Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Kirkwall, Orkney

November 1594

EDWARD

Edward slips on the leather jerkin over his doublet, then the gauntlets, admiring the way they transform his hands—which he always found too scrawny, too feminine—into those of a giant.

“There you are, Edward,” Mr.McNee says, patting him on the shoulder. “Ready?”

“Don’t be afraid,” his father says, and Edward’s cheeks redden immediately. He has been nothing but afraid since the day he witnessed his mother dragged away to jail, though now his terror is distilled into the shape of a bird that Mr.McNee is tempting from a box with the entrails of a hare. The yellow beak appears first, piercing the darkness of the box like a flame, then the eyes like spheres of amber. Edward steps back, his body filled with a sudden call to flee.

“Be still,” his father whispers in his ear, sensing his nervousness.

The eagle jerks at the bloody entrails dangling in front of it, shouldering into the open air and swallowing it back with a flick of its head.

“Good, Merlin,” Mr.McNee says, offering his arm to the bird the way a suitor may to a lady. He nods at Edward. “You stay calm, and he will do your bidding, aye?”

“Aye,” Edward says, swallowing hard. He mimics Mr.McNee’s posture, straightening his knees and his back and lifting his head and his arm for the bird to approach. It is majestic, eyes like lanterns and smooth, shining feathers in all the shades of bronze and gold that he has ever seen. It is the feet, though, that surprise him most in their menace, hooked talons at the end of reptilian feet. It wears a leather harness and helmet, too, as though dressed for battle.

And in a moment, it is on his arm, close enough to peck his eyes out. It is much, much heavier than he was counting on, the bulk of it making his arm droop. The bird rankles, disturbed by the movement, spreading out its wings and giving a sharp shriek.

“Steady, now,” Mr.McNee says, raising Edward’s arm and taking the weight of it in his own hands as the bird settles. He glances at his father, drawing reassurance from William’s expression of confidence, his nodding head and his soothing words.

“Good,” his father says, smiling. “Good.”

Edward takes in the knowledge that an eagle is sitting on his arm. A juvenile eagle named Merlin, with a wingspan longer than he is tall.

He counts in his head, subconsciously listing the words from the old tongue, the ones his mother taught when she was still part of the Triskele: yan, tyan, tethera, methera, pimp, sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera, dick.

“Let us walk,” Mr.McNee says. “I have something I wish to talk to you about.”

Edward puts one foot in front of the other, as though he is walking a plank instead of the gardens of St. Magnus Cathedral, his eyes never leaving the bird on his arm. Mr.McNee keeps apace, still bearing the weight of Edward’s arm and the eagle upon it.

“Your father is one of our most skilled stonemasons,” Mr.McNee is telling him. “And he tells me you have been working alongside him since you were a child.”

Edward starts at the last part of this comment. Is he no longer a child? He burns to be a man, to grow a beard, to have thick arms and a deep voice, but despite his best efforts he is still a boy.

“Yes, sir,” he says, still walking in a way that insinuates he is sure the ground is able to crumble beneath him. “I find masonry very pleasing.”

“That is good,” Mr.McNee says, sharing a look with William. “I am also aware of some troubles at home. It is not good to dwell in misery.”

The eagle turns, then, as though it is an extension of Mr.McNee, agreeing with him, and pins Edward with those ferocious amber eyes. Edward stops, careful not to move his arm or disturb the bird from its clutch on the gauntlet. Despite the thickness of the leather he can feel the sharpness of the talons pressing into his flesh, and his mind flings forward into grotesque images of the eagle tearing his guts out, a long, bloodied string of his inner parts drawn out with a single swipe. In an instant, the image shifts to his mother being burned alive at the stake, her mouth open to the sky in a dark, soundless maw, her hands tied behind her back.

He starts, realizing sharply that he is back in the garden of the cathedral, with Mr.McNee and his father, and he is covered in sweat, his knees trembling. He steadies himself, focusing on the ferocity of the bird. Oh, to be so fearless. To be so poised against one’s terror, and one’s enemies.

“I have invited your father to bring you to the cathedral,” Mr. McNee says, “to assist him in his work. You may live with him in his quarters.”

“Yes,” Edward says, and he understands at once that the conversation is more than the bird and the stones and the opportunity to be near his mother.

He is being initiated into another clan, another faction. One that seeks to overturn the earl.

And that, he decides, is how he unites the two halves of his being.

How he stops what he has seen from unfolding.