Wednesdays in the Tower (17 page)

“No,” Bran said, waving a hand, “it’s true. He’s definitely bonded to you.” He smiled ruefully.

“Do you think that the Castle might bring out another egg sometime?” Pogue asked.

“I can’t imagine anything more horrible,” Bran said. “If it does, I’m going to be very careful not to be there when it hatches.”

“I might like to hatch one,” Pogue said.

Celie fought down another stab of jealousy. She would love to be the one who hatched another egg. She wanted all the eggs … to be known as the only person in the world who knew how to raise and train a griffin! But realistically, she knew that she could only handle Rufus with the help of Bran, Pogue, and the Castle. More griffins would be far too much.

“We’ll have to tell Mother and Father if there is another egg,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t think we could hide two griffins!”

The others didn’t laugh, and no one said anything else for a moment. The unspoken thought they shared was that
they wouldn’t be able to hide Rufus in this tower forever, even though there was only one of him. Once he reached his adult size, it would be like hiding a warhorse in Celie’s bedroom.

Rufus, having thoroughly searched the room and Bran for any more treats, now came to Celie and made pleading noises. He rubbed himself against her and then turned so that his back was to her, lowering one wing to make it easier for her to climb on.

“Oh, did you want to go flying, Rufus?” She feigned surprise.

He gave her an irritated look over his shoulder.

Celie laughed and eagerly climbed onto his back.

Once she was in place, Rufus scuttled over to the window that they had left open. Celie looked back at her brother and Pogue.

“You don’t have to wait here all night for me, you know,” she told them. “We’ll be fine!” She didn’t add that there was nothing they could do to help her if something did go wrong while she and Rufus were flying over the valley.

“Do you really think I could sleep while my little sister is up in the air on the back of a half-grown, half-trained griffin?” Bran made a face.

“I second that,” Pogue said, “even though you’re not my sister. Knowing you’re out there all the same …”

Bran gave a grim bark of laughter, but Celie was too busy holding Rufus in check. His front claws were gripping
the scarred windowsill, and every line of his body was taut.

She stroked his neck.

“Let’s go,” she whispered.

He leaped into the sky.

They flew. They soared. They wheeled and glided. It was like an elaborate dance through the air. The cold wind teased at them and they danced with it, turning and tasting it, letting it push them and then twirling away from its grasp. Celie was more alive on Rufus’s back than she was even in the Castle, making her maps. She and Rufus belonged together, and they belonged in the sky. She felt pity for Bran and Pogue who, it seemed, would never know this joy unless the Castle gave them griffins of their own.

They raced over the sheep meadow, then beyond to the village fields that lay still and frozen, the moon glinting off odd patches of leftover snow. Rufus flew almost to the trees at the far end of the valley before Celie tugged at the left handle of the harness, turning him. He was much more responsive to her commands now, and she had stopped threatening him with a bridle and reins. Not that there would be any way to rig a bridle for a griffin. His head was too round and sleek, and his beak could bite through sticks as thick as Celie’s wrist; she doubted that a bit would last long.

The Castle was tightly shuttered, and Celie figured that everyone had long since gone to bed. So she let Rufus play among the towers, swooping close around them
and turning so that he stood almost sideways in the air. She suppressed a loud whoop of joy.

As they glided past the windows of the Spyglass Tower, which had no shutters, Celie thought she saw a faint glimmer of light. She turned toward it, and Rufus turned with her. She could see by the way his head was cocked that he’d seen the light as well. They made a circle of the shadowy tower. As they finished their circuit, one of the shadows moved.

Celie hauled back on the handles, causing Rufus to go lower, twisting away from the tower. She looked back as they fled, and saw someone leaning out of the tower with a hooded lamp in their hand, so that only the faintest slit of light showed.

She leaned along Rufus’s neck. “Back to your tower, boy, go back!”

Rufus beat his wings in a frantic rhythm, sensing her fear. They lunged through the window of Rufus’s tower, startling Bran and Pogue, who leaped to their feet, each of them tossing down a notebook.

“What is it?”

Bran ran forward and helped Celie get off Rufus’s back. Rufus’s wings were still half-extended, and he was clacking his beak and making shrill sounds. Pogue put his big hands on the griffin’s head and stroked him, whispering soothingly.

“Someone saw you, didn’t they?” Pogue’s face was pale under his tan.

“They were in the Spyglass Tower,” Celie said with a gasp.

“Maybe it was the moon reflecting off a spyglass,” Bran said, but he sounded doubtful.

Celie knew what she’d seen. “Arkwright,” she said in despair. “It was Arkwright.”

“Are you sure?”

“He had a lantern with a hood on it,” she said, slumping to the ground. Bran sat beside her, and Rufus flopped down with his head in her lap. “I saw a glimmer of light in the tower, so we flew around it, and I saw something move. Rufus dropped down, and when I looked back someone was leaning out with the lantern. He was tall, with a thin, pale face …”

“Arkwright,” Pogue said, his mouth a tight line. “What do we do?”

“We do nothing,” Bran said. “He’ll have to find this tower to find Rufus, and I don’t think the Castle will allow that. If he says anything, just play dumb. Rolf told Father about him threatening you today; Father and Mother are both very angry. If Father could toss Arkwright out of the Castle on his rear end, he would. But the College would never stand for it, so we all have to pretend we aren’t bothered.”

“Just like we did with Khelsh,” Pogue said. “It will drive him insane if we pretend that he’s beneath our notice, or that we know something he doesn’t.”

“All right,” Celie said, stroking Rufus’s feathers. They were still stiff and cold from the air outside. “But I think I like this even less than I liked toying with Khelsh.”

“That’s because Khelsh just plotted and shouted,” Pogue said. “Arkwright seems to be always on the verge of turning us all into flies and then swatting us.”

“Don’t worry,” Bran said with a faint smile. “That sort of magic is beyond even him.”

“How reassuring,” Celie said dryly.

Chapter
22

The next day was Tuesday. When Celie entered the winter dining hall for breakfast, she found the table covered in maps, and Bran was explaining to the family that all Pogue’s earlier predictions about the Castle had come true. The corridors and rooms he’d told them about had appeared, splitting the Castle into two distinct sections. But he hadn’t foreseen the large barracks that were now behind the griffin stable, which cut through the back wall surrounding the Castle. It was worse than the break caused by the new stables. The wall looked like it had been hit by a battering ram: stones and chunks of mortar were scattered all across the sheep meadow, and it was fortunate that the sheep had still been in their barn when it happened, or they surely would have been killed.

King Glower summoned the entire court to the throne
room, the Glower family trailing after. Celie and Lilah were wearing two of their new gowns, made from fabric the castle had provided: matching blue velvet that hung in heavy, rich folds.

Lilah had altered one of the ancient patterns that had been found in the fabric room, and had a stiff, rectangular cape hanging down from her shoulders. It was made from satin that had a random pattern of triangles and a large circle embroidered on it. It almost made a picture, but the embroidery was subtle enough that you couldn’t quite make out what it was a picture of.

Celie liked that the thick fabric of her own gown made her feel safe and warm. She almost wished she had a cape as well, but didn’t want to be too weighed down. Something bad was happening to the Castle, she could feel it. She smoothed her skirt and listened to her father.

“Friends,” King Glower said, his voice deep with concern. “The Castle is in crisis. Once rooms and corridors changed with a sense of whimsy, or because it filled a need for those who live here. Now the changes have become drastic and even dangerous.” He sighed.

“I must warn you all to stay away from the outer wall,” the king continued. “Large portions of it have been weakened by the breaks made this morning, and we are concerned that other sections may collapse. We have stonemasons working to shore it up, but until they do, please stay clear of it. Likewise, the Armor Gallery is still
off limits. The Royal Wizard and Wizard Arkwright have been able to uncover the purpose of most of the weapons therein, but those they have studied haved proved to be highly dangerous.

“In the meantime, the heads of the guard, housekeeping, and cooking staff and the Council have all been issued copies of Princess Cecelia’s atlas. It is as up-to-date as my daughter and the royal cartographer can make it. If you lose your way and do not have access to an atlas, just remember the two rules, which, fortunately, still hold true: keep going east and you’ll find the throne room, or turn left three times and climb out a window to find the kitchens.”

One of the councilors came forward, holding his hand up to ask a question.

“Yes, Lord Sefton?”

“Why is this happening?”

“We don’t know yet,” the king said, sighing heavily. “But we are doing our best to find out.”

And with that less-than-reassuring statement, King Glower excused everyone but the family, Wizard Arkwright, Lulath, and Pogue. They all looked around at one another, at a loss.

“Is the danger of the gravest?” Lulath asked when no one else spoke.

“Bran?” The king was sitting on the throne, rubbing his face, which Celie knew meant that he was tired and frustrated.

“We don’t know,” Bran said. “It definitely seems bad.
Nothing in Grandfather’s journal indicates that the Castle ever made changes this severe during his time here. Celie?”

Celie was already shaking her head. “There’s nothing in Hadlocke’s book, either.”

“Hadlocke?” King Glower looked at her, then at Bran.

“Is this part of your project, dear?” Queen Celina asked.

“Yes,” Celie said. “Rolf and I have been trying to find anything we could about griffins, putting it all in the holiday feasting hall. We’ve found cushions, tapestries—”

“An anvil,” Rolf put in. “And a wooden map.”

“Several books,” Celie went on. “One of them is a history of the Castle written by one of the former Royal Wizards, an ancestress of ours named Hadlocke.”

Wizard Arkwright made a muffled sound, like he’d been struck. Everyone looked at him, but the king signaled Celie to continue.

“We’re starting to piece together the history of the Castle,” Celie told her father eagerly. “And it seems that griffins are real, and that they once lived here in the Castle with their riders!”

“That is indeed strange and wonderful news,” her father said patiently. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t explain what’s happening here and now to the Castle.”

“It does,” Bran said, and Celie shot him a warning glance. He ignored her. “It tells us a great deal. There once were griffins and riders in this Castle when it stood in another land, but then the Castle came here, to Sleyne,
and now they’re gone. I suspect, from what Celie has told me of her studies, that the Castle brought parts of itself here for self-defense. It brought griffins and warriors, too, but they were dying and didn’t live long. Now I think it’s bringing more and more rooms here, and keeping them here, because it’s being threatened again.”

“You mean, back … wherever the rest of it is?” King Glower’s face was pale.

“Exactly,” Bran said, nodding.

Celie was aghast. The Castle was in danger? Was that why it had brought Rufus’s egg here? Who was attacking? Was there anything they could do to help?

“What can we do?” King Glower asked, echoing Celie’s thoughts.

“I don’t know,” Bran admitted.

“If I may interject?” Wizard Arkwright looked at the king, his eyebrows raised.

“By all means, sir,” King Glower said. “If you know anything, or can help in any way …”

Wizard Arkwright gave a curt nod. “Your Majesty, I have studied the Castle all my life,” he began.

Bran frowned, and so did Celie. If this was the case, then why had he never been there? How had Celie, or her father, never heard of him until he appeared in the courtyard?

“And I can assure you,” Wizard Arkwright went on, “that the Castle is not under attack. It is not threatened— it is angry. Angry because something very precious has been stolen from it.”

“Stolen?” Bran and King Glower said at the same time.

“Who would dare to steal from Castle Glower?” The king looked more bemused than anything else. “And what did they steal?”