I fed the boss’s wild, ‘untameable’ beast garbage scraps—what happened next ruined his elite hunting event.
Part 2
The impact knocked the breath straight from my lungs.
I staggered back, hitting the stone wall hard.
The falcon had landed.
One massive, razor-sharp talon gripped the thick woven rim of my basket.
The other talon was buried deep under my collarbone, pinning me in place.
A sharp, searing pain shot down my arm, but I forced myself to stay upright.
If I dropped the basket, the linens would fall in the mud.
If the linens fell in the mud, Mrs. Higgins would skin me alive.
I stood entirely frozen, my face inches from the massive, terrifying beak of the predator.
The courtyard suddenly went dead silent.
Every eye turned toward the far wall.
Arthur sat rigidly on his stallion, staring at the laundry maid pinned against the wall.
A thin, dark blossom of red was already spreading across the rough brown wool of my shoulder.
“You’re heavy,” I whispered to the falcon, my voice trembling from the hot, stabbing pain.
The bird didn’t strike me.
It looked at my face, ruffled its feathers, and let out a soft, clicking trill, settling its weight more firmly.
It had found the only quiet thing in the world, and it was not going to let go.
“Do not move, girl,” Arthur ordered, his voice deathly quiet.
He slid from his stallion and approached slowly.
“Take the weight on your spine,” he murmured, stepping close.
I hissed a sharp intake of freezing air through my teeth.
Arthur extended his thickly gloved left arm slowly, wedging it between my chest and the bird’s breast.
With his bare right hand, he extracted dried venison from his pouch, holding it up to block the bird’s line of sight to the crowd.
“Step up,” Arthur commanded softly, pressing his heavy leather gauntlet against the back of the falcon’s legs.
For three seconds, nothing happened.
Then, with a deliberate grace that belied its violence, the raptor uncurled its talons and stepped onto Arthur’s gauntlet.
I collapsed.
My knees hit the hard cobblestones, and the wicker basket slipped from my numb fingers.
A massive pile of snow-white linen cascaded into the muddy, horse-trodden slush.
I didn’t clutch my bleeding shoulder.
I stared at the dark mud soaking into the pristine white banquet cloths.
“Lye won’t get that out,” I whispered, my voice cracking with exhausted despair.
Would this monster of a boss really fire me over muddy tablecloths after his prized beast nearly tore my arm off?
Part 3
No one at Highfield Manor expected Arthur to forgive the laundry maid for the muddy tablecloths.
The sheer absurdity of Megan’s priorities—weeping over ruined fabric while a dark blossom of blood soaked her own shoulder—had struck him hard.
It was the terror of poverty overriding physical trauma.
“Leave the linens,” Arthur barked sharply, his voice carrying over the dead silence of the courtyard.
Megan frantically reached out with her good arm to pull the ruined fabric from the freezing slush, not listening.
Arthur closed the distance in two long strides.
He clamped his bare hand firmly over her uninjured forearm, yanking her upright.
The smell of her hit him instantly—harsh lye soap, stale sweat, and the sharp metallic tang of fresh blood.
“I said, leave them,” Arthur ordered again, his tone dropping an octave.
He turned toward the gaping crowd of nobles.
“The hunt is delayed by one hour,” he announced coldly, his pale eyes daring anyone to complain.
“Clear the courtyard.”
He hauled Megan forcefully toward the heavy oak doors, ignoring the whispers of Lady Heather and the stunned silence of his handlers.
To understand how a common laundry maid ended up pinned beneath the master’s prized raptor, one had to look back two months prior.
Highfield Manor in late autumn was a place of relentless, crushing labor.
The water in the subterranean copper vats was always kept just shy of a rolling boil.
Megan knew this intimately because the skin on her forearms had long ago stopped peeling.
Instead, her flesh had hardened into a permanent, shiny pink scale that no longer registered minor burns.
She would plunge her heavy wooden paddle into the murky water, stirring Arthur’s fine linen shirts through a thick slurry of rendered fat and lye soap.
Down in the laundry cellars, there was no crisp autumn breeze or golden sunlight.
There was only blinding steam, the rhythmic slosh of heavy wet fabric, and the bone-deep ache in her lower spine.
Brenda, the older washerwoman who worked beside her, was a woman worn down to her absolute core.
Brenda’s jaw sagged with chronic fatigue, and her hands shook when she tried to wring out the heavier wool cloaks.
“You’ll end up in the apothecary’s room,” Brenda would mutter, wiping condensation from her forehead with a soapy rag.
“This damp gets into your lungs and it never leaves.”
Megan never argued with the older woman, choosing instead to haul a dripping mass of white linen from the vat.
The wet fabric weighed as much as a dead dog, straining her shoulders to their limits.
Upstairs, the estate was a completely different world, insulated by unimaginable wealth.
Arthur, the imposing owner of Highfield Manor, had recently returned from his northern campaign.
The servants had expected him to bring back a bride, or perhaps chests overflowing with spoils of war.
He had brought back neither.
Instead, he had returned with a massive, wild bird that terrified even his most seasoned handlers.
Megan didn’t care about the rumors surrounding the beast.
She only cared about the sudden influx of mud, horse sweat, and congealed blood that now covered the garments thrown down the laundry chute.
The extra workload meant an extra three hours of scrubbing each night by the dim light of tallow candles.
The bird’s reputation spread quickly through the servant quarters like a foul plague.
It was said to be a demon of the ice ravines, a creature built entirely for blizzards and barren rocks.
Craig, the estate’s head falconer, had learned the hard way that the beast possessed zero respect for human authority.
The bird had taken a sizable chunk out of Craig’s forearm during a routine feeding attempt.
Its razor-sharp beak had ripped straight through boiled leather gauntlets as if they were made of wet parchment.
When Megan heard the news, she simply dragged a stiff bristle brush across a stubborn mud stain on a collar.
“Leather is tough,” Megan had rasped, her voice rough from inhaling steam all day.
“Skin is soft.”
“Craig should have known better than to put his skin where the leather stopped,” she added pragmatically.
Brenda had simply crossed herself with a trembling, soapy hand, praying the demon bird would freeze to death in the mews.
Later that evening, after the linens were wrung out and hung in the drying yard to freeze stiff in the biting November wind, Mrs. Higgins appeared.
The head housekeeper was a woman made entirely of sharp angles, sour moods, and petty grievances.
“You,” Mrs. Higgins snapped, pointing a skeletal finger at Megan’s hunched form.
“The mews, now.”
Megan wiped her raw, stinging hands on her coarse linen apron.
“The mews, ma’am?”
“That’s the falconer’s job.”
Mrs. Higgins hissed like a cornered cat, stepping uncomfortably close.
“The falconer is currently having his arm stitched back together by Dan.”
The Duke’s new beast had apparently thrashed in a blind panic, knocking over water troughs and scattering pigeon feed.
It had bled all over the pristine stone floor of the mews.
“Arthur expects it spotless by morning,” Mrs. Higgins demanded.
“Take a bucket of sand, a scrub brush, and your lye water.”
Refusal wasn’t a concept that existed in Megan’s harsh world.
She merely picked up her heavy wooden bucket, her knees popping loudly in the damp corridor, and walked out into the freezing courtyard.
The wind bit through her thin woolen shawl instantly, stinging her flushed cheeks.
The sky above was bruised purple, threatening a heavy, early snow.
The mews were located at the far edge of the vast estate.
It was a long, low stone building that smelled fiercely of ammonia, raw meat, and dry dust.
Usually, the estate’s hunting hawks were quiet, hooded, and perfectly calm.
Tonight, the building vibrated with a low, clicking hiss that made the hairs on Megan’s arms stand up.
She nudged the heavy oak door open with her hip, stepping into the dim interior.
The room was lit by a single flickering oil lantern that cast violent, dancing shadows against the cold stone walls.
Directly in the middle of the space, resting on a heavy iron ring bound by thick leather straps, sat the massive bird.
It was massive, undeniably larger than any bird Megan had ever seen in her life.
Its plumage was a striking, mottled blend of storm-cloud silver and pale white.
The heavy leather hood lay shredded on the stone floor below it, mixed with a puddle of dark, congealing blood and scattered rushes.
When the heavy door creaked, the bird snapped its head around with terrifying speed.
Its eyes were pure, fathomless black pits.
It opened its hooked, iron-colored beak and let out a sharp, grating shriek.
The sound felt like a needle driving straight into Megan’s temples.
The bird flared its wings, a span that seemed to eat up the cramped space of the mews, and lunged violently.
The heavy leather ties snapped taut, jerking the bird backward in a raw display of pure panic and desperate defense.
Megan didn’t flinch or step back.
Not because she possessed some hidden well of bravery, but because she was simply too exhausted.
Her back ached, her hands burned from the lye, and adrenaline was a luxury her overworked body could no longer afford to produce.
She set the wooden bucket down on the flagstones with a heavy thunk that echoed in the small room.
The bird froze instantly, panting heavily, its black eyes locked dead onto her.
“Scream all you want,” Megan muttered, her voice a flat, deadpan rasp.
“It won’t make the lye any warmer.”
She ignored the lethal predator entirely, dropping to her sore knees.
She dipped her stiff scrub brush into the bucket of harsh lye water.
The acrid chemical smell immediately overpowered the sharp copper scent of fresh blood.
The bird ruffled its feathers, visibly confused by the sudden introduction of this pungent, unfamiliar odor.
Megan began to scrub the stone methodically, leaning her meager weight into the brush to lift the dried blood.
The rhythmic scratching of the coarse bristles against the rock filled the tense silence.
She didn’t look at the bird.
She didn’t offer it soothing words in a soft, placating tone.
She didn’t coo or extend a hand in some foolish attempt at kinship.
She treated it exactly like what it was—a massive, annoying obstacle in her endless workday.
The falcon watched her every move with hyper-focused intensity.
The manic thrashing stopped completely.
The frantic clicking of its beak slowed to an occasional, quiet snap.
It cocked its head, carefully assessing the hunched, lye-scented creature scrubbing the floor.
Megan smelled absolutely nothing like the men who had violently captured it.
She didn’t smell of fear, stale sweat, expensive leather, roasting meats, or the sickly sweet pomades the nobles wore.
She smelled only of harsh soap, wet wool, and cold ash.
She moved predictably, staying low to the ground and never raising her eyes to challenge it.
For the next hour, the only sounds in the mews were the scratching of the brush and the slosh of dirty water.
Above her, she heard the quiet, rhythmic breathing of a wild thing realizing it was not currently being hunted.
When Megan finally finished, the stone floor was immaculately clean.
She stood up slowly, pressing a hand to her lower back with a quiet, suppressed groan.
She picked up the heavy bucket, ready to return to the cellars.
The falcon watched her leave.
It let out a low, inquisitive trill, almost as if it were asking a question.
Megan paused at the door, glancing back at the magnificent beast.
“I hope they let you sleep,” she told it flatly, and pulled the heavy door shut.
Over the next few days, the situation with the bird deteriorated rapidly.
Arthur was a man of cold utility who did not tolerate waste or defiance in any form.
He had spent an exorbitant sum of gold to acquire the creature from a trapper in the frozen crags of the north.
It was meant to be the crown jewel of his mews, a flawless symbol of his absolute dominance over the untameable.
Instead, the stubbornly proud beast was starving itself to death.
Three days had passed since it maimed Craig, and it still refused to eat a single morsel.
Arthur stood in the shadows of the mews one evening, the collar of his thick sable cloak turned up against the bitter draft.
He watched his nervous secondary handler, Tyler, try to offer the bird a premium cut of quail on a silver pair of tongs.
The bird shrieked, a sound like tearing metal, and struck with blinding speed.
The expensive tongs went flying across the room, clattering loudly against the stone.
Tyler scrambled backward in pure terror, tripping over a wooden bucket of water.
His face was pale, his eyes wide with the realization that he could easily lose a finger.
“Useless,” Arthur murmured, his voice a low, rumbling baritone that sent a visible shiver down Tyler’s spine.
“The bird has not eaten in four days.”
Arthur stepped out of the shadows, his expression carved from unforgiving granite.
“If it dies of spite, I will have the cost of it removed from your wages for the rest of your miserable life.”
Tyler didn’t need to be told twice; he scrambled to his feet and bolted from the room.
Arthur stepped forward, reaching for a heavy leather gauntlet resting on the workbench.
The falcon immediately mantled, spreading its massive wings to make itself look larger and more intimidating.
It clicked its beak in rapid, aggressive succession, entirely prepared to fight to the death.
It hated Arthur.
It knew instinctively that he was the architect of its cold captivity.
Arthur stared at the fathomless black eyes, feeling a tight knot of genuine anger form in his chest.
He decided that if he had to force-feed the creature by pinning it to the ground, he would.
Before he could pull the thick glove over his hand, the heavy oak door creaked open.
A servant girl walked in, carrying a shallow wooden basin filled with soiled rags.
Arthur immediately recognized the rough, undyed sackcloth of a lowly laundry maid.
She stopped when she saw him, her posture immediately stiffening into the requisite subservient hunch.
She lowered her head, avoiding direct eye contact.
“Apologies, sir,” Megan mumbled, her voice surprisingly coarse, like dry leaves dragged across stone.
“Mrs. Higgins ordered me to fetch the soiled linens from the handlers’ quarters.”
Arthur waved a hand dismissively, not caring about the maid’s mundane chores.
He turned back to the bird, preparing to initiate a violent struggle.
Megan moved toward the back of the mews where the handlers kept their discarded rags.
As she walked past the center ring, she noticed the rejected quail lying in the dirt.
It was completely ignored by the massive predator above it.
She looked up at the falcon.
The bird wasn’t clicking at her, and it had even lowered its wings slightly.
Megan paused, looking at the fresh meat on the floor, then at the bird’s chest.
The keel bone was starting to protrude sharply through the stark white feathers.
It was undeniably starving, driven to the edge of madness by hunger and fear.
Arthur watched her from the periphery of his vision, intensely irritated by her lingering presence.
“Collect your rags and go, girl,” Arthur snapped.
“The beast is volatile and I will not have you bleeding on my floor.”
Megan didn’t run.
She looked at Arthur, taking in his immaculate velvet doublet and his clean, soft hands holding the heavy gauntlet.
He didn’t know anything about being truly hungry.
He only knew about ownership, dominance, and the expectation of immediate obedience.
Megan reached into the deep, stained pocket of her coarse apron.
She had been tasked with emptying the kitchen’s foul waste buckets earlier that grueling morning.
She pulled out a severed chicken head, bloodless and gray.
She also retrieved a stringy piece of raw, discarded liver she had secretly saved for the starving barn cats.
“Quail,” Megan said quietly, her voice entirely devoid of any expected deference.
She stared at the expensive, dead meat lying uselessly on the floor.
“You give a starving, scared thing fancy meat on a metal stick.”
“It thinks the stick is a trap.”
Arthur’s jaw tightened ominously.
No servant spoke to him without being spoken to, let alone with such a flat, unimpressed tone.
Megan ignored the dangerous shift in Arthur’s posture.
She looked directly at the bird.
She held the chicken head in her raw, cracked, lye-burned hand.
She didn’t hold it out like a gentle peace offering.
She simply tossed it onto the stone floor about three feet from the bird’s perch.
The discarded meat landed with a wet, unappealing smack.
Arthur opened his mouth to berate the insolent girl for littering his pristine mews with kitchen garbage.
The words died instantly in his throat.
The falcon didn’t shriek, and it didn’t thrash.
It dropped from its perch like a stone, landing on the floor with a soft rustle of silver feathers.
It immediately pinned the chicken head beneath massive black talons.
Its dark eyes darted from Megan to Arthur, then back to the meager meat.
Megan tossed the stringy piece of liver next.
It landed mere inches from the bird’s curved beak.
The falcon struck instantly, tearing the liver in half and swallowing it whole.
It tore into the chicken head next, the sickening sound of crushing bone echoing loudly in the quiet room.
Arthur stared in absolute, stunned silence.
His elite handlers, with their decades of experience, silver tongs, and premium game meat, had been driven off with bloodied hands.
This nameless girl in a damp apron had just fed the most expensive bird in the country with literal garbage.
Megan wiped her greasy fingers on her apron, picked up her basin of soiled rags, and turned to leave.
“Stop,” Arthur commanded, his voice echoing in the small space.
Megan stopped, keeping her eyes firmly on the stone floor.
Arthur walked toward her slowly, looking at her properly for the very first time.
She was not a pretty thing; her face was gaunt, her skin pale and waxy from spending her life underground in the steam rooms.
Her hands were horrific—red, swollen, heavily scarred, and cracked at the knuckles from the harsh chemicals.
She smelled powerfully of lye, cheap fat soap, and bone-deep exhaustion.
“How did you know it would take that?” Arthur narrowed his pale eyes as he searched for some trick.
“I didn’t, sir,” Megan answered truthfully.
“Then why did you do it?”
Megan finally looked up, meeting his intense gaze.
Her eyes were a dull, muddy brown, completely devoid of the awe or fear Arthur was accustomed to seeing in his staff.
“Because hunger is a heavy thing.”
“It makes you crazy, but it doesn’t make you stupid.”
She gestured vaguely toward the bird.
“If you’re trapped, you don’t trust a feast.”
“You trust the scraps, because scraps mean you’re being ignored.”
“And being ignored means you’re safe.”
Arthur stared at her, utterly taken aback by her blunt words.
The unvarnished reality of her perspective struck him like a physical blow to the chest.
There was no poetry in it, no grand romantic notion of taming a wild beast with a pure, innocent heart.
It was just the grim, practical logic of the very bottom of the food chain.
The falcon let out a low, satisfied chitter, settling back onto its iron ring to tear at the last bit of bone.
“What is your name?” Arthur’s voice dropped to a quiet murmur.
“Megan, sir.”
“You are no longer in the laundry, Megan,” Arthur said, his voice returning to its usual cold, authoritative clip.
“You are to report to the mews twice a day to feed the bird.”
Megan’s shoulders slumped slightly, a micro-expression of profound, weary annoyance.
“Sir, I have twenty vats of linen to wash.”
“I don’t care about the linens, I care about my investment,” Arthur interrupted, stepping closer.
He was a full head taller than her, imposing and blocking the only exit.
“If it eats for you, you will feed it.”
“If it starves, I will personally hold you responsible.”
Megan looked at the dried mud on his incredibly expensive leather riding boots.
She thought about the extra, backbreaking work she was leaving Brenda to handle alone.
She thought about the painfully cold walk across the courtyard twice a day in the dead of winter.
She didn’t feel chosen or special; she felt horribly burdened.
“Yes, sir,” she muttered softly.
She slipped past him, pulling the heavy door open and stepping out into the freezing wind.
She left Arthur and his monster behind in the dark, entirely unaware of how intertwined their fates were about to become.
Two grueling weeks passed under this new, forced arrangement.
The dynamic was as entirely unromantic as Megan had predicted.
Every morning and every evening, she walked through the biting cold to the drafty mews.
She brought undesirable scraps from the butcher’s block—gizzards, tough sinue, and discarded pigeon wings.
Tyler and the other handlers watched her with a bitter mixture of resentment and awe.
Arthur watched her from the shadows of the doorway, silent, imposing, and deeply unnerving.
The gyrfalcon, which Arthur had officially named Ghost, did not become a docile, affectionate pet.
It still shrieked violently at the handlers.
It still snapped aggressively at Arthur’s thick, gloved hand whenever he got too close.
But when Megan walked in, smelling of lye and damp wool, it stopped thrashing completely.
It didn’t love her, and Megan knew this with pragmatic certainty.
It merely recognized her as a consistent non-threat in a world full of danger.
She didn’t stare into its eyes, and she didn’t try to touch its magnificent, pristine feathers.
She tossed the meat, cleaned the dirty stone floor of the mews, and left without a word.
They existed in a quiet, isolated space of mutual, exhausted tolerance.
Then came the chaotic day of the grand winter solstice hunt.
It was the premier social event of the entire winter season.
Highfield Manor was overflowing with visiting lords, ladies, and their massive, demanding entourages.
The courtyard was a chaotic sea of rich velvets, barking hounds, stomping destriers, and suffocating perfumes.
Arthur intended to debut Ghost to prove that the exorbitant sum he had paid had yielded a functional hunting weapon.
He needed to show it wasn’t just a screaming, useless decoration.
Megan was crossing the far end of the courtyard, carrying a massive wicker basket of freshly pressed tablecloths meant for the evening banquet.
Her arms shook violently from the sheer weight, and the icy air burned her lungs with every breath.
She kept her head down, desperately avoiding the throngs of nobility who treated the servants like invisible, moving furniture.
Near the mounting blocks, Arthur sat confidently atop his massive black stallion.
He wore a fitted riding coat of dark blue, looking every inch the formidable lord of the sprawling estate.
On his left arm, encased in a thick, elbow-length leather gauntlet, sat the gyrfalcon.
It was securely hooded, but Megan could tell the bird was vibrating with intense panic.
The noise in the courtyard was deafening.
The baying of the hounds alone was enough to rattle teeth, compounded by the shrill laughter of Lady Heather.
Heather, a haughty woman entirely draped in fox fur, let her horse sidle far too close to Arthur’s.
“Is that the northern terror, Arthur?” Heather pointed a silver-tipped riding crop directly at the bird.
“It looks rather tame to me, perhaps a bit small for a man of your considerable stature.”
Arthur’s jaw clenched in visible irritation.
“It is a tiercel, Heather.”
“The females are larger, yes, but this one is built for blistering speed, not mere brute force.”
He gave a sharp, definitive nod to Tyler, signaling it was time to unhood the bird and let it acclimate.
Tyler reached up with trembling fingers and carefully pulled the stiff leather hood free.
The sensory overload hit the gyrfalcon like a physical strike from a heavy mace.
The sudden explosion of bright winter light, the terrifying roars of the enormous dogs, and the sickeningly sweet cloud of rose water was too much.
The bird didn’t just panic; it exploded with a shriek that cut through the courtyard clamor like a jagged piece of glass.
The gyrfalcon lunged violently upward, fighting for the sky.
Arthur, caught off guard by the sheer explosive force of the massive bird, jerked his arm slightly.
The heavy leather ties, already strained from weeks of the bird thrashing against the ring in the mews, found their breaking point.
The knot slipped, the old leather snapped loudly, and suddenly, the massive bird was free.
Pandemonium erupted instantly across the cobblestones.
The falcon didn’t fly straight up into the sky; it was too disoriented and utterly terrified.
It swooped dangerously low over the dense crowd.
Heather screamed as the massive white wings clipped her extravagant feathered hat, tearing it violently from her head.
Horses reared, whinnying in terror at the apex predator suddenly diving among them.
Visiting lords shouted in panic, ducking for cover behind their confused guards.
Hounds strained furiously against their leashes, barking and snapping at the air.
Arthur cursed loudly, fighting to control his rearing stallion while scanning the sky.
“Don’t shoot!” Arthur threw his hand out toward a perimeter guard who was raising a heavy crossbow.
“Do not shoot my bird!”
The falcon circled the courtyard in a frenzied, chaotic loop, desperately looking for an escape.
The towering stone walls of the manor boxed it in completely.
It needed somewhere absolutely still, somewhere safe from the terrifying movement below.
Across the wide courtyard, away from the screaming nobles and the rearing horses, Megan froze.
She had stopped walking the very moment the chaos started, pressing her back flush against the cold stone of the laundry house wall.
She clutched the heavy wicker basket of pristine tablecloths to her chest like a desperate shield.
She stood perfectly still, breathing shallowly, hoping the utter madness would resolve itself before someone accidentally trampled her.
The gyrfalcon made another frantic, low pass over the central stone fountain.
Its black eyes scanned the shifting chaos below, and then it saw her.
It saw the dull brown of her cheap dress, the total lack of frantic movement, and the faint, familiar chemical scent of lye soap.
The bird tucked its wings aggressively and dropped like a heavy stone.
Megan didn’t even have time to scream.
She only heard the sudden, terrifying rush of wind, and then a heavy, solid mass slammed forcefully onto the edge of her wicker basket.
The brutal impact knocked the breath entirely from her lungs, causing her to stagger back against the hard stone wall.
The gyrfalcon had landed.
The apothecary’s room was stiflingly hot and heavily perfumed with dried sage and strong vinegar.
Megan sat rigid on a wooden table, dripping muddy water onto the floorboards.
Dan, the estate’s practical surgeon, stood back, wiping iron shears with boiled wine.
“You must cut the wool away, sir,” Dan mumbled, looking at Arthur.
“The fabric is pressed deep into the puncture.”
Arthur stood by the hearth, crossing his arms.
“Then cut it.”
Dan sliced through the blood-stiffened wool.
Megan hissed as the freezing metal brushed her burning skin, her knuckles turning white where she gripped the edge of the table.
“Hold still,” Arthur said from the shadows.
“It hurts,” Megan snapped, the fading adrenaline leaving behind a profound weakness.
She didn’t care that he was the owner of the estate.
“It hurts, and you are standing there watching me bleed like I am one of your hounds.”
Arthur stepped closer, looking at where the talon had punched clean through the skin.
The flesh was already swelling, turning an angry, bruised purple.
“If you were a hound, I would have put you down,” Arthur said, his voice entirely devoid of cruelty.
“A crippled hound cannot run, but you only need one good arm to scrub a floor.”
He nodded to Dan to pour the wine.
The raw alcohol hit the puncture.
Megan didn’t scream, her jaw locking with immense force.
She squeezed her eyes shut, tears of pure agony cutting tracks through the soot on her cheeks.
She chewed her lip until it bled, waiting for the fire to pass.
Dan quickly applied a thick paste of yarrow and honey, binding her shoulder tightly with clean linen.
“Keep it dry,” he muttered, tying off the bandage.
“No heavy lifting for a fortnight.”
“She is a laundry maid,” Arthur said flatly.
Megan gasped for breath, her chest heaving.
“I can lift.”
“Just tell Mrs. Higgins not to dock my wages for the ruined tablecloths.”
Arthur stared at her bleak worldview.
She had almost lost her arm, and she was haggling over pennies.
“You are no longer a laundry maid,” Arthur said.
Megan’s shoulders slumped, and she let out a hollow laugh.
“Dismissed.”
“I will pack my trunk.”
“You are not dismissed, you idiot,” Arthur snapped, irritated by her assumption.
“You are the falconer’s assistant.”
Megan blinked, looking up at him through her matted hair.
“The bird barely tolerates me, it landed on you,” she pointed out.
“It landed on me because I didn’t move.”
“I was a piece of furniture.”
“Then you will be a piece of furniture in the mews,” Arthur replied, his voice returning to its cold, authoritative clip.
“You will feed it, you will be paid double, and you will not touch another vat of lye, understand?”
Megan looked at him, seeing a master repositioning a tool.
But double wages meant hot food and a fire during winter.
She nodded slowly, the fight draining out of her.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Arthur paused at the door, glancing back at Dan.
“Send to the tailor.”
“Have a heavy leather coat measured for the girl, lined with sheepskin.”
He looked at Megan one last time.
“The mews are drafting.”
The heavy door clicked shut, leaving Megan alone with the stinging reality of a brand-new cage.
January brought a brutal freeze.
The moors stretching beyond Highfield Manor were buried beneath two feet of hard-packed, glittering snow.
The sky was the color of a bruised iron skillet, heavy and unforgiving.
Megan stood knee-deep in a snowdrift.
The heavy leather coat Arthur had commissioned swallowed her small frame, but the thick sheepskin lining was the warmest thing she had ever known.
On her left arm, now healed into a puckered, aching knot of pink scar tissue, she wore an elbow-length gauntlet made of triple-boiled oxhide.
Ghost sat on her wrist.
The massive gyrfalcon was heavier than an anvil.
Its talons gripped the thick leather, its black eyes scanning the desolate frozen landscape.
Ten paces away, Arthur sat atop his gelding.
He wore a dark fur cloak, his breath pluming in the freezing air.
He watched Megan, not the bird.
Over the past six weeks, the dynamic in the mews had shifted entirely.
Megan didn’t train the falcon, she simply existed with it.
The bird ate for her, it let her file its beak and apply oil to its talons, and it no longer shrieked when she entered.
Arthur had spent hours standing in the shadows of the doorway, watching them.
He had stopped bringing the other handlers.
He had stopped trying to dominate the creature with sharp commands.
Lately, he had started bringing Megan hot tea in a tin cup, leaving it on the workbench without a single word.
“He needs to fly,” Arthur called out, his voice muffled by the biting wind.
“His chest muscles are atrophying, and if he does not hunt soon, he will lose the instinct.”
Megan looked down at the massive predator.
She reached out with her bare right hand and gently unknotted the leather ties from the ring on her gauntlet.
The bird was completely untethered.
“What if he doesn’t come back?” Megan raised her voice to be heard over the howling wind.
Arthur held her gaze across the expanse of snow.
“Then I lose a fortune in gold, and he gains the sky.”
“Pull the hood.”
Megan felt a sudden, sharp tightness in her throat.
She understood the bird perfectly.
She had spent her whole life tethered, first to the laundry vats, now to the mews.
If someone cut her tethers, she wouldn’t look back.
She would run until her boots dissolved.
With trembling fingers, she reached up and pulled the leather hood from the falcon’s head.
The bird blinked, swiveling its head to take in the vast, blinding expanse of the moors.
It felt the bitter wind slide beneath its primary feathers.
It let out a low, trilling sound, flexing its massive wings.
“Go,” Megan whispered, her voice cracking.
“Don’t be stupid, keep going.”
She dropped her arm.
The falcon launched.
The sheer power of its takeoff kicked up a localized blizzard of powdered snow.
Megan shielded her face, watching as the massive white bird ascended.
It didn’t circle lazily.
It climbed like an arrow loosed from a siege bow, shooting straight upward into the iron-gray sky until it was nothing but a speck of white against the clouds.
Arthur kicked his horse forward, breaking through the snowdrifts until he was beside Megan.
He pulled the heavy leather lure from his saddlebag, preparing to swing it to call the bird down.
“He’s gone,” Megan said flatly.
The wind whipped a strand of greasy brown hair across her face.
She felt a profound, heavy emptiness in her chest.
She had wanted it to leave, but now that it was gone, the sky felt unbearably empty.
“Watch,” Arthur commanded softly.
They stood in silence for five minutes.
The cold began to seep through the soles of Megan’s boots, and her toes went numb.
She stared at the sky until her eyes watered, blurring her vision.
“You swung the door open,” Megan said quietly, wrapping her arms around her chest.
“You don’t swing a door open for a prisoner and expect them to stay.”
Arthur looked down at her.
Her face was red from the wind, her nose running, her scar undoubtedly aching in the deep freeze.
She was entirely unrefined, devoid of grace, and completely, violently honest.
“Some prisoners,” Arthur said softly, his voice barely carrying over the wind, “do not flee when they realize the door has been locked from the inside to keep the wolves out rather than to keep them in.”
Before Megan could parse the heavy implication of his words, a sharp, piercing whistle tore through the frigid air.
Megan whipped her head up.
A white missile was hurtling down from the clouds.
The falcon was in a full stoop, wings tucked tight against its body, a teardrop of pure velocity.
It was falling at a terrifying speed, a silent killer aimed directly at the earth.
Arthur raised his hand, ready to swing the lure, but the bird wasn’t looking at him.
It pulled out of its dive twenty feet above the snow.
The massive wings flared outward, catching the heavy winter air with a sound like ripping canvas.
It banked sharply, kicking its legs forward.
Megan threw her left arm up instinctively, bracing for the impact.
The bird hit her gauntlet with the force of a falling brick.
Megan staggered backward into the snowdrift, but she kept her arm locked.
The talons gripped the boiled leather fiercely.
Ghost mantled its wings, panting heavily, and let out a triumphant, deafening shriek that echoed across the desolate moors.
It hadn’t caught anything.
It had simply claimed the sky, and then it had chosen to return.
Megan stood frozen, her chest heaving, staring at the wild, terrifying creature perched on her arm.
Slowly, she reached into her deep pocket and pulled out a frozen chunk of rabbit meat.
She didn’t toss it, she just held it out.
The bird gently took it from her bare fingers.
Arthur sat on his horse, watching the laundry maid and the apex predator in the snow.
He lowered the heavy leather lure, letting it drop to his side.
He realized with a strange tightening sensation in his chest that he was no longer the sole master of this estate.
He was just a man watching a force of nature find its anchor.
“He came back,” Megan breathed, shock rendering her voice hollow.
“Yes,” Arthur murmured, his pale eyes entirely fixed on her.
“He did.”
THE END
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Disclaimer
This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. If you would like to share your story, please send it to [email protected].
