And what about Beautiful Jim Key, the famous horse known to be of high intelligence? He’d known the alphabet, numbers; he’d solved simple math problems and toured widely, and his feats had included a performance in the presence of President McKinley. Reputable people—psychologists, scientists—had tested animals like these and published their results.

Gwen wondered what would happen if she were to let Rico out of his cage while conveniently leaving the family-room window open. Would he fly after the Grands and locate them with accuracy in Los Angeles? Who knew? Maybe he could transmit telepathic messages to Cecilia Grand, or vice versa. A kind of telepathic radar.

“Someday, Rico, when I’m certain-sure you’ll hop back in, I’ll let you out. But I don’t plan to open a window. In case you are reading my mind. Or Cecilia’s.”

She changed the water, cleaned the bottom shelf of the cage, added pellets to the food dish, sat on the arm of an upholstered chair several feet from the cage and looked over the pages she’d brought with her.

“The story is taken from a scholarly paper written by my own mother, Rico. Late mother, who loved me, and I loved her. It’s about Arthur fighting Colgrim. Warring. The trade of kings—that’s how war is described. Dryden said so, though you won’t know Dryden. But think about that for a moment. War is the trade of kings.”

Rico continued to stare.

“Or tyrannical despots,” she added. “But King Arthur is a man—was a man—about whom tales were sung and stories told, invented, reinvented, written, copied, enjoyed for almost a thousand years. Maybe he existed, maybe he didn’t. His actual existence doesn’t matter when you’re privy to a sentence like the one I’m about to read. It was written by a priest whose name was Layamon. The priest was learn’ed, Rico. A clever man who wrote things down. And Arthur was clever, too. He sat his knights at a round table so that no one was below the salt. No one above the salt, either; everyone equal.”

She glanced over at the parrot. “Okay, here goes. From Layamon’s Brut. This is about escape, Rico, make no mistake. You might not understand. But it helps.” She heard both sadness and apology in her voice. She stood the way she imagined an orator would stand before a crowd. “Up caught Arthur his shield, before his breast, and he gan to rush as the howling wolf, when he cometh from the wood, behung with snow, and thinketh to bite such beasts as he liketh.”

Rico turned to one side and bobbed his head. She saw the white circles, the black pinpoint pupils.

“Maybe your owners don’t read aloud? Maybe they don’t read at all. I don’t see any books around, do I? You’ve probably never listened to an Arthurian tale—any tale, for that matter.”

Rico dropped to a lower perch and stilled as if waiting. No display of agitation. She turned a page. He cocked his head upward and investigated the ceiling as if he wasn’t a part of this at all. Not my scene.