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Osprey groomed Peregrine's plumes back into place. But the falcon's wing dangled, useless. "It's broken."
"You should have let the autobus get me when I struck that street-light and fell," the wounded bird said bitterly. "There's nothing now but to starve."
"If we were country birds, yes." Osprey continued to set Peregrine's ruffled feathers back to rights, after he'd frantically towed the stunned falcon out of the street where he'd fallen from his blow. "But there's more food in the city or we wouldn't be here. You'd never find pigeons in such numbers on a sea-cliff."
"What am I to do, hop after them? Even city pigeons are faster than I am on foot." The black-hooded raptor extended the unbroken wing to its fullest extent, flapped once, and indeed leaped into the air for a long ungraceful hop. "I'll have to scavenge dead pigeons and squirrels from the road, until a car kills me too."
Osprey cocked his head. "Or you can pair up with someone else, and have them catch the food. You still have your talons and your beak, you must be able to use them for something. Find a chap who isn't in the family, so to speak, and trade those weapons of yours for food."
"Oh I'm sure sparrows and finches would love to befriend me."
Osprey cuffed the falcon lightly with one wing. "Not the food birds, idiot. A bigger bird. Come with me to that place over there and I'll show you what I mean."
The busy street where Peregrine had fallen was a mere few flaps to the stone fortress the fish-hawk had indicated; but hopping took a longer time. Osprey hopped along with the falcon.
The courtyard held green grass, paths, another stone fortress inside the first set of walls. Humans walked in clusters around the site.
A deep voice behind them seemed to vibrate in the stones beneath Peregrine's talons. "You have broken your wing on a street-light. The city has done to you what my keepers did to me."
Both raptors turned to face an immense black bird standing on a stone before them. The Tower raven was even bigger than Peregrine, with a ruffled black beard of feathers and clear intelligent eyes.
Peregrine was angered and humiliated. "You saw me!"
Raven fixed the wounded bird with an amused gaze sharp and bright as the sun. "I see nothing outside these walls, duck-hawk. Your feathers have been groomed back into place, but the pattern of the break and the shape outlined by the damaged wing-feathers is consistent with an injury sustained by striking a metallic plate at full speed. In most cases that would be a street-sign, but peregrine falcons fly higher than such signs while hunting. If we were in the country that would be a utility pole, but such are not common in London. So with the impossible eliminated, we are left with – a street-light."
Peregrine craned his neck, trying to look at his own injury. "That's… very good."
Raven gave one derisive caw. "Sparrow feed. But I need such deductions to keep my mind sharp in here."
"Mommy, look, a birdie!" A little human girl ran toward the raven, sticky hands outstretched.
Peregrine hopped in front of Raven, screaming and flapping his one wing – which sent the child screaming and running back to her mother, whose angry rant about the vicious creatures here was silenced by a guardsman's angry scolding about protected wildlife.
The raptor and the corvid watched together. "Tourists," Raven said with disgust. "My brother says Germans are the worst, but I maintain that the Americans and Australians are competing for that one. Thank you for that. I loathe confrontation, especially when it concerns children."
Peregrine puffed out his chest a little. "Happy to oblige."
Raven looked the falcon up and down again. "If you are willing to continue to provide such distractions, I believe the keepers here will be happy to let you stay. I am well-fed and given a warm place to sleep every night. Unless you had other plans."
"None other than starving to death. I accept." Peregrine turned to thank Osprey but the other raptor was gone, already far away in the air flying back to his nest or to look for prey. "Smartarse."
"I've been called worse," Raven sounded amused rather than insulted. "Ah, these three are from Kentucky, in the United States."
"How can you tell?" The hawk began hopping after the similarly-hopping raven.
"When you look at the visitors, duck-hawk, start by observing their hands and shirts." Both birds passed a pair of Londoners (a tall man in a Belstaff and a shorter man in a jumper) headed for the chapel. "The next thing to look for…"