Year of the Griffin (27 page)

Much later, when the students had dispersed with much happy shouting and quite a lot of discordant singing, Finn walked purposefully through the courtyard—disturbing as he went a crowd of mice gathered around a dropped sandwich—and down to the main gate, where he let himself out by the small postern. He would try the White Lion first, he thought, and then the Golden Eagle and the Mage. If he drew blanks there, it would have to be the Red Wizard, the Blue Boar, the Green Dwarf, and the Griffin, followed by the Dragon, the Pumphouse, and Tilley's Wines, and after that some of the lower taverns. The city had a great many inns and several big hotels, such as the Imperial Arms and the Harping Bard, where the senators and the dwarfs had probably stayed. It promised to be a long night.

But Finn was lucky. Corkoran was in the White Lion, sitting at a table filled with carefully lined-up wine bottles and a half-full one in front of him. In the rest of the room all the chairs had been put on top of the tables and the landlord was leaning on the bar, looking tired and impatient.

“Come on, Corkoran,” Finn said. “Time to go home.”

“Got no home,” said Corkoran. “Not anymore. Turned out to starve when I was fifteen. Tours sacked the place. Walked all the way to the University.”

“The University,” Finn said, “
is
your home now. You're head of it. Remember?”

“Not. That's Querida,” said Corkoran. “I'm only Chairman of the Board.”

“That's the same thing these days,” Finn pointed out. “Come along, Corkoran, we need you. We had a plague of griffins this afternoon, and there was no one in authority to deal with them. One of them knocked down the statue of Policant.”

“Mice,” said Corkoran. “You must be drunk, Finn. Mice is what we've got a plague of. Mice don't knock down statues. They eat moonships.”

Finn sighed. “You were probably on your tenth bottle at that stage. Come along back now. You've drunk quite enough, and the landlord wants to close.”

“Can't,” said Corkoran. “Won't. Got no reason to do anything anymore, Finn. My moonshot's over. Finished. Everything eaten and cut to pieces.”

“I know,” Finn said sympathetically. “I went to your lab to look for you. It was those assassins, wasn't it?”

“You should have let me dump them on the moon!” Corkoran cried out. “It's all your fault, Finn!”

“I should have taken them off you and sent them back to Ampersand,” Finn said. “I'm sorry now that I didn't. But it's no use crying over spilled milk, Corkoran—”

“I'm not crying,” Corkoran explained. “I'm drowning my sorrows.”

“You certainly are!” Finn agreed, looking at the rows of bottles. “For the last time, Corkoran, are you coming back with me or not? You're giving a lecture tomorrow, and
I'm
not going to give it for you.”

“Myrna will,” Corkoran said. “Nice obliging woman. Ask her if you don't want to do it.”

“Oh!” said Finn. “
Bother
you then!” He activated the transport spell he had brought with him, with the result that Corkoran woke up in his own bed the next day, fully dressed and feeling like death and without the slightest idea how he got there.

W
HILE THESE THINGS
were going on in the University, pigeons from it were winging in several directions. One speeding eastward passed quite low above the string of ten dwarfs, riding ponies and celebrating as they rode. They laughed and raised their jeweled cups to it.

“That could be ours,” said Dobrey.

“Nonsense,” said Genno. “We sent ours before we left.”

“Well, anyway,” Dobrey said complacently, “the other forgemasters will have our news long before we get home. Fellow tribesmen, we are now the richest fastness in the world. People will come from all over the world and pay gold to learn the truth from this book.”

“We'll drink to that!” shouted the rest.

Two pigeons meanwhile flew south. One was wounded, but still gained steadily on the pigeon sent by the senators. The largest number of pigeons, however, went west. The biggest group flew in a miserable gaggle and were followed by four others almost as miserable. Derk had told them all, before he hired them out, that if anyone hurt or mistreated them, they were to come straight home to Derkholm. So this was what they were doing. They passed underneath Callette, winging the other way, and shortly after that under five griffin strangers flying after her. A while later Kit came thundering over them. They found this dimly reassuring. Everything that flew respected Kit these days. They arrived in the Derkholm pigeon loft more or less at the same moment that Blade—having translocated in from the coast, saying he had just had a message for help from the University, which was what sent Kit thundering off there—kissed his distraught mother's cheek, told her he had to go and help Kit but that they would both be back for supper, and translocated out there himself.

The other pigeons were horrified at the condition of the fugitives. They set up such a din that Old George, who was on his way to feed them, anyway, almost ran up the ladder. He ran down again almost at once and raced off to find Derk. Derk was on the terrace with his two winged youngest children, a vast terrace that had sometime ago been covered with a protective spell that kept out the weather but did not stop anyone from walking or flying through it, so that all the griffins could join in family life there.

“Those pigeons,” Old George panted. “That lot you sent to the University. About half of them's come back in a terrible state! Bleeding. Feathers missing. One's going to lose an eye if you don't do something quick!”

Derk was quite glad of the distraction. Mara had just dashed indoors crying about Lydda, and he was not sure what to do about either of them. He was upset by Lydda's sudden marriage himself, anyway. He felt quite as bad as he had on the day Shona took herself off to the East Coast with her Geoffrey. He did not feel he could help Mara at all.

“Go and kiss your mother better,” he said to Angelo and Florence, and pelted for the loft.

Here at least he could do something. Derk tutted to himself sadly as he stabilized the wounded eye, patched wounds, stopped bleeding, and set feathers growing again. What an awful way to treat harmless, valuable birds! He was puzzled as well as upset by the story they told him. What were these very small men directing fighting mice? Why had they disabled the pigeons and then shoved them out through the doors? It was probably no wonder that Elda had sent to Blade for help. At least, with Kit and Blade on their way there, he needn't worry about Elda now. But something was very wrong. What were the senior wizards doing to let this sort of thing happen there?

He thought about this while he regenerated the eye and caused another pigeon to regrow a severed foot. When he was finished, he went down and saddled up Filbert. Then he went into the house to find Mara. She was upstairs in the main bedroom, surrounded by open suitcases and heaps of clothing and somewhat impeded by Florence, who was fluttering about her, “helping.” “Oh, good,” she said as Derk entered. “Find me as many of your shirts that are clean as you can.”

He could see she had taken refuge in packing. That was a relief. “Yes, when I get back,” he said. “I'm just off to see Querida.”

“But you don't like her. Flo, put that
down
,” Mara said. “Why? Flo, if I have to tell you again, you'll be sorry. Is it the University? I heard Old George saying—Flo, I
warned you
. Can't Kit and Blade see about it? Right, Florence. That is
it.
Go and play with Angelo. Now.”

Florence, who knew when a parent really meant what she said, drifted to the door. She also knew that Angelo was in a bad mood. Angelo's great hero was Blade, and he had got Blade back just that day only to have Blade disappear twice in quick succession. He did not want a mere sister. “I don't want to play with Angelo. He's making pies in the bath. He's
dirty
.”

“Oh, don't go and tell me tales, or I really shall run up the wall!” Mara said. “Out!” And as Florence reluctantly fluttered away, lower lip stuck out and trembling at the tyranny of mothers, Mara protested, “But, Derk, it's nearly nightfall! Can't you go tomorrow?”

“I thought you wanted us all to leave tomorrow,” Derk said.

“I did, I did! I
do
!” Mara said. “But I'm not sure we can get packed by then. What's the matter? Is something really wrong at the University? I do wish I hadn't let Querida persuade me to send Elda off there now. Elda could have come over the ocean with us then.”

“I wish you hadn't packed her off there, too,” Derk said, frowning. “When a place sends half my pigeons back hacked to bits, you wonder about it, Mara, you really do. I'm going to ask Querida to take a good long look at it while we're away. I'll be back for supper, I promise.”

“That makes you and Blade and Kit
and
Callette, all making the same promise,” Mara said. “All right. We'll be late eating, anyway. I won't be able to start conjuring food until I've sorted out these clothes and sorted out whatever Angelo's up to, I suppose.”

Derk kissed her and left before she made him sort Angelo out for her. Mara was much better at managing winged children than he was. “Make the most of this,” he told Filbert as Filbert's strong chestnut wings carried him northward. “It could be your last proper flight before the voyage.”

“I know,” Filbert answered gloomily. “I'm not looking forward to over a week on a boat. There's seasickness. You know horses can't be sick, don't you?”

“Teach your grandmother,” said Derk. “We're stowing all you horses on deck. If you get seasick, just take a short flight—unless there's a storm, of course.”

“I might get swept into the sea!” Filbert protested.

“So swim,” said Derk. “And wait for someone to throw you a rope. All horses can swim.”

“I
could
be the exception,” Filbert said nervously. “I've never tried.”

While Filbert flew northward, further north still, in the kingdom of Luteria, King Luther suddenly canceled the usual arrangements for supper in the Great Hall with the court and decreed a family meal in the Small Dining Chamber instead. It was the sight of Isodel slipping late and guiltily into the Great Hall for lunch that decided him.

She's been seeing an unsuitable lover! King Luther found himself thinking. He was ashamed of this thought almost as soon as he had it. He knew very well that every man Isodel encountered instantly became her would-be lover, suitable or unsuitable, and he was fairly certain that Isodel had so far not responded to any of them. But he didn't
know
she had not. There was always going to be a time when she
did
respond, and he gloomily expected it to be to someone quite wrong. He did not know his daughter any longer, that was the problem. He did not know any of his children these days. Lukin seemed to have been avoiding him for weeks. And the other four were big with some secret that made them giggle in corners or rush breathlessly away on hidden errands when he came anywhere near them.

To some extent King Luther blamed Mr. Chesney for this. Chesney's tours had caused Luther's wife, Queen Irida, to leave him and live in hiding with her children for safety. She had come back once the tours had stopped, saying—and he believed her—that it
was
only the tours that had made her do it and that she did in fact love him. Then he was able to get to know his children all over again. But there had been that gap. This gap maybe accounted for the way he felt that all six of his children were becoming total strangers to him now.

Consequently, he waited to be sure that all his children were actually in the castle and would not have time to duck out again. When he had glimpsed even the elusive Lukin turning a distant corner beside Isodel, he gave his orders and put up with the dismay of the cooks and servers in a good cause.

Twenty minutes later everyone gathered in the Small Dining Chamber around an expanse of slightly yellowed and darned white tablecloth and slightly chipped crystal. They were all warmly dressed, since the Small Dining Chamber breathed chilly dampness from each of its stone walls, despite a newly lit fire, and they had done their best to smarten themselves up. None of their clothes were new, and the result was still slightly shabby. King Luther sighed as he looked around at them, wishing the kingdom could afford to dress its royal family more suitably. Isodel, particularly, deserved better than plain blue wool and a threadbare silk shawl. And little Emana, who showed signs of growing up to rival Isodel, could do with dresses that had not gone through two older sisters before her. As for the boys …