A Falcon for a Queen

by Catherine Gaskin

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Most men marry. They take wives. They have children …’

  He made a gesture of impatience. ‘When the time is right. I have not yet found the woman worth giving up what I have‒’

  ‘They marry,’ I repeated. ‘They give their hostages to fortune.’

  ‘Marry!’ It was as if I had let loose a storm. He rose abruptly, the fluid body suddenly now tensed. ‘Marry ‒ and put fetters on myself.’ The cup crashed down against the hob. ‘With a mother like mine who never needed to clothe herself in the respectability of marriage, how would you expect me to feel? If she could stand her solitary state, and bear her son alone, and nameless, what need do I have to rush into those kinds of bonds …?’

  I was strangely touched that he should in this way refer to his birth. He was sensitive and irascible, and I knew that every minute he was acting as the son of Mairi Sinclair would act. I liked it that he felt no need to make apologies for her, and was proud of her courage. They might quarrel, those two, but they were the same breed, as Morag had said.

  ‘And yet ‒ most women give themselves into the bondage of marriage. They do as they are told. They bear children and nurse sick husbands. They accept ‒’

  ‘What else can they do?’ he said, with the maddening complacency of a man. ‘What else is open to them?’

  ‘Some choose to give themselves. Freely.’ Was I mad? Would he think I was referring to his mother?

  But his expression changed to a thoughtful regard. ‘Yes ‒ there are those who choose. Those who give freely. And they are the only ones worth having. Come ‒ I’ll show you something.’

  Completely unselfconsciously he seized my hand and jerked me to my feet. My cup was banged down on the tray, and I was being pulled after him. The door was opened and slammed after us. Then I was thrust up against the end wall of the cottage.

  ‘Stay there, and be still. She is accustomed to strangers, and will not bate off, but very few ever come here, and she may not like it in the beginning. Just be still. She will see you, and grow used to you.’

  And then he went on, quietly now, into the shed that adjoined the stable. I waited, flattening myself against the wall, trying to keep in the shadow cast by the overhang of the thatch. I was very still, as he had commanded, but I couldn’t still the endless hammer of my pulse, the dryness of my throat against which I couldn’t even swallow.

  He came finally, and the falcon was on his gloved hand, the bird wearing a red, plumed hood, as I had not seen her before. He stood in the open space, the red streamers wound through his fingers, and gently, with his right hand, loosened the leather thongs that held the hood in place, and slipped it off. The hawk saw me at once, and for a moment I thought she would start up; but she simply moved a little on the glove, and flexed those fierce hind talons. Then her head turned, scanning the whole horizon, taking in any new facts of her world. And then, sure that all was as it had been, the huge dark eyes focused on me. I instantly knew, not from any foreknowledge of hawks, but from the sensation those eyes produced in me, that this was truly a bird of prey. She lived by killing. She did not kill, except to eat, and even knowing that it was wrong to let her sense my fear, still I felt fear. I longed to twist and turn as her prey must do to escape those terrible sharp eyes, those great, powerful hind talons.

  And now Callum’s hand was upon her, stroking her with his forefinger, preening that shining, healthy plumage. And still I was transfixed by those dark encircled eyes ‒ the darkness that would permit no light to refract into them, that made the hawk’s eye as great a weapon as those talons.

  She seemed a big bird, almost as long as Callum’s arm from elbow to fingers, feathers blue-black above, whitish below, barred crosswise with grey. There was a look of great power to her, power known and understood, power in control to be used as it was needed.

  ‘She is very beautiful.’ My voice was a whisper. ‘Giorsal …’ I took my tone from the way Callum spoke to her, and he talked constantly to her.

  She turned her eyes upon me again as I spoke her name, moved again a little on Callum’s glove, accustoming herself to the strange voice.

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘She is more than beautiful.’ And then, gently, he released the red streamers from his fist. For a moment longer the bird remained there, moving slightly, so that the little bells attached to her legs jingled above the sound of the burn. Then with one great spreading of her wings ‒ effortless to her, but which rocked Callum’s arm ‒ she rose. It was a swift climb but not too high; for a time she circled the cottage and its surrounding area, hovered, as if undecided about what she would do. Then she used all the power of the long wings to make her climb, up … up … I strained to see her, but finally she was beyond my gaze, a speck that vanished into the sun.

  ‘See now ‒ the valley,’ Callum said. He was tense with excitement. ‘See the birds rise. If they are wise they are going for cover ‒ the partridge and the grouse, the jays and the rooks. You know what she is to them ‒ she is the shadow of death. They must try to evade her ‒ they can’t outfly her, any of them. She is the swiftest thing that lives on this earth. When she stoops to her prey ‒ dives ‒ some say she reaches nearly two hundred miles an hour. How they pretend to measure it, I wouldn’t know. It doesn’t matter what the speed is ‒ she is the swiftest thing that lives.’

  ‘And you have let her go!’

  He looked at me wonderingly, and then remembered that I had everything to learn. ‘That is the joy of it. She will come back. She is tame. This is her home ‒ as this whole wide strath is her home. In the winter when the days are short and game is scarce, she would sometimes go hungry if she were in the wild. But here she knows she will be fed. You see, that is the true freedom. Now she is free, she could choose never to return. She could go south when the winter comes, as her kind have always done, down to the estuaries in England where the ice does not form, and other birds winter. In the summer she could go much farther north ‒ to Sweden and Finland, the tundra country. But she was born here, and like me, this place is in her heart and her consciousness. She returns, always ‒ freely!

  ‘She is an eyas falcon ‒ one taken from the nest. I found her, the first summer I was back here, three years ago. One of the gamekeepers from Ballochtorra shot her mother ‒ I know, because I was watching the peregrine fly the strath, hunting for food, and I knew she had nestlings she had to feed. Where the male was I don’t know ‒ shot also, I suppose. Gamekeepers don’t like them because they take the grouse. I watched the mother for weeks and I saw how often she flew to the crag beyond Ballochtorra, and knew the nest must be somewhere there. They like to nest on cliffs or mountain sides where they are safe under an overhang. When I knew the mother was shot I went to find the nest. There’s some fierce climbing about Ballochtorra, and I couldn’t see the nest. But finally I heard the shrieks ‒ the cries of hunger and alarm. When I reached the nest her two brothers were dead ‒ the male falcon, the tiercel, is smaller and lighter than the peregrine by about a third. Giorsal had eaten what meat was on them, and she was near to dying also. She was still unable to fly, unable to hunt, even lowly things like mice, the sort of thing they would despise when they are grown. So I carried her down, this weak little thing, in a satchel, wrapping her in cloth so that she couldn’t spread her wings and damage them. She would need them all perfect if she were to fly as she should. But she was so weak she hardly struggled at all. I had meat for her, and she needed food and warmth. I brought her here, and it was days before she got enough strength to even try to challenge me. Then the great trial came. Before that she didn’t care how she got the food, so long as she got it, but with strength, her confidence came. She would be tamed then, or not at all. I put her on the gloved hand, and I had to teach her to eat what came from my hand. That means staying awake as long as she does, until she eats what’s offered from the hand, and falls asleep herself. Two nights and three days it was. I was half dead. I carried her everywhere, within the house. I
spent those two nights with her on the glove, resting my arm along the arm of the sofa, reading aloud ‒ both to keep myself awake, and to get her used to the sound of my voice. She gave in, in the end, and our comradeship was begun. When you have fought out a battle like that, you prize nothing that comes easily.

  ‘I was lucky. Giorsal was a good bird. Often an eyas will be no good ‒ screamers all their lives. Like some women. I had so much to learn. I made her a perch there in the shed at the back of the stable, her own room, which I could darken, so she could be quiet and happy. I had the jesses ready when I went to get her, but the rest had to come piece by piece. I had to learn myself. I stayed up more nights learning to tie a falconer’s knot, learning to tie the hood on with my right hand and my teeth. But after that first struggle, she took to it all as if she had been born to it. From the beginning, then, I represented food and shelter to her. She became so tame that I knew the problem would be to give her the confidence and the need to go and make her kill as she should. A peregrine is a … a noble bird. It would do her ‒ or me ‒ no good to have her live her life as a tame bird on a perch. She had to experience the other side of her nature. I wanted to see her in her own element, ranging this whole country, hovering and stooping, making her own killing. Even if I lost her, once she did experience that freedom, I had to take the chance.

  ‘I was glad of the long evenings, that summer. I knew she must be trained to make her killing before the summer was ended, as she would have in the wild state, or she would be ruined. She had taken to the jesses and swivel and leash so well ‒ the jesses are the leather straps, and the brass swivel links the jesses to the leash. The swivel lets her move freely on her block, or the perch, without getting tangled up. I had her out on her block in the yard here every day that it was fair. You see how it has a hook in it to tie the leash into. There is another block out there beside the burn, so that she can bathe and preen and dry off in her natural place, which is a stony, running stream.’ He grimaced faintly. ‘Naturally, she loved it. To her it was the best of all worlds. She had companionship, food, protection, shelter. She took to the hood well. When you put a hood on a hawk she is calmed. She ceases to see ‒ and I suppose, to care ‒ about the world around her. She learned to be carried on the glove, hooded, when she was quite young. I used to take her down to the distillery to get her used to the noises and the different voices, and finally I could take her there even without the hood, and she would not bate off unless something very unusual happened. She was very well-mannered, as trained hawks are expected to be. But still she did not seem to want to fly on her own. She was growing fat and lazy. So I had to let her go hungry, and when she was hungry enough I would swing the lure, baited with fresh meat, so that she had to come to me for it ‒ always on the leash of course. When the leash is long enough to let the bird fly to the lure, falconers call it a creance. I made the leash longer and longer. She grew angry at me when I left her hungry, and then she began to understand that she must fly for her food, must learn to take it as it whirled in the air before her. I had her coming a long distance to the lure, and then the final day arrived ‒ by now I was praying because the bird and I, we seemed like one. I had given her life, and she had given me ‒ well, I don’t think I could name quite what she had given to me. There was a richness of experience I had never known before. But I knew we had to come to this climax, or it all would be worthless. That day I took off the leash and the swivel and she flew to that far tree there. I could hardly see her among the foliage. All I could see was the red jesses ‒ and hear the bells. She might be gone forever. I swung the lure, and I prayed. I don’t often pray. She came to the lure, and snatched the meat, and went to her tree to eat it. And then I held the meat in the glove. It was a long way to see such a scrap, but hawks can see anything. Once they have fixed their object, their eyes focus like the lenses of a telescope. She knew the meat was there, but she also knew that she was free. She came then, swooping. I will never forget the sight of her wings, nor the sound of them. She came and ate on the glove, and she stayed. I have never known a moment like it in my whole life.’

  His pale skin was flushed; the dark eyes seemed to shine like his falcon’s. ‘That is what I mean by something given freely.’ Triumph and exultation flooded into him in that memory. He was recounting the story of a love. Of a creature sought and won, like a woman wooed. Perhaps it was at that moment that I began to love him, to wish myself that creature.

  There was more he told me that day, but I do not remember all of it. What I was hearing about the hawk was mixed with what I was feeling about the man. I witnessed in that recounting the pride and power of a lover, and my thoughts and emotions were mixed wildly between the two. I was glad when the falcon had returned, because now his attention was all on her, and he did not look into my face as he talked.

  The peregrine roamed the sky above us ‒ not so high now that we could not see the great gliding grace of the wingspread, the feinted stoops, the playful dives. The whole strath was stilled. The falcon roamed her territory, and all now had taken cover. All knew that she was there ‒ the beautiful, deadly shadow of death.

  ‘She is playing,’ Callum said. ‘She has killed this morning, and eaten well. She has no need for food. Now she is flying for the love of it. She learned her own element, you see. But still she comes back to me.’

  And she did come back. She tired of her games, and came down near the cottage. She hovered for long minutes, watching the new outline of my shape against the cottage wall. But I had not moved, nor had Callum. Then for a longer time she perched in a tree nearby. But the bond between them seemed complete, and she knew that Callum would have warned her if I had been a threat. So then, with a final glide, she came back to Callum’s gauntlet, outstretched to receive her. Now she stood very quietly as he gathered in the jesses, and gently drew the hood over her head. I saw how he had to use his teeth as well as his free hand to draw the thongs of the hood tight enough to stay in place. Blinded now, Giorsal was at rest. He carried her back to the outbuilding of the stable.

  Even then I did not move. I was as transfixed by these thoughts of Callum, as I had been by the brooding stare of the hawk. When at last he reappeared I felt drained and weary. I did not want to go back into the cottage. I had to be alone with this new thought, alone where my face and voice would not betray my weakness. Callum brought Ailis from her hitching ring beside the stable, and before I was even aware of his gesture he was swinging me up into the saddle as if I were the weight of a child.

  ‘Is it possible …’ My voice faded into a whisper. I felt my hands shake as I took up the reins.

  ‘Is what possible?’

  ‘Do you think ‒ could I ‒ could I ever see her kill? So free and wild, as you said she was ‒ and still coming back to your hand. I would like to see …’

  ‘You want to see that? It means quite a ride. We have to go upon the moors, where it’s very open, or you’ll see nothing. But if you like …’

  ‘I will go anywhere.’

  ‘Then I will take you. Good-bye, Kirsty.’

  I must have crossed the burn, must have made my way down the track to where it joined the road. I returned to Cluain, early for lunch. I do not remember the journey. In my brain was burned the image of the falcon, and of Callum, What was between those two, I wanted for myself.

  Chapter Six

  In much the way that I was drawn into the life of Cluain, so I also drifted towards Ballochtorra. I knew my grandfather did not want me to go there, but I went, following where William had been before me. If I was slightly diffident the first time, it was also the last time I felt that way. Margaret Campbell welcomed me with an almost humble gratitude. As I waited in the grand and formal drawing-room into which the butler had shown me, I could hear her voice on the stairs, and the sound of her feet as if she were running. The door opened quickly.

  ‘Oh, you’ve come! I thought you never would! I hear you’ve been riding all over the countryside on a fat little garron, a
nd I was beginning to feel hurt that you never stopped at my door.’

  ‘It’s a little difficult to decide just which door one should come to. Ballochtorra is rather formidable ‒ and your butler even more so! And then my fat little garron doesn’t cut much of a figure in the stableyard beside your thoroughbreds.’

  ‘Oh, you’re not going to be like your grandfather, are you? Was there ever such a proud, stiff man? I know Ballochtorra is a little intimidating until one knows the way, but you see, you did find it. And I am just as much afraid of my butler as you will ever be ‒ and more, because I have to do what he tells me. What it is to be mistress of a big house when they all know you weren’t born to it! I’m really not mistress at all; I can only speak to the housekeeper, and the butler and the head gardener, and if they don’t like what I am suggesting, I’m told it can’t be done. Why, I can’t even plant a rose bush where I want it. How William used to laugh at that! Oh, let’s not stay in here. This room depresses me if it’s not filled with people. Come into my own little sitting-room ‒ it’s so much cosier. We’ll have some tea there.’

  It wasn’t a small room at all, except by comparison to the drawing-room. But it was Margaret Campbell’s room ‒ full of the charm, the soft colours, the air of restrained elegance which was essentially her own. It was scattered with silver-framed photographs ‒ house-party photographs, shooting-party photographs; in the front row of one I saw the stout, bearded figure of the Queen’s heir. Some day there would be the photograph that my grandfather said James Ferguson longed for, Margaret Campbell in the ermine-trimmed robes and coronet of the marchioness. The photos were mostly displayed on a silk-draped grand piano.

  ‘Does ‒ does your husband play here?’

  ‘No ‒ not very often. Gavin doesn’t use this room very much. He gives Jamie his lessons at his own piano in his study ‒ that’s up in one of the towers. We had to take a window out to get the piano hoisted in. I was terrified it would drop.’