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the end of the week. On the orders of the Sultan, may Allah always send him health. You know I am not one of your ordinary agha s.”
    “I know. You are also one of the finest of the Exalted One’s falconers. Is that what you are about now?”
    Ion shifted. It was not usual to ask questions of an agha , only to answer them. To question was seen as impertinence—and was punishable.
    Yet the Turk did not reach for the bastinado at his feet. “I go to hunt,” he said softly, “but not birds.”
    Again Ion shifted, aching even more to be gone, away from the warning in the tone. All knew Hamza was a rising power in the state. His falconer’s title was real, for all men had a trade, against the day of disaster—even the Sultan himself, for Murad worked metal into horseshoes, bow-rings, arrow-heads. Yet all knew also that if Hamza was about the Sultan’s business it was work of intrigue and danger. For Vlad to be even thinking about it…
    Yet his countryman did not blink. “Though perhaps you may get the chance to fly? And if you do…” He reached inside his lawn shirt, down to the line where it met the baggy red shalvari that swathed his legs, and pulled out a bundle wrapped in blue cloth. He held it out.
    Hamza reached forward, took the bundle. The cerise silk ribbon gave with a slight tug and he unrolled the cloth. For a moment he studied what he held…then he slipped on the gauntlet.
    “I could only guess at the measurements,” Vlad said. “I hope it…”
    Hamza raised his hand, flexed his fingers. “You have a good eye, my young man. It fits…like a glove!” He smiled, made a fist, and lifted it into a sunbeam so he could study the polished leather of its top, the skin that must resist the grip of talon, thick and double-stitched. But beneath, on the softer leather that ran up the inside of the wrist…“What’s this?” he asked, peering.
    Ion saw golden thread woven in patterns. His Persian was better than his Arabic and he recognized it as such; then knew the words when Hamza recited them aloud. “‘I am trapped. Held in this cage of flesh. And yet I claim to be a hawk flying free.’” The teacher looked up. “Jalaluddin. Rumi. My favorite among the poets.”
    “And mine.”
    The Turk read the inscription to himself again silently. “You have made free with the last line. Does not the poet say, merely, ‘bird?’”
    Vlad’s only reply was a slight shrug.
    “Well.” Hamza raised the glove, turning it in the light. “Exquisite work anyway. Now I know what trade you follow, Vlad Dracula, against the day of disaster.” He took the gauntlet off carefully, then looked up and smiled. “I thank you for it. From now on, when I hunt I will wear it. And when I do, I will remember you.”
    “It is all I could desire, effendi .”
    Bowing slightly, Vlad turned and made for the partition door, a relieved Ion following. They were nearly through it when Hamza’s soft voice halted them. “And do you consider yourself caged, my young man? Because your body is hostage to the Sultan?”
    Vlad did not turn. “You know what else is written, effendi ,” he said softly. “‘I do not keep hawks. They live with me.’” He smiled, although only Ion saw it. “And I live with you,” he added, stepping through the door, “for now.”
    Then he was striding down the corridor.
    Ion followed, his shoulders hunched against the order to return, perhaps to the bastinado ’s touch. It did not come.

– TWO –
     
    Rivals
     
    Vlad stood for a moment in the doorway, blinking against the light, accustoming his eyes. Thinking of Hamza. He would miss the man. For the wisdom of his teaching, nearly always delivered with words not blows. For their shared love of many things—Sufi poetry, Greek philosophy, falconry. They had flown together only once, when Hamza had taken his orta out of the kolej and into the hills. The sakers they’d borrowed from the Sultan’s mews tolerated the strangers on whose fists they sat,