A Timely Death - Part Two

Who will take over as King of the Magpies, now that Mr. Magander has passed on?

Part Two

The Final Gift

When the last of the birds had disappeared into the gloom, the Gypsy remained. She was soaked to the bone, her silks clinging to her skin, but she didn't seem to notice the cold.

She looked down at the small, feathered body of the bird who had dared to steal the sun. The blades of grass were already beginning to wash away in the rising puddles, and the rowan berries were rolling into the mud. The forest was reclaiming its own.

The Gypsy looked this way and that, her keen eyes scanning the shadows of the trees to ensure the parliament was truly gone. Then, with a movement as swift and practiced as a magpie's strike, she stooped down.

She didn't take the bird, she left Mr. Magander to the earth and the ants, but her fingers closed around the Timepiece. She felt the weight of the gold, the history of the scratches on its surface, and the lingering warmth of the bird's presence.

She slipped the watch into the deep, hidden pocket of her apron.

"A fair trade, my king," she whispered to the wind. "For the berries and the suet."

She turned and walked away into the rain, the faint clink of gold against her hip the only sound left in the darkening woods.

+++
The Turning of the Wheel

The winter that followed Mr. Magander's death was one of the harshest the Blackwood had ever known. Without the "Sun" to guide their spirits, the parliament had fractured. Skerrit, stripped of his bravado, had become a bitter hermit of a bird, relegated to the lower, damp branches where the woodlice were scarce. The sense of nobility that had once unified the magpies was replaced by a desperate, cold-blooded survivalism.

As the ice began to weep from the willow branches, the first snowdrops pushed through the mud of Magander's unmarked grave, the world began to stir once more.

The Trade at the Toll-Gate

In the village of Oakhaven, the mud was ankle-deep and smelled of woodsmoke and thawing earth. The Gypsy moved through the market stalls with the grace of a cat, her colourful skirts tucked up away from the slush. She stopped at a small, unassuming shop with a sign that bore a faded painting of a balance scale.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of pipe tobacco and old paper. The jeweller, a man with spectacles so thick they turned his eyes into watery globes, didn't look up as the bell chimed.

"I have something for you, Mr. Grimley," the Gypsy said, her voice a low hum.

She reached into her pocket and produced the velvet pouch. With a practiced flick of her wrist, she spilled the gold Timepiece onto the black felt of the counter. Even in the dim light of the shop, the gold glowed with a fierce, defiant lustre.

The jeweler froze. He picked up his loupe and peered at the intricate engravings of lilies and vines. He pressed the latch. The watch remained silent, its heart still stopped at ten o'clock.

"Magistrate Thorne's watch," Grimley whispered, his voice trembling. "It's been missing for a year. They said a common thief took it, though no man was ever caught."

"A thief, certainly," the Gypsy replied with a faint, knowing smile, "Perhaps not a common one."

The trade was made in hushed tones. No questions were asked that didn't need answering. When the Gypsy left the shop, the gold watch was tucked away in a velvet-lined drawer, destined to be melted down or sold to a collector in a far-off city. In its place, the Gypsy's heavy pockets were filled with silver coins, tins of fine tea, a sack of grain, and a small, bright blue ribbon, a vanity she couldn't resist.

As she walked back toward the Blackwood, she felt the weight of the winter lifting. The "Sun" was gone from her pocket, but the fire in her stove would burn bright for months to come.

The Silver Spark

Back in the heart of the woods, the spring "Parliament of Pairing" was in full swing. The birds were preening, their iridescent suits flashing in the new sun as they competed for the best nesting sites.

Skerrit sat on a mid-level branch, grumbling to himself, trying to convince a young female that he still held the "spirit of the gold." She ignored him, her attention caught by a sudden, rhythmic clink-clink-clink coming from the High Branch, the seat that had remained empty since Magander's passing.
A young magpie named Jax, barely a year old and known mostly for his reckless habit of teasing the farm dogs, was perched there. He wasn't just sitting; he was performing.

In his beak, he held a new treasure. It wasn't a watch, and it wasn't gold, but in the sharp morning light, it was blinding. It was a silver thimble, stolen from a seamstress's windowsill. Jax tossed it into the air, caught it with a deft snap of his beak, and let it slide down the branch. Clink-clink-clink.

The parliament fell silent. The older birds, even Corvus, looked up with grudging admiration.

"It's not the Sun," whispered Pip, watching the silver flash.

"No," Corvus replied, a glint of respect returning to his old eyes. "but it is a Spark and, in the Spring, a spark is enough to start a fire."

The New King

Jax didn't ask for permission. He didn't wait for the Gypsy to bless him. He puffed out his chest, the silver thimble gleaming like a star against his black throat, and let out a loud, rattling cry that echoed through the valley. It was a challenge and a promise.

He looked down at Skerrit, who shrunk back into the shadows of the lower limbs. Then, Jax looked toward the brook, where the Gypsy was walking back to her caravan.

The Gypsy stopped and looked up. She saw the flash of silver in the High Branch and heard the arrogant, beautiful cry of the new leader. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the blue ribbon she had bought with some of the gold, and tied it to a low-hanging willow branch, an offering to the new King.

"The time changes," she whispered to the budding trees, "but the thieves remain the same."

As the sun hit the silver thimble, casting a dancing white light across the forest floor, the Blackwood felt whole again. Mr. Magander was gone, his gold "Sun" was a memory in a velvet drawer, but the cycle of the glint had begun anew.

The ticking had stopped, but the heart of the parliament was beating faster than ever.

The Magistrate's Lost Hour

Magistrate Thorne was a man of cold angles and iron-creased waistcoats. To him, the world was a machine that required constant winding, and he was the one holding the key. Since the mid-summer solstice, the day his pocket watch vanished, the machine had been skipping beats.

He sat in his study, his thumb reflexively reaching for the empty pocket of his vest. He felt like a ghost haunting his own schedule. Without the rhythmic tick-tock against his ribs, he found himself arriving at court four minutes early or six minutes late. To a man of his stature, these were not mere lapses; they were cracks in the foundation of civilization.

"It was no common footpad," he grumbled to the empty room. "A common thief would have taken the silver spoons or the heavy brass candlesticks. But to take only the Time... that is the work of a specialist."
The Investigation

Thorne had spent the winter conducting a relentless, if quiet, investigation. He had personally interviewed every vagrant and traveler within ten miles of Oakhaven. He had searched the stables, the cider presses, and the haylofts. He had even offered a reward that amounted to three years' wages for a laborer, yet the gold remained missing.

His suspicion, naturally, had long rested on the Gypsy. He had seen her caravan perched on the edge of the Blackwood, a colorful blemish on the landscape. He had hauled her into his chambers twice, questioning her until the candles burned low.

"You were seen gathering herbs near my property the morning it vanished," he had barked, leaning over his desk.

The Gypsy had only looked at him with those unsettling, walnut-colored eyes. "I gather what the earth offers, Magistrate. The earth does not offer gold watches. It offers rain, roots, and silence."

He had found nothing in her caravan but dried lavender and copper kettles. He hadn't thought to look for a "Sun" hidden in a bird's nest high in a weeping willow, nor did he credit her with the wit to wait until the "thief" was dead before claiming the prize.

The Jeweller's Dilemma

On the very morning the Gypsy was buying her blue ribbon, Magistrate Thorne marched into the village, his boots clicking sharply on the cobblestones. He was heading for the one man who would know if a masterpiece of horology had surfaced: Mr. Grimley.

Inside the shop, the air was still thick with the smell of the trade. Mr. Grimley, seeing the Magistrate's silhouette through the frosted glass, felt his heart give a frantic leap. Just an hour ago, he had tucked Thorne's own watch into a false-bottomed drawer.

"Ah, Magistrate," Grimley stammered, wiping his spectacles with a trembling hand. "A... a surprise. Is there a problem with your mantel clock?"

Thorne didn't waste time with pleasantries. He paced the small shop like a caged wolf. "I am weary of this, Grimley. Spring is here, the circuit court begins in a week, and I am still without my watch. Tell me truthfully, has any gold passed through this village? Any talk of a hunter-case watch with lily engravings?"

Grimley's eyes darted toward the drawer. He was a man of moderate greed but immense fear. He knew that if he confessed to having the watch, Thorne would seize it as evidence and likely throw him in the stocks for receiving stolen goods. If he lied, he might eventually sell it for a fortune, but the guilt was already sweating through his shirt.

"Not a whisper, sir," Grimley lied, his voice a pitch too high. "I've seen nothing but pewter buckles and the occasional copper coin. It's as if the watch simply... flew away."

Thorne stopped pacing. He stared out the window toward the Blackwood, where the trees were beginning to haze with the pale green of new leaves. "Flew away," he repeated softly. "Absurd."

The Offering

As Thorne left the shop, frustrated and feeling more out of sync than ever, he spotted the Gypsy sitting on a stone wall, snacking on a piece of dark bread. She looked entirely too content for a woman of no visible means.

He approached her, his shadow falling long across her colorful skirts. "I haven't forgotten you," he said coldly. "Gold doesn't evaporate. It is somewhere. And I will find the hand that holds it."

The Gypsy looked up, a crumb of bread at the corner of her mouth. She reached into her pocket, not the one containing the silver coins, but the one holding the blue ribbon.

"Perhaps you are looking for the wrong thing, Magistrate," she said. "You look for a hand, but you should look for a wing. You look for a thief, but you should look for a King."

Thorne scoffed. "Riddles are for children and fools. I want my property."

She stood up, brushing the crumbs from her lap. "Then go to the willow by the brook, Magistrate. Walk the circle of grass. You won't find your gold, that has moved on to a new life, but you might find the one who truly appreciated its value."

Intrigued despite his anger, Thorne found himself walking toward the Blackwood. He followed the brook until he reached the ancient weeping willow. The ground was soft, covered in the white stars of snowdrops.

He saw the "circle" the Gypsy had described. The blades of grass were gone, and the rowan berries had rotted into the earth, but the shape remained, a faint, circular impression in the moss. In the center lay a few scattered, iridescent black feathers, shimmering even in the shade.

Thorne knelt, touching the spot where the watch had once lain at the head of a bird. He felt a strange, lingering warmth in the soil. For a moment, he didn't see a crime scene. He saw a grave.

High above him, a sharp clink-clink-clink rang out.

Thorne looked up. On the highest branch sat a young, arrogant magpie. The bird wasn't wearing gold, but it held a silver thimble in its beak, tossing it into the air with a grace that Thorne, for all his rules and clocks, could never hope to possess.

The Magistrate stood up, his knees aching. He looked at his empty pocket, then back at the bird. For the first time in a year, he didn't care what time it was. He realized that the watch hadn't been "stolen" in the way men steal; it had been claimed by a world that didn't care for minutes or hours, only for the shine.

He turned and walked back toward the village, leaving the Blackwood to its new King. He still didn't have his watch, and he would still be late for court, but as the silver thimble flashed like a star above him, Magistrate Thorne finally stopped looking for his lost hour and started listening to the wind.



The End