The Falconer's Tale Read Online Free Page A

a helmet, aspectacular sword with an early flanged hilt, some badly decoratedpottery. He knew all the objects. They decorated majormuseums. It needed a remarkable coincidence of durability,placement and luck for anything that old—the second millenniumBC—to be found in northern Europe. Even to survive.
    Partlow is doing something around the rules —above, below,whatever. He had to be. He’d involved Dukas—Piat wentback with Dukas, not exactly as pals but with some respect.He’d involved Alan Craik. Piat didn’t love Craik but he hadseen him in action. Dukas and Craik were buddies. Dukasand Partlow were not buddies at all.
    And Hackbutt was into falconry—and Partlow had saidright out that’s why they wanted him. Most of the Arabbigwigs were into falconry, too. No big leap of logic there.
    Like speculating on what classical authority might have abearing on the Bronze Age, speculating on Clyde Partlow’smotives from the deck of the ferry wasn’t getting Piatanywhere.
    I can find a partner and a dig when I get back to Lesvos. Worst case, I’m a few thousand richer, and I have some new clothes .
    Piat shrugged, this time physically. It made Dave glanceup at him from his magazine. For a moment their eyes met.Piat smiled.
    â€œI’m trying to read,” said Dave.
    Piat nodded, still smiling. He started to prepare himself tomeet Edgar Hackbutt, bird fancier, social outcast, and ex-agent.
    Piat swung the rented Renault down into Tobermory’s mainstreet, reminding himself to get over to the left, toward thewater. The morning was brilliant, with thin, pale-blue mare’stails high up against a darker blue sky. The tide was in, andbig boats rode alongside the pier; as always when he sawthem, he thought, I could live on one of those , but in fact henever would. Too much a creature of the land, or perhapstoo suspicious of the predictability of a boat, too easy to find.On land, you could always get out and walk.
    He drove along the waterfront, brightly painted buildingson his right, memorizing them—hardware store, chandler’sshop, bank, grocery—and then pulled up the longhill out of town and around a roundabout to the right,heading not down the island’s length but across its northernpart. A sign said “Dervaig”; he followed it, passed a chainof small lakes ( Mishnish Lochs, fishing, small trout —he’d prettymuch memorized a tourist brochure) and, with a kind offierce joy, drove the one-lane road that twisted and switch-backed up and down hills. He played the game of chickenthat was the island’s way of dealing with two cars drivingstraight at each other: one would have to yield and pullinto a supposedly available lay-by. Locals drove like maniacsand waved happily as they roared past; tourists either wentinto the lay-bys like frightened rabbits or clutched thewheel and hoped that what was happening to them wasan illusion. Piat, flicking in and out of lay-bys, wavingwhen he won, giving a thumbs-up when he didn’t, hadthe time of his life.
    He climbed past a cemetery above Dervaig and, followinga map in his head, turned left and south. Halfway down thewide glen would be a road on the right; from it, a track wentstill farther up and then briefly down. At its end, Dave hadassured him, Hackbutt’s farm waited. Piat drove slower, headducked so he could look out the windscreen. He’d have saidthat landscape didn’t interest him, but in fact, it fascinatedhim, only without the sentimentality that led other peopleto take photos and paint watercolors. He always saw possibilities—for escape, for hides, for pursuit. Here, the sheerscale of the place surprised him: this was an island, andTobermory was almost a toy town, but out here was a breadthof horizon that reminded him of Africa. Even with the mountains.The glen was miles wide, he thought, the mountainsstarting as rolling slopes that careened abruptly upward andbecame almost