by K J Taylor
“Stroke her,” said Arenadd. “You don’t have to be too gentle; she won’t mind.”
Emboldened, Laela began to move her hand—running her fingers through the griffin’s head feathers. The griffin closed its eyes and crooned.
“You see?” said Arenadd. “She likes it!”
Laela kept her hand on the griffin’s head as she looked at him. “Yeh mean this griffin’s . . . mine?”
“Don’t ask me, ask her,” said Arenadd.
Laela looked at the griffin. “Are yeh . . . uh . . . are yeh my griffin?”
The griffin rasped back.
“‘You are mine,’” Arenadd translated. “‘From this day, you shall go where I go and do all that I ask, as a human should. You shall clean my talons, bring me my food, translate for me, give me treasures, and clean my nest.’”
“Oh yeah? An’ what do I get back?” said Laela, hiding her bewilderment with sarcasm.
“Eee-an oo,” said the griffin.
“‘Everything.’”
Laela gave up. “This is . . . this is ridiculous. I can’t be a griffiner!”
“Why not?” said Arenadd.
“I ain’t no noble, I ain’t rich, I ain’t powerful—I ain’t nobody!” said Laela. “That’s why! I only just learned how to say ‘my favourite colour is blue,’ for gods’ sakes!”
“But you’re very high in the King’s confidence,” Arenadd pointed out. “You’re obviously a girl who’s going somewhere. And with a griffin beside you, you’ll go a lot further. And you showed a lot of courage. She likes that.”
Despite herself, Laela felt a blush of pride on her face. “Well.” She looked at the griffin again, with a new appreciation. “What’s yer name, griffin? I’m Laela.”
The griffin stood taller. “Ooooeeek-a,” it chirped.
“Oeka,” said Arenadd. “‘Greeneyes.’”
“Oeka,” Laela repeated. “Oeka.”
The griffin clicked its beak at her. “Leeeeaela.”
Laela grinned. “That’s Lady Laela now, Oeka.”
16
How to Care for Your Griffin
Laela left the Hatchery and felt a deep and wonderful thrill of excitement when Oeka followed her. With the small griffin at her heels, she went back toward her quarters.
On her way, she ran into someone she recognised—and recognised in a way that made her feel sick with fright.
She halted. “Lord Torc.”
He eyed her cautiously. “Laela. Where are you going . . . ?” He trailed off as Oeka appeared around a corner. The tawny griffin came to stand beside her human, and a look of open bewilderment showed on the face of the Master of Law. “What . . . ?”
Laela’s mouth curled. “This is Oeka,” she said, savouring every word. “My griffin.”
Torc’s eyes had gone wide. “You have a griffin?”
“That’s right,” said Laela, brazenly putting her hand on Oeka’s head. “Now, we’ve got t’get goin’, if yeh don’t mind.” That said, she pushed past him and went on her way with her head held high.
She passed other people on her way—servants, mostly, but also one or two of the royal officials, all of whom gaped, and then bowed low. Laela watched them, first with wonder, but before long she felt her pride and confidence soar. Oh, my gods, she thought, over and over again. Oh, dear gods . . .
It was probably the greatest moment of her life. By the time she reached her room, she was almost strutting.
She had talked to Arenadd before she left the Hatchery and knew what to do. She opened the door and let Oeka go in ahead of her. “This is my place,” she said. “Our place now. Make yerself comfortable while I go an’ get yer nest ready.”
Oeka acted as if she hadn’t heard her at all. She padded into the room and began to explore, shoving furniture aside and poking her beak into nooks and crannies. Laela left her to it and crossed the room to the wall opposite the door. There was a large tapestry hanging there, and she tore it down to expose the arched opening on the other side. Laela went through it and found a huge, bare, stone room. There was a water trough and some mildewed straw on the floor, but that was it. The other side had another arched opening, this one leading out onto a balcony without railings.
Laela took it all in and nodded in satisfaction. A griffin had lived here once, and now Oeka would. But she would have to find someone to bring more nesting material.
She went back into her room, where she found Oeka standing in the middle of the floor and giving her an impatient look.
“I’ve opened up the nest for yeh,” Laela told her. “Come an’ look.”
The tawny griffin yawned and came toward her. Laela let her pass, and watched hopefully while she walked around the nest, flicking the old straw aside with her feathered tail.
“It ain’t much now, but once we’ve got some new straw in . . .”
While she spoke, Oeka turned dismissively and walked back through the archway, pushing past her without a backward glance.
Laela followed. “I know it ain’t pretty, but we can soon—hey!”
Oeka reached the bed, and casually climbed up onto it.
“That’s my bed!” said Laela. “Yeh can’t just . . .”
Oeka gave her a look, and Laela’s indignant tones faded away.
“Uh, I mean . . . well, I guess yeh can use it,” she stammered. “I’ll go an’ see about the nest.” She backed out of the room as quickly as she dared.
The servants, obviously used to this sort of thing, brought several baskets full of freshly cut dry reeds and grass, clay jugs of water, and a newly slaughtered pig carcass. In very little time, they’d made the nest fit for a griffin, and when Oeka smelled the food, she got up off Laela’s bed and sauntered into the nest.
Deeply relieved, Laela opened her wardrobe and took out a new set of clothes—the one she had on had been utterly ruined by the griffin’s talons. She checked herself after she had stripped, and marvelled at the fact that she had nothing but cuts and a few bruises. If she had wanted, Oeka could have torn her to pieces—Laela had no illusions about that.
Frightened, but awestruck as well, she dressed and sent a servant to bring her some food.
By the time it arrived, Oeka had wandered back into the bedroom. She sat down by the fireplace and watched as Laela settled down to eat.
The griffin’s silent stare was deeply unnerving. Laela did her best to look relaxed as she picked up a piece of bread. “So how do yeh like yeh new home? I can make it better, like. Over time an’ that.”
Oeka, of course, said nothing, but she was obviously listening.
Laela swallowed a mouthful of food. “Look, I dunno how to say this, so I’ll just say it . . . uh . . .” She hesitated. “Thanks for choosin’ me. I mean, it’s . . . well, it’s an honour. I dunno if I’ll make a good griffiner, but I’ll do my best.”
Oeka shifted and clicked her beak.
Laela put her cup down. “I won’t let yeh down, Oeka,” she said. “I promise. Whatever yeh want from me in return for choosin’ me—I’ll give it. Even if I ain’t got much.”
The tawny griffin put her head on one side. Finally, as if she had made a decision, she stood up, snatched a wedge of cheese off Laela’s plate, and strutted away.
“Yer welcome,” Laela said weakly.
Fortunately, Oeka didn’t seem to want anything else. She threw her head back to swallow the cheese and left back through the arch. Laela got up to see what she was doing, and saw the griffin go out onto the balcony and launch herself into the air.
Laela felt oddly relieved.
Once she had finished eating, she sat back in her chair and thought. What should she do now?
Well, what do yeh want to do?
Tell Yorath, of course. She wanted him to hear th
e news from her first. With that in mind, she got up and left the room, her heart pounding with newfound excitement.
• • •
Yorath sat back. “Tell me ye’re lyin’. Please.”
Laela grinned. “Can’t. That’d be a lie. I never was that good at tellin’ lies anyway.”
He looked her in the face. “Ye. Ye are a griffiner.”
“Yeah, I am.”
Her blunt reply obviously threw him off. “What’s the griffin like?” he asked eventually.
“Only small,” said Laela. “Well, not that small. Arenadd—I mean, the King—says she’s got big paws. That means she’ll be very big when she’s grown up.”
“What’s her name?”
“Oeka. Means ‘Greeneyes.’”
“So what’re ye going to do now?” said Yorath.
“How d’yeh mean?”
“Well, ye’ve got to be trained. An’ after that . . . griffiners have big responsibilities, Laela.”
Nervous heat touched her cheeks. “Well. I already got the trainin’ sorted out . . . dunno about the responsibilities, but I know I’m meant t’look after her an’ that . . .”
“Trainin’ is sorted out, ye say?” Yorath raised an eyebrow. “Who are ye apprenticing with?”
“What’s that mean?” said Laela.
“Who’s going to train ye?” said Yorath. “Teach ye griffish an’ the rest of it?”
“Oh. Well, the King said he’s gonna do that himself,” said Laela.
The effect on Yorath was amazing. He lurched as if she had hit him and recovered himself with an obvious effort. “The King,” he said very slowly. “Ye . . . are going t’be apprenticed to the King.”
“Yeah, I am,” said Laela. “He said he’ll teach me griffish an’ fightin’ an’ how to fly on a griffin’s back. An’ some other things, he said.”
Yorath rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “Ye’re apprenticed to the King. First he vouches for ye in the Hatchery—makes ye a griffiner, in other words—an’ now he’s going to train ye himself.”
“Yeah,” said Laela, but some of the confidence had left her voice.
“How in the Night God’s name did ye get so close to him?” said Yorath. “Takin’ ye in is one thing, but this . . .”
“Well, I did save his life,” Laela pointed out.
“Seems he really took that to heart,” said Yorath. “Well.” He sighed. “I s’pose that means I’ll have t’go back to regular work from now on. Ye won’t be needing me to teach ye any more.”
Laela took his hand. “Don’t be daft; I’m nowhere near knowin’ how to speak Northern. Anyway, we’ll still be seein’ each other, right?”
“If ye want to . . .” Yorath looked uncomfortable.
It took Laela by surprise. “What’s up with you?”
Yorath stirred. “I’m sorry, Laela. But now ye’re a griffiner, a commoner like me . . .”
Laela stared at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing. “I’ll tell yeh what, Yorath,” she said once she could control herself again. “I’m gonna pretend yeh never said that. Now.” She stood up. “My room smells of griffin, an’ I’ve always wanted t’know what yer own place looks like. Mind if I come visit?”
• • •
Laela returned to her quarters much later, drunk on a mixture of excitement and the rather good mead Yorath had shared with her.
The alcohol ran its dizzy race around inside her head, filling her with a warm and wonderful sense of invincibility and pride. “Lady Laela,” she repeated to herself, several times. “Lady Laela, griffiner of Malvern. Lady Laela Redguard.” She laughed and sped up, almost dancing up the ramps and staircases toward her home, her head full of images of herself flying on Oeka’s back with a shining sword in her hand.
By the time she reached her own door, the rush had worn off somewhat, and drowsiness had set in. She went in and gratefully walked toward her bed, intending to collapse on it.
It was already occupied.
Laela paused. It was too dark to see more than the huge mound on top of her bed—she prodded it carefully, and found herself touching straw. Bewildered, she picked up a lantern and went to light it with a taper from the fire.
Its light showed her utter chaos. For a moment she stood there, frozen in disbelief as the reality of what she was seeing slowly sank in.
The bed had been torn apart. Blankets had been shredded, the pillows ripped open. The mattress had been disembowelled and the straw inside pulled out. The ruins of bed and bedding had been piled up into a crude nest, and Oeka was asleep in the middle of it.
Laela put the lantern down and put her hand over her eyes. “Oh, holy gods . . .”
After a few moments, tiredness and the fading effects of the mead fuelled her temper enough to let her put her caution aside. She strode toward the bed. “Oi!”
Oeka stirred but didn’t wake up.
Laela poked the griffin in the head. “Oi! What are yeh doin’?”
A green eye slid open.
Laela took a step back. “This is my bed,” she said. “Yours is next door, remember? Oi!”
Oeka yawned and tucked her head under her wing.
Defeated, Laela slumped into her chair by the fire and wondered what to do. She was so tired that sleeping in the chair looked possible, so she snuffed out the lamp—thinking that even if she couldn’t, there was no point in wasting the oil.
Her exhaustion notwithstanding, sleeping in the chair proved to be impossible. She sat there in the semi-darkness for a long time before finally giving up and getting out of the chair to pace back and forth, debating internally. Her training was meant to start in the morning, and she knew she’d be useless unless she got some sleep.
Tired anger finally won her over. This was ridiculous. She was a griffiner now; a member of the nobility, and she had been turfed out of her own bed by an animal.
“Gryphus burn that,” she muttered, and moved back toward the bed. She found Oeka’s wing and pulled, hard.
A split second later, she staggered away from the bed, too shocked even to cry out, her arm cradled against her chest. She backed toward the wall, preparing to run away, but Oeka didn’t come after her and she realised that the griffin hadn’t even left the bed.
Blood ran down to her fingers and dripped onto the floor. She hastily covered the wound with the hem of her dress, and watched with a mixture of terror and disbelief as Oeka curled up in her new nest and went back to sleep as though nothing had happened.
Laela ran away through the archway and into the griffin’s chamber. There she knelt by the trough and tried to clean her wound with the water.
It continued to bleed stubbornly no matter how many times she dabbed it dry, so she wrapped it up as well as she could and lay down on her side in the straw.
Eventually, the shock wore off, and she whiled away the rest of the night listing every curse-word she knew.
• • •
Morning came in a haze of tiredness. Laela sat up and peeled the fragments of straw off her blood-caked arm. The wound was smaller than she had thought, but it still hurt horribly. She did her best to clean it, and then walked stiffly back into her own room.
If her wound looked better than she had thought, then the bed looked far worse. Oeka was still asleep in the ruins.
Holding her wounded arm with her other hand, Laela crept toward the door. She reached it and took hold of the handle without incident, but at that moment the bed rustled. Oeka’s head came up. Before Laela could decide whether to just run away, the griffin had jumped down from the bed and sauntered toward her, yawning.
Laela did her best to look harmless. “Mornin’, Oeka. Did yeh sleep well?”
Oeka yawned. Her beak made an unpleasant clack sound whe
n it shut.
“Well,” Laela said weakly. “I’m gonna go an’ see the King now. I’ll be back later.” That said, she opened the door and made her escape.
She was barely in the corridor outside when she heard the soft clicking of talons and turned to see Oeka following her. Laela knew better than to argue with the griffin, so she gritted her teeth and set out toward Arenadd’s audience chamber with Oeka in tow.
Arenadd was waiting for her. He was wearing a particularly nice robe trimmed with red, and there was a gleam in his eyes that Laela was too tired and upset to notice.
“Good morning, Lady Laela. Did you sleep well?”
Laela glanced at Oeka. “No.”
“Too excited, eh?”
“Too deprived of a bed,” Laela said sourly.
Arenadd raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Now she was in the King’s presence, Laela felt bold enough to say exactly what she was thinking. “I don’t want this,” she said.
“Don’t want what?”
“Don’t want that,” said Laela, pointing straight at Oeka. “I don’t want t’be a griffiner. She’s goin’ back to the Hatchery today, an’ that’s flat.”
Oeka backed away from her finger, hissing.
Arenadd looked nonplussed. “Laela, what are you talking about? You can’t—”
“I don’t want t’be a griffiner!” said Laela. “I ain’t gonna. Not if it means livin’ with a griffin.”
Arenadd glanced at Oeka. “Why, what’s she done?”
“She took my bed,” said Laela. “She tore it apart, an’ then slept in it! An’ then, when I tried t’make her get out of it, she did this to me.” She held up her arm, displaying the deep gash.
Arenadd gave it a cursory glance. “Is that all?”
Laela couldn’t take it any longer. “Is that all?” she nearly yelled. “The damn thing bit me, for gods’ sakes! She destroyed my bed! I had to sleep on a heap of straw all night!”
Oeka pushed forward and rasped in griffish.