Free The Silver Falcon by Katia Fox Page A

result. He sat down and took off his shoe. The bandage around his foot had shifted and was cutting into his skin.
    “It’s bleeding!” Robert said, pointing at William’s foot.
    “I know.”
    “It looks as if it hurts.”
    “It’s all right.” William did not want to let on that he was in severe pain.
    “If you want me to help you, it’s all right to say so. I don’t mind.” Robert touched William’s foot, as if he wanted to show that he meant it.
    William was embarrassed, and he refused his help. He massaged the injured foot with both hands. When Logan’s thundering voice suddenly rang out behind him, he jumped.
    “What the hell is that?”
    William had not noticed the falconer’s arrival until Logan’s thundering voice boomed out from right behind him.
    “So now my lord sends me a cripple who wants to become a falconer.” Logan raised his right hand to the almost bald spot on his head and stroked it, as if he could not quite believe it. “They have no idea, these great men, how much work it takes to tame a bird. They just have the trained birds placed on their fists and they think they know something about hunting,” he went on, more and more worked up. “And I’m the one who has to deal with it.”
    “The king is a good falconer,” protested William, hurriedly rewrapping his foot. He pulled on his shoe and leaped up.
    Robert was already standing.
    Logan went to William and poked him in the chest with his forefinger. “I don’t know who put you forward, but even if it was the king his majestic self you needn’t think you’re something special.” He sniffed sharply and lowered his hand. “Perhaps you believe that I care who sent you here? Hear this: As long as you do what I tell you and don’t become a thorn in my side, you can stay. If you don’t work hard, you’ll be out quicker than you got here.”
    William stood there, thunderstruck, but then his defiant spirit reasserted itself. The falconer had greeted him without the slightest show of hospitality; not even the poorest serf would have done that. He drew himself up. “I haven’t had anything to eat yet,” he protested daringly.
    “Sweeping first, then eating. That’s how we always do things here. If it doesn’t suit you, you can leave whenever you like. I dare say there are plenty of other falconers who can’t wait to take you in.”
    Not yet, but they will, thought William sullenly, looking the falconer bravely in the face.
    “Now get on with the sweeping.”
    Robert gave him a gentle poke in the ribs and pulled him away.
    “And you, go in the house and do your work,” Logan snarled at his daughter, who had been watching all this from a safe distance.
    “The dogs we use when we go hawking are in the barn there. And back there in the little shed we’ve put a bitch with her litter, so that nothing happens to the puppies. They won’t join the others until they’re big enough and weaned.” Robert’s little tour began.
    “And what’s in the tower?” asked William, determined not to let anything grind him down.
    “The falcons! Where did you think they were?” Robert smiled rather contemptuously, but that did not bother William. The thought of the falcons warmed his heart. He examined the tower curiously from top to bottom.
    “My father raises nestlings in an aerie he made himself. Up there, see?” Proudly, Robert pointed at the top of the tower, but William could not make anything out. “The other falcons are housed below. That’s where we have to clean now. But quietly, mind you. Otherwise they take fright and we get into trouble.”
    William fought down his rising irritation. Robert seemed to take him for a fool. As if he would have gone into the mews shouting and waving his arms about.
    As they entered the tower, he felt the same excited fluttering in his stomach he had felt the day he had found the royal falcon. Specks of dust whirled and glittered in the broad beam of sunlight streaming into the room through