The Care and Feeding of Griffins (22 page)

The axe in question lowered slightly and then raised itself back up in firmer hands.

“So I thought I’d see if I could find you and invite you over for dinner.  It’ll be fish,” she added apologetically.  “But if you don’t like fish, I can probably scare up some birds for you.  Those pheasant-y looking things.”

“
Sun-necks,” he said, and frowned again.  He returned his axe to its hood on his back-strap.  “And I do not require them.”

“
Does that mean you’ll come?”

The look he gave her was hard and openly mistrustful, but at the end of it, he nodded once.

She smiled, suddenly light and easy in her heart, and the minotaur’s frown carved itself even deeper.  “Great!” she said.  “We’ll be looking forward to it, won’t we, Aisling?”

“
Fuck-Jerk,” Aisling muttered.

Taryn felt herself blushing. 
“Well, we didn’t rehearse an acceptance speech, but we’ll be happy to see you, anyway.  What, um, what can I call you?”

“
I am the lord of the valley.”

“
Yes, that’s lovely, but what can I call
you
?” she asked patiently.

That bovine frown deepened.

“You may call me Antilles,” he said slowly.

“
Great.”  She backed away from him; he stood unmoving on the bridge.  “I’ll see you for dinner.  Goodbye, Antilles.”

He did not reply, not even to nod.  His eyes stayed fixed to her.  She could feel his staring as she walked away.

“God,” Taryn murmured, moving back into the plains.  “I know I haven’t always been a good person, but I could sure be a better one with a little encouragement, so if you have a minute to spare tonight, could you please, please let him see that I’m not dangerous so he’ll let me stay, and please, please,
please
don’t let him choke to death on a fishbone.”

“
Jerk,” Aisling amened.

32.  Dinner

H
e brought the axe to dinner.  Worse, he unhitched it from his back-strap and buried the blade nearly to the haft in the ground and then sat in easy reach of it.  Oh well.  She hadn’t really been expecting him to bring a pie.

She tried to ignore how openly sinister he was trying to be and project an air of light-hearted welcome as she put on the cauldron for tea.  He watched her prepare the fish and didn
’t even try to hide his suspicion.  He was still extremely naked and it was harder to avoid staring when he was sitting cross-legged like that.

Equally impossible to ignore was Aisling, who stalked stiff-legged in circles around the interloper, making threatening
‘rrrrawwwk’ noises and twitching his tail.  Taryn wanted badly to toss him in the tent for the night or at least drop a choice word or two, but couldn’t risk doing anything in front of the minotaur that made it look like she was treating the griffin like a pet.

It only took twenty minutes to cook a mess of fish in the right ashes.  To Taryn, it was an interminable twenty minutes.  She tried to fill it with small talk, but it was like talking to Aisling, except that even Aisling monkeyed back a word or peeped now and then.  The minotaur was silent and unmoving as a stone rendering of himself.

When she set two steaming trout on the lid of the cauldron and passed it to him, she was not horribly surprised when he simply held it in his hands.

“
You know, you were sitting right there watching me make that,” she said.

He didn
’t answer.  He didn’t blink.

Her hand went to her hip and tapped as she tried to keep her temper. 
“Want me to taste it?”

Wordlessly, he pulled a piece of fish and passed it up to her.

She chewed, swallowed, and then opened her mouth and showed him it was empty.

“
Jerk,” Aisling remarked and punctuated the word, much to Taryn’s horror, with a few perfectly imitated sobs.

The minotaur
looked at Aisling, then at Taryn.  He grunted and put the makeshift plate on the ground, still untouched.  “Why are you here?” he asked.

Taryn sighed and slapped her fish down on a spare square of bark with an angry splat. 
“I wanted dinner.  Why are
you
here?”

“
Why are you here,” he said again, “in Arcadia?”

“
I thought I made that clear.”  She made a gesture toward Aisling, who had been inching casually toward the minotaur’s fish and who now leapt back at her movement and hissed ferociously at him instead.  “He hatched.  I had to find a safe place to raise him.”

“
There are no safe places.”

“
That’s probably very true and we can debate it all night if you want to, but without being too much of a jerk—”

“
Jerk!”

“
Hush, Aisling.  Without being too much of a jerk, I’d like to point out that you, at least, can look at a griffin without wanting to sell it or cut it up.”

“
As can you,” he countered and his grey eyes narrowed.  “Or so you would have me believe.”

“
Oh, for God’s sake!” she cried.  “What do I have to do, cut off a thumb?  What is it going to take to convince you that I’m not evil?”

He had drawn back at her first exclamation.  Now he leaned forward, his hands braced on his knees, and locked his steely eyes with hers. 
“Cut off a thumb,” he said quietly.

She stared at him, her mouth agape, and he stared back at her with simmering intensity.

“I’d do it,” she said, her jaw tightening.  “I’d really do it if I thought for one second—”

He pulled his axe from the ground and held it out. 
“Either shall suffice,” he said.

The words
‘go to Hell’, and indeed, some stronger words than those, were knocking at Taryn’s lips, but she looked into the minotaur’s eyes and kept them there.  Romany’s voice in her memory, as thin as the breeze that stirred the plains, drifted through her mind:  ‘What would thee give up to keep him?’

He had no right to ask it.  She
’d given up enough.  He had no right to ask for a thumb.

But he hadn
’t.  She’d offered.  And now he was calling her bluff with an axe in his hand, because he knew that she wouldn’t do it.  She’d fail his little test and then he’d be justified in doing whatever it was he so clearly wanted to do.

‘
I don’t need two thumbs,’ she thought distantly.

She picked Aisling up and carried him to her tent.  She put him inside and brought out her backpack, zipped down the flaps, then came back and took the axe out of the minotaur
’s grip.  It was heavier than she expected, so brilliantly balanced that was like a living thing, something that wanted to swing.  She’d have no trouble with it.  Taryn dropped to her knees, opened up her pack, and got the bandages out and ready.  She didn’t look at the minotaur.  She didn’t think about him.  She slapped her left hand flat on the ground and splayed the thumb out as wide as it would go.  It was going to hurt.  It was going to bleed.

One breath.  Two.  She raised the axe and swung.

His hand caught the haft with an easy eight inches to spare, the slap of halting so jarring and unexpected that she shrieked anyway, actually seeing a spurt of red jet away from her uninjured hand for just an instant.  Then she sagged forward, staring at her thumb and panting like she’d run the minute mile. 

When her voice and her mind could collide long enough to admit rational thought, she said,
“Let go.”

He didn
’t answer.

“
Let go,” she said again.  “I don’t have the strength or the courage to do this again and you’re just going to keep picking at me so let go and let me do it.”

He put his other hand on her wrist and pulled the axe firmly and easily from her resisting grip.  He set it down and turned to frown out at the tall grass, ignoring her.  He looked, even for a bull, mightily at odds.

Taryn couldn’t seem to stop rubbing at her hands.  She was shaking.  She’d been ready to cut off a thumb for him and it would still never be enough.  The heart went out of her.  “I’ll leave in the morning,” she said, and started to stand up.

There was a sound, the closest thing to a snarl that a bull could make, and Antilles said,
“Stay.”

She looked at him.  He glared back at her and said,
“You have already planted your potatoes.”

She didn
’t smile.

After holding her gaze a little longer, he reached and picked up his plate of fish.  He began to eat.

Taryn got her feet under her and went to let Aisling out of the tent.  She took a seat opposite Antilles and pulled her plate onto her lap.  She pinched off a bite for Aisling, watching the minotaur eat.  He didn’t look at her.  He didn’t speak again.

She guessed it was a start.

33.  The Lord’s Decision

T
onka was waiting on the bridge where Antilles had left him, four of his warriors alongside him, and all armed and ready for war.  Seeing them bothered him in some indefinable way, although he had thought himself chary enough for fetching them down after receiving the human’s bizarre invitation.  And surely, Tonka was entitled to a detailed accounting of events, but Antilles was not in the mood to provide one.  He did not stop nor even slow, but as he passed the Farasai, he said, “There will be no further guards over the human’s settlement.  She means no harm.”

If the horsem
en’s chieftain was surprised by this curt statement, he did not show it.  “Aye, lord,” he said simply, and he and his warriors turned one by one and galloped away.

Antilles continued alone through the forest to the mountain path.  He had many questions yet, but no more confusion.  His mind and heart were easy. 

The human was welcome to stay in his Valley.

34.  The Horsemen’s Housewarming

T
aryn woke to hoofbeats.  Many hoofbeats.

“
Oh, Christ, what now?” she groaned, and longingly considered rolling over and just going back to sleep.  Let the horsemen do whatever.  She was tired of playing this game.

But unfortunately, Aisl
ing also heard the horsemen approach.  He scrambled at once out of his blanket, squawking and bristling, and Taryn knew by experience that if he was awake, pee was sure to follow.

She got up, scooping Aisling into the crook of her arm.  She unzipped her tent, formally attired in t-shirt and panties and to hell with them.  Gooseflesh prickled up in the morning chill, but that was fine.  She set Aisling down so that he could menace the horsemen and once her fierce prince had made that token effort, he bounded off into the tall grass.

Taryn hugged her elbows and watched the horsemen come for her, all the way into camp this time.  It was the big one, Tonka, along with four others, all of them in warrior paint; the claw-like slashes only slightly less intimidating as they curved over the bared breasts of the very well-formed females than they were on the rigid planes of the males’ chests.  They all had runkas, but for a change, the spears were sheathed across their backs.  Their hands were empty.

Tonka gestured to his companions and they began to unload one another.  He, the only one unladen, came closer to Taryn.  He raised his hand, and then offered it to her.

She reached up to shake and he took her wrist in a firm grip, waited for her to do the same, and then released her.

“
I greet you, traveler,” he said.             

Well, this was new.

“I…greet you,” she replied, puzzled.  “Er…horseman?”

His companions exchanged a group glance.

“Chieftain,” Tonka murmured.

“
Sorry.”

He shook that off and indicated the objects his people were unloading.  There were four
tightly-capped clay jars, each nearly hip-height on Taryn.  There was also a short stack of blankets, a shaggy bundle of fur, and a thick bedroll.  And lastly, there was a curved wooden bar, nearly as long as Taryn was tall, whose purpose escaped her until she saw the wooden buckets meant to fit in grooves at either end of the thing.

“
I offer gifts to speed your settlement,” Tonka said mildly.

“
Thank you,” she said, stunned.  She cast her eyes helplessly around her camp and then took off her wristwatch and held it out to him.

Tonka drew his head back, but didn
’t take it.

“
I know it’s not an equal trade,” she said.  “But it’s all I have.”

He did take it then, slowly and with gravity, and put it on his own wrist.  He stared down at it there, his
flanks shivering, and did not speak.

Taryn moved past him to the four horsemen who had accompanied him, pulling her necklaces off as she went and untangling the chains.  She gave them out, one to each of them, her heart hurting just a little as each one left her hands.  The horsemen accepted the gifts in silence, but only of them, one of the females, put hers on.  It was the drop-heart pendant, and she seemed to admire it as it dangled above her perfect breasts.

“Thank you,” she said again.  “This is going to make such a difference for me.  Oh!”  She trotted around the side of the tent and returned to Tonka with his spear in her hand.  She held the heavy thing out to him, butt-first and broadly smiling, pretending not to see the way three of the horsemen behind him had reached for their own runkas.  “Here,” Taryn said.  “You dropped this the other day.”

Tonka did not take it for a long time.  In fact, the only movement in him at all was the muscle of his jaw, which clenched several times in perfect silence.  He finally reached for it just as Taryn
’s arms were beginning to give out.  He slid the spear into his back-sheath without speaking.

“
I’m glad you came back,” Taryn said.

He nodded once, utterly expressionless, and gestured to his companions again.  They turned and headed away, leaving her with only Tonka.  He gazed at her in silence for a short time and then said, haltingly,
“Do you see the ancient borenut tree that stands alone?”

Startled, Taryn leaned out and peered into the plains.  The fog was still lifting, but she could see the spreading branches of a single, mammoth tree in the distance. 
“I think so,” she said.

“
If you were to put your back to its trunk and sight into the setting sun and walk, you would come eventually to my corral.”  He stepped back, stamping one rear hoof and frowning.  “And you would be welcome there,” he said, and then quickly turned and galloped away.

She watched him go until the fog swallowed him and then went eagerly to see her presents.

The bundle she had seen as only fur proved to be an entire hide taken from one of the plains cattle.  It unrolled to nearly three meters long and wide, and her whole hand could sink into the incredibly soft drift of fur before she touched the skin. The bedroll was thick, firmly-packed straw wrapped in some sort of quilted, cottony fabric.  The blankets were made of the same material and very warm, each uniformly colored a natural tan, with knotted fringe all around.  They weren’t new, and she could smell barn-smells of rich earth, sweet hay and horse on them.  Wonderful.

The clay jars, like the blankets, clearly weren
’t new.  They also weren’t empty.  She opened the first, already wondering how long it would take to fill with wild grain, and was struck at once by the rich scent of meat.  She stared down in numb amazement at a jar filled to the very top with strips of jerky, aware that Aisling had come immediately to her side and was now crying pitiably for a piece.  She lifted out a small one, ripped it in two and gave Aisling the greater share while she tasted the little bite she had left.  The taste was indescribably salty and smoky and
meaty
, amazingly meaty!  She capped it and pulled the lid off the second, actually gasping at the sight of tubers, unfamiliar to her eyes, but clearly the potato of this planet, small and round and golden-red.  The third one she opened was filled with grain, cracked and hulled and comfortably contained within this water-tight urn and its solidly-sealing lid.  The last held a mix of crushed nuts and dried bits of fruit, some hundred pounds of trail mix, right here and all for her.

But the buckets!  Even the yoke and both pails together weren
’t as heavy as her own cast-iron cauldron.  And with the weight balanced on her shoulder, she thought she could draw water all day, if she had to.

Her watch and her necklaces were a low price to pay for these treasures, as much as the sentiment may sting.  Heck, she
’d been willing to cut off a thumb for the minotaur, and he hadn’t even brought her a pie!