Wednesdays in the Tower

by Jessica Day George

  Through the stable and around to the new stable. As soon as she walked through the door she heard Rufus give a cry of welcome, and Celie furiously hugged him. He caught sight of Flat Squirrel and tried to pull away, but she wrapped a hand in one of his harness handles and shook the hated toy in his face.

  “You are so naughty! Don’t ever do that again!”

  She heard the scrape of a boot at the door, and tried to shove Rufus into a stall.

  “It’s just me,” Pogue called out. “I saw you run out the door with Flat Squirrel on your arm and thought you might need a little help.”

  “What am I going to do with him?” Celie wailed to Pogue as he came down the aisle.

  “I don’t know,” Pogue said. He stood in front of them, arms folded, and rocked back and forth on his heels. “I just don’t know. I don’t understand what the Castle is doing at all. Most of the court has now traipsed through the tower where he hatched and fingered the pieces of shell there. And he just flew in broad daylight, didn’t he? Do you think it’s time to show him to the king and queen?”

  “I’d like to,” Celie began, doubtful.

  As if in answer, the door to the stable blew shut.

  “See!” She pointed to it. “That happens every time!”

  “That was the wind,” Pogue said.

  “It wasn’t,” Celie insisted. “I felt that funny twist in my brain.”

  “What?”

  “When the Castle does something, I feel a funny little twisting inside my head, like a headache is going to start but doesn’t.” Celie had only recently figured out the connection.

  Pogue looked at her in astonishment. “I’ve never felt anything like that,” he said, and she thought she detected envy in his voice.

  “Perhaps it’s just a Glower family thing,” Celie mumbled, embarrassed. “But I just started noticing it, since the Castle’s been going crazy.”

  “I’ll have to ask Bran if he gets it, too,” Pogue said. “But anyway, we’ve got to get Rufus back inside the Castle somehow, and apparently you’re still not allowed to just walk him right out of here.” He sighed.

  “I guess he’ll have to fly back,” Celie said. “Thank goodness it’s starting to get dark out.”

  “Plus your cloak is dark blue,” Pogue said, coming closer. He cupped his hands like he was going to help her mount a horse. “That will help a bit.”

  “What are you doing?” Now it was Celie’s turn to stare in astonishment.

  “Do you honestly trust him to fly straight back to his tower?” Pogue raised one eyebrow. “You’re going to have to ride him back, and guide him.”

  “Absolutely not!” Bran had come into the stable, and now he slammed the door shut behind him, glaring at them both. “Are you mad?”

  “We can’t walk through the doors of the Castle with a griffin,” Celie said, warming to Pogue’s idea. After all, Rufus was wearing a harness. And he’d clearly gotten the hang of flying. She pointed out these things to Bran.

  “When did you cook up this little plan, Pogue?” Bran frowned at his friend, as though Pogue were deliberately leading Celie astray.

  Pogue began to argue with Bran, telling him how the Castle had slammed the door at the very mention of revealing Rufus, and using the tapestry cushions as proof that it could be done. Meanwhile, Celie put her knee into Pogue’s cupped hands, and he boosted her easily onto Rufus’s back. She sat up straight while Rufus shifted under her and tried to look poised, as though she rode griffins all the time. The truth was that she hardly even rode her pony anymore, and Rufus was not as much like a pony as she’d thought.

  His back was narrower than her pony’s, and bonier, and the muscles that moved his wings rolled under his hide in a way that made her feel like he could slide her right onto his rump and then to the floor if she didn’t hold on carefully. She wrapped her legs around his middle, tugging up her skirts and wishing that she were wearing her divided riding skirt, though she’d hardly thought she would be riding Rufus when she left her rooms earlier.

  “It’s all right, Bran,” Celie said. “Let’s just do this and get it over with.”

  “It doesn’t need to be gotten over with,” Bran protested.

  “The Castle wants me to raise this griffin properly,” she said, though really she didn’t know how far the Castle wanted her to take Rufus’s training. “And he needs to be trained to carry a rider. You’ve seen the tapestries: griffins are being ridden in them!”

  “I’ll fix your cloak,” Pogue said, adjusting the fabric to cover as much of Rufus as possible. “Sorry, Bran. I’m not trying to pick a fight with you, or endanger your little sister. But if we’re going to do this, we need to do it fast. The guards will check in here when they come on evening duty.”

  “Bran, can you make us invisible?” Celie asked.

  “No,” Bran said sourly. “It takes far too much preparation, and it wears off too quickly. And if I could make Rufus invisible, I would insist that we walk him into the Castle anyway.” He sighed heavily.

  Celie’s heart rose. “So you’re going to let me fly with him?”

  “I don’t see how I can stop you,” Bran said. He rubbed his face with both hands.

  “Thank you,” Celie said. “Now … how do I get him to walk?”

  But as soon as the word “walk” left her mouth, Rufus moved forward. Celie grabbed for the handles. They were located just in front of the widest, most saddle-like part of the harness, which meant that her hands were gripping just in front of her thighs, with her skirts tangled around them. Her legs were hanging down in front of Rufus’s wings, which made it very hard to squeeze with her knees the way she would on her pony. But still, she managed to find her balance as he went toward the door of the stable. To her relief, he moved so smoothly that it felt as if he were flowing like water rather than walking, all of his usual awkwardness gone. It made staying in place easier than she’d feared.

  At the door, Rufus came to a halt. Bran stepped around him and peered out the door, looking carefully into the growing darkness.

  “It’s clear,” he whispered. “And thank the powers it gets dark so early in the winter. Go now! Hurry!”

  Celie took her hands off the harness just long enough to pull up the hood of her cloak. Hood in place, she grabbed the harness handles again and leaned close along Rufus’s neck.

  “Rufus,” she said in a low, commanding voice, “fly up to the tower! Fly!” She clucked her tongue.

  Rufus didn’t move.

  Bran started to say something, but Celie shook her head frantically. Rufus wasn’t moving, but that was because he’d gone very still when she told him to fly. Every muscle that she could feel beneath her had locked into place, and his head was no longer moving from side to side as it usually did while he took in his surroundings.

  “Rufus, fly,” she whispered.

  So suddenly that it took her breath away, Rufus launched himself into the air.

  Celie’s stomach stayed on the ground. She screamed, but the wind took her scream away. Her hands slicked with sweat, and she had to shove them under the harness itself to stay on his back. Rufus shot into the sky like an arrow, and Celie wondered when he would stop. Could they actually touch the clouds? The thought exhilarated and frightened her at the same time.

  High above the Castle, Rufus snapped his wings out wide like sails, and they stopped moving upward. He circled in the cold air, Celie clinging to his back, laughing and crying at the wonder of it all. Below them were the lights of the Castle, beyond the high outer wall she could see the glowing windows of the village, and far above them the stars appeared like gleaming chips of ice.

  She was trembling all over from nerves and cold. The air above the Castle was even more frigid than that near the ground, and when Rufus flapped his wings it funneled more cold air around her. She had to lean in close to his neck to keep the wind from tearing her off his back, which gave her the added benefit of feeling the warmth from his neck on her cheeks.

 
“Take us to the tower, Rufus,” she called to him.

  The force of their upward flight had ripped the hood back off her hair, and she knew he could hear her. He clacked his beak in reply, but then he swooped around the Spyglass Tower and kept on until they were over the sheep meadow. She pulled at the harness, trying to find a way to guide him.

  “Rufus! Take us to the tower at once,” she ordered. “The tower with your toys in it. And food. Food, Rufus!”

  He wheeled, and Celie had to clamp down with her legs to keep from toppling off his shoulder. But then he flew past the Castle in the opposite direction, taking them over the village. They were lower than before, and Celie was afraid that someone would spot them, despite the increasing darkness.

  “Rufus! Take us home!”

  The griffin tilted back his head and let out a scream. But then he angled his wings and swung around. With only a few flaps he brought them back to the Castle. He circled around the Spyglass Tower again, and then the hatching tower, before aiming for the new tower that rose above Celie’s bedchamber. She was grateful all over again for whatever magic kept the other residents of the Castle from seeing that slender structure, jutting out at the very front of the Castle. Then she had another worry: the windows were far narrower than Rufus’s wings.

  At the last possible second, he folded his wings in and they half flew, half fell into the tower. Celie was thrown from Rufus’s back, tumbling over and over on the rush matting to land in a tangle at Bran’s feet. Rufus skidded a little ways, crashing into Pogue, who fell on his backside with an oath.

  “Celie! Are you all right?” Bran rushed over to help her up.

  “Oh,” she said, feeling dazed. “Good, you all made it up here.”

  “This was a mistake,” Bran said, straightening his wizardly robes. “You could have been killed.”

  “You flew,” Pogue said. He was taking the harness off Rufus, grinning. “How was it?”

  “It was wonderful,” Celie told him. “And I’m going again tomorrow night!”

  Chapter

  20

  Celie woke up still buzzing with excitement over the events of the previous day. But her excitement was short-lived. Master Humphries had decided that he would die of shame if, as well as being fluent in Grathian, the three younger Glower children didn’t know the name of every Grathian king since Grath was founded, and be able to greet the ambassadors from Larien and Bendeswe in their own languages.

  The court was still in an uproar over the queen’s discovery of the hatching tower, but all Celie wanted was some peace and quiet so that she could read the book Lulath had given her until darkness fell, and she and Rufus could take off once again.

  Lulath’s book was a miracle. The author, Wizard Had-locke, was not only notable for having been a woman, but also happened to have been Celie’s many-times-great-grandmother. And she had had a passion for uncovering the Castle’s secrets that rivaled Celie and Bran’s.

  Wizard Hadlocke had scoured the countryside, collecting stories about Castle Glower, and had written them all down with notations about what elements of the story were true and what were exaggerated or couldn’t be verified.

  She also recorded the story Celie had heard about Castle Glower appearing suddenly one day, though her language was considerably more poetic. Hadlocke described the griffins “swarming out of the Castle to hunt the gleaming unicorms,” and said that “Larien’s bold king, moved to tears of sorrow, did send ships for the shining beasts to convey them on their final journey.” Celie could not tell if “final journey” was a nice way of saying they died, or if it meant climbing the rainbows to some magical realm.

  More fascinating even than that was talk of the people who had come with the Castle. Hadlocke called them survivors, and mentioned wounds that killed some of them after the Castle’s appearance, but Celie couldn’t tell whether the wounds were from a battle or some sort of plague. There were references to both, and Hadlocke was frustratingly vague on that point.

  Rolf had joined her after their lessons, and soon read through the bestiary and the epic poetry, and even found the poems of Karksus that Arkwright had recommended, but hadn’t found anything half as interesting. The bestiary had merely stated that griffins were half eagle and half lion, and probably mythical. The accompanying illustration had been quite rough, and Rolf had said with disgust that he could have done a better job himself. The poem that Celie had copied for Master Humphries had contained the only mention of griffins in that book, and the Karksus poetry was so dense and dramatic that even Celie thought the author was probably being fanciful.

  “So, apparently griffins were ridden by giants who threw balls of fire at their enemies and cracked the earth with their war cries,” Rolf reported, tossing the volume of Karksus down on a table in the holiday feasting hall. “But they would lie down and die of ennui if there weren’t any battles happening.”

  “What’s ‘on-wee’?” Celie asked as she lovingly turned the pages of Hadlocke’s book and showed Rolf a much more skilled drawing of a griffin.

  “Ennui is, basically, boredom. The mighty griffin riders, fierce of eye, noble in battle, bold in love, would get bored and die,” Rolf said, rolling his eyes. “I think Karksus had read too many of those unicorn stories Lilah used to like, and decided to try it with griffins.”

  “Well, Hadlocke says that the griffin riders were dying when they arrived in Sleyne,” Celie told him. “So maybe Karksus really did know some of them, and thought they were dying of ennui because they were already sick.”

  “Hadlocke … Hathelocke … ,” Rolf said. “Do you think this great-great-grandmother of ours was related to the fearsome Hathelockes?”

  “No,” Celie said. “The Hathelockes conquered some land called the Glorious Arkower. And I’m not sure they were entirely human.”

  “So do you think Hadlocke’s book is real?” Rolf asked seriously. “Do you think the Castle just appeared one day, spilled out a bunch of griffins and sickly giants, and then … what?”

  “I guess the griffin riders all died,” Celie said. She cleared her throat a little. To her surprise, thinking of the strange, noble people of the tapestries all dying had made her choke up a little. “And the griffins died soon after.”

  She’d just found that part, and turned the pages to show Rolf, not trusting her voice. Griffins bonded to their riders at hatching, and rarely outlived them. Likewise, a rider whose griffin was killed often sickened and died even if he hadn’t been wounded. She supposed that might look like ennui to an outsider, but she couldn’t imagine life without Rufus, even though he’d only hatched a couple of months ago. Her whole day revolved around him, despite the fact that no one but Bran and Pogue knew he existed.

  “If I only believed Karksus, I’d be convinced that griffins weren’t real and never had been,” Rolf said. He patted the cover of Hadlocke’s book. “But the amount of detail you’ve shown me in this book makes me think they could be. It’s so matter-of-fact: This is the day the griffins came. This is what they looked like. This is how they lived. This is how they died.”

  “Who died?”

  Wizard Arkwright was standing in the archway of the hall.

  “No one,” Celie and Rolf said in chorus.

  Arkwright raised one of his eyebrows. Celie was struck anew by how much he looked like the griffin riders on the tapestry, and like some of her ancestors from the portrait gallery as well. Really, his eyebrows were freakishly mobile, and his forehead was much too high to be normal.

  His eyes lit on the books on the table. “I see you found the Karksus I recommended,” he said. He came over to the table and picked the book up, smoothing his hands over the cover. “What do you think of him?”

  “Honestly?” Rolf shrugged. “A bit elaborate for my taste.”

  “He felt very passionately about the griffins and their masters,” Arkwright said. “And it’s written in a style that has never been the fashion in Sleyne.”

  “Yeah, the verses are a littl
e weird,” Rolf said.

  “Well, he wasn’t writing in Sleynth,” Arkwright said defensively.

  “Was he Grathian?” Celie asked.

  “No” was all Arkwright said.

  He put the book down, and then saw Hadlocke’s book. Celie watched him start, and then she noticed that his hands had begun to shake.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “Prince Lulath gave it to me,” Celie said.

  She resisted the urge to leap forward and snatch the book away from Arkwright. He didn’t try to pick it up, though— he just touched it with trembling fingertips, as though he were afraid it would sting him.

  “Lulath? How did he …”

  “It belonged to one of his ancestors,” Rolf said. He had one eyebrow raised, though not as far as Arkwright’s had been. “But he gifted it to the Castle, and to Celie and me specifically, when he realized that it was a history of Castle Glower.”

  “It does not belong here,” Arkwright began. “It belongs …” He trailed off.

  “Where?” Celie asked when he didn’t continue.

  “I do wish you wouldn’t store such things here,” Arkwright complained. “It’s not wise.”

  “Why not?”

  Arkwright wheeled around. His face was white and strained, and it looked even less human than the tapestry people now.

  “It simply isn’t, you foolish little girl. You have no idea what you’re toying with!”

  “Get a grip on yourself, man!” Rolf stood up and faced Arkwright. “You’re a guest in the Castle, and if you don’t watch yourself, you’ll find your invitation revoked by the Castle itself.”

  Arkwright started laughing. “The Castle could no more rid itself of me than I of it,” he said. “But if you continue to play with matters you cannot understand, you might find your own ‘invitation revoked,’” he said. Then he turned and stalked out of the feasting hall.

  “That was weird,” Rolf said when the sound of Arkwright’s angry steps had faded away.