The Falconer’s Daughter: Book I Read online

  THE FALCONER’S DAUGHTER

  Liz Lyles

  The Falconer’s Daughter: Book 1

  ©Copyright 2015 Liz Lyes

  EPUB Edition

  The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-942240-74-7

  For my father.

  I am yours,

  the falconer’s daughter,

  carrying you forward

  your words forever

  entwined with mine.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Preview from The Falconer’s Daughter: Book II

  The Falconer’s Daughter Saga

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  A very big thank you to the incredible publishing team at Tule for taking this book of my heart and bringing it to life!

  Thank you to my editors Danielle Rayner and Lindsey Stover for your time and attention. Editing and copy editing this huge saga was a labor of love (and sometimes just pure labor!) and I am immensely grateful you cared so much about this story and devoted so much energy to getting it right.

  Thank you to Meghan Farrell, Managing Editor, and the rest of the team for taking risks and being willing to experiment with my sprawling saga. I have loved working with you all.

  Thank you to Lee Hyat for the beautiful cover. I couldn’t love it more!

  And lastly, endless love and appreciation to my grandmother, who read this story when I was in graduate school and went through the book with her pencil circling typos and misspellings, including the word pensi, which should have of course been, penis. Grandma, you are a trooper and my inspiration every single day.

  Preface

  Set in the late Middle Ages, The Falconer’s Daughter is a story about a woman’s search for meaning. I began the novel as an attempt to understand relationships, particularly those between families and one’s tie to history. We all have a history—ancestry—and this history brings both problems and promise to our definition of self.

  Like Cordaella in The Falconer’s Daughter, my father died when I was young and his death forced me to look beyond my immediate family to the larger world for answers, directions, resolution. I found that the larger world weaves a pattern of birth, marriage, family, and death: this pattern repeating itself endlessly, from generation to generation without regard to class or gender.

  No two characters in The Falconer’s Daughter have the same life experience, each character is affected by fate and choice. Fate isn’t always just, or kind. What is left then? Choice. My characters must choose to accept, fight, or deny the demands and changes brought by their world.

  These elements—fate and choice—are the key elements that have shaped my protagonist, Cordaella Buchanan. She was born to one set of circumstances and later asked to adapt to another. As a woman in the Middle Ages, she holds a position of limited power. As an intelligent woman in the Middle Ages, she learns to use her strength within the confines of society, enabling her to be more powerful.

  Yes, The Falconer’s Daughter is fiction and the larger-than-life story of one woman. But the novel is also about courage and passion, conviction, hope, and acceptance. The setting may be medieval but the themes are timeless. What does it mean to be human? To be a woman? To find happiness? Meaning?

  I like my heroine. I have given her qualities I would have wanted. I have given her a world filled with intrigue and drama, peopled by those who are both brilliant and broken, generous and complex. I also gave her story a conclusion that promises good, something better in the future. In short, when the novel ends, I wish for Lady Cordaella Buchanan Fernando much love, many years of life, and continued adventure.

  THE FALCONER’S DAUGHTER

  Book 1

  PROLOGUE

  ‡

  London, Britain 486 A.D.

  On the battlefield, his left hand cradled against his chest, blood caked on his brow, Leir slowly lifted his head to the sky. Fine streaks of light—the sheerest yellow—began to shine through the clouds. Light.

  With the emergence of the sun, it all came back to him, words he had heard but ignored, words that could have perhaps prevented this. Now, two daughters lay dead. The third—Cordaella—would she ever forgive him?

  Light. Truth. Words disdained. And bleeding, Leir, who once was the greatest of the great Kings, remembered wisdom too late. How had it been? What had the sage said?

  The sage’s eyes opened, the watery gray depths focusing on the shadow of the brooding king. “I know these things: the child not yet born is female. Your wife will bear no sons. Of your three daughters, two shall be against you. Watch your back. Watch your breast. Their immature love will poison your spirit, impossibly sweet kisses will bring blood.”

  Abruptly Leir stood, a large man of larger tension. “How shall I know the daughter that is true?”

  “You may ask, but can you hear?”

  Angrily Leir clenched his sword. “You answer me with a question?” His wrist shifted as he stepped forward. Legions of men gestured for weapons. Leir knew a challenge. His heart thudded, an uneven tattoo within his chest, his breath heavy. Wait, he told himself, wait…

  The sage’s lids lowered, seeing the waters and skies of time unwinding, of rime bending, fulfilling prophecy. He knew what would come, ten years, fifteen years, forty years. Even his wisdom would not save Leir from himself.

  Softly the sage intoned, “You are the greatest king in all the Island. Never has there been such a ruler, never will there be again. Your kingdom stretches endlessly beneath the soles of your feet, even now, your palm shapes legends, answers fate.” A soft, warm breeze brushed the sage’s beard, his words as if kisses on the wind. “You will live to be old, older than reason, but do not forget to mind the hearts of women.”

  The king’s white-knuckled grip on the sword eased, long, even fingers resting more lightly on the hilt. Leir slowly turned to face the sage, his profile hard and clean against the expansive blue sky. He was determined, a conqueror to the end. “What am I to do?”

  “Know your daughters.”

  BOOK ONE: BRITAIN

  1398-1413

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‡

  January 1398

  Cold. So cold. His breath clouded in thick silver puffs and the peasant reached up to adjust the scarf wrapped against his mouth. Only his dark eyes could be seen through the dense swaddling of woolen robe, the thick black fringe of eyelash coated with ice. He prodded beneath the snow crust with a stick, once again finding nothing.

  Kirk Buchanan dropped the stick into the crook of his arm and clapped his hands together once, twice, forcing the blood through his fingertips. His stomach churned and he fought panic. There was nothing to eat here. No root, no bulb, no sign of hope. But how could he give up? What would the babe do then?

  Suddenly, the wind died and the steep slope hung in silence, a strange serenity for the cascade of mountains that were as fierce
as they were breathtaking. The frigid gale winds had turned the trickling waterfall into long spinning strands of silver ice. Mount Ben Nevis shadowed her smaller sister peaks, the range of mountains stitched together so tightly they formed a fortress more formidable than any other in the Scottish Highlands.

  Above him came the faint cry of a bird and he looked up, scanning the white wintery sky. A gerfalcon. Narrowing his eyes, he watched the bird circle, its flight pattern tight and concentric. He suspected that he had stumbled on her nest. “I see you,” he whispered, standing motionless, waiting as if torn between two lives, two dreams of who he was and who he once was. Finally he began to back away from the rocky incline, stepping carefully onto a lower snow-banked shelf. On safer ground, he glanced up again. The gerfalcon had disappeared.

  Blanketed in snow, the mountain swallowed all sound, all surfaces white and slick, patches of ice on the exposed rock and icicles glittering on the lower limbs of the twisted pines and sharp overhang of roof. The cottage, built in the shadow of Mount Ben Nevis, clung to the steep slope as if it had always been there, perched among the outcropping of rocks. The mountains were frequently covered in clouds, but the mists had lifted in the last half hour to reveal the great north face of the mountain. This was the side of the mountain Kirk loved best, respecting the north face of Ben Nevis the same way he respected all that was wild, unguarded, free. These were the gifts of God and no other.

  From inside the cottage, he closed the window against the cold, the rough planks splintering beneath his fingertips as he struggled to secure the shutters. “Damn!” Kirk pressed his thumb against his teeth, trying to dislodge the sliver before it buried deeper.

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” Geoffrey Mclnnes tapped his foot anxiously, the stool too small for his lanky frame. “This is no place for a babe.”

  Wordlessly, Kirk settled himself back onto the hearthstones, sitting cross-legged before the fire. He pulled the small whittling knife from inside his tattered boot, running the tip of the blade over the reddened skin on his thumb. He began to work the splinter until it protruded out of the skin and blood trickled from the cut, dribbling down his thumb into the crease of his palm. Ignoring Mclnnes’ tapping, Kirk worked the splinter free and wiped the blade clean on his pant leg before returning the knife to his boot.

  “Is this what you do every day? You eat? You whittle? You wait for the babe to wake?” Geoffrey struggled to contain his impatience. “For God’s sake, man,” he said, a lock of dark blonde hair falling into his eyes, “you can’t keep her here.”

  “And why not?”

  “Take another look at this place!” Geoffrey jerked his arm out, gesturing about the primitive cottage. “How is she to survive here?”

  “It’s not as if there is any danger.”

  “You’ll do to her as you did to Lady Anne!”

  Kirk’s hands stilled on his knees, the wide strong hands spread flat against the press of kneecap. For a long moment, he didn’t look up, didn’t speak. Instead, he sat brooding, more like a bitter old man than one who was twenty-four.

  This is why Geoffrey was angry.

  This was the issue.

  The Macleod page had been Kirk’s friend for years, but before befriending Kirk, Geoffrey had been the childhood playmate of Lady Anne, the middle girl of the three Macleod daughters. Ah, Geoffrey, did you fancy her, too?

  Kirk passed one hand over his eyes as if wiping away the memory of the buff-colored stones of Angus Castle and the sound of voices, like the tremulous cry of the Macleod sisters as they rushed down the stairs. They were always like that in his memory. The three of them together.

  “I ought not to have said that.” The page adjusted his collar and then the hem of his oversized jupon, the blue and burgundy coat cut from fine fabric, as if acutely aware of Buchanan’s ragged jupon and threadbare leggings, of the old boots barely patched together. “The infant is what? One?”

  “Fourteen months.”

  “That’s right, it was about this time last year when his lordship, the Duke Macleod, received word of the child’s birth.” Geoffrey remembered that he had been the one to give the Macleod word of the birth. The page had ridden hard most of the night, traveling east beneath a full moon from the rugged Highlands to the frost-glittering meadows of Aberdeen. He arrived cold and breathless, his pale skin blotched with red. “I have come with news from Ben Nevis, my lord,” he had said timidly, hesitant to interrupt.

  “What news can there be from Ben Nevis?”

  “Her lady has given birth. It was a girl.”

  “Was?” Macleod managed the word with difficulty, his voice sounding impossibly tired, even small.

  “The infant is eight weeks old but sickly, and not expected to survive.”

  Macleod’s heavy head wagged, locks of thick white hair hanging across his forehead, half hiding one eye. His words were nearly incoherent. “Does the Macleod womb know no other sex?”

  The page waited, counting to himself, counting imaginary stones and sticks, counting plump wenches, counting and counting to contain his own eagerness, not to mention, impatience. He was becoming adept at waiting. His lordship had not been himself for nearly a year. Too many tragedies had befallen him. Ever valiant in battle, the great John Macleod broke fragile in his castle. His strength had been his heart and his heart had been his daughters. Now, with Lady Charlotte bedridden in Derbyshire, Lady Mary dead, and Lady Anne banished, there was no strength left in the old Duke. Geoffrey hesitated a moment. “Shall I arrange to have gifts sent, my lord?” He remembered sending mountains of fine things to the eldest Macleod daughter, Lady Charlotte, on each of her births. Presents for young Lord Philip and Lady Elisabeth.

  Macleod hunched silent, huddled in his mind.

  “My lord?”

  McInnes imagined sending great carts to the remote Highland cottage, a cottage battered by drifts of snow and frigid gusting winds. He imagined lovely Lady Anne rushing to the door, her hands trembling with the latch. He would overwhelm her with treasures, wagons mounded with sides of beef, venison, boar. Partridges strung on sticks. Smoked salmon and salted eel. Loaves of sweet bread, jars of clotted cream, and rich, thick, sticky berry jam. He would send spices, herbs, dried seasonings in small pliable pouches. Jugs of wine and soft linens for the newborn. He knew how Lady Anne’s face would light, her lovely eyes filling with quick tears, and her mouth, so expressive! To shower her with everything she loved best.

  “My lord?”

  Macleod’s eyes closed, scarred hands gripping the arms of the chair. The muscles in his throat worked, one after the other, finding his voice small. “No. Nothing.” Macleod seemed to die then, slowly, a man bleeding himself to death.

  “No words of congratulation? Or of sympathy? The babe might not survive—”

  “No!” The Duke cut him short. “Nothing. No words at all.”

  Bile rose in the page’s throat, filling his mouth, staining his tongue. As bitter as it was, the acid was easier than the violence inside his chest. He didn’t understand the Duke, didn’t see how he could turn from his daughter, from the lovely Lady Anne.

  It was then that the Duke gasped, doubling over as he clutched his chest. Geoffrey leaped from the embroidered footstool, grabbed at him as Macleod collapsed.

  “Guards!” Geoffrey shouted frantically, bracing his lord against his own thin heaving chest, “My God! Guards!”

  *

  Geoffrey shuddered, remembering. He would always regret that he was the one bearing the news. He would relive that moment, and it took all he had to keep the staff from losing their minds. It was as if he, instead of the falconer, had stolen Anne. Of course, no one knew what to do when word came, three weeks later that Lady Anne was dead.

  “He wants her back, Kirk. He needs her.”

  “Cordaella and Anne are not interchangeable. One was his daughter. The other is mine.”

  “You owe it to him—”

  “Owe?”

  “For taking Anne from him
.”

  “You’re mad, you know. You talk as if you never knew her, as if you didn’t know that no one ever made Anne do anything against her will. God help her, but she chose her own lot.” Kirk hated this talk, hated this miserable emotion that wound from his belly into his heart, a bitter brutal helplessness and loathing.

  Desperate for distraction, he picked up his whittling. Ever since he was just a boy, he worked hard, leather and leads in his hands, a saddle over one shoulder, feed over the other. He had never been good idle, never been happy without trade. From stable hand to apprentice in the mews, he had learned his craft well. Eventually he knew birds and dogs better than any other in Highland or Grampian.

  “She always had a mind of her own.” Kirk weighed the carving in one hand, considering the size and shape of it. “Although it was the trait I first loved, it was also what I first came to hate. I could not make her listen to me. I couldn’t make her understand.”

  “Understand?” Geoffrey echoed.

  “Understand that there are circumstances that are fixed. Circumstances which ought not—cannot-be changed—”

  “But at least she chose you.”

  “For what? This?” Kirk laughed disbelievingly. “Come on, Geoffrey, you can’t think she wanted this once she was here. She hated it. Soon she hated me for it.”

  “Don’t tell me that”

  “She cried herself to sleep nearly every night. She wouldn’t take any comfort from me. Like you, like the Duke, she blamed me. S said I should have known what it would be like.”

  “She had a point”

  “She had no right,” he answered, his voice tight. “I lost everything, too. I knew my dogs. I knew my birds. I can never trap or train them again. I can never seek work. I can never live among others. His lordship did more than banish us—he cursed me.”