Thursdays with the Crown (2 page)

“Pogue!”

She jumped down from the window.

“Pogue, wake up!” Celie shook his shoulder. “Wake up a moment.”

“Huh? All right?” Pogue blinked at her.

“I'm fine but I need to leave the tower,” Celie said.

“No,” Pogue said, more alert. “We're not leaving the tower.”

He tried to sit up twice before finally succeeding, and Celie pushed him gently back down before he could stand. He wheezed and leaned his head back against the cold stone wall, his face gray.

“I have to …” Celie stopped herself before she said, “see the griffins.” Instead she looked away in unfeigned embarrassment and said, “I have to, er,
you know
.”

Pogue's pale cheeks flushed.

“All right, all right,” he said. “But hurry and don't go far!” Then he blushed even more deeply. “I mean … be careful!”

“I will,” she promised.

And she would. Just as soon as she had a look around that stable.

Celie almost flew down the spiral stairs to the bottom of the tower. Outside she looked around for Lulath and Rufus, and was both relieved and disappointed when she didn't see them. She supposed it was better that Rufus not run into any hostile griffins, but she knew that Lulath would be up for the adventure of exploring the stable, and he
was
reassuringly tall and strong despite his fancy clothes.

She hurried over the uneven stones of the ruined courtyard, which she thought would probably go at the back of the Castle, near the other griffin stable, if the Castle were whole. It made her head feel funny to try to imagine the Castle all here, put together correctly. That thought raised another question: Did the rooms grow and stretch and disappear when the Castle was in the Glorious Arkower the way they did in Sleyne? She would have to ask Wizard
Arkwright, if they ever went home, and if he could be forced to tell the truth.

When
. When they went home.

Celie stopped short of the stable, trying to peer inside without being seen. The sun was high overhead, but there was something smoky about the air here, although it didn't smell like smoke and nothing was on fire that she could see. The sun was dark orange, and the haze in the sky made it impossible to see anything inside the stable. Celie took another step forward.

A furious mass of golden feathers and fur exploded out of the dark doorway.

Celie screamed as she was thrown to the rough stones. The griffin stood over her, one talon piercing the shoulder of her gown, pinning her to the ground. Celie continued to scream and so did the griffin. It opened its beak wide and leaned toward her face. She threw up her free hand to protect her eyes, and felt the smooth beak smack into her palm.

But instead of biting off her hand — which it was large enough to do without blinking — the griffin sniffed her palm. Then it sniffed down her arm, tilting its head forward so that the round nostrils atop the beak could get closer to her skin. It sniffed her clothes, her hair, and her neck and face. It tickled but Celie was too terrified to laugh, so she just lay there and shook.

The griffin finally raised its head just enough to look at
her. Celie gazed back at the round golden eye, trying to appear friendly and not too terrified.

The griffin suddenly screeched, which made Celie shriek in reply, but she got herself under control again after a moment. There was a scraping of talons from the stable and then another griffin joined them. Celie turned her head slightly to look at it. It was smaller than the one holding her down, and moved in a more graceful and less aggressive way that Celie found reassuring. Another screech, neither as loud nor as menacing as the first, and the smaller griffin edged forward and also sniffed Celie from head to toe.

To Celie's shock, the smaller griffin began to coo, and rubbed its head against her cheek. The feathers tickled her nose and Celie sneezed, which startled them all, but the larger griffin didn't attack. Instead, it pulled its talon out of her gown and took a step back. It clacked its tongue at Celie, and when she didn't move it nudged her with a talon until she sat up. Trying not to make any sudden moves, Celie stood and the larger griffin started butting her with its head, guiding her toward the stable, which was dark inside and potentially held other, less friendly griffins. As much as she wanted to see how these griffins lived, she was beginning to regret not dragging Pogue along with her.

But the large griffin would not accept her muttered excuses and attempts to dodge away. It steered her through the doorway and into the stable. The light coming in through the holes in the roof showed Celie that it was
identical to the griffin stable that had recently appeared in Sleyne, though in far worse repair. Also, this one was being lived in. The stall doors had been ripped away, and the stalls were filled with nests of bracken and grass. There was a neat pile of bones in one corner, and a pile of nutshells in another.

Celie looked around their stable and then nodded and smiled broadly. “It's very nice,” she said in a bright voice, speaking slowly. “Very nice indeed!”

Did they understand Sleynth? Probably not, but hopefully they would interpret her expression and words as friendly.

The smaller griffin fussed around her, batting her softly with upraised wings that had a slight cream-colored pattern on them. Celie tripped over a stick on the floor and fell into the side of one of the stalls. She took a step back to brace herself, and something hard under her foot rolled away. She almost fell right on top of the smaller, gold-and-cream griffin.

“Oof! Sorry!” She caught hold of the side of the stall and pulled herself upright, then looked down to see what she had stepped on.

It wasn't a rock but an irregular chunk of crystal. It was probably clear, and had some green color to it, but it was so dirty that she couldn't really tell. There was a clump of mud and a dingy feather stuck to one side. Celie picked it up, intending to toss it out a window into the forest. Lying
on a rock was probably uncomfortable for whatever griffin slept in that stall. It was so dirty that her palms began to itch, and she wondered if Lulath would find enough water for drinking and washing. She didn't want to think about what was coating that rock.

When the gold-and-cream griffin saw what Celie was holding, however, it hissed and raised its wings. Immediately the larger griffin came down the aisle. It had something in its beak and tossed it at Celie's feet before lunging at her, snatching the crystal out of her hands. It backed down the aisle, glaring, and hid the thing in another stall. Belatedly Celie remembered Rufus's fondness for squirreling away jewelry and other shiny objects. He'd made off with her gold circlet shortly before a state dinner just last week, and he'd shrieked at her when she'd retrieved it from under his bed.

She held up her hands, fingers splayed, to show that she didn't have any more of their treasures, then looked down to see what the large griffin had dropped at her feet. It looked like a dead rabbit, and she said a silent prayer that they wouldn't offer her some raw meat and become offended when she didn't eat it.

“Oh,” she said, looking down at the thing. “Rufus.”

Then her knees buckled and she sat down in the bracken of the nest.

It was her old stuffed toy lion. Here at her feet. In the Glorious Arkower. She picked him up with a tentative hand.
Rufus
. Dirty and a bit mashed, but familiar all the same.
Her eyes prickled with tears and she pressed Rufus against her face. Underneath the wild smell of griffin, she smelled home, and her throat closed on a small sob.

When she'd pulled herself together, Celie looked up at the large griffin, who had returned from hiding the crystal and was now giving her a decidedly pleased look. Her tears dried at once.

“Oh,” Celie said again. “It was
you
!”

And it was. It was the griffin that had eaten Prince Khelsh! The Castle had traded it for her stuffed toy, or perhaps Rufus the lion had merely gotten caught up in the spell that had briefly brought this griffin to Sleyne and then sent it back to the Glorious Arkower. Celie held out her hand and when the griffin dipped its head, she stroked its smooth feathers.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely.

The large griffin gave a pleased clack.

She held out Rufus the lion, but the griffin pushed it back at her with its head. She gave her toy a fond hug and thanked the big griffin again before stuffing Rufus down inside her bodice, where he had been when Khelsh had attacked her.

“I should probably get back to the tower,” she said reluctantly. She pointed toward the door. “Pogue is probably worried sick … or maybe he's just asleep …”

She tried to sidle around the two creatures, worried that they would try to stop her, but they turned and flanked her, walking with her out of the stable and across the courtyard.
They were almost to the foot of the tower when she heard Lulath's exuberant shout from the trees.

“Our Celie! You are being the friend of more marvelous of the griffins!”

The griffins on either side of Celie stiffened. The larger one — Celie had realized that he was male, and the other female, probably his mate — half raised his wings in a defensive move. Celie had to duck to avoid getting a gold feather in the eye.

She raised her hands to try to make a shushing gesture at Lulath, so that he wouldn't further startle the griffins, and then Rufus came romping out of the trees. He took one look at Celie standing between the two full-grown griffins and screeched in pure rage. Celie took a step backward in shock: she had never heard her darling make such a sound before! Rufus raised his wings and charged at the male, never mind that Rufus was nearly half the other griffin's size.

The male griffin leaped forward with a cry of challenge, and Celie began to scream. She tried to grab hold of the big griffin, but he left her behind in two bounds, and the female promptly herded her away from the fight. Lulath dropped the bundle he was holding, spilling berries everywhere, and tried to wade into the fray. Even he, tall as he was, was quickly tossed out of the way by the male griffin.

Lulath ran to Celie instead of trying again. The female griffin hissed at him, but Celie reached out and grabbed his arm, which calmed the griffin down. She turned to watch the fight, and so did Celie and Lulath. Celie felt faint, as
though all the blood had drained out of her body, watching her fierce little Rufus do battle with the enormous older male.

“Oh,” Lulath said. And then, “Oh!” He grabbed Celie's hand on his arm, squeezing it tightly. “They are making the play fighting!”

“What?” Celie spared him only a glance, but when she did, she saw a smile spreading across the Grathian prince's face.

“Yes, yes! You are knowing that at times my girls, they having the fighting?” Lulath was the proud father of four tiny spoiled dogs. “They are biting and fighting and rolling and growling?”

Celie nodded, and then said yes, since Lulath didn't take his eyes off the griffins. The little dogs would suddenly erupt into action, leaping at each other's throats, snarling and nipping. The first time she'd seen it happen she'd been horrified and tried to pull them apart, earning a bite on the hand in the process, but Lulath had only laughed.

“Yes,” he said, as he'd told her back then, “they are only deciding who will be queen for the day, and taking some of their energy and putting it to work.” He nodded. “That is what these griffins are doing! This is not being a serious fight! The griffin that is so large, he is not hurting Rufus, but I am thinking that he could. I am guessing that this is being a test: Who are you, new small griffin, and what can you be doing?”

It was true. The fight was very loud, and the griffins
were flinging themselves about with abandon, but so far no blood had been drawn. Rufus's cries sounded very much like the cries he made during a rousing game of Kill the Leather Ball, and the larger griffin was almost chuckling. By now he easily could have pinned Rufus down, but instead he dodged back and forth and snapped at him without actually making contact. Celie felt some of the blood return to her face and hands. If this was merely some kind of griffin greeting, she could handle it. She still didn't like it, though.

At last, exhausted and panting, the griffins separated. Rufus drooped, and his fur and feathers were a mess, but when Celie ran toward him he straightened and clicked his beak. She threw her arms around his neck and told him he was good and brave and wonderful. The male griffin hovered nearby, watching them with one eye while he preened and fussed over the state of his own feathers. Lulath came over to join Celie, stroking Rufus and calling him “such the clever of griffins!”

This caught the male griffin's full attention, and he sniffed Lulath up and down. The prince held out his arms and let the griffin snort and bat at him with good grace. The female griffin joined them and sniffed Lulath briefly. Then she smelled Rufus, then Celie again. She carked a question to her mate, and he lifted his head and crowed in answer. The female froze, and Celie took a step closer to Rufus, suddenly frightened again. What were they going to do now?

The female griffin was buffeting Rufus with her wings, sniffing him and shoving Celie out of the way so that she could rub her head against Rufus. She was cooing, almost purring, really, and Rufus surprised Celie by making the sound in turn.

“What's happening, Lulath?” Celie whispered her question, not wanting to scare the griffins.

“Our Celie,” Lulath said in a reverent hush, “it is my thinking that they are being the beautiful mother and the proud father of the beloved Rufus.”

The joyous reunion of Rufus and his parents was cut short when Lilah and Rolf emerged from the trees looking thoroughly filthy, scratched, and hungry. When they saw Celie and Lulath standing in the middle of a huddle of griffins, Lilah let out a scream that would have rivaled the most piercing griffin war cry.