Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(176)

Matthew pulled me down into a kiss. “My heart belongs to you no less than yours belongs to me. Never doubt it.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Because Rudolf is doing everything he can to wear us both down. We need to keep our heads. And then we need to get the hell out of Prague.”

Matthew’s words came back to haunt me the next afternoon, when we joined Rudolf’s closest companions at court for an afternoon of sport. The plan had been to ride out to the emperor’s hunting lodge at White Mountain to shoot deer, but the heavy gray skies kept us closer to the palace. It was the second week of April, but spring came slowly to Prague, and snow was still possible.

Rudolf called Matthew over to his side, leaving me to the mercy of the women of the court. They were openly curious and entirely at a loss about what to do with me.

The emperor and his companions drank freely from the wine that the servants passed. Given the high speeds of the impending chase, I wished there were regulations about drinking and riding. Not that I had much to worry about in Matthew’s case. For one thing, he was being rather abstemious. And there was little chance of him dying, even if his horse did crash into a tree.

Two men arrived, a long pole resting on their shoulders to provide a perch for the splendid assortment of falcons that would be bringing down the birds this afternoon. Two more men followed bearing a single, hooded bird with a lethal curved beak and brown feathered legs that gave the effect of boots. It was huge.

“Ah!” Rudolf said, rubbing his hands together with delight. “Here is my eagle, Augusta. I wanted La Diosa to see her, even though we cannot fly her here. She requires more room to hunt than the Stag Moat provides.”

Augusta was a fitting name for such a proud creature. The eagle was nearly three feet tall and, though hooded, held her head at a haughty angle.

“She can sense that we are watching her,” I murmured.

Someone translated this for the emperor, and he smiled at me approvingly. “One huntress understands another. Take her hood off. Let Augusta and La Diosa get acquainted.”

A wizened old man with bowed legs and a cautious expression approached the eagle. He pulled on the leather strings that tightened the hood around Augusta’s head and gently drew it away from the bird. The golden feathers around her neck and head ruffled in the breeze, highlighting their texture. Augusta, sensing freedom and danger both, spread her wings in a gesture that could be read either as the promise of imminent flight or as a warning.

But I was not the one Augusta wanted to meet. With unerring instinct her head turned to the only predator in the company more dangerous than she was. Matthew stared back at her gravely, his eyes sad. Augusta cried out in acknowledgment of his sympathy.

“I did not bring Augusta out to amuse Herr Roydon but to meet La Diosa,” Rudolf grumbled.

“And I thank you for the introduction, Your Majesty,” I said, wanting to capture the moody monarch’s attention.

“Augusta has taken down two wolves, you know,” Rudolf said with a pointed look at Matthew. The emperor’s feathers were far more ruffled than those of his prize bird. “They were both bloody struggles.”

“Were I the wolf, I would simply lie down and let the lady have her way,” Matthew said lazily. He was every inch the courtier this afternoon in a green-and-gray ensemble, his black hair pushed under a rakish cap that provided little protection from the elements but did provide an opportunity to display a silver badge on its crown—the de Clermont family’s ouroboros—lest Rudolf forgot with whom he was dealing.

The other courtiers smirked and tittered at his daring remark. Rudolf, once he had made sure the laughter was not directed at him, joined in. “It is another thing we have in common, Herr Roydon,” he said, pounding on Matthew’s shoulder. He surveyed me. “Neither of us fears a strong woman.”

The tension broken, the falconer returned Augusta to her perch with some relief and asked the emperor which bird he wished to use this afternoon to take down the royal grouse. Rudolf fussed over his selection. Once the emperor chose a large gyrfalcon, the Austrian archdukes and German princes fought over the remaining birds until only a single animal was left. It was small and shivering in the cold. Matthew reached for it.

“That is a woman’s bird,” Rudolf said with a snort, settling into his saddle. “I had it sent for La Diosa.”

“In spite of her name, Diana doesn’t like hunting. But it’s no matter. I will fly the merlin,” Matthew said. He ran the jesses through his fingers, put out his hand, and the bird stepped onto his gloved wrist. “Hello, beauty,” he murmured while the bird adjusted her feet. With every small step, her bells jingled.

“Her name is ?árka,” the gamekeeper whispered with a smile.

“Is she as clever as her namesake?” Matthew asked him.

“More so,” the old man answered with a grin.

Matthew leaned toward the bird and took one of the strings that held her hood in his teeth. His mouth was so close to ?árka, and the gesture so intimate, that it could have been mistaken for a kiss. Matthew drew the string back. Once that was done, it was easy for him to remove the hood with his other hand and slip the decorated leather blindfold into a pocket.

?árka blinked as the world came into view. She blinked again, studying me and then the man who held her.

“Can I touch her?” There was something irresistible about the soft layers of brown-and-white feathers.