“Um,” Beth said.
“He won’t be able to escape your feminine wiles, not in those ridiculous sandals he wears over his socks.”
Beth, having been unaware until this moment that she possessed feminine wiles, and not entirely sure what they involved, could make no sensible reply. It did not matter however, for Hippolyta’s attention had returned to the trees.
“The deathwhistler is near, I can feel it in my water! And my water is never wrong! Keep your eyes peeled, Elizabeth. We’re looking in particular for charred leaves or swarms ofinsects.” She turned her head to shout at the servants. “Insects, gentlemen!”
The servants looked back with expressions suggesting they would like to take her advisement and shove it somewhere with significantly less sun than the Spanish forest.
Suddenly, the trees rustled. Hippolyta and Beth paused, their faces lifted and their senses straining for a sight, sound, or magical vibration of the pileated deathwhistler. Behind them, the servants took this opportunity to lay down their burdens (literal: tool bags, birdcage, heavy boxes, picnic hamper, picnic table and chairs; and metaphorical: weariness for the drudgery of their job). They wiped their brows and pushed up their sleeves in a manner Beth would have envied had she not been so intent upon the trees.
“There!” Hippolyta tossed aside her glass of lemonade without looking (braining a red-tufted mousetwitter that happened to be pecking about in the undergrowth, thereby bringing an end to its species on the Continent and losing herself, had she but known it, several thousand pounds). Her attention focused instead on a flutter of gold among the leaves. “Quick, the net!”
But even before Rupert could order a servant to obtain the net from a porter and bring it to him, whereupon he could present it to Hippolyta, the deathwhistler was off. With a swoop of wings, it lifted its coin-colored, peacock-size body from a branch and began to fly away along the forest path.
“After it!” Hippolyta shouted.
Beth lifted the hem of her long white skirt and hastened after the deathwhistler, Hippolyta hot on her heels with a rustle of yellow taffeta. They ran along the path, parasols bobbing, dust billowing as their boots struck the dry earth. The servants watched them blankly.
“Faster!” Hippolyta urged.
But suddenly, Beth staggered to a halt. The bird glided on a short distance, then descended to the path, its wings folding, its bronze crest glinting in the sunlight.
“Why do you stop?” Hippolyta demanded—and, at Beth’s urgent reply, staggered to a halt herself before she ran headlong into a chasm. Dropping her binoculars in surprise, she watched them plummet several hundred feet to break against jagged rocks below.
“By Jove!” she shouted.
“The deathwhistler seems aware of our predicament,” Beth said wryly as the bird flickered its long-feathered tail at them.
“The chase is not over yet!” Hippolyta averred. “I am determined to protect that bird from unscrupulous hunters [i.e., her rivals] and see it safe in the Duke of Wimbledon’s aviary. No deathly chasm shall stop me! Propellers!”
Beth tugged on a cord attached to her parasol handle. Hippolyta did the same with hers. Long metal shafts arose from atop the parasols’ caps and, with a whirring buzz, began to spin. The two ladies proceeded to rise from the path.
Behind them, the servants sagged down onto boxes, hamper, and chairs. Before them, the pileated deathwhistler pecked the ground as if entirely undisturbed by the introduction of this boisterous new avian species. A glint in its small dark eyes suggested, however, that it was amused and intended to wait for the most aggravating moment possible before taking off again.
Hippolyta and Beth angled their parasols in such a manner as to traverse the deep but narrow cleft in the earth, then alighted on the other side. As they drew the parasols shut, Hippolyta held out a hand toward Beth, palm up, without removing her steely gaze from the bird.
“Net,” she commanded.
“Er…” Beth said.
Hippolyta snapped her fingers impatiently, but to no avail. They had forgotten to bring the net with them.
“Bother!” Hippolyta said. “Well, never mind.” After all, she had not become the preeminent field ornithologist of the British Empire, and the slightly-less-eminent but still famous field ornithologist of the Continent, without being able to bounce back from such calamities. She began divesting herself of her puff-sleeved jacket. “We shall sneak up on it and toss my jacket over its head.”
“Good plan,” Beth said. She was about to wish Hippolyta luck for such a risky venture when the older woman handed her the jacket.
“Now, remember, Elizabeth! When frightened, the deathwhistler makes a dreadful, fatal noise, like—”
“Oi! Look out below!”
At this holler, Hippolyta and Beth did exactly the opposite of what it commanded: they looked up, into the canopy of the forest. A man came leaping down from a tree, his long brown coat soaring behind him winglike.
Birds startled and took to the air. For one awful moment, Beth heard the first perilous notes of the deathwhistler’s cry. But even as her heart began to shudder, the man snatched the bird and tucked its beak beneath his arm, rendering it silent. Tawny feathers ruffled wildly, briefly, then settled into calm.
The interloper bowed as much as was possible with a sizable bird in his arms. He was slightly unshaven, and a lock of black hair fell over one dark eye roguishly. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said, grinning.
“Mr. Lockley!” Beth’s exclamation shook her vocal cords, which were used to only gentle employment. “What do you think you are doing?”
