I woke the next morning with the sound of a hunting horn still ringing in my ears.
I jumped out of the ancient bed and went to the curtained window. Sunlight streamed through the small, deep-set panes.
The horn suddenly stopped.
Below me, in the courtyard, stood a man who looked almost exactly like the two falconers I had seen the night before. A curved hunting horn hung across his back, and he held a long whip in one hand.
A pack of hounds crowded around him, whining and barking with excitement. Horses stamped impatiently somewhere nearby.
“Mount!” a voice called in Breton.
With a clatter of hooves, the two falconers rode into the courtyard, each carrying a falcon on his wrist.
Then I heard another voice.
The sound made my heart pound.
“Piriou Louis, keep the hounds moving well. Spare neither whip nor spur.”
“Raoul, Gaston, watch the epervier. Don’t let him prove himself a niais. If necessary, faites courtoisie à l’oiseau.”
She was speaking the ancient language of falconry I had only ever encountered in yellowed manuscripts.
“Jardiner un oiseau, like the mué on Hastur’s wrist, is easy enough. But Raoul, you may find that hagard harder to control. Twice last week he foamed au vif and lost the beccade, even though he knows the leurre. The creature behaves like a foolish branchier. Paître un hagard n’est pas si facile.”
Was I dreaming?
The old French words sounded strangely natural in her voice. Beneath them came the baying of hounds, the ringing of hawk bells, and the restless stamping of horses.
She continued.
“If you would rather attach the longe and leave your hagard au bloc, Raoul, I shall not object. It would be a shame to ruin such a beautiful day with an ill-trained sors.”
“Essimer abaisser may be the wiser choice. Ça lui donnera des reins. Perhaps I was too impatient with the bird. It takes time to pass à la filière and learn the exercises d’escap.”
Raoul bowed from his saddle.
“If that is what Mademoiselle wishes, I shall keep the hawk.”
“It is my wish,” she replied. “I know something of falconry, but you still have many lessons to give me in Autourserie, my poor Raoul.”
She turned toward the huntsman.
“Sieur Piriou Louis, mount!”
The huntsman disappeared beneath an archway and returned moments later on a powerful black horse. A mounted piqueur followed him.
She laughed with delight.
“Glemarec René, ride! Ride quickly! Everyone, go! Sieur Piriou, sound your horn!”
The silver notes of the hunting horn filled the courtyard.
The hounds rushed through the gate.
The horses followed at a gallop.
Their hooves thundered across the drawbridge, then the sound became muffled as they disappeared into the heather and bracken of the moor.
The horn grew fainter and fainter.
At last, the song of a lark overhead drowned it completely.
I heard her voice below as she answered someone calling from inside the house.
“I do not regret missing the chase. I shall hunt another time. Remember to show courtesy to our stranger, Pelagie!”
A weak voice answered from somewhere inside.
“Courtoisie.”
I stripped off my clothes and washed myself from head to foot in the huge earthen basin of icy water beside my bed.
Then I looked around for my clothes.
They were gone.
Instead, a pile of clothing lay on a bench near the door.
I stared at it in astonishment.
There was no choice. Whoever had put the clothes there clearly intended me to wear them while my own dried.
Everything I needed was there—a cap, shoes, and a hunting doublet made of silvery-gray homespun.
But the clothes were strange.
The tight-fitting costume and seamless shoes looked as if they belonged to another century.
I remembered the three falconers in the courtyard.
This was certainly not modern French or Breton clothing.
When I finally dressed and looked into the mirror between the windows, I understood just how strange I looked.
I was dressed like a young huntsman from the Middle Ages.
I hesitated over the cap.
Should I really go downstairs looking like this?
My own clothes were gone, and there was no bell in the ancient room to summon a servant.
So I removed a small hawk feather from the cap, opened the door, and went downstairs.
An old Breton woman sat spinning by the fireplace in the large room below.
When she saw me, she smiled warmly and wished me good health in Breton.
I laughed and answered her in French.
At that moment my hostess entered.
She returned my greeting with such grace and dignity that my heart gave another sudden leap.
Her beautiful dark curls were covered by a headdress that made the age of my strange clothing unmistakable.
Her slender figure looked wonderfully elegant in the silver-edged hunting gown of homespun.
One of her beloved hawks rested on her gauntleted wrist.
She took my hand as naturally as a child and led me into the garden.
We sat beside a table beneath the trees.
She smiled at me.
“How did you sleep?”
“Very well.”
“Were you uncomfortable wearing the clothes old Pelagie left for you?”
I glanced toward the garden wall.
My own clothes and shoes were drying in the sun.
I looked back at the graceful costume I was wearing.
“I think these clothes are far better than mine,” I said with a laugh.
She considered this very seriously.
“We shall throw your old clothes away.”
I stared at her.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly accept clothing from you. Besides, if I return to France dressed like this, everyone will think I’ve gone mad.”
She laughed and tossed her head.
She said something in old French that I could not understand.
Then Pelagie came out carrying a tray.
On it were two bowls of milk, a loaf of white bread, fresh fruit, honeycomb, and a flagon of dark red wine.
She smiled.
“You see, I have not eaten yet. I wanted to have breakfast with you.”
She touched her stomach playfully.
“But I am very hungry.”
“I would rather die than forget a single word you have said,” I blurted out.
My face burned.
She must think I was completely insane.
But her eyes sparkled.
“Ah,” she murmured. “Then Monsieur understands something of chivalry.”
She crossed herself and broke the bread.
I watched her delicate white hands and could not bring myself to look directly into her eyes.
“Why aren’t you eating?” she asked.
“Why do you look so troubled?”
Why?
Suddenly I understood.
I would have given my life just to touch those rosy hands with my lips.
From the moment I had looked into her dark eyes on the moor the night before, I had loved her.
The realization left me speechless.
“Are you uncomfortable?” she asked again.
I lowered my voice.
“Yes.”
She waited.
“I am uncomfortable because I love you.”
She did not move.
She did not answer.
But something inside me forced the words from my lips.
“I am unworthy of even one thought from you. I have abused your hospitality and repaid your kindness with boldness. But I love you.”
She lowered her head into her hands.
Then she whispered:
“I love you.”
My heart stopped.
“Your words are very dear to me.”
She looked up.
“I love you.”
“Then I shall win you.”
“Win me,” she answered softly.
We sat facing each other in silence.
Her beautiful face rested against her hand.
Her eyes met mine.
Neither of us spoke again.
Yet I knew that something far deeper than words had passed between us.
Her soul had answered mine.
I felt young again.
Joy and love seemed to race through every vein in my body.
A bright flush spread across her face. She looked almost as though she had just awakened from a dream.
Her eyes searched mine, questioning and shy.
We finished our breakfast and began talking about ourselves.
I told her my name.
She told me hers.
She was the Demoiselle Jeanne d’Ys.
She told me that both her parents had died and that she had spent all nineteen years of her life on the little fortified farm with her nurse, Pelagie, the piqueur Glemarec René, and the four falconers who had served her father—Raoul, Gaston, Hastur, and Sieur Piriou Louis.
She had never left the moor.
In fact, she had hardly ever seen another human being besides Pelagie and the falconers.
She did not even know how she had first heard the name Kerselec. Perhaps one of the falconers had mentioned it.
Pelagie had taught her the old legends of the Loup Garou and Jeanne la Flamme.
Jeanne embroidered and spun flax.
Her hawks and hounds were her only entertainment.
“When I met you on the moor,” she said, “I was so frightened that I nearly fainted when I heard your voice.”
She had seen ships far out at sea from the cliffs.
But as far as she could see, the moor was completely empty of human life.
“There is an old story Pelagie tells me,” she said. “Anyone who becomes lost on the moor may never find the way home. She says the moor is enchanted.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I don’t know.”
She smiled faintly.
“I never thought about it until I met you.”
She did not even know whether her falconers had ever traveled beyond the moor.
She did not know whether they could leave if they wanted to.
The books in the house that Pelagie had taught her to read were hundreds of years old.
She told me all this with a simple seriousness that reminded me of a child.
She found my name easy to pronounce.
Because my first name was Philip, she insisted that I must have French blood.
She showed little curiosity about the outside world.
Perhaps, I thought, Pelagie’s stories had made her believe there was nothing out there worth knowing.
We were still sitting at the table.
Jeanne tossed grapes toward the little field birds that came fearlessly to our feet.
I began talking vaguely about leaving.
She immediately refused to listen.
Before I realized what was happening, I had promised to stay for a week and hunt with her falcons and hounds.
I also obtained her permission to return to Kerselec and visit her after I went back.
She looked at me innocently.
“I don’t know what I would do if you never came back.”
I knew I had no right to tell her how deeply I loved her.
The shock might have overwhelmed her.
So I remained silent.
“You will come often?”
“Very often.”
“Every day?”
“Every day.”
She sighed happily.
“Oh, I am very happy.”
Then she smiled.
“Come and see my hawks.”
She rose and took my hand again with complete, childlike trust.
We walked through the garden and the fruit trees until we reached a grassy lawn beside a stream.
Fifteen or twenty tree stumps stood scattered across the grass.
Falcons perched on almost every one.
Leather straps tied the birds to the stumps, with small steel fittings fastened to their legs above the talons.
A clear spring flowed nearby, close enough for every bird to drink.
The moment Jeanne appeared, the falcons began screaming and calling.
She walked among them, stroking some, lifting others onto her wrist, and adjusting their jesses.
“Are they not beautiful?” she asked.
She pointed to one.
“This is a falcon-gentil. We call it ‘ignoble’ because it catches its quarry by chasing it directly.”
She moved to another bird.
“This is a blue falcon. We call it ‘noble’ because it climbs above its prey, circles, and then drops upon it from the sky.”
She pointed toward a white bird.
“And this one is a gerfalcon from the north. It is noble too.”
She continued.
“There is a merlin.”
Then she indicated another.
“And this tiercelet is a falcon-heroner.”
“How did you learn all these old words?” I asked.
She frowned thoughtfully.
“I don’t remember. My father must have taught them to me when I was very young.”
Then she led me farther across the lawn.
She showed me several young falcons still in their nests.
“In falconry, we call them niais,” she explained.
“A branchier is a young bird that has just learned to leave the nest and move from branch to branch.”
She pointed toward another bird.
“A young bird that has not yet moulted is called a sors.”
“And a mué is a hawk that has moulted while in captivity.”
She touched one of the birds gently.
“When we capture a wild falcon after it has already changed its feathers, we call it a hagard.”
She smiled.
“Raoul first taught me how to train a falcon.”
Then she looked at me.
“Shall I teach you?”
She sat beside the stream among the falcons.
I dropped down at her feet.
Jeanne raised one rosy-tipped finger.
“First, you must catch the falcon.”
“I am already caught,” I said.
She laughed.
“Your dressage may be difficult. You are a noble bird.”
“I am already tamed.”
I smiled.
“Jessed and belled.”
She laughed again.
“Oh, my brave falcon. Then you will return whenever I call?”
“I am yours.”
She became silent.
A deeper color rose in her cheeks.
She lifted one finger again.
“Listen. I want to speak about falconry.”
“I am listening, Countess Jeanne d’Ys.”
But once again she fell into a dreamlike silence.
Her eyes seemed to look beyond the summer clouds.
At last she spoke.
“Philip.”
“Jeanne.”
“That is all.”
She sighed.
“That is what I wanted.”
She smiled.
“Philip and Jeanne.”
She held out her hand.
I lifted it to my lips.
“Win me,” she whispered.
This time, her body and soul seemed to speak together.
After a while she smiled again.
“Let us talk about falconry.”
“Begin,” I said.
“We have already caught the falcon.”
Jeanne took my hand between both of hers.
Then she explained how, with endless patience, a young falcon was trained to sit quietly on the wrist.
Little by little, it became accustomed to its bells, jesses, and chaperon à cornette.
“They must first be very hungry,” she said.
“Then, little by little, I reduce their food. In falconry we call this pât.”
She continued carefully.
“After spending many nights au bloc, like these birds here, the hagard eventually learns to remain quietly on the wrist.”
“Then the bird is ready to learn to come for its food.”
“I attach the pât to a cord called a leurre.”
“I teach the bird to come whenever I begin swinging the cord in circles above my head.”
“At first, I simply drop the food when the falcon comes, and it eats from the ground.”
“Later, it learns to seize the moving leurre while I swing it around my head or drag it across the ground.”
“After that, teaching it to strike game is easy.”
She smiled.
“But you must always remember to faire courtoisie à l’oiseau—to let the bird taste the quarry.”
One of the falcons suddenly shrieked.
Jeanne stood.
The other birds began screaming and beating their wings.
“What is wrong?” she asked.
Then she looked at me.
“Philip, can you see anything?”
I searched the grass.
At first I saw nothing.
Then I noticed something moving across the flat rock beside the stream.
A gray snake was slowly crossing the stone.
Its triangular head was flat, and its eyes glittered like black beads.
“A couleuvre,” Jeanne said calmly.
“It is harmless, isn’t it?”
She pointed toward the black V-shaped mark on its neck.
“No.”
Her voice changed.
“It is a viper.”
We watched it slide slowly toward a warm patch of sunlight.
I stepped forward to get a better look.
Jeanne suddenly grabbed my arm.
“Don’t, Philip!”
“I am afraid.”
“For me?”
“For you, Philip.”
She clung to me.
“I love you.”
I pulled her into my arms and kissed her.
All I could say was:
“Jeanne.”
Again.
“Jeanne.”
And again.
“Jeanne.”
She trembled against my chest.
Something struck my foot through the grass.
I ignored it.
Then something struck my ankle.
A sudden, burning pain shot through my leg.
I looked into Jeanne’s beautiful face and kissed her again.
Then, with all the strength I had left, I lifted her into my arms and threw her away from me.
I bent down and tore the viper from my ankle.
Then I crushed its head beneath my heel.
I remember feeling strangely weak.
My body began to go numb.
I remember falling.
Through my fading vision, I saw Jeanne’s white face bending over mine.
The world went dark.
But even after the light had disappeared from my eyes, I could still feel her arms around my neck.
I could still feel her soft cheek against my lips.