The Shepherd of Weeds (17 page)

“For that, we need Ivy.”

The room was quiet.

“Well, where is she?” Peps glared in Flux’s direction. “Cecil, you rely on the words of a scoundrel! His foul breath is laced with ill will and lies.”

“Patience, Peps. Soon we will have word.” Cecil’s voice was kindly.

“We cannot simply abandon my brother to his doom,” the trestleman muttered bitterly.

“Perhaps I might be of some assistance?” Flux called from his perch across the room. “I hardly see the benefit of keeping me idle. I hear you need an army. I do know a few things about tyranny.”

Cecil moved so his back was to Flux and lowered his voice further. Vague words drifted over to Flux, who caught a few fragments before thoroughly losing interest.

“There is one way—you know it, Cecil. Hawthorns …”

“The forest is cursed. Simply too dangerous to attempt …”

“Under other circumstances I would agree, but what choice do we have?”

“Treacherous … Imprisoned souls …”

“I’ve been there, don’t forget.… Slashing barbs, fetid streams. And worst: the feeling of always being watched … the trees. The malevolent trees.”

Flux rolled his eyes. The whole thing seemed quite pointless. The Steward must be desperate—or mad—to consult with such tiny men, no bigger than children. Anytime now, they’d be wanting a nap.

“Yoo-hoo? Hullo? Might I trouble you gentlemen for a drink?” Flux called across the room—as Poppy jumped up, alert eyes on him, mouth in a perpetual snarl.

He was again ignored.

“I—er—I am quite parched over here, you see. A little something to wet my whistle, if you please?”

Cecil waved his hand at a nearby guard dismissively. “Get the prisoner some water.”

“Water?” Flux was astonished. “Surely you can do better than that. I personally make it a point never to drink the foul stuff. It runs along the gutters, through the alleyways—I can’t imagine what people see in it. Of all things,
fish
live in it!”

He was getting no response.

“Perhaps a nice wine?” Flux tried again. “A vintage brandy?”

As no one seemed to care about his distress, he refused the water with a limp hand and returned to glumly staring at his shoes—which, he now noted, were in need of a shine.

“I say, the service has really declined in these parts,” he sighed.

Time is wasting
, the former assistant to Vidal Verjouce thought. He must get to Rocamadour. He eyed his porcine guard uncivilly, reaching for a wicked vial in his tattered waistcoat, the one he kept for just these sorts of situations.

Across from Axle’s trestle stretched the thick and foreboding Southern Wood, an ancient forest, the type that swallows curious children—respectably disorienting and dangerous. But for certain beings—ancient, enchanted, capable of great works of weave—it was just the place to invigorate and enthrall. The Four Sisters swept along at a steady clip, breathing deep the night air, sniffing the various woody delights, for they were made of these woods, they were at home. They searched, stopping for nothing until it was before them
.

Here was a tree, like any other, giant and towering. But this one had long ago formed a partnership with a small cottage, which protruded from the base of the trunk
.

Lola dusted her brown skirts where she had picked up a few stray twigs. “Ah—the King’s Cottage,” she murmured, sniffing the air
.

Around the kingdom of Caux, in sheltered coves or forgotten woods, sat a series of small cottages, waiting out the poisonous
regimes for the day the Good King would return. Each was like the next, in that they all had a generous table, set with two plates, two candles, and an earthen jug. They shared another similarity. They were also all gateways to the King’s lonesome retreat, a palace beneath the ground, fashioned from the living roots of the trees above
.

Lola inspected the small door before them. All appeared in order. Through the frosty windows, a table was set. An impressive fireplace was beyond, the chimney jutting cozily out one side of the tree
.

The sturdy front door was not locked for long—Babette’s rough hand held a ring of golden keys, and almost immediately the door swung open and the Four Sisters entered the gateway to Underwood
.

Lola was first down the stone steps hidden behind the fireplace—and she was first to emerge into the greenery of the underground royal retreat. What she saw there surprised her. The series of magnificent tapestries had emerged from their weave, and their growth had overrun the cavernous main chamber
.

Turning to the other three and batting a stray branch out of her way, she scowled. “Look at this mess!” she cried
.

“Naughty behavior indeed!” agreed Fifi
.

“The tapestries have been shockingly disobedient,” Gigi admonished
.

For a moment the foursome stood, taking in the disarray
.

“Well, ladies.” Babette now spoke. “I told you there was work to be done.”

he Field Guide to the Poisons of Caux
, on page 988, proclaims the nightingale to have the most mournful and most beautiful voice of all birds—but what Axle’s book does not say (a forgivable omission) is that the nightingale’s song also serves a cherished position in the hierarchy of birds. Its call brings all meetings to order. But bird etiquette was unknown to Ivy, Lumpen, and Rue (Six, however, knew much of birds—including their particular digestibilities).

So it was that when, from the darkness, a nightingale burst forth in its powerful song, none of the travelers knew that the caucus was about to begin.

Ivy, while still clutching Rue’s copy of the
Field Guide
, had little hope of consulting it. They were cornered, trapped on one side by chittering, cackling ink monkeys and on the other
by the shadowy form of two massive birds. Six let loose a low, throaty growl that, while scaring no one, did much to betray his own growing discomfort.

A few words about birds.

Like people, birds come in all shapes and sizes, and correspondingly possess varying personalities that should not be generalized. That said, robins can be relied upon to regularly argue and nitpick—they are intelligent creatures prone to disagreement. On the other hand, kestrels, respected warriors, are silent and aloof. Tiny sapsuckers are surprisingly fearless, while certain species of duck have an astonishing affinity for problem-solving. But it was an old friend of Ivy’s from Pimcaux, an albatross, that had once told her, “If you want something done, ask a crow.”

Appropriately, after the nightingale had finished its last lonesome trill—a particularly lovely one, it congratulated itself, for it was not without vanity—Shoo got down to business. Because, in the hierarchy of birds, it is the crow who wears the crown.

On the balcony of Jalousie, Ivy cowered in the shadows of the two great birds.

Ivy—
came the voice of one, a voice of the salt air, of sea spray and empty sky.

At first, Ivy shuddered, thinking her visions and whispers
of her father had returned. A fear welled up inside her, nearly overpowering her, and it was at these moments that the scourge bracken within her sensed her weakness, and its own power grew.

Child
—came a second voice, a finer one, although also of the sea.

She dared peek through laced fingers, and what she saw took a moment to grasp. These were not Rocamadour vultures at all! The last time she had seen these two great winged creatures, she was in Pimcaux.

“Klair! Lofft!” she shrieked. “Oh, is it really you?”

The albatross pair shifted their weight where they grasped the railing, lowering their heads in a humble greeting.

“It is us, child.”

“But how—?”

“Shh,” Klair advised. “The birds are caucusing.”

“A caucus?” Ivy asked, astonished.

“A very important one,” Lofft explained in a low voice.

The albatrosses regarded the large cat coolly and turned back to Ivy. “Your presence is requested.”

he fact that no one without wings had ever before attended a caucus in the history of Caux—let alone been the guest of honor—was a fact unappreciated by both Ivy and Rue. The girls were too busy holding on to the silken bridles that harnessed the giant seabirds as they careered through the crisp winter air.

Ivy had flown on Lofft’s back in Pimcaux.

There she had the distraction of being in Pimcaux—the beloved sister land to Caux, one whose mention peppered the lullabies and nursery rhymes of her childhood. And she flew through the Pimcauvian nighttime sky—one filled with silvery, winking stars in unfamiliar constellations. Further, her mind had been on her very real errand—to find the King—and her companion, a capable and glamorous alewife, was a welcome diversion.

Here the flight had a more urgent feel. The seabirds gained altitude in a series of dramatic wing flaps that nearly knocked Rue—whose health was returning, but who was a true novice at flying—off Klair’s back. Then, quite quickly, they were very high up, with a startling view of the gathering below, as the last wisps of evening were swept away by the tidy hand of night.

“Ivy!” Rue called, stretching her arms out in a bountiful gesture of flight that matched perfectly Ivy’s own exhilaration. Ivy was happy, too, to see a healthy flush in her friend’s cheeks. She turned her attention to the ground far below.

They had left Lumpen and Six on the balcony of Jalousie, with assurances from the well keeper that she would wait out the caucus in safety. Apart from the mansard roof and lonesome grounds of the manor house, Ivy saw nothing but feathers, gleaming, downy, bristling, and showy, in an endless tapestry of textures and colors. The bare trees that bordered the open moor were heavy with dark birds—and still, below them, more arrived. There was a low murmur. In the slight gray mist that had crept in, a symphony of musical voices hummed as all of Caux’s birds were speaking as one.

And then, a moment of pure silence as the albatrosses simply soared, where it seemed they were hanging in the air without effort—as if gravity itself had excused them from its conventions. But too quickly, Klair and Lofft started their descent—elegant wide circles—and Ivy and Rue were forced
to grip their harnesses tightly while squeezing closed their eyes, for the view below was approaching swiftly and dizzyingly.

The bumpy transition from air to land was tempered by Ivy’s extreme pleasure at being among so many birds. A small strip had been cleared for their arrival, and as she stepped off Lofft’s back unsteadily, nothing could have prepared her for the peculiar sensation of hundreds of thousands of their alert, button eyes upon her.

The albatrosses cried a long, lonely greeting to the endless caucus and stepped away, leaving Ivy in the forefront. And where there was silence in the moor, there now erupted a thunderous racket of such magnitude Ivy covered her ears before she realized what she was doing. Lofft and Klair had settled in behind the girls, in a ruffle of feathers, as they sat upon the earth with an expression of silent scrutiny. A minute passed, and some semblance of order was achieved.

A familiar, raspy call rose above the rest, and, in the dimness, Ivy saw a haphazard signpost that rose at an angle from the old stone wall beside her. A rusted nail loosely held a directional sign in place, and upon the weathered arrow sat a jagged silhouette of sleek spikes and proud tail feathers—which now flew silently to the young girl’s shoulder.

“Shoo,” Ivy whispered. Her crow—her longtime companion and confidant, her guide. He had escaped his tapestry, where he was trapped alongside a mysterious woman in white.
But the last time Ivy had held him was on Axle’s trestle, when her adventures were just beginning. Shoo had saved her from capture by an Outrider and suffered horribly in the process. With her elixir, she had cured him, but she had left him behind.

A surge of emotion caught her by surprise, and the tears finally came.