"Is it a phoenix?"
One boy, deliberately slipshod in his expensive dress, jabbed in the direction of the bird with a golden sword.
"It's a table bird-nothing more." The boy signaled to his companions to attack. "A beak's no match for a blade!"
The bird danced high and the bird danced low, shuddering its tail feathers in a fearsome display. A man took a step toward the princess only to be met by a ferocious hiss and a swelling of the great bird's breast. Another step, and a bigger intake of breath from Tekoriikii. Nervous nobles lost their fear and formed themselves up for a charge.
"Kill the thing! Kill it and take the girl!"
With a roar, the nobles ran at Tekoriikii. Standing his ground, the bird hurtled forward his head and gave vent to a terrifying scream.
The noise made the whole world jerk in fright. In front of Tekoriikii the flagstones blasted apart. Tiles shattered on rooftops far across the square, windows burst into a mist of fragments, and a woman's diamond earrings cracked clean through. Even from behind the bird, Miliana's spectacles abandoned their grip on this life as the lenses promptly crumbled clean away.
For the bravos, the effects were more catastrophic. The men spun back in agony, with blood spurting from their ears. They shrieked and writhed across the cobblestones, dropping one by one as Tekoriikii stalked after them in rage. The last man fell, and the bird shook out his feathers and scratched dirt on the unconscious bodies in contempt.
Lorenzo stared at Tekoriikii in shock.
"Yes, well, I suppose you could call that 'sacred, untouchable, and extremely dangerous.' "
Ignoring the astonishing display of power from the bird, Miliana stumbled forward, ruffled Tekoriikii's crown, and waved merrily to the soldiers.
"Let's take 'em to the honey barge!"
Every evening, the offerings from Sumbria's many outhouses and "seats of ease" were collected by the honey carts and driven to the riverside. Here, a stinking, reeking barge took the glutinous mass far along the shore of the Akanamere as a gift to distant farmers' fields. Miliana and the strutting bird led a procession to the barge, which bobbed on the docks at the center of a wheeling storm of flies. A few coins to the attendants, and soon the unconscious bravos were buried neck deep in the manure; Miliana stood waving a handkerchief as the soldiers and Tekoriikii cheered the barge on its way.
Heaving out a wine-sodden breath of satisfaction, Miliana slung an arm about Tekoriikii and another about Lorenzo and crushed them tight against her heart.
"A drink for Lorenzo-o an' a drink for Tekii-thingie!" The girl dragged her companions into the midst of the soldiers with a hoot of pure glee. "Justice! Ol' Lorenzo was right. We all gotta make it as we find it."
"Maybe we had just better go home?" Lorenzo plucked timidly at Miliana's sleeve. "It's getting late, and…"
"Late?" Miliana crowed like a morning cockerel and lit the streets with a pure sound of joy. "No! I wanna dance for justice!"
A bottle was uncorked, and soldiers called for their sweethearts and their wives. Someone with a lute struck up a tune, and Miliana tried to dance an Aglarondian folk dance with the happy bird. Free of Ulia and deliriously at ease, Miliana lost herself in a whirl of joy.
Lorenzo could only watch and give an anxious sigh.
"Squaaaaawk!" Tekoriikii flapped his wings in alarm, sending shadows chasing far along the empty, moonlit streets. "Squaaaaawk!"
Miliana loosed an urgent groan, and Lorenzo took her down off his shoulders and helped her over to a wall. For the fourth time since her disappearance beneath a table at the tavern, the girl was thoroughly sick; great soul-rending heaves tried to clear her of the alcoholic poison crawling through her brain.
Lorenzo simply sat down at her side and helped to support her through her suffering. When she had finally done, he pulled her small, frail body into his lap and wiped her streaming eyes and nose. Tekoriikii passed him a water gourd and Lorenzo made Miliana rinse her mouth, then cradled her softly as she shivered in his arms.
"Wh-why can't I be… magical?"
The girl whimpered the words into Lorenzo's hair, clawing her little fingers through his clothes. With an anxious expression in his eyes, Tekoriikii nudged at her and made a whistling sound.
Lorenzo agreed.
"You are magical! We both saw you cast a spell." He tried to coax Miliana's face out of the shadows. "Hey-you're a sorceress!"
"No…" Miliana hung weakly in Lorenzo's arms, hiding away her freckles and her tears. "If I were magical-really magical, then maybe I might get a wish."
"What wish?" Bird and nobleman both hung close, locked anxious gazes, and tried to coax the girl out of her shell. "What wish, Miliana?"
Miliana emerged-small, brown, and crushed by one inarguable misery.
"If I had a wish, then maybe I could be pretty. Really pretty."
The girl hid her face away from Lorenzo and the bird.
"Someone beautiful. Just-just not Miliana. Just for one single day…"
The girl clung against Lorenzo's chest and wept. Locking tortured glances, Tekoriikii and Lorenzo quietly stroked at Miliana's hair.
"Princess Miliana is beautiful. And I'll prove you wrong. Tomorrow I'll show you just exactly what I see.
"I'll show you. I'll make you open your eyes."
"Glub glub!"
Sick, swaying, and miserable, Miliana's whisper barely carried to Lorenzo's ears.
"I'm just so frightened. So frightened…" The girl curled fingers into Lorenzo's tunic. "I wanted to be like my father. I wanted to be… to be… proud.
"But I'm just so scared of the… futility. The dances and the husbands." Miliana swallowed back another surge of nausea. "Don't let them put me in the finishing school. I'd rather die… I'd rather die… I'd rather die…"
Crying herself to sleep, Miliana hung like a rag doll in Lorenzo's arms.
Tekoriikii spared the girl a long, sad gaze, and then quietly led the way back home. Behind him, Lorenzo hoisted Miliana like a treasured child and wandered carefully back to the palace doors.
7
From his perch high up in Miliana's attic, Tekoriikii had most of the Mannicci palace under his muddle-headed gaze. Holes in the roofing gave him a splendid vantage point for viewing the central courtyards and the stables, the kitchen doors and the colonnades. He saw the slim, gray-headed Prince Cappa Mannicci escaping for his early morning ride before his wife could stir from bed and exercise her tongue. Soldiers marched and servants cleaned; bright bunting was wound about every object found readily at hand. All in all, the Festival of Blades had begun with a flawless summer's day.
Waddling happily across the floor of his gloomy kingdom, Tekoriikii bathed in beams of light and listened contentedly to the dawn chorus of birds. A marvelous new treasure had come into his life, and the bird need only close his eyes and sigh just to savor its gentle glow.
His journeys had first brought him to a treasure trove of people and places, songs and lights; it had brought him a bounty of shiny baubles, and day by day Tekoriikii's collection grew.
And now, most miraculous of all-the journey had given him a friend.
Hanging his head down through the broken ceiling, Tekoriikii watched the human girl in her sleep. She fed him food and taught him songs; she had shown him magic picture books, and recited aloud from the pages for hours on end.
And yet last night the little female had been so very sad.
Her lack of plumes was a terrible, crippling disfigurement. The male human Lorenzo kept a feather in his hat as though making up for the lack. Tekoriikii turned his head this way and that, regarding Miliana as she slept off her wine, and pitied her for her naked, unsightly skin.