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Kenna ran inside the castle, intent on finding solitude, but instead, she bumped straight into Meyrick’s broad chest.
‘Slow down, Kenna. Is someone chasing you?’ he said, frowning.
‘No, I…I want to be alone. I am going to my chamber.’ Her face felt hot as the shame of Darroch’s words flooded back, and she felt the tears well up.
‘I don’t think it is good for you to be alone and in such distress. Kenna, would you come with me, for there’s something I want to show you?’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘It is an excellent idea, and it will lift your spirits, I promise. Trust me, for I will not leave you in this terrible state.’
He looked so concerned for her, and he was so warm and kind she could not refuse him, and so she nodded and followed him. They walked in silence for the most part as Meyrick did not try to engage her in conversation while she got control of herself. In a far part of the castle, quiet and secluded, Meyrick stopped at a door.
‘The mews,’ he declared and opened the door slowly.
Kenna walked inside and gasped. All around her were birds on perches, hawks, griffons, falcons - beautiful, deadly hunters. Sensing her presence, they fidgeted on their perches, sending a chorus of little rings around the stone chamber from the bells tied to their feet.
‘Quiet, so they don’t startle and harm themselves. They are used to me, I have gained their trust, but strangers have to be careful,’ he said, pulling on a leather glove and plucking a vicious looking falcon from its perch. ‘A bird this size can take your eyes if it chooses to.’
‘Are we allowed to be here?’
‘Of course. I train these birds for hunting. It is an art, you know. Did you not have birds at Sgathach Dun?’
The bird flapped and fidgeted a little, and then, as he held on to the leather jesses around its feet and then gently stroked its breast, it settled down, head cocked on one side then another as it honed in on a stranger’s voice.
‘How do you know I was at Sgathach Dun?’
‘Word gets around. So did you have birds like these?’
‘Aye, a few, but sad and sorry ones compared to yours, much smaller.’
Strangely she felt no fear, only wonder at the glory of the bird’s mottled plumage, its yellow scaly feet, tipped with thick talons, coiling around his wrist like little grey daggers. ‘He’s beautiful, Meyrick,’ said Kenna.
‘She. Females are better hunters than males and a deal more dangerous if you are a pigeon or a hare, that is. Females are dangerous if you are a man too.’ He smiled and looked hard at her. ‘I take these birds from when they are chicks, train them to the lure, hold them tenderly, stroke them and feed them meat from my own hand until they trust me absolutely. Once they do, they are mine to control. They recognise no other master, and we get a good deal of meat for the pot from these beauties.’
‘You sound as though you love them.’
‘Aye, more than any woman in the world.’ He smiled. ‘Well, save one.’ His voice was soft, calming, and he had a look of such longing on his face that the heat rose in Kenna’s.’
He came closer. ‘Touch her.’
‘Won’t she peck me?’
‘You are safe with me here. Go on, stroke her slowly and gently on her breast. That is what she likes.’
Kenna reached out a hand and drew the back of her fingers ever so carefully over the bird’s breast, which was so smooth and warm it was like touching the finest mottled silk, and she could almost imagine its strong heart beating beneath, hammering in time to hers. It was a perfect distraction from the turmoil inside her, to touch something so wild and dangerous and perfect. She could feel Meyrick’s stare boring into her, following the progress of her fingers up and down, up and down, and when she glanced up, there was excitement on his face and a kind of intense desire.
He recovered himself quickly, and the look was replaced with one of benign friendliness.
‘She is one of my favourites this one, a peregrine falcon, one of the most agile and the fastest of hunters. She can go where an arrow can’t. I have trained this one since she was a youngster. I am everything to her and if I let her go, send her up into the air to freedom, she will spurn it and come back to me.’
‘She is very fine, Meyrick.’ The falcon’s eyes were a brilliant shiny brown, rimmed bright yellow, and they watched Kenna with fierce intelligence, not unlike her master.
‘The first time she killed successfully, a moorhen it was, I cut out its heart and fed it to her as a reward. That way, she knows it is worth following my commands. Best put her back now, or she will come to love you more than me, and we can’t have that.’
As he returned the bird to its perch, he said, ‘I’m so sorry about what was said to you today. I would not have wished that pain on you, Kenna.’
