“All the animals on the property are tattling on me, aren’t they?” Keven winced as he set his crutches to one side and sank into bed.
“If by ‘tattling’ you mean reporting to me on your progress in learning to walk again, they thought I’d be interested,” his wife replied from her dressing table where she was brushing out her hair. “They’re right; I am.”
Lena and Keven were still virtually newlyweds; they had married in Haven and escaped (both of them agreed on the description) to the nearest of the estates Lena had inherited. As the last surviving member of her family, she had several estates and enough wealth to make her an attractive target for fortune hunters. It was, therefore, ironic that in fleeing from Keven’s brother and their ambitious father, she had met Keven in the quiet, out-of-the-way temple where they had consigned him to obscurity after his injury.
“Are you still thinking of offering land here to the Temple of Thenoth, Lord of the Beasts, so they’ll have someplace to keep more of his animals?” It was something they had discussed during their journey here. With the special saddle Lena had given him for a Midwinter gift, Keven could ride, but the pace was necessarily slow. It would have been slower with baggage wagons, but both of them had pared their luggage down to what could be carried by horses.
“I’m still thinking about it.” Lena laid down her hairbrush and started to braid her hair for bed. “I’m concerned about the game warden here.”
“Why? What’s he like?”
“I haven’t officially met him yet; he’s gone to spend the Vernal Equinox with his mother and sisters.”
“That’s more than my father would do,” Keven said. “He’s ignored my mother and sisters for years; he even leaves them in the country while he spends Midwinter Festival at Court.” After a few seconds’ thought he added, “Of course, they may prefer it that way.”
“I don’t know what Algott’s family prefers,” Lena said, finishing her braid and tying it off, “but I’m afraid that his departure may be due less to filial piety and more to a desire to avoid me. He probably thinks I’ll stay here for a week or two and then be off to the next estate, and I’m sure he has comrades in the village who will send word to him when I’m gone.”
“Are the animals saying bad things about him?” Keven didn’t share Lena’s gift of Animal Mindspeech, so she had to relay anything she wanted him to know.
“The animals aren’t saying much, but the Steward here tells me that Algott got his job because he was a friend of my brother’s.”
“I don’t really know much about your family. How bad is that?”
Lena climbed carefully into bed next to him. Keven was wonderful, and she, unlike his father, didn’t think less of him because of his injured leg. She really wanted to be a good wife and make him happy—or at least not cause him unnecessary physical pain.
“It’s pretty bad,” she admitted. “My parents died when I was about four, so I don’t really remember them. Markus became my guardian because he was my only living relative. He died about five years later. I wasn’t there and don’t know all the details, but apparently he made up his own religion, used it to steal and blackmail people, and died at a hearing in front of a good portion of the court, the Prior, and my friend Maja, who says the gods struck him down for his crimes.”
“Did they really?” Keven asked, fascinated.
“I don’t know. The Healers said it was his heart, but he wasn’t even 30 years old. Anyway, he was cruel to me, my governess, and my animals. I had a charm of finches—”
“A what?”
“A group of finches is called a charm, the way a group of puppies is called a litter,” Lena explained. “Some of us at the temple keep a list of odd collective nouns—did you know that a group of vultures is a wake?”
“How appropriate. So you had birds . . . did any of them come with us?”
“I’m sure quite a few crows did.” Lena sighed. “The finches have all died of old age now. At least none of them died from being used for target practice by Markus and his friends, though one of them got a miniature sword through her wing, which is how we wound up at the Temple of Thenoth. The Temple Healers made me leave her there, and Markus took me home, but I snuck out early the next morning and never went back.” She smiled reminiscently. “Dexter was my first friend at the temple.”
“Maja’s raccoon?”
“Maja’s friend who happens to be a raccoon, yes,” Lena replied. “By the time the Prior realized I was there, they knew I had Animal Mindspeech, my brother was dead, Maja had unofficially adopted me as a little sister, and I petitioned to stay there as a Novice.”
“But you were a child, weren’t you?”
“I was ten, I was Gifted, and I had no living family. The King became my official guardian, but he gave me into the Prior’s custody while I was a child. As I got older, I had to spend some time at court, and after I turned seventeen last summer, the King said I had to participate in the winter social season—and we know how that turned out!”
“Do you . . . regret being married to me?” Keven asked cautiously.
Lena laughed. “Of course not, but I didn’t have to go to court to meet you. I might just as well have stayed at the Temple and been spared the misery of fortune-hunting suitors.”
“And my brother’s attempt to force you into marriage.”
“To be fair to your brother, the rape was your father’s idea.”
“And which one did you jump out your bedroom window to escape?”
“The important thing is that I did escape, you and I are married, you are legally part of my family and not your father’s, and if Thenoth is good to us, we won’t ever have to deal with your ex-family again.”
“Amen to that,” Keven said. “So is your game warden here one of those friends who uses birds for target practice?”
“Yes,” Lena said grimly.
“Well, if he’s off to visit his family, let’s enjoy the Spring Festival in his absence. We can ride into the village for the festivities, eat ourselves sick on sweets, and do all the things we never got to do as children.”
“That sounds like a great plan,” Lena said, curling up next to him with her head on his shoulder.
Lena was surprised when, two days after the Festival, the crows told her that Algott had returned. She walked out to the front garden to meet him and waited on a bench there. His demeanor was very different from the last time she had seen him, but she was no longer a child, and he wasn’t drunk, which probably accounted for a great deal of the change.
“Would I be correct in believing that you want to keep your position here?” she asked bluntly.
“Yes, Lady Magdalena,” he replied, “but first I owe you an apology. I treated you badly, and I treated your birds worse.”
“By which you mean you didn’t throw knives at me.”
“I certainly hope I didn’t,” he said. “I wasn’t at my best that day, and you ran into the room suddenly.”
“That’s true. I suppose we were all lucky that the damage wasn’t worse.”
He shuddered. “Having a position that allows me to spend more time with my mother and sisters has given me a new perspective on the way I behaved then. I suppose ‘young and stupid’ doesn’t serve as an excuse when I was older then than you are now, but I like to think I’ve matured since then. And the way your brother died . . .”
“Were you there?” Lena wasn’t sure who had been, aside from the King, the King’s Own, a few Heralds she knew, the Prior, and Maja.
“No, but it was all over town that the gods struck him down.”
Lena shrugged. “That’s one theory, and I suppose it’s possible.”
“It certainly is,” Algott agreed. “Is it true that you have Animal Mindspeech? And that you can talk to birds?”
“Yes,” Lena replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Your godwits—they’re wading birds that live in the wet section of grasslands at the north edge of the lake—are disappearing. About a dozen of them went missing last summer, and the ones I’ve seen since then seem unusually skittish.”
“Last summer, as in during the time they had their summer plumage? And none of them have vanished since?”
“No. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill them; there are plenty of animals that would provide more meat if someone was starving—and no one in this area should be that desperate for food. This estate produces more than enough food for everyone, and the Steward makes certain it is distributed to the needy.”
Lena sighed. “It’s because you’re a man.”
He frowned. “That does not mean I don’t know what it is to be hungry.”
“No, it means you don’t notice the fashion for hats with orange feathers, which are a specialty of the local milliner. I must have seen ten of them in the village during the Spring Festival, but I didn’t realize someone was killing the birds instead of merely collecting shed feathers. I’ll talk to the godwits, and then you and I can go have a chat with the milliner’s son.”
“He’s a child, and he’s simple,” Algott warned her. “If you charge him with poaching, which I admit you have every right to do, it’s likely to upset people.”
“I’m not planning to drag him off to jail or have him executed,” Lena said. “And I’m not going to do anything until I’m absolutely sure. If he’s the killer, I will explain, slowly and using small words, why killing animals for their feathers is wrong. And if his mother still wants orange feathers after she finds out what her child has been up to, I can ask the godwits to drop them where the boy can pick them up without having to go near the birds.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” Algott said. “And if he is guilty of poaching, I can do what I do with all the local poachers.”
“What do you do?” Lena asked curiously. The answer would help her determine what kind of a man Algott had become.
He grinned. “I put them to work in the fields for a few weeks. There’s always somebody who can use extra hands and doesn’t mind supervising a new worker.”
Lena grinned back. “I’ve always liked constructive punishments.” She stood up and headed for the house. “I have to meet with the Steward now, but I’ll try to find the godwits this afternoon. You can continue your regular duties.”
Lena and Keven rode down to the lake together that afternoon. Keven may not have Mindspeech, Lena reflected, but he’s really good with animals, and I need these to stay as calm as possible.
She dismounted alone at the edge where the wetland met the lake, stood quietly with empty hands in plain sight, and sent out a mental call, along with a visualization of a godwit in winter plumage.
Soon a bird with predominately silver-gray and white feathers stood near her. The bird’s head came to well above her knees, and it had a very long sharp beak, so Lena didn’t want to annoy it. As she tried to think of a good way to broach the subject, the bird spoke to her.
:Is he a new killer?: it asked, looking at Keven.
:No, he’s my mate, and he won’t harm you. Please don’t harm him.: The bird was a female; Lena could tell by the length of the beak.
The bird looked up at him, and several more godwits appeared out of the tall grass but did not approach. :If he’s your mate, why doesn’t he stand with you?:
:He was injured and has trouble walking. :
:He should try it in the water.: The bird probably wasn’t serious, but it occurred to Lena that it might be a good idea. The water would help support his upper body while providing resistance for his leg muscles to work against.
:That’s a good idea; I’ll tell him to try it. Meanwhile, would you please show me what the killer looked like. I need to know so I can make sure he doesn’t bother you again.:
Lena’s mind was filled with images of a boy from various angles. In some of them she could see the slingshot he was holding. Her lips tightened. :I know who he is: she assured the godwits.
As they rode back to the house, she told Keven what the godwit had suggested about walking in the water.
Keven thought for a moment and said, “You know, that’s really not a bad idea.”
Lena and Algott were sitting on the bench the next morning discussing the deal he had made with the milliner and her son. The boy was doing field labor to atone for the murdered godwits, and he would do more of it to pay for any feathers his mother wanted in the future. Everyone had agreed that feathers would be gathered after the godwits had shed them, not from the birds themselves. Lena was certain the godwits would be happy to drop their shed feathers in one spot away from their territory in exchange for being safe and free from harassment.
When a godwit flew to them, Algott looked at the beak and fell backward over the bench getting away from it. Lena just asked what the problem was.
:Come quickly! Your mate can’t breathe water.:
Lena whistled and Mindcalled her horse. She was mounted, albeit bareback, and heading for the lake before Algott could get to his feet.
She arrived to discover two things. First, Keven, being the considerate soul he was, had chosen to try his experiment on the far side of the lake from where the godwits nested. Second, the godwits had crossed the lake, dragged his head out of the water, and were holding him in place by his hair.
Lena, thanking all the gods she’d ever heard of that she wasn’t wearing fancy clothing, shed her overdress and boots and waded into the lake clad in stockings and a shift. By the time she got a good grip on Keven and dragged him ashore, she was soaked to the skin and her shift was indecent, but there was nobody to see her but the godwits and her husband . . .
. . . and Algott, who had taken time to saddle a horse before following her. Lena quickly pulled her dress over her wet shift. She looked at Keven, who was busy coughing up the water he’d swallowed, and called to his horse. It hadn’t gone far, but it had found some tasty grass to occupy its attention.
“Next time, Keven, let’s do this together. I think the godwits have enough of your hair to make themselves new hats.”
“I’d be embarrassed to be rescued by a bunch of birds,” Algott muttered. He kept his voice down, but Lena had excellent hearing.
“These aren’t a bunch of birds,” she said, remembering the lists of names she had studied at the Temple. “They’re an omniscience of godwits.”
Keven groaned. “The animals around here really do know everything.”