Zendegi

Shahin whistled, and took a piece of rabbit meat out of a second, covered pail. Martin heard the swish of wings before he spotted the eagle approaching, descending from a nearby cypress tree. Javeed flinched slightly as the bird came closer; he turned his face aside, but he managed to keep his arm motionless. When the eagle alighted on his leather-bound fist, it found itself unable to wrap both feet at once around this tiny perch. Martin feared that it might sink its talons into the unprotected skin further up Javeed’s arm – and though his gut reaction was all about the nonexistent threat of pain and injury, the risk of the bird puncturing the illusion of its own physicality seemed real enough. But instead, it managed a kind of balancing act, shifting from one foot to another as it gobbled the rabbit flesh that Shahin dangled in front of it as a reward. Javeed wouldn’t feel its weight pushing his arm down, but the glove could probably manage a convincing impression of those four long, muscular toes clenching and unclenching.

They had come to the estate of King Kavus in the hope of accompanying him on his latest folly. Javeed loved all the stories of Kavus, and in the bowdlerised children’s version they were harmless enough, but Martin had baulked at exposing him to detailed immersive depictions of the king’s bloodthirsty military misadventures. Against the advice of Zal and countless others, Kavus had invaded Mazanderan, the land of demons and sorcerers, where his army had engaged in mass-slaughter – in the original, blithely hacking into unarmed men, women and children. The White Demon, protecting his land and people, had blinded Kavus and his soldiers and rounded them up as prisoners, whereupon Zal’s son, Rostam, had embarked on a quest to rescue the vain young king. This had involved slicing witches in half, pulling the ears off innocent bystanders and ultimately cutting out the White Demon’s liver and using his blood as a balm to restore Kavus’s sight.

Kavus’s repentance over the Mazanderan fiasco had proved to be shallow and insincere; he remained bloated with pride and immune to good counsel. But after scouring Zendegi’s catalogue of Shahnameh scenarios, Martin had finally found a Kavus story that was free of acts of evisceration, and he’d managed to talk Javeed into accepting it in lieu of the bloodier alternatives.

‘Now you feed him,’ Shahin told Javeed. ‘Reach behind your back and I’ll pass you the meat.’ Martin watched nervously as Javeed accepted a strip of raw pink flesh, holding it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. He brought his arm in front of him and quickly raised the meat towards the bird, releasing his grip as it seized the flesh in its beak.

‘You’re doing well,’ Shahin said. ‘Now we’ll put the hood on.’

Javeed looked to Martin for support; Martin smiled encouragingly. Shahin handed Javeed the leather hood, showing him how to hold it stretched out across his fingers and bring it over the bird’s head without alarming or annoying it. The hood had an aperture for the beak and nostrils and was loose enough to cover the eyes without touching them, but Martin still found it extraordinary that birds of prey really could be trained to accept these strange encumbrances.

At Shahin’s prompting, Javeed crouched down and slowly moved his hand and its passenger towards the wicker cage that sat beside them. Despite its blindness, as it approached the open door the bird deduced what was happening; it gave an irritated shrug and made as if to spread its wings and take flight. Javeed emitted a startled grunt, but he kept his hand steady and after a moment the bird allowed him to continue.

Shahin said, ‘Touch your hand to the side of the perch.’ Javeed did this, and the bird felt its way onto the wooden perch inside the cage. Javeed withdrew his arm and closed the door.

‘Well done,’ Shahin said. ‘You’re a fast learner.’ He turned to Martin. ‘If you and the boy can get a dozen of the king’s eagles caged by noon, I’ll take you on as assistant handlers.’

Martin glanced at Javeed. ‘We’d better get to work then.’

The empty cages were stacked nearby. Armed with a pail of rabbit meat and Martin’s imitation of Shahin’s whistling, they strode through the cypress grove, trying to lure the birds down, taking turns to offer their clenched fists as perches. Martin knew that the game wouldn’t make their task impossible – no matter what the real outcome would have been if two inexperienced strangers had sought to round up someone else’s hunting birds! – but nor did it give them an entirely easy ride. The first two birds came to them without much trouble, but the third one they spotted ignored Martin’s whistling for three or four minutes, only to swoop down unexpectedly, knock over the meat pail and return to the trees with an unearned treat in its beak.