Glass Swallow (5 page)

‘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 observe 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.

‘Thought not,’ he muttered. He slumped down on the bench next to his sister, Bel. ‘I suppose it’ll have to be me.’

Bel grimaced. ‘The ritual bath shouldn’t be too bad, Peri.’

‘It is at that time of day—water isn’t heated and the bath-house attendants scrub you raw. Still, someone has to do it.’

‘Which bird will you take?’ Bel twirled the end of her black plait, dusting it over her knuckles absentmindedly.

‘He wants the job done by mid morning: it’ll have to be Fletch.’

‘Poor old Peri,’ commiserated Bel. ‘But you’re the best of us—you’ll manage where others wouldn’t.’

‘I’d just prefer it if it wasn’t a jettan asking.’

‘Wouldn’t we all.’ Bel rubbed her eyes. ‘I’m ready to turn in. Have you forgotten to say goodnight to Rosie?’

‘You’re right. I expect she’ll have fallen asleep by now.’

‘No, she won’t. You’re her hero. She’ll be propping up her eyelids, desperate for you to come and give her a kiss.’

Peri scooped up his sister under his arm, heading towards the family’s lodgings. ‘Let’s go then. Can’t keep her waiting any longer.’

The ritual bath was as unpleasant as he anticipated. Forced to strip off everything that he was wearing, he stood in the bath-house by the city gates shivering as a sleepy attendant attacked him with a scrubbing brush. The water was freezing, the bristles unforgiving. Sensing his master’s discomfort, the goshawk, Fletch, shrieked from his basket, making the attendant jump with consternation.

‘It can’t get out?’ he asked fearfully.

‘No,’ replied Peri, ‘he can’t.’

Next the attendant handed him a black robe, simple sandals, and a rope belt. His own clothes were to be kept for his return.

‘You are purified, falcon man,’ the attendant announced.

I felt pretty pure before I set foot in here
, thought Peri.

Ushered past a suspicious gate warden, Peri began the long walk to the palace district. Rolvint had been founded on a bend in the River Rol; the richest houses were built on the steep bank, enjoying the protection of the cliffs. The new summer palace was some distance from the gates in a corner of the extensive parklands belonging to the Master. It would take Peri at least half an hour to reach the building site. He carried Fletch on his arm, having left the travelling basket back at the bath-house. The hawk was content to ride, head hidden in a hood, claws firmly planted on Peri’s leather gauntlet. Man and bird walked at peace with each other, having the streets almost to themselves. The few people up this early stepped out of their path, not wanting to risk the bother of a ritual bath should they inadvertently brush against one of the scavenger class.

A toddler stumbled out of a purveyor’s shop doorway—a bakery judging by the delicious smells coming from inside. The child’s ball rolled across the street and stopped against Peri’s feet.

‘Mine!’ she squeaked, before noticing Fletch. ‘Big bird.’ She chuckled with delight and stretched up to pat the strange creature.

Peri smiled and nudged the ball towards her with his toe. ‘Yes, he is, isn’t he? Best not touch him though: he can get a bit cranky.’

The child’s mother ran from the house and snatched her daughter from the ground before she could retrieve the ball. The child shrieked and beat her legs angrily.

‘No touch! Dirty man; dirty ball!’ the mother scolded. She banged the door of the house, leaving the ball unclaimed on the road. No one would want it now he had made it unclean.

With a resigned sigh, Peri bent down and picked it up. ‘Think Rosie would like this?’ he asked Fletch. ‘I thought so.’ He pocketed the ball and carried on down the street.

He reached the building site a little after dawn.

‘You’re late,’ grumbled the bondsman left on watch to let him enter the enclosure.

Peri decided not to reply. The fact that he’d had to wait for the baths to open had not been considered when this job was handed out last night.

‘Crows are making a real mess,’ the bondsman continued. ‘The master-masons won’t touch anything they’ve crapped on, so Muggins has to clean up the whole time. Waste of my blinking time.’

Peri began to relax: it was clear that the grouchy bondsman moaned about everything, not just his time keeping, so it no longer seemed personal.

‘Filthy critters nest up in the elm trees. Can’t cut them down because the jettan says they’re special. Look like any other blinking tree to me, not that anyone asks me nothing. Your bird get rid of them?’ The old bondsman’s rheumy eyes flickered nervously to the goshawk.

‘Yes.’

‘About blinking time.’ The bondsman conducted him into the forecourt of the palace. The white stone walls were already up, pierced by scores of empty arched windows, insubstantial like a dandelion seed head—one puff and parts of the building would float away, thought Peri.

‘Don’t talk much, do you?’ grunted the bondsman.

‘No.’

‘Suit yourself. The crows hang around here too, sitting on those ledges. Got to get rid of them because the jettan is expecting some foreign muckety-muck to come and do the glass for them and we can’t expect a foreigner to touch our crow-crap, can we?’ The bondsman chuckled. ‘Ruddy madness: kitting out an expedition to some heathen land. Cost a fortune, they say. Bringing back glassmakers and fancy woodworkers to do the finishing work when there’re queues at the soup kitchens and people going hungry. Jettan Kirn thinks to impress the Master with his original design, bull’s blood!’

‘What’s your name, sir?’ Peri asked, intrigued by this outspoken man.

‘Muggins.’

‘No, really.’

The old man gave a lopsided grin, a couple of teeth missing. ‘Mikel. And you?’

‘They call me Peri.’

‘Daft name.’

‘It’s short for peregrine. Somehow, my birth name didn’t stick. No one uses it now.’

‘So you moulted it and got yourself a nickname?’

Peri nodded, surveying the crows’ nests high in the leafy elm. ‘You could put it like that.’

Mikel hooked his thumbs in his leather belt. ‘You’re all right for one of them scavengers.’

‘You’re all right for one of them bondsmen,’ replied Peri, tugging the falconer’s knot on the jesses to release Fletch for the hunt.