The Subtle Beauty

by Ann Hunter

  When Colin awoke, his head throbbed. He lay face down on the King’s Road not far from his snuffed-out fire. He touched his hair and felt it matted. He rubbed his fingers together in front of his eyes to see dark-red flakes fall. He pushed himself up slowly. What had happened? He looked toward Council’s Realm, but could only see from one eye. His other was swollen shut. He touched his nose and found a cut and a new path his bridge had not taken before. He groaned and laid back down on the ground for a moment. He turned to look toward the tree stump for his sack of belongings, but it was gone. The world spun. The stars in the night sky swirled. Brigands!

  Colin vomited into an ironberry bush.

  His life savings—gone. Why hadn’t he kept moving when he realized he was nodding off? Why hadn’t he hidden his sack? He knew there was danger here. Colin wanted to pound his head against the King’s Road, but his head was already doing its fair share of pounding. He tilted his face toward the sky and bellowed. He stood in the middle of the King’s Road, breathing hard. His legs shook beneath him. He fixed his good eye on Council’s Realm and staggered toward it.

  ***

  Glory slid her foot onto the edge of one of Blackthorn’s crenels. Glittering black rubble crumbled under her toes. Waves crashed against the cliffs nearby, and a salty breeze whipped her golden hair. She stared at the ground several stories below. Her lungs stretched and burned with the cold air, and her eyes narrowed. The gryphon had to be wrong. Colin was coming! Glory searched the horizon desperately.

  “I would not do that if I were you.”

  Her shoulders tensed. She did not need to turn to see it was the gryphon. He probably thinks I am going to jump. “It is a good thing that you are not me then.”

  “Do you not value your life?”

  “I value it, Gryphon, it is you I try to escape from.”

  Glory heard him spread his wings and hiss, “You are foolish to think that this is the only way out.”

  “What is the point of staying here if Colin has abandoned me and my,” Glory ground her teeth, the very words painful to her, “husband-to-be will not even look upon me? A month I’ve been here and your prince does not even wish to see me. Why does he not come?”

  Glory glanced behind her to scowl at the gryphon, but lost her balance as more of the wall crumbled beneath her. The air cradled her. She shut her eyes to the world, accepting her inevitable fate. She pictured the ground racing up to meet her. The whistle of the air around her masked the screech of a gryphon above. Glory knocked into something warm and alive, breaking her fall. Jarred, her eyes opened in time to see the beat of wings and the ground rushing by. She tumbled through the damp grass, her teeth chattering. The air in her lungs surged out of her as she saw the gryphon barrel roll into the sunlight. Glory jumped to her feet and hammered her way toward the forest. The gryphon screeched. His tail snapped angrily around and his talons curled. Glory gasped, struggling for air, yet continued racing through the high, wild grasses. They clutched and snagged at her slippers. She kicked them off in desperation, wincing at the passing nettles and hard earth. The gryphon cried out again and Glory looked behind her once more. The great beast stretched out long and lean like an arrow, increasing his speed exponentially. Glory crashed through the trees, tripping over gnarled roots and wet leaves. She pressed herself against an ashen trunk and squeezed her eyes shut, as if doing so would afford her some level of invisibility to the gryphon’s keen eyes. She sensed his shadow above, the beat of cyclopean wings on air. Circling, circling. She swallowed hard and sucked in the frigid air. A gryphon’s scream echoed, then nothing. Silence. Glory’s eyes haltingly opened. A glint of sunlight, the forest coming back into focus. The snapping of a branch made her jump. She swung around to see a fat gray hare scurry by. Her thundering heart eased, and she sighed. She turned to make her way, hopefully, to Winterholme, but was overtaken by a massive shadow. Glory fell hard against the ground and stared up into the face of the gryphon. His ears were flat against his head. Glory took in a deep breath of wet earth and pungent, angry male.

  “A oinseach10,” he growled.

  Glory gulped.

  “Why would you do something so reckless? Or is it that you want me to hunt you like an animal?” The gryphon’s large, scaly claw stepped to Glory’s slender shoulder, pressing her down further. “Because I can.” The gryphon lowered his head close to Glory’s, murmuring into her ear, “I could snap you in half.”

  Glory felt the weight of the gryphon’s hind paw lay across her belly. She was sharply aware of his raw power as his muscles coiled and rippled. Glory turned her head, her eyes locking with the gryphon’s amber ones, burning like two embers. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  The gryphon shifted his weight, drawing a polished talon lightly against Glory’s supple neck. “I could slit your throat.”

  Glory trembled, but arched her back defiantly. “Do it.”

  The gryphon forced her against the ground, opening his beak a little. Glory squirmed, but was pushed down again. The gryphon’s breathing increased with excitement. Glory forced her eyes shut, half expecting him to gobble her up. She tensed when his bill brushed against the throbbing vein in her neck. The gryphon inhaled deeply, and he uttered a soft groan. Glory dared peek. He was drinking in her scent. He lifted his head and stared her down, as if recomposing himself. His tail whipped high above his head with extreme agitation. “Tá tú dom nimhe,” he muttered.

  Glory felt the full force of him as he pushed off and lit the heavens. She lay on the forest floor, staring upwards. Her head swam, trying to make sense of what had transpired. She rose, brushing herself off. Without understanding why, her feet dragged her back to Blackthorn Keep.

  ***

  Colin made his way to The Fox And Wolf Inn. Once inside he did not go unnoticed. The innkeeper’s wife took pity on him and found him a bed for the night and offered him a meal, the barkeep reckoned he could use a strong drink. The innkeeper’s wife sat Colin by the fire and draped a blanket about his shoulders. Colin thanked her and tucked into his meal and flagon. Patrons talked boisterously, and Colin tried to pick out the conversations. He hoped word of Glory’s betrothal was not old news by now. Colin chewed slowly on a stew of roast venison, spring vegetables, and potatoes. He lifted the flagon to wash it down and sputtered. He had had wine and woodmead before, but nothing this strong. He put the flagon down with a clatter and blinked. The heat of the drink ran down his gullet and fired his belly. Sitting next to the fire now was almost too warm. He removed the blanket from his shoulders and draped it over the other chair at the table. He bit into a chunk of bread. All the conversations seemed to run together. No word of Glory. No mention of weddings. Only “My wife’s bottom…” or “Did you hear about Farmer Jeoffrey’s cow?” Common town commotion.

  As the night grew later and the tavern part of the inn thinned of guests, the conversations became easier to discern between. Eventually a hush fell as a bard lifted his voice. He sang slowly in a deep voice.

  “Far to the South,

  Past All Father’s Mouth,

  Lies a keep of blackened stone.

  Where weak men fail,

  ‘yond Monmouth Flail;

  Made Realm by blood and bone.

  Barwn Xander waits

  On Sigil’s Gate

  For a princess to undo the tome

  Of his son’s curse

  Made only worse

  By time’s unfeeling drone.

  Old gods bind

  young body and mind

  He who would be crowned,

  Guarded in the plight

  Of Gryphon’s might

  Far as the curse was found.”

  Colin polished off his flagon and pushed back his chair. He moved to the bard and asked him about the song.

  “The place you sing of, does it have a name?”

  The bard counted the few gold coins he had earned from other patrons. “Aye.”

  Colin pulled up a chair at the table by the bard. “Will you tell it to
me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Colin sighed. “I don’t have money.”

  “Then I don’t have—” the bard glanced at him. He straightened once he saw how beat up Colin was. The Bard ordered two Elder Ales and pushed one of them toward Colin. He sat down and tucked into his flagon. “Blackthorn.”

  Colin didn’t want to seem rude, but the drink was beyond his interest at the moment. “You sing of a gryphon…”

  The bard leaned in. “Look, mate, I don’t know how much of the song is truth, and which is mythos but between you’n’me, strange things happen in the south. I gain my songs from travelling the road. I hear rumors of people disappearing, eaten by barghest, or beheaded by donestre. But as far as I know, they are just rumors.”

  Colin frowned and rubbed his finger against the table’s grain. “There’s no such thing as monsters.”

  The bard leaned back in his chair, hanging his arm over the back of it. “Who’s to say?” A smile played at the corner of his long, thin mouth.

  Colin kept an eye trained on him and took a drink. He put the flagon down. “I.”

  “What does a lad of your age know of monsters?”

  “I’ve met my share,” Colin said wryly.

  The bard laughed. “Well if that isn’t the shameful truth by the looks of you!”

  Colin drank again. “I need to fight off a few more. Is there a way Blackthorn can be snuck into?”

  The bard crossed his boots on the table. “Well, if there is a gryphon like they say, you won’t be getting in straight on, will you? Best go ‘round. Keep to the dark side of the realm.”

  “And that would be…?”

  “Morgorth.”

  Colin swallowed hard.

  The bard polished off his flagon. “You’ll love it,” he said sarcastically.

  Colin rose. “Thank you for your time. I will repay you one day. When you sing again tonight, sing of Princess Glory.”

  The bard nodded. “Aye. Everyone knows the song of Her Highness the Beauty. It would be my pleasure.”

  Colin smiled and ascended the stairs to the room the inn had provided for him, which happened to be right over the bard. He fell asleep to dreams of Glory.

  ***

  Glory found herself daring to wind down that old, dark staircase to the mysterious door again. She had a feeling the gryphon would stay out hunting after what had happened. Did the prince know how this monster was treating her? Not only had her beauty been insulted, but now her honor as well. She wanted to find the prince and tell him to chain his vile dog. She took a torch and once again placed it in the sconce near the battered door. She peered in through the slot. If the gryphon had been guarding this place, it had to be important. “Prince Eoghan, are you in there?” she asked. She reached up to the door handle and found it unlocked. The door swung open with a squeak that turned into a moan. Glory took the torch from the sconce and entered the room. “Is anyone in here?”

  She pointed the torch toward the shadows as a shape scampered across the room. She was relieved, if disgusted, to only find a rat burrowing into the hay pile. She took another step in, trying to get a good look around. Her nose wrinkled at a rotten smell emanating from the floor and back wall. Glory guided the light toward the offending odor, illuminating the blood that spattered the walls and floor. She shuffled to one side and tripped over several bones. She tried not to scream. Golden feathers were strewn over the stone floor. Tattered clothes piled in the opposite corner. Glory shoved the torch back into the sconce, slammed the door and ran.

  The next day, Glory looked out her window on to a gray and misty morn. In the distance, she caught sight of the gryphon who paused, as if he felt her gaze upon him. A ray of sunshine split the heavens and framed him. The sun lit the gryphon’s ruddy feathers and ginger coat, making him appear like a newly-minted bronze statue. Glory could see a wild boar hanging limply from the gryphon’s mandible. He turned his head in her direction, lifting his foot as if on point, like one of Balthazaar’s hunting dogs. Glory’s stomach churned, and she rolled her eyes with disgust, backing away from the window.

  In the evening, one of the servants informed her, “Dinner is served, Your Highness.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Glory lied.

  “Very well,” said the servant, “I will inform the masters.”

  Glory scurried to the door. “Wait.”

  “Yes, Princess?”

  Glory’s stomach growled loudly. “What is being served?”

  “Wild boar, Your Grace, caught on this morning’s hunt.”

  Glory pictured the gryphon with the dead creature in his mouth and suddenly lost her appetite. “Never mind.”

  Glory rubbed her stomach, trying to ease it. A scratch, like that of a dog, grated against her door. Glory glared at the door. Scratch, scratch. Glory had seen no dogs about the place. She cracked open the door to see a lone amber eye peeking back at her.

  “They allow you in the house?” Glory did not realize she had said this aloud.

  The gryphon clicked his beak. “It is my house to guard. I come and go as I please.”

  Glory turned away from the door and crossed to her bed.

  “Why will you not come to dinner?” the gryphon asked. “Surely you must be hungry.”

  Glory folded her arms. “I do not eat with animals.”

  She heard the door creak and glanced over her shoulder. The gryphon had nudged his head in through the door. “And if Eoghan requested you, would you abide my presence then?”

  Glory was beginning to have her doubts about Prince Eoghan after what she had seen in that horrible room yesterday. She stuck her nose in the air. “I cannot eat that which has already been in another’s mouth.”

  “I see,” the gryphon said softly. “Will you at least come and keep company for Barwn Xander? I will not burden either of you with my presence. I am a beast, not a man, and I would prefer to be outside.”

  Glory looked at him. She wasn’t sure if she would rather eat with a mangy beast or a tyrant.

  “Perhaps,” the gryphon mumbled, “one day you will eat when you are not reminded of how the meal was provided.”

  Glory sighed. Perhaps it would be best if she kept up the appearance that she was unaware of their plot to take over all of the kingdoms by marrying her to Xander instead of Prince Eoghan. “Leave me, Gryphon. I will join Barwn Xander presently.”

  Glory sat at the dining table with a great deal of enmity. At the other end, Xander was enjoying a cheeseboard and a goblet of ale. He raised it in her name and nodded to her. Glory stared at the dead boar on the golden platter before her. The apple in its mouth didn’t help her appetite.

  “What is wrong?” Xander asked, “Why do you not eat?”

  “It’s looking at me.” Glory sulked.

  “Surely it is not your first time eating pig. Do you not eat meat at Winterholme?”

  “None with eyes, My Lord.”

  Xander chewed thoughtfully, then rose and drew his sword. “Very well.” He raised his sword high over the roast boar.

  Glory jumped to her feet. “No, no, no! That won’t be necessary.”

  “Would you prefer something else?”

  Glory shook her head.

  “By the gods,” Xander grunted, “you are such a girl.”

  Glory leaned against the table, looking plainly into Xander’s dark-brown eyes. He sheathed his sword and pulled off the boar’s whole shank, taking a big bite. Hot juice and grease dribbled down his black goatee. Glory gripped the edge of the table, trying not to faint from savage hunger. With urgency, she grabbed the nearest goblet and took a deep slug.

  Xander nearly choked. “That’s Blacksteed, the castle’s personal vintage. Be careful, it’s extracted from deadly ivyburn.”

  Glory didn’t care. She sucked down the wicked, sweet burn, tilting her head back to get it all.

  Xander began laughing. “Drink up, Princess. That one will put hair upon your breast!”

  Glory muscled her way past t
he promise-induced gag reflex and slammed the goblet down against the table.

  Xander’s dark brow lifted and his mouth puckered. “Well there’s a challenge if I ever heard one.” He motioned to the servants to refill Glory’s goblet. Glory lifted it to her lips and knocked back another round. Her head swam and her ears rung.

  Xander took another big bite of the boar’s shank and watched with a great deal of amusement.

  The cup clattered against the table.

  “More!” Glory charged.

  Xander obliged, and the servants filled the goblet again. His eyes fixated on her with wonder. “It pleases me to see you enjoy yourself so thoroughly, Princess.”

  Glory sank into her chair, slogging the Blacksteed down. It galloped into her belly with the vengeance of a runaway horse.

  Xander crossed to his own seat. “Pain makes you stronger. Tears make you braver. Heartbreak makes you wiser and ale makes you forget it all.”

  A metallic clatter against the stone floor made Xander turn. A half-empty goblet rolled under the table. Glory was unconscious in her chair.

  Glory woke to soft orange firelight and groaned. Her head throbbed as though it had been pummeled by an entire castle’s worth of ashlar. She reached up to hold it while her other hand fell from under the covers to the side of the bed.

  “A little to the left,” came a soft sigh.

  Glory sat up quickly to see the gryphon lying peacefully on the floor beside her. Glory bit her lip hard. Screaming would only make everything worse. She buried her head in her hands and began to cry. I wish I were dead.

  The fire crackled in the background. Glory wept for her aching head and for home. After some time, she heard a soft, steady thump on the floor. She spread her fingers to see the gryphon upright. His head was turned to one side, and the firelight danced in his eyes. “Why do you weep, Princess?”