Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books)

by Ysabeau S. Wilce

  “How are you, Madama Fyrdraaca Segunda?” the Table Captain said nervously “Ready for your Catorcena? We certainly are.” His eyes kept shifting from me to the veiled figures, then back again.

  Normally, of course, people have their Catorcena parties at home, but in our case, that was out of the question, and so my party would be here at the Officers’ Club. Ever since my sixth birthday, when Poppy ruined my party by standing on the roof of the garden shed and screaming at the goddess to strike him with lightning, I’ve had all my parties at the O Club.

  “I am ready,” I said, in a bright oh-I-am-just-a-harmless-silly-girl voice.

  One of the figures swiveled in my direction, and somehow, just somehow, I knew it was looking at me. Suddenly I did not feel silly at all; I felt like someone was trying to rummage around in my head, picking through my thoughts, examining my teeth, poking my muscles, fiddling fingers in my brain. It was a horrible tickly feeling and made my insides feel all squirmy. I shook my head, but the feeling did not go away.

  The veiling over the figure’s head, I saw now, was sheer, but probably transparent enough to see through. The figure reached up a hand, long and graceful, bangled around the wrists with bracelets of jade and gold, and lifted the veil.

  Two great eagle eyes stared at me, wide and unblinking, golden as an egg yolk. Above the eyes, iridescent feathers tufted upward into a quiff, and below, curved a sharp black beak.

  A Quetzal! A Huitzil sacred guard. Never had I seen one, except as crude drawings in Nini Mo vs. the Eagle Guards. They say that Quetzals are born to women who lie with eagles, and they hatch out of huge green eggs, squirming babies with shrieking eagle heads. They say that the Quetzals tear out the hearts of sacrificial slaves, then eat them while they still beat. They say the Quetzals have no human feelings of mercy and love, only bloodlust and the killing instinct.

  This Quetzal nerved my blood to shivering, with its unblinking golden eyes, the elegant narrow hand, the human form now evident beneath the robes. Valefor isn’t human, but he seems human, he looks human, he acts human, and it’s easy to forget that he’s not. But this thing, despite its human attributes, had nothing in its eyes but a glittering hunger—the hunger of a predator. The Quetzal was unnatural, inhuman, and yet repellently beautiful, its sleek feathers shading from yellow amber into a deep yellow-red, the lethal beak as shiny black as wet ink. And those eyes, as round as two full moons, pitiless but also compelling.

  I stood there, stock-still, caught in that gaze, unable to tear myself away. As mesmerized as a mouse who stands helplessly as death swoops down. Then the Quetzal let drop its veil and turned its great head away, dismissing me.

  I turned and fled back to the safety of the dining room.

  FIFTEEN

  Case Tigger. Udo Upset. A Plan.

  MAMMA CAME BACK a few minutes later, looking grim, and she did not eat her chocolate cake. Neither did I; for the first time in my life, chocolate cake held no charms for me. Dinner was officially over. Mamma and Lieutenant Sabre went back to Building Fifty-six, and Flynnie and I were sent home in Mamma’s barouche. Finally, I was alone, which was good because I could pretend normal no longer.

  Back in the City, I got the driver, Sergeant Ziniea, to drop me at Hayes and Ash, near Case Tigger. It wasn’t terribly late, only around nine o’clock, but already the light in Udo’s room was out. The Landaðons are fiends on curfew, which is the one great negative whenever I stay with them.

  Udo’s room is on the second floor, facing the alley, but there’s a handy dandy tree right outside his window. I have made the climb a zillion times, both up and down. I carefully opened the back-garden gate and stuffed Flynnie through, with stern instructions not to bark, and then swung myself upward. Udo’s window was open; the Landaóons are fiends for fresh air, too.

  The streetlight across the road was angled just right to throw a few shadows on the floor of Udo’s room, and it showed the dim outline of a dresser and three beds. Poor Udo shares his bedroom with two younger brothers, but Gernot wets the bed and Gesilher kicks, so they all have their own beds.

  “Udo,” I hissed. I banged my shin against the dresser and stifled a curse.

  The biggest bed groaned. Kicking off my boots, I climbed over the trundle bed where Gesilher lay wadded under a mound of blankets. Udo’s bed is shaped like a sleigh and draped with curtains that hang from the ceiling. He always closes the curtains, as he bemoans his privacy. I brushed them aside. “Udo!”

  Udo grunted and moved, half awake. “Go away, Ges—”

  I poked him. “It’s me.”

  “Flora?” he mumbled. Waking up Udo is like waking the dead. Actually, waking the dead is probably easier.

  “Ayah, it’s me—wake up.” I poked again, then resorted to pinching. Udo jerked and rolled and then sat up, muffling curses. “Move over.” I crawled under the curtains and into the bed, and Udo drowsily made room for me.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Mamma caught the Dainty Pirate!”

  That news immediately snapped Udo alert. “What?!”

  “Keep your voice down or you’ll wake the kids!”

  “Buck got the Dainty Pirate? When? Where—”

  “Is the house on fire?” Gesilher said from the darkness beyond Udo’s bed. He’s a worrier, always expecting to be poisoned, or burned, or smothered.

  “Go back to sleep, kid,” Udo said, unkindly. “The house is not on fire.”

  “Ayah.” Gesilher was quiet again.

  I said, “I just came from the Presidio—Mamma is back from Angeles, and she’s captured the Dainty Pirate. He’s been held in secret, and he’s going to be hung tomorrow—” Here Udo groaned, but I continued, “He’s Boy Hansgen! The Dainty Pirate is Boy Hansgen, Nini Mo’s henchman—he’s been incognito all this time!”

  Udo gurgled at my news and bounced on the bed. “Boy Hansgen! You’ve got to be joking me! Why was Boy Hansgen disguising himself as the Dainty Pirate?”

  “I don’t know—but, Udo, they are going to hang him tomorrow night!”

  “What about his trial? Doesn’t he get a trial?”

  “There isn’t a trial, Udo. Mamma’s already signed the warrant. She wants to make sure he’s dead before anyone gets wind of it.”

  Udo protested, “She can’t sentence him without a trial—”

  “She’s done so, Udo, to keep him out of the hands of the Birdies. She’s keeping the peace—do you know what the public might do if the news gets out that the Dainty Pirate is Boy Hansgen? They could rally around him; it could cause riots—”

  “You act as though you are defending Buck, that you think she is right, and you say that you are going to be a ranger—”

  “I am not defending Mamma, Udo, I’m explaining the politics to you.”

  “I don’t care about politics. I care about the Dainty Pirate being hung. What are we going to do—”

  The door from the hall cracked open, slanting light into the room. I burrowed down into the blankets, and Udo groaned and made the fakest snore I’d ever heard. I lay as quiet as a tiny crab and tried to hold my breath. For what seemed like the longest time, the light shone in silence. Udo snored again, and then the door closed.

  I burrowed upward. “You gotta keep it down, Udo! And I gotta get home; I don’t want Mamma to make it there first.”

  Udo bent his head toward mine, so that our foreheads were almost touching, and whispered, “What are we going to do?”

  “What can we do?”

  “We have to rescue him...”

  Rescue him! Was Udo insane? “We can’t rescue him—”

  “Are you kidding, Flora? You are always going on about Nini Mo and what she would do. Do you think she’d let her own henchman go to the gallows? Put up or shut up, Flora!”

  Udo was right about that, that’s for sure. Rangers are loyal to each other and stick hard to the rule Leave no one behind. When Nini Mo’s accountant was killed in a raid, she dragged his body fifty-five miles on muleback t
o return him to his family for proper burial. She would never stand aside and let her sidekick be executed.

  “...those guns in the gun room,” Udo was saying, “and I have the pistol I got for my birthday last year; that’s enough firepower to storm the guardhouse—”

  I was only half listening to him. Why couldn’t we rescue Boy Hansgen? All the way to Case Tigger, the knowledge that the last ranger would be executed tomorrow and I could do nothing about it had wormed and wiggled in my stomach like a bad egg sandwie. But Nini Mo says that what makes rangers stand apart from other people is that other people don't and rangers do. They act. Here was my chance to act like a ranger.

  “No.” I interrupted Udo’s grandiose plan, which now involved two horse-drawn batteries and a squad of pikemen. “Nini Mo says you should only beard the bear in his den if you are coated in honey.”

  “Wouldn’t that make the bear all the more likely to eat you?”

  “She meant you should have the advantage before you face the enemy on his own turf. We don’t have the advantage. We will need to be subtle, and we certainly don’t want to get caught.” I had decided to act, and with that decision, my tum felt much better.

  A desolate howl rose from outside the window.

  “What the heck was that?” Udo asked.

  “Snapperhead Flynn—he thinks he’s been abandoned—I have to get going—”

  “We could wear masks—or Glamours! The Eschata was full of Glamours—Glamours that Confuse, Glamours that Befuddle, Glamours that Disguise.”

  “Ummm...,” I said, considering. Udo was on to something. The Eschata did have an entire section devoted to Glamours, which only made sense, as rangers often require disguises, and the proper Glamour can disguise not only your face, but your whole body, too. “Lieutenant Sabre told Mamma that the Dainty Pirate would be transported to the Zoo Battery guardhouse tomorrow night, and thence to the gallows—”

  “That’s perfect!” said Udo, bouncing the bed again. “The road to Zoo Battery goes out along the Pacifica Playa, and that’s beyond the City’s border and there’s nothing out there—no spectators, no witnesses. We could hijack the guard and steal the Dainty Pirate away!”

  “He’ll be pretty well-guarded, Udo. I don’t think just the two of us, even in Glamours, could take an entire squad, maybe two. But if we had a release order...”

  The order itself would be easy. I have a copious supply of official letterhead, which I have been nicking from offices for years, because you never know when official letterhead will come in handy. Udo’s handwriting is as good as any clerk’s, and I know all the official lingo. An Army special order is always achingly polite, full of presents compliments, commends to your obedience, your humble servant. I could very easily construct a special order demanding that the Dainty Pirate be handed to our custody.

  “Can you forge Buck’s signature?” Udo asked. Another howl raised up in sorrow—a good reminder that I needed to get home before Mamma did.

  I said, “It’s hard. I might be able to do something that would pass a casual glance, though probably not close scrutiny. But it’s not the signature—it’s the seal. We could never fake that.”

  “Pigface Psychopomp. Can you kip her seal, then, while she’s sleeping or something?”

  “I could, but I don’t know that it would be wise, anyway. I mean, the guard is sure to think something is fishy—why would Mamma condemn a man to death and then suddenly turn around and release him? They are sure to question. We need a release order from someone no one would dare question, someone whose word would be law unchallenged. Who ranks Mamma?”

  “Lord Axacaya?” Udo asked.

  I thought of the grim-visaged birds and Lord Axacaya’s demand, and a tiny thrill of revulsion rolled up my spine. “No. Who else?”

  “The Warlord?”

  I grinned in the darkness, and thought Nini Mo would approve mightily of my plan. “Ayah. The Warlord.”

  SIXTEEN

  Home. Buck. Differing Opinions.

  I CAUGHT THE HORSECAR at Octavia. It was late enough that Flynn and I were the only riders, and the driver looked half asleep. Luckily, his horse knew the way. I sat at the very back, Flynn curled up on the seat behind me, and thought about our rescue plan. At the time of discussion, it had seemed the proper thing to do, but now it seemed like an awful chance. And yet, what kind of a ranger would I be if I did nothing to prevent Boy Hansgen from going to his death?

  The horsecar left me at the Way Out Gate, Crackpot’s back door (or delivery entrance, as Valefor had informed me). When I stopped by the stables to feed the horses, I saw that they had already been grained and mucked, and my heart sank. Mamma had beat me home. And I just couldn’t face her right now.

  Though I had defended Mamma to Udo, I couldn’t defend Mamma to myself. I know she is sworn to uphold the Warlord, and that means she must uphold the Peace Accord, too, but how could she execute one of Califa’s greatest heroes? A man who had once been her friend? She might have her reasons, but I did not understand them. Nor did I want to.

  The dogs met me at the garden gate, caroling their pleasure at my arrival, and Flynnie flung himself forward to meet them. Any chance I had of sneaking in was lost in canine alarum. Still, maybe I could at least make it to my room. I very quietly opened the door, trying to slide in before the dogs could, but they leaped and pawed, and poured by me, almost knocking me down.

  “Flora?” Mamma’s voice drifted down the Below Stairs. “Is that you?”

  “It sure ain’t Nini Mo,” I mumbled. The dogs scurried upstairs, which was well for them, because then I got a good look at the kitchen. When I had left to meet Mamma, the kitchen had been tidy and the dogs were locked up in the mudroom. Now the kitchen looked like the Flayed Riders of Huitzil had ridden through it once and then doubled back again, just for fun. The room was trashed. Someone, who could only be Poppy, had let the dogs out and unsupervised, and here was the result. Anger boiled up in me, so hot that it fair burned my throat. If I’d had a stick, I would have whacked something. Instead, I kicked the scuttle, which lay on the floor surrounded by spilled coal.

  “Come to the parlor, Flora—I want to talk with you.”

  My heart, already low, disappeared into the depths of my boots. Mamma never actually talks with you; she talks to you. I trudged upstairs, a glassy sparkle of guilt glittering in my stomach. Had Lieutenant Sabre tattled after all? Or maybe Mamma had guessed? Or maybe she had found out about Valefor? I didn’t know which was worse. No, I did. My knees felt rather weak. Nini Mo had faced the Flayed Priest Njal Sholto in a magickal duel, knowing that he was the greater adept, and thus she faced her own death. And yet she did not quiver. I would not quiver, either.

  I would not quiver.

  “Flora! Chop-chop!”

  Mamma sat on the settee in the parlor, surrounded by a wash of papers. More were scattered over the low table before her, which also was stacked with the redboxes I had last seen on her desk at Fifty-six. The dogs had displayed themselves upon the hearth rug, like butter would not melt in their mouths. I could have kicked them all, a good boot right into the hinder. Violence is not the answer, I know, but it’s a hard impulse to strike.

  “Where have you been, Flora? I thought you were going home.” Mamma peered at me through her pince-nez. She’d changed out of her uniform into her purple silk wrapper, and her hair was standing up in spikes, as though she’d been running her hands through it.

  “I’m sorry, Mamma. I stopped at the chemist’s; I still don’t feel so well.” It was easy to sound forlorn and sick, partially because I really did feel forlorn and sick. My cold was still lingering.

  “Why didn’t you have the barouche wait for you?”

  “There’s no place to wait without blocking traffic.”

  “I don’t like your riding the horsecar this late alone.”

  “I had Flynnie, Mamma.”

  “Ayah so, I am sure he would be good in a fight, poor coward. Flora, I went up to your room looki
ng for you.”

  My stomach, which had started to warm, turned to ice again. Do not quiver!

  “I thought you said you had finished your Catorcena dress. What did I find, not finished? Your Catorcena dress. I understand that sewing does not come easy to you, but that is no excuse for not being truthful.”

  “I’m sorry, Mamma,” I said, and I was sorry—that I hadn’t put the dress away. But then, I hadn’t planned that Mamma might snoop; it’s not her usual habit. And even more than sorry, I was relieved that Valefor did not appear to be anywhere evident. Although, blast him, he was supposed to finish the dress before I came home.

  “I can accept your apology, but apologies are not going to cut it at the Barracks, Flora. They expect cadets to abide by their word and be truthful in all things. It is a hallmark of leadership to never dissemble.”

  Ha! Mamma could say that, and yet was she not dissembling in her dealings with Boy Hansgen? She did not practice what she preached. Rangers may lie, but at least they know that they lie. They are not hypocrites.

  “I am sorry, Mamma.”

  “And the kitchen—you are supposed to make sure the dogs are in the mudroom before you leave, Flora.”

  Now, I would suck up the other stuff, but I was not going to take the blame for Poppy. “I did, Mamma, I did. Poppy must have let them out. They were in the mudroom when I left. It wasn’t me.”

  “I stand corrected. In the future, then, perhaps you should put the dogs in the stable when you leave. Hotspur is not likely to go in there.”

  “Ayah, Mamma.”

  She sighed, and rubbed her forehead. She looked even more tired than she had at dinner. “I am sorry Hotspur is such trouble, Flora. You are good to look after him as you do. He has always needed looking after, poor boy.”

  In my mind, people stop being “poor boys” when they hit thirty, and Poppy was way past that mark, but I suppose Mamma has known him so long that it’s hard for her think of him otherwise. Also, he does act very childish.