Of Birds and Branches

by Frances Pauli

  “Think on it,” Arli said. “Consider my words and decide, Mima, if you will rule as your mother did, or if you will be your own sort of queen.”

  “I will.” Mima smoothed her feathers and let the wan sunlight burn off some of her irritation. “But I still need to know about branches.”

  “Branches, is it?” Arli chuckled, but it was a sad sound.

  “How am I supposed to approve of a branch? What am I even looking for?”

  “I suspect it’s about the bird more than the branch,” Arli echoed Ista’v’s words, “and that you will know when the time comes.”

  Mima felt the urge to argue. She had a thousand more questions brewing in her gizzard, a growing feeling of dissatisfaction and unrest that made her twitchy, made her want to argue with the world. Also, the old hen’s words had spawned a fear inside the future queen, a slick wiggling feeling that nibbled at her enthusiasm for her own future.

  In the end, Arli had been no more help than Ist’av. If anything, the visit to the Temple of the Twin Moons had only made things worse.

  In the morning, Ist’av did not come. Mima woke late after dreams had full of shadows and warnings, none of which remained long enough to be of help upon waking. She checked the sun through her high windows and groaned. That had been an awful night’s sleep.

  Today was a day of contemplation, her first free day in over a week, and she’d meant to spend as much of it as possible in discourse with her dear librarian friend.

  On her doorstep, she found the answer—another irritation to pile alongside the rest. A book had been left just outside the door, a thin sheaf of parchment peeking from between its pages.

  They had come. They’d come and she’d only slept through their knocking.

  Mima dragged the book inside with her foot and slammed the door. She puffed her feathers and hopped in place, and only when she could hold still again did she lift the book and carried it to her meeting table.

  The parchment marked a passage about the branching rite, but this book was no history. Mima read the title with a soft warble, flipping through the pages before settling in to read what her friend had found.

  It was a diary, an account of the life of Queen Sai’pa, written by her own pen. Each passage bore a year and season, and Mima felt that distance through time as if it were physical space stretched between them.

  She stroked the edge of the binding with a wing-finger and sighed. Ist’av. Who else could find exactly what she needed? Her cheeks fluffed, and she ground her beak from side to side.

  Her eyes closed briefly, and after a deep, calming breath, she turned to the place they’d marked and began to read.

  “The year of the Star-bear. Mid-winter. Today he brought to my perch a branch of ungainly visage. So lacking in grace and movement, that it was to me a thing of brutal ugliness. My gizzard did attempt to evacuate just to gaze upon the wretched arrange-ment of twigs. Garish and out of step with nature, I found no option was left to me, in the sight of this thing, than to reject, firmly and forever, he who would select such an offering.”

  Mima warbled in the back of her throat. Surely that was about the branch itself? Ungainly and garish. Ugliness out of step with nature. She felt she could see the branch in her mind just by reading Sai’pa’s description.

  She picked at the passage, as Ist’av had shown her, rolling the specific words over in her mind. The terms "grace" and "movement" struck her. Mima imagined what sort of shape might qualify as in step with nature.

  When she’d digested the entry fully, she hopped down from the perch and made a line for her door again. It was not so complex a thing at all, it seemed.

  The meaning of the rite had been clarified, and she let it settle into her psyche with a welcome sense of calm.

  The branch must please her, and yesterday she’d been too shocked to engage with the ritual properly. When the next branch was settled at her feet, Mima knew what she would look for, at least abstractly. If Kov’an’s choice said anything at all, it was that he hadn’t taken the process seriously.

  She would see him now and straighten everything out. With her steps quick and full of purpose, Mima left her rooms and scurried across the palace to the soldiers’ quarter. She would go to Kov’an directly to discuss this thing.

  Before he tried again, he had a thing or two to learn about branches.

  At Kov’an’s chamber, Mima found Man’an standing beside the entrance. The door was open, and a cacophony of chirping came from inside.

  When Mima marched toward the opening, the guard held out one wing, not quite daring to bar her entrance.

  “There are many soldiers inside,” he warned.

  “So I hear,” Mima answered. “I must speak with Kov’an.”

  “I can fetch him,” he said. “If you care to wait.”

  “I care for no such thing.” Mima snapped her beak and the wing fluttered back to the guard’s side. She scuffed one foot against the tiles and flicked her tail before marching through the portal. She felt Man’an’s desire to stop her as if it were an invisible wall across the doorway.

  Inside, a crowd of soldiers choked the room. Kov’an sat on a high perch at the far side, and the reason for his shield mate’s odd behavior revealed itself immediately.

  There were branches everywhere.

  Around Kov’an’s chair, they’d piled so much greenery that he looked as if he perched atop a great tree. The soldiers in attendance carried even more, and as she watched, gaping, one approached the chair and added his bundle to the pile.

  Kov’an leaned forward to examine the branches. He said a word to Duf’ar who stood to one side, and the other cock divided the offered branches into two piles at his friend’s direction. To the left of the chair went the ones Kov’an deemed acceptable. The others were tossed to the right.

  “Thank you, my friend,” Kov’an began. Then his eyes lifted, and he spied Mima among the crowd.

  In all the years she’d known the warrior, she’d never seen his face darken so quickly. His pine-cone feathers lifted at once, and his beak snapped shut on his next words. A hush fell over the room. One by one his soldiers spotted her. One by one they looked to their clawed toes, to the rafters, anywhere but at Mima.

  One by one, those lucky enough to stand behind her eased their way out the chamber doors.

  Mima stared at her father’s favorite, perched atop a throne surrounded by lies. He had not ventured to the sacred forest himself. She should have known he’d never even consider it. Why should he have gone when his friends might do the deed on his behalf?

  In short, he had cheated, and he clearly meant to do the same again.

  “Mima.” He bellowed her name, forcing a cheery note and a lift of his bobbing crest. “How lovely of you to surprise me.”

  “I should think not,” Mima said. “Would you like your friends to remain while we speak?”

  “No.” His tone sobered, and he waved one wing over Duf’ar’s head. “Leave us. All of you.”

  The last of the soldiers filed away. Even stout Duf’ar left his hero’s side, padding on heavily clawed feet to the exit and closing it once the room had been cleared.

  Mima faced her intended alone, surrounded by the dropped and discarded branches and with a belly full of hot rage.

  “You’ll excuse the mess,” he said. “And accept my apologies for rushing you yesterday morning. Your father said—”

  “‘I have traveled to the sacred forest?’” Mima cut him off. “How ridiculous.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Kov’an said. “Ridiculous and extraneous. Just words, Mima. We both know our intention has been to—”

  “Just words?” She stepped forward, puffing her cheeks when a branch snapped under her claws. “To you, perhaps. To Kov’an and Tal’pi, the champions of dismissing tradition. To the regent, surely. To a warrior, what need is there for ritual?”

  “Mima—”

  “And to me?” She shook her head, flicked her tail, and spread her wings,
shaking out the urge to leap at him. “What does it matter what I think of the ritual? Who am I, after all? Just your queen.”

  She made that word carry its weight, made it admonishment and whiplash both. So she was shocked to see that Kov’an wanted to argue. She was stunned silent by the dark rebellion brewing in his expression.

  That, too, was new.

  Mima smoothed and lowered her wings. She lifted her body, but even at full stretch could not hope to reach the height of the chair he’d constructed for himself. A throne for real, perhaps. Was that what she saw reflected in his bulging eyes?

  “Kov’an, warrior.” She addressed him in the ritual speech. In words guaranteed to annoy him. “Favorite of my father, your regent. You may go on with this charade if you wish. Hold your court and collect your branches. But know this: I do not take this so lightly as you. If you seek to bring me another offering, you will do so after I am your queen.”

  The sound of his beak grinding echoed through the room. The crest on his head danced a mad jig.

  “And when you bring me that branch, Kov’an, I advise that you make certain it is perfect. Remember this, as I will reject anything less. I will reject you, Kov’an, if the rite demands it. No matter who my father loves.”

  “Yes.” He dipped his head, dipped it but eyed her sideways through the gesture. “Yes, Highness.”

  Mima waited another long breath, waited while he held the bow, while it stretched between them. He would remember that when she left. He might forget everything else she said, but Kov’an would remember that she’d made him bow.

  When she turned, Mima crushed the broken branch beneath her feet. She marched through the doors again, certain no matter what he did now, that she would reject Kov’an. Ist’av had been right at least in part.

  It was about the bird, too.

  The Receptacle lifted from the very heart of the palace. Its spires provided the highest perches in the entire city, higher even than the court’s. Rather than a single building, the library walls contained a cluster of smaller structures: archives, specialized collections, and housing for the librarians and revered translators whose lives revolved around the volumes contained on the Receptacle’s shelves.

  Mima was led inside the main archive by a coarsely wrapped hen of diminutive stature and dull plumage. She’d come to speak with Ist’av, to apologize for sleeping in that morning, and to assuage the sudden urge to simply see them.

  As she’d reminded Kov’an, she was to be queen, and if she couldn’t visit her own library, what was the point of having one?

  The hen delivered her to a low counter, and then vanished in the second Mima took to look around her. Here was a temple of sorts too, a place where knowledge was worshiped in lieu of the heavenly bodies. The shelves reached for the skies, packed with volumes of all shapes and sizes. The air smelled of ink and parchment, and though Ist’av often complained of it, Mima saw not a speck of dust in the main room.

  It was, she imagined, the perfect environment for Ist’av, and she suffered a stab of envy thinking of them here, among the stacks without her.

  “Greetings, Highness.” The voice which had addressed her did not belong to Ist’av.

  Mima turned back to find an old cock perched behind the counter. He wore green wraps over his brown feathers, and his stout neck carried a medallion attached to a heavy golden chain. Mima recognized the symbol more than the individual, though she’d interacted with him at least once during her preparations. She gave him a solemn nod and formal address. “Greetings, Master of Knowledge.”

  “The wind has carried Her Highness far today,” he replied. “What service may I provide her?”

  “I’m here to see Ist’av,” Mima said.

  “Ah,” the master bobbed his head. “I’m afraid Ist’av isn’t here.”

  “Are they on a delivery?” Mima asked, the irritation spreading her tail feathers.

  “Delivery?” The master’s face puffed. “Ist’av doesn’t make deliveries.”

  Mima gaped at him, beak open and crown feathers slowly lifting in confusion. She knew Ist’av made deliveries because the librarian came to her door nearly every morning. Still, something new gnawed at her insides. It felt dark and spiky, and it had been birthed when she found Kov’an playing court amid his phony branches.

  “We could hardly spare our best translator to ferry books about the palace, after all,” the master of knowledge continued, adding more confusion to her head, more suspicion to her gut.

  “Translator?” Mima managed to speak, to form the word as if tasting it for the first time. “Ist’av is your best translator?”

  Not a librarian at all.

  “Oh yes.” The master bobbed and nodded, sharp and quick until Mima felt she might be ill from watching him. “The finest, though they’re quick to tell us the credit for that lies in your meticulous notes and regular input.”

  “My…notes.” The library floor seemed to spin beneath her claws.

  “Indeed,” the master continued. “Ist’av has said many times what a help your discussion of their work has been. You have all our thanks for that.”

  Mima dipped on reflex, but her mind whirled. Ist’av was no librarian, no book delivery bird. Of course they weren’t. Their morning visits had been research, and what she’d taken as friendship had been…what? Just work?

  She shook herself, shook until a few stray fluffs of down wafted through the library. It hardly mattered what it had been. Ist’av had lied. Like Kov’an had lied to her. Like her father had.

  The suspicion in her belly grew, swelling to fill her entire world view. Did everyone keep such secrets? Is this what Arli had been trying to tell her? Is this what it meant to be queen?

  “Master?” She steadied her grip on the floor and raised herself.

  “Yes, Highness?”

  “Did my mother keep a diary?”

  “Of course. We have many volumes in the late queen’s hand.”

  “Have them brought to my quarters.”

  “Of course.” He dipped into a polite bow and then bobbed his way back up. “Shall we tell Ist’av that you—”

  “No.” Mima let the darkness hold her up, let it harden her against the feeling that the walls were pressing in, that the entire palace shrank around her. “Tell them I will see no one until after my coronation. Tell them, and anyone else you can think of, that the future queen does not wish to be disturbed.”

  “Yes, Highness.”

  “And have the diaries delivered immediately.”

  “All of them, Highness?”

  She answered him with a look, with a sharp snapping of the beak and a glower that only let a whisper of the darkness free.

  “Of course, Highness. We’ will bring them all.”

  “Good.”

  Mima turned and flicked her tail. Not at the master, per se, but at the entirety of her domain. She stalked from the library, dismissing the little hen who rushed to escort her with a brush of her wing and a warning warble.

  Her steps were quick and fierce as she marched back to her rooms. Her thoughts shadowed with worry and a low, simmering rage. Not for her father’s manipulation, nor for Kov’an’s bumbling. She stewed over a deeper wound now, a pain she’d never even suspected.

  Ist’av.

  Ist’av’s lie stabbed at her, cut her as surely as if they’d plunged their long bill straight through Mima’a heart.

  She remained cloistered for the rest of the month.

  On the last day before her vigil began, Mima walked the Way of Winds with her father. The ritual required four silent passes up and back, one to honor each of the Winds, but Arli had no sooner set them to the task before Tal’pi began his assault.

  “I’ve spoken to Kov’an,” he said.

  “We’re to walk in silence.” Mima could have insisted they start over, would have been within her rights to force him to begin again, to go silently as the rite demanded. Instead, she spoke as well, suffering only a twinge at the blasphemy. “And y
our left leg is not reaching enough.”

  “Enough?” he rumbled, deep in his chest. “Enough of this nonsense. You would put a few inches of ritual rubbish over our peoples’ safety.”

  “Our people are quite safe.” Mima let the words snarl. “You’ve seen to that nicely.”

  Tal’pi missed the sarcasm and gave a solemn nod. “And Kov’an will continue to see to it.”

  She knew this regent now, knew him through her mother’s words. Mima walked beside her father and was afraid for the first time in her short, overly pampered life.

  “I’ve made it quite clear—”

  “Yes.” The regent nodded. “You’re not to be disturbed until after your coronation. Fine.”

  And once she wore the circlet, then the attack on her rights would begin.

  “I’ve been reading Mother’s diaries,” she said.

  “Have you?” Tal’pi tilted his head to one side. “I suppose that’s part of your preparations as well?”

  “Yes,” she lied.

  They reached the altar of the South Wind and began to bob. Halfway through, Mima lost count, had to guess when to stop. When they started off again, she forgot her footing.

  The regent didn’t even bother to try.

  “She loved you,” Mima said. Nothing in her mother’s diaries had been more shocking. Despite the crudeness, the domination, and the betrayal of her office, the late queen had loved her mate.

  “She was a good queen.”

  “Was she?”

  “Mima.” Tal’pi’s voice thundered too loud. From the far end of the walk, Arli hissed. The regent lowered his volume, but not his tone. He made his words command and proclamation both. “You will join with Kov’an in the branching rite. After your coronation if you must. He will make a fine regent.”

  Mima said nothing. Tal’pi had an army behind him. Kov’an was popular with the soldiers, favorite of the regent who had ruled in her mother’s stead. Who had taken the late queen’s power for himself, it turned out. And who was Mima but a girl who swallowed lies?

  She’d lost her rule before she even claimed it. Just like her mother. And like the late queen, Mima would be proxy only, the face of a throne that was commanded by its own defenses.