Wednesdays in the Tower (2 page)
Rolf whistled and put his hands behind his back.
“I just have one question,” Celie said. “Well, two now: What do you need Pogue for, and are dragons real?”
Pogue had been invaluable when their parents and Bran had gone missing the summer before, but he was also
an incorrigible flirt. When he wasn’t being saucy with the village girls or fighting duels with their jilted suitors, he was often hanging around the castle, teasing Lilah.
“Pogue’s a journeyman blacksmith,” Bran reminded her. “I thought he could help me figure out if some of these things were forged by hand or made by magical means. And no, dragons aren’t real.”
“They’ve never been real? In the past, perhaps, and then they died off?”
“No,” Bran said absently, squinting at some strange marks etched on the breastplate he was studying. “They’re only legends. Always have been.”
“So what kind of animal would lay an egg the size of a pumpkin?” Celie asked.
“That’s three questions,” Rolf pointed out.
“Is that a riddle?” Bran asked at the same time. “Nothing lays an egg that large. Not even the rocs in Grath.”
“Rocks?” Rolf looked faintly alarmed. “The
rocks
lay eggs in Grath?”
“
Rocs
. No
k
,” Bran clarified. “They’re enormous, predatory birds. Ask Lulath about them; just make sure you send for Pogue first!”
Bran turned his back on Celie and Rolf, making it clear that he was going to ignore them while he continued his wizardly business. Rolf took Celie’s elbow and they edged out of the gallery, being careful not to touch anything. Out in the corridor, Rolf breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s so odd,” he said. “That whole gallery, just full of foreign weapons and armor …” He shook his head. “It looked like fun at first, but now I don’t know what to think about it. Have you added it to your maps yet?”
“No,” Celie said. “There’s just so much lately …”
She didn’t want to tell him that after her lessons, when she’d planned to sketch the Armor Gallery, she’d been trying to find a new corridor instead. One that could only be reached by a spiral staircase, and ended in a tower that contained a single giant egg. She had failed to find the corridor, and it had happened so fast, and had disappeared so swiftly, that she was half-convinced that it had all been in her imagination.
“Father was telling some of the councilors about your atlas,” Rolf said. “I know he’d love to have a copy made, to show off. It could really come in useful for people who are visiting the Castle.”
Celie felt herself blushing. “It’s not done yet,” she protested. She’d wanted to make a gift of it to the family, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about councilors and strangers looking at her sketches and notes.
“Well, I don’t know if it will ever be
done
,” Rolf said as they made their way to the front hall. “I mean, there’s new rooms every week. And then things get moved around. But it’s always going to be that way. You should let Father see it.” Rolf snorted. “I know that the new Emissary to Foreign Lands would like a copy. He keeps getting lost. I found
him wandering around the passages that lead to the laundry the other day, apparently looking for the council’s private study.” He shook his head.
“Do you think he’s … a good person?” Celie had not spent a lot of time with the new Emissary, and since the old Emissary had tried to have her parents killed, she was more than a little uncertain of his replacement.
“Oh, he’s fine,” Rolf said, offhand. They were in the main hall now.
“I’m going to go to the village and find Pogue,” Rolf said. “Coming?”
“I have to change and then help Mother and Lilah,” Celie said. “Lilah and I are supposed to get more new gowns. And apparently it’s rude to go to a gown fitting in an old gown.” She held up her sleeves, which were admittedly too short, but she liked that, as it made it easier to sketch. She saw an ink spot on her cuff and licked it to see if it would go away.
“I don’t understand that sort of thing at all,” Rolf admitted. “If it has no visible stains and I can lace it up, I’ll wear it.” He made a face. “I’d better get going, then, or Mother will have me trying on new tunics.”
They went their separate ways. Celie found a gown that wasn’t too small, or too fancy, and even brushed her hair and found matching stockings. Halfway to the seamstresses’ quarters, she remembered the history of Sleyne that she was supposed to be reading for Master Humphries. She would
probably spend a great deal of time sitting and waiting on Lilah and her mother, and decided that she might as well get some of the reading done. She made her way to the spiral staircase that led to the schoolroom and went up.
And up. And up. And found herself in the empty corridor once more. She hurried along it, and there was the shallow set of steps that led to the tower. And there in the tower was the egg.
She gingerly put her hand on the shell. It was still very hot, though it didn’t burn her this time. When she touched it, it rocked back and forth as though excited. Celie gave the egg a little pat and then backed out of the tower again, heart pounding. She didn’t care what Bran said: there
could
be a dragon in an egg that big. And even if it wasn’t, if it was a roc, that was still amazing and scary at the same time. She needed to get Bran to look at it. And maybe Lulath. He might have seen a roc’s egg before.
“I’ll be right back,” Celie called toward the egg.
She picked up her skirts and ran to the spiral staircase, wanting to find Bran or even Master Humphries before the tower disappeared again. Halfway down the spiral stairs she found the landing for the schoolroom again and burst out, calling for Master Humphries. He wasn’t there, and when she turned around to keep going down to find Bran, she saw with a sinking heart that the spiral stairs didn’t go any higher.
“I’m not imagining it,” Celie said, feeling her fingertips, which were still warm. “There is a tower, and there is an egg in it!”
But would she ever find it again? And what was inside the egg?
Celie found the roofless tower again. In fact, in the following days, she found it nearly every morning, and every time she had a free moment. She had no more than to think of the egg before her feet were carrying her to the spiral staircase and the Castle was leading her upward.
It had been a very cold winter, and another snowstorm had left several inches of snow in the roofless tower, which Celie had swept away with a borrowed broom. She’d also borrowed some heavy horse blankets and an oilcloth from the stables and carefully covered the egg with them.
And so she fell into a pattern. Every morning she’d get up early and hurry to dress and eat breakfast, in order to spend some time with the egg before her lessons. When she got to the tower, she’d shake the frost or sometimes snow off the oilcloth and uncover the egg. It was still always
hot, and she would prod it carefully with a gloved hand. It always rocked in reply, and then she would talk to it. She sang to it, too, and even read her lessons to it. She brought up some cushions to sit on and some dried fruits and biscuits to munch while she sat with it.
She thought several times of telling her family, and even tried to lead Rolf up to the tower one day. But whenever someone was with her, the spiral staircase ended just outside the schoolroom. It was as clear as if it had been written on the stones of the Castle itself: the egg was just for her.
Besides which, everyone in the Castle seemed to be very busy. Bran and Pogue were locked in the Armor Gallery every day, making strange noises and occasionally eerie lights and puffs of smoke as they tested the armor and weapons. Rolf had a great many duties, like attending their father, King Glower, at audiences and meetings with the Council. King Glower had insisted on Rolf doing this since the summer before, when their father had been assumed dead and Rolf had briefly become king. And their sister, Lilah, was busy flirting with both the Grathian prince Lulath and Pogue, which was hardly new or unusual, but still very time-consuming for her, and (in Celie’s opinion) irritating.
Then late one Wednesday afternoon, the egg hatched.
Celie had been sitting with her back against the blanket-swathed egg, sketching the new stables that had appeared the day before. The egg had rocked, and rocked again,
tipping up onto one end so that it knocked most of the blankets off. Celie scrambled to her feet, tossing aside her half-finished map and pencils.
“Don’t be a dragon, don’t be a dragon,” Celie chanted, her fingers and toes crossed.
The egg was rocking so wildly that it was almost standing on end. It was now far too hot for her to touch, despite the light snow that was starting to fall. Celie could see the snowflakes sizzling as they touched the orange shell, which practically glowed in the fading daylight.
“Don’t be a dragon,” Celie said one last time, as hairline cracks began to appear across the shell.
She was fairly certain it wasn’t a dragon, but there was always a small chance. From what information she had been able to glean about creatures that laid very large eggs, it was most likely a roc. Lulath had happily given her a book about them, though it was mostly poetry and legends. It turned out that no one had ever seen a roc egg, but that was because rocs ate horses and, frequently, their riders.
The rocs had almost completely died out in the last century, and Celie had visions of riding to Grath in triumph and delivering the newly hatched baby roc to the mountain caves. A pair of adult rocs would swoop down and bow their proud heads to her before carrying off the baby she had successfully hatched and nursed during its first growth.
The egg stopped rocking.
Celie waited.
After two or three minutes, she became concerned. Surely the beast should have broken free by now? Or at least resumed rocking? She had been reading about the care and training of falcons and other large birds, preparing for the hatching, and knew that it wasn’t good to help them out of the shell. If the little creature wasn’t strong enough to break free, then it probably wasn’t going to live anyway.
That last thought startled a little sob out of Celie’s throat. She flung herself down on the mossy nest and started pushing at the cracks in the egg, burning her fingertips but not caring. Suddenly a segment at the very top popped free, like a trapdoor. Celie stood up on her knees and leaned over, closing one eye to peer into the opening.
She fell back with a scream as a golden beak jutted from the hole, nearly jabbing her in the eye.
The egg simply exploded, shards flying everywhere, as Celie cowered, her arms protecting her face. When it was done, she lowered her arms and looked at the wet, crying, and terribly hideous creature in the nest.
“You’re not a roc,” she said uncertainly.
The creature stumbled toward the sound of her voice, screeching. It tripped over its long lion’s tail and fell on its eagle face, wings entangled in its claws.
“What am I going to do with a griffin?” Celie wailed.
What Celie apparently needed to do with a griffin was feed it, right away. It came at her, sticky and crying, and she scrambled away from it. But it caught a beakful of her gown and started to gnaw on it.
“Stop that!” Celie pulled the gown free.
The griffin let out a wail.
“Here, here!”
Celie pulled out one of the biscuits that she’d brought to snack on and shoved it into the griffin’s beak. Then she yanked her hand away quickly as he nearly snapped up her fingers along with the biscuit. The biscuit was gone in a flash, and the griffin wailed and began to search for more. Celie flipped the lid off the entire tin and shoved them under the griffin’s questing beak.
It snapped and snaffled and snarled as it ate, flinging crumbs everywhere. Celie couldn’t take her eyes off the
creature. As its fur and feathers dried, it was taking on a golden hue. The griffin’s feet were too big for its body, and so was its round, eagle-like head. But then, most baby animals were ugly and gangly that way. And a griffin was odd to begin with, with its eagle’s head, wings, and claws and its back end like a lion’s, complete with long tasseled tail.