Page 29 of The Hawk Laird
“I cannot let him go yet. His left wing moves awkwardly, and it feels swollen at the joint. I hope ’tis but a sprain. When he can fly well, I may let him go.” He tipped his head and looked at the bird. “Then again, I may keep him. Goshawks are fine hunting birds.”
“But he belongs to someone.”
He shrugged. “He could have flown a very long way. I think he’s been free for a while. His owner will have given him up for dead or lost.”
“’Tis against the law to keep a found trained hawk or falcon,” she said, frowning. “Men have been hanged for that.”
He met her gaze evenly. “If I am caught, my girl, they will hang me for more than this hawk, and you know it.”
She lowered her eyelids and did not reply.
James stroked the bird’s breast, watching her. “Besides, that is an English hawking law. Scotland does not have such a rule. Think you English law should prevail in Scotland?”
She shook her head, an unconsciously graceful motion. He wished he could believe her.
James rose and walked over to lay the bird breast down on the rumpled nest of his cloak. “Well, it hardly matters if I keep him,” he said, squatting beside the bird, scratching its head while it chittered unhappily. “We’ll never find the owner. And I do not intend to look. I have other matters on my mind.”
He picked up his bow as he spoke, and carried it to the middle of the glade. Kneeling, he bent the bow in an arch and thrust the ends into the earth.
“What are you doing?” Isobel asked.
“Making a perch. I cannot leave the poor thing cast like that for long. He does not like me overmuch as ’tis.” He went back to the bird, who rocked and struggled on the cloak. “Lady Isobel, help me, if you will,” he said as he knelt.
“Aye.” Kneeling beside him, she reached out her left hand to touch the bird’s trembling back, her right arm snug against her body. “What should I do?”
“Can you keep the hawk still with just one hand?”
“I think so.” She held the bird down.
James reached down to his ankle and began to unwind one of the leather thongs that bound his thick woolen hose to his leg. When he had freed one long strap and readjusted the stocking, he cut the thong with his dagger, producing two pieces, each less than a foot long.
“Hold him fast,” he said. “I’ll tie these on as new jesses, and take him out of the shirt.”
While she held the goshawk’s back, James tied the thongs to the bird’s leather anklets. He snatched his fingers away a few times to avoid the clenching talons.
“Be careful,” he told her as he worked. “He’ll foot you quick. And he could crack your fingers with hardly an effort.”
She eyed the bird nervously but did not move her hand. James noted her courage with approval as he unwound the linen shirt. Then he took her hand to guide it beneath the cloth.
“Hold him here, behind the shoulders. Firmly, now.”
While she did, he unlaced the thick leather guard that he wore over his forearm for protection while shooting his bow and shifted it to cover the back of his hand. Then he picked up one of his discarded belts and wrapped it around his hand to protect his thumb and fingers.
“Lacking a leather gauntlet,” he remarked, “’tis the best I can do. Let go, lass. We’ll see if he remembers how to come to the fist.”
He wound the makeshift jesses around his fingers. Then he slipped the shirt off the bird.
Isobel leaped back. The goshawk, freed from the restraining cloth, flapped its wings and rose upward, shrieking furiously.
Chapter Nine
“The first ruleof hawking,” James said, “is to hold fast.”
He extended his arm, feeling the tension in his shoulder and chest muscles as he resisted the bird’s considerable upward force. The goshawk thrashed and flapped at the limit of the tightened jesses.
James tilted his head to avoid another fierce pass of a wingtip. “There is some cooked meat in my pouch over there. Can you get it, and tear it into bits?”
She did so, and came forward cautiously, glancing up at the furious, struggling hawk. She handed the meat to James, who took it in his free hand while she stepped away quickly. Her gaze, like his, centered on the frenzied bird and its wide, sweeping wings, its flexing talons. Though James held his arm out patiently, his muscles ached from the effort of resisting the hawk’s strength.
