Carola Dunn (19 page)

 “He’s gone,” said Basil. “How did he do that?”

 “Your fault, fool,” Damon snarled, glaring at his brother. “A perfect opportunity to get rid of him when no one would miss him, and you go and shoot first. And miss!”

 “You missed too,” Basil pointed out sulkily. “But didn’t you see, he turned into a bird!”

 “That’s what it looked like,” Damon admitted, his tone cautious. “Perhaps the old witch had it in for him because he didn’t come up to scratch with the girl. With any luck, he’s gone for good. I’ll be Earl of Androwick yet!”

 “What about the horse? Suppose it comes home without him?”

 They turned to stare at Amiga, who stood with hanging head, fetlock deep in the morass.

 “Father wants her. We’ll tell him we found her wandering... No, we’ll say we went to meet Aldwin at Long Yeoford, to see him on his way, and he decided to hire a horse and send the mare back to Father. He’ll be so pleased he won’t question it. Quick, grab her before she decides to run off.”

 As they converged on Amiga, Reynata gave a short, sharp bark. The golden mare started, tossed her head with rolling eyes, heaved herself out of the mud, and sprang forward. Damon lunged for her bridle. Slipping, he landed face down in the muck. Reynata grinned a vulpine grin, mouth open, teeth showing, tongue lolling, as Amiga gathered her haunches under her and sprang again, spraying Basil with filth.

 Three more hare-leaps took Amiga to solid ground. She galloped off, reins dangling, stirrups swinging wildly, saddlebags thumping against her flanks.

 Sliding through the undergrowth alongside the lane, Reynata followed.

* * * *

 “I lost her,” Reynata said sombrely. “She galloped into Long Yeoford and I could not follow. She might have turned east or west on the turnpike, or gone south to Dartmoor or north to Exmoor. Oh, where is Tibb? I wish he’d come! What went wrong, Grandmama?”

 The wise-woman shook her head in puzzlement. “I cannot be sure, my love. Protective charms are always chancy, as I told you. They tend to work in unexpected ways. Possibly his is trying to keep him from crossing the seas and going to war. And then, I have been so much occupied these many years with transformation spells, perhaps there was some contamination.”

 “But can you change him back?”

 “I believe so, since it was my own magic changed him. Not at a distance, however.”

 “No.” Reynata shuddered. “Suppose he was flying! Surely he will come here when he recovers from the shock, when Tibb explains to him what happened, and then you can undo the spell. But he will want Amiga when he is himself again, and I lost her.”

 “A horse of gold with mane and tail of silver cannot long remain hidden,” Grandmama consoled her. “Ah, here is Tibb now.”

 The raven was tapping on a windowpane with his hefty beak. Reynata hurried to let him in.

 “Tibb, where is he? Where did he go?”

 “Miawk,” said the bird tiredly. “He flew too high for a poor old cat-bird like me, and into the face of the east wind, to boot. I lost him.”

 Reynata covered her face with her hands. Tibb hopped up onto her shoulder. He rubbed his head against her neck with a sympathetic purr.

 “As you said, my love, Lord Drake is bound to come here when he recovers from the shock,” Grandmama reminded her. “He cannot fail to realize that what happened to him is magic.”

 “He didn’t know you were going to put a protective spell on him. What if he thinks you changed him on purpose, to punish him for...for letting my humble birth drive him away?”

 The wise-woman drew herself up. “If he believes I used my skills for ill, he deserves to stay enchanted! However, I daresay I could bring myself to forgive him. He will certainly go home, and we shall hear of it.”

 “Home! Wick Towers is the last place he would go. Damon and Basil saw him in bird form. They would recognize him, and catch him and kill him, long before we learnt he had come.”

Chapter V

 Huddled among towering rocks, high on the moor, Aldwin tried to understand what had happened to him.

 He was a bird, a large bird with gleaming red-gold feathers and a long tail, that much was indubitable. Only magic could have wrought the change—equally indubitable. But was it white magic or black which had deprived him of his humanity in saving him from highwaymen?

 They must have been highwaymen. However resentful his brothers might be, they would not plot to murder him! He had surely imagined recognizing Damon’s voice....

 Yet doubt lingered. If it had been Damon and Basil who attacked him, it was not safe to go home, at least not openly. Nor did he dare entrust his fate to Gammer Gresham, not without his father present as witness. One way or another, she was more than likely responsible for his present plight.

 Could this be her revenge for his breaking Reynata’s heart? Perhaps the wise-woman had given him the benefit of the doubt, hoping love would conquer pride, until his departure for Spain left no room for hope.

 How petty his pride of birth seemed now! Positively bird-witted, Aldwin thought wryly. He deserved to live out his life as a bird. If somehow he escaped that fate, he would throw himself at Reynata’s feet and beg her to accept his hand.

 “Reynata!” he keened.

 The wind whistling between the rocks was the only reply.

 By nightfall, Aldwin had decided he must go home, whatever the peril. Perhaps he could attract his father’s or John’s attention and explain what had happened to him.

 Damon and Basil often rode down to the Green Dragon in Middlecombe in the evenings, to drink and gamble and wench, but Aldwin did not dare count on their absence. They always returned to the Towers by midnight, as all the doors and gates were locked then. After that, no one would be about to spot Aldwin when he tapped with his beak on the Earl’s or his youngest brother’s chamber window.

 The night was clear, with a waxing moon, and the east wind had dropped. Aldwin flew down from the moor, sailing with long, slow wing-beats over the wooded combes and sleeping villages, streaked with the silver ribbons of streams. The beauty of the scene penetrated his wretchedness. He was suddenly conscious of the joy of his instinctive balancing on the air-currents. If he ever escaped from his present form, he would always be grateful for the experience.

 As he swooped low over the King’s Forest, an owl rose to meet him. “Who? Who?”

 Aldwin opened his beak to answer. “Reynata!” he cried.

 Damn, that was not what he had meant to say! Apparently he was not a talking bird. He had but a single call, like the wood-pigeon’s “coo” or the cuckoo’s “cuckoo.” Or the owl’s “who,” of course. It had already floated away on silent wings, satisfied with his response to its challenge.

 This made things more difficult for Aldwin, though. How was he going to make Father or John understand who he was?

 His home rose before him. He alighted in a tree to think. The day’s blustery wind had blown away most of the leaves, and there on the bare branches hung four plump fruits, golden in the moonlight.

 Bird instincts took over. One of the fruits smelt ripe, and Aldwin had not eaten since an early breakfast. His beak tore into the succulent persimmon. Juice dripped as he devoured a quarter of his father’s precious, cherished crop of golden apples of the Hesperides, leaving not a trace.

 Guilty, but feeling much better, Aldwin made up his mind to try to rouse John first. Once inside his brother’s chamber, he could find a book and peck at letters to spell out his message. There was always a danger that the Earl might be too eager to capture him for the aviary to give him time to communicate. He was, after all, a splendid specimen, he reflected, preening his burnished chest-feathers to clean off the last drop of sweet, sticky juice.

 He flew up to John’s tower window. The sill was too narrow for anything larger than a thrush to perch there.

 Swerving, he narrowly avoided bashing his head against the glass. To tap with his beak, he’d have to hover like a kestrel. He returned towards the window and willed his wings to perform the needed action.

 His earthward plunge made it plain he was not a hovering bird. Pulling up within a yard of the ground, he wrenched a shoulder muscle painfully. Disconsolate, he fluttered down to rest on the flagged path between two flowerbeds.

 By the time he recovered enough for the effort of launching himself from the ground, a faint light in the eastern sky heralded the dawn. He must not be found here at daybreak! He longed to fly to Reynata, but fear of her foster-mother daunted him. His feathers were too bright for him to hide safely in the woods during the day. The rocky refuge on the moors called to him.

 Thither he swiftly flew and passed the day in exhausted sleep. When he awoke at dusk, he had an idea.

 He must find a twig long enough to scratch at John’s windowpane as he flew by. John would look out through the window to see what made the noise, and when he saw the fiery bird flying back and forth, he would open wide to let him in.

 Wouldn’t he? Aldwin had to try.

 As the moon rose, wider by a sliver than yesternight, he returned to Wick Towers. Hunger gnawed at him, so he went first to the persimmon tree to see if another had ripened.

 Alighting, he saw beneath the tree a curious bundle from which issued loud snores. Cautiously, he hopped down from branch to branch, until he made out Damon’s face under a nightcap, mouth open, eyes shut. The sleeper was enveloped in several featherbeds; on the grass beside him lay an empty brandy-bottle, and his shotgun. A leaf drifted down and landed on his cheek, but he did not stir. What on earth...?

 No doubt the Earl, discovering the loss of one of his golden apples, had set his son to watch for the thief. He would be furious when another fruit was missing in the morning and Damon had no explanation!

 Damon deserved to suffer his anger. Though Aldwin had qualms about distressing his father, the pangs of hunger overwhelmed his conscience. Seeking out the one ripe, fragrant, luscious persimmon among the three remaining, he gorged.

 Satisfied, he looked for a twig to carry out his plan. The gardeners had swept up all debris during the day, so in the end he broke a switch off the persimmon tree. With one end clutched in his beak, he flew back and forth past John’s chamber window, dragging the other end against the glass on each pass. It made a squeaky, scratchy sound, but John did not wake.

 At last Aldwin was forced to acknowledge defeat. If he went on trying any longer, he would not have the strength to fly back to the moors and he didn’t feel safe passing the day any closer to human habitation.

 On the third night he made another attempt. This time, he found Basil fast asleep under the persimmon tree, slumped on a chair, wrapped in all manner of greatcoats and rugs. Beside the chair stood a jug from which rose the fumes of hot flannel—a mixture of beer and gin heated with spices and sugar which Basil favoured. A shotgun lay under the chair, where it could only be retrieved with great difficulty.

 Aldwin ate the next to last persimmon, with mental apologies to his father. Then he left the walled garden and flew to the gravel pathway winding through the rhododendron shrubbery. He picked up two clawfuls of gravel.

 Without the hitherto unappreciated aid of his feet, he rose into the air awkwardly, with much flapping of wings. Flying to John’s window, he tried to fling the gravel at the glass.

 His legs were not made for throwing. Two or three small stones landed on the sill, but the rest dropped to the ground below.

 A second attempt was more successful. Most of the gravel hit the windowpanes with a satisfactory rattle. But though Aldwin flew back and forth before the window for several minutes, John did not appear. Nor did a third shower of stones rouse him. Either he slept extraordinarily soundly, or he was cowering under the bedclothes.

 For which he could hardly be blamed, Aldwin admitted reluctantly. His brother’s window was at least forty feet from the ground. Small wonder if John was afraid of anything capable of tapping on it!

 Discouraged, Aldwin returned to the moors.

* * * *

 “Do you think the thief the Earl makes such a fuss about is Lord Drake, Grandmama?” Reynata kneaded the dough vigorously, putting into it all her frustrated energy. She was making enough bread to last for several days, for tonight or tomorrow she would become a fox, and the old woman no longer had the strength for kneading. “It’s odd that he has come two nights in a row but only taken one fruit each time. Why doesn’t Lord Androwick pick the rest?”

 “The golden apples are very astringent until they are completely ripe. A bird smells when fruit is ripe before it is apparent to a human.”

 “Grmmm,” agreed Tibb, whose great black beak was stuck together by a bit of dough he had pinched.

 “So the thief is probably a bird,” Reynata concluded, “and very likely—”

 “Hush!” Grandmama held up her hand. Someone knocked on the door. “Come in, John,” she called.

 The youth entered and bade them good-day with an awkward bow. John Drake was as handsome as his brother Damon, his looks marred only by a slightly vacuous air. Though by no means as thick as two planks, he was not—his eldest brother had been known to say tolerantly—the brightest star in the firmament.

 “I need a charm, ma’am, if you please,” he blurted out. “Something’s been trying to get in at my bedchamber window in the middle of the night.”

 Reynata and her foster-mother exchanged a glance. Had Lord Drake tried to attract John’s attention?

 “Take a bunch of rowan berries from the tree by the door,” advised Mistress Gresham. “Hang it above the window and it will ward off evil.”

 “Will it work in my pocket? I’m to stand guard in the garden tonight,” John informed her, proud but anxious. “Did you hear, a thief’s been stealing Father’s golden apples? Damon said he was invisible, and Basil swears he didn’t come last night, but a branch was broken and now there’s only one fruit left. I think they just fell asleep. Father’s going to let me watch tonight. I shan’t fall asleep. I’ll stand up all night.”

 “You will not shoot the thief, will you?” Reynata asked fearfully.