The wood didn't even char.
He found another twig and brushed it against the flame, which slid easily from one to the other. There was one flame. It was clear there wasn't going to be two.
Half the bars in the window had been burned away, and there was some scorched wood at the end of the mews, where the old nestboxes had been. Above it, a few stars shone through rags of mist over a charred hole in the roof.
Something had burned here, Hodgesaargh saw.
Fiercely, by the look of it. But also in a curiously local way, as if all the heat had been somehow contained...
He reached towards the flame dancing on the end of the stick. It was warm, but... not as hot as it should be.
Now it was on his finger. It tingled. As he waved it around, the head of every bird turned to watch it.
By its light, he poked around in the charred remains of the nestboxes. In the ashes were bits of broken eggshell.
Hodgesaargh picked them up and carried them into the crowded little room at the end of the mews which served as workshop and bedroom. He balanced the flame on a saucer. In here, where it was quieter, he could hear it making a slight sizzling noise.
In the dim glow he looked along the one crowded bookshelf over his bed and pulled down a huge ragged volume on the cover of which someone had written, centuries ago, the word 'Burds'.
The book was a huge ledger. The spine had been cut and widened inexpertly several times so that more pages could be pasted in.
The falconers of Lancre knew a lot about birds. The kingdom was on a main migratory route between the Hub and the Rim. The hawks had brought down many strange species over the centuries and the falconers had, very painstakingly, taken notes. The pages were thick with drawings and closely spaced writing, the entries copied and re-copied and updated over the years. The occasional feather carefully glued to a page had added to the thickness of the thing.
No one had ever bothered with an index, but some past falconer had considerately arranged many of the entries into alphabetical order.
Hodgesaargh glanced again at the flame burning steadily in its saucer, and then, handling the crackling pages with care, turned to 'F'.
After some browsing, he eventually found what he was looking for under 'P'.
Back in the mews, in the deepest shadow, something cowered.
There were three shelves of books in Agnes's cottage. By witch standards, that was a giant library.
Two very small blue figures lay on top of the books, watching the scene with interest.
Nanny Ogg backed away, waving the poker.
'It's all right,' said Agnes. 'It's me again, Agnes Nitt, but... She's here but... I'm sort of holding on. Yes! Yes! All right! All right, just shut up, will y- Look, it's my body, you're just a figment of my imagina- Okay! Okayl Perhaps it's not quite so clear c- Let me just talk to Nanny, will you?'
'Which one are you now?' said Nanny Ogg.
'I'm still Agnes, of course.' She rolled her eyes up. 'All right! I'm Agnes currently being advised by Perdita, who is also me. In a way. And I'm not too fat, thank you so very much!'
'How many of you are there in there?' said Nanny.
'What do you mean, "room for ten"?' shouted Agnes. 'Shut up! Listen, Perdita says there were vampires at the party. The Magpyr family, she says. She can't understand how we acted. They were putting a kind of. .. 'fluence over everyone. Including me, which is why she was able to break thr- Yes, all right, I'm telling it, thank you!'
'Why not her, then?' said Nanny.
'Because she's got a mind of her own! Nanny, can you remember anything they actually said?'
'Now you come to ' mention it, no. But they seemed nice enough people.'
'And you remember talking to Igor?'
'Who's Igor?'
The tiny blue figures watched, fascinated, for the next halfhour.