Page 51 of The Hawk Laird

He smiled ruefully. “I suppose I have.” He began to sing again, low and mellifluous, sending wondrous shivers through her.

“Why do you sing that phrase, over and over?” she asked. “Does it remind you of the past?”

“I’m teaching Gawain to recognize it as the call I will use for him. Later I’ll whistle it, so he will know it in different ways.Then I will add food to the routine, feeding him each time he hears the phrase. When he learns to trust me, he’ll come quickly, without fear of threat.”

“Ah. I thought you sang it because you still longed for the peace of the monkish life.”

“Sometimes I do.”

They sat watching the hawk, James humming softly. Gawain tipped his hooded head as if trying to work out a puzzle. The goshawk looked so comical with the small leather hood over his head, like a hat fallen down over his eyes, the loaf of bread perched absurdly on his wing, that Isobel giggled.

“He looks like a king’s jester or a mummer in a Yuletide play,” she said.

“He does look silly.” James shook his head. “But I never thought to be sitting here again, going without sleep and nursing another hawk.”

“You have stayed awake these two days?”

“I dozed some.” He yawned, jiggling the goshawk, whose head had begun to droop. “But whenever Sir Gawain starts to sleep, I need to wake him.”

Isobel studied the man’s face in the flickering light of the glowing brazier. His eyes were weary in the shadows and he was pale with fatigue. She noticed the soft shape of his lower lip, full and moist, the fine creases beside his mouth, the dark sand of his beard softening the lean jaw.

“Why do you force yourself to do this?” she asked.

“It is the quickest way to tame a hawk, lass.”

“But hardest on the falconer and the bird. When I was small, my father would carry new hawks or falcons throughout the day and set them in darkness at night, keeping them close to him for a week or two. My mother objected to the birds sitting on his fist at mealtimes, and did not like having them sleep on a perch intheir bedchamber. But he insisted it took time to train each one properly.”

“Time is what I do not have. I did not plan on taming a hawk now.”

She scowled. “You only planned to abduct a prophetess.”

“True.” He looked at her then, and lifted the bread. “’Tis still warm. We will keep it there until it cools.”

“Can we eat the other half?” she asked plaintively.

James chuckled. “Aye.” She tore the remainder of the loaf apart and handed James the larger portion. They ate in silence.

“I am glad you are here,” James murmured when they were done.

“Aye?” She felt shy suddenly.

“Aye. If you keep me awake, I can keep him awake.”

“Oh.” She had almost hoped to hear something else. Seeing the gentle swell of his lips, she vividly recalled the feel of them on her mouth. Reminding herself to be wary was suddenly a challenge.

“Talk to me, Isobel,” he said, leaning his head against the wall. “I am as sleepy as this hawk.”

She began to tell him about her father’s mews, and as he asked questions, his voice went hoarse with fatigue. When the hawk drooped his head, James wiggled his fist to stir him. Soon he asked about her childhood and her life at Aberlady Castle.

She spoke while he listened and held the bread on the bird’s wing. He lifted a foot to the bench to rest his forearm, with the bird, on his knee.

“After your mother died, your father and the priest were the only ones to witness your prophecies?” he asked.

“And lately Sir Ralph. My father invited him to watch the sessions when ’twas agreed we would wed. He wanted Ralph to know what to do.”

“What to do when the blindness comes?”

“What to do during the visions. My father and the priest talk to me and ask me questions. And Father Hugh writes down what I say. I do not recall it, usually.”