The Emperor's Ostrich Read online

  25

  WHERE A COW LEADS, AND A MOTHER’S PLEA

  Chrysanthemumsy, Alfalfa, Song, and the baby entered Lotus City’s gates just as a grand gathering of citizens seemed to be breaking up. Crowds were dispersing from a large grassy park just through the main gate. The city seemed decked out for a party—the emperor’s birthday party, of course!—but the people leaving the assembly looked bewildered and grief-stricken. Many were in tears. Tents and banners drooped as though the festival had taken a tragic turn.

  Alfalfa found the nearest avenue heading up to the palace and began to climb. Song lagged somewhat behind with her child in her arms. Chrysanthemumsy tried asking passersby if they’d seen her daughter. But what could she say? A girl with dark hair? Most people had dark hair. A girl in a shabby blue dress? That was nothing special. Her best hope, it seemed, was to follow the cow.

  They hadn’t gone far, though, when Alfalfa’s white hide attracted the gaze of someone Chrysanthemumsy knew.

  “My good woman,” said a voice at her side, “I see you’ve found your lost cow?”

  “Oh, it’s you,” the mother replied. “From the carnival.”

  “It is, as you observe, I, Poka, proprietor of Poka’s Carnival of Curiosities.”

  “Have you happened to see my daughter since I saw you last?”

  He placed his hand over his heart. “Alas, madam, I still haven’t laid eyes upon her.”

  Chrysanthemumsy swallowed her disappointment.

  “Have you heard the news?” Poka asked. “About the murder of the emperor, just last night? On the very eve of his birthday?”

  “No!”

  “It’s tragic,” the carnival proprietor said. “By law, since there is no heir, the chancellor assumes the throne. He just explained it in a speech.”

  The chancellor. She remembered the wedding, the soldiers, and the new taxes. “But the new chancellor’s terrible,” she protested. “Hardfisted and cruel.”

  Poka cocked his head to one side. “You’ve met him?”

  “No…”

  “I plan to ask him,” Poka said, “if our circus can perform at his scepter ceremony. Otherwise our trip here, to perform for the former emperor’s birthday, was for nothing.”

  Chrysanthemumsy barely heard him. She feared she had said too much. Just enough, perhaps, about the future emperor to be accused of treason. Somehow she wouldn’t put it past this Poka to tell on her if doing so would benefit him.

  The carnival proprietor stayed alongside her, though he grew winded by the uphill climb.

  “Is there something you want, sir?”

  “As it happens,” he puffed, “I, too, have lost a beloved creature. Now, don’t grieve for me. It’s nothing so precious as a child. But my carnival animals are like children to me.”

  She wished he would leave her alone, but her nature was kind. “I’m so sorry to hear it.” Then a frightening thought struck her. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost a lion or a tiger! Ravaging the countryside, where young girls are about”—she stifled a sob—“searching for their lost cows!”

  Poka offered her a dotted handkerchief. “My dear, dear lady, I beg you not to trouble yourself on that account! The creature I’ve lost is nothing near so frightening.” He tucked the kerchief back in his purple striped vest when she refused to take it. “I’ve lost my postrich.”

  “Your what?”

  “My postrich.”

  Chrysanthemumsy remembered, then, the skinny bird neck she’d seen poking out of one of Poka’s wagons. “I think you must mean ostrich,” she told the carnival man.

  He coughed. “People with less expertise in animals have been known to call them that.”

  She sighed. “Your giant bird, then.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Sir,” she said patiently, “I’m sorry to hear it, but I don’t see what it has to do with me.”

  Poka placed a hand over his wounded heart. “You asked me to keep an eye out for your missing daughter. I simply wondered if you might return the favor and look out for my missing postrich.” He lowered his voice. “Someone,” he whispered, “has stolen him from me.”

  “Since last night?”

  He nodded. “Precisely.”

  “And you think,” she said, “that I might come across this bird of yours?”

  He shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. Good morning to you, madam.”

  He turned and headed back down the hill, leaving Chrysanthemumsy alone at last with gloomy thoughts. The emperor, killed! The chancellor in charge! It was a cruel world. She quickened her pace. She must find Begonia. Nothing seemed safe anymore.

  Still Alfalfa wound them up the hill, straight toward the palace. Could Begonia be there?

  “Ancestors, please,” she whispered. “Lead me to my daughter. Or her to me. I beg you.”

  Their arduous climb led them to the palace gates. Alfalfa didn’t stop but turned along the wall. Song, catching up to Chrysanthemumsy, wiped her sweaty forehead and shifted her baby to her other arm. “What’s the cow doing?” she panted. “Taking a tour?”

  Then the cow stopped, right outside a gardener’s shed. Chrysanthemumsy’s heart flopped in her chest. Begonia wouldn’t be in there. And if she was, it couldn’t be good.

  With a trembling hand, she opened the shed. Its lock barely even held. Out burst the skinny head and enormous body of an eight-foot bird. At the sight of it, Alfalfa mooed with joy and nuzzled her white head against its feathery body. The bird wrapped its neck and wing around Alfalfa in a gangly embrace.

  Song laughed at the sight, but Chrysanthemumsy’s head spun. It was so terrifyingly huge up close! And those feet—they were the monster tracks she’d seen. What could it all mean? First that unpleasant Poka, jabbering about his stolen “postrich,” and then Alfalfa leads them straight to this hidden ostrich. How could she have known it was here? And what did it have to do with Begonia?

  She sank to the ground in the welcome shade of thick shrubs along the wall and hid her face between her knees.

  Some distance away, a procession of people approached the palace gates. A lordly-looking man in white, and two companions, one in red and the other in blue, approached. Song joined Chrysanthemumsy between two rhododendron bushes, and together they peered through the leaves at the men and listened.

  “Well done, Duke,” said the short man in red.

  “Don’t call me ‘duke.’ It’s ‘emperor.’”

  “Technically not yet,” said the man in blue, who received a snarl in reply. The man in white turned and waved slowly to the dispersing crowds below.

  “What a bore,” he muttered. “You two, go inside and make sure my lunch is ready. And then,”—he paused, and smiled slowly—“I have many more questions to ask of our latest visitor, about this … this person the soldiers arrested.”

  His two companions chuckled, until the man in white prodded them once more to fetch his lunch. They turned and headed for the palace while the emperor-to-be waved and smiled through his teeth at the people below.

  “That’s the emperor?” whispered Song. “There’s no way he’s turning twenty-two.”

  “He’s the new chancellor,” Chrysanthemumsy said. “The one who made the tax laws that got your bridegroom tossed into jail. He plans to take over the empire.”

  Song had a hard gleam in her eye. “Should I go kick him in the shins?”

  Chrysanthemumsy rose. “No,” she said, “I need his help.” She hurried toward the man. Never before would she have been so bold, but never before had her daughter been missing.

  “Most gracious lord.” She bowed. Her words tumbled out. “I beg you, hear me. My daughter, she is missing. She went searching for the family cow and never came home. I came looking for her, and I found the cow, but not my daughter. I followed the cow, and it led me here to an ostrich. It is very mysterious. Even more odd, there’s a man down there, with the carnival, who says someone has stolen his ostrich, and, oh! My lord!” Her tears bubbled to the surface.
“Something’s terribly wrong. Who could have taken my girl?”

  The man in white stared at her in horror as if she had just turned into an ostrich on the spot.

  “A daughter, a cow, and an ostrich?” he repeated slowly. “Why ostriches? Why today? And why me?” He shook his head and muttered to himself, “Is there a connection?”

  “Yes,” Chrysanthemumsy cried, “an ostrich. And a cow, and my daughter. Do you know anything about them?” It seemed as though he might. Hope sprang alive once more.

  He wiped imaginary dust off his fingertips. “Why on earth should I?” he answered. “What do you want from me, woman?”

  Chrysanthemumsy’s gaze fell to his royal feet. “Help to solve this riddle,” she whispered. “Searchers, to help me find her. A proclamation, sent from your majesty, requesting anyone with knowledge of my daughter to come forward. Such things would not be done in vain. Please, gracious emperor. Your help is my only hope.”

  But as the distraught mother talked, his eyes grew harder, more calculating.

  “You presume a great deal,” he said. “But, as this is the week in which I’ll take up the scepter, I am in a gracious humor. And the particulars of your case intrigue me. I, too, am eager to lay this mystery to rest. Would you accompany me into the palace, and after I gather my advisors, we will confer over a plan to help you find your daughter?”

  “Oh!” she cried. “Magnanimous ruler! Bless your generosity.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Bless it, indeed. This way.”

  Her feet were light beneath her as she hurried after him along the path. In her elation, she forgot she was leaving Song, the baby, and the animals behind. So full of hope was her heart that she failed to notice the pavement of the walk, fashioned of polished rose quartz stones fitted together in a pattern of rolling waves. She failed likewise to take in the splendor of the eastern entryway, with its hanging silk tapestries and marble statues. Her mind was only on her daughter.

  Which may explain why she also failed to notice, at first, that after the chancellor-cum-emperor showed her into a small room, and bid her wait for him there, he shut her in and locked the door.

  26

  NEW ALLIES, AND A RESCUER OF IMPRISONED PERSONS

  The sun was a good deal higher in the sky when Key jogged over to the gardener’s shed and collapsed onto the grass.

  “Crunching crawfish!” he yelped when he saw a woman playing with a baby on the lawn and Alfalfa cuddling with the ostrich. “Alfalfa the cow! What’s she doing here? And who are you?”

  The woman watched him curiously. “My name is Song,” she said. “You know this cow? I traveled here with a woman who owns this cow, and whose daughter got lost trying to find the cow and bring it home.”

  “That’ll be Begonia,” said Key. “She was here an hour ago.”

  Song brightened, and her baby giggled. “She was? Chrysanthemumsy will be so relieved to hear it! Here. Hold my baby.”

  Key took the child uncertainly, then smiled at the wee face. The baby had such joyful brown eyes that he couldn’t help himself. “But why isn’t she here now?” He considered. “You said Chris-umsy. Chris-anthe—” Key gave up. “I think Begonia calls her Mumsy.”

  “Mumsy,” Song repeated. “I like that.”

  “You said Mumsy is in the capital. But where is she now?” asked Key.

  Song’s expression grew worried. “I don’t know,” she said. “She went to speak with the chancellor, who’s apparently about to become the emperor, half an hour ago, then followed him into the palace and never returned.”

  “The chancellor, becoming the emperor…” Key rose to his feet. “And you’ve been waiting here half an hour? But you never saw Begonia come this way? A girl with a pink scarf?”

  Song nodded yes, then shook her head no.

  Key raked his fingers through his hair. “That Begonia!” he exclaimed. “She promised she wouldn’t try to talk to anyone from the palace until I was back from the dungeons. We agreed it was the safest plan. As damsels in distress go, she’s a slippery one. I think she’s determined not to be rescued.”

  Song interrupted his thoughts. “Have you got a name?”

  “Oh,” said he. “I’m Key.”

  “Good to meet you, Key.”

  “You as well.” He brooded. “If Begonia tried to talk to the emperor, or the chancellor, whichever one she can find, she could be anywhere now.” He looked sadly at the baby jabbering in his arms. “That means she’s most likely in the dungeons.”

  Song reached for Key’s wrist and held it tight. “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure,” he said. “I don’t know if the stories are true, but they say that people who address royals and dignitaries without permission often end up there.”

  “Then Chrysanthemumsy must be down there, too,” said Song. “And so’s my husband.”

  “Prancing prawns!” Key whistled. “We’ve got to get them out of there!”

  Song paced. “But how? Nobody ever escapes those dungeons.”

  Key puffed out his scrawny chest for all he was worth. “You don’t know me yet, Madam,” he said, “but I’m a Rescuer of Imprisoned Persons, a Disbeliever in Locks, and a Romantic in General.”

  Song pursed her lips. “Are you, now?”

  “I am,” said Key. “The reason no one’s ever escaped from those dungeons before, begging your pardon, is that no one yet has had my help to do it.”

  Song watched Key thoughtfully. “You’re a strange string bean,” she said, “but you just might be able to do something.”

  Dire though their situation was, Key smiled once more at the baby. He couldn’t help it. “I will do something, madam. You can count on me.”

  Song gave him a funny look. “You’re pretty nervous, aren’t you?”

  “Terrified.”

  “Known this Begonia long?” asked Song.

  “I met her two days ago,” confessed Key.

  Song nodded knowingly. “That’s the day I met my husband.”

  It took Key a moment to realize what she’d said. “Your husband? Two days ago you met your husband?” His eyes bulged. “You’re joking!”

  “Not at all.” She dusted off her dress. “Well, Key. I’ll come with you and help any way I can. I think I have an idea that might help, but to carry it out, I’m going to need to hold the baby.”

  27

  THAT WHICH TERRIFIED A STORK

  Atop the narrow peak of the palace’s highest towers, flagpoles reached high into the sky, waving the proud, colorful banners of the dynasty that had ruled Camellion these last eight hundred years. Most creatures, if they had to live close to the sound of those flapping, fluttering flags, would have found it vexing in the extreme, but the stork pair that had chosen to build their heavy nest at the base of those flagpoles didn’t mind it. Their fledglings, when they hatched, would be hidden from view to all but the highest-flying predators, and they—the eagles, the kites, the buzzards—were scared off by those waving flags. So long as those flags kept flapping, it was stork paradise.

  If Mama Stork was paying attention, she might have seen a human figure sitting cross-legged atop the tower’s ledge, with both palms pressed together above his head, looking down on the swirling movements of the pinhead-sized people below.

  “Finally, you do your serenity exercises!” said a voice.

  Mama Stork, had she looked upward with her graceful beak and supple neck, would’ve seen the man joined by a small woman.

  “You can’t hide from me forever, dearie,” she said. “I’m catching on. Now I always search for birds.”

  The man never blinked. His eyes took in the teeming life below, all those little blots of color, as if he could count and name each of them. “I’ve been busy.”

  “Well?” The old lady hopped up onto the ledge and balanced daintily on one toe, stretching her other leg high overhead. She looked as graceful, coincidentally, as a stork. “How’s your emperor doing? Will he be able to save your dynasty? Restore justice to
your empire?”

  The man broke his gaze away from Lotus City below. “This isn’t about me.”

  “Ha! Is that so?”

  The wind died down, and the flapping flags hung limp against their poles. High overhead, the piercing eye of a soaring Imperial Eagle detected movement as Mama Stork wedged a little stick into the expanding architecture of her nest.

  “Listen,” the man said, “don’t you have a dairymaid to rescue or something? One of your granddaughters?”

  “Begonia? She’s doing fine.”

  “I doubt that’s what she’d say right now,” the old man said. “A prisoner in this very palace! If you hadn’t roped her into this business, she’d be planting her potatoes right now. Safe and at home.”

  “I suppose you built your great name and legacy by staying safe and at home?”

  With a roar, the old man’s form transfigured into a red and raging demon, with fiery eyes, vicious fangs, and cruel, twisting horns. He surged upward on a cascade of smoke and flames, and one very confused eagle decided stork wasn’t on today’s menu. The bird spiraled downward to the safety of the gloved arm of the Keeper of the Imperial Aviary. Mama Stork quaked in her nest and hid her head under her wing.

  The woman watched with arms folded across her chest. “That’s one way to defend the palace,” she said. “Am I supposed to be scared?”

  Flames shot from his fists. “Will you ever stop pestering me?”

  The woman switched legs and stretched the other one. “Scaring people is no way to solve problems. You treat life like everything’s a battlefield.”

  “I do not!” the demon roared, snorting through his huge nostrils.

  “Count to twenty,” she told him. “Think about ocean waves.”

  The demon counted. Plumes of smoke rose from his ears with each number. Eventually he sank slowly in midair. His horns curled back into his head, and his fire eyes became, once more, the watery, spectacled eyes of Master Mapmaker. Mama Stork peeked her head out from under her wing. Something bad had happened, but already, she’d forgotten what.

  The former demon, now a tired old man, spoke to the woman. “Was there something you wanted?”