Song of the Wood Thrush
“O h, dear,” Duncan muttered, his ear pressed against the wall.
“What? What?” Estral demanded.
“The vibration is all wrong. The guardians are in turmoil.”
As a minstrel, Estral had maintained her fingernails for lute playing—short on her chording hand, and longer on her strumming hand, but now she’d chewed all her fingernails to the quick with her anxiety over Alton and Marc.
Duncan gave her a look that turned into a long, penetrating gaze. “How far along are you?”
“What? How can you—? I’m—”
“With child,” he finished for her when her voice failed. “Before I went to live with the eagles, I did quite a lot of midwifing, so I know the look. Actually, it was mostly goats and cows I helped birth.”
She faced him with her hands on her hips.
“Pigs, too,” he said thoughtfully.
When she sent him a dark look, he cleared his throat. “Not that I am comparing you to, um...”
She waited.
“I mean, pregnant females have that look.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“I did have plenty of human patients. I mean, maybe not as many as goats, but...” He chuckled nervously and pushed back his hair. “It would seem I am digging myself in.”
“You think?” she asked.
He cleared his throat again. “The point is, I’ve also retained enough of my magic that I can sense the other life in you.” Proudly, he added, “And babies like me. Babies of all kinds.”
“I haven’t known for long,” Estral admitted. “Mender thinks a couple months.”
“Does the Deyer know?”
She shook her head and took up her chalk and slate. The right moment hasn’t come up and his being heir complicates matters.
“Ah,” Duncan replied. “You are carrying the child of the heir of...What do they call them in this Age? Lord-governor? Surely it is a simple matter of being wed.”
She shook her head.
“A problem with his parents? They don’t approve?”
She nodded.
“But you are the Fiori.”
No land or wealth, she wrote.
“Oh, of course,” Duncan replied. “Noble marriages are all about the land, power, and enrichment. I am sorry you find yourself in this situation.”
She knew that “this situation,” as Duncan put it, was apt to shake up the nobility in unexpected ways.
If Alton’s parents did not accept the child, he or she would still achieve status as her heir, and become the next Golden Guardian.
She was certain Alton would be overjoyed to know he was to be a father, come what may, and she wanted her child to know their father.
“We were careful,” she whispered, “or so I thought. We believed we couldn’t conceive because of some spell on his Rider brooch.”
“As is so often the case,” Duncan replied, “whoever spelled the brooches thought only about keeping the female Riders from conceiving. I guess so it would not interfere with their duties.”
It was always thrust upon the women, she thought, the responsibility over pregnancy and its consequences—or the lack thereof—even though a man was also needed to create babies. She shook her head. In any case, it would have been useful to know about the difference in Rider brooches at the outset.
“I suppose allowing male Green Riders to romp with and impregnate females as they rode across the realm,” Duncan said, “was one way to ensure more Riders came from somewhere in a world where most magic users were nearly extinct.”
It was the sort of thing, Estral thought, the Golden Guardian should have known, but the notion hadn’t even occurred to her.
When she returned to Selium, she intended to comb the archives for any hint that supported Duncan’s words, but almost nothing was recorded about Green Riders, so that information probably did not exist. It was why she had decided to write their history with what could be found.
We have to get them out, she wrote on her slate. She would not let her child enter the world without knowing his or her father.
“I am not sure what can be done since the guardians won’t let me in, though they’ve allowed me to sense the Deyers are still alive. There is also activity among the guardians I can’t yet grasp.”
Estral paced furiously before the wall. She wanted to beat on it, but after Marc flanked the guards, they kept an eagle’s eye on her. They allowed her reasonably near the wall to observe and speak with Duncan, but she was forbidden to touch it.
They’d also received news from Tower of the Trees that Mad Leaf had had no luck in connecting with the guardians.
It didn’t help Estral’s nerves any when Duncan rested his ear against the wall and said, “Hmm. It sounds like there is something going on with the wall on the Blackveil side, and that’s what has got them stirred up. Not good, not good at all.”
The whole encampment was on edge. The soldiers looked ready to jump and attack at the slightest provocation, and even the sounds of squirrels thrashing through the underbrush in the woods, and the squabbling of birds, bore a frenetic quality.
She almost envied Rider Copperhaven her oblivious, unconscious state. Almost.
“These are very bad vibrations,” Duncan said.
It was maddening that no swear words issued from her mouth when she tried to voice them. She kicked a rock and regretted it instantly. She limped in a circle mouthing a tor rent of expletives no one could hear. She’d learned most of them from Karigan during their school days.
“Breaking your toes is not going to help anything,” Duncan chided.
She thought more swear words at him.
When finally she could put weight on her foot again, a bird fluttered from the woods in an ungainly flight as though it was exhausted. It landed on her head.
Uh . . . ? she thought. She hoped it didn’t plan to make a nest of her hair.
Maybe it just needed a rest. Carefully she removed it from her head and let it sit on her hand.
It was a brown bird with a mottled brown-and-white breast about the size of a robin.
It gazed quizzically at her with a tilt of its head.
Just another little brown bird, she thought, but then it sang a beautiful flutey song she recognized.
A thrush! Its woodland song was one of her favorites.
The bird lifted off from her hand and flew in a circle around her, only to hover in front of her face. Before she knew what was happening, it flew full force into her neck. Immediately it awakened the memory of the redbird that had stolen her voice.
She tried to scream, but she choked. Something large lodged in her throat. She doubled over trying to breathe.
“My lady?” Duncan shouted in dismay.
A rough-textured live thing rasped the inside of her throat.
It slithered up her windpipe and disgorged itself from her mouth—a black snake.
Panic further constrained her ability to breathe and swallow.
The edges of her vision blackened. The serpent slipped the rest of the way out of her mouth and dropped to the ground, where it flicked its tongue and coiled into a ball and, like the thrush, vanished from existence.
Estral gasped and fell to her hands and knees, hacking and retching, and hungered for breath. Duncan and some of the soldiers clustered around her.
“What the hells is going on?” Lieutenant Janes demanded.
“A magical attack.” Duncan said.
“Where from? Blackveil?”
“I don’t think so.”
The soldiers helped her to the watchfire and seated her on a log bench. A blanket was placed over her shoulders, and someone was sent after Mender Kane, who was in the forest searching for herbs.
Estral was numb. Another magical attack, and no, it had not come from Blackveil, but the child, Lala.
Of this, Estral was certain. What had Lala taken from her this time?
She rubbed her throat. It was sore inside and out.
If anything happened to her child because of this.
..Someone handed her a skin of water and she took a sip. It hurt to swallow.
The lieutenant and Duncan peppered her with questions and talked over and around her.
She’d dropped her slate and chalk by the wall, so she could not speak.
She’d lost Alton to the wall, and now the evil child, Lala, had attacked her again.
Estral wanted to give up, throw herself against the wall.
Hide under a blanket. She could not, would not, however, because of the life inside her.
She cleared her throat. “Slate,” she whispered. The lieutenant sent a soldier to go pick it up. She fought to maintain her composure, and wished Alton were there to comfort her.
Mender Kane pushed through those who surrounded her to reach her. “Lady Fiori,” he said, “they tell me you suffered a magical attack. Are you in pain?”
She nodded and pointed at her throat.
He knelt before her and felt around it. “Doesn’t seem to be swollen.” He removed a small mirror from his pocket to reflect the waning sunlight into her throat. “Try to say aaah .”
She did as he instructed, but did not emit a simple aaah . Rather, it came out as a full-throated melodious note. She clapped her hand over her mouth in shock. The whole encampment fell silent.
The soldier sent to fetch her slate approached.
Mender Kane sat back on his heels. “I don’t think she’ll be needing that. Lady Fiori, would you like to try again?”
She nodded and repeated the performance for her stunned audience. “I can...I can sing,” she said.
“And speak clearly,” Mender Kane said with a smile. “Your throat is red and angry, so I suggest you do not use your voice too much. We wouldn’t want you to do permanent damage to your vocal cords after you just got it back. Put some extra honey in your tea to soothe it.”
“My voice is back,” she said in amazement to no one in particular.
She could sing! And suddenly a whole world re-opened for her, one that had been missing for so long, almost as if she could hear all the music of the world, all the nuance from every direction of birds and the wind, of soldiers in conversation, of horses munching hay at the pickets.
She remained deaf in her one ear as she had always been since childhood, but still she heard the sounds around her as a symphony she had not realized had been muted since Lala stole her voice.
Not only that, but she could see individual notes in her mind’s eye and understand them.
Her fingers itched to play her lute, but she had stopped carrying it with her since, under the spell, she hadn’t been able to play it. That would have to change.
I can sing, I can sing, I can sing!
Her joy was tempered, however, by suspicion of the source of its return and her fear for Alton. As the watchers dispersed to go about their duties, she turned to Duncan. “It’s too good to be true. It has to be some trick.”
Duncan shrugged. “Perhaps the Lala creature tired of it and decided to give it back, or maybe she has died.”
“No, I don’t believe she’s dead. Someone had to make the spell. It was intentional. The bird was like the redbird that stole my voice.”
“Likely you are correct. She has the making of being a great mage.”
That was a chilling thought.
“But that is neither here nor there,” Duncan said. He leaned toward her as if to share a secret. “Whatever the story behind the return of your voice, it resonated with the guardians. I could feel it.”
Estral stood and the blanket fell from her shoulders. Yes! The guardians had liked her singing before. The wall had even begun to heal before she lost her voice.
“Maybe,” she began, still startled to hear her own full voice, “I can convince them to release Alton and Marc.”
Duncan looked this way and that as if to ensure no one was eavesdropping. “My thought exactly, but do so without getting trapped, too.”
“Do you think the lieutenant would allow me to touch the wall?”
“Perhaps it’s better we don’t ask for permission. It will just give him an opportunity to deny you. Plus, it’ll make them suspicious and even more chary about allowing you near it. We’ll just have to convince the guard that we do have permission.”
He’d a sneaky smile, and she returned it. She grabbed his pouch and together they left the watchfire and strode toward the wall as if they owned it. When the soldier on guard ordered them to halt, they continued on.
“The lieutenant asked us to take a closer look where Lord Alton and Lord Marc went in,” Duncan said.
When that did not convince the guard, Estral said, “You know who I am, yes?”
“The Lady Fiori,” he answered.
“Yes. I am the Golden Guardian. I’ve more rank than even Lord Alton. Therefore, I’ve more authority than anyone present at the wall. I respect the lieutenant’s concerns, but he does not command me. You may ask him yourself.”
The poor soldier did not seem to know what to say or do. Estral and Duncan proceeded toward the wall.
“Well done, my lady,” Duncan said. “That was quick thinking.”
“My rank ought to be good for something.” Even if Alton’s parents didn’t think so, she did not add.
When she came within arm’s reach of the wall, she was buoyed by the idea she might be able to finally do something useful for Alton and Marc. Her throat, however, was still raw, and there was no telling what would happen if she touched the wall.
Duncan glanced over his shoulder. “Uh, oh, the lieutenant is headed this way and he looks none too pleased.”
She did not hesitate. No time to worry about consequences. She set Duncan’s pouch on the ground and laid her hands flat against the grainy texture of granite and sang.