Eifelheim - Michael Flynn [197]
The ease of the supposition angered Dietrich, not least because it struck too truly; but he said only, “I go to find Max.”
Manfred raised his gauntlet and stroked the falcon, which craned its head, sidestepped a bit on the thick, leather glove, and screeched. “You know what the gauntlet means, don’t you, precious one? You yearn to spread your wings and fly, don’t you? Max has flown, too, I suppose, or he would have returned ere now.” Dietrich made no answer, and Manfred continued. “But it is bred into his character to return to me. Not Max; this beauty. Max, too, now that I think on it. He’ll circle and circle, searching for the welcoming arm below and will not see it. Is it right to release him to such sorrow?”
“Mine Herr, surely he will accustom himself to his new circumstances.”
“So he will,” Manfred answered sadly. “He will forget me and the hunts we carried out together. That is why the falcon symbolizes love. You cannot keep a falcon. You must release him, and then he will return of his own will, or …”
“Or ‘fly to other lands.’”
“You know the term? Did you study falconry? You are a man of parts, Dietl. A Paris scholar. Yet, you know horsemanship and perhaps hunting with birds. I think you were gently born. Yet you never speak of your youth.”
“Mine Herr knows the circumstances in which he found me.”
Manfred grimaced. “Most delicately put. Indeed, I do. And had I not seen you stay the mob at Rheinhausen, I would have left you there to be slaughtered with the rest of them. Yet it has, on the whole, been well. I have copied many of our conversations in memoranda. I never told you that. I am no scholar, though I think myself a practical man, and I have always delighted in your ideas. Do you know how you make a falcon return to you?”
“Mine Herr …”
“Dietrich, after all these years, you and I may ‘duzen,’ and dispense with formalities.”
“Very well … Manfred. One cannot make a falcon return, though one may easily bar it from returning. A falconer must master his emotions, must make no sudden moves that could frighten the bird off.”
“Would that more lovers knew that art, Dietrich.” He laughed and then, in sudden silence, his face grew long. “Eugen has the fever.”
“May God save him.”
Manfred’s lips twitched. “His death is the end of my Gundl. She’ll not live without him.”
“May God deny her wish.”
“Do you think God hears you anymore? I think He has gone away from the world. I think He has grown disgusted with men and will have no more to do with us.” Manfred stepped outside the mews and, with a sweep of his arm, launched the falcon. “God has flown to other lands, I think.” He watched for a moment, admiring the bird’s beauty, before he ducked back inside the mews. “I hate to break troth with him in such a manner.” He meant the bird.
“Manfred, death is but a falcon launched to ‘fly to other lands’.”
The Herr smiled without humor. “Apropos, but perhaps too easy. When you return with the black, give him hay, but do not stable him. I must see to the other beasts.” He turned, hestitated, then spread his arms. “You and I may never meet again.”
Dietrich took the embrace. “We may, should God grant us both our hearts’ desires.”
“And not our deserts! Ha. So we part on a jest. What else can a man do amidst such sorrow?”
DIETRICH DID not at first notice Max, save that the heavy buzz of flies under the summer heat led him to the spot. He hunched his shoulders and slid from the horse’s back, tying the beast with special care to a nearby oak. Procuring a kerchief, he plucked blossoms from patches of wildflowers and crushed them within the cloth to release their perfume before tying the kerchief to his face. He broke off a branch from a hazel bush and, using it as a broom, swept it across the sergeant’s body, dispersing its aerial diners. Then, with as much dispassion as he could muster, he looked