The courtyard had been in quite the uproar, but the moment the most important
Jinshi
gave the order to disperse, everyone promptly returned to their posts. Once they were all gone, he checked what was inside the net.
"What on earth is this...?"
Jinshi and Maosen both widened their eyes. From Maosen's reaction, it seemed the bird had gotten away from him before he could get a proper look.
The sparrow
had caught a bird roughly one shaku in size—
an owl.
But it was a rather unsettling-looking owl, and that was what had thrown them.
Its face was round and white, as though it were wearing a mask. And the feathers around its face were dark, so if it kept its wings folded and stayed somewhere dim, it would look just like a floating face.
However—
"Kind of small, isn't it?"
The one who said that so matter-of-factly was
Tenyū.
He was remarkably composed for someone standing in front of Jinshi and the Moon Prince.
Maomao gave Tenyū a nudge with her elbow, just to be safe.
"Oh, my apologies. The Moon Prince is here too, I see."
Maomao thought he was quite the rude one. Of course, she set her own case aside entirely.
Jinshi's expression was slightly stiff as well. On the surface, he wore the serene smile of one from the heavens, but—
"There was quite the commotion. It would be strange not to notice. But what exactly were you doing?"
(How hypocritical.)
He had even sent Maosen over, and now he was saying that?
Not knowing what Tenyū might come out with, Maomao stepped forward.
"Yes. There have been rumors of a disturbing apparition appearing near this estate recently. A military officer assigned to the court physician had been consulted about it by one of the servants, so he'd been investigating during his rounds of the grounds. Today, that servant came to me about it first thing in the morning. "However, I felt it would be discourteous to ask the officers who had just finished their nighttime guard duties to carry on with the investigation. After all, their primary duty is guarding the court physician, not running errands."
Let me add a bit of spite to this.
"Therefore, as a lady-in-waiting attached to the court physicians, I took it upon myself to come and at least hear what this was about."
"I see. Then what about the court physician next door? They have other duties to attend to, surely."
Jinshi's gaze sharpened.
(Ah.)
It seemed dragging Tenyū into this had been a bad idea after all.
"I'm terribly sorry.
I
forced my way into coming along. Maomao here is more skilled in compounding medicines than a junior court physician like myself, and she's currently learning all manner of things. When I heard she was heading to the courtyard, I assumed she must be looking for ingredients for herbal remedies, so I tagged along."
(This person...)
She had switched her form of address.
And what's more, it seemed she really had been deliberately getting the names wrong all along.
It felt as though Jinshi's gaze had grown even sharper.
"Oh my. I more or less understand the circumstances, but is this bird truly the source of the mysterious apparition?"
"Yes. Half of it."
Maomao looked at the owl.
"There are likely prying eyes here. Would it be all right if we moved somewhere else to hear the full story?"
"As you wish."
Maomao accepted Jinshi's offer.
"I've never seen a bird with a face like this before."
Jinshi stared intently at the bird in the cage.
They were escorted from the courtyard to one of the guest rooms Jinshi was using. That said, he had several rooms at his disposal, and this particular one was spacious enough for a casual tea gathering.
Jinshi took his seat as host, and around him were the usual
Suiren,
and Momomi
With Suzaku, there was the escort Ma Shan. Ma Shan's brother
Ma Liang
was probably nearby as well, but he wouldn't show his face.
Somehow Tenyu was also in the same room, grinning.
(Just tell him you have work and turn him down.)
If there was an interesting atmosphere to be had, he would tag along — that was Tenyu.
"Why did you think this bird was the supernatural entity,
the Flyerhead,
in its true form?"
At Jinshi's question, Maomao closed her eyes. She had to be careful not to feed Tenyu any strange information.
"Yes. The first thing that struck me as odd was the word 'face.' I heard someone had seen a 'face' on trees and buildings, so I went around checking the trees first."
That was when she found bird droppings. Not from a small bird — from a carnivorous bird of considerable size.
"Small birds fly around the estate freely during the day, so if there was a carnivorous bird around, I figured it had to be nocturnal."
"Hm. At that point, it already felt like you'd pinned it on a bird being the entity's true form — but what was your basis?"
"If you know this bird, I think you can guess. It was my first time seeing one in person, but I knew there existed a bird that looked as though it wore a face. It was illustrated in a bestiary I obtained at the pharmacy where I used to work."
Jinshi would know what that bestiary was. It was one of the illustrated volumes taken from the fortress of the Shi clan. It should be in Jinshi's keeping now, so if he had brought it to the Western Capital, she ought to be able to see it.
"Its name is simply
the Masked Owl,
apparently. If it were a normal owl, you wouldn't think a face was floating on it, and more to the point, this owl has rather unusual coloring."
Dark feathers. Normally, even if the wings were black, the belly would be white — or so she'd assumed owls were colored. But this one was almost entirely scorched-brown, save for its face.
"May I ask a question?"
Tenyu raised his hand.
"Go ahead."
Jinshi's tone was slightly more overbearing than usual.
"It certainly looks like a face, but isn't it far too small? It's much too cute to pass as a human face."
Ten'yū gazed at the owl in the cage. It showed no sign of struggling and wore a drowsy expression. Perhaps it would fall asleep if given nesting material.
"A human eye is a vague thing. The mere impression of something pale and floating in the dark creates a presence that feels quite large. Besides—"
Maomao pulled a sheet of paper from inside her robe. When she went to borrow writing implements, Sparrow promptly offered his own. His reflexes really were something. She also kept shooting provocative glances at Bashin, who had let the owl slip away earlier, much to his irritation.
Maomao drew four dots on the paper and showed it to Jinshi and Ten'yū. They were positioned roughly where two eyes, a nose, and a mouth would be on a face.
"The human eye is wired so that even a simple arrangement of dots immediately reads as a face. It's the same principle behind those pareidolia cases where people see faces in pillars and such."
"I see. So the face appearing at night—that's what it really is."
Ten'yū reached into the cage and prodded the owl. It offered no resistance. Tomoe arrived carrying a small dish. Inside was raw chicken meat.
(Luxurious.)
When Tomoe held out the chicken with chopsticks, the owl took it without hesitation. It had no qualms about accepting food from a human hand.
"The face, I understand now. But what about the head?"
Ten'yū was no fool. He had committed Maomao's words to memory.
"The face and the head? What do you mean by that?"
Jinshi asked for an explanation.
Maomao decided to go over it once more, review and all.
"Witness reports began about twenty days ago. At first the creature was called a 'face' or a 'mask.' However, the reports from the past few days describe a 'head.' And it was apparently floating outside the estate grounds."
"You're saying the 'face' and the 'head' are two different things. So if this bird is the 'face,' what is the 'head'?"
"That's exactly the question."
Maomao glanced briefly at Sparrow.
"What's the matter? Is there something you need, Sparrow?"
"It's not Sparrow, is it?"
Maomao worked through the timeline in her mind. The sightings of a 'head' had started a few days ago—which coincided with the date she and the others had arrived in the western capital. And there was one person who seemed most likely to pull some kind of stunt.
"Quite the accusation. Sparrow has been with Maomao the entire time these past few days, you know."
That was true. He had gone with Maomao to till the fields.
"This is just one hypothesis. But looking at this owl, I think I've figured something out."
Maomao studied the owl's legs as it pecked at the chicken. There, glinting brilliantly, was intricate goldwork.
"I don't know for sure, but I think they'll be found soon enough. I just need to set a small trap."
Maomao gave a sly grin and stroked the owl with its eerie face.
The next day, it was Suzume who arrived, heralded by her distinctive footsteps.
Maomao had finished cleaning up after breakfast and was compounding medicine alongside the old doctor.
"Maomao, are you a prophet or something?"
Suzume asked, blinking in astonishment.
"It seems they were found. They didn't handle them too roughly, did they?"
"You two, what are you talking about? I haven't the faintest idea."
From start to finish, the old doctor was completely outside the loop, but explaining would be a hassle, so Maomao had him continue the compounding work. Once the medicine was done, he was supposed to prepare tea.
Suzume helped herself to a chair with an air of entitlement and waited for the old doctor to bring tea and snacks. The way she said it, she'd tell the story while she waited.
"Right. Just as Maomao said, I had someone keep watch on the owl's cage overnight. Then, when the owl suddenly started making a commotion, I had them look around, and would you believe it — a person dressed head to toe in black wearing a strange mask was spotted."
Suzume spoke with visible delight, then casually sipped the tea the old doctor offered. The snacks were dried fruits, very much in the style of Seito.
"You're kidding, that's really what they were dressed like?"
Even Maomao was taken aback by how perfectly the description matched.
"So then, is this suspicious person the one who raised the owl?"
"Correct."
Suzume drew a large circle with her finger.
"Maomao, how did you figure out that the culprit behind the incidents was the owl's keeper?"
Suzume asked point-blank.
Maomao recalled the owl's characteristics.
"It was clearly a domesticated owl. There was the ornament on its leg, of course, but it also showed no agitation in its cage and ate the prepared chicken without any wariness. It wasn't simply captured temporarily as a pet — I suspected it had been cared for over many years."
"Oh my."
"One more thing caught my attention regarding the eyewitness accounts."
The sighting of the 'face' had been about twenty days ago, while the sighting of the 'head' was only a few days prior. There was a common thread.
"If we're talking twenty days ago, that's when the..."
Gyokuyou
"—wasn't it about the time the Empress's"
"niece"
"set out for the capital?"
"Ah."
Suzume seemed to have figured it out, too.
"The owl was originally one of the tribute items meant for the capital. What if it managed to escape somehow?"
"Oh my. Then the reason they tried to recapture it now—is it because a member of the imperial family is here, and they wanted to present it again? Was that strange mask supposed to keep someone from seeing its real face?"
Maomao had a hunch about the strange disguise. It wasn't a definitive answer, though—just one of her own working theories.
"Maomao. Suzume may be a motormouth, but she's no fool. She won't just swallow your theory whole."
Suzume was indirectly saying, "Hurry up and spit it out." Being told this only loosened Maomao's tongue further.
"The mask and the black outfit were probably meant to imitate the owl's parent."
Suzume tilted her head at Maomao's words.
"Are you familiar with the concept of imprinting?"
"Yes, Suzume knows about it. It's when a bird hatches from its egg and recognizes the first thing it sees as its parent, right?"
"Yes. I believe the handler intended to return the owl to the wild. They may have tried to keep it from learning human faces."
"…I see."
Judging from the owl's droppings, it had been catching its own food.
"But in the end, it seems to have picked up a taste for chicken from people. A funny-faced owl that's used to humans—wealthy people would buy it out of novelty, and it could even be offered as tribute to nobles."
"The handler who didn't approve of that… let it escape, or perhaps helped it get away?"
"This is all purely speculation."
"And yet the owl that was supposed to have gotten away went and, of all things,"
"ended up at Gyokuyou's"
"villa. Now if an imperial family member is going to stay there, that's a real problem."
"I told you—it's speculation!"
"If the one who raised the owl shows up dressed in the outfit they wore back when they raised it, that's our person. We should catch the owl and release it somewhere far away."
"That's speculation."
"I know that."
They must have used a whistle or something to call the owl. The owl responded but couldn't get outside.
Whether Maomao's speculation proved right or wrong, they had at least gained one thing.
"You're definitely the one who raised the owl, aren't you?"
"That's right."
Maomao and Suzume exchanged grins. The quack doctor, lingering outside the mosquito net, watched the two of them scheming and looked terrified.
If, as Maomao had speculated, the person could raise birds from chicks, then a certain problem was one step closer to being solved.
Nianshen
—that was the name of the former slave who had spoken of the "Wind-Reading Tribe." The tribe that the Dog Clan had supposedly surrounded.
(Though I can't imagine they could survive on ritual ceremonies alone.)
Moreover, when she considered how they had repelled the insects, a single answer could be derived.
The "Wind-Reading Tribe" that had handled birds. Maomao recalled that birds had once been used for a certain purpose.
A communication method using pigeons.
If, in the same way, they had used birds as a means of conveyance, then the Wind-Reading Tribe would have been well-versed not only in ritual ceremonies but also in espionage.
For now, Maomao decided to go meet the suspicious person they had captured.