Blue Feathers

By Ashley J Barner

Aveline was a brilliant but quiet girl who learned how to speak the secret Birdtongue from her scholarly father, a skill known only by three people in the entire kingdom. Not quite peasant, but not of nobility, she had long accepted the fact that any marriage would require one person or the other to have to “marry down.” So she was c

• Language: English
• Publisher: Loconeal Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Aug 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781940466552

Book preview

Chapter 1

May I carry that basket for you?

Aveline looked up quickly, and discovered one of the local boys speaking to Olive, the village beauty. She quickly dropped her eyes again and felt her cheeks flame.

No, you will only drop it! The miller’s son, Henry, scoffed from the doorway of the mill. You drop the barrel staves often enough in your work. Olive, may I carry your burden?

Aveline stole another sideways glimpse at Olive, who was dimpling at the attention. Her golden curls glinted in the sun, and her dress, though coarse, became her. Aveline shifted in her own, suddenly uncomfortable, and squeezed past the trio to the miller’s door.

Lads, I’m already at my destination, Olive remonstrated. There’s nothing for you to do—unless you want to fetch your father, Henry.

Henry glanced at his rival and disappeared into the house. But Olive didn’t let the other boy take advantage of Henry’s absence; she turned to Aveline instead.

Good morning, Mistress Aveline, she said respectfully. How are you?

I’m well, thank you, Olive. And yourself?

Oh, I’m well. Did you see your father on his way this morning?

Yes. Aveline glanced away.

Luckily, the miller appeared in his doorway at this moment and spared her further discussion. Good morning, Mistress Aveline, Olive, he said in his big, jovial voice. Henry! he called over his shoulder to his son. Fetch Mistress Aveline’s flour!

However, the reprieve wasn’t long. So your father’s off this morning, is he, Mistress Aveline? the miller continued chattily. Who’s he gone to see? Lich—

Lady Lichowl, Aveline supplied. At Lichfoss.

That’s it. Long way, is it?

Long enough, Aveline was saying quietly when Henry returned with the flour.

Here you go, Mistress Aveline, he said, and turned quickly to Olive. And here’s yours, Olive.

Thank you, Henry, Olive answered primly—but Aveline didn’t stay to hear the rest of the conversation.

Instead, as she left the village, she concentrated on another kind of conversation going on all around her: the conversation of the birds. The villagers could hear in birdsong only the whistles and chirps that were the audible level of the Birdtongue. The birds could send simple messages on this level alone: alarm calls, territorial warnings, mating calls. But the Birdtongue had a second, deeper level: a level of the mind. Anyone who studied birds long enough, Aveline’s father would say, could learn the first level. But few people had the ability to hear and respond to the deeper language, and even fewer had been trained to do so. But Aveline had.

Get away from my berries-berries!

Your berries? Who said they were your berries?

Come sit with me, my love, my love!

I hope-hope that slink-beast leaves my husband alone . . .

Little one, not like that. Look out! Look out! The worm’s getting away!

The weather is sweet for little birds, for little birds it’s sweet . . .

Aveline smiled. The songs of birds in the summertime, even late summer, as it was now, were always so carefree. They didn’t worry about the future. The males, though they might put all their efforts into their courtship, didn’t worry about whether they would find a mate: they seemed to consider it a given thing that if they didn’t catch one female, they would catch another. The females never seemed to consider the question at all; they simply sang back to whichever birds had caught their fancy. And when the time came for some of them to fly south for the winter, they simply got up and left one morning, making no plans and saying no goodbyes. They were certain of their return in the spring, sure as the sun would rise the next morning. And they never had to leave their babies behind.

Aveline quickly brushed away some tears and straightened her shoulders, tilting her head back to let the bright morning sun fall on her face. The cart-track below her feet had not been turned to mud by the rain the night before, and Aveline hoped the sun would dry all the roads between Stanham and Lichfoss.

Up ahead, Aveline spied nine-year-old Geoffrey staring up into the branches of a tree. She glanced up into the branches, herself, but saw nothing. As she drew nearer, however, she saw a spot of brilliant blue perched on a limb—a large barn swallow, perhaps?

Geoffrey stooped down to pick up a stone and, before Aveline could call out to stop him, flung it straight at the bird. It connected with a thud and a squawk, and the bird fell to the ground.

Geoffrey! Aveline ran to the boy despite the weight of her bag of flour. You leave that bird alone!

Aw, what for? Geoffrey said sullenly.

It’s a harmless, defenseless creature, Aveline scolded as she bent over the swallow.

Eh, I haven’t even killed it, Geoffrey said dismissively, sauntering off in the direction of the village.

He hadn’t killed it. It was sitting on the ground, looking stunned and moving very little. Aveline approached it slowly. I am a friend, she whistled softly. I will not hurt you. It was understood among birds that if a predator spoke to its prey, it could not then harm it, and she hoped that just speaking to him would be enough to calm him. Slowly and gently, Aveline picked the bird up and held it in her hands. It made one cry of surprise, but said nothing further, and Aveline began to worry that it had struck its head and addled its brain. Any normal wild bird would have been terrified of being picked up by a human, even if that human had spoken to it in its own tongue.

Holding the bird securely but gently to her chest with one hand, Aveline hurried back toward her house, lugging the sack of flour in the other. Now that she had a good look at the bird, she wondered how she could possibly have mistaken it for a barn swallow. It was mostly blue, like a swallow, but even brighter—the color nearly burned her eyes in the sunlight. It didn’t have the swallow’s red throat, and its underparts were a true white, not off-white. It was also, more to the point, twice as large as a swallow. The beautiful thing was warm and soft in her hand, and it neither struggled nor made a sound the whole way to the house.

Aveline’s father’s house stood beyond the manor house and the parsonage, in a small patch of wooded land. Simon was employed as Sir Hugo’s steward and managed his estates for a salary. Thus Simon and Aveline did not have any fields, merely a small vegetable plot behind the house, which Aveline tended to. Aveline hurried past the parsonage, hoping that the parson wouldn’t come out and see her. He was a friendly old man, and liked to engage Simon—or failing him, Aveline—in long-winded and erudite discussions. Thankfully, the parson was nowhere to be seen, and Aveline reached the safety of her father’s house with no interruptions.

Once inside, Aveline arranged a rag in a nest-like shape on the table in the main room and carefully set the blue bird down on it. It looked around it with curious eyes that held no fear.

I hope it is not injured too badly, Aveline thought worriedly as she hurried into her father’s room. I have never heard Father describe such a bird, much less seen one. Wouldn’t it be horrible if Geoffrey killed the only bird of its kind in the kingdom?

She fetched a special liniment from Simon’s large chest and returned to the main room—only to discover that the blue bird was gone.

Aveline sighed, and moved to shut the door she had so carelessly allowed to swing open. She hoped the bird was well enough to fly. If it was badly injured, it might still die out in the wild.

She remembered the little canary Sir Hugo had bought for his daughter Agnes on her marriage. Aveline and her father had gone to see it at the manor house. Aveline had been disappointed; the bird spoke of nothing but food and the little wooden toys that had been placed in its cage.

Is it time for food yet? the canary had chirped the moment it saw them. I want food!

Your food is in your big-nest, silly thing! Aveline whistled back.

Oh! Food! The canary perched on the edge of the tray of flaxseed and dandelion leaves and pecked at it with energy. Aveline reflected that the poor thing was not very bright. She asked her father why as the bird gobbled up his meal.

He was bred in captivity, Simon explained, and has never known life outside a cage. He offered the canary a bit of cabbage leaf, a lock of graying brown hair falling into his kind eyes.

That was cruel, the fourteen-year-old Aveline had said, furrowing her brow. To trap a living creature in such a small place!

But he has never known what it was like to have freedom, Simon reminded her. Do you think it might perhaps be crueler to obtain these songbirds by capturing the wild ones, rather than breeding them in captivity?

"That would perhaps be worse, Aveline agreed. But then, at least the wild bird in the cage can remember his free life—and he might be a better conversationalist for it! And anyway, she continued as her father chuckled, this bird was bred from wild birds that were captured and put in cages. But I suppose we cannot set this one free."

No, we cannot, Simon agreed. He never learned to care for himself in the wild, and would soon die. But, he added, we can recommend that Sir Hugo find him a larger cage!

Sir Hugo had indeed obtained a larger cage—a big-nest—for the canary before giving it to his daughter, just as he had obtained a comfortable big-nest for Simon. Aveline glanced around at the walls of their house in the dim light: the doors and windows which opened on the road and the garden, the smaller pantry and study on the ends of the long house, the little loft under the ceiling where her own bed lay. This was one case in which the wild bird had liked being caged. Simon, though he had seen the world in his youth, had been very happy to settle in Stanham with his wife and child. He didn’t seem to feel that the small village was a cage at all.

A knock at the door made Aveline jump and recalled her from her reminiscences. Opening the door, she discovered her visitor was the young son of Sir Hugo’s cook, often employed by Sir Hugo’s family on small errands.

Mistress Isabella wants you to sit with her, the boy said baldly, and Aveline’s lips quirked. The messenger was too young yet to be able to remember the polite way that Sir Hugo’s younger daughter had doubtless couched the original request.

I’ll come, Aveline answered mildly, and followed the boy back to the manor house.

Isabella was sitting in the solar as usual, embroidering. Oh, Aveline! You came! she said, smiling, as Aveline stepped over the threshold. I have nothing to do this morning, and the parson has business to deal with at the chapel, so I was wondering if you might read to me?

Aveline agreed readily and took up the book. Reading would give her something to think about besides her father. And Isabella was a pleasant enough companion, though she only spent time with Aveline because, now that Agnes was married, Aveline was the only young woman in the manor who wasn’t a peasant. Aveline also suspected that Sir Hugo often suggested her as a companion to his daughter, and she felt her suspicion confirmed when that gentleman entered the solar a short time later to look in on them.

Well, and how are you today, Aveline? Sir Hugo asked her.

I’m well, Sir, thank you, she answered, smiling up at her father’s friend. She had to smile a long way up. Sir Hugo was a large man: tall, barrel-chested, and with a sparkling eye and jovial smile. Aveline, for all her diffidence, never felt shy in his presence.

You’ll stay for dinner, I hope?

Yes, thank you.

I must return to business. It’s more difficult without your father here, but I suppose we must make the best of it, eh? He smiled at her, and continued on without waiting for an answer. I’ll leave the two of you to your contemplation of saints’ lives.

He left, but instead of asking Aveline to continue on, Isabella commented, I had forgotten your father was to leave this morning. Do you suppose while he’s in Lichfoss he’ll find a husband for you?

Isabella was Aveline’s own age, sixteen, and thus was quite ready to be married. Having married his elder daughter off two years before, Sir Hugo had begun to search for a suitable husband for Isabella. Isabella had marriage on her mind.

I doubt it, Aveline answered. I believe Lichfoss is a rather isolated place . . . . And, she added quietly, there might be some difficulties in that matter anyway.

Isabella, pondering the statement for a moment, clearly knew what Aveline meant, but was polite enough not to comment. Aveline and Simon’s social position was a slightly strange one, and it was difficult to think of a person whom Aveline might marry without either party being said to have married down.

Aveline returned to the book, and Isabella made no objection.

During dinner, when the people around her were discussing harvests and husbands, Aveline was thinking about birds. Or rather, one bird: the blue bird she had encountered that morning. She wanted to tell her father all about it when he returned, and she wanted to remember all its features as clearly as she could, so that she could describe it to him. When she returned to the house after the meal, she hunted carefully around the door, trying to discover whether the bird had collapsed soon after leaving the house. But she saw no sign of it, and when she asked, the birds sitting around the house had not seen a blue bird there since that morning. Aveline had to be content with that. But she hoped that she would see the bird again, and maybe this time she could follow it to its nest. She entered her own house, so like a nest itself with its wattle-and-daub walls and its thatched roof, and shut the door behind her, trying not to feel how lonely the little place was now, with her father absent.

Chapter 2

Two days later, Aveline knelt in the back garden, weeding the cabbage plot and chatting with a little tree sparrow perched in a nearby bush. For the all repetition of its audible call, the sparrow was a garrulous little soul and often tried to talk Aveline’s ear off when she was outside.

Then my sparrow-wife had the idea—good idea!—to build in the abandoned magpie nest, the sparrow was chipping. He paused to call out to a fellow sparrow. Thou’rt going the wrong way for the dirt bath! he called, addressing him familiarly, as birds did with others of their own species.

I thank thee, I thank thee indeed, but I’m not going to the dirt bath but to the group-sing in the big big-seed tree in the forest. I know—I know there’s singing going on there. Don’t want to miss it! Don’t want to miss it! He was still talking as he flew far out of earshot, and Aveline laughed at his talkativeness—so like a sparrow.

We have a sweet little domed nest—sweet, sweet, the first sparrow continued over top of his fellow’s song. I’m planning— The sparrow stopped mid-sentence and peered around. Who are you, stranger?

Just a visitor, another bird twittered back. Aveline peered into the trees and saw a patch of bright blue. She ducked her head and went quietly back to her work, pretending that she hadn’t taken any particular notice of the blue bird.

Hm, the sparrow said. That thought—visitor—was not common vocabulary in the Birdtongue. Far-traveler was what birds called those who were migrating. The sparrow went back to his conversation. I’m hoping to re-line the same nest next year. And you had better not—better not—steal it! he added vehemently to the blue bird.

The bird gave what Aveline could only describe as a laugh: an odd sound for a bird to make, and it didn’t sound like a cheerful one. Your nest would never fit me, little bird, he answered.

There was something in his voice, his way of speaking, that struck Aveline as very odd. She stood up quietly and walked a little closer to the trees. The blue bird fell silent as he finally realized she had taken notice of him.

From what bourne did you travel-far? she asked him quietly—asking where he had migrated from so that she might not be guilty of the rudeness of asking a bird where he nested.

The bird jumped, as if startled, and then suddenly took flight.

Wait! Aveline called after it, but it