'Don't worry, dog doesn't eat dog.' It was Perdita who blurted it out, but it was Agnes who got the blow. It wasn't a ladylike slap of disapproval. Nanny Ogg had reared some strapping sons; the Ogg forearm was a power in its own right.
When Agnes looked up from the hearthrug Nanny was rubbing some life back into her hand. She gave Agnes a solemn look.
'We'll say no more about that, shall we?' she commanded. 'I ain't gen'rally given to physicality of that nature but it saves a lot of arguing. Now, we're goin' back to the castle. We're going to sort this out right now.'
Hodgesaargh shut the book and looked at the flame. It was true, then. There'd even been a picture of one just like it in the book, painstakingly drawn by another royal falconer two hundred years before. He wrote that he'd found the thing up on the high meadows, one spring. It'd burned for three years and then he'd lost it somewhere.
If you looked at it closely, you could even see the detail. It was not exactly a flame. It was more like a bright feather...
Well, Lancre was on one of the main migration routes, for birds of all sorts. It was only a matter of time.
So... the new hatchling was around. They needed time to grow, it said in the book. Odd that it should lay an egg here, because it said in the book that it always hatched in the burning deserts of Klatch.
He went and looked at the birds in the mews. They were still very alert.
Yes, it all made sense. It had flown in here, among the comfort of other birds, and laid its egg, just like it said it did in the book, and then it had burned itself up to hatch the new bird.
If Hodgesaargh had a fault, it lay in his rather utilitarian view of the bird world. There were birds that you hunted, and there were birds you hunted with. Oh, there were other sorts, tweeting away in the bushes, but they didn't really count. It occurred to him that if ever there was a bird you could hunt with, it'd be the phoenix.
Oh, yes. It'd be weak, and young, and it wouldn't have gone far.
Hmm... birds tended to think the same way, after all.
It would have helped if there was one picture in the book. In fact, there were several, all carefully drawn by ancient falconers who claimed it was a firebird they'd seen.
Apart from the fact that they all had wings and a beak, no two were remotely alike. One looked very much like a heron. Another looked like a goose. One, and he scratched his head about this, appeared to be a sparrow. Bit of a puzzle, he decided, and left it at that and selected a drawing that looked at least slightly foreign.
He glanced at the bird gloves hanging on their hooks. He was good at rearing young birds. He could get them eating out of his hand. Later on, of course, they just ate his hand.
Yes. Catch it young and train it to the wrist. It'd have to be a Champion hunting bird.
Hodgesaargh couldn't imagine a phoenix as quarry. For one thing, how could you cook it?
... and in the darkest corner of the mews, something hopped on to a perch...
Once again Agnes had to run to keep up as Nanny Ogg strode into the courtyard, elbows pumping furiously. The old lady marched up to a group of men standing around one of the barrels and grabbed two of them, spilling their drinks. Had it not been Nanny Ogg, this would have been a challenge equal to throwing down a glove or, in slightly less exalted circles, smashing a bottle on the edge of a bar.
But the men looked sheepish and one or two of the others in the circle even scuffled their feet and made an attempt to hide their pints behind their backs.
'Jason? Darren? You come along of me,' Nanny commanded. 'We're after vampires, right? Any sharp stakes around here?'
'No, Mum,' said Jason, Lancre's only blacksmith. Then he raised his hand. 'But ten minutes ago the cook come out and said, did anyone want all these nibbly things that someone had mucked up with garlic and I et 'em, Mum.'
Nanny sniffed and then took a step back, fanning her hand in front of her face. 'Yeah, that should do it all right,' she said. 'If I give you the signal, you're to burp hugely, understand?'
'I don't think it'll work, Nanny,' said Agnes, as boldly as she dared.
'I don't see why, it's nearly knocking me down.'
'I told you, you won't get close enough, even if it'll work at all. Perdita could feel it. It's like being drunk.'
'I'll be ready for 'em this time,' said Nanny. 'I've learned a thing or two from Esme.'
'Yes, but she's-' Agnes was going to say 'better at them than you', but changed it to 'not here...'
'That's as may be, but I'd rather face 'em now than explain to Esme that I didn't. Come on.'
Agnes followed the Oggs, but very uneasily. She wasn't sure how far she trusted Perdita.