Glass Swallow Read online

  With a contemptuous loop over the crag, the peregrine flaunted its superb flying skills. It skimmed along the ridge, teasingly suggesting that it planned to continue on until it was out of sight. Then, finally, as if sensing that even Peri’s patience was running out, it turned and rocketed towards the lure, as fast as an arrow from a longbow. It made a perfect grab for the meat, landing it on the grass.

  Now the test: could the handler separate it from the lure? If the falcon ate the kill, it would never do as a hunter. It had to be trained to let go of what it had captured. Peri moved closer, slipping off his jacket, then threw it over the lure, making it seem to the falcon that it had ‘disappeared’. He then cast a small chunk of meat within easy reach. Would the falcon let go of the prize it still gripped but could not see, in favour of the reward that was very visible on the ground a pace away? The falcon raised its ebony eyes, its expression one of resentment, but then hopped off the lure to pluck the titbit from the grass. Next Peri held out his gauntleted hand with another larger piece of meat. Rogue gave him a cold look but flapped up to snatch this reward too, allowing Peri to secure the bird in place by the jesses attached to its legs. Back under the falconer’s control, Rogue was too busy eating his treat to worry that Peri was putting away the much larger feast on the end of the lure.

  ‘Phew!’ exclaimed Helgis, jumping out from behind his refuge. ‘I never thought I’d see Rogue follow orders.’

  Usually unruffled by anything that happened on the training grounds, Peri could not disguise his delight. ‘I didn’t think I’d live to see it either. He’s been the most difficult bird I’ve ever had to train.’

  Helgis hooted. ‘Oi, Rogue, you scrawny old thing! You owe Peri, you know. Without him, you’d be cat’s meat.’

  The raptor looked up from its meal, fixing the twelve-year-old boy with a disdainful glare.

  ‘I don’t think he’s grateful,’ noted Helgis.

  ‘No, it’s not in his nature,’ agreed Peri.

  ‘About Goldie—’

  ‘I’m coming, I’m coming, sprout. Just let me hood Rogue and we’ll head back to the barracks.’

  Peri subdued the falcon with a tiny leather hood, allowing it to keep its reward in its talons. He was comfortable with Rogue’s weight on his arm; like the rest of his family, he almost felt undressed unless he had one of his birds along for the ride. He headed back to where he had left his horse in the shelter of an oak tree; Helgis’s pony grazed alongside. Peri had expected to see an escort of at least a couple of other lads from the compound, but Helgis had apparently made the journey alone.

  ‘Does our father know you’ve come to find me?’ Peri asked shrewdly.

  ‘Not exactly.’ Helgis mounted then waited while his brother put the falcon in its travelling basket.

  ‘So you’re beyond the compound without permission and on your own?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Hmm.’ It was not Peri’s way to scold his younger brother, preferring the boy to reach his own conclusions about the recklessness of his actions.

  ‘But you’re out here alone,’ Helgis argued.

  Peri raised a brow, his dark brown eyes solemn.

  ‘Yes, I know you are trained to defend yourself—and you’ve the falcon as well—but it’s broad daylight: it’s hardly likely that the bandits would pick on me, is it?’

  Peri clicked his horse into motion. The gelding began a smooth trot back down the mountain road, picking a safe route through the potholes and fallen stones.

  ‘I mean, I’m just a boy. I suppose they might have wanted Apple.’ Helgis patted the piebald pony as she gamely tried to keep up with the long legs of Peri’s chestnut. ‘I know people are desperate—but we’re close to Rolvint—bandits don’t come here, do they?’

  Nutmeg splashed across a stream. Peri hadn’t wanted to chance the rotting bridge. He waited on the far bank for Helgis and Apple to reach them.

  ‘The Master’s guards no longer patrol out here, Helgis,’ he explained, gesturing to the appalling state of the highway. ‘There’s no money to pay for enough of them. A group of pilgrims from the coast was attacked on this very spot only last week. Three of them died. The rest walked to the capital barefooted and wearing only their shirts.’

  Helgis grimaced. ‘That’s terrible—attacking pilgrims, I mean. Isn’t anyone safe?’

  Peri knew his point was now made and waited for Helgis to realize. It didn’t take long.

  ‘So I’m not safe either, am I?’ Helgis shuddered and urged Apple into a faster trot. ‘Let’s get home, Peri.’

  The falcon men’s barracks were situated beyond the city walls in the graveyard district. Their role as carers for birds of prey made them unclean to other Magharnans so they occupied this ground with others of their class, the refuse collectors, dog handlers, butchers and undertakers—anyone who handled the dead, or creatures that killed. Peri always thought it strange that while the higher classes were quite happy to consume the carcasses caught by the hunting birds and prepared by the butchers, they despised those who did the work to bring the food to their table. Where did the nobles and merchants think the fine meats covered in rich sauces came from if not from the ugliness of the slaughterhouse or the bloody reality of the hunt? He was thankful he did not have to live with such hypocrisy at his home.

  The barracks themselves were basic but comfortable, as far removed from the extravagant buildings of the city-within-the-walls as you could get. His home’s thick stonework, low slate roof, and stubby corners made it appear like a common earthworm squirming below the soaring butterfly architecture of the palaces, temples, and squares of Rolvint. The designers had attempted to make the city appear worthy of its god-ruler; nothing low or base was allowed inside; fountains must spring in the market places, trees blossom in the streets, houses be full of light and air. Arches and fretwork abounded, making the city from a distance look as if it was worked from lace. Raised with the prejudices of his outcast class, Peri had come to distrust the appearance, thinking such artistry wasted when people in the surrounding countryside could not travel on sound roads or even rely on the law enforcers to do their job. He suspected it was all a fine icing on a very stale cake.

  Hefting the saddle off his sturdy Nutmeg, he shook his head at his own thoughts. He would have to be careful. It might be safe to think such things in private, but if he dared voice them he would be in trouble. The Master hated dissent.

  Helgis had already broken the news of Rogue’s success when Peri ventured into the communal kitchen. His father was cooking at the open hearth in the centre while his mother helped his younger siblings with their schoolwork on a table under an open window. Other people were gathered in the spacious single storey building, each group occupying their allotted place, together yet separate for the evening family time. The bird handlers used three trestle tables set up on the eastern side of the fireplace; butchers congregated to the west. The hunters lounged around tables arranged in a sociable square, their tools and weapons hung on the southern wall behind them. To the north, in what should have been the darkest corner, the refuse-collectors assembled, their patch brightened by a collection of odds-and-ends gathered in the course of their work: mismatched drapes, cracked china, and battered copper pans polished to a shine. The scavenger families all slept elsewhere in huts scattered around the compound, but most preferred to spend their waking hours in this room where there was warmth and company.

  Peri’s parents looked up and stopped what they were doing to congratulate him.

  ‘My boy,’ smiled Katia Falconer, kissing his cheek proudly.

  ‘Have some stew,’ growled his father, shoving a bowl in his hands. A man of few words, everyone understood that Hern meant this as approval and reward, feeding his son just as he would treat one of his falcons when they’d behaved well.

  ‘I’d best see to Goldie first,’ said Peri.

  ‘Nonsense,’ his mother replied, patting the bench, ‘that bird will wait ten minutes. Helgis i
s worrying unnecessarily.’

  Peri’s brother frowned, not wishing to gainsay his mother, knowing how handy his father was with a wooden spoon administered to the top of a cheeky boy’s head. ‘Am not,’ he muttered.

  Hern let this pass; he had already dealt out to Helgis a week’s long punishment of extra chores for going to the mountain pass without permission. ‘Any trouble?’ he asked Peri, returning to his cauldron.

  He shook his head and sat down. ‘All quiet. But I saw no patrols either. You would’ve thought they’d increase the guard on the mountain passes now they know there are bandits out there.’

  His youngest sister, a girl of four called Rosie, crawled on to his lap.

  ‘Leave your brother alone,’ called his mother as she marked sums drawn on a slate.

  ‘It’s all right, Ma, she’s no trouble.’ Peri stroked his sister’s head, her dark eyes glowing with adoration. Awkwardly he ate the stew, taking care not to drop any on her, which was made all the more difficult by her wriggling.

  ‘Well done, Bel.’ His mother kissed her eldest daughter for getting all her sums right. She ushered Bel away to eat before returning to her subject. ‘I don’t understand it. They’re spending money in the city on that new palace as if there is no tomorrow, while all around us things are falling apart.’

  She did not dare say any more in this public space, but Peri and his parents thought it was a criminal waste what the nobles were doing when the harvests had been so bad this year. Merchants had begun hoarding grain and the poor could no longer afford to buy it. The rich were living as extravagantly as usual, indeed to even greater excess as if they were afraid that if they stopped, they too would starve.

  ‘I meant to say, Pa: the bridge to the pass needs serious work. Don’t use it if you go out that way.’ Peri ruffled Rosie’s hair and put her to one side. ‘I’ll come and say goodnight,’ he promised, ‘but for now I have a sick bird to see.’

  Rosie stuck her thumb in her mouth and nodded solemnly.

  Helgis danced along beside Peri as he made his way to the mews. It was Peri’s favourite place in the barracks, a long, specially designed building where the birds could rest in comfort on their perches, in groups or alone as suited their species. Rogue was already back in his niche, his flint-blue feathers gleaming like polished steel as he roosted on his ledge, next door to Bel’s merlin.

  ‘Obedience tired you out?’ murmured Peri, stroking the bird lightly, savouring the rapid beat of the tiny heart under the pale breast feathers.

  Goldie was lodged a few niches along. As Helgis had said, she did not look her usual bright self, her ribbed stomach feathers yellowed, her dark brown coat flat and dull. Peri lifted her from her perch and sniffed the top of her head, alert for the smell of sickness. The bird nestled closer, strange behaviour for the usually proud sparrowhawk.

  ‘Not eating, you say?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Helgis showed him the untouched food bowl.

  Peri wrinkled his nose: there was an unpleasant tang in the niche, the ground below the perch soiled. He crumbled apart a casting expelled from her crop, finding fur and bone inside the hard pellet. ‘Did you clean her out this morning?’

  ‘Of course,’ bristled Helgis. ‘She was really stinky.’

  ‘What was the last thing she ate?’

  ‘A rabbit, caught on Jettan Kirn’s estate.’

  ‘I think Goldie’s got a mild case of food poisoning. I can only guess that the rabbit was not fit for her to eat.’

  Helgis nodded. ‘It was slow to move. She had no trouble snatching it.’

  ‘The jettan has had a poor harvest. His gamekeepers must have been laying out poison for the animals that eat his crops.’

  ‘He should have said!’ Helgis exploded with outrage. ‘He shouldn’t call in the falcon men if he’s using poison.’

  Peri shrugged. ‘It happens. Someone like the jettan doesn’t consider the feelings of those under him when he gives his orders. He probably just told his estate manager to use every means available to salvage his harvest.’

  ‘But still—’ Helgis looked ready to knock on the jettan’s door himself and give him a piece of his mind—a fatal step for any of the lowly falcon men with one from the highest class. Jettan Kirn was the Master’s chief adviser, the sort who would not think a month of baths enough to cleanse himself for breathing the same air as a scavenger.

  Peri put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘Let it go, Helgis. Goldie will recover. I have a purgative I can give her. In a day or two she’ll be back to normal. All we can do is warn the others not to let their birds feed on the jettan’s estate.’

  ‘It’s not fair.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ Peri could understand the anger that was driving his brother. Few things were worse for a falcon man than to have one of his birds harmed in the course of doing its duty. He too remembered his feelings of frustration when he realized for the first time just how society was weighted against people of his class. With the Master at the top of the pile, backed by the jettans, it was a very long way down to his level: first there were the courtiers, called the drummers, and priests; then wealers who handled the money; codifiers who administered the law; warriors; purveyors, artificers, and farmers; servants and labourers; and at the bottom, the bondsmen. Finally, after this accounting of classes-within-the-walls, came his people and the other scavengers. There was no chance to rise up through the ranks: you were born to your class and remained in it until death. But the unfairness did not stop there: a jettan could injure a man from a lower class and no charge would be brought against him; but should a bondsman or a scavenger even look at a noble wrongly then he was liable to the severest of punishments: a flogging or imprisonment. While capital punishment was relatively rare, it was not unknown for someone from a higher class to demand it for a lower class offender even when the offence was relatively mild. A tailor had been imprisoned only the month before for failing to complete a jettan’s wedding garment on time, regardless of the fact that the unfortunate man had fallen ill a week before the marriage took place.

  Peri distracted himself from his bad mood by preparing the medicine from the stocks in the mews storeroom and feeding it to the sparrowhawk. He had trained himself to deal with his strong emotions by focusing on the task at hand, putting aside the negative feelings. It had led to people believing him to be different from the rest of his family, thinking he lacked the temper they exhibited—a still pond, as his mother described him. This was far from the truth. If Peri had chosen an image for himself, he would have said he was more like a river concealing powerful currents. To be the best falcon man he could, he had long since decided that the birds he looked after had to be protected from any overspill of temper; they flourished or flagged depending on the atmosphere in which they were raised. He owed it to them to maintain his control.

  Goldie really wasn’t too bad, Peri decided, only a little off colour; he was confident she would bounce back quickly. Crooning softly, he restored her to her perch and shut her up for the night.

  On his way back to the kitchen, the bell rang at the barrack gate. Peri groaned. As no person from the city would venture into the compound with those they considered unclean, the scavengers had to answer the summons and go to them. Being nearest to the gate, Peri set off to open it, waving away one of his neighbours who had poked his head out of the communal kitchen.

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  Peri opened the postern gate and stepped outside on to the muddy highway. Across the road, the pale oval slabs that marked the tombs in the cemetery stretched into the distance, gleaming in the moonlight like fallen petals. As expected, he was greeted by the sight of a deputation from the city: a servant from one of the jettan families by the look of his blue slashed tunic, accompanied by four muscular bondsmen, protection against the dangers beyond the walls.

  ‘Falcon man?’ asked the servant.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Peri bowed low as required, feeling weary of the ceremonies he had to observ
e when meeting a superior.

  ‘I serve the great jettan, Kirn the Magnificent, strong arm of the realm, chief of works to the Master.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Peri stifled a yawn. Great: a message from his least favourite jettan. It had been a long day and he did not feel up to listening to the long list of titles and declarations of greatness that accompanied any interview with any retainer to a jettan. All of them adopted fantastical claims for their employers—magnificent, benevolent, ingenious, enlightened—it was a wonder there were enough praise-words in the Magharnan dictionary to go round.

  ‘My lord requires a falcon man to hunt the crows that infest the building site of the new summer palace. You must send one of your number to the royal district tomorrow at dawn. The work must be completed before the jettan arrives to oversee progress on the building at ten in the morning.’ The little man paused, waiting for a response.

  ‘It is our honour,’ replied Peri insincerely. He was hardly going to say anything else with four strong men alert for the least sign of disrespect from a low-life such as him.

  ‘Good. See that it is done.’

  ‘I doubt it can be done with only one visit. The crows will flee then return once our hunting birds are gone.’

  ‘Make as many trips as is necessary, scavenger.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The servant turned with a flounce of his blue costume and scurried back to the city. Shutting the gate with a tired smile, Peri wondered what offence the lackey had committed to be given this, the lowliest of tasks: talking to him.

  ‘What was that about?’ Hern asked as Peri entered the kitchen.

  ‘Jettan Kirn’s servant.’ He raised his voice so that all the families could hear. ‘Anyone volunteer to rid the summer palace of crows tomorrow at dawn?’

  There was a long silence before people returned to their meals, avoiding Peri’s gaze.