The Falconer – Part 1: The Glove

"She is more afraid of you," said Ruairi.

"That's not possible."

"She weighs eight hundred grams."

"She has talons."

"She has nerves." The falconer smiled, a slow, crooked smile. "Hold out your arm."

Daniel held out his arm, rigid as a plank. He was thirty, a graphic designer from London, on a short break in the Highlands after a bad year. A friend had booked him a falconry experience as a joke. He stood in a stone-walled courtyard under a vast silver sky, in a borrowed jacket and a thick leather glove, with his heart in his mouth.

Ruairi was thirty-three, big, rangy, bearded, in a waxed coat and a flat cap, with pale eyes and hands like old roots. He had lived all his life on the estate. His hawk, Morag, was a Harris hawk with rusty chestnut feathers and a stern amber gaze. She sat on a post, bobbing her head.

"Relax your arm."

"It is relaxed."

"It is a plank." He stepped closer, turned Daniel's wrist, and loosened his fingers. "Soft. She can feel it."

He lifted a morsel of raw meat in the other glove. Morag leaned. She glided across the courtyard on silent wings and landed on Daniel's fist with a delicate thump. Her talons closed gently on the leather. Her weight was astonishing, and astonishingly light.

"Oh," breathed Daniel.

"She likes you."

"She likes the meat."

"She likes both."

Over three days, Daniel returned to the estate each morning. He learned to carry the hawk, to hold the jesses, to fly her down the glen. The mist drifted over the heather in long silver ribbons. The mountains rose purple and grey in the distance. Ruairi spoke little, but when he did, it was gentle.

"Can I ask you something?" said Daniel, on the third morning.

"Yes."

"Why falcons?"

"Because they can leave," said Ruairi. "And they choose to come back."

Daniel looked at the hawk on his fist. His throat tightened. "Green?" he said, a glove, a hill.

"Green," said Ruairi, with a rare warm smile. "Very green. Fly her."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Fly Free.