After a few days delay, the hunt set off with great fanfare. Emerald, though offered a fine horse and a distinguished place at the head of the party, chose to remain at home, seeing to the cottage that was now hers alone. She stood with the other remaining villagers, mostly cripples, children and the elderly, and waved to the departing crowd.
As she walked home, she noticed first the silence that had settled on the town, then smiled to herself as her ears piqued to the sweet sounds of birdsongs. Juniper, naturally, had brought her falcon along on the hunt. Though Emerald knew she’d miss her friend, she was glad that there was one fewer predator in the village for this fortnight. She meant the peregrine, of course.
Emerald stepped up to her cottage, her nose wrinkling at the summer flies that buzzed about her eithin bushes. As she bent to remove a stray frond from her pathway, something red caught her eye. Tumbling on the ground, tossed by the wind, was a small crimson parcel, coming from the main road and heading right for Emerald.
Emerald looked all about, but no one was in sight. The parcel, a letter, it seemed, blew up to her dainty feet and rested there. What was she to do, but pick it up? And once she had it in her hands, surely it was natural that she should examine the writing on it. And what should follow that, but for her to run hastily into her house and pry open the letter, which was addressed to someone else, and read it to herself? That indeed was what Emerald did.
The letter was an official decree from a man in the king’s service, name of Sir Tobias LeBaron (with various other titles and attachments), to a young man in the village who was, strangely, not directly named. The letter began: “To the young man, new to the service of the Duke de Cordon Bleu, who now goes by the name of John Justjohn, but who does not in truth go by that name.” What in the world could that mean? The letter continued in such a strange fashion that Emerald could only surmise that it was written in code.
“The small snail is quite well,” it read, “along with clouds that bluster and preen in preparation for seven locks of hair. Your mother inquires after you, and is in fine health, I am pleased to report. Cats dine upon steel but rarely upon ivory. I shall follow this missive after a space of two days and shall be staying at the Rowdie Inne.”
“Well, how asinine!” Emerald said aloud to the curious squirrel on her windowsill. “Half of it appears to be in code, and the rest is just plain fact! Or is it indeed?” She peered at the date atop the letter. It was dated three days previous!
There was one sure way to determine whether she was on the right track in deciphering the letter. She would go to the Rowdie Inn, a place she once frequented with Juniper before they were received so often at the castle, and inquire whether a knight by the name of Tobias LeBaron was in residence. If he was, Emerald thought, bowing her head penitently, she would return to him the message, which had obviously been misplaced by a very careless page. After all, it was not hers to pore over.
Emerald copied the letter word for word onto another sheet of paper, stored her copy in a horticulture book she had been referencing, then set off with the original to meet, she hoped, with this mysterious knight, Sir LeBaron.
