The Silver Falcon Read Online Free PDF Page A

fear.
    “I’ll give William more work. That will drive the nonsense out of him,” she said, changing the subject. “When he’s a little older and has more experience…”
    “He still won’t care any more about smithing than he does now. Falcons are his passion—why won’t you grasp that? You of all people ought to understand!”
    William closed his eyes for a moment. His mother would never understand, never. No matter how long Isaac talked.
    “The boy has your stubbornness and the same extraordinary dreams you used to have. And were
you
willing to listen to your mother?”
    “That’s not the same thing at all,” replied Ellenweore indignantly. “After all, I only want what’s best for him. My mother hated me. If it had been up to her, the only fire I would ever have tended would have been a hearth. And of course that would have suited you better, too.”
    “You know very well I stopped thinking like that long ago.” Isaac sounded hurt.
    Ellenweore must have realized she had gone too far. “Oh, Isaac, try to understand,” she pleaded, trying to make up. “The thing with his feet is a sign from God.”
    Even though he could not see her, William knew her eyes were shining as she said those words. His nostrils flared with fury. First, only one of his feet was malformed, not both, and second, he did not want to be compared with Hephaestus or Wayland or some other blacksmith cripple. Lord, he was so tired of her bringing it up all the time.
    “Ellen, you’re wrong, believe me,” Isaac pleaded afresh. “The boy hates smithing as much as you hate housework. You let the food burn. He lets the iron get too hot. You leave the seasoning off the meat. He forgets to add flux. Where you start soaking the grain too late so the gruel goes hard, he strikes the iron when it’stoo cold so it develops cracks. You know yourself that you’ve never been a good housewife, and he, Ellen, will never in his life be a good swordsmith, however much you may wish it.”
    “Nonsense, he’s lazy and contrary, that’s all. The men in my family have been smiths for generations.”
    “His father wasn’t,” Isaac reminded her sharply.
    “Do you hold that against me?”
    William was astonished at the bitterness of her retort.
    “No, Ellen, you know very well that I love the boy like a son,” Isaac replied softly. “But you shouldn’t forget that it’s not only smiths’ blood that flows in his veins.”
    William listened eagerly, but neither his mother nor Isaac said any more. It was only by chance that William had once learned from Sir Baudouin that his father was a knight. Sir Baudouin, Isaac, and his mother had never provided any more information, so William did not even know his father’s name. He closed his eyes, tired. As he’d so often done in recent years, William imagined his noble father riding into the yard, leaping down from a mighty warhorse and commanding Ellenweore to give up her son so that he could take him away. Although the knight in his fantasy was armed to the teeth, William was not afraid of him for one moment. He sat serenely on the huge horse, holding the reins his father had passed to him, and slipped on the glove he was handed. The knight placed a wonderful small falcon on his fist, and William looked his unknown father in the face for the first time. It seemed strangely familiar, and at last William realized that the strange knight was the very image of William Marshal.
    A good week had passed since the king’s visit, and William was still confident that a messenger would come to fetch him before long. To be as ready for that moment as possible, he took every opportunity that presented itself to flee the workshop and runto the hay meadow where he had found Blanchpenny. He had often seen the abbot’s falconers there, but until now he had only watched them. Today, he wanted to change that. This time he would talk to them, for he would soon be one of them.
    But when William reached the meadow, there