Thursdays with the Crown (14 page)

“What changed?” Pogue was leaning forward, one hand stroking Rufus's head, but his attention was completely on the wizard.

“They could not take the griffins, so they took the eggs,” Wizard Bratsch said, his voice bleak. “One night during my grandfather's reign, their wizards worked a powerful spell and spirited away every griffin egg for miles around. A year later they attacked. Our beasts would not fight their brothers, their sisters, their own children!

“They can recognize them, yes, of course they can!”
Bratsch wagged his finger at Rolf before he even had a chance to ask.

“Rufus's parents know him,” Celie reminded her brother.

Wizard Bratsch hissed at her to be silent. “The Arkish took the Castle and cast us out. They could not take away our griffins, but they kept the eggs, and we became exiles in our own land, living in the mountain like common trolls, while they pranced about our halls and called our land the Glorious Arkower!

“We took what we could: the crown, the rings …” The wizard gazed into the distance, looking back at his past. “My father was a great man and he took back what was ours! After a seemingly endless war we were returned to our Castle home, and given back our due place as the rulers of this land!”

His eyes glowed in the firelight. They reminded Celie of Rufus's eyes.

“That's … wonderful,” Celie said.

“I made changes to the Castle, changes that would keep it ours forever,” Bratsch continued. “I had only begun to cleanse the taint of the Arkish from our corridors when we were betrayed. My father had taken an Arkish wife in an attempt to make peace with them. It was his only mistake. My half brother, that Arkwright who you say still lives in Sleyne, worked with his mother's brother to create the plague. He is responsible for the deaths of thousands of our people, hundreds of griffins, also. Then he cracked the
Eye and tried to destroy the Castle. We had no choice but to send it away to try to protect it and the rest of our griffins.”

“That's not what he —” Celie began, but Rolf put a hand on her elbow and gave it a little squeeze. “And we're descended from both, so —” Another squeeze, and she stopped.

“That's a horrible story,” Rolf said. “What luck that any griffins survived!”

“Can I ask you something?” Pogue sounded almost timid. Wizard Bratsch gave a regal nod. “Why don't you have a griffin?”

The elderly man fumbled with the kettle for a moment. “I — I am a wizard,” he told them. “I have my mind on other matters, and no time to train a beast.”

“Ah,” Pogue said.

Celie thought he sounded less than convinced. Which matched exactly how she felt. Either Bratsch was lying, or the Arkower was. Bratsch's story would explain the different types of tapestries and the Arkower's constant striving for new griffins for his people. But why were they still taking care of the Castle, if they were Arkish? Celie's head was spinning.

Rolf clearly felt the same. He stood up and clapped his hands, startling them all.

“Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Wizard Bratsch,” Rolf said. “It is a great deal to take in. I think it best that we retire to one of the towers for the evening. If our
sister is found by the griffin who rescued us, then that is where she will look for us.”

“Oh, go, go!” Wizard Bratsch flapped his hands at them. “They come, they go, they do nothing. And what's to be done without it? Nothing,” the old man muttered as they left.

They picked their way silently through the ruins of the Castle, to the tower that Celie had awakened. She realized that she hadn't told them what she'd done, but decided to wait and see if they noticed. Rufus flew them up one at a time, Celie first, and she lit the lantern that Bratsch had given her.

Rolf looked around, surprised. “It's alive! Or awake, whichever it is.” He ran a hand lovingly down one of the walls. “I wonder when that happened!”

“What?” Pogue knocked on the window frame. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“I did it,” Celie told them excitedly. “It was me! I used the crown and woke this tower!”

“What?” Rolf gaped.

“It's true,” Celie said. “I dropped the crown and it made the tower wake up!”

“That's amazing,” Rolf said. “We should go do the other tower.” He turned as though to go straight to it.

“I tried,” Celie told him, deflating. “But it didn't work.
And then Wizard Bratsch found me … and well, you know the rest.”

“Odd,” Rolf commented. “We'll have to try again later. For now —”

“For now we have to try to sort through all those lies and half-truths,” Pogue said grimly.

“Exactly,” Rolf said with a sigh. “And hope that that other griffin brings Lulath and Lilah soon. And Ethan. Another mouth to feed …” He threw down some of the blankets they'd brought along and slumped down on them. “Well.” He brightened. “I wonder if we could ask the Castle for some food now.”

“We'll see about that,” Pogue said. “But what about all we've learned?”

“The Hathelockes built the Castle,” Celie said with surety.

“That explains the changes in the tapestries,” Pogue agreed. “The old ones, by the hatching towers, must be Hathelocker … Hathelockish? And the fancier ones are Arkish?”

“The other way around, I think,” Rolf said. “The ones that show people and griffins dancing around and hunting are Hathelocke. The ones that show people trying to bond with griffins are wishful thinking on the part of the Arkish. Most of the tapestries in the Castle are Hathelocke … if we're right. The ones that came with the hatching towers are Arkish.”

“And then more happened,” Celie said. She yanked some of the blankets out from under Rolf for herself.

“Then the Arkish fought the Hathelockes, took the Castle, and lived there,” Rolf said. “That much is clear as well.”

“But after that it's all …” Pogue shook his head, trailing off.

“I'm guessing no one had full control of the Castle after that,” Rolf said. “It sounds like it was just endless betrayal and fighting.”

“So the Arkish poisoned the lakes, but it was the Hathelockes who decided to leave for Sleyne,” Celie said.

“But the Arkish broke the Eye,” Pogue said.

“Which side should we be on?” Rolf asked.

“Neither,” Pogue said with disgust.

“The Castle's,” Celie retorted.

They all sat in silence for a long time. After a while Pogue climbed down and gathered wood for a fire. Celie reclined against Rufus, who had gone right to sleep, and was just starting to tip downward into an exhausted doze herself when Rolf spoke again. She jolted awake, and it took her a moment to realize what he was saying.

“Do you think the Castle made our parents get married to stop this war?”

“What?” Celie pried her eyes open. Pogue, who was sitting against the wall a little way away looked at her blankly. Rolf was staring at the far wall, the flickering lantern light making his face look ten years older.

“Mother's family are Hathelockes, and Father is Arkish, supposedly. Do you think the Castle made our parents get married to stop the war here?”

Celie thought about that. It took her a minute, but she thought she saw what Rolf was worrying about. Their parents had gotten betrothed after the Castle had locked them both in a room together for a day. “Maybe,” she said finally. “But Daddy was the Crown Prince and Mummy was the daughter of the Royal Wizard, so it was a good match for Sleyne, too. And so many years after the war started, it seems strange.”

“I know … but … I guess …” Rolf stumbled over the words.

“Are you worried the Castle will make
you
marry someone you don't like?” Celie asked, still a little puzzled. “Mummy says that she'd been in love with Daddy for years before the Castle put them together.”

“I know,” Rolf said, waving a hand to brush that away. “It's not that … All right, it's sort of that.” He sighed. “I'll try not to worry too much about that unless I get locked in a room with some girl I don't know.” He cleared his throat. “But I am also wondering whether the Castle did that to stop this four-hundred-year-old war.”

“What difference does that make?”

“It just … I always thought that the Castle … liked
us
best,” Rolf said, and despite the lines the fire put in his face, he sounded younger than Celie. “But maybe nothing it's doing is because of us, maybe it's all still because of
them
.”
He gestured as though to encompass the village by the shore, Wizard Bratsch, and the rest of the Glorious Arkower, or Hatheland, or whatever it was called.

Celie shifted around a bit and Rufus clacked his beak sleepily. She'd never thought of that. The Castle always did things for her and her family. When the Castle had started behaving strangely a few months ago, Celie had been disturbed at the thought that the Castle was stealing someone else's feasts and giving them to her family. But even more unsettling was the idea that the Castle wasn't doing any of it out of love for her family, but rather because it wanted them to solve other problems, problems that they didn't even know about.

Neither of them said anything for a while, then Celie kicked at Rolf.

“Don't you dare go to sleep and leave me to think about that alone,” she hissed.

“I'm not asleep,” Rolf protested, sounding as though that was only half-true.

“You both need to go to sleep,” Pogue muttered. “So I can.”

“There's not really anyone left here,” Celie pointed out. “So I don't think it's doing anything for them anymore. Who's ‘them,' anyway? The Arkower?”

“True,” Rolf said.

“I thought that Rufus's father would bring the others, but it's been hours. We should go find them,” Celie said. She sighed and got to her feet. “Ugh, the lantern's too smoky.”

Rolf groaned and creaked as he also stood. He leaned against a windowsill, and suddenly he swore. “That smoke isn't coming from the lantern,” he said in alarm.

Screams shattered the air.

“That's Lilah,” Pogue said.

Another scream was carried to their ears by the smoke-scented wind.

“That's Lilah all right,” Celie said.

“Go to her,” Pogue said.

Celie yanked Rufus to his feet and jumped onto his back. The griffin backed away from the window, balking and squawking. Lilah was making a terrific din, and there was a sudden blaze of light out the window as well.

“Rufus, go!” Celie dug her heels into his sides the way she would to a horse, which Rufus hated, but he just backed up again. “Rufus, now!”

Rufus shook himself as though he was trying to get rid of Celie, and she clung tight to the harness. Then they heard another sound from outside: a griffin's cry, and Rufus leaped forward. He pushed Rolf aside and climbed through the window with Celie clinging to his back, then flung himself off into the strangely bright night.

The forest was on fire.

Rufus began circling, calling out shrilly to the other griffin. From their left came an answering cry and Celie turned to see Rufus's mother arrowing toward them. She sped past, headed straight for the fire, and Rufus followed. Celie didn't object, because that was where the human screaming was coming from.

The griffins folded their wings and dived into the forest not far from the fire. This made Celie very anxious, but when she saw Lilah she forgot all about the fire. The griffins had landed just a few paces from her sister, who was so disheveled that Celie almost didn't recognize her. Lilah's gown was in tatters, her face smeared with dirt, and her hair was a rat's nest. In her arms she cradled a griffin egg that had cracks running all around its surface.

“Lilah!” Celie had to shout to be heard over her sister's screaming.

“It's hatching!” Lilah shrieked. “What do I do?”

“Put it down!” Celie leaped off Rufus's back. “Let it hatch, then let's get out of here! The forest is on fire!”

“I know!” Lilah half knelt, half fell to the ground, lowering the breaking egg with shaking arms. “The Arkower set it on fire!”

“He … what?” Celie's stomach lurched, and she thought she must have misheard.

“He set it on fire when I wouldn't give him the egg,” Lilah said breathlessly. “Lulath and I were going to go back, but the Arkower came out of nowhere, and Lulath tried to chase him off and I think he got lost. Then the Arkower started the fire, and Rufus's father came and scooped me up and carried me over the flames, but the egg started to hatch and … oh!” Lilah broke off, her face transformed. “Here she is!”

All at once the egg crumbled into tiny bits of shell, revealing the newborn griffin within. Celie couldn't tell if it was male or female, but it was definitely smaller and more delicate than Rufus had been at that age. It was a very pale gold, with wings that were almost cream-colored.