The old quail walked up to Ophrei and, shaking his feathered bonnet with gathered resolve, stared directly into the listener’s eye. The General stood very close, watching the rook for any sign.
“Though the certainty seems evident, I must ask: Is what Banka says true?” asked Fragit.
“Wisdom is in deed, not tongue,” answered Cotur Ada.
“Why are you here?” asked Ophrei. “Why have you come to be a witness of this most sacred rite? To what purpose do you defy the decree, old bird? You know the cost of such insurrection, yes? This deed of yours is not of wisdom but of folly.”
“My deed is clearly understood by some, and most surely not seen by you, rook, not for now. But there may come a time,” said Cotur Ada. “I have chosen as my life’s last endeavor this intrusion. That with my sacrifice, perhaps your hearts will hear. Now, before you make your judgment on me and pronounce my fate, I ask that you, General, and you, Ophrei”—he looked around the murder, every bird scowling and quiet—“and all of you! I beg you, hear my warning plea!”
“We will hear no plea for mercy, quail,” said Fragit. “We are crows. We offer no mercy when the order has been broken. Your fate is already chosen.”
“I seek no reprieve, General. What I ask is only for your ear, and I ask that you listen with your hearts, all of you. That is, if you have the heart to open.”
Ophrei quaked in anger. “What is your plea, then, Cotur Ada, you who are numbered with the damned?”
“I beg of you to send an envoy over the river. To the place where Pitrin the hawk keeps his home. Beg of him to return.” He looked around the field. “Who of you remembers when the wolves were here? Not I. I have heard the tales. Rook? You remember?”
“Aye, I do. Was a dire time,” said Ophrei. Then he laughed, darkly. “Of what consequence is that? And why would any desire a hawk to return here?”
“I had come to believe that the strength of King Crow Mellori and the order he commanded held a balance here.” Cotur Ada turned to General Fragit. “General, what was the claim Sintus made as he fled? Did he not claim to make his return with a battalion of coyotes and foxes? I fear it will not be only coyotes and foxes with which he returns.”
The murder began a murmur.
“Of what nonsense do you speak?” asked Ophrei.
“I beg of you, send an envoy over the river. Beg Pitrin to return. Tell him”—and with this Cotur Ada trembled visibly—“tell him his father sent you.”
“His father.” Fragit laughed. “And who might that be?”
Cotur Ada, the eldest of the quail, lowered his head. “It is I,” he said.
H
IDDEN AWAY,
Y
SIL
and Monroth took in the words of the old quail. What could his grandfather mean:
the father of a hawk
? Out in the field Cotur Ada stood, his head lowered. The crows around him were laughing and murmuring at his ridiculous words. Ysil gaped in wonder at the feather his grandfather had given him. He must be planning some trick. But what? Ysil thought it a vastly dangerous thing his grandfather was doing, and though he struggled to find such, he could grasp no understanding of it.
Below, Cotur Ada, the eldest of the quail, began a song. With the first note, every crow froze silent. His voice was childlike and sweet at times, at times dark and full of warning. And as his melody rose, it settled the wind, and all listened intently, those upon the field and the watchers from their hiding place.
The Invocation of Cotur Ada
Long sung since time has passed
This song of golden field,
And here I’ve spent my weary life
To pick through meager yield.
I am known as Cotur Ada,
The eldest of the quail,
Now lend your ear and hear my plea
And hearken to my tale.
Do you recall past hungry days?
The dreadful worried nights?
When fearful quail would rise up meek,
To seek come morning light?
Every rabbit nibbled cautious,
And badger horded food.
Though mole he worried not a lot
For sleeping buried brood.
And jay gave early warning quick
A twitch of wing then gone.
And golden finch kept to her nest
With warning sounding song.
But we were hardly sheltered safe
By hiding in the brush,
When out we sneaked come morning light
None would watch o’er us.
That pale winter she daily came
And with no protection.
Starvation pushed us from our nests;
She took her selection.
She fell upon our number’s kind
And on my loved ones dined,
The slower and the older ones,
The younger left behind.
But we were choiceless in those days,
For we must seek the grain,
Winter holds no greater bounty
Save what we store away.
She nested high up in the fir
And that year tended young;
We damned their cursed sharpened beaks,
With feasting bloody tongues.
High on his roost sat old King Crow
In council with the wind,
Sleepy and fat on robins’ eggs,
Stinking of shed snakeskin.
We gathered up all true and brave
And told the King our fear.
He frowned and preened his dirty wing,
His murder roosting near.
Incanta spoke not one lone word
But wept before his feet:
Her dear babe chick taken away
By hawk’s strong spiked beak.
A worn and angry old grey squirrel
Petitioned to the King:
But as he spoke the murder laughed,
Their cawing deafening.
“You’re wise and brave, Your Majesty,
Please make this hawk to leave!”
But old King Crow fell fast asleep
And did not hear our pleas.
And eager Nijra went ahead
As younger quail will go,
And down upon him came the hawk,
Her talons clasping low.
She lifted him up to the sky
And brought him to her nest.
She fed her screeching babies’ mouths
Upon bird’s opened chest.
So back we trudged with heads hung low,
Our spirits sunk in hate,
For now our numbers were but few
(So many dead of late),
Back to our brambly hidden home,
Where sad all night we cried
And prayed that with the coming morn’
The hawk be satisfied.
And early I did rise to seek,
As seeking’s what we do,
The little grain and winter’s feed
To carry the day through.
With fearful heart I crept to field
’Neath hungered, desperate skies
And hoped to find a spot of green
And not death from on high.
And there beneath the sleepy sun
Just near a mouse’s lair
A feathered form fought to set free
Its wing from man’s sharp snare.
And in amazement I drew close
To see who was entwined.
In shock I found the murd’rous hawk
Entangled in the line.
I drew in close to see if she
Were too bound to break free.
She turned up quick with dying gasp
And set her eyes on me.
Red blood was flowing from her wing,
A gash deep in her side.
Her fury spent, she lay there, weak,
So bound up, neatly tied.
I looked to her and said, “Well now,
You’ve met untimely end.
Your bones we’ll scatter ’cross this field,
Your feathers to the wind.”
She stared at me and from her mouth
There came a saddened cry.
She said, “I ask you hearken to
My begging ’fore I die.
“I implore you heed my memory,
Barely out of my nest,
When quail in number were but few
With hawks’ and wolves’ contest.
“We had no food for weeks on end—
My brothers, sisters dead—
Wolves gorged fat on the dwindled quail
And ravaged rabbit’s bed.
“And when the squirrel and dove were gone
And on wild feeding stopped,
The wolves grew brave and preyed upon
The lazy pasture stock.
“And man was pricked by this offense
To find his cattle slain,
And shot and killed the wolves until
There was but one remained . . .
“A young gray wolf, so fast and proud,
Into the forest ran
And once again a prayerful calm
Settled on the land.
“These times I’d say none can recall,
’Cept turtle—mute and still—
When man our common enemy
Did all the strong wolves kill.
“And if you were to let me die
And rot into the ground
Who then would feed my babies’ mouths
With mother not around?
“But set aside my final beg,
And take great warning: Heed!
I only take so many now
Because I’ve mouths to feed . . .
“And beak and talon are but trite
When held to claw and teeth,
Should I pass on there may return
The wolf to gain this keep.
“Fly, I beg you, bless my babes
And feed their bellies good.
It won’t be long they’ll learn to fly
Their purpose understood.”
“And whom to them will we then feed?
Our young, our old, our weak?
Shall I tear my child’s precious flesh?
And push it to their beaks?”
Weak she gasped a slow reply:
“Feed worms or grubs or flies.
It won’t be long they’ll need your care,
Their nature realized.”
And as she talked all gathered round,
Our figures small and frail.
The dove, a badger, mole, and rat,
The rabbits, mice, and quail.
Still we watched in silence deep
As, witness to her weeping,
We viewed her tortured suffering,
’Til death did claim it’s keeping.
We left her there and went our way
And danced until the night
And through the dark, we shut our ears
To starving babies’ cries.
The next night the cacophony
Of weeping was still there,
But not as loud, as surely some
Had died without her care.
The foll’wing day but one still wailed
From there within the nest
I pressed my wings tight to my ears,
Prayed, “Babe, give up contest!”
But then the next night still it cried
And I had made my will
To fly up there, and in the nest,
The screaming infant kill.
But when I looked upon its form
So frail and near-death weak,
I scraped the bark and found a grub
And pushed it to its beak.
The little bird snapped up the worm;
Hungrily gulped it down.
And once it ate, it closed its eyes
And sleeping made no sound.
But come the evening following,
The little one cried need.
As day set off in losing light,
The poor thing I did feed.
None knew that I fed him each night
And learned to love the thing
The hawk took me as father
My tending, pampering.
And large it grew and hungered more
And gained in needful size,
But though I brought it many bugs
Its need did not subside.
Then one cold morning, early still,
I heard the rustling brush,
And out I peeked with fear to find
Just what the trouble was.
And there, with rabbit’s dead form clutched
In talons sharp and strong,
My foster son stood all aglow,
As if he’d done no wrong.
With purpose filled he looked at me,
Said, “Father, now I see
I’m not meant to subsist on grubs,
’Tis fresh meat that I need!”
“No!” I screamed. “You murderer!
You fiend, you’ve killed my kind!”
There came a pained and bloody tear
Formed crimson in his eye.
I knew beyond a bitter doubt
What I had done for love
Was only for a greater sin
Than what good done thereof.
The old King Crow flew laz’ly down
And landed at my wing
His feathers worn and specked with white,
His grimace frightening.
He watched on, frowning thoughtfully
As I spoke to my son,
“You must go now! Never return.
Your time to leave has come!”
The hawk, he made the saddest sound
That I have ever heard.
The mournful wretch flew swift away,
The screeching, broken bird.
And as I watched, he disappeared
Into the morning sky,
And broken, whispered soft to him
A father’s sad good-bye.
King Crow he stepped then chuckled smart.
“Your child is grown, I see.
I am much vexed that he has gone.
His presence we did need.”
Then crow he flew up to his perch
And closed his eyes to sleep,
And I cried over rabbit’s form
For I had loved him deep.
And now we are so many here
And so few killed as prey,
We are fearless through the night,
And careless through the day.
But lately when the moon’s been full
I preen and do not sleep
And listen for the howling wolf