Year of the Griffin (30 page)

“Why have you slaughtered a herd of cows?” she demanded, hissing with anger.

The largest and most raffish griffin bent his ungroomed chestnut head to look at her. “A little green human!” he said. “Funny the way humans here seem to turn green when they see us. They must do it when they're frightened or something.”

No one had dared comment on Querida's skin color for half a century now. She became angrier than ever. “I asked you a
question
!” she hissed. “Who are you? Why did you slaughter these cattle? You couldn't possibly eat this number. It was just wanton killing.”

“Wanton killing is what we do, little green lady,” said the chestnut griffin. “We can't help ourselves. We're throwbacks. We're like primitive griffins were. Sad, isn't it?”

“Nonsense!” said Querida. “Of course you can help yourselves. Every creature with a brain can decide
not
to do something if it tries.”

The chestnut griffin jerked his head up and stared down his beak at her, venomously.

“You mustn't speak to Jessak like that,” said the off-white griffin, “or he'll take you apart.”

“And your pony,” added the dove-colored one.

Querida wrinkled her nose at both of them. Their coloring made it so obvious how dirty they were. “I spoke exactly as he deserved,” she said, “though rather too politely. He's simply a spoiled bully. Where are you all from? I don't recall seeing you before.”

“From? We flew here from the University,” the ragged brown-and-white griffin replied. “Jessak was angry because he couldn't find Callette.”

“Jessak's from a very good family across the ocean,” the off-white one explained. “Callette shouldn't have thwarted him.
You
shouldn't thwart him. He gets angry when that happens.”

“Which explains why he took it out on innocent cows, does it?” Querida said. “What an extremely stupid and craven thing to do!”

At this Jessak dropped to all fours and went prowling around the pony trap, taking care that one of his ill-smelling wings slapped across Querida's face on the way. “I've had enough of this little green human,” he said. “Time to start disassembling her. I think I'll begin with
this
.” He plunged a large feathered forearm into the cart and seized the nearest cat basket.

If Jessak had not done that, he might have survived. Up till then Querida had simply been angry and disgusted. She had been considering transforming these four unpleasant creatures into rabbits and had only hesitated because she realized that this might not improve the local breed of rabbit. But her cats were the three things she loved most in the world. The sight of her Sabrina all blown out and growling, with her eyes glaring through the side of the basket, black and wide with terror, dangling aloft on the end of unkempt bloody talons, was too much for Querida. She saw red. She surprised herself—as much as the griffins—by yelling out four words that shook the universe.

Everything became a little dizzy and blurred for a moment. When the universe righted itself, Querida found herself, to her great relief, still sitting in the pony trap with Hobnob still between the shafts, surrounded by four enormous statues of griffins. The nearest statue still held a cat basket dangling from its talons with—again to Querida's relief—a live and furious cat in it. Rather shakily Querida climbed back along the pony trap and carefully unhooked Sabrina. Sabrina spit at her.

“I don't blame you,” Querida said. “I didn't intend to let you in for anything like this.” She put the basket back in the cart and turned to take up the reins again. This was where she realized that the whitish griffin statue and the grayish one were blocking the road. “Bother!” she said. “Move!” But they just stood there, with expression of surprise and puzzlement all over their stone faces.

It took Querida half an hour to discover spells that would topple them out of the way, but topple they did in the end, one in each direction, to leave just enough room in between for the cart to edge through. In the process the whitish statue broke in two and the gray statue's beak came off, but Querida did not find it in her heart to feel at all sorry. She shook the reins. The pony was sweating and moved only slowly.

“I know, Hobnob, I know!” Querida told him. “I feel just the same. But we have to find the folk who own these cows and explain what happened. If I manage that properly, they might let us rest in their farm for a while.”

Around the time that Hobnob trudged off again, the two pigeons that had headed south reached Condita, capital city of the Empire. The uninjured pigeon planed demurely down to the marble pigeon walk along the front of the Senatorial Office Building, where a hand came out of a window and grabbed it at once. The wounded bird fluttered away to a complex of marble roofs and colonnades nearby. It landed rather heavily on the hidden lead top of the largest structure, where it limped cautiously along, peering through gutter holes, until it found the inner courtyard it was looking for. Then it took off again, went into a dive, and thumped to the top of the arbor of yellowing vines, where Emperor Titus was sitting over a last cup of coffee. The table in front of him was covered with pieces of broken bread, as if the Emperor had crumbled his breakfast without much appetite. The pigeon eyed the crumbs wistfully while it compared the person below with the magical memories Corkoran had planted in its brain.

Emperor Titus, tallish, thinnish, age twenty-five, darkish hair, jagged profile, mild expression, correctly clothed in Imperial wrap of white with a purple border with a raised golden design of griffins. Yes. This was the correct recipient. The pigeon refreshed itself with an overripe grape from the arbor while it made sure the Emperor was alone.

The Emperor was alone because he was lingering over his breakfast. As soon as his coffee cup was empty, someone would know and people would descend upon him with a mass of things he was supposed to do, most of which he was fairly sure were pointless. These days the Senate did all the governing. Titus simply signed laws. He had once told Claudia that the Empire nowadays thought of the Emperor as a sort of rubber stamp on legs.

“Behave differently then!” Claudia had told him. “Show them who's Emperor.”

But Titus had shaken his head and explained that he could not offend the senators, most of whom were old enough to be his father and closely related to him into the bargain. The people would be shocked if he tried.

“I don't think so,” Claudia said. “I think they'd cheer you in the streets.”

Titus could not believe this. The people
believed
in the Senate. He sighed over his coffee now. This was the kind of talk that got Claudia so hated by the Senate. He was glad he had managed to get her away to the University, where she would be safe, but he did miss her very badly.

The pigeon flopped out of the vine leaves and staggered among the breadcrumbs.

Titus nearly jumped out of his skin. “Gods! You gave me a shock!” he said.

“Apologize,” croaked the pigeon. “Message. Your eyes only.”

Titus picked it up to get to the message tube on its leg and exclaimed again. The bird was covered all over with tiny stab wounds and bleeding from a bigger cut under one wing that must have hurt like mad when it flew. Hoping it had not had to come far, he pulled Corkoran's message out and unrolled it.

Afterward, he said he felt as if the top of his head had come off. For a moment or so he was in such a fury that he all but leaped up yelling for vengeance, guards, executioners, his army, lawyers, judges, people with knobkerries, and anyone else who could do something to Antoninus and Empedocles, even if they only beat them over the head with plowshares and saucepans. But he had been brought up to control himself. So he simply sat with his hands clenched so hard on his knees that he found big bruises there later, watching the pigeon hobble about, wolfing breadcrumbs. After a minute he thoughtfully pushed his goblet of water over so that the pigeon could sip from it. Antoninus and Empedocles belonged to opposing parties in the Senate. It followed that the entire Senate was behind this visit of theirs to the University. Very well.

“How did you get those wounds?” he asked the pigeon when he could speak without screaming.

“Small men with swords. Angry mice,” it replied. “Stopping us from going with messages.”

“At the University?” Titus asked.

“Yes,” said the pigeon, and gobbled another piece of bread.

Dwarfs attacking pigeons? Titus wondered. If things like that were going on at the University, the wizards there were not keeping Claudia safe as they should. This put the final touch to Titus's fury, which, because he had sat there containing it, was by now a smooth, calm, planning rage. He looked up to see the daily bevy of people approaching him. For a moment his eyes were so blurred with anger that he could hardly see them. He blinked firmly and focused his rage.

Most of those approaching were elderly scribes clutching armloads of scrolls. With them were the Steward of the Imperial Household and the Captain of the Emperor's Personal Guard, and behind them came the Imperial Cook, to ask the Emperor what it was his pleasure to eat today, the Master of the Imperial Stables, the Imperial Tailor, the Master of the Imperial Wardrobe, the Imperial Lawgiver, and finally the Imperial Historian, who was supposed to record the day's events. They were followed by six servants to clear away the Imperial breakfast.

Emperor Titus stood up to meet them, smiling his usual mild smile. The captain first, he thought, because the Personal Guards were all nephews and grandsons of senators. They usually had a lovely life getting drunk and idling about. Not today, though, Titus hoped. “Captain Postumus,” he said, “it's just dawned on me that I haven't inspected the Guard for over a month. Perhaps you'd better have them parade in the exercise court in—shall we say?—half an hour. I may be a little late getting to you there, but I'll be along as soon as I've finished with these other gentlemen.”

A hastily muted expression of dismay crossed the aristocratic face of Captain Postumus, but he dropped elegantly to one knee, murmuring, “As my Emperor pleases,” and rose to leave.

“Oh, and Postumus,” said Titus, after the Captain had taken two steps, “while you're on your way, could you ask General Agricola to step by here for a word with me? Tell him I've had an idea about the southern legions.”

“My pleasure, Imperial Majesty.” Postumus ducked a knee again and strode elegantly away.

Titus turned to the Imperial Stablemaster. “Eponus, I shall need my horse when I review the Guard, won't I? Can you have Griffin and Tiberius saddled for me? I'll choose which of them I'll ride when I come to the stables.”

The Stablemaster ducked a stiff knee and left, too.

So far so good, Titus thought. Nothing had been out of the ordinary yet. The next part would be. Titus was relying on his usual mild, courteous manner to carry him through that. He beckoned the Imperial Steward aside and turned apologetically to the rest, all of whom, including half the scribes, were paid followers of the Senate. “Would you gentlemen mind waiting for me in the large office? I'll be with you as soon as I can.”

Knees ducked. A chorus of “Pleasure, Imperial Majesty” was uttered, and everyone except the servants turned to leave. The servants hovered doubtfully.

“Please go on with your work,” Titus told them pleasantly. He swept the pigeon up into a fold of his wrap and approached the steward, while the servants busily cleared the table, well within hearing. “Sempronius,” he said to the steward, “would you mind terribly sending my healer to me?”

The steward went white with concern. “Your Imperial Majesty is unwell? I swear, Majesty, that the utmost precautions against poison are taken at all times.”

“I'm sure it's nothing like that,” Titus said truthfully. “I just don't feel quite the same today.”

“I'll fetch the healer at once, Majesty.” The steward hurried away, bustling the listening servants with him.

Titus allowed himself a small grin. Now there would be an obvious explanation when he failed to turn up at any of his appointments. He strolled out of the arbor and along the garden in the mild autumn sunlight, while he waited for the healer and General Agricola, and his anger continued to grow. Claudia was practically his only friend in the Empire, and the Senate was trying to kill her! Titus had had a miserably solemn and lonely childhood until his Imperial father had married again and Claudia had been born. Titus could hardly remember laughing at all before he was nine years old, when the small greenish baby lying in the Imperial cradle had crowed with delighted laughter when he bent over her. And from the moment she was a year old, Claudia had been his friend and ally, the person he told things to, the person he could laugh with. For this he had forgiven her the fact that she came with a strange, discontented stepmother whom he still very much disliked. For this, too, he had covered up for Claudia when she was in trouble, particularly when her strange jinxed magic started to cause peculiar things to happen. Then he found that Claudia was covering up for him in return. By the time Claudia was grown up, they were firmer friends than ever. Titus had defended Claudia in the Senate when it tried to declare her a public enemy, with her jinx as its excuse, and had made sure that the Personal Guard held their tongues in front of her. The Personal Guard had total contempt for Claudia's mixed blood and made no secret of it. And for this, Titus promised himself, his Personal Guard was going to stand waiting, to attention, in full polished kit, drawn up in ranks in the exercise yard, for as long as he could contrive to leave them there. He was glad to see that the day promised to be nice and hot.