bird rustled her feathers. She lifted her foot as she heard Matty pull on the leather glove. Marigold was
ready, eager to step on to Matty's arm. This was a very good sign.

Matty could hear Morgana and Lyra grumbling softly. Even though Lyra had just been out with her and Morgana the day before, they were still greedy for attention. She knew exactly what they were saying:
Never even looks at us, does she?

She heard Moss trying to soothe their obviously ruffled feathers with patience and reason.
“Ku lu pshaw gru gru.”
(This is important. A delicate point in the merlin's training.) Matty nodded appreciatively. Then Ulysses came in with a harsh scolding to Lyra and Morgan. “
Ki ki kak ki kak
….” (You know nothing of training or discipline. You forget your own days when Lord William spent hundreds of hours with you. Be a little more gracious, you slovenly ingrates!) The two birds were instantly chastened and settled down.

Matty continued with the merlin. She had learned most of the important vocalizations needed to communicate with the bird, especially the soothing ones that could calm her. “
Ptschaw, chu chu,
nice girl me, Marigold.
Cha ka? Chu sho mwap.
No, no…that's a sweet
tsha,
” she whispered.

The merlin climbed onto her fist and then her arm.
Matty, her lips nearly touching the hood, kept speaking softly in an odd mixture of English and the sounds that she sensed were peculiar to merlins and then the others that she generally used to speak with her birds. These sounds came burbling up from the back of her throat, whispering over her tongue with a velvety softness. Marigold was listening. Matty could tell that she was understanding more and more. Perhaps tonight Matty would remove her hood.

A hawk must be unhooded for the first time in nearly complete darkness. One could never be too careful when first releasing a bird from the hood into the light. The time must be well chosen and the light well placed. So Matty would begin at midnight. In the meantime she would carry the little merlin with her as she tidied the chamber and tended the other birds.

For long hours a curved sliver of the moon moved across the sky until now it was setting and the mews grew darker. Matty sensed the moment approaching even as she slept with her arm propped on a small crutch, the merlin perched on her glove. Almost immediately she was awake and alert. She transferred Marigold to a special low perch near her bed and fetched a candle. She put the candle as far from the
merlin as possible, then lit it. She went back and placed Marigold on her fist.

“
Ptschaw, mwap, chu chu.
Nice Marigold.
Chu sho no no
…that's a sweet
tsha. Cha ka. Hschaw sachwa,
my Marigold.”

Matty began to carefully loosen the braces at the back of Marigold's hood. She'd chosen it carefully. The gilt initials WF, once bright as the gold in Marigold's eyes, were now dim, the leather supple with age. One quick tug slackened the braces entirely and the hood slipped a bit. The merlin remained calm. Matty took hold of the plume on the hood and pulled gently. The hood was off! Marigold immediately swung her tiny head toward the pool of honey-gold light cast by the candle. “
Tschaw ptschaw lucca lucca
. Yes, Marigold, yes, dear, a bit of candlelight.” The most exciting part of the entire taming and teaching period was about to happen.

Soon Matty would turn her own head slowly toward the merlin and look deeply into Marigold's eyes. This was when Matty would discover if she and the hawk had a true connection, an inviolable bond. What Matty saw in those eyes would influence the rest of the merlin's education. She felt her own heart beat faster. The bird shifted on her fist as if she sensed her
mistress's quickening pulse. Now Matty bent her head very close. She whispered softly. “
Ptschaw chatau,
my Marigold.”

Until Matty received a signal, she would not look directly in the merlin's eyes. So Matty kept her head turned slightly away. After a barely discernible ruffling of Marigold's feathers, ever so slowly Matty began to turn her head, her eyes cast down. All the while she stroked Marigold's talons, her wing edges, and her brown breast with its flecks of gray and purple. And now Matty felt it. The gold slivers, like tiny arrows lighting up her face. She was caught in the merlin's gaze. Matty looked up. Her eyes were met by others as curious as her own. Not shy but trusting, intelligent, and ready for more. In the candlelight the bird and the girl peered at each other. It was as if two lost friends had finally met.