The Emperor's Ostrich Read online

  Still, that bizarre boy had set them free from Poka’s tiger cage.

  Should she, perhaps, give disbelieving in locks a try?

  She rose, disturbing Stormcloud, and approached the door softly, as though she didn’t want it to notice her. She peered through the crack between the door and its frame. There was the bolt. There was no keyhole on this side, but there was a tiny pinhole in the brass casing just below the knob. Much good that would do her.

  She jiggled the doorknob gently. The bolt didn’t budge. She turned the knob a smidgen until it stopped turning. No change. She ran her fingers through her dusty hair and tried to think of something. Ugh, but she needed a good washing! Her pink scarf dangled limply around her neck. Madame Mustard-Maker had given it to her. What an odd day of gifts that had been.

  Gifts.

  She reached into her apron and felt around gingerly for the long hairpin, the one given to her by the widowed mother with the baby. She examined its long steel shaft.

  “I am a Disbeliever in Locks,” she whispered to the empty room.

  She poked the hairpin into the minuscule hole in the lock. Nothing happened. She wiggled and twisted it. Still nothing. In a last angry stroke of despair, she jabbed it in hard.

  Something moved, and something else clicked. A spring released inside. The bolt flew back. The doorknob now turned easily in Begonia’s hand.

  She couldn’t believe it. No, she disbelieved in it. Thank you, Key.

  She peered cautiously out the door. No one was in sight. She was fairly certain she could find her way out. Only a couple of turns should lead her to the eastern entryway.

  She tiptoed into the hallway. Her feet fell softly on the carpeted floors. She sped up to a stealthy run through corridors leading to freedom. Door after door flashed by her. She slowed when she reached a corner and peered around it carefully.

  The door closest to her banged violently. Stormcloud leaped three feet into the air. Begonia jumped as if the banging door were a snarling panther, ready to strike.

  The door thumped once more, then something slid down its length to the floor. A faint voice, brokenhearted with grief, slipped through the gap between door and carpet.

  “Where’s … my … daughter?”

  The butterflies in Begonia’s stomach flitted away on rainbow wings. She whipped out her hairpin, disbelieved in the lock, and fell into her mother’s arms.

  30

  REUNIONS, SOME OF WHICH ARE WELCOME

  The Imperial Butler, known to his relatives as Shoe, guided the escapees up the labyrinth of staircases that connected the dungeons to the many servants’ chambers and corridors weaving throughout the palace. The emperor’s palace managed to be two buildings folded into one: a magnificent dwelling suitable for a divine ruler, and a warren of hidden spaces where servants slept and ate and worked and cooked and hurried things back and forth, back and forth. Kitchens, bedrooms, pump-rooms, storage rooms, cheese rooms, pickle rooms, fish rooms, towel rooms, closets upon closets, all were there, though the emperor might never set eyes on them.

  “They’ll come looking for us before long,” warned Shoe. “We’ve got to hide somewhere where they’d least expect to find us.”

  The strange prisoner followed Shoe’s cousin Key about like a puppy dog. “You came for me?” he kept repeating. “You actually came for me?”

  “How do you know this person, cousin Key?” asked Shoe, the Imperial Butler.

  “It’s a long story,” answered Key.

  “What’s our plan?” puffed the chancellor, whose portly size left him out of breath. “Baxa and his cronies have already won over the army, it seems. What can we hope to do?”

  “Who’s Baxa?” asked Key.

  “Summon the servants,” said butler Shoe. “All those loyal to the emperor. That’s most of them. Oh! I know! The bedchamber,” he whispered. “They’d never think to look for us there.”

  Servants they met en route joined their growing party. The butler poked his head through a doorway to see if the closest corridor was empty. He pulled his head back in quickly.

  “Key,” he whispered, “did you say you’re looking for a girl and a woman?”

  * * *

  Begonia and her mother were close to making their escape from the palace when a door opened and Key burst out like a cannonball.

  “Maid Begonia!” he whispered joyfully. “Come with us! This way! Hurry!”

  “Who’s ‘us’?” she demanded. “And where are we goin—oh!”

  She found herself, along with her mother, pulled into and swept along a narrow corridor crowded with richly dressed servants. The widow woman with the baby was there, too, and the tall woodcutter. And Lumi! And Key, standing close beside him. Her head spun.

  They tumbled into a large, dimly lit room. A servant whom Key introduced as his cousin—his cousin!—Shoe quickly pulled back a few curtains, just enough to admit slivers of light.

  Begonia, Key, and Mumsy gaped at what they saw. The beauty of the palace’s corridors had not prepared them for a room like this. Statues. Fountains. Lavish furnishings. Crystal chandeliers. It took Begonia several moments to realize that this vast chamber wasn’t a museum. It was a bedroom. Back home, she and Peony shared a narrow attic bedroom with one small window.

  Lumi ignored the splendor. He went straight to Begonia’s side. “Maid Begonia,” he said—he’d used her name!—“did you come to Lotus City to find me?”

  Begonia grinned. “Among other things.”

  “But why?”

  “Because you needed us,” she told him. “What’s happened to you, Lumi? You’re acting very strange. Did they torture you in prison?” she asked. “Drop you on your head?”

  It was as if he hadn’t heard her. “You came because I needed you,” he repeated. He offered his hand, awkwardly, as though he’d never done it before. They shook hands.

  “Chrysanthemumsy!”

  “Song!”

  Begonia was flabbergasted to see Mumsy embrace the widow as an old friend.

  “You’ve found your daughter!” cried Song.

  “And you’ve found your husband!” replied Mumsy.

  “Wait a minute,” she said to Key, who’d joined her side. “Did my mother just say ‘husband’?” She stared at Key. “Those two met for the first time two days ago.”

  Key nodded. “I know.”

  “You do?” Begonia shook her head.

  She turned her gaze toward the sumptuous Imperial Bedchamber, with its silk pillows and brilliant tapestries. There was enough wealth in this room alone to buy up all of Two Windmills and its neighboring villages, too. Stormcloud hopped onto the gigantic bed and clawed the mattress into maximum squooshiness as if she’d always lived in that regal room.

  Shoe went to a wall and struck a silver flute with a wooden mallet. Before its pure tone had died away, hidden doors opened and curtains parted as an even greater entourage of servants spilled into the room. Bakers in smocks carrying trays of pastries, and confectioners bearing platters of quivering jellied fruits. A masseuse, laden with smooth massage stones. A priest carrying a fragrant brazier of smoldering incense. Dancers with silk scarves and tambourines. A new butler, with his hair in black braids, bearing a pitcher of lemon-water. Second-and third-assistant butlers bearing ice and glasses. Footmen, servants. Kitchen chefs wielding meat tenderizers and ladles. The Keeper of the Imperial Aviary with a falcon on his shoulder.

  “Who struck the chimes?” cried the Imperial Perfumer.

  “Chancellor?” cried the chef.

  “Butler?” cried the priest.

  “We heard you were dead!” croaked a third-assistant butler. His ice chunks clinked.

  Something puzzling was happening with the servants and Lumi, Begonia noticed. Each of them paused when their gaze fell upon him. Paused, frowned, shrugged, and looked away, one after the other. She shook her head, mystified.

  The new chief butler set down his pitcher and embraced Shoe with a kiss on both cheeks. “I was afraid B
axa had executed you.” He ran a nervous finger along his own neck.

  The chief Fetcher of Afternoon Snacks offered a tray of chicken skewers. “Repulsive man. Baxa makes our emperor look like a saint.” A laugh rippled around the room.

  A movement caught Begonia’s eye. It was Lumi. While no one else watched, he took the new butler’s pitcher of lemon-water and crept with it, one shuffling footstep at a time, into an adjoining room. A closet, it seemed, from the elegant clothing hanging along the wall. So much for the new Lumi. He must want all the water to himself.

  In short order, the prisoners explained what had happened to them, and the servants explained Baxa’s doings since he’d locked them away.

  “What do we do now?” asked a dancer.

  “Baxa has all the soldiers eating out of his hand,” said the priest.

  “Eating me out of all my stores,” cried the chef. “All they want is meat, meat, meat!”

  “No appreciation for cream puffs,” mourned the baker.

  “He’s completely tense,” said the masseuse. “No flexibility whatsoever.”

  “Wait a minute.” The old chancellor raised his gray head. “Where’s the butler?”

  “I’m right here!” Shoe laughed.

  “Not you,” the chancellor replied. “The new one.”

  They looked around the room. There was no sign of the braided butler. He was gone.

  “Treachery,” whispered the priest.

  “I never liked him,” said a laundress. “Oily fellow.”

  “Where’s that other prisoner?” asked Shoe. “‘Lumi,’ I believe you called him, Key?”

  “He seemed like a dodgy fellow,” said Tree.

  “If they’ve gone to Baxa, we’re dead,” cried Shoe.

  At the far end of the room, a door clicked shut.

  “How well you put things, ex-butler,” said a voice from the dim alcove by the door. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  They turned.

  Baxa, the false emperor, stepped out of the shadows, flanked by Short Red and Fat Blue. Standing next to him was the newly promoted butler, with a nervous smile on his lips. Spread along the far wall of the room were two dozen soldiers with blades drawn.

  “Surround them,” said Baxa’s gravelly voice. “Throw them all in the dungeons.”

  31

  TOO MANY EMPERORS, AND A LEMON CUSTARD

  Shouts, and a struggle. Wielded chairs and rolling pins. In no time, they were surrounded and herded into a cluster. Key appeared at Begonia’s side and held her hand. Tree’s loud insults quickly died when soldiers pointed their swords at Song.

  “I do enjoy a happy ending,” Baxa said. “Everything all wrapped up tidily. Off to the dungeons with them, guards. No!” He paused, and tapped his chin. “Come to think of it, these prisoners are too slippery for dungeons. We needn’t wait for a trial. Go summon the executioner.” Short Red—Count Rudo—slipped away. Chrysanthemumsy pulled Begonia close, and held her tightly.

  “Now,” said a smug Baxa, “what have we here?” He surveyed his captives. He reminded Begonia of Catnip, when she cornered a rat in the barn. Then he grew anxious. “There should be another prisoner,” he said. “Is he still in the dungeons? The little man, with the mustaches?”

  No one answered.

  “He is wanted for the kidnapping and murder of the emperor,” barked Baxa. “He must be punished to the fullest extent of the law.” He left off ordering them about so as to wipe his sweaty face with a silk handkerchief. “Did he really get away? No matter. We’ll find him. Perhaps that’s better. Yes. Avoid unpleasant scenes. But we’ll find him, and when we do, he’ll feel the swift wrath of the law. Very swift. Very soon.”

  He’s afraid of something, Begonia realized. He’s got something to hide.

  Begonia’s dislike for Baxa had taken on a deep and scarlet hue during her time locked in a palace room. Now it erupted into flames. Lumi, though he might be a useless boil upon humanity, had come to be her useless boil, in a way. Baxa had crossed a line.

  “Isn’t it strange,” she said loudly, “that you should be so keen to punish the emperor’s murderer…” She took a deep breath and slipped out of Mumsy’s embrace. Was she really going to do this? “… when his death has made your wildest dreams for power come true?”

  Baxa inhaled sharply. Fat Blue leaned over to whisper in his ear.

  “If he’s even dead. But if he’s dead, where’s the body?” Begonia continued.

  “Begonia,” Mumsy whispered. “Hush.”

  Baxa blinked. “A body will be arranged.”

  Fat Blue elbowed him.

  “The arrangements, I mean, for preparing the body for burial, are nearly complete.”

  He seemed proud of his recovery, but Begonia saw a few soldiers begin to look puzzled. Nothing could be more dangerous, she realized, than a nervous man with an army.

  “Have any of you seen a body?” Begonia demanded of the room.

  “The missing prisoner killed him.” A shrill edge crept into Baxa’s voice. “We will hunt him down and punish him for it!”

  A nasal voice behind them spoke.

  “It would be an achievement far beyond my abilities,” the voice said, “to have killed the, uh, the, um…”

  Begonia turned to see a person emerge from Lumi’s closet.

  “… the … how do you say…”

  “The emperor?” Key supplied the word.

  “Yes. Precisely,” the person said. “Seeing as I am—or rather, I once was, or flattered myself to be, formerly—the, er, that thing which you just said.”

  The person was Lumi’s size. He spoke with Lumi’s voice. It had to be Lumi. But he looked frightful. A gold circlet rested crookedly on his untidy head. His hair and mustaches were wet and streaming water over his clothes, which were clearly garments of highest quality, but unfastened, untied, and drooping. A disastrous, crooked, bulgy attempt to button a green silk jacket had been abandoned midway through. He had to clutch the fabric around his middle to keep his trousers from sinking to his ankles.

  “I’ve had a deuce of a time with that word of late,” Lumi mused. “Vexing.”

  Baxa’s eyes bulged. He sputtered and shook. “You!” he managed to say. “You!”

  Lumi found the chancellor. “Are you all right, my Lord Chancellor? Are you badly hurt?”

  The chancellor gazed at him quizzically for a moment. He pulled off his spectacles and rubbed them. Then a warm smile lit up his whiskery face. “I’m well enough, and better for seeing you back home, my Lord Emperor.”

  “Ah!” Lumi beamed. “Do you know me at last, old friend?”

  “You’re the emperor?” Begonia and Key cried out at once. Murmurs of wonder and joy passed through the assembled palace servants.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Baxa forced out a loud, exaggerated laugh. “Of course he’s not the emperor!” He tried and failed to smile as though this were all a jolly joke. To his companions, he whispered through his teeth, “He can’t be here! Not now! Get him out!”

  “Your Eminence!” Shoe approached Lumi and sank to his knees, followed by the chancellor, who struggled a bit to bend low enough to do reverence.

  “Don’t be fools,” cried Baxa. “Guards, seize that ludicrous impostor and lock him away. How could he be the emperor if he killed the emperor?”

  The guards hesitated.

  “Recall who pays you,” snarled Baxa.

  The priest kissed his hands in a gesture toward Lumi. “I’d rather die with the true emperor,” said he, “than live in the service of a false one.”

  “You won’t get to do, either,” cried Baxa, “for I’m the true emperor, and here comes the executioner. We’ll put an end to all this right here, right now.”

  A huge man dressed all in black entered with Count Rudo, who startled at the sight of Lumi. The executioner had more neck than head, and more muscles than the legal limit, but what frightened Begonia most was the evil gleam of late-afternoon sunlight off the curve o
f his long-handled ax blade.

  “Off with their heads!” Baxa shrieked.

  “Long live the true emperor!” repeated the priest.

  “But I’m not a true whaddyoucallit.” Lumi carried on as though Baxa wasn’t there.

  But Baxa was there. “He can’t even say the word!”

  “At least, I’m not a proper one.” Lumi’s ill-clad arm flapped uselessly at his side. “I don’t know how to rule. I can’t even dress myself. I can’t do much of anything, come to think of it.”

  “Ha, see?” cried Baxa. “He admits it!”

  Lord Hacheming elbowed Baxa once more.

  “The only things I ever did as a, you know, that word, were order iced fruit drinks and have back massages.” He gazed wistfully at the masseuse, whose eyes grew red. “Those massages really were something.” The masseuse burst into tears. A dancer rubbed her back.

  Key whispered in Begonia’s ear. “Are you hearing what I’m hearing?”

  Begonia shook her head. “I don’t trust my eyes or my ears right now.”

  “These three aren’t worthy to lead,” Lumi said, “but then, neither am I. I needed peasant children to rescue me from danger”—he turned a sorrowful gaze to Begonia and Key— “and when they did, I treated them abominably.” He shook his head in wonder. “Why they came back for me, I’ll never know, but I won’t forget it.”

  Key and Begonia exchanged glances, then blushed at the carpet. In some ways, Lumi was easier to deal with when he was being odious.

  He wiped dripping water off his nose and addressed the room. “I realize now that I’m pathetic,” he said. “But I do have a plan.”

  “I can’t wait to hear it,” Baxa said with a sneer.

  “The three conspirators must be tried for their crimes. If found guilty, they will be punished fairly. Not in the palace dungeons, for they will be filled in.” Lumi looked up. “With … straw, would you say, chancellor?”

  The old man coughed. “I suggest soil, or gravel, Highness. More solid. More permanent.”

  “Ah. Yes. Very wise.”

  “Do you hear him?” Baxa cried. “He’s an imbecile!”