That was not true. She knew he loved Pawlin well. She knew he sometimes visited Fabiana. It was not much—but it was not nothing.
Tillie stood in the hallway outside of Ama’s chamber, and she called, “Lady! Please, lady!”
Ama ignored her, gathered her skirts into her hands, and ran.
“Fabiana!” Ama yelled, rushing into the kitchen. She cast desperately about, looking for the sly face, the straight back, the full breasts of the girl she needed.
There—standing lazily by an open door, gazing out into the gray, drizzly day. Ama could tell it was her from the set of her spine, the square of her shoulders, and the dark black curls, tied up close at the nape of her neck.
Ama pushed through the kitchen staff, who looked at her with a mix of surprise and alarm, but who tripped over themselves to back out of her way.
“Fabiana,” Ama said again, grabbing the girl’s arm. “Where did the king take my lynx?”
In spite of Ama’s loud words, strong grip, and urgent tone, Fabiana took her time to turn around. She looked at Ama leisurely, and then said, “Your what?”
“My lynx,” Ama repeated. Her heart struck her ribs with such force as to bruise her from the inside. “My cat.”
Fabiana blinked. Then, slowly, “You think my king keeps me apprised of his every movement? You think he bothers to let me know his plans and actions?” She barked a mean laugh and folded her arms beneath her breasts, pushing them up even higher. “I come when my king calls for me. I go when my king orders it. What kind of power do you think I have?”
Ama did not waste time responding to a question she didn’t have the answer for.
Pawlin, then, she thought, forgetting Fabiana and pushing past her, stepping onto the stone threshold and out into the rain.
The pebbled path away from the castle was a punishment in Ama’s light silk slippers, but she did not slow her pace. And though she hurried, she knew not where she went, only that she must go, she must do something.
There was the old man who had witnessed her humiliation the day before. He stood now, broom in hand, under the protection of a wooden arbor, waiting for the rain to pass. Ama went to him.
She was marked as of the castle by the rich velvet of her gown, and even before she drew near she could tell from the way his eyes widened and then dropped, respectfully, that he knew her station. At once, he himself stepped into the rain, which was growing heavier by the moment, to accede the arbor’s shelter to Ama.
Not bothering with niceties, Ama blurted, “I need to find the king. If not him, Pawlin.”
His mouth opened and closed, but words failed to emerge.
“At once,” Ama added with what must have sounded like authority to the man, for now he managed words.
“Milady, the falconer spends the mornings with his birds. On fine days, he hunts. On days like this, he works with them in the mews.” He raised his hand—mottled, thick-knuckled, crooked—and pointed into the rain. “There.”
The rain pounded now against the earth, sending up splashes of mud that darkened the hem of Ama’s gown. She left the arbor’s shelter, running again, her muddy skirt heavy in her hands, her fine black slippers soaked through and ruined.
“Careful, lady,” called the old man from behind her—whether about the slippery path or dangers ahead, Ama could not know.
The rain was torrential now. The building Ama ran toward seemed as insubstantial as a shadow. As she ran, head tucked to chin, gown soaked through and heavy, Ama heard in her head, Sorrow, Sorrow, Sorrow.
There. Ama was under the awning of the mews. She shook the water from her eyes and swept her hair back from her face. Someone was inside the building, singing.
She stepped through the wide, open central doorway and found herself between two long rows of enclosures. In each enclosure perched a bird, and as she walked down the hallway that divided the two rows, the birds turned their heads to watch her go by.
It was Pawlin who was singing, a low, sweet, gentle tune. He sat at the far end of the mews, his back to Ama. He sang a song without words, only sounds that rose and fell in an unhurried, meandering pace. And, drawing closer, Ama saw that there was something, swaddled like a babe in his lap, to which he was tending.
His left hand held the bundle, and his right hand drew up, up, until the hair-thin needle in its fingers glinted in the light of a candle lit nearby.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh,” Pawlin answered, without looking up from his work.
Ama stepped even closer, terrified by what she would find in his lap but knowing she must see what it was.
It was a bird. Not Isolda, one much smaller, and plainer, dark gray. Ama’s breath caught as she saw what Pawlin was doing, as he lowered the needle back down to the bird’s face and used it to pierce the bird’s lower eyelid, then the upper eyelid, knitting them together with a thin, long string of silk.
“You’re sewing closed that bird’s eyes!” Ama felt her stomach roil with sick.
“I am,” Pawlin said, attention on his work, voice perfectly quiet and calm. “And you may stay while I do so if you can control your tone. You are upsetting my bird.”
She was upsetting the bird? Her impulse was to grab it from Pawlin’s lap and throw it into the sky, to free it from its master, but so many things conspired against this plan—the wicked rain; its sewn-shut eyes; her own need to find Sorrow, regardless of the cost.
And so, she waited, watching Pawlin finish what he had started, digging the crescents of her fingernails into her palms each time the needle poked again at the bird’s eyelids, each time another stitch further shuttered the bird’s vision.
At last, Pawlin was done. He carried the bird to one of the enclosures, unwrapped it from the length of linen in which he had held it captive, and placed it lovingly on its perch.
Blinded, the bird sat perfectly still. Pawlin closed the enclosure gate and turned to Ama with a smile.
“Where is Sorrow?” she demanded, hiding her shaking hands in the folds of her gown.
“What I was doing just then is called seeling,” Pawlin explained. “It is done with newly caught birds to minimize their stress. You see, I know the bird is in no danger, but the bird cannot know that, and so remains in a constant state of alarm until it is tamed, looking everywhere for threats. So, by eliminating the bird’s sight in this way—temporarily, of course—I am sparing it from unnecessary stress.” He grinned, a lock of his hair flopping charmingly across his brow. “It’s kinder this way, to shield lesser animals from that which they cannot control, don’t you think?”
“Where is Sorrow?” Ama repeated. Her fingers twisted now in the cloth of her gown, squeezing water from it that she imagined, briefly, as blood.
“It’s no easy task, breaking a raptor,” Pawlin continued, his voice gently conversational. He folded the length of linen neatly and placed it upon a shelf. “After trapping and seeling comes manning. I have always liked that word—manning. It means to work with the bird to get her used to her new surroundings. To help her accept that the hand that shall provide her food will be the hand of her master. To help her learn that, though she began from a place of fear, she can move into a place of acceptance and, eventually, even a place of love. My birds love me—yes, and I love them.”