The Eye of the Falcon Read Online Free PDF Page B

and Userref put a log in a corner for a perch, and tied Echo to it with traces of braided lambskin around her legs.
    At first the fledgling was nervous, standing tall and glaring with half-open beak. Pirra talked to her and eventually she relaxed, fluffing out her chin-feathers and perching comfortably on one leg, with the other tucked under her belly.
    She had astonishing eyesight. She could spot an ant at thirty paces, and would turn her head right around to follow it. And she seemed fascinated by Pirra’s clothes. “She sees more colors than we do,” said Userref. “They say that to falcons, the green and purple glints on a raven’s wing are as bright as a rainbow.”
    Echo swiftly learned that Pirra meant food, and begged with plaintive wails, kyi-kyi-kyi . Her favorite was pigeon: She would pluck out its feathers with her beak, toss away the guts, then hold down the carcass with one foot and rip it to shreds. Later, she’d squirt her droppings into the corner, then sick up a neat pellet of squashed feathers and bone.
    With startling speed, she grew from a scruffy fledgling to a handsome falcon, as tall as Pirra’s forearm was long. Her head and wings were a beautiful dusky gray, her throat and breast creamy buff speckled with brown. Her large hooked beak could snap a pigeon’s spine or bite a chunk out of Pirra’s finger—although she never did. And beneath her great black eyes ran the mark of all falcons: a dark vertical stripe, like the track of a tear.
    Pirra hated tying her up, so she gave her the run of the chamber—although on Userref’s advice, she left the traces on her legs.
    â€œTo teach her to fly,” he said, “you must gain her trust. Stay with her, talk to her, give her scraps of squirrel to keep her busy. Get her used to your touch.”
    By now, Echo knew her own name, and sometimes when Pirra called, she hopped off her perch and came running, her talons clicking on the floor. Once, when Pirra left the chamber, Echo called to her: eck-eck-eck .
    At first, Pirra stroked her with a feather, then the back of her finger, over her cool soft breast and down her scaly yellow-green feet. Echo seemed to like having her feet stroked best.
    One day, as Pirra was stroking her ankles, the falcon stepped calmly onto her fist. Pirra felt a prickling of awe. For all Echo’s endearing ways, she was a creature of the Goddess.
    â€œKeep your elbow close to your side and your forearm level,” Userref said quietly from the doorway, “that’ll make a comfortable perch. Don’t let go of the traces.”
    Echo was heavier than she looked, and her talons dug into Pirra’s flesh like slender black thorns.
    â€œI’ll make a leather cuff to protect your wrist,” said Userref. “And from now on, you should carry a pouch with scraps of meat, for rewards.”
    â€œHow come you know so much about falcons?” said Pirra without taking her eyes off Echo.
    â€œAll Egyptians know about falcons. My brother Nebetku taught me. He knew more than most.”
    â€œDid he have a tame one?”
    â€œRemember, you never tame a falcon! You just persuade her to stay with you for a while.”
    Pirra wanted to know what he meant by a while, but Userref had gone back to his chamber. It made him sad to talk of his brother; they’d been close before Userref was taken for a slave.
    That night, Echo roosted on the bedpost by Pirra’s head, and Pirra lay listening to her doing her evening preen: brisk little rustlings and beak-clickings, then a snap of shaken-out feathers as she settled to sleep. Pirra felt better than she had since she’d been brought to Taka Zimi.
    Next day, she took Echo into the courtyard for the first time. Silea and the guards were banished indoors, and Pirra and Userref watched the falcon hop about to explore. She pecked everything, and seemed fascinated by the juniper tree on the lookout post. When the wind