Now that the emperor had the first kill, the others were free to join in the hunt. Together they caught more than a hundred birds, enough to feed a fair number of courtiers. There was only one altercation. Not surprisingly, it occurred between Rudolf’s magnificent silver gyrfalcon and Matthew’s small brown-and-white merlin.
Matthew had been hanging back from the rest of the male pack. He released his bird well after the others and was unhurried in claiming the grouse that she brought down. Though none of the other men got off their mounts, Matthew did, coaxing Šárka away from her prey with a murmured word and a bit of meat that he’d pulled off a previous kill.
Once, however, Šárka failed to connect with the grouse she was pursuing. It eluded her, flying straight into the path of Rudolf’s gyrfalcon. But Šárka refused to yield. Though the gyrfalcon was larger, Šárka was scrappier and more agile. To reach her grouse, the merlin flew past my head so closely that I felt the changing pressure in the air. She was such a little thing—smaller even than the grouse, and definitely outsized by the emperor’s bird. The grouse flew higher, but there was no escape. Šárka quickly reversed direction and sank her curved talons into her prey, her weight carrying them both down. The indignant gyrfalcon screamed in frustration, and Rudolf added his own loud protest.
“Your bird interfered with mine,” Rudolf said furiously as Matthew kicked his horse forward to fetch the merlin.
“She isn’t my bird, Your Majesty,” Matthew said. Šárka, who had puffed herself up and stretched out her wings to look as large and menacing as possible, let out a shrill peep as he approached. Matthew murmured something that sounded vaguely familiar and more than a little amorous, and the bird’s feathers smoothed. “Šárka belongs to you. And today she has proved to be a worthy namesake of a great Bohemian warrior.”
Matthew picked up the merlin, grouse and all, and held it up for the court to see. Šárka’s jesses swung freely, and her bells tinkled with sound as he circled her around. Unsure what their response should be, the courtiers waited for Rudolf to do something. I intervened instead.
“Was this a female warrior, husband?”
Matthew stopped in his rotation and grinned. “Why, yes, wife. The real Šárka was small and feisty, just like the emperor’s bird, and knew that a warrior’s greatest weapon lies between the ears.” He tapped his head to make sure everyone received the message. Rudolf not only received it, he looked nonplussed.
“She sounds rather like the ladies of Malá Strana,” I said drily. “And what did Šárka do with her intelligence?” Before Matthew could answer, an unfamiliar young woman spoke.
“Šárka took down a troop of soldiers,” she explained in fluid Latin with a heavy Czech accent. A white-bearded man I took to be her father looked at her approvingly, and she blushed.
“Really?” I said, interested. “How?”
“By pretending she needed rescuing and then inviting the soldiers to celebrate her freedom with too much wine.” Another woman, this one elderly with a beak of a nose to rival Augusta’s, snorted in disgust. “Men fall for that every time.”
I burst out laughing. To her evident surprise, so did the beaky, aristocratic old lady.
“I fear, Emperor, that the ladies will not have their heroine blamed for the faults of others.” Matthew reached into his pocket for the hood and gently set it over the crown of Šárka’s proud head. He leaned in and tightened the cord with his teeth. The gamekeeper took the merlin to a smattering of approving applause.
We adjourned to a red-and-white-roofed Italianate house set at the edge of the palace grounds for wine and refreshments, though I would have preferred to linger in the gardens where the emperor’s narcissi and tulips were blooming. Other members of the court joined us, including the sour-faced Strada, Master Hoefnagel, and the instrument maker Erasmus Habermel, whom I thanked for my compendium.
“What we need to lift our boredom is a spring feast now that Lent is almost over,” said one young male courtier in a loud voice. “Don’t you think so, Your Majesty”
“A masque?” Rudolf took a sip of his wine and stared at me. “If so, the theme should be Diana and Actaeon.”
“That theme is so common, Your Majesty, and rather English,” Matthew said sadly. Rudolf flushed. “Perhaps we might do Demeter and Persephone instead. It is more fitting for the season.”
“Or the story of Odysseus,” Strada suggested, shooting me a nasty look. “Frau Roydon could play Circe and turn us into piglets.”