Thursdays With the Crown

by Jessica Day George

  “Fascinating,” Queen Celina said, her voice clipped. “But can you cure them?”

  “No, Mummy,” Celie said. “I’m sorry. There’s no cure.” She felt her chin wobble. “And Rufus has it, too.”

  That was the worst blow of all. They’d made it back, they’d healed the Castle, but she and Rolf were dying, and so was Rufus. She’d never get to complete her atlas. Rolf would never be king. Rufus would never be as big as his father.

  “Celie,” Bran said, stopping in the main hall to look at her. “There is a cure.”

  Chapter 19

  As Bran led the procession of people and griffins into the Heart of the Castle, Wizard Arkwright leaped to his feet. He’d been sitting at one of the benches, studying a book with great unconcern, as though the Castle hadn’t just been made whole and the missing prince and princesses returned with a flock of griffins in tow.

  Bran left, hurrying to his rooms to get some things he needed. He was already muttering under his breath and moving his hands around in the air, planning some magic.

  Celie turned her attention back to the Heart of the Castle. Even feeling as ill as she did, Celie decided that she hated Arkwright, sitting there gaping at them. Also, even with her blurred vision, she could see that he was about to lie. Really, the man was a terrible actor, and it was impressive that he had managed to conceal his origins and the history of the Castle for so long.

  “Get back,” Arkwright said in a voice thick with terror. He looked over Celie’s head to the king and queen. “It’s the plague. The plague that killed my people and our griffins years ago! It’s highly contagious, and I’m afraid there is no cure.” He made a warding gesture at Rolf, who was walking toward him, supported by Pogue. “Please, Your Highness, come no closer. You endanger us all!”

  “Your people never had griffins,” Rolf said coldly. “That was just the first of your many lies.”

  Arkwright opened his mouth, then closed it again. His expression took on a mixture of curiosity and cunning that made him look even more unpleasant than usual.

  “Here is being the books,” Lulath said, running into the room.

  “If Bran says that there’s a cure, and that this happens in Grath, too, I believe him,” Lilah said.

  “It is true what our Bran the Wizard is saying, it is happening in the Grath, from time and again,” Lulath asserted, seeing the queen’s panicked look. “There is being a cure, O Our Majesty.

  “And I am now of the thought that it is being brought from the Arkish lands, yes,” Lulath continued. “From those who are living on the shore with themselves kept to themselves.” He shook his head. “I am only now seeing, they must be having been the griffin riders who are living, which griffins did follow these unicorns to the sea.”

  Celie stuck that in the back of her brain. She would have to ask Lulath more questions about it, when she wasn’t dying.

  “Are they the people who don’t speak Grathian, or any other language anyone knows?” Lilah asked. Celie vaguely remembered Lulath telling them about these people weeks ago, during their own Grathian lessons.

  “Indeed,” Lulath said. “Perhaps now it is our Ethan who could be telling us where these are the people of! The Glorious Arkower? Hathelocke? After we are curing our friends, of course,” he added.

  “What?” Wizard Arkwright spun around to glare at Lulath. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! Arkish people in Grath! Madness! And there is no cure! And no way of fixing the Eye!”

  “So you hope,” Lilah said coldly. “Father, I want him locked up! His uncle tried to kill us, and he’s just as horrible!”

  “I agree,” Rolf said woozily. “Guards!” His shout frightened the maids hovering in the doorway. “Guards!”

  Several guards came running. They had clearly been waiting, hoping to be needed so that they could find out what was happening. One of them saluted Rolf. The others remembered the king and hastily put their hands to their helmets.

  “Lock this man up,” Rolf said, pointing to Arkwright with a blistered, shaking finger. “He’s a traitor and has aided in the murders of countless men and griffins.”

  “How dare you —” Arkwright began as the guards seized his arms.

  But the king had also signaled to the guards, who dragged the protesting wizard away. “Insufferable man,” King Glower said. “I’m glad to hear he’s a traitor. Now I can justify my dislike of him.”

  “Is there really a cure?” Queen Celina was looking anxiously at Celie and Rolf, but Celie noticed that she had blisters on her hands from touching them. She saw Celie looking and hid her hands in her sleeves.

  “For every very blessed ill there is being a cure,” Lulath said complacently.

  “We have to cure the Castle first,” Celie said. She let go of Rufus’s harness and took a few tottering steps. Her ears felt full of cotton wool, and she didn’t think anyone heard her, so she said it again, louder.

  “We have to cure the Castle first.”

  “Agreed,” Rolf said. “Put me down, Pogue.”

  Pogue, who had half carried Rolf inside, reluctantly took his arm from Rolf’s shoulders. Rolf stood unsteadily in front of their father. Then he took the crown off his head and held it out to King Glower. The king was bareheaded: he generally wore his crown only during formal occasions.

  “The crown of the Builder of the Castle,” Rolf said. And, when their father made no move to touch it, “Take it. It’s yours now.”

  King Glower started to protest, but he saw Rolf’s face and Celie’s, Lilah’s and Pogue’s and Lulath’s. He hesitated, brows knit.

  “Daddy,” Celie said. “Didn’t you hear? It’s the crown, the real crown. The Builder of the Castle’s crown.”

  The king paused a moment more, then solemnly took the crown and placed it on his own head.

  “And now the other ring of the Builder,” Rolf said, and offered up the ring.

  King Glower took it without protest and put it on his left hand. On his right was the griffin ring that every King Glower had worn. King Glower looked down at his hands, then reached up to feel the crown. The stones of the Castle stirred and then settled, as though a sigh had run through the Castle, and through those watching. Rolf nodded.

  The griffins around them suddenly stiffened. They left off sniffing at the tapestries and furnishings, and turned to face King Glower. The largest of them, Rufus’s father, gave a stiff little bow and voiced a piercing cry. When the sound of the griffin’s cry died away, King Glower took a few steps forward and then looked anxiously at Celie.

  “Should I bow?” he said in a hoarse whisper.

  “I don’t know,” Celie answered, and Rolf shrugged.

  The king inclined his head, and that seemed to be the right thing to do. Lord Griffin bowed again, and then he and his companions dispersed themselves about the room, lying down in corners and on the cold hearth.

  “I wonder if he’d let us put that collar on him,” Pogue mused.

  “You’re welcome to try,” Rolf said.

  “Maybe later,” Pogue said.

  “Now for the missing piece of the Eye,” Celie announced. She turned. It felt as though she was going to keep turning and she nearly fell.

  “Celie!” Queen Celina cried.

  “Bran!” the king roared. “Where are you?”

  “I’ve got you,” Pogue said, scooping her up.

  “The plague,” Celie said weakly, and tried to squirm out of his arms.

  “For every blessed thing there is being a cure,” Pogue reminded her, quoting Lulath with a half smile. “I’ve already touched Rolf, anyway.”

  Celie laughed, then coughed. Pogue carried her through the collection of tapestries, maps, cushions, and other bric-a-brac bearing images of griffins that had been neatly arranged on the long tables. At the far end, above the fireplace, the Eye had been placed in its niche, making the missing part all the more obvious. Pogue shifted Celie in his arms so that she was sitting up, and Celie very carefully matched up the pie
ce of dull and dirty stone with its clean and shining other half.

  The Castle shivered.

  After a long pause, as though even the Castle was holding its breath, the two parts of the Eye melted together. The dirty side was made clean and new, and every stone of the Castle seemed to sit up, and sparkled, just briefly, before settling back into place.

  The silence was broken by Lulath letting out a cheer.

  “O huzzah! Is not it the wonder?” he cried.

  Celie burst out laughing, helpless.

  “Is it done? Is it over?” Lilah demanded. “That seemed too easy.”

  “I’d say yes,” King Glower said. “It’s over, I mean, not that it was too easy. Nothing so far has been easy.

  “Let’s get Celie and Rolf upstairs,” he added.

  “Right here is just fine,” Rolf said.

  Now that her hands were empty, Celie realized how itchy her blisters were. Her eyes were getting even blurrier, and her head felt foggy. She rested her head on Pogue’s shoulder.

  “How did those riders make it to Sleyne before, without knowing they were sick?” Rolf asked as Pogue put Celie down beside him on a bench. The queen came to fuss over them, pushing back Celie’s hair and looking into both their eyes. She turned her head and called an order to the maids, but Celie didn’t catch what her mother had asked for. Her hearing seemed to be going in and out. Rufus curled up at her feet and put his head on her lap. She put trembling hands on his head.

  “They probably didn’t get a bucket of poisonous water dumped on their heads,” Pogue said drily.

  “I need to know what’s happened, but I’m almost too terrified to ask,” Queen Celina said. “And where on earth is Bran?”

  “Coming, coming,” Bran called, running into the room with an armload of books and bottles.

  Celie slumped against Rolf and closed her eyes.

  “Bran, what do you need?” Pogue said.

  Bran began issuing instructions to Pogue and their mother, who Celie had almost forgotten had magical skill. She let herself drift, holding a prayer in her heart that Bran could cure them, and quickly. She could feel Rufus’s head shivering under her hands.

  “Cel,” Rolf said, interrupting her as she started to fall asleep. “Hey Cel? What should we do after we get better?”

  Celie couldn’t answer him. She couldn’t understand how he was still talking. It took all her strength just to sit.

  “Your Highness,” Ethan said humbly to Rolf. “Can we not get the other eggs?”

  “Oh, I’d nearly forgotten them,” Rolf said. “Yes, we shall do that!”

  “What eggs?” King Glower said. “Who are you again?”

  “Your Majesty,” Ethan said, and his voice faded in and out as though he were bowing. “I was an assistant to the Arkower, the last Arkish wizard. I helped him … attempt to … train griffins. I have gathered three eggs and hidden them in the Tomb of the Builder, so that we could collect them later.”

  “Griffin eggs?” King Glower sounded amazed. “You found three griffin eggs? And three actual griffins will hatch from them?”

  “To add to the ones you’ve brought with you?” Queen Celina said with amusement. “Where will we put them all?”

  “We now have two griffin stables,” King Glower said. “Wait … how did I know that?”

  “It’s the crown,” Rolf said. “I wore it for a few minutes, and I could feel the Castle.”

  Celie felt a flutter of jealousy but was too sick to indulge it.

  “You’re the griffin trainer,” Lilah whispered to her, sitting down at her side. “And don’t you forget it. I need your help with Juliet, as soon as you feel better.”

  “Thank you,” Celie whispered back, and felt tears sting her blurry eyes.

  They sat in silence, and Celie started to drift off again.

  “All right, Cel, here we go,” Bran said a moment later. “Drink this.”

  She tried to open her eyes, and realized that she couldn’t. Lilah and Pogue were holding her up, and she could hear Queen Celina saying something to Rolf, but Rolf wasn’t answering.

  A cold metal cup touched her lower lip and she managed to open her mouth enough for Bran to tilt some of the potion down her throat. She heard Lulath talking expansively about Lorcan to her father. Heard her mother urging Rolf to drink. She had to make the muscles of her throat work by sheer force of will.

  The cup was taken away and Lilah pulled her over so that she was resting against her sister’s shoulder. Rufus stirred in her lap, and she felt something wet drip onto her foot.

  “Will you just drink, you little monster,” Bran said in exasperation.

  “And all who are touching the Celie and the Rolf will be drinking this the last,” Lulath said. “Our lovely queen, I am seeing your beautiful poor hands!”

  “Do you feel better yet?” Lilah whispered.

  Celie tried to blink, but her eyes felt gummy. Bran took hold of her chin and rubbed something that felt and smelled like mud on her eyelids, then washed it away with a wet cloth. When he was done, she opened her eyes and her vision started to clear.

  “Daddy?”

  “What is it, Celia-delia?” King Glower almost tripped over Rufus trying to get to her.

  “I’m starving,” she said, marveling at the sudden feeling of hunger replacing the aches and pains of the plague. “Can you ask the Castle to bring me a custard from the kitchens?”

  “Ask it yourself,” the king said fondly. “You’re still its favorite.”

  Chapter 20

  “Sir Pogue, would you hand me that blanket?” Rolf called.

  “Please stop calling me that,” Pogue begged.

  “But you are being now Sir Pogue!” Lulath cried. “What honor! What excitement!”

  Celie grabbed one of the folded blankets and threw it at Rolf. It unfolded in the air and landed with a soft whump on the egg he was wrapping. Rolf grinned at her and shook out the blanket, tucking it carefully around the egg.

  “Can we hurry, please?” Lilah said. She looked around nervously. “I really hate this place.”

  Celie had to agree. The Glorious Arkower — Hatheland — whatever you wanted to call it, was no place that anyone would want to be. Not anymore.

  The fire had died out, though smoke still choked the air. Most of the trees were gone, and the blackened waste extended all the way to the foot of the Arkower’s mountain. Where the Castle ruins had been was just a black plain, with no sign that anything had ever been there. Away in the distance, toward the city where Ethan had been born, the trees started up again, screening the city from their view. Rolf had asked Ethan if he wanted to go back there, or even find a way to send a message, but Ethan had declined.

  “To whom would I send a message?” Ethan had asked. “I have no one, and nowhere to go.”

  “You have the Castle,” King Glower had said firmly. “This is your home now.”

  He had made Ethan a ward of the court, which the queen explained to the stunned young man meant that he could live in the Castle and take lessons with Master Humphries like Celie and Rolf. That was just after Pogue had been knighted for his “services to the Castle and the Glower family,” which Rolf had cheerfully translated as “saving everyone’s lives repeatedly even after being hit on the head.”

  Once Celie and Rolf and Rufus had recovered from the plague — which took four days of treatments, while they suffered from fever, chills, and a ravenous appetite that Rolf swore was really just the effect of the lack of decent food in Hatheland — and the queen and Pogue had been treated for mild cases of it, they had wanted to return immediately for the eggs. But King Glower had insisted that they wait. They had told their story to the king and queen and Bran, and then to the rest of the court. They had bathed and changed and eaten and slept, and been commended for their valor separately and in a group.

  Then, after a week, the king said that they had waited long enough. The wizards would have let their guard down, the fire would not still be burning. Ce
lie by then was nearly wild with nerves, and so were the others. They didn’t want any of the eggs to hatch alone inside the tomb. They wanted them to hatch safely inside one of the new hatching towers, where the grown griffins could watch over them.

  “And a few of us could maybe, just maybe, have a chance of bonding with them,” Rolf had put in.

  It had taken a little time to convince the king and queen that they did not need to take the entire army with them, and to negotiate down to just Bran, four soldiers, and King Glower and Queen Celina. Then there had been the problem of how to get there. They could tell the Castle to send them — or so they thought — but how would they get back?

  “We’ll have to take a piece of the Castle with us,” Celie had pointed out. “It’s probably easiest if it’s a bit that already sticks out, but without a lot of stairs to climb.”

  That ruled out any of the towers, and it was Rolf who pointed out that the piece of the Castle that jutted out the farthest was in fact the griffin stable where Celie had found the piece of the Eye. So they had all gathered there and huddled around the king, who clenched his fists and screwed his eyes shut, muttering under his breath to the Castle.

  The twist in the back of Celie’s head came, there was a rumble, and the smell of smoke wafted through the open door. Turning, they saw that the door no longer opened onto the rear courtyard, but onto a barren, burned plain.

  And now here they were at the Tomb of the Builder, carefully loading the eggs onto canvas stretchers, wrapping them in blankets, and getting ready to take them back to Sleyne. They had, of course, taken their parents on a hushed tour of the tomb first, while the soldiers waited outside and fidgeted, grabbing their sword hilts every time the wind gusted.

  Rolf wrapped the last egg and signaled to Pogue. Together they lifted a stretcher with an egg on it and carefully maneuvered out of the tomb. Lulath and Bran took up another, and Ethan and King Glower himself got the third. Once they were all outside the tomb, those not carrying eggs surrounded the stretchers, looking anxiously for any sign of the wizards.

  But there was no sign of them. There was no sign of anything alive.