Page 36 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle

‘Oh, I know – those tall, fancy ones with the bird thing in the middle.’

He nodded. ‘Phoenix,’ he offered.

‘What’s that?’

‘Bird that rises from its own ashes,’ said Axe. A slight blush touched his cheeks. It was not often that he was the purveyor of knowledge – especially to one of the gentry. ‘Rector had it in his sermon one time and I asked Mr Arden,’ he explained.

Mr Arden was the choirmaster. ‘Do you sing in the choir?’

He nodded, still blushing. ‘Tenor,’ he admitted.

‘I’ll look for you next Sunday,’ Alice said. She had never particularly noticed the choir. So he sang, she thought. Somehow, despite his massive frame – or even because of it – it fitted. She remembered someone, long ago – could it have been their governess? – saying that when birds sang in their innocence, they sang to God. It was a nice thought, Axe Brandom, innocent too in some essential way, singing to the Maker.

But there was the question of the phoenix still to be settled. ‘Why would it rise from its own ashes? How did it get to be ashes?’ she pursued. She liked to get to the bottom of things. But Axe only shook his head – either didn’t know, or didn’t want to tell her. Rachel nudged her and frowned, telling her not to converse so freely with strangers, she supposed. But Rachel had asked the cyclist’s name, so she was in no position to object.

‘Do you live in the village?’ Alice asked next. Perhaps she could get him talking about himself.

He shook his head. ‘Got a cottage over the other side of the Carr,’ he said.

‘Is it nice there? I bet you see lots of birds.’

She’d said the right thing. He actually looked at her. ‘Any amount,’ he said. ‘Ducks and moorhens and coots. Woodpeckers, nuthatches, chaffinches. I had a starling last year – fox’d injured its wing. I kept it in my kitchen a month till it healed. Got tame as a Christian, it did, sit on my hand, take food from my fingers.’

‘Oh, I wish I’d seen it!’ Alice said. ‘Have you still got it?’

‘Let it go once it could fly. You can’t keep wild things – ’taint right. Aaron Cutmore, he had a vixen once – had it from a cub.’

‘Who’s he?’

‘Woodsman.’

What a good name for him, Alice thought. ‘Was it a pet?’ she asked.

‘Tame as anything. Lived in his old dog’s kennel at the back door. But it broke its chain one night, bust into the brooder pens and killed two dozen pheasant chicks. Mr Saddler nearly had a fit. Said it’d have to be shot when it come home. But no-one never saw it again.’ He shrugged. ‘Musta died somewhere out there – couldn’t hunt, you see, trailing that old chain.’

‘Oh, the poor thing!’ Alice cried.

‘Can’t keep wild things,’ Axe said again. ‘’Specially foxes – they always turn back to the wild.’

‘Have you got any animals now? Apart from Dolly?’ She caressed the soft ears, and the little bitch sneezed.

‘One or two. I got two cats. Hare with a broken paw – he’s nearly mended. Two young hedgehogs I took in last year, orphaned. They’ll go soon. And a jackdaw. Had him three years.’

‘I thought you said you couldn’t keep wild things.’

He shook his head, smiling. ‘Can’t get rid of him. He’s not in a cage or nothing, he can come and go as he likes. Seems like he chooses to stay.’

‘I bet he does,’ Alice said. I would. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Captain.’

‘Does he talk?’

‘He thinks he does. Lot a gibberish. Clever, though. He can open boxes and find things.’

‘Oh, I wish I could see him!’ Alice cried.

She was sure Axe was on the verge of inviting her, but at the last minute he must have thought better of it, because he clucked to the pony instead to hurry it. Rachel pinched her hand, and when she looked round, she was scowling and shaking her head. So the rest of the drive went in silence. They were delivered to the stable-yard at the Castle, explanations were exchanged with Giddins and Josh, Biscuit was untied, the basket swapped for the rope halter, and Axe drove off without a backward look, comically too large for the shabby little trap – except that Alice didn’t feel at all like laughing at him.