Dismayed, Marigold got quickly out of the bed, and put on her wrap. Sir Francis chuntered beneath his breath, as if to chide her for taking so long to awaken, then he fluttered down to the floor, and began to waddle toward the door.
Marigold gazed anxiously after him as she dragged a brush through her hair. “What can we do? There’s only another hour left. Oh, why did I fall asleep!”
“Quack! Quack!” The mallard turned to give her one of his superior looks, then continued out of the room.
Lighting a candle from the nightlight beside her bed, Marigold hurried after him. “Have you thought of a plan?” she asked rather pointlessly, for even if he had, he wasn’t able to tell her. The drake thought it stupid as well, for he bestowed another withering look upon her.
In Bysshe’s room nearby, Perry had been disturbed by Sir Francis’s quacks, and gave a harsh call. Bysshe awoke, and came to the door just as Marigold hurried past in Sir Francis’s wake.
“What’s happening?” the boy asked sleepily, while from the top of the wardrobe, Perry made a noise that seemed to be the same question.
Hearing the falcon, Sir Francis squawked with alarm, and dove among the folds of Marigold’s hem. Perry flapped down, and would have gone after the terrified drake, had not Bysshe caught him by the foot as he passed.
“Oh, no, you don’t! That’s Sir Francis, not a likely meal!”
Perry struggled, but Bysshe carried him into the room, fixed a chain around his leg, and then made him sit on the leather strap on his wrist. Perry wasn’t at all pleased, but had to do as his friend wished.
Marigold lifted her hem, and looked down at the cowering mallard. “Come on, it’s safe now.” Eyeing the peregrine mistrustfully, Sir Francis emerged from hiding, and shuffled quickly to the top of the staircase. Then he took to his wings to fly down to the hall.
As the others hurried downstairs as well, Bysshe looked inquiringly at Marigold. “What’s going on?”
Marigold shielded the candle’s guttering flame with her hand. “I don’t really know. Sir Francis awoke me, and that’s all I can say. Oh, Bysshe, I can’t believe I actually went to sleep. On this of all nights! I’ll never forgive myself if Falk wins because I was so weak!”
“You aren’t weak, Lady Avenbury, you’re the strongest, most determined lady I know. You went to sleep because you’re exhausted, and no one can blame you for that,” Bysshe said reassuringly, and Perry added a thin shriek, as if agreeing.
At the bottom of the stairs, they were surprised when Sir Francis waddled toward the kitchens, but they soon discovered what he wanted them to see. The kitchens themselves were deserted, but there was something very odd in the walled garden outside. The full moon was up, and another summer mist had arisen, threading softly between the branches of a small clump of trees—beech, spindle, whitebeam, and hazel—that hadn’t been there before, and curled up asleep at the foot of these trees, were various maids and footmen whose names did not suggest anything into which they could be changed.
It was clear to Marigold that Falk had somehow lured the servants outside in order to transfix them before the coming ceremony. Those who weren’t here must have already gone to their beds, and were now deep in a very unnatural sleep indeed.
Marigold gazed uneasily around. The mist swirled, and the light of the moon was quite bright enough for her to see the village through the wicket gate at the far end of the garden. There weren’t any candlelit windows, and looming above some of the cottages she saw other strange new trees. The whole of Avenbury, except for Bysshe and herself, was now under Falk’s spell.
Perry made an unhappy noise, and Bysshe drew a long, rather shaky breath. “There is a frightful fiend, is there not, my lady? He has two names, Falk Arnold and Aquila Randol, and I think he’s very close behind us indeed.”
Sir Francis gave another peremptory quack, and turned to waddle back into the house. They followed without a word as he led them across the hall to the dining room, where he fluttered up onto the table. Perry’s fear in the kitchen garden was forgotten now as his falcon instincts swept to the fore. He had always been very partial to roast duck, and now didn’t take his amber eyes off the plump drake, clearly assessing how best to pounce. As the mallard edged nervously away, Bysshe shook Perry. “Stop it, you’re not really a peregrine, you know!”
Marigold placed the candle on the table. “So what now, Sir Francis?” she murmured resignedly, for it did not seem possible that anything could be done at this stage in the proceedings.
Muttering anew, the drake fluttered down from the far side of the table, waddled down the room a little way, then launched himself up at the portrait of the first Lady Avenbury and her small son. He rapped his bill against it, fluttered back to the floor again, then he repeated the exercise. After that he turned to stare at Marigold, as if to say “Now do you see?”
Mystified, Marigold and Bysshe went over to the painting. Bysshe shrugged. “Why on earth is he in such a state about this one? Surely it’s the other that’s important?”
Marigold gazed at the portrait, and then her lips parted. What had Jenny said? The painting! The painting! Look at it, Marigold, look at it! The truth is there! She gasped, and clutched Bysshe’s arm. “We’ve been looking at the wrong picture! This is the one Jenny meant!” She could have wept with annoyance at herself. How stupid to assume Jenny was referring to her own portrait.
Forgetting Perry, Sir Francis hopped excitedly up and down, and treated them to a positive explosion of quacks. Had he tried, he couldn’t have shown more delight.
Bysshe gasped at the painting. “But what on earth is there to see in this one? It’s just a likeness of a sixteenth-century widow and her baby.”
“I know, but there has to be something. Concentrate Bysshe. You too, Perry, and if you spot anything, just make a fuss like Sir Francis.” Perry nodded, and made a grunting noise.
As Marigold racked her brains about what Rowan had told her about the first Lady Avenbury, his exact words suddenly came to her from the blue. She, her husband, and the baby all succumbed to the plague. Lord Avenbury died first, and she was said to have been so grief-stricken at his death that her baby son was born prematurely. They only survived him by one month, before they too fell victim to the pestilence. The truth positively stared her in the face. “Oh, you foolish drake, why didn’t you indicate this before?”
Sir Francis puffed his feathers indignantly, and gave her a look that suggested he’d done more than enough. Bysshe looked at him, and then at Marigold. “What are you saying, my lady? Have you seen something?”
“Yes, Bysshe, I have. Rowan isn’t the thirteenth Lord Avenbury, he’s the fourteenth, as is shown quite clearly in this painting.”
“Eh?” Bysshe’s jaw dropped. Perry blinked, and gave a startled squeak.
Marigold told them both what Rowan had said about this second portrait, then she went on. “Don’t you see? If the baby boy died one month after his father, for that month he was the second Lord Avenbury! The baby has been forgotten because according to all the records, the first Lord Avenbury was succeeded by his younger brother. It’s like—well, it’s like saying Edward IV was succeeded by his brother, Richard III, when everyone knows one of the princes in the Tower was actually Edward V for a while. Do you see? It’s so obvious. I can’t understand how we didn’t spot it before!”
Bysshe pursed his lips. “We wouldn’t have spotted it at all. It would never have occurred to me to think of the line of succession.”
Marigold wanted to laugh aloud, “Oh, it’s all so clear now. Rowan’s father was the thirteenth and supposedly last lord, yet Rowan succeeded him to become the fourteenth. What price Aquila Randol’s famous malediction now?”
Bysshe’s eyes began to brighten, but then he lowered them again. “Even so, Falk still has the anguinum, and we know how great his power is as a result,” he reminded her.
“Falk believes the anguinum is infallible, but it isn’t. Remember how proof of my first marriage has survived after all?”
“Yes, that’s true, but...”
“What if we were to interrupt the midsummer rites, as the first Lord Avenbury did? What if Falk were to realize his precious anguinum isn’t quite what it’s supposed to be? What if Rowan were told he is the fourteenth lord? Would Falk still be able to compel him against his will? You heard what Falk said. Perry is particularly susceptible because of shared blood, and presumably the other druids are receptive because they’re devotees, but Rowan is neither of those things. Falk has to control him in order to make his horrid wheel turn, but if Rowan knows what we now know, he will strike free!” As she spoke the clock began to strike. Dawn was now only half an hour away.
Perry gave an unhappy squawk, and Bysshe exhaled heavily.
“All right, let’s say we do it, but how can we even approach Lord Avenbury? Falk and his cronies will have left Romans by now, and the first we will even see of Lord Avenbury is when he is brought to the oak.”
“If the confrontation has to be beneath the oak itself, then so be it,” Marigold said quietly.
“But, my lady, Falk threatened to leave Perry like this forever if we tried anything.”
“If sufficient disruption is caused, I doubt that Falk’s first thought will be of Perry. At least, that is what I must hope.” She reached out to stroke Perry’s head. “Please understand, Perry. I can’t let Falk win, I just can’t.”
As Perry nuzzled her hand and nodded, Sir Francis quacked approvingly.