Thursdays with the Crown (3 page)

Lilah ran at the griffins, her fists raised, which shocked Celie at first. Then Celie realized how this must look to her sister: she and Lulath were standing under the upraised wings of two large griffins, who were squawking and flashing their talons and opening and closing their beaks in excitement. They were butting heads with each other and with Celie and Lulath, which did hurt, but in an endearing way, like being hugged too tightly by a great-aunt.

“Lilah, it's all right,” Celie shouted. Celie managed to slither out of the huddle of griffins and grab her sister's
wrists before Lilah hit one of them. “We're fine! They're Rufus's parents!”

“They're what?”

Lilah drew back and stared, first at the griffins, then at Celie, then back again.

“His parents? That's amazing,” Rolf said, running up. “Are you sure?”

“Only be looking at him, and looking at them,” Lulath said. “Besides which, they are so very, with the excitement!”

“Oh, how wonderful,” Lilah breathed. “Aren't they magnificent?”

They were. Celie felt her eyes prickle with tears again as she watched the two adult griffins cuddling Rufus.

Her family had always been very close. Her father, King Glower the Seventy-ninth, had never shied away from embracing his children no matter their ages or the formality of the occasion. Their mother was fond of grabbing them, even Bran, who was the Royal Wizard, and covering their cheeks with kisses. And since last year, when the king and queen and Bran had nearly died, they'd been even more affectionate.

When would Celie see them again? When was the next time she would be kissed by her mother, the way Rufus was being kissed by his?

The griffins edged closer to Lilah and Rolf.

“Now they will have the scenting of you,” Lulath instructed Lilah and Rolf. “Do not be having fears.”

But the griffins weren't sniffing them. All three were
standing in a line, staring into the forest where Lilah and Rolf had just emerged. Rolf looked back, nervous.

“Do they see something? I could have sworn we were being followed,” he said. “Didn't I tell you, Lilah?”

“It's just because it's a strange place,” Lilah began, shaking back her hair.

Before she could finish, Rufus's parents took off, leaping into the sky. They called back and Rufus answered. Then he cuddled close to Celie, who put her arm around him, glad that he still wanted her even though he'd found his family.

Rufus's parents landed again and were clearly calling for him to go with them. Torn, Rufus shrugged off Celie's arm and took a few steps toward his father. Celie tried not to be hurt by this.

“There's something wrong, Cel,” Rolf said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Let him go.”

Celie nodded. She swallowed the lump in her throat and made a shooing gesture. “Go on, boy,” she said gently. “Go ahead.”

Rufus's parents flew off, and this time he went with them.

“He'll come back,” Rolf said as Celie tried not to cry.

“Of course he will,” said a voice behind them. “Griffins and their riders are bonded for life.”

Celie whirled around and the others followed her. Rolf cursed and Lilah gasped, but Lulath said nothing at all, nor did Celie. She just felt the blood drain out of her face
and hands again, and glancing up at Lulath, she saw that he also was pale. He very gently took her right hand in his left, then reached over and took Lilah's hand with his right.

Standing at the edge of the courtyard, in the shadow of the tall trees, was a man. A very old man. He had a great ruff of white hair like a lion's, and wore belted, dust-colored robes. He was tall with a high forehead and dark eyes that were very round, giving him a constant look of surprise. He looked familiar.

“Who are you?” Rolf demanded, throwing back his shoulders and doing his best to appear princely. He stepped in front of the others, which made Lilah hiss in irritation, but Celie was secretly glad.

“I no longer have a name,” the old man said with gentle regret. “Long ago I was a wizard, but I have cast aside such things, that I may fade away with my land.”

Celie felt one of her eyebrows rising, almost involuntarily, at this speech. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lilah's mouth curl up in a faint smirk.

“I see,” Rolf said, sounding just a touch nonplussed. “Then how shall we address you?”

“I may be called by the name of my country, though it, too, has passed beyond,” the old man intoned.

At the words “passed beyond,” Celie knew why he looked so familiar.

“You're Wizard Arkwright's uncle,” she blurted out. “The Arkower!”

He looked surprised, and then pleased.

“Ah! You have heard of me?”

“We hoped that we would find you,” Rolf said. “Your nephew, Wizard Arkwright … thought you might help us.”

That was stretching the truth a little, Celie thought. Arkwright had had to be threatened and cajoled for everything he told them, and had said only that his uncle had the other piece of the Castle's Eye. They had no reason to think that he would help them, and it was only the greatest good luck that they'd even found him in this strange world.

“My nephew lives?” The Arkower's ancient face crinkled with pleasure.

They nodded.

The old man leaned forward. “And he has a griffin of his own now, of course?”

They all looked at one another, and Celie made a little encouraging motion at Rolf. As the Crown Prince, he really should speak for them, even though he was rolling his eyes at Lilah, who was older.

Finally Rolf straightened even more, brushing at his dirty tunic in a completely useless gesture. He looked like he'd been, well, fighting his way through a dense forest, and his clothes were clearly ruined.

“He does not,” Rolf said finally.

“What? All that way and no griffin?” The Arkower clucked his tongue. “How unfortunate.” He gave Rolf a searching look, then glanced up at the hazy sky. “And where is your griffin?”

Rolf shook his head slightly. “I don't have one. Only Celie does.” He waved a hand at Celie. She took a small step forward, still clutching Lulath's hand.

“Only the Hathelocke girl?” The Arkower's eyebrows climbed ever higher. “Then you are not highly placed at court, for all your fine clothing?”

“I am the Crown Prince of Sleyne and heir to Castle Glower,” Rolf announced, more than a little offended. “Princess Cecelia is my sister. She's not a Hathelocke, not really. She is of Sleyne,” he finished rather lamely.

“Castle … Glower?” The Arkower rolled the words around his mouth. “Glower?”

“That's what the Castle is called, in Sleyne,” Celie said helpfully. “I suppose it was called something different here in the Glorious Arkower.”

“It was merely the Castle,” the wizard told her. “The center of all.” He was frowning, his eyebrows pulling down over his dark eyes. “But if you are the Crown Prince, why does your sister have the yellow hair of a Hathelocke? And why do you not have a griffin?” His mouth turned down and he squinted at Rolf. “Would none accept you?”

Celie let go of Lulath's hand so that she could reach forward and squeeze Rolf's. There was something about the way the old man said this that made her want Rolf to tread very carefully. Was he testing them? Judging them to see if they were worthy of the Castle? And what was he saying about Rolf? It sounded insulting.

Rolf squeezed her hand back but then let go of it.

“The only griffin in Sleyne is my sister's griffin,” he said. “You helped to send the griffins and their riders to Sleyne, along with the Castle, but you did not go yourself. So I'm afraid that you do not know the grim news.”

The Arkower cocked his head to one side in a motion that was strangely griffin-like. Yet there was something … awful … about him all the same, Celie thought.

“The grim news?” The Arkower sounded almost mocking.

“The griffins that you sent with the Castle all died,” Rolf said bluntly, and Celie could tell that he was also put off by the Arkower's manner. “So did most of their riders. They carried the plague with them, and were gone within a few weeks. No one in Sleyne even suspected griffins were real until my sister hatched one this year. The Castle brought the egg from here for her.”

“Where was my nephew, then?”

Rolf shrugged. “Elsewhere. He had decided it was better for all trace of the griffins to be erased. He removed any books or scrolls that talked of griffins and stayed far away from Sleyne.”

The Arkower nodded. “I'm sure he did what was best,” he said. He nodded again. “So, you are here to bring your griffin back where it belongs?” he asked Celie.

“No,” Celie told him. “We're here by accident. The Castle has been … having difficulties, and we ended up here because we were trapped in one of the towers.”

She didn't feel like saying that the Castle had steered
them to the towers, or that it was putting the piece of the Eye of the Castle back in its proper place that had done it. She didn't like this old wizard, and she wasn't going to tell him more than he needed to know. They'd talked about finding the Arkower, about returning triumphant with the other half of the Eye, but something told her this was not the time to ask the old wizard to help them with that.

“Having difficulties?” The Arkower sighed. “Of course it has! It's been under attack!”

“It has?” Celie and Rolf spoke at the same time.

“As has been the thinking,” Lulath added.

“Why, yes,” the Arkower said as though it were not a very serious issue. He seemed surprised by their reaction. “But it's not something that I care to speak about here. Why don't we retire to my home, so that you can eat and rest?”

Celie and her siblings communicated silently with looks and motions of their shoulders. Then Celie thought of Pogue, who probably had been sleeping all this time. Had it done him more harm than good? She'd been gone the better part of an hour now. Lilah kept rolling her eyes and making a crinkled face, which seemed to indicate that she didn't trust the old man, either. But they did need to get the Eye from him, as Rolf silently mouthed.

“I do not trust him,” Lulath said in Grathian.

Celie was suddenly very thankful for their Grathian lessons, and hoped that the Arkower could not translate the words. How did he know Sleynth? Just another question, she thought, and sighed.

“Of course we don't trust him,” Rolf said in Grathian, also catching on. “His nephew is a liar, and he's rather strange. But —”

“We need the other half of the Eye,” Celie put in, taking a moment to be pleased at how good her accent was.

“But do we need to go with a crazy old man to get it?” Lilah demanded.

“He will have food,” Lulath said. “I haven't found anything that we would dare to eat. I mean, I found some berries, but I have no idea if they're poisonous or not.”

It always startled Celie to hear Lulath speak his native tongue. In his own language he was straightforward and well spoken. He never said things backward or left out important words, as he did in Sleynth. She wondered how they sounded to him, speaking Grathian.

“I don't like it,” Lilah said. “I think we're better off on our own.”

“I think that if we try to get away from this wizard, he will make things very bad for us,” Lulath said. “Perhaps it would be better to go with him now, and pretend to trust him, and see what we can find out about the Eye.”

“I don't like this,” Lilah repeated. “Not at all.”

“I don't think we have a choice,” Rolf said. “Lulath is right: we need his help, even if we have to trick him to get it.”

He nodded decisively and turned back to the Arkower. Celie wasn't half as convinced as Rolf and Lulath, but she had to keep telling herself that the Eye was more likely to
be with the Arkower than in the ruins of the Castle. Besides, they didn't know how to get home, but the Arkower could surely send them. They would need to stay on his good side.

“We'll need to fetch our friend from the tower,” Rolf told the wizard. “He's been injured and was resting.”

“If you mean the pasty young man who is spying on us, he's just there,” the Arkower said, pointing a gnarled finger.

They turned and looked, and Pogue came out of the shadows beside the tower. He looked sheepish in addition to still being very pale, though Celie did not think it was nice of the Arkower to point that out.

“I was coming to look for you,” Pogue said to Celie when he had joined them. He had to lean forward with his hands on his knees and rest for a moment before continuing. “But there were griffins, and then the others came … I thought it might be wise to hang back.” He grimaced and stretched his neck gingerly.

“Yes, yes,” the Arkower said, beckoning to them with a curt gesture. “Now please follow me!” He turned and stalked into the forest.

With a few more uncertain glances at one another, they followed.

Just inside the trees they found themselves on a trail. Lilah made a disgusted noise and pointedly shook her snagged and dusty skirts. Apparently she and Rolf had
not
found the trail.

“Isn't there … isn't there a town over there?” Lilah finally asked the Arkower, pointing to the west. They were heading north in an almost straight line from the tower where she and Lulath had arrived in the Glorious Arkower. “We could see the smoke and tried to find it.”

“A town? It's little more than a village,” the Arkower said with a snort. “And at this time of year there is hardly anyone living there but a few old people who refuse to move on.”

“Move on?” Pogue asked, steadying himself for a moment on a tree trunk. “What do you mean?”

The Arkower paused before answering. He had made it
clear in the short time they'd been walking that he didn't like Pogue, or rather that Pogue was beneath his notice. He considered Pogue a servant and could not understand why they let him walk beside them instead of behind. Their protest that he was their friend, not a servant, was met with bafflement.