Her father had a hunting preserve at Talmont where he kept his precious white gyrfalcons, virile symbol of the Dukes of Aquitaine, and the fiercest birds of prey in Christendom. She could remember standing in the soft darkness of the mews, her wrist weighted down by one of them, its scimitar talons gripping the leather glove, its eyes like obsidian jewels. And then carrying the bird into the open and casting her aloft to fly in a jingle of silver bells and sharp white wings. That had been a delicious moment of power.
