The Emperor's Ostrich Read online

  She ran on, past caravans filled with exotic animals, and wagons carrying tents, poles, and trunks of costumes. She remembered a carnival passing through Two Windmills when Begonia was a tiny thing. Ah, yes. Poka’s Carnival of Curiosities, read the gilt lettering on an especially fancy wagon. Elephants, giraffes, seals, and bears poked their heads between bars or out through upper windows. She saw a long-necked bird poke its tiny head through a small door in the roof of its wagon. The tiger’s cage caught her notice for a moment, for instead of a savage man-eating beast in the window, she saw the face of a boy, a boy with leaves and twigs stuck in his hair, watching the road pass by. Poor child, Chrysanthemumsy thought. What could he be doing in a cage? But search as she may, she saw no sign, no trace of her daughter.

  Chrysanthemumsy was breathless when she reached the front of the caravan.

  “Excuse me,” she called to a man in shiny boots, riding a gleaming horse at the head of the enormous train. “I’m looking for my daughter. She’s lost. Have you seen a girl? A milkmaid in a blue dress? She was searching for a cow, or perhaps by now she’s found it.”

  The man reined in his horse and gazed down at the woman.

  “Why, no,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry to tell you, dear lady, that I haven’t met this young maiden of which you speak.” He wiggled a finger in his ear. “Pardon me. Did you say you were looking for a boy also? A son, perhaps?”

  Still huffing and puffing, despite her sinking heart, Chrysanthemumsy shook her head. “I have no son.”

  “Ah.” The man in the shiny boots stroked his chin. “So sad, to lose a child. A loving parent would do anything to get their lost child back, wouldn’t they? Pay any price?”

  She nodded. “Any price I could,” she said, “though the ancestors know I haven’t got a buckle.”

  The man’s smile vanished. He clucked his tongue against his teeth. “A shame. All the harder for you, then.” He twitched his horse’s reins. “Time waits for no one, ma’am. I must be moving along. We perform tomorrow in Lotus City for the emperor’s birthday.”

  It was all she could do not to sink into the dust and sob. “Please,” she said, “sir, please. If you should meet a girl who’s traveling and lost, would you let her know I’m looking for her? And would you give her whatever help you could?”

  The man didn’t slow his horse, but he doffed his tall hat and placed it over his heart. “You have my word.”

  She stood there dejectedly as the slow caravan lumbered past her and left her alone. Soon Song and her baby reached her. Song shifted the baby to one hip and placed her free arm over Chrysanthemumsy’s shoulders.

  “No luck?” she whispered.

  The sun was sinking out of sight now, through the trees, and the dome of sky overhead was transitioning through its softest shades of deepening blue. The sounds of the caravan gradually died away.

  Then the mother’s tears broke free. “Oh, Begonia, where are you?” she called aloud. “Hear me, ancestor spirits! Why can’t I find my missing girl?”

  As if in answer to her cries, a chiming tone rang through the trees.

  Chrysanthemumsy’s skin prickled. Had one of her foremothers answered her?

  The bell chimed again, and tinkled, as if swung gently back and forth in time with a happy tune. Then a musical moo joined the chorus.

  “Alfalfa?”

  She lifted her skirts and ran, calling to her cow, who mooed her homesick moos in return. Chrysanthemumsy hadn’t gone far into the woods before she found her beautiful white cow with the flower-shaped spot on her forehead and threw her arms around her neck.

  “Oh, Alfalfa, how on earth did you get here?” the anxious mother cried. “And where did you get this bell? Where you are, surely Begonia can’t be far behind.”

  But call and cry out as she might, Begonia never answered. And Alfalfa wasn’t in a mood to stay put. She pressed through the forest, following the direction of the road but keeping out of sight among the trees.

  “What’s your cow doing?” Song caught up to them just then.

  “I don’t know,” said Chrysanthemumsy. She blocked her cow’s path. “Come on, Alfalfa. Come with me.” But the cow, as if on a mission, veered around her and kept going.

  Chrysanthemumsy tugged the cow’s bell, heaved against her flank, and bellowed in her ear, but nothing would deter this cow from moving forward.

  “Does she always act like this?” asked Song.

  Chrysanthemumsy shook her head. “I’ve never seen her do this before.”

  “It seems,” said Song, “as though she’s searching for someone.”

  The two women gazed at each other. “Begonia?” whispered Chrysanthemumsy.

  Song shrugged. “Who else might it be?”

  “Let’s follow her, then.”

  Beams of dying light swung through the trees as they followed Alfalfa’s steady tread. She never went to the road, but she stayed close to it. Once, Chrysanthemumsy thought she heard the trumpeting of an elephant from the carnival. Alfalfa was making good time.

  “This road leads to Lotus City,” said Song. “Perhaps I can find out how my husband is doing. Maybe bring him some food.” Her face brightened. “Maybe I can do some work to earn money to pay the marriage tax, and then they’ll let him go.”

  They came into a clearing, where a larger helping of fading light lit up Alfalfa’s white hide until she glowed golden. Chrysanthemumsy stroked a hand along the cow’s spine.

  She paused when her fingers felt something stiff and crusty. In the dying light, she saw it, and her face fell. Song gave her a curious look.

  “Blood,” Chrysanthemumsy whispered. “Oh, ancestors. Let it not be Begonia’s.”

  Song, perhaps sensing this was a time when tremendous comfort was needed, offered her new friend the best thing she had. “Here,” she said. “Take the baby.”

  Chrysanthemumsy’s hands obeyed. But though the baby cooed his sweetest and best for her, her eyes were far away, and her arms shook to the touch.

  “I’m sure it’s not your daughter’s blood,” said Song.

  But she wasn’t sure, and Chrysanthemumsy knew it.

  23

  DISBELIEF, AND A DARING PROPOSITION

  Few people find the sensation of waking up to cat hairs tickling the insides of their noses to be a pleasant one. In this regard, Begonia held the majority opinion. But compared with the shocks that followed, waking up to Stormcloud’s twitching tail hair up her nose was the best thing that had happened to her since Poka’s henchmen threw her into the tiger cage with Key.

  The first shock: remembering that, in fact, Poka’s men had kidnapped her and locked her in this dark and stinky cage, which now rumbled over bumpy roads in a most uncomfortable way.

  The second shock: remembering that Alfalfa was lost once more. Her silly, pretty, impetuous cow. In love with an ostrich! What kind of a cow would fall in love with an ostrich?

  Next, remembering that the ostrich was captured, and so was its owner, Lumi, who deserved every bad thing that had happened to him, not only because he was a rotten stinker, but also because he’d actually told the soldiers to arrest him. The nitwit! The imbecile! The nincompoop!

  Yet, for all the biting words she could think of to describe him, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for Lumi. He was helpless, and helpless creatures, Begonia felt, deserved pity. Wounded birds and so forth. He didn’t deserve to be thrown into the emperor’s dungeons.

  But Lumi was bound for those dungeons, and Begonia, for being naïve enough to try to help him, was bound to work for Poka until she became a tiger’s dinner. She’d managed to escape the panthers once. She doubted she’d be so lucky twice. Lumi, come to think of it, was lucky to be sent to the dungeons. At least he wouldn’t be eaten there.

  What kind of an emperor would keep such dungeons? It seemed that if anyone was thrown in there, they were never seen again. Guilty or not. It was so unspeakably unfair! In Begonia’s life up till now, her biggest concerns had been things like weed
s in her vegetable beds or hens hiding eggs. Questions about justice and crime and law had never entered her thoughts. She’d been taught, as all children were, to revere the emperor as noble and good and wise. How else could he rule such a great empire as Camellion? Could emperors be cruel and wicked men?

  Her biggest shock, in short, was realizing that the world was not quite the safe, predictable place she’d always assumed it to be back at home with Peony and Mumsy.

  Thoughts of Mumsy threatened to make Begonia lose her composure completely. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and crawled over to the window.

  The night was fully dark, but a three-quarter moon swam in the sky overhead, casting a little light through the bars into her cage. In the corner where the pile of straw was the deepest, Key slept with his face pressed against the floor, his derriere pointing high up in the air.

  She was ravenously hungry. The breakfast milk she’d drunk was hours ago. She remembered the spicy mustard in her pocket that Madame Mustard-maker had given her. She was hungry enough to stick her finger in the pot and eat a fiery mouthful.

  So she did.

  But instead of spicy mustard burning her tongue, a warm, smooth taste filled her mouth. Butter and honey, spread thick and dripping off freshly toasted, newly baked bread. A thick slab, with a mug of warm cinnamon milk to wash it down. Her belly felt as contented as a cat in a summer window.

  What in the name of the ancestors? Magic mustard, too?

  She nearly tipped the pot upward to guzzle it all. Then she remembered Key. He’d be hungry, too. Reluctantly, she corked the pot and tucked it back into the apron for when he woke up. Her fingers brushed her magical map, so she pulled it out and unrolled it. By milky moonlight, she watched and waited patiently to see which way the map gradually, almost imperceptibly, moved. It took an eternity to feel sure, but, finally, there could be no doubt. They were headed west by southwest on a road that led to a dark sprawl of buildings and shapes. A city. At the farthest edge of the map, she saw a grand and elegant building.

  The palace. Lotus City.

  Not many Two Windmillians had ever laid eyes on the enameled spires and gilded temples of Lotus City. And now Begonia was on her way to the seat of the divine emperor himself. Surely, she thought, there must be a way to break free from this vile Poka’s carnival and disappear into the crowds in such a vast city. And when she did, she swore, she would go speak with the emperor himself, explain what had happened to them, and ask that Lumi be set free.

  But the emperor had been kidnapped! Well, if he hadn’t returned, she’d find somebody in charge. The new chancellor, for one.

  And to think that she’d only left on this journey to find her cow.

  Poor Alfalfa.

  Poor Sprout, at home and missing her mama cow.

  Poor Mumsy, worrying about her daughter.

  “I’ll be home soon, Mumsy,” she whispered. “I promise. I just need to stay away a little bit longer to help a friend.” Some friend, she thought bitterly. Stormcloud twitched her fluffy tail across Begonia’s nose.

  The wagon dipped sharply. Begonia nearly fell, only just catching herself. The wagon continued to lurch along at a slow, clumsy pace.

  Key rose from his pile of straw. “What happened?”

  Begonia watched through the bars. “I think we just went off the road.”

  They slowed to a stop. Around them they heard voices calling to one another, men unhitching wagons and bringing feed bags and towels to rub down their horses. Begonia and Key pressed their bodies against the walls of their cage, out of view of the barred windows.

  “We’re stopping for the night, I think,” Begonia whispered. “I checked the map. I’m pretty sure we’re bound for Lotus City.”

  Key nodded. “Earlier, while you were sleeping, I heard Poka tell some woman he met along the way that that’s where we’re going.”

  A shadow appeared in the barred patch of moonlight on the floor of their cage. The shadow of a man with a wide, round head and a tall hat.

  Begonia held her breath. Key snored loudly and gestured for her to do the same.

  They waited many tense minutes as the shadows, footsteps, and voices passing back and forth along the caravan slowly died down and finally came to a stop. Still longer they waited. Begonia’s neck was stiff, and her eyes had grown heavy once more. A little more sleep, she began to think, would do wonders.

  Key, it seemed, had other plans.

  “Well, that’s it, I think,” he said. “Everyone’s down for the night and asleep after a tiring day of travel. May they sleep soundly and well. Not that I’m kindly inclined toward them. Not in the least! But it does seem like they’re now adrift in the seas of slumber. Wouldn’t you say so?”

  She shrugged. Key’s ramblings only made her tired. “I guess.”

  “Time then,” said Key, crawling toward the door, “to be moving on.”

  “What?”

  He looked at her curiously. “Unless, that is, you want to join the circus?” He rummaged through his sack and pulled out a ring containing old keys, short metal tools, and various bent wires. He poked at the lock for only a moment. Begonia heard a click. Key slowly pushed the door open. It squealed on squeaky hinges, and they waited to make sure no one heard. Stormcloud wasn’t so cautious. She leaped onto the wet grasses shining in the moonlight below.

  Begonia climbed down carefully after the cat, and Key brought up the rear.

  They glanced around at the slumbering carnival. Its garish colors were painted blue-black by the night. Its majestic animals had bedded down to the noisy snores peculiar to their kind.

  “Now what?” asked Key. “Back to the road?”

  “How did you do that, Key?”

  “Later,” he whispered. “Let’s go.”

  Begonia helped Stormcloud perch on her shoulder. “Shouldn’t we free Lumi’s ostrich?”

  Key frowned. “We’d risk getting caught. Would he even come with us?”

  The thought of Poka making off with Lumi’s monster bird made Begonia’s head hot.

  “Even if he won’t come,” she whispered, “we should stick it to Poka, don’t you think?”

  Key shrugged. “As you like. But there’s bound to be trouble.”

  They tiptoed along the line of wagons, trying to find the ostrich’s. They had to peer inside each cage. At one cage, a ferocious eye flew open, and a bloodthirsty growl split the night. It was all Begonia could do not to scream. Stormcloud’s tail puffed out as thick as Begonia’s arm.

  “Just a hungry lion, is all,” gasped Key. “Come on. Just a couple more now.”

  They found the ostrich’s cage at last. He lay on the floor with his legs tucked under him and his neck upright. His body looked like a huge brown egg in the dark.

  “How can he sleep like that?” whispered Key.

  “Who cares?” Begonia replied. “Just get him out.”

  This was no easy task. Key got through the lock quickly enough, but they both knew the deadly power of those long pink legs and didn’t want to risk getting kicked in the belly as their thanks for rescuing him. They whispered and hooted softly to him, but he didn’t budge.

  “His eyes are open,” Key whispered.

  “He sleeps with open eyes?” She racked her brains. “We’ve got to lure him out. With what? What does an ostrich want? What matters to a big, dumb bird?”

  “Your cow, I think,” said Key.

  She tugged at his sleeve in the dark. “Great idea, Key!” In low tones, Begonia mooed, doing her best Alfalfa imitation.

  The ostrich stirred, and blinked, and rose on powerful legs to his fearsome two-toed feet, struggling to know what to do with his head in the cramped cage.

  “It worked!” Key cried softly. “I never would have believed it.”

  “I’m good at cow sounds,” Begonia admitted. “It comes with being a dairymaid.”

  “Who’s there?” a deep voice bellowed from somewhere along the caravan.

  “Hurry! Quick!” Key waved
frantically at Begonia. She backed away, mooing still more. The ostrich poked his long head out the open door and hesitated. Key scrambled up behind and gave him a push. They both tumbled out in a rush of lanky limbs and feathers.

  “Run!” Begonia called to them, bolting toward the road. “Mooo!”

  “Stop! Thief! Get back here!” cried the angry voice.

  Darkness was their only cover, though the moon was bright. Here there were no trees to hide them, only low rolling ground strewn with shrubs and boulders. They stumbled and raced toward the road. A gray bolt of fur shot past Begonia’s feet and disappeared into the night. The ostrich, gathering that this was to be a chase, stretched his legs forward and settled into a loping stride that soon left Key and Begonia far behind.

  Running in the dark was dangerous business. The ground hid rodent holes and tufts of weeds sure to trip up runners and sprain their ankles. The escapees finally reached the road and found the ostrich there, standing in the middle of the highway, dazed and blinking.

  “He probably thinks he’s dreaming,” Begonia said. “I wonder if I am, myself.” She paused to listen for the sound of pursuing feet. Or hooves. Or goodness knew what. Perhaps Poka would unleash the lion to hunt them down.

  They heard nothing, so they walked on as quickly as they could.

  Begonia turned to Key. “How on earth did you pick the lock to our cage?”

  Key waved a modest hand. “Locks are one of my hobbies, you might say. I am no mere Finder of Things That Are Lost and Noticer of Things That Weren’t There Before. I am also a Disbeliever in Locks.”

  She tapped her ear to make sure it still worked. “You’re a what?”

  “Locks can only hold you in if you believe they should,” said Key. “It’s amazing how many people believe in locks. I choose not to.”