Hawk Quest

by Robert Lyndon

  Glum had stopped shouting. Wayland wiped his nose, filled his lungs, gathered himself at the end of the ledge, bent his left knee and jumped. A quick two-step and then a lunge for the steep edge of the rock. He hung mainly by friction, and when he knew he wasn’t going to fall, he brought his right leg round and groped for a foothold on the other side of the outcrop. Nothing at first, then he contacted a small projection. He didn’t pause to think. He put all his weight on the hold and shimmied around the rock.

  He was only a step away from a good footing. Above him, fissured blocks whitewashed with droppings led like a ladder to the nest shelf. He pulled himself up, crooked his elbows over the ledge and hauled himself into the eyrie.

  Three hissing eyases flung themselves on their sides and thrust out their talons. They were ugly, toad-like infants with feathers budding through dirty grey down. Their mother was still patrolling, unable to mount an attack because of the overhang. A freshly killed gull lay in the eyrie, fragments of its dark red flesh stuck to the eyases’ waxy ceres. The remains of other kills littered the eyrie and the ledges were plastered with feathers. Wayland sat on the midden as if it were a throne, enjoying his God’s eye view. He found himself noticing the golden lichen on the rocks, the silvery veins in the granite, a small pink flower quaking in the wind.

  He came out of his reverie to find that he was very cold. He thought he heard voices and sensed that they had been calling for some time. The eyases were still rolled on their sides, warding him off with their talons. He shivered. The sky had clouded over and the surface of the fjord had darkened to slate. Time to go. He took hold of the ropes and pulled three times.

  This time he traversed the rocky nose without hesitation. Not a moment too soon. Cloud had rolled in from the sea and fingers of mist were groping up the cliffs. As soon as he gained the ledge, the falcon resumed her attacks. He ignored her and moved quickly until he reached what he thought was the line of ascent. He rested a moment then threw his head back to check the position of the ropes.

  Something hit his forehead with stunning impact. He didn’t even know he’d been knocked off the ledge until he found himself hanging with the ropes biting into his chest. The pain was excruciating, as though someone had taken a blunt saw to his skull. Through pulsing red waves he realised that he’d been twisted round and was dangling with his back to the cliff. Sticky warmth flooded down his face, half blinding him and filling his mouth with salt sweetness. He wiped the blood from his eyes and raised his hand to find out what damage the blow had done. His skull was still in one piece but a pair of lips seemed to have sprouted on his brow.

  The pain subsided to a sickening ache. Blood wormed down his neck. He paddled at the rock, trying to spin himself around. Somehow the ropes had worked around his back, leaving him leaning out from the cliff, unable to exert any leverage. To make his position worse, the basket was holding him away from the face. He felt for the straps and found that one of them had snapped. He struggled out of the other and dropped the basket into space. Blood was still running into his eyes. He reached for the ropes and that’s when he discovered that one of them had broken.

  His blood-slicked hands couldn’t get a grip on the remaining line. He wiped his palms on his thighs and was about to try again when the rope jerked around his ribs and he felt himself scrape a foot or so up the face. Raul was trying to drag him up. Another violent heave and he heard the rope sawing against rock.

  ‘No!’

  The movement stopped. He wiped his hands again and made another attempt to pull himself up. He had to reach behind him. The angle was all wrong. He tried a dozen times before giving up. He was weakening. His neck ached from the effort of trying to keep his head from slumping forward. Freezing fog streamed up past him. The cold had helped staunch his wound and his face was setting into a mask. The rope around his chest gripped so tight that he could breathe only in shallow gasps.

  ‘Don’t struggle. I’m coming down.’

  It was Glum, not far above him.

  ‘Wayland, I’m on the ledge. You’re about ten feet below me. I’m going to drop another rope. Do you think you can hold onto it?’

  Wayland half raised a hand.

  ‘Here it comes.’

  The rope fell hissing over his shoulder. He snagged it at the second attempt. His fingers were too numb to tie a secure knot. He made two coils around his right wrist.

  ‘Put your weight on it. Then you will be able to turn and everything will be easier.’

  Wayland gripped with both hands and strained. As his weight transferred from the rope pinned to his back, the pressure on his chest relaxed and air flooded into his lungs.

  ‘Turn to face the cliff.’

  Wayland gave himself more breathing space before kicking off with his feet. He spun and smacked chest first into the cliff. He blinked up through a bloody veil and glimpsed Glum peering down from the ledge.

  ‘You are not strong enough to climb, I think. You must let Raul pull you up to me.’

  Glum signalled by tugging on his own rope. Wayland felt himself borne upwards. Glum leaned down, gripped him by his tunic and hauled him onto the ledge.

  ‘That was good. Rest now until you have the strength to reach the top.’

  The formal phrasing from a boy who hadn’t started shaving made Wayland laugh. It wasn’t normal laughter. He balanced on the ledge until his breathing steadied and he looked up through the dank updraught.

  ‘I’m ready.’

  Raul dragged him up like he was a slab of meat. He crawled over the lip of the cliff and saw the German braced behind the anchor bar. As soon as Wayland stood on safe ground, Raul ran forward and caught him. He lowered him to the ground and took his face in both hands.

  ‘What happened? Did a rock hit you?’

  ‘It was the falcon. I don’t think she meant to strike me. I leaned back at the wrong moment and … ’ Nausea swept him.

  Raul dropped to his knees and examined the wound.

  ‘We have to get you back.’

  ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘Put it this way, you ain’t going to be as pretty as you were.’ Raul realised that Wayland didn’t have his basket. ‘The falcons. Did you lose them?’

  Wayland swung his head.

  ‘Don’t tell me the nest was empty.’

  Wayland stuck up three frozen fingers. ‘Too young. Not ready.’ His bones seemed to melt and he sagged into Raul’s arms.

  Glum was coiling up the ropes. He examined the one that had broken and frowned.

  ‘You were right about that line being weak,’ said Raul.

  Glum clicked his tongue. ‘No, it was the new one that broke.’

  Syth burst into tears when they brought Wayland down. The Greenlanders placed him in a tent and crowded at the entrance. Syth shooed everyone away except Raul. She heated water and bathed Wayland’s face. The wound began to bleed again.

  ‘Bring me a mirror.’

  Syth returned with a disc of polished bronze. Wayland held it up and examined his face. The falcon’s hind talon had torn a gaping slash across the middle of his forehead. He felt for the bag that held his falconry furniture and fumbled out a bone needle and a thread he used to seel the eyes of newly caught hawks.

  ‘You going to stitch it?’ said Raul.

  ‘It won’t mend cleanly by itself.’ Hands shaking, he tried to thread the needle. He gave up and passed the implements to Syth.

  She passed the thread through the eye and gave it to him, then squatted back biting the tip of her forefinger. He tried to hand the needle back. ‘You do it. It’s not difficult. I stitched up the dog when he was young and got too close to a stag I’d wounded.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You want me to have a go?’ Raul said.

  Wayland closed his eyes. He opened them and held out his hand. ‘Give it to me. You hold the mirror.’

  Wayland positioned himself and brought the point of the needle to one end of the gash. The flesh was swollen and discoloured and it w
as hard to manipulate the needle accurately. It took several attempts just to position the point. He pushed the needle through the lower lip of the wound. He flinched from the pain and ended up with a misaligned stitch. Blood ran into his eyes. Syth swabbed him with a cloth.

  ‘It’s no good. I can’t see properly.’ He held out the needle to Syth. ‘Please,’ he said. He lay back. ‘Raul, hold my head.’

  Syth’s face leaned close and he shut his eyes. The first few stitches were excruciating, but then he seemed to float away from his body and though he could still feel each puncture, the pain seemed to be being inflicted on someone else.

  He drifted back to find Syth gazing down on him. He brought up his hand and brushed at his brow. ‘All done?’

  ‘Yes. You were very brave.’

  ‘Show me.’

  She held the mirror. His forehead resembled a bulging thundercloud but the wound was stitched as neatly as a hem.

  ‘I knew you’d do a good job.’

  She was trying not to cry. ‘You’d better have something to eat.’

  He rolled his head. The thought of food made him want to throw up.

  ‘Sleep then.’ She began to withdraw.

  He spoke without knowing what he was going to say. ‘Syth, I love you.’

  She stopped. ‘Like a sister?’

  ‘Like a woman.’

  She slid down beside him and planted soft kisses on his cheeks.

  He held her, his head cradled against her shoulder. ‘What will we do?’

  ‘Oh, Wayland, you say the silliest things. We’ll do what all lovers do.’ She laid a finger to his lips. ‘When you’re ready.’

  XXIV

  He was back on his feet next day and the following morning he resumed the search for occupied eyries. In the days that followed, he explored the fjords on either side of Red Cape and found another four nests. None of them presented such a formidable challenge as the first one. He climbed to two of them from below and let Glum rope himself down to the others. All the eyases were still too young to take. Wayland explained that falcons removed from the nest before they were fully fledged never grew out of their rude infantile habits. The best time to catch them up was when they were hard-penned and ready to make their first flight. Even then, some of them grew crabby and grasping, screaming for food all day long and mantling on the fist in a graceless fashion. That’s why he preferred passage falcons trapped in their first autumn, when the winds of freedom had refined their immaturity. For sheer perfection of style, though, nothing could beat a haggard.

  One of these paragons flew into his life as he was returning from the last eyrie. They were in the ship’s boat, rowing down the fjord north of Red Cape. Ahead of them the westering sun hung in a flattened orb, casting long shadows across a glacial amphitheatre on the starboard shore. Hardly a ripple on the ice-littered water. The peace was broken by a covey of ptarmigan that sprayed past the boat, fleeing for the opposite shore. When Wayland sighted the gyrfalcon she was a hundred yards behind the grouse, driving forward with wingstrokes that seemed almost leisurely until she passed in a white flash and he saw that she’d already cut the ptarmigans’ lead by half. She overtook them before they’d reached mid-fjord and plucked one of them out of the air. Her sails spread and she circled back with her prey tucked under her tail.

  Wayland saw her take stand on a rocky tor on the seaward side of the glacier.

  ‘Put me ashore.’

  Raul groaned. ‘Give it a miss. We’ve had a hard day and I’m hungry.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  He landed and advanced until he had the falcon in clear view. She plucked and ate her kill and then she relaxed her feathers and dozed. He walked closer. She’d drawn one foot up and showed no fear at his approach. She’d probably never encountered a man before. He stopped when he could see the crisp outlines of her flight feathers. Her head and breast were immaculate and the few black markings on her wings only emphasised her whiteness. He moved closer and she lowered her foot and stood poised for flight with her wings held up like shields. Another step and she sprang off the rock and beat away across the snout of the glacier.

  He climbed her lookout. Bones from many kills lay on the rock, together with castings. He picked up one of the falcon’s moulted primaries. The heavy black markings on it told him that she was a year old, not yet grown so wild as to be irreclaimable. He looked across the fjord. Terns hovered above the milky green meltwater trailing from the glacier. Ducks in chevrons winged down the channel. The cairn was both a lookout and a feeding station.

  He tramped back to his companions and produced the feather. ‘I’m going to trap her.’

  ‘This is not a good place,’ said Glum. ‘There is nowhere safe to camp. Now it is quiet, but sometimes storms rush down the glacier with a force you cannot imagine.’

  Wayland looked about. On the inland side of the glacier a waterfall wreathed in rainbows dropped to a sunny shelf.

  ‘It’s more sheltered over there. Let’s take a look.’

  Raul grumbled at the diversion. He and Wayland had spent too long together and were beginning to grate on each other.

  Syth and Glum followed Wayland onto the rocky beach. Warmth reflected back from the cliff. Fireweed, angelica and yellow poppies grew in the gravel, and the hollows between the boulders were thick with bilberry and dwarf willows. The waterfall dropped in drifting veils to a pool that spilled away in a bubbling stream. Under the cliff to one side of the cascade was a cave.

  ‘I’ll camp here.’

  Glum voiced another objection. ‘If you bait a net with a bird, the foxes will get it.’

  A fox in its ragged summer coat was skulking not far away as he spoke. Wayland had brought a cage containing six pigeons that he’d intended to use for hawk food. His gaze roamed over the foreshore and settled on a moraine hard by the glacier. ‘I’m not going to use a net.’

  A short search revealed a natural hide formed by a slabby erratic that had come to rest across boulders, creating a den two feet high and long enough to accommodate him. He wriggled in feet first to check that he had a good view of the falcon’s lookout.

  ‘You’ll freeze in there,’ said Syth.

  ‘Waste of time,’ Raul complained. ‘You’ve already found all the falcons we need.’

  Wayland dragged himself out. ‘None of the eyases will be ready to take for another week. We’ll give it three days.’

  They offloaded equipment and provisions, then they dragged the boat ashore and tied it down with ropes anchored to rocks. They pitched two tents in the cave and ate outside while the sun slid south of Red Cape and the cliffs darkened to maroon.

  Wayland was too keyed up to sleep. Before the shadows had lifted from the falcon’s lookout he shook Glum awake. Raul and Syth were still sleeping. The young Greenlander knuckled his eyes and stepped out of the shelter. Iron-grey clouds hid the top of the escarpment. A raw wind blowing straight down the glacier raised welts on the surface of the fjord.

  ‘This is not a day to catch falcons.’

  ‘Bad weather makes hawks keen,’ Wayland said. ‘She might come as soon as I show the bait.’

  The wind buffeted them as they made their way to the hide. Wayland slithered into it cocooned in his sleeping bag and holding a live pigeon. He pulled a plaited willow screen across the entrance. ‘Keep out of sight,’ he told Glum. ‘Come back for me when the sun reaches the west.’

  ‘The sun will not show itself today. You will be stiff as stone by then.’

  Glum was right. Wayland had hardly settled in the hide when the cold stored in the ground began to soak into his body. Sensation ebbed from the hand holding the pigeon. He pulled it inside and waited for the falcon to appear. The lookout remained empty and the sky darkened and the wind strengthened. By noon Wayland knew there was no chance of trapping the falcon. He was about to struggle out when a booming roar made his hair stand on end. A blast of freezing air came roaring down the glacier and surged past his hideout with a force stron
g enough to suck the breath out of his lungs. Sliding forwards, he saw that the surface of the fjord had been flattened into a mantle of flying spume. He grew alarmed. If waves couldn’t stand up to such a tempest, no man could keep his feet in it. Then it began to snow and Wayland grew really frightened. The blizzard tore past in a white torrent. Trapped, cold to the bone, he waited. Surely a storm of such ferocity couldn’t last long.

  It lasted all day. He was sinking into the delusional sensation of warmth when the dog thrust its muzzle into his hide. Glum’s muffled face appeared, his eyebrows caked with snow. ‘You must come now!’

  The pigeon had perished. Wayland was so stiff that Glum had to drag him out. The boy had roped himself to the dog and Wayland did the same. They crawled blind through the shrieking whiteout. Only the dog’s instinct brought them safe to the cave. Raul dragged them inside. Syth ran forward.

  ‘The dog knew you were in danger and began to howl.’

  ‘She made me follow it,’ Glum panted. ‘If I hadn’t, she would have gone herself.’ A fire burned outside the tent. Glum held out his hands to it. ‘Crazy,’ he said. ‘Crazy!’

  Wayland’s jaw juddered. He reached towards the embers. Syth grabbed his hands and her eyes widened in alarm.

  ‘They’re blocks of ice.’

  She pulled him into the tent and lifted up her layers of woollens and placed his hands on her bare stomach and then pressed her back against him. He lay against her, the snow still streaking past his inner eye. Glum and Raul squeezed up on his other side and they huddled together like a litter of animals while the wind yowled with the fury of a monster cheated of its prey.

  The storm blew itself out with a hushed roar. Wayland woke to an eerie silence. Under his right hand he felt something soft and comforting and he realised he was cupping Syth’s breast. He shifted Glum’s arm off his back, sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. A warm light filtered through the weave of the tent. He went out into a golden midnight. More than a foot of snow blanketed the shore. Across the glacier the falcon sat on her pedestal like a carved image.