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I couldn’t help but smile as I looked up at my companion. “It really is nice.”
Ben’s attention, however, lay not on the horizon but on the north. His eyebrows were knitted together and there was that familiar red hue in his orbs.
“What is it?” I asked him as I followed his gaze to the spot that troubled him.
My heart gave a leap when I noticed what he had seen. A black cloud flew across the sky from the direction of Validen. The speed was far too great to be that of a normal cloud, and there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze to send it on its way. I also swore I could hear a terrible screeching from the eerily quick gloom.
I inched closer to Ben. “What is that?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure, but it sounds like a giant flock of birds.”
I frowned. “I’ve never heard a flock sound like that.”
The noise grew louder as the cloud approached us. Lambert rushed out of one of the side buildings of the barn with a milk bucket in one hand and froze just outside the doorway. He gaped at the dark cloud before he dropped the pale and sprinted over to the edge of the grass that marked the end of the courtyard and the beginning of the vineyard fields.
“Cover the vineyard!” he yelled at the men who had started their work with the sun. “There’s a flock of birds coming!”
“Wait a moment!” Ben shouted as he continued to watch the sky with his narrowed eyes. “There’s no need to do that. These birds won’t harm the crops.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Lambert questioned him as he glared up at the approaching cloud.
“Because these birds don’t eat anything,” Ben revealed as he stretched one hand above his head.
One of the dark figures broke away from the swarm and swooped down. My mouth dropped open when I realized it was a crow call.
They wereallcrow calls. Every last drop of them.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
The creature alightedonto his finger and Ben drew it up to his face.
Big mistake. The crow opened its beak nice and wide, and a painfully loud voice emanated from its gullet, as though someone had turned the volume up to eleven.
“My sincerest apologies for these crows, my dear Millie, but I must hear from you immediately!”
My heart dropped into my stomach when I recognized the pushy voice of Lady Trent. I clapped my hands over my ears and grimaced. “How did she make it so loud?”
Ben, too, looked like he was in pain. “By a very forceful command and an impressive pair of lungs.”
The whole flock, which included dozens and dozens of crows, dove down and swirled around us like an angry tornado of shadowy feathers. Each bird tried to get in a word edgewise, and all those words were spoken at the same volume. It was madness and maddening, and it just wouldn’t shut up.
“Silence!”
The loud, clear, commanding voice cut through the horrible noise. I peeked open one eye and beheld Ben standing straight and tall. He glared at the horrible tornado which still fluttered around us, but their screeching had stopped.
I lowered my hands and tried to ignore the ringing in my ears. “Is that all it takes to make them shut up?”
He offered me a smile. “Where a forceful command and an impressive pair of lungs can create, another can undo.”
A thought struck me that made me wince. “No wonder Tully wanted them gone.”
Ben stepped forward and looked over the swirling mass. “Form in order of sending and read out your message slowly and in a low voice!”
The birds did as he bid and formed themselves into a long column that stretched for some forty feet. The leader hopped forward a couple of times and opened its beak. Lady Trent’s voice floated out of its dark gullet like a butterfly being shot out of a cannon.
“Greetings, Miss Lucas! I wanted to inform you that due to some scheduling conflicts, we will be having a meeting of the Lady’s Book Club tomorrow afternoon at two. Please reply on whether or not you will be attending.”
The crow hopped out of the way and the next one came to the forefront. It opened its beak and out came Lady Trent’s voice again.
