Wednesdays in the Tower (4 page)
Celie had been reading a book on falcon keeping, and the author recommended raw organ meats, but also dried corn and flax seeds—all of which were sure to raise Cook’s eyebrows and have her asking Queen Celina for an explanation.
“Allow me,” Bran said. He stood up and gave her a small bow.
He strode over and tugged the fat-tasseled bellpull in the corner of Celie’s room. A few minutes later, a maid knocked on the door. Celie tried to cover the griffin with her body, but Bran blocked the view into the room with his tall form and sweeping robes.
“Ah, hello!” Bran greeted the maid. “I am helping my sister, Princess Cecelia, with an experiment for her lessons.
Could you please go to the kitchens and ask Cook for some raw meat? It doesn’t need to be the choice cuts, it can be the organs and fatty bits. Also a bowl of fruit—”
“Dried corn,” Celie said in a low, urgent voice.
“And some dried corn.”
“Yes, my Lord Wizard,” the maid said, and hurried off.
“I wish
I
was the Royal Wizard,” Celie grumbled.
“We’ll see if we can’t get something set up with the kitchens,” Bran said. “I’ll go and talk to Cook myself.”
“What if she says something to Master Humphries?” Celie asked. “What happens if he tells her that I haven’t been assigned an experiment involving raw meat and dried corn?”
“Well,” Bran began, “perhaps—”
As Celie turned her attention to the griffin, to stop him from gnawing on the leg of a stool, she had an idea.
“I’ll ask the Castle,” she said. “After all, it wants me to take care of the griffin, so it should provide the food!”
“Do you think it’s going to do what you ask?” Bran said, looking skeptical. “It’s been very … capricious lately.”
Her clothes were filthy, and the bites and scratches on her hands were beginning to sting. She had a griffin to take care of, and she didn’t know how, and for all Bran’s speeches about her being entrusted with the griffin and its imprinting on her, he didn’t seem to think she knew how to take care of it, either. She suddenly felt like crying, and she wanted Bran to leave.
“Celie, do you want to get washed up?” Bran, with his wizardly intuition, seemed to guess her mood at once.
“Yes,” Celie managed to say without quavering.
“Why don’t I hurry the food along, and you and the griffin can freshen up. We’ll just deal with this one day at a time.”
“Oh!” As Celie stood up, her stomach growled audibly, to her embarrassment. “Is it dinnertime?”
“Yes,” Bran said, looking vague. “I think we’d better … Hmm.” He tapped his lower lip. “I’ll go on to the dining hall and tell them that you’re working on a project for Master Humphries and can’t join us,” Bran said. “I’ll have a tray sent up for you, and I’ll come check on you after dinner.”
“Perfect,” Celie said. “Thanks, Bran.”
She didn’t burst into exhausted tears until after she had latched the door behind him.
Celie spent the next week watching the little griffin eat and grow.
The Castle went out of its way to support her in this, and to make sure that the griffin was well provided for. Every morning when Celie woke up, with a warm, sleepy griffin curled against her side, she found fresh sawdust in a box in the corner, a large urn of water, and bowls of fresh meat, seeds, and fruit. There was even a leather ball for him to play with.
Celie had been worried about the maids finding the griffin, but Bran put a spell on her door the very first night that made them turn away, thinking that they’d already cleaned Celie’s chamber. She asked him to put a spell on everyone in the Castle so that they couldn’t see the griffin—which she had named Rufus—but Bran had frowned at her.
“There is a very great difference between bespelling
your door and bespelling a person,” Bran said, bristling at her. “The Council of Wizards would have my head if they thought I was even contemplating such a thing.”
At the end of the first week, the griffin had nearly doubled in size, and his cries had become three times as shrill. Celie had a hard time keeping him entertained: most of her furniture was scraped and chewed, and her new riding boots were ruined. Bran came to her rooms to measure and sketch the griffin, and she asked him again to use magic to make the animal less noticeable, at least.
“I don’t see why you won’t just tell Father,” Bran replied. “I promised you I wouldn’t, but that’s because I think you should be the one to do it. Really, Celie, there’s only so long you’ll be able to hide him.”
“I know, but I don’t know what else to do,” she said. “I actually tried to tell Mummy and Daddy at breakfast the very next morning. I was so exhausted; he kept me up all night whining and begging for food. But as soon as I opened my mouth to do it, that pack of cloaks fell down the chimney.”
“Oh, that,” Bran said.
The family had been at breakfast in the winter dining hall, and Celie had just gotten her parents’ attention when a sooty bundle had fallen down the chimney into the fireplace with a startling thump. Rolf had hurried to pull it out of the fire with the iron tongs, and they had discovered that it was a bundle of oddly shaped old cloaks that had probably been shoved up the chimney centuries before.
The cloaks were shaped like oak leaves, and made from leather that had been washed and pounded until it was as soft as the finest wool. In the ensuing excitement, Celie had lost her opportunity to tell her parents.
“And I almost told them the next day,” she said, “when I got back from my lessons and found that he’d eaten my new boots. But as soon as I decided to, the door of my room locked itself. I couldn’t get out until I promised that I wouldn’t tell anyone about Rufus.”
“Rufus?” Bran raised his eyebrows.
“I named him Rufus,” Celie said, defensive. “It’s a good name for a griffin.”
Rufus had been the name of the stuffed lion she had had since she was a baby. Last year, during the old Emissary’s attempt to get rid of their family and put Prince Khelsh of Vhervhine on the throne, Rufus the lion had turned into a griffin—and eaten Prince Khelsh. Then he had simply disappeared. The baby griffin was considerably smaller than Rufus the Stuffed-Lion Griffin, but Celie still thought it was a very good name for a griffin.
“Oh,” Bran said. “I, er, brought a list of names you might like. But if you’ve already named him …”
“Yes, and he answers to it,” Celie said with pride. She picked up the leather ball. “Rufus!” The griffin immediately looked up from the bone it was chewing. “Fetch!” She tossed the ball, and the little beast ran across the room after it. Celie turned back to her oldest brother. “Why? What names did you think of?”
“Oh, nothing,” Bran said.
Looking up at him, Celie saw that her tall, commanding brother—the Royal Wizard, no less—was blushing. He shoved a scrap of parchment into his pocket.
“What were the names?” Celie was intrigued.
“They were silly,” Bran said. “Anyway, if the Castle is locking you in your room, and possibly even dropping things down the chimney, then it definitely wants you to keep Rufus a secret.” He sighed. “Even though I think it’s a rather strange idea, having to keep a wild animal in your bedcham—Hey!”
Celie had sidled around Bran and grabbed the slip of parchment from his pocket. “Goldenwings …” She looked at the names in incredulity. Bran? Pragmatic, studious
Bran
had written down
Goldenwings
as a potential name for her griffin? “Proudheart. Proudwings. Brightclaw.”
“Give that back!” Bran snatched the list away, his face bright red.
“I’m not laughing at you,” she said, contrite when she saw how hurt he was. “I’m just laughing because … Well,
Proudwings
?”
“I was looking for a noble name,” he said stiffly. “Something that evoked the steeds of the great heroes of legend.”
Now Celie really did feel bad. “Those are very noble names,” she offered. “But I’m not sure that a creature who can’t stop eating my shoes deserves to be called something like Brightclaw.” And with a sigh she went to pull one of her dancing slippers out of Rufus’s beak.
“True,” Bran said, looking mollified. “I had better get to the Armor Gallery,” he said with a sigh. “Still more to study there.”
“I should think you’d be more excited,” Celie said, tossing the ball for Rufus to distract him from her shoes. “All those strange bits of armor and weaponry …”
“Yes, they’re all very well,” Bran said. “But you know that all my life I’ve wanted to uncover the secrets of the Castle itself, and not just one of the rooms.” His shoulders slumped. “Besides which, most of the things aren’t from the Castle, they’re from some other land. It’s just adding mystery to mystery. I’ll never figure out where most of the artifacts came from, let alone what they’re for. And when I’m finally done with them, I’ll be further than ever from finding out about Castle Glower.” He ran a hand over his face. “You’ve done more to unlock the Castle’s mysteries with your atlas than anyone living, yet I’m the one who spent years learning to be a wizard!”
“Oh, dear,” Celie said. Her eyes flicked to her desk.
“What’s that?” Bran followed her gaze. “Is it finished?” He picked up the atlas on the top of the neat stack.
“Yes,” Celie told him reluctantly. “I was going to pass out copies at dinner. But now I don’t want to … to show you up.”
She had declared the atlas finished a few days previous, and had given it to the Castle scribes. They had made four copies and put them in leather folders. She had planned to give one to her parents and the others to Bran, Rolf, and
Lilah at dinner, but she worried now that it would make Bran look bad.
Bran must have immediately sensed her regret. He turned to her with a broad smile.
“This is truly amazing, Cel. No one has ever done anything like this!” He reverently turned the pages of maps. “Could I have one of the copies?”
“Of course!” She made a pushing motion at him, indicating that he should keep the atlas in his hands.
“This is really something special, Celie,” Bran said. “Can I have another copy made? One of my tutors from the College of Wizardry, Wizard Levin, is coming to stay here and help me with the Armor Gallery.”
“He is?” Celie was startled and excited by this piece of news. Other than Bran, she’d rarely seen any real wizards before.
“Yes,” Bran said. “And he’ll need a copy so that he can get around. And hopefully with him here, I will have more time to study the Castle and spend less time hunched over meaningless artifacts.”
“I wish I could help,” Celie said.
Now that she was done with her atlas—at least until the Castle produced a new room, and then it would only take her a day to sketch it and have copies made—she was feeling a bit let down. True, there was Rufus to care for, but she had been working on the atlas for so long, it felt strange to be done.
“I could use your help,” Bran admitted.
“How? Why?” Distracted, Celie let Rufus nip at her fingers and gown as she gave her full attention to Bran.
“I want you to find out what connection there is between griffins and the Castle,” Bran said. “Find that book you left in the library, see if you can’t find more references to griffins appearing at the Castle.” Bran held up one of the maps to study it better. “Where did that egg come from, and why did the Castle give it to you, specifically?”
“Excellent,” Celie said eagerly. “I think I’ll start by sketching the tapestries.”
“What tapestries?” Bran looked up, confused.
“The ones in the upper corridors,” Celie said. “You know: the ones that show our ancestors riding griffins into battle.”
The presentation of the remainder of the atlases at dinner was everything Celie had hoped for. Her family praised her greatly, and her father spoke of giving her a special title— Royal Cartographer to the Castle—which she was sure made her face turn positively mauve. Back in her room, she’d told Rufus all about it while he gazed at her with golden eyes and lovingly chewed the hem of her gown.
But the next morning, several of her maps were rendered useless. There was another new stable, which had demolished part of the outer wall and let a number of cows into the courtyard. And Celie was late for her lessons because there was now an extra portrait gallery and a large storeroom containing hundreds of bolts of fabric between her and the schoolroom.