“What griffin nursery?” Pogue sounded almost panicky, but Celie ignored him.
“And now this,” she went on. “Don’t you see: Rufus isn’t some spell by a wizard that went awry. He isn’t some freak of nature. There really used to be griffins in Castle Glower. Ordinary, everyday griffins. But now Rufus is the last one.”
Bran just nodded. He looked like he couldn’t speak. Celie was, herself, on the verge of tears. She was so lonely for Rufus, being the last griffin. Pogue looked a little wild-eyed, and didn’t say anything either as they walked back to the main courtyard, where he nodded good night and went home to the village.
In silence Bran and Celie sneaked Rufus back into the Castle. Celie fell asleep with Rufus cuddled up against her, after telling him once more how clever he was, and taking off the harness and hiding it under her bed. She hoped to let him fly even longer the next night, and the one after that, and dreamed of sailing through the night sky on his back.
But she woke to a storm in the morning, a late-winter blizzard that brought icy winds and heavy piles of snow that clogged the corners of the windows and made the stones of the courtyard treacherous.
Rufus hated getting wet, and he certainly couldn’t make his second flight with the wind buffeting him back and forth, she thought with despair. Sitting in her lessons that day, she glumly wondered when the skies would clear, and whether Rufus would even remember how to make his wings work by then.
“You are all the best of Grathian speakers,” Lulath enthused, spreading his arms wide.
Celie snapped her attention back to Lulath, who had just finished helping them through the last page of the Grathian primer they’d been studying. He looked like he was near tears, and his dogs, sensing his emotion, were prancing in circles around his feet.
“I never thought, that here in the Castle of Glower, I would have so many, many of friends who would come to a learning of my language!”
Lulath swooped down and kissed them all, moving down the table to smack his lips against each of their cheeks, starting with Rolf. Rolf yelled in surprise, but didn’t pull back, manfully patting Lulath’s shoulder instead as Lulath kissed Lilah, then Celie. Then, to Master Humphries’s horror, the prince grabbed him by the arms and kissed his cheek as well.
“Thank, oh so many times, for giving to me this chance!”
“You’re very welcome,” Master Humphries gasped out, straightening his robes.
“And now, the presents for my most best students,” Lulath said.
With great ceremony he opened a canvas bag that had been sitting unnoticed in the corner of the room. From it he pulled a long blue silk scarf, which he presented to Lilah.
“The finest of the silk of Grath, in the color of the beautiful eyes!”
Lilah turned bright pink and took the scarf with reverent hands. “Oh, Lulath! It’s so lovely!”
“I could not be waiting another moment’s time to be giving it,” Lulath said, and actually blushed. “For Rolf, this best of Grathian steel,” he announced when he’d recovered a bit. And he presented Rolf with a fine dagger in a tooled leather sheath.
“Thank you, Lulath,” Rolf said in Grathian, and Lulath gave a little bow.
“For this master,” Lulath went on, turning to their tutor, “so kind to let me take his lessons away, this ink and roc quill pens!” Lulath gave the flustered Master Humphries a set of quills and ink.
Celie craned her neck to look at the roc quills. They were black and strangely dense looking, as though they absorbed light. She’d never heard of roc feathers being used for pens before, but Master Humphries took them with the same delicate awe with which Lilah was holding her scarf. Celie remembered that rocs were becoming rare in Grath, and realized that the quills must have cost a small fortune.
Celie felt a flutter in her middle and wondered what gift Lulath had found for her. A scarf, too? Her eyes were more gray than blue, though, and sometimes looked rather washed out if she wore the wrong color. She supposed that he would give her something more suitable for a young girl, and gave a little sigh. She hated being treated like a child.
“And for the Celie,” Lulath said, “a two things: a griffin of Glower, made by my own cousin, who is with the wood an artist.”
And he set an intricately carved griffin the size of Celie’s two fists in front of her. It was carved of blondwood, highly polished to bring out the golden sheen, and there were small topazes set in the eyes. The griffin was standing on three legs, with its right front claw extended and its wings raised.
“He looks just like R—” Celie stopped herself just in time. “Oh, thank you, Lulath,” she said sincerely in Grathian.
“But also for the Celie, and the Rolf, too, is this,” Lulath was saying. He took one last item out of the bag. It was a large and very old book. The leather cover was worn and the spine was cracked, and Celie could see that the edges of the pages looked slightly chewed.
“It is not the most beautiful of books,” Lulath said. “But it is a book of the griffin and the Castle!”
“What?” Celie almost dropped the book as he handed it to her.
“Where did you get this?” Rolf wanted to know. He leaned eagerly across Lilah, who snatched her scarf out of harm’s way as their brother put both palms flat on the table to boost himself up.
“It is the very oldest of old books,” Lulath said. “It has for the many years lived in the library in the Grand Palace of Grath. But I think it belongs to here, to the Castle of Glower, and here must stay now.”
“Lulath, thank you,” Celie said in Grathian.
Her hands were shaking. She had turned to the title page of the book. The writing was faded, but she could make it out with a little effort. The book was a history, not of the country of Sleyne with small mentions of the Castle, but an actual history of Castle Glower itself. It had been written by one of the Royal Wizards over three hundred years ago.
“It is my pleasure, truly,” Lulath replied smoothly in Grathian. “It belongs here, you know. I believe it was brought to Grath by a princess of Sleyne who married our king two hundred years ago, and I suspect that she was not supposed to take it with her. My brother found it, when I wrote to him and asked if he knew of any books about griffins.” Lulath grinned his daft grin at Celie. “I have seen you two searching the Castle for legends of the griffins, and I know you are not having much luck finding any!”
Celie got up from her chair and went around the table to kiss Lulath.
“Thank you, Lulath.”
“It is good to have friends,” Lulath said, almost bashfully.
“And it’s good that I understood all of that,” Lilah said, delighted. “I can actually speak Grathian,” she marveled, in Grathian.
Lulath continued to compliment them all about how well they could speak Grathian, but Celie wasn’t listening. She had returned to her seat and was turning the pages of the book eagerly. She couldn’t believe she had a book in her hands that talked about griffins. Not just a single mention in the line of a poem, but an entire book about griffins and Castle Glower.
“Whatever you do,” Rolf said in her ear, “don’t leave that in the holiday feasting hall. If Arkwright finds it …”
He didn’t even need to finish that sentence.
“I won’t,” Celie said. “I am going to keep it in my room under lock and key. You and Bran and I are going to read this and find out what we need to know about the Castle and griffins and everything!”
“Well, I can see that I will not be able to have further lessons today,” Master Humphries said, but he didn’t look upset at all. “I really am very pleased with how well you are all learning Grathian, and could not be more grateful to Prince Lulath for teaching you so expertly!” He clapped his hands, applauding Lulath, who gave the tutor a little bow. “So perhaps we can end early today to celebrate. And I certainly cannot argue with Princess Cecelia’s interest in a history book, which has taken all her attention!” Master Humphries smiled at Celie, who gave him a
grateful smile in return.
She wrapped up her carved griffin and put it in her satchel with her school things and then left, the big history book hugged to her chest. Rolf followed her out of the schoolroom; Lilah, Lulath, and Master Humphries were talking about the Grathian seaside, which was apparently both beautiful and contained a small village that spoke entirely its own language.
“No one is asking them where they are coming from, or why it is the Grath they live in now,” Lulath was saying as Rolf and Celie left. “Because no one is having the idea in slightness of what they say!”
“I have to admit,” Rolf said as they went down the stairs, “I didn’t think Lilah would stick it out. But she’s just as good as either of us.”
“I don’t think we take her seriously enough sometimes,” Celie said. “It’s the flirting.”
“And the hours spent on her hair,” Rolf agreed. “Hard to remember that she has a fine brain, when all you can see is all that hair curled and shined and scented.”
“Imagine if you could see her brain,” Celie said, wrinkling her nose. “It would be extremely disgusting.”
“True,” Rolf agreed. “But if everyone’s brain was on the outside— Oh, hello, Mother!”
Queen Celina was coming up the spiral staircase, looking anxious.
“Rolf! Celie!”
She hurried to meet them, but had to stand a few steps down and look up into their faces. The staircase was not wide, and it often made people feel claustrophobic, if too many tried to crowd up it at once.
“Do you know about the open tower at the top of the staircase?”
Celie’s heart gave two irregular thumps, and she pressed the Castle history even tighter to her chest.
“At the top of which staircase?” Rolf asked.
“This one,” their mother said, pointing straight up. “Past the schoolroom.”
“There’s nothing past the schoolroom,” Rolf said. “The staircase ends there.” He leaned his head back, trying to see up the stone corkscrew, and failing. “I mean, it just—hang on, does it?”
“It does,” Celie said, but her voice sounded strange to her own ears, and her mother looked at her askance.
Celie’s heart was beating even harder now. Had someone found Rufus’s hatching tower? Her mother? One of the maids? And what did that mean? Did it mean that it was time for her to show Rufus to the rest of her family?
“I was on my way to the schoolroom,” Queen Celina said. “I knew that you were finishing your Grathian lessons today and wanted to see how you were doing. But the stairs just kept going up and up. At the top is a corridor with a tower at the end, and in the tower is a giant nest full of eggshells!”
“Eggshells?” Rolf raised an eyebrow.
“But they’re much too thick to be a bird’s, and bright orange besides,” their mother continued. “So I went down and got Bran and Wizard Arkwright.” She turned and looked over her shoulder. “Here they are now!” She started up the stairs, forcing Rolf and Celie to turn and start back up. “Wizard Arkwright thinks they might be roc shells,” Queen Celina said as they climbed. “But I have a different theory.”
“Oh, yes?” Rolf was bounding up the stairs ahead of Celie, who did her best not to drag her feet and get stepped on by their mother or the wizards coming behind her.
“Oh, yes,” Queen Celina said. “I think they’re from a griffin.”
Chapter
19
The hatching tower was freezing cold. Snow coated everything, and the moss and twigs of the nest were brittle and crackled under their feet as Queen Celina ushered them all into the round tower. Celie hoped that her shakiness would be taken for a reaction to the weather and not nerves. Bran kept wiggling his eyebrows at her, but she had no idea what he was trying to say.
A quick look around showed that the broom she had used to sweep away the snow and the blankets she had covered the egg with were scattered around, covered with ice and looking like they’d been there a hundred years, much to her relief. She didn’t think they had any marks on them that would indicate they were new, or that Celie had used them.
“What’s that book?” Pogue came huffing into the tower behind the wizards and stood next to Celie.
“It’s nothing,” she said, and now she wiggled her eyebrows, willing him not to draw attention to the book with Arkwright standing so near.
But Arkwright wasn’t listening to them. He was on his knees in the snowy ruins of the nest, prodding the bits of shell with one long finger. Queen Celina had swept her long skirts aside and joined him on the floor, cupping a jagged piece of the orange shell in her own hands.
“It’s a griffin egg,” Celie’s mother said with a sigh. Her lips curved into a broad smile. “I can’t believe it.”
“Impossible,” Arkwright said. “There’s no such thing as a griffin.”
His expression was stiff, and not just because of the cold. Celie thought that he looked like he wanted to say something else. She braced herself, ready to fling back an insult if he dared to say something cruel to her mother. Beside her she felt Rolf straighten as though he, too, were prepared to defend Queen Celina.
“It’s far more likely that it’s a roc egg,” was all Arkwright said. He took out a handkerchief and carefully laid a few pieces in it. “Still worth investigating, of course. But I see no reason to cause such a fuss.”
“Roc eggs aren’t orange,” Queen Celina pointed out. “Bran, what do you think?”
“What makes you think it could possibly be a griffin?” Arkwright said before Bran could answer, his expression pinched. “Might as well assume a dragon, or a salamander.”
“Sleyne isn’t exactly known for its salamanders,” Queen Celina said with some asperity. “And my father once told me that griffins, which are generally golden in color, lay eggs that look like balls of flame.” She held up some of the eggshell, which did have a flame-orange hue in the winter sunlight. “Bran?”
“Roc eggs are white, with brown and green speckles,” Bran supplied. “Salamander eggs would be much smaller, and dragons are mythical.”
Celie noticed that he carefully did not say it was or wasn’t a griffin’s egg.
“Whatever these are,” Arkwright said, “they are undoubtedly very old. Who knows how many centuries they lay here before the Castle brought this tower to Sleyne?”
“I have a funny feeling they’re not that old,” Queen Celina argued. “Look at this nest: it’s all frosted over, but if this moss were centuries old, it would be dust by now! And feel how sharp the edges of the shell are. If they’d been exposed to the elements for very long, wouldn’t they have been worn smooth?”
She looked eagerly from Arkwright to Bran. The former just looked grave, but the latter was surprised into a nod. She pulled out her own handkerchief and began gathering up pieces.
“And look at this! There are still bits of yolk or whatever you want to call it on some of these. It would have been washed clean by now, you both know it!” Queen Celina sounded as though she were becoming more than a little put out with the two wizards, who clearly did not view her find with as much excitement as she did. “Celie, don’t you think it’s wonderful? Do you think it’s a griffin egg?”
Celie let out a small squeak. They were all looking at her now, and once again Bran’s eyebrows were moving.
“I—um—” Celie stammered.
“It would be amazing if it were,” Rolf said. “I mean, can you imagine? A real, live griffin? But Mother, think about it: if a griffin had hatched in the Castle in the last hundred years, wouldn’t we all know about it?”
“That’s true,” Queen Celina admitted.
Despite her mother’s slightly downcast expression, Celie sagged with relief. She silently thanked Rolf for coming to her rescue, even if he didn’t know that he had. Hoping that no one would notice, she started backing toward the door of the tower. She wanted to get to her room and start reading the new book in earnest, almost as much as she wanted to get away from Arkw
right before he somehow connected her to the shards of orange shell in the hatching tower.
But when she got to her bedchamber, all was quiet. A quick look told her that Rufus wasn’t there. She put her book and satchel on the table under the windows and went up to his tower.
He wasn’t in the tower, either.
One of the shutters was unlatched, and cold air was blowing into the room. Celie ran to the open window and looked down. Below her was the main courtyard. There was no sign of Rufus. A guard walked across it, unhurried, and then a pair of councilors, their heads together as they talked. None of them showed any indication that a griffin had just swooped overhead.
Celie started to close the shutter, then changed her mind and left it wide open, in case Rufus came back that way. She didn’t know where to go next or how to look for him. She supposed he could have unlatched the shutter and then gone downstairs and out the door of Celie’s bedchamber, but she doubted it. And if he had flown, he could be anywhere. On one of the Castle’s many roofs, out in the sheep meadow, in the village … beyond the village and halfway to Sleyne City …
She turned to run out of the tower, but stopped when she saw Flat Squirrel on the floor. She scooped it up and wrapped it around her left arm like a fur muff. On her way out of her bedroom she grabbed up her cloak, grateful that she had taken the time to put on Rufus’s harness before she went to her lessons.
Out in the courtyard she looked around. Everyone was going about their usual business, and she knew that they wouldn’t have been if they’d seen something the size of Rufus flying overhead. The sunlight was pale, but he would still have cast a rather large shadow. She turned and went around the side of the Castle. The tower windows looked out over the courtyard on one side and the stables on the other.
Hoping against hope, she headed for the stables. The grooms looked at her curiously as she walked through the warm, straw- and horse-scented room. She swept her hand along the soft noses of a few curious horses who hung their heads over the stall doors, but she kept moving. She needed to find Rufus before someone else did.