“At that thought, I’d say it’s time I get a move on, or else I may be accused of dallying.” Now he also stood. I couldn’t help but notice he avoided looking at me. “Do you want me to take the dishes out to the pump?”
“No, you go on ahead. Taryn and I have them.” She flapped her free hand at him, and after he had hugged me tightly he flew out the back door.
I turned to watch him as he left, and I stayed in that position for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the door. I didn’t like that Michael had apparently been hiding Master Noland from me, and now he was doing the same with our parents. If this man was as good as Michael claimed, why not be open about his invitation? The sounds of Mother busying herself, cleaning the table of spilled milk and sticky honey from where spoons had rested, brought me back to the present.
For an instant, it felt strange to watch Mother bustling around the kitchen. She was a part of this home, and this farm; she was as much a staple to the world I knew as the house itself. I had a dizzying moment where I imagined the inevitable day when my own daughter would look at me and think those same thoughts. I’d always thought Michael’s future would be much the same, but now it was a great yawning blankness. Would my children even know him? Or would it be much like our aunt, Therese, who sent letters but had never once visited?
“How did you get Father to agree? What if he doesn’t come back?” I asked, trying to quell those ominous feelings.
Mother’s hand bumped the milk pitcher almost upending it, causing more droplets to slosh out as she swept the rag across the table. She swore crossly. I took the pitcher to the counter and leaned back against the wood while she finished her task.
Finally, she replied. “This is the safest option we have. If we don’t do this, he’ll find his own way, and there are people out there who will take advantage of a young person with seemingly no connections.”
“Michael is smart,” I hedged.
“These people are smarter.” She stopped cleaning to rub her forehead. Her face was turned from me but her voice sounded tired. “Taking people is what they do. It’s so safe out here—isolated, some would call it. Especially since his highness took it upon himself to secure the northern borders. You’ve never known Nophgrin without a guardsman. I’ve never had to teach you two about this sort of thing. All the visitors who come through must register at the gates; we’re so out of the way on the farm that we only see a quarter of those people who do visit town. Michael has read about these things, but you’re both young, and you think you’re invincible.”
“This coming from the woman who walks to town alone at dawn during the time of gryphons!” I stuck my tongue out at her and received a weak chuckle in reward.
“Yes, well, on that note—let’s get on our way.”
We readied ourselves to leave for town. From the closet nearest the front door mother pulled a large pack which was filled with her sewing kit, scrub brushes, rags, and a few other odds and ends. I rarely saw her before she left or when she arrived home, and was surprised by the way the thing bulged hugely on her back. It made her look as though she had grown a disproportionate, and lumpy shell. I offered to carry it, but she rebuffed me.
“You three all work in the fields every day to stay fit, and this is my way.” She shifted one strap higher onto her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
I had mulled over walking Hale behind us, but had ultimately discarded the idea. Hale was so jumpy as of late, and frankly I didn’t feel like dealing with her unless I was on her back. As we set off down the road, I did feel a little bit of guilt at this. As her owner, I should have been willing to take the time that was necessary to work her through whatever was causing her agitation.
I looked backward towards the barn for a second, and in that second Mother gained a good lead on me. The quick movement of her short legs caused her plain brown dress to swish and kick up a small bit of dust that swirled in her wake. I hustled to keep up. She was an old hat at the task of carrying her heavy load. Leaning forward slightly, both hands gripping the straps that held the pack she plowed forward. The sun was cresting the tree line, but the cloudless sky bespoke a sunny day to come. The exercise of walking with my own load and my thick clothes made me perspire slightly before long.
When Michael and I had first started our stints in the field, Mother had exulted over having no children to mind. In a matter of weeks, however, she had begun to complain about having to chase around the geese, and some of the chores piled up without her young charges to help. There had been nothing for it. Michael and I had to learn how to mind the sheep, and so Mother made do. By the time she had adjusted to working without two extra pairs of hands, Michael and I were trained enough in the field to go on watches individually. With our help added back in, her day suddenly felt full of time, and it wasn’t long before she declared she was going to make use of it. She wanted to go with Gladys into town to see what kind of work could be found there.
Up until that point, trips into town had been a much rarer occasion. Our land boasted a small vegetable garden, and near to that was our own well. With those things, as well as the animals, there was no real need to make the walk most days. However, she wanted to see humans that were not her children or her husband, and a place beyond her own yard, and none of us could blame her.
Her parents had still been alive then, and they were the ones who had ended up finding her work in town. Most of the jobs were odd chores for the two wealthiest families who lived in Nophgrin. Merchant ilk, who had chosen our town as an out of the way place to grow their families and fortunes, they weren’t nasty by any means, but money made them difficult to approach. There were some in town that scoffed at how little they joined in on town events. Mother didn’t mind any of it though; they paid her solid coin for the work she did. That extra coin had gone to necessities over the past year, such as fixing the roof and buying medicines. She also made many friends by doing her own washing as well as her extra work at the washing well in town.
The washing well was simple enough, from an outsider’s perspective. All there was to it was a large stone basin that was filled with water from a hot spring that some brilliant person had tapped into long ago. Women in town came to the basin to do their washing, but also to do their mending and gossiping while soaking in the hot steam that billowed off the water. To anyone who didn’t know better, it might have seemed like a blended lot, but in reality, many social circles divided the basin. Every one of them as difficult to enter as it was to enter the king’s own vault.
Though she had grown up within the town walls, and though they bought our sheep’s wool and cheese, and milk, many of the people who lived in town thought Mother had abandoned them to go live off in the woods with my father, who had not grown up in town. One-day Mother had come home absolutely heartbroken because she had been shut out of every conversation she had tried to be a part of. Even Gladys had sat on the opposite side of the pool from her, rather than be lumped in with her exile.
Michael and I, young though we had been, did our best to comfort her. She had pretended for our sakes to feel better by the time we all went to bed, but Father knew better. The next day he had gone into town, something he rarely did unless it was on business.
As a child, I had been certain he was going to crack some skulls, as he always threatened. He had done no such thing. Rather, he brought the husbands of those women who had hurt Mother to The Black Gryphon—the local inn and pub. There, he had bought a round of ale, and made plans with them to go shooting in the lands around our field.
As if by magic, Mother was suddenly welcome amongst her old friends once again. By extension, so were Michael and me. The same women who had scorned her, as well as their families, occasionally came to dinner at our home. Sometimes we got dressed nicely to visit them in town, or to have picnics in the field.
It had been hard for Michael, who resented these new social responsibilities. Though he tried his best, he had never quite gotten the hang of it. I had not adored it all t
hat much either, but it was how I had met Nai. She had taken me under her wing by force, and she had helped in the social aspect a great deal.
As these thoughts rolled around in my head, we walked in the chorus of the wakening forest. Birds called to each other sleepily, and lesser gryphons dove over our heads from tree to tree in their haphazard fashion. A furlong ahead of us a rabbit hopped from the border brush. It froze on the road, eyes locked on us. The trees to its right swayed, and my mother put out a warning arm, staying my movement.
“Don’t look!” She warned me, but it was too late.
From the right, a hefty lesser gryphon sprang out of the bushes. The two animals rolled for a moment, but in the end the gryphon carried the rabbit off to the other side of the road. There was a cacophony of screeches as its flock joined it. The shrubbery in which they feasted shook with the flurry of their movements.
We skirted around the blood on the road as we hurried past the scene. “That was awful. They’re so cute until you see them hunting something living.”
Mother nodded solemnly. “I saw a greater gryphon take a cow once. This was years ago. They hunt in much the same way. No fear of humans seeing them. They leap onto the back and—” she clapped her hands loud enough to echo, which caused a flock of starlings to remove themselves from a nearby pine.
I had jumped about a foot into the air at her clap and glared at her, though I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “Thanks for that. You know, I won’t be a very good walking companion if you cause my heart to stop.”
“I’m just trying to keep you on your toes my dear girl,” she teased.
I held up a hand to stop her before she could move forward again. “Hold on a moment. I think I have a rock in my boot.”
She waited as I crouched down to remove and shake out my left boot. When nothing fell out, I dug my hand inside. I kept my eyes peeled, feeling blindly for the stone that had been biting into my big toe. It looked as though the flock enjoying their kill was the only band of gryphons in this area. Any other ground creature we might have seen had fled at the bloodshed. Still, bent over as I was, my neck felt exposed and vulnerable.
“There we go,” I said with forced cheerfulness. I tossed the stone behind me, and pulled my boot back on, straightening. “Not far now, right?”
We walked another twenty minutes before town came into view. When it did, we also spotted Willy. He was out from behind his booth, filling the horse watering trough, his belly jiggling as he laughed at something. He waved when he saw us and we waved back.
Willy’s face was bright and cheery this morning, his eyes little crescents from his cheeks squishing upwards. I had vague memories of Willy a bit more like what one would expect a guard to be—lean and tough, but that had been when I was a little girl. One would think being gryphon adjacent would make Nophgrin a dangerous place, full of action, but we simply weren’t. It didn’t help that Willy had married the baker’s daughter, and that his mother-in-law showed her affection in the form of pies.
“Good morning ladies, and how are we this fine morning?”
“We’re fine William,” my mother said. “How are things this side of town?”
“Can’t complain. I cannot complain.” He bobbed his head. “Miss Taryn, it’s good to see you twice in a week. How are you?”
“I’m wonderful Willy, thanks for asking. How’s Sarah?”
“Oh, she’s a wonder. Cries all the cursed night, but she’s perfect.” His voice was earnest and I had to laugh.
“You’re helping your wife enough right?” I pressed him.
“When she and the mother-in-law lets me miss. I tell you it’s like they think I’m going to drop her if I hold her.” He looked at his big hands in mock incredulity. “I’ve told them I’m a good catch, but that doesn’t seem to put them at ease any. Sign in.” He offered us the slate and chalk. Dutifully, we signed our names, the date, and the length of our stay. He skimmed our answers briefly and then beckoned us through the gates. “See you this afternoon ma’am, and you in a little while miss.”
When we arrived, the washing pool was already teeming with women, young and old. One set was singing as they worked, their voices harmonizing from much practice, and a few groups were talking, some loud, some quiet.
Gladys was already there amongst a loud couple of women, although she wasn’t saying much. She was Mother’s age, tall and thin with graying sandy-brown hair that she kept pulled back in one long braid. Wrinkles had begun to spread finely at the corner of her eyes and across her forehead. Mother said she had once been one of the most beautiful girls in town, and it still showed in the confidant way she carried herself now she was grown. She smiled, and nodded along to the story being told as she scrubbed a pair of breeches against her washboard. She gave Mother and me a small wave when she saw us, causing soap bubbles to soar through the air.
“How are you this morning? Taryn too? It’s rare to see you under the morning sun.” The current piece of gossip died down for a moment as the other women offered their greetings and asked after Father and Michael.
I answered the inquiries about my family first and then turned back to Gladys. “I was walking my mother to town. Did you hear Glenn thought he saw a gryphon?”
“Well, it’s fall so I assumed he did.” Gladys rolled her eyes and scrubbed a little harder.
“Raynard has gone to check with Michael, but we thought better safe than sorry. I’m not as spry as I used to be.” Mother heaved her pack to the rim of the pool with a groan of exertion.
“That is one nice thing about living in town.” Gladys lifted her thick braid off her neck with one hand and rubbed the sore muscles beneath with her other. “As much as I loved our walks together, it’s nice to only have to walk a few minutes in any direction to get where I need to go. My knees are starting to get bad.”
A lesser gryphon with the head and wings of a starling landed on the thatching of the rooftop to our left. My head whipped in the direction of the noise. It stared me down for a moment and then began preening.
“I swear those things get more and more uppity every year,” I muttered, sitting down next to Gladys. The warmth of the steam fanned my chapped cheeks pleasantly.
Beth, who had been one of the girls to ask about Michael, shook her head in commiseration, her short bob swinging with the movement. “Just this week I had my windows open and one of the cursed things tried coming inside to see what I was cooking! I got my broom out, and it kept swatting at me until I got a good swing in.”
To her right a red haired and freckled girl who was five years my senior laughed. “You might have let it taste what you were cooking. That would have knocked it right over without the fuss!”
“Claire, you want to talk about fuss? You better hope Beth doesn’t tell your mother who she saw you with when you were meant to be in temple last Wednesday. That would be a fuss.” This came from Nai, the last girl in the circle.
Naieed was tall, even sitting down. She had curly hair and a slightly hooked nose and hazel almond eyes. True to form, she had spoken quickly, before the younger girl had managed to form her own retort. Though she was friends with most everyone, she was also sharp as a knife, and few people were safe from her barbs. Beth looked at her as though she thought Nai put the stars in the sky.
Not that I could blame Beth. I had orchestrated no few suppers wherein I spent the courses trying to get her and Michael to interact, maybe fall in love. It was a casual endeavor that had never taken root.
Claire’s face paled around her freckles and then flushed hot red. “Nai, who told you?” She pressed the backs of her long fingers against her cheeks, trying to calm her coloration.
As they continued that line of talk, I leaned over to where Mother was setting up. “Are you all right here? I should head back to Father and Michael.” Mother was chortling at Nai’s reply to Claire’s question and merely nodded at me, opening her arms for a hug, which I obliged her with. “I’m off!” I told the rest of the circle.
“Who told you?” Claire wailed again, throwing her rag to splash in the water at Nai’s side and the group broke into more laughter. Beth wiped tears of mirth from her eyes, and Gladys was hugging her sides.
“I’ll make sure I do, I miss you Nai. As well as the rest of you ladies,” I quickly amended. They gave me a good-natured razzing on my wording. I ruffled my hair ruefully as I moved away from the group.
As much as it was true I missed Nai, there was no way I could stay longer today. Father would be fit to be tied if I did. It was just as well though. I had no interest in who was kissing whom. Especially not when I was pretty sure they were only putting on a show for one another. No one truly cared that much about the boys they were seeing. Butterflies in the stomach, and pining were just some of those things girls exaggerated about. Though I had done my best, I had never gotten the knack of it, and I always felt silly playing along.
A few feet beyond the moist air of the well, autumn’s chill sank its teeth back into any bare piece of skin I had left exposed. I found myself puffing small bits of my own steam into the air as I hustled back towards the guard’s post. There, a group of people had gathered. The sound of discord reached my ears before my feet reached the booth. I slipped around the large press of bodies until I had gotten close to Willy. He was currently engaged in a spirited conversation with a large man whom I recognized as one of my neighbors. A farmer named Daniel.
“So, what are you going to do about it?” Daniel was jabbing a thick finger at Willy.
I didn’t listen to the response as I glanced around the group. Perhaps there would be someone not currently engaged in an argument who could tell me what was happening. To my right, I found Glenn surrounded by his own tight group of listeners, his face awash in misery.
Of Gryphons and Other Monsters (Taryn's Journey Book 1) Page 6
