The Falconer's Tale by Gordon Kent

Author:Gordon Kent [Gordon Kent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007287864
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2008-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

14

“He’s with Bella,” Irene said from the doorway. “Naturally.” She was back in work clothes, her hair wet, her cheeks flushed in the cold air.

The dog nuzzled his hand and barked, pushed its head into his thigh and barked again and ran in a circle. Piat wanted to avoid Irene as much as possible. He knelt by the dog and started to give him a good scratch. Piat looked up at Irene and smiled. “I—” he managed before she gave him a thin smile and closed the door.

Piat found Hackbutt half a mile up the ridge that loomed over the cottage by the simple expedient of looking for the bird. He had no trouble guessing what Hackbutt was doing, either. He was trying Bella at “waiting on.”

He prepared himself during the climb. While his eyes watched the ground in front of him, seeking the easiest path between the damned tufts of coarse grass, his brain was evaluating what he had seen of Irene (puffy eyes, pot smoke, anger) and guessing at what he would find in Hackbutt, and how he could make them work. Together. Apart. Whatever.

Hackbutt hailed him when he was still more than fifty meters below them. Piat cast well to the south of the pair and then came back to them carefully. He’d learned not to spook a bird or a falconer.

“Did you see her?” Hackbutt said as he came up. “Did you see her?” Of course, he didn’t mean Irene. He meant Bella.

“Sure did, Digger.” Piat smiled at him. “Waiting on. I saw her do it for what—five minutes?”

Hackbutt stroked the eagle on his wrist and cooed at her, and then cocked his head at Piat, his face still split by his smile. “I told her! I said you knew birds, that you listened to me. That you’d know just what I was doing. She said you didn’t give a shit about birds, and I said you did. And look! You knew what we were doing from the valley!”

“You training with the lure?” Piat asked. He knew that big birds like eagles seldom took to waiting on in captivity when there was so much food available so close by and with less work. Because he’d just read about it.

“You really know your stuff, Jack. You have a glove?”

Piat pulled one from the pocket of his oilskin coat. He flourished it and put it on.

“Take her. This’ll be better with the two of us. I wanted to call Annie, but Irene’s in such a mood—”

“I noticed.” Piat took the weight of the eagle on his wrist. She had her jesses, decorated with the new silver bells, but no hood, and she looked at him, turned her head as if to consider him from another angle, and then started nipping at his glove. Piat took a little tube of chicken from Hackbutt’s bag, squeezed it in his gauntlet so that only a fraction was visible, and Bella began tearing at it.

“Don’t give her too much—I want her keen. She’s smart, Jack—smartest bird I’ve ever seen.

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