The Falcons of Fire and Ice (39 page)

‘I can show you duck. They are good to eat too.’

But we didn’t catch any duck either.

All the time we were walking, and when we sat around the camp fire at night I was constantly planning how I might capture a wild falcon, for I knew I might only get one chance. If I could find them I wanted to take two sore birds, those in their first year of life. They were easy to distinguish because before they went through their first moult their plumage was much darker. But after the first moult it was much harder to tell the age of a falcon from a distance. If I captured one that was too old, the chances were it would not survive the long sea journey home and all this effort would be for nothing. But perhaps I would have no choice but to take whatever I could.

I knew how to take passage birds, those birds migrating south in the autumn. Ever since I had been old enough to sit still, my father had taken me out to the plains in Portugal to wait for the kites and harriers, eagles, buzzards and falcons to arrive. There he built elaborate hides out of sods and set up nets and poles with live pigeons as bait, wooden falcons as decoys, and tethered shrikes that would give warning of the approaching bird of prey.

We would wait in silence in the hide from dawn until dusk, never taking our eyes from the shrikes. ‘Patience,’ said my father, ‘is the most important skill a falconer must master.’ When the shrikes became agitated my father would know exactly which bird of prey was approaching. If they bated and flapped on their perches, it was a buzzard. If they ran out of their hiding places with cries of alarm, it was a sparrowhawk or falcon, and if they moved slowly, a kite, eagle or harrier. If the approaching bird was one my father wanted, he would release a tethered pigeon, and once the hawk had fastened on to it, he could pull them both into his net.

But I could not set traps like my father. He knew exactly which route the migrating hawks would take. He could wait in the certainty that, sooner or later, they would come. I had no idea where the white falcons were.

There was another way he had shown me once when he had helped a man recapture a falcon that had returned to the wild. That required only a long line to which a pigeon or other prey was attached, but that method depended entirely on luck. You had first to find your bird and then hope that it would fly at your prey. If the bird was hungry enough and prey was scarce, your chances were good, but if the white falcons were following a flock of ptarmigan, it would take more than luck, it would take a miracle, and I was no longer sure which God I should beg for the miracle now.

When those Danes seized me and forced me to the ground, did I pray then? I shuddered as I remembered it, feeling again the weight of the man on top of me, crushing me, the stench of his sweat in my nostrils, the sheer terror of being pinned down, unable to move.
Katolik! Katolik!
they kept shouting at me. I didn’t need Hinrik to tell me what that meant. But I wasn’t a Catholic, didn’t they know that, couldn’t they see? I was seething with rage and the burning injustice of it.

I know it was foolish. In the end it doesn’t matter why a man rapes you. Rape is animal lust. Rape is foul. Rape is the desire to hurt and destroy, because a man has that power. Yet the fact that they were doing this because they believed I was a Catholic was the only thought I could hold on to in my terror. If they had attacked me because I was a Marrano, a Jewish pig, would that have made it easier to bear? I knew it would not, and yet I could not stop hating them for calling me a Catholic.

For the first time since my father’s arrest, I felt in my heart a truth that I had only up to then grasped in my mind – I was not a Catholic. They were my enemies. What I had once believed, I now despised with a loathing that filled my frame with fire. It was that attack which had made me understand it, truly feel it. I was like one who has been drugged for a long time and suddenly wakes to sharp, raw pain.

We made camp not long after we passed the witch’s cairn, higher up the steep ravine whose entrance she guarded. The sun was already setting below the rocks though it scarcely seemed any time at all since it had risen. Even at midday it barely managed to struggle over the back of the mountains, and it was as cold as its own reflection in the bog pools.

We built a fire on a mossy ledge beside a raging river which had cut deep into the hillside. Great rocks were strewn either side, some balanced upon one another. There was a little hollow under one, which had evidently been worn down by sheep pushing their way under the boulders in search of shelter from the wind and rain.

Fausto yanked up a small wiry bush and, using the stiff stems as a brush, cleared out the hollow of sheep’s droppings, carefully assembling them in a heap for fuel. We were all learning fast to hoard anything that would burn.

‘You can sleep in here, Isabela, it’s just big enough for you and it’ll shelter you from the wind.’

‘Let Hinrik have it, I prefer to sleep by the fire.’

It was not just because Fausto had suggested it that I refused. Nothing would have induced me to crawl under that huge rock. It felt too much like the nightmares that stalked my sleep.

Ever since we had left France, I had dreamt of that forest, and in Iceland, a land without trees, the nightmares had become more vivid than ever, but they were never quite the same. In some dreams I would be running, fleeing for my life. In others I was trying to hold on to a child, fighting desperately to keep the little one safe, shielding a baby with my own body, pleading for its life. But all the dreams ended in the same way with violent, savage death and then silence, a terrible dark and lonely silence which chilled and haunted me even in my waking hours.

Marcos hunkered down next to me, trying to warm his hands over the tiny fire which Hinrik had managed to get burning with a flint and iron.

‘Fish again tonight?’ he asked dismally. ‘If you can call it
fish
, more like eating old shoe soles. I never thought I’d say this but I’m actually starting to crave ship’s biscuit, at least the weevils gave it some flavour.’

I rummaged among our pitifully few stores. The smoked puffin was long gone, and there was precious little dried cod left.

I drew out what remained and showed it to them. ‘Fish is better than nothing and tomorrow there will be nothing, unless we find something to stretch this out tonight.’

‘Since you were complaining about the food, Senhor Marcos, I would suggest that you and Senhor Fausto go and find us something else to eat,’ Vítor said. ‘And you, boy, make haste and find us some more fuel before this feeble little fire dies away entirely.’

Fausto threw the stems he’d been using as a brush on to the fire, where they blazed for a few moments before collapsing into ash. ‘And what exactly will
you
be doing, Senhor Vítor, while we’re all toiling away to keep your belly stuffed and your bony arse warm?’

‘I’ll stay with Isabela and try to keep the fire going. Someone has to stay with her. It will be dark soon. It isn’t safe for her to be left alone.’

‘No!’ The word burst out of me in a shriek before I could stop it. The last thing I wanted was to be left alone with Vítor. ‘Let Hinrik stay with me and we’ll both collect fuel. You three go. As you say, it’ll be dark soon and you’ll all need to search if we’re to have any hope of finding anything to eat. Marcos, you said you studied herbs. There must be some kind of plant growing here we can eat.’

‘Herbs won’t fill our bellies,’ Fausto said before Marcos had a chance to reply. ‘Good strong meat, that’s what we need. I was always rather good at setting snares when I was a boy. I promise you shall dine like a queen tonight, fair Isabela.’ He swept off his cap in a low bow, and bounded away down the hill. ‘Look after her, lad, don’t let her out of your sight.’

With a great deal less enthusiasm Vítor and Marcos set off too, Marcos taking care to go in the opposite direction to the other two.

Hinrik began to feed the fire with sheep’s dung, absently dropping them in one at a time, as if he was feeding scraps of meat to a puppy. He was grinning to himself, obviously enjoying some private joke.

‘What’s funny?’ I asked.

‘Senhor Fausto is in love.’

I smiled. ‘If he is, it certainly isn’t with Vítor, or Marcos, come to that.’

‘With you. He always tries to get you alone. He always tries to get near you when you walk. He watches you when you are sleeping. I have seen him. He loves you.’ Hinrik chuckled.

A cold fist clutched at my belly at the very thought of him watching me while I lay asleep and helpless.

‘No, believe me, Hinrik,’ I said fervently, ‘you couldn’t be more wrong.’

I stared at the hollow under the balancing stone. Why had Fausto urged me to sleep in there, under that great rock? What was he planning now? I would never be able to sleep again, not as long as he was anywhere near me. I glanced up at the hill top. How long would it be before the men returned? If I could just get as far as the top of the hill before they came back, once I was safely out of sight I could hide and then …

‘Why don’t you go and see if you can find something else to burn, Hinrik?’

The boy shook his head. ‘Senhor Fausto said I was to stay with you.’

‘I need to stay with the fire to keep it burning. If I leave it, it’ll go out, but we need more fuel, lots more fuel. Hurry now, it’s nearly dark.’

‘Not unless you come with me. I do not want to go alone … the witch.’ His face was screwed up in anxiety. ‘They rise from the grave when the sun sets. You did not give her a stone. You should have given her a stone. She will curse us. You see, nothing will go right for us now.’

The shadows were deepening in the ravine, the great boulders assuming almost human shapes in the twilight. In that place, I could believe anything was possible. Why hadn’t we done as Hinrik had asked, even if it was to reassure him? I didn’t need any more bad luck. I was running out of time. How many days had passed since we landed? I was losing count. A week? No, it couldn’t be, not yet! Please God, not yet!

‘Hinrik, are we near the place of the white falcons? How far is it to the high mountains? How many days?’

The boy hunched away from me. ‘You must not talk of them. Not in this place. It will call the witch’s curse.’

He refused to say more. In the end we searched for fuel together, never straying out of sight of the guttering yellow flames. We heaped our finds near the fire to dry them – more dung, dried woody roots and stems from bushes and the dried bones and skull of a sheep that must have fallen from the rocks and broken her legs. Hinrik insisted on dragging them to the fire, saying his mother had often burned bones for fuel.

But as soon as I smelt the stench of the burning, I could only see the girl standing in the flickering torchlight of that sultry Lisbon night with the pitifully tiny casket of bones in her arms. I could hear her sobbing as the casket burst into flames on the pyre. Her mother … ? Her father … ?

Hinrik stiffened at the sound of footsteps on rocks as Marcos stumbled back towards our camp. He tossed a small heap of woody plants down beside me.

‘Is that for the pot or the fire?’ I asked.

‘All I could find,’ Marcos said morosely.

Before I could ask him what the plants were, Vítor reappeared, closely followed by Fausto, who threw himself disconsolately on to the ground beside the small fire, and stared into the flames, his fingers savagely plucking at the grey, wiry grass. Marcos glowered at the pair of them.

It was obvious from Fausto’s empty hands and stony expression that he’d caught nothing. So there was really no need for Marcos to comment, but he did.

‘So where’s this sumptuous supper you promised us, Fausto?’

The light from the flames flickered across Fausto’s face, showing the muscles tighten as he clenched his jaw.

‘There’s nothing to trap in this cursed land.’

‘Yet according to you we were going to dine like royalty tonight.’

‘So what game have you brought us for the pot?’ Fausto retorted. ‘I don’t smell it cooking, or was the boar you slaughtered with your bare hands too massive to carry back?’ He prodded the bundle of withered herbs which I was sorting through. ‘Is this what you brought back? Not even sheep could eat this. What is it anyway?’

‘Herbs, but if you don’t want to eat them …’

‘Yes, but what kind of herbs? On the ship you told us you were a physician, come here to look for new herbs for cures. I can’t say I’ve noticed you take any interest in the plants as we’ve been tramping through this wilderness. And for that matter I haven’t seen you do any physicking either. When Isabela hurt her knee it was the ship’s surgeon who attended to her, not you.’

‘That was a job for a bone-setter. I am no common bone-setter. A physician doesn’t deal with such matters.’

‘So you’d let a woman suffer in agony rather than soil your hands, would you? You know what, if you are a physician, prove it.’ Fausto plunged his hand inside his scrip and drew out a couple of handfuls of wizened red berries. ‘I found these. I have no idea whether they’re poisonous, but if you’re as knowledgeable with herbs and plants as you claim, you’ll know whether or not these are safe to eat.’

‘Why don’t you eat them and find out?’ Marcos growled. ‘Then with luck we’ll only have four people to divide that fish among instead of five.’

‘I’ve got a better idea – why don’t you eat them?’

Fausto flung himself on Marcos, seizing him by the front of the doublet and trying to cram the berries into his mouth.

‘Stop it!’ I yelled. ‘Leave him alone. Those berries might kill him!’

Vítor rushed over and tried to prise Fausto off, but even so it took several minutes of Marcos pushing and kicking, and Vítor tugging, before Fausto could be persuaded to let go. All three men collapsed on to the ground, panting. Marcos spat out the berries still in his mouth, and rubbed his bruised lips. It was clear that neither man was in any mood to apologize.

I began to gather up the withered herbs that their flaying feet had scattered, more to break the paralysing silence than with any intention of using them. But as I reached for one plant that Marcos had dragged up by its root, I caught a whiff of something that was vaguely familiar. I examined it more carefully, and sniffed at it again.