Under the Falcon's Wing

Laughter filled the smoky night air and my heart grew lighter.

Figures approached out of the darkness.

"Falcon," came a voice. I knew it at once. Taghai. His face appeared in the flickering firelight. He was dragging Nikola behind him.

I frowned. "What is this?"

"I caught him near the edge of the camp," he said. "No doubt he thought he might try to escape."

I stood. Nikola looked up at me, his eyes disdainful.

The others had fallen silent, watching.

I tore Nikola from Taghai and slapped the boy across the face. I did not hold back my strength. He fell to the ground and lay there, blood streaming from his nose. He did not cry out.

Silence from all the others, but finally Houlun laughed. "The boy has spirit, don't you think? He will learn our ways soon enough." And with her words the talking and drinking resumed.

Nikola stared up at me. He no longer showed any disdain, just that cold distance of one whose spirit is broken. I grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet.

"You're leaving, Falcon?" asked Houlun with an arching of her eyebrows.

"The boy needs further training," I said.

Houlun laughed. "Very good. But careful not to break him."

I dragged the boy inside my ger. "You shamed me with your behaviour," I said, so angry that I forgot he could not understand me. "You must not try to escape. You must do all that I say. You are a slave, never forget!"

The boy stared at me dumbly. Incensed, I raised my hand to strike him again. He flinched away, his eyes wide and fearful.

The pathetic sight stayed my hand. I let it drop.

"Go," I said, disgusted. "Sleep. Tonight you will have no food. Let your empty stomach remind you of your duty."

I pushed him to the floor. He slunk away and found his bed. He wrapped himself in his blankets and rolled over so that his back was to me.

Irritated, I blew out the lights and sought my own bed. I lay there in the smoky darkness staring up at the crown of the ger. Despite my anger, tiredness drew my eyelids closed, helped by the airag I had drunk.

I heard a strange sound in the darkness, like the bubbling of a spring or the flowing of water.

No, that was a dream. But there was a sound, the sound of weeping.

The sound distressed me. I threw my blanket over my head and after an eternity, half-hearing, half-imagining the boy's soft sobbing, sleep eventually drew me down into its merciful embrace.

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Nikola did not try to escape again, nor did he cry again after that night. He had sobbed out his despair into the blankets until he was hollow. He no longer met my eyes with his own. He did all that I required of him, methodical and passionless. He showed no insolence, but neither did he display any other emotion to me. The warmth I had felt that first night had bled out into the darkness with the blood I had spilled from his mouth.

I harangued myself long for striking the boy. And yet I had had no choice. To coddle him would have invited further attempts at escape. Houlun and the others would have smiled into their airag at my weakness, would have jested behind my back about how the Falcon doted on her new pet like a mother.

Nikola did his work. He cut wood, collected dung, sewed and lifted and dragged and did all that was demanded of him. A fine slave, people said. I allowed him more freedom, let him tend to the goats along the river, within sight of others. Maybe I thought such a kindness would thaw the ice around his heart. It did not.

We spoke little. I had continued to teach him our words, but after a while the lessons, so dumbly taken, weighed hard upon me. He understood my orders. That was enough.

As the nights grew longer, the air colder, the sky greyer, so did my thoughts darken. The time of year when my husband and son had died grew close. I took long rides on my mare alone. Houlun knew I did so, and she would often wait for me at the edge of the camp and ask me how my scouting had gone. She always asked this without any trace of mockery. I was thankful for her allowances.

The day finally came. I left the camp early. I travelled to the left of the rising sun, north-east, through plains of yellowing grass. After several hours I reached low hills. The sun was high and hot, the grass grey-brown, blasted. The wind blew in my face, cold with the steppe.

The place they had been left was not far from here. I approached the hills. The wind shifted. I smelled nothing but my mare nickered, anxious.

No, not the smell of death. The spirits. Spirits dwelt in this place.

The sun spilled down, white-gold, haloing the hill, the one shaped like a saddle.

There, on the summit. White, gleaming points of light.

Bone, alive like fire.

I blinked. The sun burned my eyes. I turned away, tears boiling in them. I wiped them away with my sleeve. I dug my thighs against my mare's side. Thankful, she broke into a canter.

I did not look back.

I followed the river home. The gentle flow of the Ijil calmed the hot spurting of my blood. My sight dropped down into its pleasant blue-black depths. All emotion was drowned there.

The air grew warmer. The river bent here and the meadows remained green even now with the cold fingers of winter digging the earth. I saw a figure, standing beside the river. He was dressed in blue, a scarf of gold fluttering about his face, a face aglow with light.

No, it was no scarf. It was his hair. Golden hair, lifted loose in the wind.

The boy, Nikola.

My heart skipped a beat. Was he trying to escape? But no. Behind him I saw another, dressed in green, his sash yellow. Cheren. The head of a goat sprang up beside him, then another.

They had brought the goats here to graze. But this was far from the camp.

I rode up. The boy Nikola looked up at me. Those blue eyes. I had not seen them for so long!

His face grew pink. The wind? No, embarrassment. I had been staring at him like one thirsty.

"The flock led you this far from camp?" I asked.

Cheren shook his head. "Nikola wished to come this way. We have come to bring you home."

To bring me home. We would often come part way to meet one who had gone far afield for some labour or journey.

My son and husband, waiting for me. Green fields and blue sky. The sky had been so blue, so eternally blue in those days. Or perhaps I only remembered it so. Days of such joy.

My lips felt strange. A smile had come unbidden to them.

I looked for his blue eyes again, caught them glancing at me. A flash of blue. And yet still no smile.

The boys led me home, the goats as well. The sky grew blue as we walked. I felt the sun warm on my back and shoulders. A trickle of sweat slipped along my neck like a caress and I started at the intensity of the sensation.

Ahead the horse-hair pennants flicked at the blue sky. Home.

Cheren saw to the goats. Nikola came with me. I dismounted my mare, took my precious saddle and bridle from her and handed them to him.

He blinked in surprise, but took them and carried them carefully. Pleased at his attentiveness, I opened the flap of the ger for him.

"We're home," I said.

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Ice thaws slowly. No longer did he avoid my eyes so much, but still he worked in silence. Days passed and I began teaching him our language again. Soon he was speaking in scattered sentences to me. The boy was smart, as I had surmised.

Soon the tea he brought me was just as I liked it.

The Rus had fallen back, no longer willing to engage us in direct combat, and so we enjoyed the use of this length of the Ijil without molestation. We grew overconfident, allowing our horses and flocks to wander further from camp to crop the still-green grasses next to the river.

One day it fell to me to check upon on the herd. I found them grazing in that bend of the river where Nikola and Cheren had met me those weeks before with the goats. I counted the horses. Three were missing.

I followed the river. Here scattered woodlands grew. I remembered the woods where I had grown up as a child. Our tribe were of the Western Plainspeople, used to the woods and fields on the edge of the steppes.

There, the missing horses. The three had come here to crop the taller grasses.

I was riding down to the bank of the river when Rus warriors slipped from between the trees. The first I knew of them was the hissing of their arrows. My hat flew from my head, transfixed by an arrow, and I threw myself down on the back of my mare and kicked her sides with my heels. She burst out in a gallop. The hissing died away and, fool that I was, I glanced back. At once my shoulder exploded into searing pain and my left arm fell useless by my side, the reins falling slack from my hand. Biting back the waves of agony assaulting me, I rode with my right hand clutching the pommel. My mare knew what to do.

As soon as I was out of range I took my bow. I strung it one-handed and then, grippng the string in my teeth, I fired an arrow high into the air. It did not need to travel far. Its fletching caught the wind and shrieked with the high cry of a bird of prey. The others would understand the signal. I slumped forward, the pressure on the arrowhead deep in the muscle sending jolts of agony through my neck and shoulder.

My mare carried me as pain continued to wrack my body. I heard shouts and raised my eyes. Houlun and the others were there. They galloped past me and Ordu peeled off to check on me and lead me home.

I was gently drawn from my mare's back and carried into my ger. I looked up.

Nikola was there. His blue eyes were wide with fear.

Why was he afraid? Afraid that he would be punished for the wound caused by one of his people?

No, the pain was clouding my thoughts. He was concerned for me, that was all.

His blue eyes glistened as he knelt by my side. Ordu with his help took my armour from me. Hot water was brought and Ordu tended to my wound, the boy handing him cloth.

Those slender fingers held the cloth to my wound as Ordu washed it. The boy's skin felt cool on the burning heat of my flesh. So he knew something of medicine, too. His touch calmed me.

Ordu sucked in his breath. "The head of the arrow has pierced through the silk. We will have to use the knife."

He turned and muttered something to the boy. I felt Nikola's hand, timid, seek mine out. I grabbed hold of it. Ordu's knife cut my flesh and I bit my lip, refusing to cry out. I squeezed the hand in mine, that slender, smooth hand, squeezed it as the arrow's head was drawn from my shoulder. Then his hand slipped from mine and he was pushing cloth against the wound, now freely spilling blood.

Stupid. I had fallen into their trap so easily. I focussed on the pain. This pain would teach me the error of my foolishness.

I looked up at Nikola. His eyes did not leave mine.

"You'll be fine," said Ordu. "The arrow did not sever any muscle. You're lucky as always, Falcon."

Lucky as always.

He turned to Nikola and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Do you understand? Your mistress will be fine." Then he left.

Nikola turned back to me. His face looked different, somehow.

Oh, of course. His lips and eyes. He was smiling.

I had never seen him smile before. His teeth were white, straight, a young god's teeth.

I placed my right hand over his and smiled back at him. His touch calmed me and I wanted more of it. I left my hand there, let the palm of my own caress the back of his. Nikola's face grew flushed, but he said nothing.

Ordu returned with a herb poultice. The flow of my blood slowed at last and the two bandaged me. Then I was placed on my blankets and Ordu left Nikola to tend to me.

Nikola brought his face close to mine. "Mistress," he said, softly. "You are alright?"

"Yes," I said. His breath was hot against my skin, milk-sweet. "I'm alright."

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The Rus were long gone by the time Houlun and the others arrived. I cursed my stupidity, blaming myself for the lost horses, but Houlun refused to listen to me.

"It's punishment for my arrogance," she said. "We're just lucky we did not lose you as well. But no matter. The Rus dogs will be punished soon or late."

The wound took longer to heal than I expected. I had grown old, perhaps, lost the strength of my youth. Such a wound would not have long kept me in bed before.

Perhaps I lingered there, in my ger, happy to have Nikola tend to me. He helped to clean my wound. His fingers were gentle, sure.

I remarked on it.

"When young," he said. "I mean, when I was younger, I learned... what is the word?" He showed me the poultice he had prepared. "With plants?"

"Medicine," I said.

"Yes, all Rus priests learn medicine."

"That man," I said. I remembered the other priest who had been there, the older man who had fallen. "He was your master?"

Nikola nodded.

"You loved him?"

Nikola shook his head. He said no more. He washed my wound and reapplied the poultice.

I had asked a stupid question. I had known for a long time that he had not been Nikola's real father. And yet the matter had weighed on my mind. Stupid. But I was glad he did not seem to hate me for the death of that man.

Nikola did not leave my side all those long days. I grew restless, though not bored. Nikola had learned more of our language and now we could speak of many things. He told me that his mother had been a slave, taken by the Rus when with child, himself. His father he never knew. His mother's master had been eager to be rid of him and apprenticed him to the Church. There he had shown himself intelligent and learned many things. He could write and sew and knew the secrets of herbs. Cheren would bring him plants he asked for, plants that the Plainspeople did not use in their medicine, and he would have me eat them or make a bitter tea. I grew stronger quickly. After a few days I left the ger despite Nikola's protests and joined the others. Houlun refused to let me work.

"I will not lose one of my best warriors to stubbornness," she said. "You are a Falcon, not a wild ass, Chamuka. Even the falcon rests in its eyrie at times. Let your boy spoil you." She grinned.

My boy. The words touched me.

My ger when I returned to it was warm, the scent of cooking mutton filling it. Nikola cooked well. I knew the priests of the Rus liked to eat. They did not forsake all pleasure.

I lay down to rest. My shoulder ached. Nikola came and checked my wound.

"Please, mistress," he said. "Not so much... moving, please."

I smiled at his imperfect words. His accent was charming, making him seem childish still even as he took on so many responsibilities. Had he grown taller? A little, perhaps. The meat and butter and labour had strengthened his limbs, the sun gilding the paleness of his face.

He brought me my food and I sat up to eat. My leg pained me, that old wound, and I grimaced.

Nikola went to my shoulder but I shook my head.

"An old wound," I said. "My leg. You see me limping?" He blinked at the word and I explained it.

"How did it happen?" he asked, his eyes wide.

I told him the story. I had not spoken of it for a long time. No one ever asked me, for everyone knew.

I drew up my trousers, revealing the long, smooth scar that extended from my calf to behind my knee. Nikola glanced at me, unsure.

I smiled. He was shy. I took his hand and placed it on my leg, followed the scar with his fingertips.

"If you had been there it would have healed better," I said.

"You hate the Rus?" he said.

I shrugged. "They are the enemy. The man who gave me this wound is dead."

"No," he said. "Your husband."

I shrugged. "He died honourably, killing those who gave him his wound. His spirit lies happy in the earth."

Was that true, I wondered? The animals had stripped his body, revealed his bones quickly. The shamans had not needed to intercede on his spirit's behalf, as sometimes happened.

His bones, white and glowing, beside those of my son on that faraway hill.

Nikola ran his fingertips up along the scar until he reached the back of my knee. Feeling remained there and his fingers were soft against my skin. I shivered at his touch and he drew his hand away as though he had touched red-hot iron.

"Cold," I lied, drawing my trousers back down. He brought me a blanket.

"You should sleep, mistress."

"Yes," I said. Talking of my wound had tired me, stupid old woman that I was.

I closed my eyes and listened to him move around the ger, tidying up. The sound lulled me to sleep.

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In my dream it was cold. I reached out for him. He was never far away from me. I found the warmth of his body, drew him closer to me, brought his chest against mine. I listened to his breathing, soft, rhythmic, like the hoof-falls of a horse. Deeper sleep drew me back, that dark place where no dreams are.

I opened my eyes. The ger was alight. The moon? It was a full moon, tonight, I remembered, and it had risen after midnight. It was still late. That cold light spilled down from the crown of the ger, silvering everything inside.

I was not cold. He was lying beside me, nestled against me.

No, not him. The boy, my captive. Nikola. His face beneath mine, pale, nestled in a halo of gold like the icons of his people.

I looked upon him for a long while. He slept, so he would not know I was looking at him. His skin would not turn that shameful pink. His lashes were dark, his nose small but sharp. Lips red like ochre lay against moon-pale skin.

He breathed deep. I tasted his breath on the air. I pulled myself away and he murmured, drawing himself closer. His arm curved over my waist. I felt a surge of excitement and my own breath grew hot. I dared to move closer to him, lowered my face against his hair. His scent, warm, familiar, maddening. I opened my lips as though to draw in more of that scent through my mouth. The softness of his hair tingled against my lips and nose.

I kissed his hair. He muttered something in his sleep. I drew him closer and he did not resist. His body was so slender! I imagined I could lift him bodily above my head. When my wound was fully healed I would try to. The thought brought a smile to my lips.

I dared to run my hand along his arm. Slender, and soft, too. He drew closer. Was that a smile on his lips? He brought a knee over my leg.

No, he was not soft everywhere. There, against my thigh, a hot hardness.

My heart beat faster. It had been a long time since I had felt that delightful hardness of a man. My blood quickened with my heart. I could feel a flush spreading over my face and neck, down to my breasts, hardening the nipples. Beneath my waist I melted. Was that how it felt? I had forgotten.

That quickening of the blood, carrying me away. Temul, we call it, the wild abandon of a horse left to gallop as it will, joy and abandonment and headlong passion driving it forward, deaf to the cries of its rider. I could not stop my hand. Temul gripped me and I could not stop. My hand reached down between his legs, cupped the hardness there.

The boy's lips parted and he gasped.

Yes, he liked that. He had never felt another's hand there I guessed. I traced the shape of him. He was not modest in length.

My mouth flooded and I swallowed. The boy muttered.

No.

Temul. As quickly as it had come, it slipped from me.

I drew my hand away. I held his hip, rolled him over. He complained but did not wake. I rolled over, too, made a space between us.

The night was cold and I drew the blankets close around my neck.

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Nikola's smiles came freely now. He fixed my tea and tidied the ger. I felt stronger. My blood grew hot and I ignored his protests as I took up the saddle and bridle which had been my husband's. I let my fingers fall along its familiar shape.