The Chick Is In The Mail

glossy, her eyes bright with intelligence and curiosity. Now she was thin beneath her dull and brittle feathers, her dark eyes haunted. Irene leaned against the aerie's arabesque of iron bars, watching the Golden Empress feed.

Irene felt Andi's hand squeeze her shoulder. 'She took milk this morning too, Mistress,' Andi said, 'Warm from the cow, just as Master Kerides suggested.'

'Wonderful,' Irene said. She straightened, wiping her damp face on the purple breast scarf that marked her as one of the Empress Theodora's officers. Andi plucked the scarf out of her hand and substituted a handkerchief.

Irene blew her nose. 'As long as she's eating there's hope. Kerides has kept Windwing alive for a full year since her Fading began.' She fisted her hands against the bars of the aerie. 'Goldie has to live long enough for you to complete your apprenticeship, so that you, not Tulius, take my place.'

Andi's face twisted. 'Theodora has known you all your life. I can't believe she'd have you killed.'

Irene turned resigned eyes to her apprentice. 'The Golden Empress is Princess Helena's signet beast, the augury of her future reign. In my arrogant youth, I swore I'd keep the griffin alive. If Goldie dies, I won't live to see the next dawn.'

'We'll heal Goldie,' Andi said. 'You won't die.'

Irene stared at the feeding griffin. 'Well, not today, anyway.' Her hands relaxed. 'Rescue the leftovers, will you? Then get changed. We have to go to the menagerie.'

Andi paled. 'For how long?'

Irene rubbed at her eyes. 'That depends on how many animals from yesterday's `performance' are still alive.'

* * *

A long stone ramp led to the catacomb of cells and cages that ran beneath the hippodrome. The walls distorted the cries of the captive animals, so that the stones themselves seemed to wail, and in that stygian closeness the smell of blood and sweat and rotting waste was almost stifling.

'Honoring us with a visit, Irene?'

Irene turned. 'Good-day, Tulius.'

Tulius was tall and darkly handsome, and Irene had seen him be charming when he had something to gain by it. It made his easy cruelty all the more grotesque. Irene nodded toward the first corridor of cages. 'We'll see the animals now, thank you.'

Tulius made an ironic bow. 'Certainly. We lost half the hyenas, and two of the lions, but there're others that may do for the arena again if you want to patch them up.'

'Which lions?' Andi demanded. 'You didn't fight Leda? What did you do with her cubs?'

'Did you miss the show? Too bad! I loosed the hyenas on the cubs, then set the lions on the hyenas. It was inspired.'

Andi's eyes blazed. Irene set a hand on her shoulder. 'Which lions did you lose?'

'The big male-a shame about that-and the mother. The hyenas got one cub, but the two surviving lionesses drove off what was left of the pack before they got the other.' He made a face, mockingly tragic. 'Of course, I had to have it destroyed anyway. Too young to live without its mother. Well, enjoy your rounds, ladies. I'm sure you can find your own way.' He threw a ring of keys at Irene. Managing not to flinch, she snatched them out of the air before they struck her in the face.

This was the man who wanted her place, wanted control of her animals, of her people, of Andi. If my Golden Empress dies, Irene thought, before the princess's Varangians come for me, perhaps I will come for you.

Tulius turned on his heel and went whistling up the corridor toward the arena. Andi stared after him, her eyes speaking hate. Irene touched her arm. 'Andi. There's nothing you can do for the dead ones. Let's go see what we can do for the living.'

'They're all dead,' Andi said bitterly. 'Just some of them are still breathing.'

Irene gave a small crooked smile. 'You could say the same of me. Or of anyone.' Irene took Andi's hand, squeezed it. 'We all cheat death one breath at a time.'

Andi squared her shoulders. 'Let's go cheat like hell.'

A weak or sickly beast did not make a good show, so Tulius's captives at least had clean water and adequate food. But their quarters were cramped, and they lived in a miasma of fear and filth where even a minor wound could turn deadly.

One of the surviving lionesses had a shallow gash in her flank, which only needed to be cleansed and stitched.

The second lioness was not so simple. Though the bone of her injured leg was miraculously unbroken, the flesh was deeply torn, in places hanging in strips like meat cut for smoking. Serious infection had already set in, angry-looking purple streaks running into the undamaged flesh of hock and thigh.

Irene shook her head. 'The poison's entering her blood. It might be kindest just to cut her throat.'

'No!' Andi protested. Irene looked at her sharply and the younger woman reddened. 'We can give her a chance.'

Irene squatted back on her haunches. 'Talk.'

'I have a new medicine,' Andi said, 'supposed to fight this kind of infection. The Varangian who told me of it swore by it.'

'Varangians swear by a lot of things,' Irene said doubtfully. 'False gods. Their swords. Beer.' She nodded. 'Try it.'

Andi flashed a smile, put flame to her blade and began to excise the wound. She scraped some of the deadly ooze into one of Irene's costly glass jars.

'What will you do with that?' Irene asked.

'If I can get the poison to grow outside the flesh, perhaps in a dish of fresh blood, then I could try our medicines in turn, to see which best destroys it.'

Irene nodded approval, watchful as Andi packed the wound with a grey paste. 'What's in your Varangian's goo?'

Andi colored, but began to pull the tattered flesh together with small neat stitches. 'Biscuit mold and spider webs.'

Irene smiled wearily. 'Well, I've heard worse.'

By the time they finished their rounds in the maze of cells, they were sick-hearted and weary. Irene sank to the thin straw that littered the passage, her back against the wall. Her head ached from working by lamp and torchlight, her fingers were cramped from wielding knife and needle and her hands raw from repeated washing. She closed her burning eyes for a moment, feeling vaguely guilty as Andi cleansed their instruments and emptied basins into the narrow gutters.

'Mistress?' Andi said. 'What's this end cell for?'

'It's called the Dragon Cage,' Irene answered, without opening her eyes. 'Large exotics were confined there, back when rare beasts like dragons were actually exhibited and killed in the arena. It hasn't been used for years.'

'It's in use now,' Andi said grimly. Irene's eyes popped open and she sat up. Andi had her ear pressed shamelessly against the rough cedar door. 'This lock is new, and I can hear something moving inside.'

'That bastard!' Irene spat, anger and alarm banishing fatigue. She scrambled up, fumbling for the ring of keys. The lock answered to none of them.

Irene withdrew in frustration. 'Damn. We can't get in.'

Andi bent and rummaged in the satchel, emerging with a farrier's hammer and horseshoe pry. 'Bugger that,' she said flatly. She planted the wedge of the pry against the lip of the door hasp and struck down hard with the farrier's hammer, once, twice. The hasp plate tore away from the wood and the whole lock assembly swung free.

Both women pushed through the doorway into a small antechamber. Irene lifted the lantern to illuminate the barred cell beyond.

Andi gasped. 'Mistress Irene. What is it?'

'I have no idea,' Irene said softly.

The creature was a lithe darkness against the grey stone, eyes shining an eerie green in the light. It was built like a lion the size of a Kilbanophoros steed, with a sleek scaled head atop a powerful, graceful neck that reminded Irene of horses. Then it arched its back like an enormous cat, and a series of bladelike scales rose like a clattering phalanx of spears along its spine. Lamplight spilled over scales and claws scratched on stone as the creature wheeled to face them head-on. It tried to shriek, but only a faint and angry hissing escaped its beaked and muzzled jaws.

'I see you found my prize,' Tulius said from behind them.

'And I so wanted to surprise you.'

Irene turned furiously. 'This is an exotic, Tulius! It belongs in the Imperial Mews, not in the arena!'

'Oh, yes?' Tulius's posture was confident, his eyes and voice amused. 'Now, Mistress, I have a long, long list, written in your own hand, of creatures you may take from me in the Empress's name.' His voice went low with sudden hatred. 'I know that list as well as you, you dwarfish bitch, and that creature is not on it. Therefore, it is mine.'

The Black Beast lunged at Tulius, crashing against the bars of the cage. Talons snagged on iron and scraped parallel grooves in the stone floor.

Tulius laughed, an honestly joyous, happy sound. 'A prince of the Vandals comes to the City, and I promised the Empress a fitting entertainment for her barbarian guest. My Black Beast will kill until the sands are red, and he will die magnificently.' He grinned and leaned over Irene's small frame, his predator breath hot in her face. 'I and my Black Beast will be remembered when you are a long-forgotten joke, Mistress Irene.'

'The Empress takes no pleasure in such things!'

'But the prince does,' Tulius said with confidence. 'And your precious Empress values a treaty with his father more than the life of this beast.'

'Left to your care, the beast might not live to see the arena,' Andi said. Irene and Tulius turned. Andi knelt beside the bars of the cage, the beast scant inches away on the other side of the bars. Its chest scales rattled as it struggled for breath. 'At least take the muzzle off it. It's overheated. It needs to pant, like a dog or a lion. It also has untreated wounds.' Andi addressed Irene. 'It must have been caught with wire snares. There are lacerations, one high on the right hind leg, another just above the wrist joint of the left fore. They're underneath the lap of the scales, so I only saw them when the beast leaped at the bars.'

'Any sick animal is under my jurisdiction,' Irene reminded Tulius sharply.