She cannot break free!” Shading her eyes, Alyson bit down on the rejoinder that he should not have been flying the merlin while they were traveling and reached across their horses to seize Guillelm’s arm. “You cannot scramble up there,” she warned. “That halfrotten tree will not take your weight. I will go. Give me her her hood and some meat to tempt her.” “She needs to be fed, certainly.” Dismounting, Guillelm squinted up at the bird, which had stopped baiting and thrashing about the intermingled oak and hawthorn branches and was quietly roosting, seemingly oblivious to the alarm calls of the woodland crows and blackbirds. “You will take care?” he added, handing Alyson the soft leather hood without checking how she alighted from her horse and without breaking eye contact with the merlin. “I climb well.” “I know that! I remember. I mean of her.” “Of course.” Your precious merlin will be quite safe, Alyson thought. Guillelm reached her as she was about to duck under the oak tree’s low canopy.
