Piper (Queen's Birds of Prey #4) - Kathi S. Barton Page 0,41

along with a stone bench on either side. Then just as they appeared to be complete, they changed again into couches, as well as tables with lamps on them.

“Should we go in?” Baker said as soon as the castle was finished, they’d be able to enter. Not a moment before. “You mean if we tried to go in too early, the castle wouldn’t allow it? That seems very magical. I’m assuming this is from the former queen?”

“It is. She might well have given it some magic I’m not privy to, but this, she told me, would make the home something you’d be able to raise children in. I’m not sure what that meant. Some of the people out yonder, they’re raising them on a good deal less.”

“Why don’t we go and take care of the people while the castle finishes? Baker, if you’d like to come with us, I’d appreciate it. Just in the event they try and give us some trouble, you can be there as a witness to the facts.” Baker told Grant he should expect trouble. “You know who these people are?”

“No, my lord. I could only see them from the turrets there. I could see them fighting among themselves and with the others. Nasty group of people if you were to ask me. The worst part is, they kill some of the creatures around here and leave what they don’t want to rot. To me, that’s a waste.” They were headed toward the field that, if she remembered correctly from flying above it long ago, used to be filled with homes. Small cottages that had been for the people outside the keep. She asked Baker about it. “The homes, they were broken down by some people like these. Might well have happened to the castle had anyone been able to get into it. But they would come along, pick up the stones that made the houses and take them off. Or like these here, they’d just pile them up for their own uses. You be careful of them, my lady. They’re a lot that has been getting things on their own for a while now.”

They were in tents and makeshift houses. Tarps of every imaginable color on the roofs of some of the places were being held down by the same stones she was asking about. Most of them had outside fire pits, the smell coming off whatever they were cooking, making her gag a little. She ate worms as a bird, and that didn’t smell nearly as bad as whatever was there. Instead of approaching them as herself, she shifted to her bird and landed on the shoulder of Grant. If he needed manpower, she thought as her bird, she’d be better help.

“Good. I nearly suggested that you come as your bird, but thought you’d want them to know who is in charge. I’m assuming this way, you’re safer as well.” She told him she was a good deal safer since she could still be ten times his size. “Good to know too. I’m thinking once they see you in that form, we’ll not have any more trouble with them.”

The first man they came upon came out with a gun in his hand. Piper didn’t like that—the gun or the man. The two little children behind him looked as dirty as the water around the castle. They were skinny and smelled like they’d not had a bath in recent days. The man asked them what they wanted.

“You’re trespassing. I know you were forewarned that someone was coming to live in the castle soon and that you had to be on your way. So this is me, as the owner of the castle and the lands around it, asking you once again to pack up and leave.” The man just snorted. “Was that another language? I can tell you to leave in several if you were to tell me what one you speak.”

“Huh?” The man looked as confused as anyone she’d ever seen before. Grant repeated his offer. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m speaking what I always speak.”

“Oh. So you speak stupid. Okay. I think I can make that work too. You gotta leave right now.” The man, if it was possible, looked more confused than before. “Leave here now, and I won’t have to have you arrested.”

“This here is my place.” Grant told him it wasn’t. “It is. See? I have my home here all set up. I even got family here