The Curse of the Giant Hogweed (14 page)

“Gin we start now, we could be there ere mid-morn, e’en carrying the archdruid’s litter,” Torchyld informed him.

“Then let us march,” cried Huw. “Gin needs must, we can make a litter for ye griffin also.”

Once up on his talons, though, Ffyffnyr himself set a pace that even Torchyld couldn’t have bettered. The griffin seemed frantic to get to the castle. Not knowing anything about a griffin’s mental powers but impressed by the instinct that had led Ffyffnyr to Torchyld, Peter was inclined to think it might behoove the rest of them to feel frantic, too.

By changing the litter bearers every hundred yards or so, they managed to keep up their speed. Even Daniel Stott, having the advantage of a longer stride than most, was galloping along for all he was worth. They hadn’t been marching for more than an hour when they caught sight of the flag-hung battlements of King Sfyn’s castle. All at once, the six sons of Lord Ysgard stopped short and looked a bit foolish.

“Now what do we do?” asked Yfor.

“Good question,” said Peter Shandy.

Ffyffnyr, who’d paused only long enough to pant, answered him with a whine.

“Right, Ffyff,” Shandy replied. “On your feet again, everybody. Forward, march!”

T
HE CASTLE WAS A
charming spectacle, set up on a rise inside its moat, framed in bright green grass and bright pink daisies, crowned with fanes and pennons bravely a-flutter against rough-cut gray stone battlements and turrets. As they paused at the edge of the woods to admire the view, the drawbridge dropped, the portcullis lifted, and they heard a clattering of hooves and a fanfare of trumpets. Peter motioned his group back into the trees.

“Wait a moment. Let’s see who it is and what they’re up to.”

“Mine uncles,” Torchyld murmured, “faring forth to hawk. See, they hold their falcons, their gyrfalcons, their merlins, and their peregrine eyas tiercels on their wrists.”

And a brave company they made on their white and gray and roan and coal-black horses, with their red and blue and green cloaks streaming out behind them. Shandy could see the fierce birds, quiescent now in their colored leather hoods, the sun picking little glints off the tiny silver bells attached to the jesses on their legs. There were almost as many women as men in the group, and Shandy could feel the sighs of Lord Ysgard’s six sons stirring the folds of his robe at sight of them.

He half-turned and motioned again for silence. This was a real stroke of luck. With so many of his relatives out of the way, Torchyld should be able to lead them into King Sfyn’s presence with a minimum of fuss. That big man heading the hawking party looked like the sort to throw his weight around if he got a chance.

“Who’s that one out in front?” he muttered to Torchyld.

“Mine uncle Edmyr, giving himself ye king’s place already.”

Shandy saw what Torchyld meant. It must be hard to strut on horseback, but Prince Edmyr was managing.

As the procession disappeared in single file into the forest path Torchyld identified them for Peter. “That be Uncle Edwy, and Aunt Edelgysa just behind him lest he stray too close to a lady-in-waiting. And Uncle Edbert and Aunt Gwynedd. I see not Aunt Aldora. She must have one of her headaches. And Cousin Dagobert looking glum, and Cousin Owain smirking all over his silly face, and Gelert and Gaheris. Those be all ye family. The rest be people of ye court.”

“Good God, what’s that old woman on the gray mule tagging along for?”

“That be Dwydd. She liketh well ye screams of ye dying when ye hawks pounce on ye prey.”

Ffyffnyr was whimpering and straining, acting as if he’d like to pounce on somebody, too.

“All right,” Shandy said as soon as the hunting party was out of sight, “let’s move in.”

“We ought to be in brave array like Prince Edmyr’s party,” Yorich fretted, “and mounted on great steeds instead of straggling along on foot like a pack of beggars. And we have no fanfare of heralds’ trumpets to announce us as befits our rank.”

“Stick out thy chest and blow thy nose,” said Hywell. “We brought presents, didn’t we? And we be fresh bathed and shorn. And we found ye griffin. How dost ye, old redcoat? Going to give me one of thy grifflets for a wedding present?”

Ffyffnyr started to rear up on his hind talons and flap his wings, but Daniel Stott ordered, “Down, sir,” and he subsided. Still he was impatiently pressing forward, snuffling and whimpering like a bloodhound on the trail.

The drawbridge had been left down, no doubt for the hawking party’s return. The walkers formed up and marched over it as bravely as they could, Torchyld leading the way with Ffyffnyr, Tim next in his litter looking dignified as all hell, Dan behind him still carrying his crozier and walking with firm, measured tread; and Peter bringing up the rear with the four young lords who weren’t serving as litter bearers. Altogether they must have made an impressive enough showing; at least the sentries at the portcullis were sufficiently stunned.

“Sir Torchyld! Ye brought him back.”

“Aye, but I didn’t take him away. How be my great-uncle ye king?”

“His majesty be in parlous state, Sir Torchyld. He but sitteth on his throne with his mustache trailing in his metheglin, meaning no disrespect to his august person, fretting for Ffyffnyr.”

“Then this really be Sir Torchyld, ye mighty wyvern-slayer, great-nephew of ye puissant King Sfyn. And we his comrades!” cried Yfor. The six sons of Lord Ysgard needed no panoply of horses and trumpets to boost their self-esteem as they swooped on into the banqueting hall.

And there, as reported, sat an old man, bent and melancholy inside his royal robes until Ffyffnyr, thrashing his wings and whoofling in ecstacy, hurled himself at the throne.

The reunion brought lumps to the throats of all present. Captains and corporals, scullions and minions came flocking. Then came an excited babbling of female voices and the granddaughters of King Sfyn rushed into the great hall, rustling their finery and smelling deliciously of rose-petal water.

“I want ye little redhead with ye freckles,” yowled young Hayward, unable to contain his passion.

“Not yet,” Torchyld snarled.

“But she wanteth me, too. I can tell by the way she batteth her eyelashes and twitcheth her ears.”

“Ye have to be presented first. Protocol. Hoy, guards, let me through to ye throne. Ffyff, breathe some fire for ye king.”

That sent them all scrabbling backward, giggling and applauding. Torchyld seized the diversion to re-form his squad. While Ffyffnyr was producing a veritable rainbow of sparks and flashes, with a cloud of royal blue smoke for an encore, Torchyld marched his friends up to his great-uncle.

“Oh, ye, be back, be ye?” growled the king.

“Yea, I be back with Ffyff, rescued from dire peril and durance vile, and grateful to me even if ye be not. And I brought distinguished guests; and a bunch of husbands for ye girls, bearing rich presents and burning to woo. And where be my Syglinde?”

“One thing at a time, ecod. Who be ye most distinguished guest?”

“I be, damn it.” Timothy Ames extricated himself from the litter and stretched out his hand. “Archdruid Timothy Ames at your service, sir. And this is Assistant Archdruid Dan Stott. And our head bard, Pete Shandy.”

Murmurs of awe and wonder spread through the gathering as they watched the king perform the hitherto unknown ritual of the handshake with the archdruid, the assistant archdruid, and the bard. When the formality was completed, Tim brought forth the young lords.

“And we’ve got a bunch of lovesick swains here, panting to meet the young ladies. Sons of your neighbor Lord Ysgard, down the road a piece. They’ve got a woman shortage over there. You introduce ’em, Pete. I can’t keep their names straight.”

The six strapping young men lined up in front of the throne. Peter reeled off their names. Each made his reverence to King Sfyn, then beetled off to where Torchyld was doing the honors among his cousins. Luckily there were also six princesses, so nobody got left out, everybody fell in love at first sight, and all were then and afterward delighted with their choices. Peter was reminded of the grand finale of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.

Ah, but what of the leading man and the leading lady? Peter took a quick look around the throne room, nodded to himself, observed that everybody else was either making polite conversation, petting the griffin, or getting betrothed, stepped briskly around behind the throne, and vanished.

“PETE! PETE, WHERE THE
hell are you?” That was Tim’s voice.

“He was here by my side not a moment ago.” That was Dan’s.

“He poofed.” That was Torchyld’s.

“Another vanishment,” groaned King Sfyn, no doubt taking a firmer grip on Ffyffnyr, because Shandy could hear the griffin squeak. There must be tiny, hidden openings in the stonework. Ruis the Accursed had chosen his masons cleverly.

Too bad they hadn’t invented chimneys while they were about it. Smoke from me fire in the banqueting hall, which probably never went out, had turned the staircase into a kipper factory. No doubt the allegedly impenetrable tower acted as a flue. That meant, as he’d suspected, there must be a good-sized opening up above somewhere. Christ, was there no end to these stairs?

At least there was an occasional slit in the outer wall. These let out a little of the smoke, and provided enough daylight for him to see where he was going, if anywhere. Peter stopped to get a whiff of fresh air and a squint at the country outside. Maybe this was the direction they’d come from. He couldn’t tell; all he could see was that seemingly endless ring of dark green forest beyond the open plain and the moat. Full of unicorns and heffalumps, no doubt. Why shouldn’t he believe in mythical monsters, considering he’d become so recently acquainted with his first griffin?

Not a bad critter, either. He wondered what Jane Austen, the family cat back in the little brick house on the Crescent, would think of sharing her kitty box with a grifflet. Not much, he suspected. Like most females, Jane had a well-developed sense of the territorial imperative.

Speaking of females, he’d better get on with his self-assigned task. Torchyld must be having fits by now. He struggled upward through the smoke and the mirk until at last he came to a heavy oaken door girt with bands of iron. It had a massive iron bar and a hook for the bar to rest in, but for some reason the bar was left hanging and the door secured with a billet of wood. He didn’t stop to wonder why, but snatched the billet away and swung the door open.

“Lady Syglinde?”

“Don’t ye Lady Syglinde me, ye old—Oh!”

Just in the nick of time, the blond fury lowered the empty wooden trencher she’d been about to brain him with. “Who be ye?”

“Peter Shandy, traveling bard,” he informed her. “Sir Torchyld sent me.”

“Torchyld? O name of love and gladness! Where be my valiant knight?”

“Downstairs in the banqueting hall, eating his heart out with longing for you.”

“Then why came he not himself to get me instead of sending an emissary? Silly great ox that he be.”

“He didn’t know where to find you, that’s all, and I did. He got your message, though. That was a clever stroke of work, young woman. Is this the window you let the griffin out of?”

Peter walked over and measured the aperture with his eye. “Must have been a tight fit.”

“Aye, that it was. We struggled amain. Ffyff squirmed and I pushed. Poor old griffums, did he get his pretty fur skinned off?”

“Just a broken wing feather and a few minor abrasions. Care to be rescued?”

“Aye, I must fly to my darling. Would that I, too, had ye wings of a griffin. Let me go first, I pray.”

“All right, but be careful. If you took a header down these stairs, you’d kill yourself. How in Sam Hill does that old crone go cavorting up and down here with her kidnap victims?”

“Dwydd? Ye have wrought her downfall?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it. How did she get the pair of you up here?”

“Nay, I wot not. By some cantrip spell, meseems. I remember only feeling strangely befuddled, then being pushed into a dark place and being made to climb and climb until methought I should faint. When I got to the top, I swounded. Then somehow darling Ffyffnyr was stretched out on ye floor of that accursed room, snoring great snores that sent purple smoke out of his nostrils. I laid my head on his tummy for comfort as I used to when but a tiny tot. Then I knew no more until he woke me by licking my face with his great tongue, which is like a cat’s but rougher.”

“Did you know where you were?”

“There was a black thing over ye window so I could not see, but I tore it down. Then I realized where we must be, and I was sore afraid. Then I thought, Syglinde, ye great ninny, this be no time to play ye timid maiden, so I cut off a tress of my hair and braided it around Ffyff’s neck and told him to go and find Torchyld, and he went. Ye have seen my darling with thine own eyne? Hath he any wound?”

“He claims his heart is sore with longing for you, that’s all. He’s had some—er—parlous gestes since you saw him last, but he acquitted himself nobly.”

“He could do no other. Will this staircase never end?”

“Careful, now. Don’t rush it. I think we’re just about—listen!”

They must be almost down to the hall by now. Torchyld’s voice came clearly through the wall, raised in frantic outcry.

“Damn it, Great-uncle Sfyn, where be she? I brought ye Ffyff, I want my Syglinde.”

“Nay, I know not,” the old man was quavering when Syglinde burst from behind the arras and flung herself into her hero’s arms.

“My beloved!”

“My adored!”

Some things hadn’t changed much over the centuries, Peter thought, watching the lovers replighting their troth. The six sons of Lord Ysgard, profiting by their example, started betrothing the six granddaughters of King Sfyn, and it was some time before the king could get a word in edgewise over the busses and osculations. At last he turned to Peter and bellowed in right kingly tone, “Bard, ye hast mighty powers. Gin it be not a trade secret, how didst work this disenchantment?”

“Easily enough, your majesty. Weren’t you aware there’s a staircase directly behind your throne, hidden by that arras?”