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They began the long process of coaxing the falcon to accept the hood. All the while, Philip explained that the fiercer the creature, the more gentle must be the man, or they would never be in accord. This was why his father wanted him to learn this art, so that he would know what it was to be a servant to one who served you, to have dominance but never complete control.
Five years without a woman, and the first one God put in his path was beautiful enough to tempt angels to sin – and covered in weapons.
“Hiraeth is more than just missing family,” he explained. “It is the land and the people, the smell and the sounds, and more. Like a flavor on your tongue from a fruit that no longer grows. You ache to taste it again, but you cannot, and so you are never satisfied. Hiraeth means to long for a place that is lost to you, or impossible to reach. To know a great part of your soul dwells in a place you cannot be – that is hiraeth.”
“It were a good lesson I learned: a woman without fear is like a winter wind on a stiff cock. For a man like him, anyway. If I looked him in the eye and did not cringe, it withered him without fail.
“God gave you the face of an angel, that stirs a man’s breast and will cause his heart to ache with the beauty of it. But your mouth is the kind that moves a man to think of naught but hot sin. That mouth in that face...” He shrugged again and looked at her. “Is an uncommon allure.”
How many times had he heard troubadours sing of this ideal beauty – the long golden hair, the sparkling blue eyes, the fair face and delicate form? And the silence, of course. The songs never hinted that there could be more, that there were entire worlds within her that went unsung, that the look of her was the least of her.
“There are always other ways.” She still did not look at him. “The king makes roads, and the Church, and lords and towns – them that have authority, they make roads so you will go the way they tell you to go. But there are some as would choose their own way, and make a path that suits them. Like how a bird will fly direct across the sky, and pay no mind to the roads men build.”
The way he touched her was a revelation – like it was a privilege, like there was no response her body could give that would ever be wrong. Some part of her could not quite wholly believe in it and stayed always wary, a corner of her mind alert to danger, a hand that would not let go the blade. But all that mattered was the pleasure of the moment, with no yesterday and no tomorrow. Everything felt far away. Only he felt real.
What a luxury, to be able to believe in the honor of men. “His anger must go somewhere. Water rolls down a hill, men’s anger falls on women. It’s the way of the world.”
“Young love is heedless,” he said, his voice as gentle as his touch as he looked steadily at her. “Nor has it any care for danger, nor any thought of death. Surely we must forgive the recklessness of young lovers.”
Never will she truly need you, Philip Walch had taught him about fierce and beautiful creatures. She will stay with you so long as it suits her, but she will never be tame.
“Let him take my land. Let him take my power and my title and my name. Let him take all of it, every possession to the very clothes off my back – and at the end I will come to you on my knees, pitiful and powerless, just as you found me. And I will call him a fool for making so poor a trade, for before God I swear that you are a prize greater than any kingdom.”
“The roads made by kings are not the only paths a man may travel,” he reminded her. He brushed the tears away with his thumbs. “Is you who told me that we need not follow in the ways the world has fashioned for us.”
“If you will defy the king then I will dare to be a lady, Welshman. I will have you. Be you beggar or prince, I will have you, and never let you go.”
