As if home, empty of our Tashi, would bring rest for either of us. “I’ll send a message to the estate,” I said instead. “If I go now I might not get trampled.” Most, if not all, of the Council would have heard the news last night. All the Credol Families owned birds to communicate swiftly with their family in the other cities and their estates; it would be crowded at the cote before long.
“Take a litter,” he said, frowning at me even as I slipped off. Well out of anyone’s earshot, I let out the cough I’d been smothering. My chest hurt and my breath came shallow and fast. Thendra crossed my path on the way out of the hospital, and the dark creases fanning out from her eyes deepened as she looked me over with swift appraisal.
“Go home and rest properly, Credola,” she warned me. “You should not push yourself so hard. The last thing you need right now is a relapse, yes?”
She was right, of course, even if I resented her for it a little. The cote was at the southern base of Solemn Peak, a fair walk from the hospital. Though I’d been working on my strength, it seemed spent today all the same. It was barely dawn, but the hospital was good business for the litter carriers and I found a pair easily. They were fit men who sang old religious songs in harmony as they jogged me south along the lake path. I envied their lungs.
As we passed Bell’s Bridge, the great bell tower by the Manor rang out a solemn peal, and kept ringing. The carriers slowed in surprise, speculating in anxious tones. “It’s the Chancellor,” I told them quietly. The man in front twisted to stare at me, shock stopping him in place. “To the cote, please,” I reminded him, and he gripped the edges of the litter tightly and took off at pace.
The cote was a rough tower built into the stone so the birds could nest naturally in crannies in the rock. If not for the orderly spacing of the nests it would almost seem like a natural breeding space. Some of my peers in the Administrative Guild hated coming here with missives, preferring to send messengers or servants. I liked it: the strong, earthy smell, the streaks of bird droppings that striped the insides black and white, the chorus of the birds’ raucous chatter echoing around. It was quiet—I’d apparently beaten the other Credolen here—but the door was open. “Hello?” I called, approaching the opening. Unease settled over me. I cleared my throat. “It’s Credola Kalina. From the Administrative Guild.”
The bird keeper edged out, slablike arms encircled with heavy claw-scratched leather bands, her trepidatious mannerisms at odds with her rectangular chunk of a body. “Credola,” she said, wringing her hands. “I heard the bells, and I knew people would come. I didn’t know the tower was weak, honor-down, I swear it was sound.…”
Following the keeper into the cote, the blood pounding in my ears was the only sound to be heard. Through the jagged mouth of a hole in the top corner of the tower a pale blue patch of wrongness gleamed. Scattered beams of light sprayed down into the cote, long white fingers pointing at empty hollows where the gray-and-white birds should have nested. “The birds…”
“They’ve flown,” the keeper finished. “All the tourists. They’ve all gone home, and no messages on them! Today, of all days.”
Tourists were birds not from this cote; released, they would fly to their own home cotes. “All of them?” I asked, dismayed. There should have been dozens of tourists here; the city birds, for official use, as well as the private flocks housed here for a fee and owned by some wealthy merchant families and all of the Credol Families, including mine, for messages between Silasta and the other main cities, and to the country estates. But the only birds to be seen were marked with white tags on their legs, indicating they were trained for this cote, and the locals were no use at all. They wouldn’t fly anywhere but to their own familiar nests located right here.
“All of them.” The keeper pointed one thick finger at a pile of collapsed rock and root-bare shrubbery. “It must have been a rockslide during the night. I came in to feed them this morning and found it like this. A few of the locals went out to explore, but most have come back. The Oromani bird is fine,” she added, quickly pointing out the gray-chested bird, which had arrived with a message from our steward a few weeks ago and was waiting to be taken back with a courier.
Fat lot of good the locals will do us, I thought, but the poor keeper already looked distraught enough. Probably afraid of losing her job. And with good reason, too; I doubted the Credolen would take well to the news that they’d have to inform their families about the death of the Chancellor by courier instead of bird. While boats could reach Telasa downriver in a day, the journey upriver to Moncasta would take far longer, and West Dortal even longer, by road. For those who had close family on their country estates, the delay would be substantial, even with the best couriers.
The feeling of unease strengthened as I stared up at the hole again. It was just an inconvenience, I supposed, but it somehow felt like more than that.
“Stay here,” I said, trying to sound authoritative. “We’ll get someone from the Builders’ Guild here to patch the roof so no predators get to the rest.” And my own Guild would need to be informed that there was going to be a sudden demand for couriers. Maybe there would need to be some kind of central organization for how we spread the word. We’d have to inform our neighbors and trading partners, and there were only so many messengers in the city.
I’d wondered yesterday how we would get through life without our Tashi. Perhaps this was how people did it; letting themselves be pulled to and fro between things that must be done, obligations and decisions and more decisions. It was easier than thinking. Definitely easier than feeling.
* * *
Inherently suspicious, my brother took the news of the damaged cote with unease. What’s the difference between a coincidence and a pattern? Etan used to say.
“What happens next…” Jovan murmured, as if answering my thought.
We had been allowed in the Manor, though our time was limited. Tain had called a Council meeting and even now the others would be gathering in the Council chamber. The three of us sat in the mess of his sitting room—the surfaces bare, the floor strewn with belongings he’d hurled in his rage and grief—clinging to the last few moments we had. Tain looked a wreck; I doubted he’d slept at all.
After hearing my report on the birds, Tain had spoken to the Stone-Guilder, Eliska, and she’d sent builders and an engineer from the Builders’ Guild both to repair the cote and to report on whether the rockslide had been natural. There was no specific reason to connect the damage to yesterday’s events, except timing, but it was enough to concern Jovan and me. Tain seemed dazed, willing to take our advice on what to do next, and I worried how he would cope with the Council meeting.
“You’ll need to talk to the Scribe-Guilder,” Jov said. “To manage the priorities for who gets informed when. We can send a boat in each direction, and a messenger by road west, perhaps one messenger per estate, one for the army, as well—do we wait to inform other countries?”
“I’ll consult with Budua,” Tain agreed. “I don’t know enough about our international relations. About anything.” He stared at the wall, face shadowed. He hadn’t expected to replace his uncle for decades or longer. We’d all thought we had so much time.