“Oh, ah,” said Reginald. “Sorry, Merope, love. Adventure’s not over yet. Just swung by the old family homestead for a bit of a nosh and some advice, don’t you know?”
Merope deployed the fan aggressively. “But Reginald…!”
Reginald cast another look at Summer, this time pleading.
“I shan’t like you at all if you don’t come,” said Merope, holding her bill up. “It shall be a sad crush and I shall be wearing my red crepe and you’ll be off sleeping in a hedge like a bandit.”
Summer had a brief fantasy of taking the fan away and beating Merope over the head with it. Unfortunately Merope was less than a quarter of her size, and it would have been incredibly unfair.
“You don’t have to come,” she said, feeling more hurt than she expected. “I mean, I hope you will, I’d miss you a lot, but it’s not your problem. Baba Yaga didn’t tell you to do anything. And you’ve gotten me all this way, and that’s more than—I mean, we’d just met—”
It occurred to her, rather shockingly, that she might cry. Not from the hurt, although that was part of it, but from the sudden realization that Reginald had picked her up in the middle of the fields and shepherded her all this way, without asking for anything, simply because he was…well…Reginald.
At some point she’d gotten used to it and forgotten how grateful she was. It all came crashing back and she had to stare downward and pretend to be very interested in her drink.
“See, Reginald,” said Merope. “Listen to the human. You want to stay, don’t you?”
“Nope!” said Reginald, surprising both of them. “Nope. Can’t let a chit like Summer go running off on her own. Word of a hoopoe.” He patted Summer’s foot with his claw. “There’ll be other parties, Merope, love, and if I went back on my word, I shouldn’t be fit company for any of them.”
“Hmmph!” said Merope, and flew away. Other birds descended on her as she left.
“Isn’t she lovely?” said Reginald, sighing.
“Err,” said Summer. “She…um. She’s very…brightly colored?”
“Oh, yes.”
“She wasn’t very nice to you, though,” said Summer. With the gratitude had come indignation that anybody would treat sweet, noble, silly Reginald like that.
Reginald shrugged. “Certified beauties,” he said philosophically. “They’re used to having you hop when they tip their beak to you. Show signs of not hopping, and they turn into termagants.”
Summer had no idea what a termagant was. “I thought you were in love with her,” she said cautiously.
“Oh, of course,” said Reginald. “All the rage, isn’t she? Positively unfashionable not to be in love with her. ‘Scuse me, Summer, I see Marcus! Ho, Marcus!”
He flew away, toward a heavy-bodied black bird with a spectacular ruff of feathers. “Marcus!”
Summer exhaled. To no one in particular, she said, “I don’t think he’s in love with her at all…”
There was a gentle laugh beside her. Summer turned and saw a lovely chestnut bird, with a long green gown and a spotted white breast.
Except for the gown and the fact that she was nearly two feet tall, she strongly resembled the hermit thrushes that lived in the park near Summer’s home.
“Confused?” asked the thrush. Her voice was a long liquid trill.
“Very,” said Summer. “Um. I’m Summer?”
“And I am Sophia,” said the thrush. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” She dipped her wings, and Summer bowed, more deeply than she had to Miss Merope.
“Now, then,” said Sophia. “If you will bring me a glass of punch, my dear, I will answer the question that you are not quite sure how to ask.”
Summer went to the punchbowl and brought back a glass as well as refilling her own. Sophia took hers and dipped her beak into it. “Thank you,” she said.
Summer sipped her punch, more slowly. “So…Reginald…” she said.
Sophia shook her head fondly. “Young birds,” she said. “So ridiculous, and so dear. We are not like your people, my dear. Most of us do not mate for life. The hoopoes don’t, nor the bee-eaters, nor the thrushes. We fall in love for a season, mostly according to the dictates of fashion, and then we move on.”
“But she’s not being nice to him,” said Summer angrily. “And he’s my friend, and I don't want people to be mean to him.”
Sophia smiled. “That does you credit,” she said. “Friendships last a long time among birds, even if love doesn’t. But you needn’t worry about Reginald. He’ll fall in love a dozen times in the next few years. Some of those—the kind ones—he may stay friends with. The ones, like Miss Merope, that are lovely and unkind, he’ll forget in a season.”
Summer frowned into her punch. “Don’t birds get married?”
Sophia nodded. “Certainly we do!” she said. “But—correct me if I’m wrong—don’t humans marry for a long time?”
“Well, yes…” said Summer. “You’re supposed to get married forever, unless you get divorced.”
“Ah,” said Sophia cheerfully. “There’s the difference. We birds marry for a season. The nest is built, the eggs are laid, compensation is given, inheritance decided, and then we go back to our own wintering homes.” She finished her punch. “Very tidy. Very short. You aren’t stuck with someone for years if it turns out you can’t stand each other.”
Summer realized with a shock that Sophia actually felt sorry for her.
No, not for me—for humans!
“Uh,” she said. She took a gulp of punch because she couldn’t think of what to say. “Oh. Don’t you…err…ever…for longer…?”
“Oh, it happens,” said Sophia. “Mostly when you’re older, and get tired of bothering with romance. And some of the birds do it all the time—the swans and the falcons and whatnot. But really, it’s nice to go home to your own roost and not having to worry about dealing with someone else about.”
It sounded very lonely to Summer. Then again, if you lived in a huge manor house, like Reginald, with all your family around you, would you be lonely?
“I’m sure your way works for you,” said Sophia. “Our way works for us.” She patted Summer’s shin. “It was very nice to meet you, Miss Summer.”
“And you, Miss Sophia,” said Summer, remembering her manners.
Sophia laughed again. “Miss! No, dear, it’s Matron Sophia.”
“Oh! I’m sorry—”
“Not at all, not at all.” Sophia trilled softly. “Miss! Thank you, my dear. No one’s called me that in a long time.”
She swept away, her gown trailing behind her.
Summer mulled over the conversation, staring into her punch. It occurred to her that she had no real idea what Sophia had thought of the whole thing, while Sophia had clearly been able to read her expressions very well indeed.
“Zounds!” said Reginald, coming over. “In high company, there! I leave you alone for the shake of a cat’s whisker and you’re climbing the ranks like a trooper.”
“High company?” Summer glanced after the thrush.
“I should say so! That was Matron Sophia, you know.”
“She was very nice…?”
“Nice!” Reginald hooted. “Nice! Blimey, Summer, that was the leader of the Dawn Chorus.” And when Summer looked blankly at him, he said “You know? The Prime Minister of Birds!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I’m sorry if I got you in trouble with Miss Merope,” said Summer. (This was at least mostly true. She had been careful to phrase it that way, because in fact, she did not care in the least what Miss Merope thought, except insomuch as Reginald did.)
“Ah, not to worry.” Reginald seemed distracted, looking upward across the trees. “I’ll come around somehow…”
Summer followed his gaze and frowned. Birds were milling about in the air and there was a strange glow to the sky that she didn’t like.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” said Reginald. He fidgeted.
&
nbsp; “Stay here, Master Reginald,” warned one of the goose-guards. “If there’s mischief afoot, you’re safer with us.”
“I smell smoke,” said Summer.
The geese glanced at her then away, not as if they were offended but as if they had nothing to add. Summer suddenly remembered Zultan on his eight-legged horse, saying to Grub that most birds had no sense of smell.
She shivered at the memory.
They came through the trees and were brought up short.
There was orange light blazing from the Almondgrove manor. Smoke filled the sky in dark billows, blotting out the stars.
“Devil’s yolk,” said Reginald. “The manor’s on fire!”
They ran toward the flames. Summer’s mind was a gibbering panic—it was Zultan it must have been Zultan it’s because of me I got Reginald’s house burned down—
And then a much worse thought occurred to her. Glorious was somewhere on the grounds, and Glorious was a house now and couldn’t run away and houses burn.
“Glorious!” she cried.
Reginald swore. “I’ll find him,” he said, and was away in the air in a moment. One of the geese honked a curse and followed.
Then it was only Summer and the goose-guard. The goose was waddling at high speed toward the house, and Summer ran after. “What can we do?” she said.
“Water from the lake,” said the goose shortly. “There’ll be a bucket brigade. We’ll see how bad it is.”
He spread his wings and flew. Summer ran with her head down, sneakers pounding on the grass, wishing she herself had wings.
Birds milled over the burning manor, the light flashing orange on their wings. One circled over Summer’s head. “Lord Almondgrove says to come!”
Summer breathed a sigh of relief. Lord Almondgrove was all right.
She ran after the bird, who flew low over the ground. She could make out nothing about the bird’s features, except that their outfit had gleaming buttons. The goose-guard spread their wings and followed in short hops, staying close.
They circled around the edges of the fire and reached a huddled knot of birds. Lord Almondgrove looked up from the center of the group. “Miss Summer!”
“I’m so sorry,” gasped Summer, holding her aching side. It felt like someone was stabbing her in the ribs. She dropped to her knees, partly from pain, partly because of a desperate desire to make Lord Almondgrove understand how sorry she was. “I’m sorry. It was Zultan—it must have been Zultan—”
“It was Zultan,” said Lord Almondgrove. He stretched out a wing around her shoulders. “And Zultan’s band of villains. They lit the fires, not you.”
“But they wouldn’t have come here if it wasn’t for me! And now your house is burning down!”
The old hoopoe snorted. “It’s doing nothing of the sort. The servants caught them before they’d done much more than set the straw in the outbuildings ablaze. You cannot sneak up on a house this size, even under cover of darkness. We’ve lost two barns and blackened some of the millwork, but Almondgrove Manor has stood through worse. It will take more than a man who styles himself a Houndbreaker to break us.”
He turned to the goose-guard. “You two will go with them. Protect my son, but use your own judgment. You are under my orders, not his. Be away as soon as the wolf-house can travel. Make for the Great Pipes. The wasps are striking there, I have no doubt, but I believe it still stands. Do you know the way?”
The goose nodded. “I will find it, lord.”
“Ask in Arrowroot if the way is unclear.” He turned back to Summer. “Miss Summer, it has been an honor to meet you. If you pass this way again, Almondgrove Manor will always be open to you.”
Summer wanted to cringe with the guilt of it all. Zultan had come and burned down their barns, and it certainly looked like a lot more than blackened millwork to her. And now Lord Almondgrove was telling her to come back and visit?
“But—”
“My son is a bit of an idiot,” he said, cutting her off. “But travelling with you has done him no end of good. When I travelled with Stone Ear, I was no smarter, and it was the making of me.” He shifted from foot to foot, then leaned in so that his beak was near her cheek.
“Take care of him, if you can,” he whispered, too low for anyone else to hear him, and preened her hair back with his beak in an avian kiss.
Then he stepped back and a bird came up to say that the bucket brigade was starting on the north wing and the goose-guard was hustling her away.
Summer took a deep breath. The air smelled of burning, and she was the only one who could smell it. And Lord Almondgrove had asked her to take care of his son, as if she were a grown-up, or a wolf.
She straightened her back and followed the guard away, into the darkness, to find her friends.
It took them too long, working their way through the dark trees, to reach the cottage. Summer began to fret again—what if there had been a stray ember? What if Glorious was burning?
And then they came through the trees to a little pond and on the shore stood the cottage.
The door was open. Summer ran toward it.
She barely made a half dozen steps when the weasel came shooting out and leapt onto her pant leg. He climbed her as if she were a tree and burrowed himself under her chin. She could feel his small, hot body shaking.
“There was fire,” he said. “There was so much smoke. I thought it might come here and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t have put it out.”
“I smelled the smoke too,” said Summer. It seemed important. She had never felt quite so isolated among the birds as when none of them smelled the smoke.
The weasel’s sides heaved. “Yes. Yes. I didn’t know how far away it was.”
She rubbed his ears hesitantly, as if he were a very small cat. After a moment he quieted and moved to her shoulder. “Anyway,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t know if I could make it to the manor house and warn someone. But I didn’t need to, in the end.”
“They didn’t come here, then?” asked the goose-guard.
The weasel gave a small, hard laugh. “Oh, they came. Not that Grub fellow, but some of his flunkies. But they got here first.”
He jerked his head toward the roof, and for the first time, Summer looked up.
There were three shapes on the roof. One of them was Reginald. At either end of the peak of the roof, great black shadows turned their heads and blinked yellow eyes at Summer.
“Oof,” muttered the goose-guard. “Owls.”
“They stood the fellows off,” said the weasel. “One had some kind of hooded lantern—I saw it when he put it down, I thought I’d have to bite him, I didn’t know what else to do—but then an owl hit him. Talons like knives. Took his scalp all to pieces. He ran off yelling and they took the lantern away and dropped it in the lake.”
The geese glanced at each other, then up at the owls. They spread their wings and bowed.
The owls blinked down at them in silence. One nodded its head almost imperceptibly.
“Not chatty fellows,” said Reginald, landing, “but they like to be appreciated. Forester sent them, I’m guessing. Good woman.”
“You have seen the Forester?” asked the goose on the left.
“Oh, yes. We were just…I think we were just there…Summer, do you remember?”
“I think so,” said Summer. “There were owls and a dragon—no, not a dragon.” She remembered the Forester’s eyes, but it seemed like something in a dream, and when she tried to put words on the memory, it retreated just out of reach. “But we were somewhere in the woods, weren’t we? And she’s very tall.”
“That’s her, yes.” Reginald nodded. “Always a bit fuzzy, you know, when you leave. But the best sort of person. Not the least bit missish.”
The geese glanced at each other again.
“I suppose the advantage,” said the rightmost goose, “of not knowing when something is dreadfully dangerous is that you do it anyway.”
“Oh,
bah,” said Reginald. “Lovely woman. Told m’father about her. He said to stay in her good graces, he didn’t say anything about danger.”
One of the geese said something under his breath that sounded like “Hoopoes.”
“Pardon me,” said Summer, “but are you going with us? Did I hear right?”
“Indeed,” said the rightmost goose.
“To the very end, if we must,” said the leftmost goose.
“Then what should I call you?” asked Summer.
The geese honked.
“…errr,” said Summer. “Can you repeat that?”
They chuckled. “It’s all right,” said the one on the left. “Humans have a hard time. I am Ankh.”
“And I am Ounk.”
When they said their names very slowly, Summer could just about hear the difference.
“It’s kind of you to come with us,” she said.
“Kindness has nothing to do with it,” said Ankh.
“Lord Almondgrove set us to guard you,” said Ounk. “We are Imperial Geese.”
“We are sword-sisters sworn to his service.”
“Sisters?” said Summer, startled. Both geese were baritones and she had assumed—well, apparently she had been wrong.
“Our eggs were side-by-side in the nest,” said Ankh.
“Mind you, so were a half-dozen others,” admitted Ounk. “But Ankh is the only one I could stand.”
“It’s mutual.”
“Quite.”
“Oh, joy. They’ll be finishing each other’s sentences next,” muttered the weasel in Summer’s ear.
Ankh smiled. “And you are Miss Summer, and this cottage, in the morning, will be Master Glorious. Ah…I’m not sure I know your name, sir.”
She inclined her head to the weasel. The weasel grunted.
“Don’t have one. Though I’m going to have to get one, at this rate.”
“…Master Weasel, then.”
He dragged a paw down over his eyes.
“You should try to get some sleep,” said Ounk. “We will stand guard.”
“Sleep?” said Summer blankly. Sleep? Now? After—after everything—with the fires still burning somewhere in the woods?
Summer in Orcus Page 17
