The annual Festival of Blades brought a gay, carefree mood to Sumbria. For the nobility, the holiday celebrated the origins of families and kingdoms; a fine, defiant time where each city-state proudly shouted out its heritage. It would be a week for ambassadors and midnight balls, for tournaments and pageantry. Each noble house would strive to outdo the others in sheer magnificence and generosity.
In the drowsy warmth of a Sumbrian noon, Miliana walked through the wind-kissed colonnades. With her eyes half closed and her hair stirring out beneath her pointy hat to drift and feather in the breeze, Miliana could shut away Lady Ulia's voice and let the whole world pass her by.
Ulia never noticed; for her, life seemed to be a never-ending round of irritation and interference, and affairs never took a correct turn unless she was directly involved. Festooned in bells and ribbons, she trundled along at Miliana's side and shook the skies with her litany of woes.
"I told them! I told them all that I shall not suffer it! The parade has always left from the gates at midday. Why should they now desire to delay it by an hour?"
Letting one bored portion of her brain handle the appropriate prods to the conversation, Miliana stifled a yawn and turned her face into the breeze.
"If it's important, why not let them delay it for an hour?"
"Delay is change! Change!" Lady Ulia spoke the word like a witch's curse. "It is the thin end of the wedge. Once disorder is allowed, anarchy must surely follow."
"Anarchy?" Miliana watched a bumblebee meander past, and wondered where the creature's hive might lie. "Why anarchy?"
"When people fly off upon their own affairs, despite the seasoned wisdom of their betters, that is anarchy. Only social order brings peace, and peace is the tool for happiness." Ulia stabbed a scornful glance at her stepdaughter, irritated by the play of sun across the girl's freckled nose. "Really, Miliana, I sometimes wonder if you have absorbed any of your schooling at all. I think it is high time you turned your mind to higher things." Ulia stepped over a burnt, fur-edged crater in the cobblestones. "I am quite occupied enough without attending to your affairs every hour of every day. I have the tournament seating to arrange, the caterers for the banquet have presented the most awful menu, and now we have this painting affair as well…"
"Oh?" Miliana's bumblebee had landed upon a sprig of foxglove; the huge weight of the insect set the weed stalk swaying wildly up and down. "What painting might that be?"
"The painting, girl! The Lomatran painting! It is the betrothal gift from their embassy to our city." Ulia waved an arm and almost knocked Miliana's pointy hat clean off her head. "All very well for your father to arrange it; but where is it to be displayed? In what light, in what way, and who shall have the privilege of first viewing? Men are so impractical about such things…"
Guards were moving about the central courtyard of the palace. An engineer and a battle mage inspected windows, doors, and cobblestones, sketching notes for sinister protective spells. Miliana watched the sorcerer with mixed curiosity and utter jealousy, instantly planning an afternoon of work on her own magic.
The security arrangements seemed overly complex simply for a painting and a party, until Miliana remembered her last session of eavesdropping on her father's affairs.
"The jewel is coming here?"
"Indeed yes, child. The Sun Gem-the very heart and soul of the Blade Kingdoms!" Ulia fanned herself, wilting flowers with the strength of her perfume. "Colletro's agents must hand it over to us at the festival-their ransom for losing the campaign. But with this jewel thief running unchecked right through the town, we shall break the budget just on security for the wretched bauble!" Ulia placed fingertips across her eyes as if summoning a vision of the inevitable disaster. "It shall be the ruin of us all."
Miliana shrugged freckled shoulders in an utter lack of care.
"Why not just display a paste gem, and keep the real thing safely hidden away?"
With straightened back and a sideways sweep of her dark eyes, Ulia communicated absolute disdain.
"Really, my dear, you have no grasp of social niceties. It is a fault we shall labor to correct. Now do please leave me be. I have so much to attend to. So much to attend."
Success! Miliana closed her eyes in quiet pleasure as she withdrew. Lady Ulia bustled off like a shambling mound, leaving Miliana to spend a day in utter peace. Picking up her skirts, the girl swished off down the corridors to plan a perfect afternoon.
Reading, magic, and a bath.
Baths were Miliana's sacred times; a moment when she could lock her doors, hurtle her hat aside, and lose herself inside a universe of steam. With her chin over the edge of the tub, she would read and dream in blissful splendor until her fingertips turned white and wrinkly, and the water grew cold.
The advantages of her spellbook's rather odd construction had swiftly been demonstrated; the smelly toadskin seemed utterly waterproof. Three times now, Miliana had accidentally dipped a corner of the volume in her bath, and although the water suffered, the book itself seemed none the worse for wear.
Once safely locked inside her room, Miliana gave a gentle smile. On a warm summer's day, nothing could be more delicious than bathing with the doors to the balcony wide open. It brought in the sunlight, and helped stop her spectacles from clouding up with steam. Safe and secure with her high elevation, Miliana Mannicci, mistress of a thousand freckles, pulled the stopper from her bath faucet and began the pleasurable task of loosing her clothes.
The Blade Kingdoms were blessed by a firm grasp of plumbing technology. A gleeful team of fiery salamanders high up in the palace ceiling spent their days snacking on coal and bringing a water tank to the boiling point through the intense heat of their skins. A network of gleaming copper pipes-designed by madmen, but installed by efficient, military engineers-brought the water up across the garden wall, took a left turn at the outhouses, dripped merciless droplets into the Blade Council's meeting chambers, and finally coughed and spattered itself into Miliana's gigantic seashell bath.
The first glorious clouds of steam arose and drifted through the jasmine creepers smothering the rails of Miliana's balcony. Unnoticed among those leaves, a long tube slowly edged itself up across the balcony. The crook-topped end, equipped with a big glass lens, hunted back and forth for a while, fixed upon Miliana as she entered, singing, through her bathroom door, then settled itself contentedly into the concealing jasmine flowers.
Soothed by the sound of falling water, Miliana filled her bathroom with its essential supplies; towels, fuzzy slippers, her spellbook, and a mug of prootwaddle tea. Propping her book against a wooden washbasin, she began reading a page of confusing gibberish while beginning the wearisome task of undoing her bodice stays.
Frilly pants, gown, and pointy hat all ended up in an untidy heap on the floor, leaving Miliana naked but for a kiss of fine brown freckles. The girl closed her eyes and stretched herself, feeling the skin draw tight across her ribs, then opened one eye in puzzlement as an excited metallic clank came from the direction of the balcony.
The girl instantly ducked and scuttled like a crab for the shelter of a towel. Polishing her spectacles free of steam, she darted suspicious glances at the rooftops far and wide. The skies were free of hippogriffs, and her jasmine creepers concealed her utterly from view. With a sniff of her pert snub nose, the girl turned away and went to check on the progress of her tub.
Seen as the gods intended, Miliana seemed much like a svelte, bad-tempered, bookish nymph. Warm beneath a streaming cloak of her own soft brown hair, the girl leaned across the bath and dipped in an experimental finger, then instantly whipped about as yet another noise sent alarms chasing up and down her naked spine.
Nothing moved; no floorboards creaked, nor did any shadows move. Miliana thought of repeating her attempt to detect hostile magic with a spell, then remembered that her last attempt had instead drifted her helplessly out into the air above the courtyard. While no bad thing in and of itself, her current state of dress might make a repeat performance somewhat embarrassing.
Feathers rustled in the ceiling overhead. The noise, it seemed, had just explained itself-although the local cormorants must have reached the size of elephants, given the way they shook the plaster from the walls. With a sharp breath of self-irritation, Miliana turned back to her bath.
She eased herself into the tub one inch at a time. Hissing, sapped of energy and turning a quiet lobster pink, the girl settled her head back against the wall, closed her eyes, and let her mind wander off into a whirl of steam.
For three days and nights, Miliana had felt a hidden, watchful presence in the house, when she slept, when she dressed-even as she bathed. Experimenting with magic had brought the girl to grand new heights of paranoia; in her mind's fancies, she could imagine herself attracting the attention of unseen, unwholesome powers. Any sorceress worth her salt must surely be in constant danger.
The alternative suggestion, that Miliana was too insignificant for dire, extraplanar fiends to even waste a minute's time about, was simply too miserable a thought for her to contemplate.
Still, the thought had a certain common sense about it. Propping her cheek on her hand, Miliana heaved a great, unhappy sigh.
It would be a bewitching fantasy to consider herself even vaguely important, but the real facts were less than kind. There were no secret birthmarks on her backside, no hidden prophecies that made her the key to liberating mighty empires from evil overlords. Not even a magic talking pony as her special, secret friend…
It simply wasn't fair! Every other princess in the world seemed to have a damned prophecy! They were inheritors of evil dooms, magic powers, or the fates of empires. Instead, Miliana had an untranslatable book made from the skin of a dead toad (actually, a number of dead toads), and an attic full of overweight birds. The girl hurtled a pewter jug across the room in helpless frustration, hitting the jasmine creepers on the balcony and making an instant noise of breaking glass. Bits of lens and bent brass pipe went spinning to the courtyard cobbles-all unnoticed as Miliana flung her dripping arms about her knees and hugged herself in impotent misery.
She felt stifled, trapped by a world of rules. How much longer could she escape being forcibly married off to some half-witted Blade Captain? How long would it be before Lady Ulia drove her stark raving mad-or worse, taught her how to think and act just as they felt she should?
Marriage constantly threatened; a life spent shackled to the Lomatran court, or Colletro, or some other gods-forsaken who-knows-where. Magic was the only key to Miliana's prison door. All she needed to do was learn a spell or three; then she could run away somewhere and take adventure by the horns!
Sly and persuasive, Miliana's paranoia perched upon her shoulder and whispered dreary poison in her ear: A real heroine wouldn't have to go out and search for adventure. Adventure would simply tumble down into her lap! And would a wandering heroine have access to baths and slippers? Where would a girl find food and drink-a roof from the rain?
Real female adventurers all had skin-tight chain mail, fabulous blonde hair, and magical talking swords and battle-axes and the like. Miliana held out a damp strand of her long brown tresses, bowed her head and closed her eyes in miserable silence.
Remembering page twenty-seven of her spellbook with sudden, gorgeous clarity, Miliana gave a curse and violently splashed her bathwater at the walls.
The results were quite instructive. The spell syllable left Miliana's lips, images of runes burned hot and bright in her mental eye, and the entire world seemed to jump like a grasshopper. Miliana's bathwater rushed out of the tub all in one solid, speedy block-hit the wall and plowed clean through the flimsy plaster. Miliana blinked at the newly made door to her bedroom in surprise, then shrank helplessly back as a wooden structural beam resoundingly split itself in two.
There are few moments in life when a shy, downtrodden individual can truly feel possessed by the gods; time slows, the mind steps into overdrive, and the body moves with a speed, a surety and suppleness that has never been known before. A sword blow is dodged, a falling baby saved, an arrow parts the hangman's rope. These are the times when a mortal being feels utterly alive.
Sadly, for Miliana, this was not one of those times. With a melancholy sense of certainty, Miliana watched the wall collapse and the roof above her bath begin to sag. The ceiling quietly disintegrated into a storm of falling plaster, all of which descended straight down on Miliana's head.
Boards bounced, Miliana squawked, and untold tons of dust and rubbish thundered in from above: plaster, dead insects, live insects, bat guano, and rodent husks. As the piece de resistance, a warm, soft, heavy mass landed hard in Miliana's lap, thrashing and wailing in outrage and surprise.
After the storm, there came the lull. Plaster dust swirled in the air with a curious gentility. Miliana peeled free her spectacles and rubbed the smeared lenses clean using her own bedraggled hair. She put them back in place upon her nose, and stared dully down into the far end of her bath.
A rather surprised-looking bird had landed in the tub-a gigantic orange thing shaped like an over-elaborated peacock. It had a body at least as big as Miliana, coupled with a long neck, a curved beak, and great, razor-sharp claws.
The bird sat in the bathtub and looked at Miliana; Miliana sat in the bathtub and looked at the bird. Both creatures hit on the same inspiration at the self-same time, leaped madly out of the tub, and frantically ducked behind the nearest door.
Stuck all over from head to foot with plaster dust and insect husks, Miliana gave away her hiding place with a sneeze that almost blew her rib cage out. The girl crammed herself into a corner behind a dressing table, peering blindly out through filthy spectacles as she searched for a sign of the missing bird.
Beak. Big beak! The thing had to be a predator. Miliana flicked an eye toward the bedroom door, planning a very slow, very cautious retreat into the palace halls. Nervously wrapping herself inside a soggy towel, she began to edge her way toward her bedroom door.
"Tekorii-kii-kii! Tekorii-kii-kii!"
A great, giddy head-all feathers, dust, and daze, shot out from around the doorframe behind her and gave a hoot of glee. The girl gave a rabbit-squeak of fright, lunged into cover behind the bathtub, and crouched, peering at the intruder across the enamel rim.
Flapping ridiculously stubby wings, the huge bird waddled out onto the open floor; the creature seemed to be constructed mostly of tail, which dragged behind it like the train of an empress's wedding gown. It ducked its head up and down, left and right in mindless eagerness to inspect Miliana from all sides.
Entrenched behind her bathtub, Miliana tried her best to keep the beast away.
"I'm a sorceress! Oh boy-a really powerful sorceress!" The girl raised a hand and tried to encourage a blaze of power to swirl about her fingers. Unfortunately, whatever small store of magical energy Miliana possessed seemed to have spent itself in ejecting her bathwater.
Delighted by Miliana's feeble sparks, the bird vaulted up onto the edge of the bathtub. Fixing Miliana with a giddy smile, it flapped its wings, hurtled back its head, and set the rafters ringing with a ghastly, raucous cry.
"Tekorii-kii-kii!
"Tekorii-kii-kii!"
Gaping its beak open in joy, the bird beat itself in the chest with one wingtip and proudly struck a pose.
"Tekoriikii!"
Sitting on her rump in a pile of debris, Miliana heaved a weary sigh. She reached out a hand to the bird and solemnly shook the outstretched wing.
"Miliana," said the disheveled princess. "Terribly glad to meet you."
A suspicious burbling sound in the iron boilers at the far end of the apartment made Luccio Irozzi look up from his reading with a frown. The untidy mass of tubes and spheres shuddered, bulged, then leaked out a cloud of fragrant purple steam.
"Lorenzo? Lorenzo, come and see to your toys."
Nothing could be heard except the excited scratching of a pen somewhere in the adjoining room.
"Lorenzo?"
Luccio set aside his parchments and glided bonelessly over to the door.
"Lorenzo-if that contraption explodes and slaughters me, I must warn you that my will names you as inheritor of all my debts."
Lost to the world, Luccio's companion sat at a table covered with pieces of thick yellow paper.
"Lorenzo?"
The youth kissed charcoal across the pages with bold, brilliant sweeps of his hand, outlining curves and shadows in an almost random array. Luccio crept closer, watching in fascination as the random lines crept together into pattern, shape, and form, and finally meshed to make the figure of a slim, exquisite maid combing out great sheets of silken hair.
Sitting quietly on the edge of the table, Luccio gave a wry smile and drew the sketch into his hands.
"Drawn from memory?"
"What?" Lorenzo half-surfaced from his artistic frenzy, drawing with his left hand while scribbling notes mirror-wise with his right. "No no-observed. It's all live-drawn."
"Well she must be most accommodating. Either that or stark raving mad." Luccio held aloft a frontal study and raised an incredulous brow. "Are you sure she's a suitable model?"
"Why?" Lorenzo looked up at his friend in utter incomprehension. "What's wrong with her?"
"Um… she does lack… aaah… That is, she seems to have a certain sparsity of…"
"Of what?"
"Nothing." Luccio let the subject die a hasty death. "I'm sure this look will come into fashion someday soon."
Thrilled by a good afternoon of work, Lorenzo tossed aside his charcoal and began to briskly wipe his hands on a rag, somehow managing to actually make himself dirtier. His eyes never once left the intricate array of figure drawings on his tabletop: sketches of hands, of elbows and ankles, necks and feet, and all the numerous bits of terrain held in between. The youth picked up one heavy sheet and held it up to the light to admire the best, most subtle portraiture he had ever done.
"She's fabulous! If only you knew, Luccio, just how remarkable she is. Look at the cleanliness of that line."
"Quite." Luccio gave a shake of his head and let the drawings slide, mumbling: "It's certainly a rather straight line… Lorenzo, O scholar of mine, my dearest and truest of friends, I must now ask you to leave this paradise of artistic forgiveness, and answer for me four questions. That is-four questions of the simplest kind."
Lorenzo squared a velvet cap across his brows, and adjusted the rapier that fashion dictated he wear at all times.
"Do ask. You know I am ever at your disposal."
"In which case…" Luccio opened up the connecting door and waved a languid hand in the direction of the tables with their maze of liquids, tubes, and spheres. "At what point in your ancestry was a gnome involved? Should this device be leaking? Is it dangerous? And why does it smell of cherry fondue?"
Lorenzo gave a sharp wail of dismay. He flung himself through the door and frantically began twirling valves and beating out braziers with his hat. Luccio watched the process from the safety of the door and drew his brows into a genteel frown.
"Well?"
"Well what?" Lorenzo burned fingertips as he rescued a pot of foaming liquid from the top of an oil burner.
"What are the answers to my four questions?"
"To the first-none of your business. No, it should not be leaking. And no, it isn't dangerous."
A metal sphere burst with a thunderous bang; chemicals lashed across the room, chewing into the stonework wherever they chanced to land. Luccio shook pieces of smoking shrapnel from the crown of his hat, and used a rapier blade to clear himself space upon a chair.
"I see. And the cherry smell?"
Emerging from the wreckage with a heavy sigh, Lorenzo glumly contemplated the ruin of his pipes and tubes, vats and valves.
"It's from over there. The igniter chemicals for the experiment." The young scientist propped his cheek on his chin. "They don't want me using chemicals in the guest rooms, so I disguised the volatiles with the essence of cherry."
Luccio leaned back in his chair with comprehension dawning in his eyes.
"Aaaaah. And might local vermin have… eaten this concoction?"
"I suppose they may have." Lorenzo swept broken plumbing from his tabletop with a great, almighty clang. "Why do you ask?"
"Just curious."
There was a brisk rap at the door and Luccio, stepping through smoldering debris, swept the portal open with a bow.
"The volcanology emporium… may we help you?"
Bent almost in two, Luccio found himself eye to eye with a petite, freckle-spattered girl. She replied with a hurried little curtsy and a nervous glance left and right along the empty palace hall.
"Greetings, my lord." The girl's spectacles were blank sheets of reflected window light. "I'm looking for a Lomatran."
"Faith, then you have found one." Luccio made his most elaborate of genuflections. "Did madam have anything particular in mind?"
"An idiot with a big drawing pad?"
"Madam, I do believe we can help you." The lanky nobleman ushered his guest in through the door. "Lorenzo-it's for you!"
Stalking into the ruined apartment, Miliana spared a glance at the steaming scars gouged into the fine wood paneling and declined to make a comment. She lifted up her hems, stepped across a tangle of broken pipes, and went in search of a fool.
She found him on the floor, frenziedly decanting a vile cherry-colored liquid into a big glass jar. Lorenzo caught sight of her, instantly tried to leap to his feet, and banged his head painfully on the underside of the table.
"It's you!"
"So I'm told." There were times when Miliana's spectacles gave her a stare like a basilisk. "Does Lady Ulia know you're brewing cherry fondant in her good guest rooms?"
"Um… well… yes…" Lorenzo's skills at falsehood would have done discredit to a wingless fruit fly. "It all comes off with water!"
Miliana inspected a decayed patch of marble paneling. "It's eating into the walls!"
"Only a bit…" Lorenzo tried to buff a scorched table-top, which began crumbling to pieces in his hands. "No one minds. We all make a little mess from time to time."
Catching her foot on a piece of shrapnel, Miliana yelped and fell, only to be caught in Lorenzo's arms. The girl readjusted her pointy hat and scowled down at the debris in scorn.
"What is all this?"
"A light projector! It's going to be an engraving machine-or maybe a lathe." Lorenzo tried to kick broken pieces of steel tankage out of sight. "I'm having trouble with the right mix of chemicals."
"So I see." Briskly straightening her damp robes, Miliana let the subject drop like an overripe haddock. "Anyway-I came to ask you for some help. Do you know anything about birds?"
Lorenzo blinked in absolute incomprehension. "Birds?"
"Yes, birds. Birds?" Miliana stuck out her fingertips and wagged them frenziedly in the air. "Feathers, beaks, claws-birds!"
"Oh, as in avians." The young scholar puffed himself up in pride. "Actually, as it so happens, I am an expert on the subject."
"Truly?"
"I am conducting a close survey of wing structures as a basis for designing my flying machine." Lorenzo reached for a thick leather-bound volume lying on a rapidly disintegrating shelf. "My lady-you have a specimen you wish me to identify?"
"If it's no trouble." Miliana watched Lorenzo as he tried to tuck debris out of the way behind the drapes. "Just leave that. I'll have someone clean it up and repair the walls."
Lorenzo balked at this airy indication of Miliana's hidden powers.
"You can do that?"
Miliana turned about and looked at the young scholar in confusion.
"Well, of course I can do that." The girl looked at the damaged room and shrugged. "Anyway-it happens to me all the time."
"Oh."
"Yes-now come on. I don't want this 'specimen' running loose about my room unattended!"
Lorenzo gathered up his books, a butterfly net and a small magnifying glass, then struggled out into the corridors in hot pursuit of the girl.
He observed his companion as she walked, fascinated by the interplay of wistful expression, subtle line, and seething irritation. Passing by the kitchen door, Miliana stole one of Lady Ulia's fruit carts, trundling the collection of oranges, melon slices and cheese off along the halls to her tower. Keeping an eye out for passing stepmothers, Miliana opened her locks and hastily crammed Lorenzo through the open door.
"Tekorii-kii-kii! Tekorii-kii-kii!''
A raucous screech joyfully heralded their entry. Lorenzo hefted his butterfly net and moved to the fore, ready to snare Miliana's wild bird. Behind him, Miliana rolled in the fruit cart and nudged the door shut.
"I'm back!" Miliana whirred her cart past the startled Lorenzo and moved out into her room. "I brought you fruit-you know, to eat? Mmmmmmm! Yummy yummy!"
Lorenzo heard the flap of wings from deep inside the girl's boudoir. With a heroic flourish of his net, he stepped into the doorway, saw the creature sitting on Miliana's worktable, and froze as stiff as if he had walked in on a medusa in her bath.
Flapping happy wings in greeting, the titanic, silly bird rose from the table and floundered forward toward Miliana. A mixture of bright orange, golden yellows and rich flame reds, the creature's plumage smote the eyes. Cooing and cawing to itself, the bird strode waggishly forward to inspect the fruit cart with avid, hungry eyes.
In essence, the bird consisted of a long length of neck, a stubby body, and acres of glorious tail. This magnificence had then been garnished by adding a beak thick enough to sever a man's hand, and great hooked talons at the ends of cheery yellow feet. Lorenzo stared at the creature, felt the blood drain from his head; then drew his rapier and took an instinctive step to place himself between the fair damsel and the great carnivorous bird.
The movement took the feathery being all aback. The bird looked from Miliana to Lorenzo, flapped its wings in indignation, and suddenly seemed to swell up to enormous size. Feathers fluffed and neck arching high above Lorenzo, the bird shuddered with appalling rage and hissed its way across the floor.
Faced with a monster, Lorenzo crouched, desperately trying to decide whether to flee or fight. Seeing its rival cowed, the bird halted its rush and loomed above the young man, beak agape and wings shaking to and fro as it strutted back and forth in glorious majesty. Finally content with its display, the bird flattened down its feathers and waddled back to Miliana.
Lorenzo recovered slowly, like a garden snail emerging cautiously from its shell. The bird gave itself very superior airs, lowering its eyelids to look back across its shoulders in scorn.
Miliana watched the whole affair in wry silence, and then planted a fist upon her hip as she addressed the giant bird.
"Finished?"
"Nonk nonk!" The bird settled its feathers.
Without the slightest trace of malice, the bird happily sidled over to Lorenzo and inspected him from head to toe, seeming to approve of everything he saw. Lorenzo returned the creature look for look, studying it in speechless amazement. Bird and nobleman circled one another in a dizzy parade until Lorenzo pulled away and fixed his hostess with an incredulous eye.
"Where in the name of the Binder of What is Known did you find it?"
"Oh, it found me." Miliana busied herself peeling an apple, using a ridiculous amount of concentration and crinkling up her freckled, upturned nose. "Or rather he found me. He dropped in through the ceiling, just over there." The girl pointed with her fruit knife at a chaotic wreck of plaster, ceiling boards, and dirt. "I think he's been living up there in the attic for quite a while."
Lorenzo picked his way through the rubble, cautiously climbed onto the rim of Miliana's filthy bathtub, and used the perch to see up into the attic. The filtered light showed the conical space to be largely empty, except for a great pile of wrack and rags which Lorenzo took to be the creature's nest.
"Well, there doesn't seem to be any more of them."
"One's quite enough, thank you." Miliana passed each of her companions a slice of apple. The bird held the fruit delicately in his beak and rotated it around and around with flicks of a hard, horny tongue. "I've never heard of anything like him, have you?"
"No. No, not at all." Lorenzo hoisted his reference book onto his hip and opened the cover, jamming his apple in his mouth. "'Ot do 'ou call 'im?"
The bird replied with a great, eager flapping of wings.
"Tekorii-kii-kii!
"Tekorii-kii-kii!"
Miliana peeled another apple, her brows creasing themselves behind her spectacles. "… Tekoriikii."
"So I hear." Lorenzo tried to take measurements of the uncooperative Tekoriikii's skull. "There's quite an extensive cranium. Unusual for an avian, wouldn't you say?"
"Oh, he's intelligent." Miliana looked over at the bird, which was in danger of getting his head caught inside a flower vase. "Well-sentient, anyway. He does have a language."
"Truly?" Lorenzo inspected the patterns on the bird's tail feathers with his magnifying glass. "How can you tell?"
"You just have to watch him for a while. One picks it up eventually."
The bird stood on one foot, using his other claw to hold a big round cheese; he seemed to be consuming the hard rind and letting the soft center fall in pieces to the carpet. Miliana sighed and wondered how she was ever going to make the room seem clean. A maid would run wailing straight to Ulia; the only thing for it was to sweep up the filth herself, then see about patching the ceiling. Miliana stood to survey the damage, fists on her hips and her pointy hat tilted far back from her brows, while behind her Lorenzo and Tekoriikii deepened their acquaintance.
Using his magnifying glass, Lorenzo inspected Tekoriikii's talons, feet, and eyes; he flipped though pages of his book, thoughtfully holding drawings up against the light, then solemnly shaking his head in disappointment.
With her sleeves rolled up and a broom in hand, Miliana came to peer across the young noble's shoulder and scan his current page.
"Well, have you discovered what he is?"
"Absolutely!" Lorenzo closed his guidebook with a great, satisfied bang. "Master Tekoriikii is a phoenix."
The announcement was met by an unconvinced adjustment of Miliana's spectacles. Lorenzo decided that his professional judgment was being belittled, and opened up the pages of his book by way of proof.
"Here-see? Phoenix Nobilus Conflagrata-the sacred, or fiery, phoenix."
Miliana looked down at the picture in Lorenzo's book. It detailed a lean, elegant creature with willowy proportions and a haughty air sitting on a nest of crackling flames. The girl pushed her spectacles down her nose, peered across the rims toward the happy-go-lucky Tekoriikii, then swiveled hazel eyes back to Lorenzo's hopeful face.
"I think not."
"But milady, it's the same color. Look, do you see? Orange pinions and highlights of flame red hue."
"He is not a phoenix!" Miliana prevented the bird from swallowing a ball of potpourri. "Phoenixes are big on spontaneous combustion and very big on brains."
"Why does that rule out this specimen?"
Tekoriikii went avidly on about his affairs; Miliana irritably shifted the potpourri out of reach again. "Just call it woman's intuition. I think we can rule out the phoenix thing."
Lorenzo paused, sucking on the wrong end of his pen.
"We could always set fire to him and see."
"Not with my giant bird you don't!" Miliana threw protective arms around Tekoriikii's neck, and the bird blinked in surprise. "Now just search the book. Doesn't it say anything?"
Lorenzo sat cross-legged in the plaster dust and flipped through the pages of his references. Miliana swept the floor all around him; the bird soon came to her assistance and began carrying broken boards and plaster in his beak-usually depositing his loads on the patches of floor Miliana had just finished sweeping. Unseeing and uncaring, Lorenzo kept on with his studies, calling out possibilities through the legs of the fruit cart.
"Peacock?"
"A peacock?" Miliana's voice pealed loud in shock. "He's two yards long! Twelve if you count the tail."
"Maybe he's a giant peacock. Anyway, his tail's nowhere near ten yards. Maybe as many feet, but…"
Tekoriikii couldn't help a glance at his backside, then something like a shrug.
"Maybe." Miliana began dragging her bathtub over to her balcony. "Keep looking."
Lorenzo flipped a page, oblivious to the girl's surprising display of strength.
"Here's an axe beak. A sort of flightless carnivore. Would you say he's flightless?"
Tekoriikii obligingly extended a short, feathery wing. Lorenzo sighed and went back to his books.
"It would help if we knew where he came from. He can't possibly be native to the Blade Kingdoms. I still feel the red coloring indicates an affinity for fire." A drawing slipped from Lorenzo's volume, a detailed drawing of a falcon's wing. "Ask him if he came from an area of pronounced volcanic activity-like the Smoking Mountains of Unther or the Lake of Steam."
Miliana cocked an eyebrow at the bird, who threw back his head and began to play out a little dance.
"Tekorii-kii-kii! Tekorii-kii-kii!"
The creature danced a little to the left, danced a little to the right; shook his tail high while bobbing his head down low. Finally he extended one great yellow talon and made a ghastly noise reminiscent of a wet leather trombone.
Miliana turned back to Lorenzo with a sigh.
"He says he doesn't know."
Every other princess in the world managed to win themselves a magical talking horse or a pegasus or even a blink dog as their companion. Instead, Miliana seemed to have just acquired a giant, crazed, orange bird-of-paradise.
Lorenzo closed his books with a helpless shrug. The two young humans sat side by side on Miliana's bed and watched the bird preening the feathers under his wing.
"Will you make him a cage?"
"Certainly not!" Miliana was utterly outraged. "What a wretched suggestion. He's not doing anyone any harm up in the attic."
Lorenzo watched the busy bird with a blossoming sense of awe.
"I'd like to study him some more. Still-maybe we ought to make him feel more at home."
"How?"
"Maybe we could make an enormous seed bell?"
The bird had taken an interest in Miliana's picture books. He stood with his head cranked over to one side staring at a painted fairy tale. Handsome as a cast bronze god, the bird settled itself down and began to happily turn page after page.
Miliana regarded the creature with loving fascination; the expression lit her from within like a pure, new summer's dawn.
"This isn't so bad. I mean, how much trouble can a big orange bird be?" Her face suddenly innocent and eager, Miliana turned bright eyes upon Lorenzo and trapped him in her gaze. "Hey! Have you ever heard any prophecies about birds and princesses?"
"No." Lorenzo swayed, trapped by Miliana's brilliant gaze. "No, I can't say that I have. Why?"
"It was just a thought."
Evening was falling. In the palace courtyard, Lady Ulia's voice could be heard as she harassed decorators, servants, cooks and guards. The starlings swirled high above Miliana's balcony heading for their noisy beds.
Lost in peace and quiet, maiden, boy and orange bird all sat to watch the sky stream with tints of rose.
Lorenzo turned to watch the young woman at his side; her whole being seemed to shimmer as she smiled.
"Milady? How are you going to explain the broken ceiling?"
"I'm working on it." Miliana propped her chin on her knees and watched the glorious bright bird. "Let's just take one thing at a time…"
Skies darkened, starlings whirled, while in Miliana's room, Tekoriikii the firebird posed for Lorenzo's sketching charcoal with every appearance of joy.
Smeared with dust and cobwebs, Orlando Toporello thundered in through the Mannicci stables and slung his cloak across a stall. Mice squeaked and skittered from his path as he chased grooms out from hiding and bid them attend to his mount. Prince Mannicci watched all from his perch atop his own great golden horse, then swung himself down to greet his friend man-to-man.
"No sign, Toporello?"
"No sign, my lord!" Old Toporello slashed at a night-spider's web with his riding crop. "Another necklace stolen last night, right from under the eyes of the patrol. I have men combing every street, and there's not even a footprint to this cat-burglar's name."
"The festival will calm him." Prince Mannicci fell in step beside his oldest friend. "The parties will fill the palaces and give our thief too many eyes to dodge. We have a week in which to think of better plans."
Plans. Toporello sat and rested his weary bones on the edge of a fountain, cracking shoulders stiffened by long, hard years of drill and war.
"Speaking of plans, my lord, have the Lomatrans made any offers for your daughter's hand?"
"The bridegroom has asked to stay in the palace. He must be pressing forward with his suit."
"And what of the girl? Does she find the match worthwhile?"
"If it keeps Ilego from the door, it's well worthwhile."
Prince Mannicci had given his daughter his own sharp wits, clear mind, and stubborn will. The only thing he had refused her was his time. Toporello cast a glance toward the princess's little tower and chewed a strand of his own mustache.
"I see a pattern forming. Unless this boy is a better specimen than the last, I fear he shall soon discover the special joys that earwigs can bring."
"Earwigs?"
"Merely a reflection, lord, that clever sparrows can have sharp beaks." Toporello gave a sigh and heaved himself erect. "In any case, my lord, 'tis time for bed. Tomorrow brings the festival-and the dance with Ilego can grow tiring for old bones."
"I intend to see that we both make old bones." Prince Mannicci tightened the fit of his gloves. "Goodnight, old friend. Guard your back well."
Toporello faded into the evening gloom, leaving his monarch standing alone inside the fountain yard. Tugging his gloves hard down across his wrists, the prince stood and stared in silence at his daughter's balcony before stalking back inside the palace halls.