My Vicious Falcon Attacked Everyone — Until It Met The Kitchen Maid

Part 1

“Do not let it near your face,” the master of the mews had warned me, stepping backward with his thick leather gloves raised like shields.

That massive gray bird had drawn blood from every experienced handler at my estate.

It knew absolutely no master except the bitter winter wind.

I stood in the center of the cold stone room, watching the great falcon strain against its tethers.

Its jesses snapped taut with a violent crack.

The dark, rolling eye of the creature burned with a fury that no hood or glove could ever hope to tame.

Three seasoned handlers had already abandoned my service this season.

The bird had sliced open the cheek of the last man just two days prior.

Now, the burly men of my estate crossed the courtyard rather than walk anywhere near the heavy oak door where the creature was kept.

I had purchased the falcon for an absolute fortune from a coast captain who swore on his life it was the finest hunting bird in the country.

For two long years, it had refused to fly for a single living soul.

It simply hated the world.

It hated with a brilliant, pure intensity that I secretly admired.

I understood that kind of cold, isolating fury all too well.

“Then it stays hooded,” I told the terrified handler.

“I did not buy it to be a pleasant companion.”

“I bought it because it was the absolute best.”

I turned on my heel to leave the freezing room.

That was exactly when the heavy wooden door at the far end creaked open.

A young girl stepped inside carrying a heavy, covered pail.

She was one of the scullery maids from my own kitchens.

I could not have told you her name if my life depended on it.

I only had a vague, passing memory of seeing her carrying heavy loads across the grounds.

She was always carrying something, a plain, narrow figure in gray wool with her head bowed against the wind.

She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw me standing there.

She dipped into a quick, nervous curtsy and turned to slip away.

But the furious, shrieking falcon had suddenly gone completely silent.

That absolute silence was so unnerving after an hour of violent screeching that every man in the room turned to stare.

The great bird had stopped straining against its tethers.

It settled its ruffled gray feathers down smooth.

It cocked its sharp head to the side.

It was watching the kitchen maid with a singular, unblinking focus.

It was a terrifying stillness that meant total attention.

It meant interest, which was the exact opposite of its usual murderous rage.

“Get out,” the handler hissed at her through clenched teeth.

“Go on, get out before it lunges.”

“I only brought the scraps for the hounds,” the girl said in a soft, low voice.

“I mistook the door.”

“I am so sorry, your grace.”

She lowered her eyes to the stone floor and turned the heavy iron handle to leave.

“Wait,” I said.

I did not know why the word left my mouth.

I am not a man who indulges in foolish whims or sentiment.

But I had spent two agonizing years watching this creature refuse the entire world.

I had never once seen it look at anything the way it was looking at this girl.

I walked over to the wooden block, picked up the thickest, heaviest leather gauntlet, and held it out to her.

“Your hand,” I ordered.

“Put on the glove.”

The handler let out a strangled gasp of protest.

The girl’s eyes flew up to meet mine, wide and alarmed.

I saw them clearly for the first time, a steady, calm gray beneath her obvious fear.

They were the eyes of someone who had learned exactly how to be very still in the presence of dangerous power.

“Your grace, I don’t…” she stammered.

“Nor has anyone else,” I said.

“Put it on.”

Her hands shook violently as she set down her heavy metal pail.

She drew on the massive, stiff leather glove that swallowed her thin arm all the way to the elbow.

I reached out and slipped the leather hood completely off the falcon’s head.

Every grown man in the room stepped backward toward the wall.

I braced myself for the inevitable violent scream, the sharp lunge, the frantic beating of enraged wings.

The falcon simply looked at the girl.

Then, with an unhurried, terrifying grace that struck me right in the chest, it opened its massive wings.

It lifted effortlessly from the wooden block and glided straight toward her trembling wrist.

It folded its wings down and gripped the heavy leather.

It sat there, huge and gray and utterly calm.

It was so close to her frightened face that its razor-sharp hooked beak nearly brushed her pale cheek.

It did nothing but watch her, completely at peace.

It was as though the creature had finally found the one single thing in this entire world worth its respect.

Not a single person in the mews dared to take a breath.

“Steady,” I told her softly, stepping closer to her side.

“Do not pull away.”

“You have him.”

“God’s truth, girl, you actually have him.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind outside.

Her slender arm trembled violently under the sheer weight of the bird.

But she did not flinch, and the massive falcon rode the tremor like a boat on a gentle swell.

It was infinitely patient with her fear.

“I don’t know what he wants from me,” she breathed.

“Nor do I,” I replied.

And for the first time in more years than I could remember, I heard my own genuine laughter echo off the stone walls.

“But he certainly wants you.”

Her name was Megan.

I learned that single fact before I instructed her on how to set the heavy bird back onto its block.

She followed my instructions perfectly, moving slow and staying low to the ground.

The falcon stepped off her wrist with obvious, profound reluctance.

It turned its dark, hateful eye back upon the rest of the men in the room.

But it never once glared at her.

That evening, I sat completely alone in the massive dining hall of my estate.

I sat at the head of a long polished table meant for forty guests, staring into the fire.

I was not a superstitious man by any measure.

I had inherited this massive estate young, buried a father I despised, and learned very early that sentiment was a currency that only bought pain.

I had intentionally hardened myself to the world.

It was a well-known fact in our county that I had a face as cold and unforgiving as the north wall of my own fortress.

I had never once bothered to correct that impression.

I was scheduled to be married in the spring to the daughter of a wealthy marquess.

I had met the woman exactly four times in my life.

Her name felt like a cold, minted coin in my mouth, heavy and belonging to someone else entirely.

But I could not stop seeing that vicious, beautiful bird land softly on the servant girl’s wrist.

The old women of the estate had a saying that my nurse used to whisper to me when I was a boy.

A wild thing knows a true heart the way water knows the downhill road.

I had dismissed it as foolish nonsense when I was a child.

I found that night, staring into the dying embers, that I could no longer laugh it off.

I began to watch for the kitchen maid everywhere I went.

It was not difficult to find her once I started looking.

She was everywhere and nowhere, moving like a ghost through the corridors.

She did the grueling, invisible work that kept the great house running while everyone pretended she did not exist.

I watched from the upper windows as she hauled heavy loads of black coal in the freezing dawn.

I watched her carry massive baskets of damp linen across the frosty courtyard.

I saw her stop her work one afternoon to rescue a fallen sparrow that had tumbled from a nest near the stables.

She cupped the tiny creature gently in both hands and climbed a steep ladder in her heavy skirts to place it safely back.

She did it looking around nervously, thinking herself completely unseen.

I watched her quietly break off half her meager bread ration to give to a deaf stable boy whom the other servants routinely mocked.

Then, I started visiting the mews at the exact hour I knew she would bring the hound scraps.

I told myself I was only there to observe the falcon’s behavior.

The bird would fly effortlessly for her, soaring into the pale winter sky.

It absolutely refused to fly for me, or the new expert handler I hired, or anyone else.

And so, the most impossible, scandalous arrangement in the history of my estate came about.

I pulled a lowly kitchen maid from her scrubbing pots and appointed her as my personal falconer.

When the surrounding county heard the news, the wealthy families decided I had finally gone completely mad.

I did not care what they thought or whispered behind their fans.

I had discovered that I loved being out on the high, freezing ridges in the bright mornings with this quiet girl and that incredible bird.

I realized with a sudden, terrifying clarity that I had not actually liked anything in my life for a very long time.

I stood there watching the falcon return to her outstretched arm, folding itself against her to escape the bitter wind.

I looked at the girl and the bird, bound together in the pale light, and the truth hit me like a physical blow.

I realized with absolute certainty that the strange omen in the mews had never actually been about the falcon at all.