by Severin, Tim
‘I came to this country, hoping to buy white gyrfalcons.’
‘Then tomorrow, if the spirits favour us, you may have your wish.’
My tiredness vanished. ‘Tomorrow you will catch a white gyrfalcon?’
‘If the spirits wish,’ he repeated.
‘May I come with you to see how it is done?’
There was a long pause as he considered my request. ‘You are the first person who has taken the trouble to come to find me in the mountains. If you give me your word that you will be quiet and calm and not disturb our quarry, you may come with me.’
It was very like what Vulfard would have said.
Then the trapper took me aback by adding, ‘And it will do no harm that you are a seidrmann.’
‘What do you mean – a “seidrmann”?’ I asked.
‘Your eyes are of different colours. That is the mark of a man who is at ease with the Otherworld.’
*
Ingvar and I set out next morning while it was still dark, leaving Rolf to look after the horses. The trapper had insisted on an early start, saying that we must be in position by the time the gyrfalcons began to hunt. He was carrying the same small sack he had brought down from the mountain the previous day, and once again its contents moved and shifted with a life of its own. The climb up the ridge was a stiff one and I was embarrassed that Ingvar had to stop from time to time so that I could catch up with him. The result was that it was already full daylight by the time we reached a natural ledge some fifteen paces broad on the shoulder of the mountain. It was, according to Ingvar, the ideal site to trap a gyrfalcon. I was gasping for breath and my legs were shaking with fatigue as I stood there gratefully sucking in deep breaths of the clean fresh air, and gazing out to the blue-grey haze on the distant horizon. It was going to be a warm, windless day. Below me rank after rank of hills and ridges fell away to where, beyond view, lay Kaupang and the market. Without knowing quite why, I felt confident that we would add to the number of white animals for the distant caliph in Baghdad.
I turned to speak to Ingvar. He was gone. I was alone on the ledge. For an instant I was close to panic, remembering childhood tales of men who could dissolve themselves into thin air. Then I saw his sack. It lay on the ground at the foot of the rock face, still bulging and moving.
I waited for a few moments and – as unexpectedly as he had vanished – Ingvar reappeared, ducking out from a narrow cleft in the mountainside, its entrance hidden in such deep shadow that it was invisible from where I stood. He carried a couple of long, thin whippy lathes, a coil of stout cord, a ball of light twine and – I was interested to see – a length of the fine-mesh fish net.
He gestured at me to hurry in helping him clear away the pebbles and dust from the level patch where I was standing. When that was done, he hammered two wooden pegs into cracks in the rocky ground, about six feet apart. Lashing the two lathes end to end to make what looked like a long fishing rod, he threaded the rod along one edge of the net. Next he bent the rod into an arc and attached the ends to the two ground pegs. Finally, he fastened down the trailing edge of the net with heavy stones. Belatedly I understood what he was creating. It was a bow net. The wooden hoop would lie flat on the ground until he tugged on the cord and it would swing up and over, dragging up the net and trapping anything beneath it.
In the area where the net would fall, Ingvar now placed two stones, one fist-sized, the other somewhat larger and heavier. He untied the neck to his sack, reached in and pulled out a live pigeon. It flapped and struggled as he tied it by the leg to the larger stone. Weighed down, the protesting bird made short fluttering hops but could not escape. I realized that the pigeon was to be our bait, in the same way that Vulfard had placed fresh leaves in the centre of the pitfall for the aurochs. But Ingvar had a surprise for me. He reached again into the sack, groped around and pulled out a second bird, not a pigeon but a smaller bird, the size of a thrush, pearly grey with a black stripe on its head. This he also placed in the centre of the trap, attached to the smaller stone.
‘Why do you need two birds in the trap?’ I whispered.
‘The gyrfalcon strikes so fast that he can snatch away his prey before the trap is sprung. The smaller bird will provide a warning that a falcon is in the area.’
‘A lookout?’
He nodded. ‘The smaller bird is very watchful, not like the foolish pigeon. We call it the “shrieker”. When it sees a hunting falcon in the sky, it screams and flutters, jumps up and down, trying to escape. Then I know to be ready.’
‘Won’t the falcon strike at the little “shrieker”, as you call it?’
He gave me a patient look. ‘If there was a nice plump pigeon nearby, what would you do?’
He scattered a handful of oats on the ground in front of the two birds and beckoned me to follow him to the hidden cleft. As he retreated into the shelter he laid out two cords: a strong one fastened to the hoop to pull it shut, and the other, no more than a thin line, to the free leg of the pigeon.
The cleft was just wide enough for us to sit side by side, hidden from view but looking out over the captive birds. I remembered Vulfard and my vigil in the forest, waiting for the aurochs. Instead of a forest glade rimmed by oak trees, I was watching over a flat, dusty ledge on which two staked birds pecked at grain.
Ingvar did not take his eyes off the tethered birds. He wound a couple of turns of the stronger cord around his right fist, and held the lighter line with the fingers of his left hand. He reminded me of a fisherman getting ready to strike the hook into the jaws of a pike.
‘For these last two months I have ben watching a gyrfalcon nest nearby,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The birds use the same nest year after year. It’s a family that often produces white birds. This year the chicks hatched much later than usual. That is why I delayed going to Kaupang market. I had to wait until they were old enough to look after themselves.’
‘So that there’s another generation for the future?’
‘Exactly. If I caught a parent too soon, the young would die and I would destroy my livelihood.’
‘What if an eagle swoops down on the bait, not a gyrfalcon?’ I asked.
‘Then the spirits are against me. A gyrfalcon, if it is white, gets a much better price than an eagle, nearly three times more.’
‘Why would anyone pay more for a falcon when an eagle is so much larger and more impressive?’
‘Have you seen how a gyrfalcon hunts?’
I shook my head.
‘There is no finer sight in the entire world. It patrols the land, flying low, until it frightens up its prey. Then it takes up the chase. The gyrfalcon is faster than any other bird. It can twist and turn, strike from above or below, and knock its victim from the sky. By contrast the eagle is a farmyard fowl.’
The floor of our hiding place was bare rock, hard and uneven. My backside, already sore from riding, had gone numb. I feared that I would soon get cramp. I longed to get up and stretch.
All of a sudden the little grey bird in front of us crouched down, pressing itself against the ground. Then it began to hop and flutter, screeching in panic. The pigeon continued to peck greedily at the grain.
I held my breath in anticipation. Between the agitated cries of the small bird, there came a shrill bird call, kree, kree, kree, distinct in the still mountain air. Ingvar tensed. ‘A gyrfalcon is circling above. Keep very still!’ he hissed.
With his left hand Ingvar tweaked the thinner of the two lines.
In response the pigeon jumped a few inches off the ground and flapped indignantly. Ingvar waited a couple of heartbeats and tweaked again. Once more the pigeon fluttered, drawing attention to itself.
There was a brief pause, no more than the time it took me to release a slow breath, and then with a sudden rush of wind a white shape hurtled from the sky like a thunderbolt. A burst of pigeon feathers flew up. I heard a distinct thump as the falcon struck its victim, the talons driving into the pigeon’s back. Then the predator – it w
as a white gyrfalcon – was crouching over its victim, shoulders hunched, the hooked beak stabbing down into the pigeon’s neck with an assassin’s thrust. The pigeon’s head flew off. It was all over in the blink of an eye, and in that instant Ingvar tugged firmly on the stouter cord, the hoop of the spring trap swung over, and the gyrfalcon was in the net.
Ingvar gave a whoop of satisfaction and sprang to his feet. ‘We must secure the falcon before it hurts itself,’ he said. The captive was thrashing and tumbling inside the net, frenziedly struggling to escape.
I tried to rise but had lost all feeling in my legs. I threw out a hand to help myself and, in my clumsiness, grabbed Ingvar by the back of his jerkin. My tug threw him off balance just as he was about to leave our hiding place and he fell across me. He swore at me, fearing to lose his prize. In that same moment, there was a second rush of wind and, from nowhere, another bird of prey came flashing down, striking deep into the swirling turmoil of the net. It was a second gyrfalcon, as white as the first.
The second bird’s headlong attack was its undoing. Its talons struck through the net into the pigeon’s carcass, closed, then caught in the mesh. The second gyrfalcon also became a tangle of fury, jerking and twisting to get free.
Ingvar had regained his balance. He burst out of our hiding place, slipping off his jerkin. Racing up to the second falcon, he threw the garment over it, trapping it in its folds.
‘Quick! There’s a spare net in the cave,’ he called to me.
I ran back, found the net, brought it to him and together we managed to wrap the furious gyrfalcon in its mesh.
Ingvar worked with calm efficiency, not losing a moment. Deftly he disentangled the second falcon’s claws from the mesh of the spring trap and handed me the bird, still wrapped. The dark brown eyes circled with bright yellow skin glared at me in fury as I clutched the struggling creature to my chest, determined not to let it escape. Meanwhile, Ingvar had pulled a length of cloth from his pocket. Gently he eased back the hoop of the trap. Slipping an arm under it, he dropped the cloth over the bird, smothered its thrashing wings, then enveloped its head. As soon as the bird’s head was covered, it became less agitated.
Ingvar gathered up the falcon and rose to his feet. ‘Bring your bird, we must seal them quickly.’
We hurried back to the cave where Ingvar produced a fine needle and thread, and with infinite care – though it made my stomach clench – ran stitches through the eyelids of the first falcon, then drew them together.
‘It doesn’t hurt them,’ he said, seeing my squeamishness. ‘And once the eyes are sealed, they are less likely to hurt themselves.’
It was true. Both birds stopped their frantic attempts to get free as soon as their lids were sealed, and we were able to set them down, to stand quietly on the floor of the cave.
Finally, Ingvar relaxed. ‘That’s the first time it has happened to me in twenty years of trapping,’ he confessed.
‘Two birds at a single time?’
‘The second falcon must have decided it could snatch away the dead pigeon.’
‘Are they the same birds you hoped to trap?’ I asked.
‘One of them is. It’s the male from the nesting pair I’ve been watching.’
‘And the other?’
‘Had it been the female, I would have released it so that it could feed the chicks.’
‘So you don’t recognize it?’
‘Never seen it before. It’s a different female. She must have been on passage, and just happened upon us. That’s what is so difficult to explain . . .’ The words died on his lips as he stared into my eyes, his expression wondering. ‘Unless the spirits had been asked to help.’
I knew what he was thinking: I had used seidrmann’s powers to summon the second bird from afar.
The look on Ingvar’s face was unsettling. I had an uneasy feeling that my journey to Kaupang was slipping out of my control.
*
At Ingvar’s hut that evening the trapper wrung the necks of all but three of his remaining stock of pigeons. The survivors would later be fed to our captive birds. He let the little ‘shrieker’ go free.
‘It served me well,’ said Ingvar as we watched the bird fly away, flitting over the boulder-strewn landscape. ‘I can trap another one next year.’
Rolf was given the task of plucking the dead pigeons for our supper, and we sat beside the cooking fire, adding dry sticks from the woodpile to produce a good roasting blaze.
‘Tomorrow we set out for Kaupang. You and I each carry a gyrfalcon, and Rolf carries the eagle,’ Ingvar said.
He selected a crooked branch, cut off a short section with his hunting knife, and began to scrape off the bark. ‘Rolf will need a travel perch for the eagle. That’s a heavy animal. If he places one end of this on his saddle tree, it will take the eagle’s weight.’
I watched the shavings curl up from the knife blade as the stubby perch took shape, and it occurred to me that Ingvar, a hunter living in the wilds, might know something about the mysterious unicorn. I was still smarting at the memory of being laughed at, so I raised the subject cautiously. ‘I read in a book that no bird can match the eagle for its courage.’
‘What book is that?’
‘It’s called a bestiary, a book about notable animals and their behaviour.’
In Carolus’s bestiary an eagle had been drawn on the page opposite the picture of the gyrfalcon, and I had read what was written underneath.
‘It claims that parent eagles train their fledglings to endure pain by holding them up and making them stare directly into the glare of the sun,’ I continued.
Ingvar held up the half-finished travel perch to check its shape. ‘Can’t say that I’ve ever seen eagles doing that. But if a cuckoo can get other birds to raise its young, why shouldn’t eagles have their own special way as parents?’
‘There was also a picture of a wild animal like a horse but with a horn. It’s white and very shy, yet it can be tamed. Have you ever seen or heard of such an animal?’
He paused, knife in hand, and regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Are you sure it’s a horse, not a deer?’
It was an echo of what Walo had asked when we set out from Aachen. He had said that if a unicorn shed its horn every year, then it was a sort of deer.
‘I don’t know,’ I said hesitantly. ‘The book doesn’t say.’
‘My mother’s people know of a wild deer that could be the animal you speak of. If you are gentle with it, the animal can be tamed.’
His mother’s people, I presumed, were the wild Finna. ‘And is this a white deer?’
‘Some are.’
‘Can you draw me a picture?’
Using a twig Ingvar scratched an outline of the animal in the dust. The body, legs and head could well have been a unicorn. But when he came to sketch a full set of branching horns, it was clear that this was not the creature of the book.
He saw the disappointment on my face. ‘It’s not the animal you are seeking?’
‘No. The animal I’m looking for has a single horn, a spike that springs directly from the forehead. You cannot mistake it. The horn is made in a spiral like the strands of a rope.’
Ingvar’s face was alert with sudden interest. ‘There is such an animal. Some years ago I came across a broken piece of its horn.’
My heart gave a lurch. ‘Where was this?’
‘I had gone to the coast to catch those birds whose flesh you so enjoy. A broken piece of its horn was lying on the beach, just a small fragment. Maybe the creature had been fighting with a rival and damaged the spike.’
‘Do you still have it?’
He flipped his knife in the air, caught it by the blade, and held it out to me.
‘Take a look,’ he said.
The handle was dark wood, much polished with use. Where it tapered towards the hilt was a creamy yellow band, the width of my little finger. I looked at it more closely. It had been inset into the wood, and was a section of pale horn or some sort of ivory. With
out question, the surface bore the distinctive spiralling twist of the unicorn’s horn.
*
The moment I got back to Kaupang, I placed the gyrfalcons in Gorm’s care and hurried off to check on Walo and the two ice bears. Ohthere was standing in front of their cage, chewing on what I supposed was his favourite whale blubber.
‘If they get any bigger I’ll have to build them a larger, much stronger enclosure,’ he said as I joined him.
In the week I had been away, the two ice bears had thrived more than I would have imagined possible. They had grown several inches in height and length, put on weight, and their fur was losing its ugly yellow tinge.
‘So Walo’s doing a good job,’ I said.
Ohthere nodded. ‘Twice a day he crawls in there, plays that wretched pipe, gives them food and water, brushes their coats, scratches them behind the ears. I won’t be surprised to see him rolling around and wrestling with them one day.’
‘So he’s tamed the bears.’
‘Not at all! If anyone else goes near them, they start that snaky movement, side to side with their heads. A warning that they’re about to lash out. They won’t let anyone near them except Walo.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘With Osric. The two of them are helping Redwald. That crafty rogue drove a shrewd bargain over the price of my bears.’
As I walked away, heading into the town, he called out, ‘And tell Redwald that I want to talk with him about who’s going to pay for their food. They’re consuming eight chickens every day, and all the lard I can get my hands on.’
I identified Redwald’s place of work by a pile of quern stones. They were heaped outside one of the small, wooden houses just beyond the slave market. Inside I found Redwald standing in the light from the window, moodily rubbing a piece of broken silver jewellery against his touchstone. He looked round as I entered and treated me to a smile of genuine welcome.
‘Back already, Sigwulf! How did you get on?’
‘Two more white gyrfalcons, one male, one female. And an eagle, but that’s of little interest.’
He reached up and brushed back the strand of hair, which, as usual, had slid away from his bald patch. ‘Carolus’s mews master will find a place for that eagle.’
