came racing out of their tent at a curving run, their cries bringing the rest of the family to the entrance. The stooping patriarch wearing an immense black turban must be the kite-maker. There was no sign of the boys’ father. Their mother cradled a babe-inarms and her three daughters stood beside her spinning wool on drop-spindles.
But it was the dog tethered by a stone kennel that made Wayland and Syth exchange stares. Huge, shaggy and menacing, it reared on its back legs, straining against its collar and uttering cavernous barks. It was a nursing bitch. Behind it five woolly pups wrestled with a scrap of hide.
The visitors dismounted. The boys led the horses away. Their grandfather came forward and pointed with pride at the bust on the coin Hero had given his grandsons.
‘I think he’s saying that he fought with Mahmud, Emperor of Ghazni.’
The old man led them into the tent and seated them at the hearth. The three girls withdrew to a corner, poking each other with their elbows. Syth smiled at them and they collapsed in giggles.
Hero handed the kite-maker a bolt of cotton. Wayland had obtained it through Ibrahim without trying to explain what he needed it for. He’d also acquired a bundle of canes for the frame and a couple of hundred yards of braided silk line. The kite-maker unrolled the fabric and felt it between thumb and finger, passing remarks on its quality to the woman. Hero told him that the kite would have to be as tall as a man and asked if he could construct it today.
The old man took the materials to the door where the light was better and set to work with knife, needle and thread. The woman fed her guests flatbread and curds and then they all waited in a mellow silence. The girls had gone back to their spinning and the boys were outside practising with slingshots. Through the weft of the tent Wayland could make out the distant mountains. One of the pups wandered into the tent. Before the woman could chase it out, Syth hoisted it onto her lap and smiled over her scarf at Wayland.
It was past noon when the kite-maker had finished. He would go out with them, he said, and test fly the kite and make any necessary modifications.
They set out, the kite-master carrying his youngest grandson on his saddle, the older boy riding his own horse. They halted on the plain and the grandfather laid the kite down and ran out line from a spool in a wooden frame.
‘I’ve made a release mechanism,’ said Hero. He showed Wayland a short line with a button at one end. ‘This hangs from the bottom of the bridle.’ He produced another line about ten feet long with a spring-loaded peg at one end. ‘You tie the free end to the lure and clip the peg over the button. When she grabs the food, she’ll pull the peg off. At least, that’s the idea.’
Wayland tested the mechanism, clipping the peg over the button and then pulling to see how much force was required to spring it loose. A firm tug was enough. He nodded. ‘It’s going to work.’
He attached the lure. Grandfather gave an order and the older boy ran upwind with the kite and released it. Its maker sawed at the line like an angler playing a fish and the kite shot up into the sky. The old man laughed and began to pay out line.
‘Too high,’ said Wayland. ‘Reel it in. Lower. Lower still. That’s it. Keep it there.’
The kite rode the wind sixty feet above him. He walked downwind and unhooded the falcon. She snaked a look at the kite, half spread her wings, scissored them shut, unfurled once more. Wayland let her choose her moment. His fist rebounded as she left it and beat up towards the lure.
She slashed at it and the kite jerked. The falcon had plucked the lure off. With nothing to restrain her, she just kept going.
The two boys leaped onto their horse and galloped after her. Wayland watched the falcon dwindle to a dot.
Hero winced. ‘I should have thought of that.’
‘She won’t go far. The boys will find her.’
She’d carried the lure more than half a mile and was trying to pull it to pieces when they caught up with her. Wayland picked her up and thanked the boys.
‘Have you got a spare swivel?’ Hero asked on the ride back. ‘If you have, I can add a fitting that will prevent the falcon from carrying the lure.’
‘Do you think we should have another try? I don’t want to push her too hard.’
‘Only seven days left.’
‘You’re right.’
Hero fitted an anti-carry line, tying one end to the lure, the other to a swivel. He threaded the kite line through one of the swivel rings so that when the falcon took the lure, she would be forced to descend, the ring running freely around the main line.
The sun was squatting on the horizon when the boys released the kite again. Now that they understood the game, they threw themselves into it, urging their grandfather to fly higher and higher. The old man’s toothless grin showed that he was as enthusiastic as the children.
Hero smiled at Wayland. ‘The old man says he built this kite to climb into heaven.’
‘It’s too high. Tell him to bring it down.’
Wayland rode downwind and unhooded the falcon. This time she didn’t make straight for the target. Fifty feet up she began to circle, using the wind for lift. She was as high above the kite as it was above the ground when she set her wings in a shallow stoop. She took the lure and tried to fly off with it, only to be checked by the anti-carry line. From that point, things went wrong. The kite line was stretched at too shallow an angle for the anti-carry line to run down it. The falcon hung upside down from the lure like a furious bat, fighting the upward pull of the kite. It looked awful.
‘Cut the line!’ Wayland shouted.
Hero threw out a hand. ‘Wait.’
The falcon stopped flapping and tried to fly downwind. The anti-carry line thwarted her, forcing her round in a circle. Relieved of her weight, the line began to slide. By the time she’d descended halfway, she’d worked out that it was easier to reach the ground by gyrating around the main line.
Wayland expected to find her exhausted and furious. Instead she seemed rather pleased to have wrestled the strange prey into submission.
Wayland returned to the nomads’ tent with a sense of fulfilment. The kite-maker agreed to come out with them every day until the contest. Before they parted, Syth whispered something to Hero and he tried to press another coin on the old man. The kite-maker clutched himself and turned away.
‘The leftover cloth is sufficient payment,’ Wayland said.
‘It’s not for the kite,’ said Syth. ‘I asked if I could buy one of the pups.’
The old man wouldn’t accept payment and told her to take any pup she wanted. She chose the one that had strayed into the tent and they rode off with it sitting upright on the bow of Syth’s saddle, alternately pricking its ears at the night sounds and squirming round to lick Syth’s face.
‘I’ve thought of a name for him,’ she said.
Word of the infidels’ bizarre training methods spread among the Seljuks and next day about twenty of them rode out to watch. That day the falcon flew to about three hundred feet and descended without drama. On her next outing the kite-maker ran out the full length of the line and she climbed to five hundred feet witnessed by a crowd of spectators.
There was more encouraging news waiting back at the Emir’s encampment. Suleyman’s rival had requested a four-day postponement in order to sort out a clan dispute. Suleyman was within his rights to cancel the contest and would do so if the falcon’s training had shown her unequal to the task.
Wayland didn’t even have to think. ‘Tell him to agree to the new date.’
Each day’s kite exercise honed the falcon’s powers until she was climbing a thousand feet. Seljuks came out with picnics to marvel at her prowess. With three days to go, Wayland returned home — he’d begun to think of the encampment as ‘home’ — to be met by the hawk-master. Ibrahim took him into an annexe used for storage. In it stood a large wicker cage and inside the cage stood a crane with brailed wings. The hawkmaster told Wayland that every day since the contest had been agreed, he’d sent trappers out to snare a bird. Great efforts had been expended, for cranes were hard to catch, being vigilant and unapproachable. By day they fed out on the plateau and at night they roosted in the marshes around Salt Lake. This bird had been trapped in a mist net rigged on a field of cut millet. Tomorrow Wayland would fly the falcon at the crane in circumstances that would guarantee the falcon’s
