On the Subject of Griffons

by Lindsey Byrd

  Kera stumbled to her room, closing the door behind her. She slid down the hard wood surface, and drew her knees up to her chest. Her dress pooled around her, fabric bunching along the boards. Then, with no one around to see her and her brow resting on her knees, Kera let herself cry.

  She tried to overcome the swell of hysteria, but the tears came without consideration to her efforts. The damnable headache that always came in tandem with her tears arrived in prompt fashion, as if to say well you’re already in pain, what’s a bit more? You can take it!

  As foolish and as ignorant as the bankers might think her, Kera was aware of her predicament. For all his wonderful talents, Mori had borrowed too much in order to see this house built. He had promised her the world, and ignored the cost, desperate to give her a life she thought she wanted.

  But she had never wanted this.

  She had just wanted him with her. She had wanted him when he was a penniless soldier fighting in the revolution against Trent, when he’d been desperate and eager to please. She wished she could turn back the clocks. She wished she had asked him to leave the war behind for her. Or, barring that, she wished she had asked him not to follow General Zakaria into politics. He could have worked as a lawyer, and they could have had a quiet and comfortable life.

  There would have been no dreams of Ivory Gates or glory, but neither would there have been pistols at dawn and death that ruined everything they had ever planned.

  Kera allowed herself a moment to laugh, holding the locket tight, tears staining her knees. She laughed. Mori would never have settled for anything less than what he had done. He had never been capable of sitting still. Such a quiet life would have brought him unimaginable misery. He would have become something wicked and cruel: a chained beast that snarled and snapped at any who passed. Their marriage would no longer have been a thing he treasured, but a thing he endured.

  He’d had one affair during a time when their relationship was already filled with bliss. She couldn’t imagine what would have happened if he’d been miserable at home.

  Something shattered downstairs. The echoes of glass hitting the floor reverberated through the house even as Kera heard her sister scream. Lifting her head, Kera pushed herself to her feet. Ciara shouted, “Aiden!” over and over, and each recitation of her son’s name drove Kera’s heart faster and faster.

  She rushed out, tripping on her skirt hem in her haste. She jerked at the fabric to pull it up and out of the way. When she reached the ground floor, she saw them all together. The bankers, her father, Ciara, her children—all seven—assembled in the parlor, door to the cellar cracked open just a little. The children liked to play down there from time to time, but their play had been interrupted. Aiden was on the floor, shaking, limbs thrashing. His dark eyes were rolled back in his head and his mouth was frothing.

  Kera pressed her hand to her lips, and she leaned against the doorway. No. Not little Aiden . . .

  But it was too late. The plague had come to the Ivory Gate, and for the second time in as many years, she felt helpless.

  As Kera stood immobile, her father ordered her children to collect their things and leave the Ivory Gate. Ciara rushed out to find a physician as Kera knelt on the floor with her four-year-old son nestled in her arms and stroked her fingers through his hair. The bankers fled. They covered their mouths and rushed out without concluding their negotiations. Kera couldn’t be bothered to find out where the talks had left off. It didn’t matter.

  Her son was dying.

  Kera listened as her father made plans. He spoke and made decisions. He determined the safest place for her other children would be up north in Alexandria, nestled in the Leona family estate of Crystal Point. He told her she should go too, and she had stared at him until he backed down. A strategy that worked well on parents, but did nothing at all to assuage the fears of children as they were ordered toward the door.

  Cirri, Kera’s eldest, had the good sense to wait until her grandfather had left the room before approaching. She was already bundled in her traveling cloak, her hair pulled back in a tight braid at the nape of her neck. Everyone always said she looked like Kera, but when Cirri asked, “Is Aiden going to die?” Kera could only see her husband in her daughter’s face.

  “I don’t know.”

  Cirri’s jaw set. She peered over Kera’s shoulder toward the closed door her brother lay behind. “Can I see him before we go?”

  “No.” Kera shook her head before Cirri could argue. “You know that if you . . . if you contract his illness. You know you won’t be allowed past the quarantine. Even as it is, your grandfather is going to have to sneak you out of the city. There’s enough risk at the moment, we can’t add more to it.”

  One of the kids dropped something, and there was an argument starting in the parlour. Junior snapped at all of them until the shouts stopped.

  “Will you look after them for me? Until we can return?”

  “I’d rather stay here.”

  “At the Gate?”

  “If you’re taking Aiden away, then there’s no contagion here. I can finish my classes and—”

  “Cirri. Are you honestly arguing to stay behind in an empty home, abandoning your siblings to the care of your aging grandfather for the sole purpose of attending university?”

  “She wants to stay behind because she’s convinced she’s found her one,” Junior announced, entering the room.

  Cirri let out a noise—half screech, half howl—and thrust a furious elbow at her younger brother, but he sidestepped it deftly, dancing out of its way. She blushed furiously, stumbling around her words as she babbled another excuse.

  Pressure built behind Kera’s eyes. She rubbed at the bridge of her nose, mind whirling and stalling whenever she felt close to finding an appropriate response. Cirri and Junior had started bickering, though, and it quickly drowned out any calm reaction she could have maintained. “Enough.”

  “Mama—”

  “Your brother is dying of a plague, Cirri.” Her hand dropped to her side. “I need you to take care of your siblings. I need Junior to escort you all, and my father, safely to the Point. And I need to trust you both can manage this maturely without purposefully instigating one another. If you’ve found someone, then they will be here for you when this is over.”

  They both had the good grace to look chastised. “Auggie and John are old enough to understand,” Junior said quietly, “but Marcus and Kerryn . . . what are we supposed to tell them? They don’t even really remember when our older brother died . . .”

  “They’re scared,” Cirri muttered, as though she hadn’t wanted to admit it. As though, if she’d ignored it long enough, it wouldn’t actually be true. It wouldn’t actually be something she’d need to face.

  “I am too.” Kera placed her hands on their cheeks, cradling them as gently as she could. “And Aiden . . . he’s scared as well. But, we can’t let fear keep us from moving forward. Or from protecting the ones we love. I’m going to be there for him, but I can’t be there for you or them. I need to know I can depend on you both.”

  “You can . . .” they said, worry still firmly affixed on their faces.

  “But . . .” Junior glanced toward the door once more. “Will . . . will he survive?”

  The papers had written about little else in the past few months except for the plague. They’d described it as an all-encompassing illness, though one that acted erratically with no known explanation. Some victims fell ill and died within the day. Others held on to life for weeks before giving up the ghost. Kera couldn’t tell her children which version Aiden would have. She couldn’t even assuage their fears by telling them it didn’t seem so bad. She, like the physicians and healers with their useless tinctures and equally worthless advice, could not even begin to predict how this would continue to manifest.

  “I hope so,” she whispered to them both. Then, kissing their brows, she drew them into fierce hugs. “Please, please look after your siblings.”

  They p
romised, and then they were gone. They left with one brother or sister held in each hand, walking tall as they climbed into a carriage heading north. Kera waited until they’d left for good, and took a moment to pray for their safe travels.

  Then she turned and opened the door to her youngest son’s room.

  Ciara was there with a physician she’d summoned. He was still examining Aiden. The man wasn’t anyone Kera recognized, but he moved Aiden’s limbs this way and that, applying his concoctions with practiced ease that spoke of experience. Yet despite various liquids being poured down Aiden’s throat, her son did not wake.

  “Is there truly no cure?” Ciara asked. She wrapped an arm around Kera’s shoulders as the physician finished drawing a blanket up to Aiden’s chin.

  The man straightened himself up to his full height and peered down his nose at them. “You are . . . the Widow Montgomery, correct?” he asked in return, as though he didn’t already know the answer to his question. As though this house hadn’t been marred and mocked, praised and held up as the pinnacle of town gossip.

  Kera entertained the idea of climbing to the top of a table, glaring down at the physician and asking why her name or status should mean a thing. Her son lay ill on her bed while he wished to exchange pleasantries. Or more likely, he wished to see what he could extort from her. Instead, she dipped her head. “I am,” she replied, finding her voice because of necessity alone. She could serve as a proper widow for his inspection, just as she could serve as a proper wife and mother.

  The man rubbed his beard. “There is no cure.”

  Kera’s breath stuttered twice in her throat before finding egress. She turned her back on the scene, ignoring how Ciara kept whispering soft prayers at the boy still lying in an unmoving heap in the same place her firstborn and her husband had died. Maybe Ciara was right. Maybe this house did have too many bad memories.

  “However,” the physician continued, flicking his eyes toward Ciara, as if he knew the next words he spoke would be foul and wrong. “A woman of your . . . financial security”—Kera longed to laugh at that—“may find other ways to alleviate your son’s ailments.”

  “You charlatan hack!” Ciara hissed. She strode across the room with one hand rising in fury. Sensing his imminent doom, the man stepped back, bowing his head to avoid the blow.

  “I mean no offense, my lady, but money does have influence in the world.”

  “You would hold my sister’s child hostage? His health a prisoner to your greed? You would rule yourself through avarice, you disgrace?” Ciara never had shied away from speaking her mind, nor flinched from high society and all its imperfections. Kera envied her strength of will, her fortitude.

  Little Aiden let out a mewling sound, and Kera faltered. She tore her eyes from the physician and Ciara so she could sit at his side. Her fingers touched his damp hair. It’s too much. Please. It’s too much.

  The physician was making excuses. Spit left his mouth as he sputtered and attempted to explain, but Ciara refused to listen. She badgered him onward, insulting him and threatening him with legal action when his protests continued. “As you said, she is the Widow Montgomery, and if you believe that we will not take this to the overseer himself . . .” Ciara trailed off. Ciara clearly had far more faith in their overseer than Kera did. The mere thought that Overseer Wild would grant Kera an audience after everything with Mori was absurd. Any chance he’d had at executing some form of professionalism had vanished when he’d refused to respond to her letters regarding her husband’s missing pension payments. A clerk had needed to write to her eventually, saying that she was lucky she hadn’t been evicted from her home and all assets seized under suspicion of treason. No. There’d be no help there.

  The physician looked between the sisters with clear uncertainty before clearing his throat. “I meant only that the cost for such medicine is high, not that I would defraud the good lady.”

  Kera wanted to speak up and ask him to state his intentions, but her throat seemed to swell closed. Words refused to leave her mouth. Her sister needed to intercede on her behalf, mustering her fury in Kera’s stead.

  “You will inform us forthwith, or I will call for the soldiers to come.”

  “Griffons, my lady,” the physician squeaked. “Griffons are said to shed feathers that can cure blindness, grow talons that can cure any illness. Should the lady have the funds for such an expedition, these tokens could save the boy’s life.”

  Aiden’s brown eyes moved beneath his lids. His lashes opened just enough for her to see them. They were wet and tragic, glistening and fever sick. Kera tried to smile for her boy. She tried to encourage him, and tell him that he was going to be all right. However, Aiden’s eyes closed too quick for that, and his breathing sounded more ragged by the moment.

  Acting as Kera’s spokesperson, Ciara was undaunted and undeterred. She plowed forward, snarling, “Griffons haven’t lived in these parts for hundreds of years. The closest we’ve had are tourist trinkets sold in the streets.”

  The physician swallowed, looking too disquieted to continue. But as he squirmed, Kera thought back to what she knew of the creatures . . . “Mori rode into one during the war,” Kera whispered aloud, recalling how he used to pace the house during thunderstorms, rubbing at three deep scars that ran from shoulder to elbow on his left arm. “He said they migrate north from time to time . . .”

  Seemingly emboldened, the physician nodded briskly. “There aren’t usually any in the north . . . but there are nests in the south. And there are permanent nests near the Long Lakes.”

  Ciara scoffed loudly, snapping that “The Long Lakes are hundreds of miles away!” while Kera envisioned the journey. A map formed in her mind, plotting the most strategic course even as the physician continued to argue with her sister.

  “It is the only possible cure that I can imagine for this ailment, madam!”

  “Yes, and the fact you could turn quite the profit on griffon talons means nothing to you,” Ciara hissed in reply, sharp as a viper. “You are free to leave, good sir. We shan’t trouble you any longer. Be gone!” The man had the audacity to huff as he walked from Kera’s home. He slammed the doors to the Ivory Gate so violently that a stern rebuke was given to him by someone on the road. Kera could hear the chastisement through the bedroom window.

  Holding her son’s hand, Kera looked down at his well-loved face. She traced her thumb along the back of his knuckles. She tried to think, but her thoughts kept circling. They kept returning to a question that had haunted her since her husband’s death: What would Mori do?

  He was gone now, and she was the leader of this household. She was the Widow Montgomery, and she needed to make this decision. The world expected her to behave as her husband would, and she couldn’t fathom how that might be.

  Her sister sat on the other side of Aiden, bed dipping beneath her. Although her presence was calming, Kera couldn’t help but consider the fact that Ciara should not be here. Ciara had children of her own, and a husband besides. A family that needed her and would be devastated by her loss. Aiden only had Kera. There was no one else for him but her. “You should be wary not to catch it as well,” Kera warned. Ciara ignored her.

  She stroked her fingers through her nephew’s black hair, watching as he coughed. Kera met her sister’s eyes. Decision already made. Ciara knew it too, her face twisting into a scowl that looked so close to their mother’s it was eerie. “I can have John go,” Ciara said.

  “Your husband deferred from the war effort and can barely ride a steed.” Kera said, slow and kind. In all the time Kera had known him, John Barker had simpered and quaked in the face of his far more boisterous and well-spoken wife. Ciara managed him like Mori managed politics: sometimes with skillful words and temperance, and most other times with raging fits of passion that forced his opponents to behave. The idea of him serving as a brave champion riding south to do battle with the griffons was laughable in its own right.

  And in any case . . . even if her brother-b
y-law managed to acquire the goods, he would not be able to return in time to save Aiden. Her son would have expired, and the trip would have been for naught. John would need to take Aiden with him, and Kera would never be able to see her son go and not attend as well. She had to be there with him, so that if he took his last breath, she could be there to give him one last moment of love. She had sat at her husband’s and firstborn’s sides when they died, she would do the same for her youngest.

  She would not allow him to die without knowing he was loved. “It should be me,” she said. “I’m his mother. It will be me.”

  Ciara stared at her. She looked frozen in time, watching as Kera walked to her closet and retrieved a satchel. Kera knew she would need food and water to start her journey, as well as riding clothes for both her and Aiden, warm blankets, and money to replenish their supplies with.

  Her mind whirled. Is this what Mori felt? she wondered as she collected her things. When his brain conjured notions all else considered strange? When he saw the path to his future, and took it? Kera begged his forgiveness. A year after his death and she was understanding parts of the man she loved that she had never understood before.

  “You cannot mean to travel to this nest on your own?” Ciara asked. The clarification did nothing but bolster Kera’s intentions. She lifted her arms and unbuttoned her dress, letting it slide from her body and onto the floor, while she secured a pair of rarely worn leggings from her bureau. One of Mori’s blouses and a wool coat went next. By now, Ciara was on her feet. “Kerryn, my dear sister, you—”

  “I will save my son’s life,” Kera said. She turned, drawing her back up straight. She was a Montgomery. She would always be a Montgomery, and she would not bend. “I will save my son’s life, and I will secure my home, and my children and I will live here as we are meant to live here, and no one else is going to die.” Not so long as her chest drew air.