The White Gryphon v(mw-2 Read online

  He stared at her in shock, and she added another of the phrases she’d learned. “I prefer not to eat anything that can speak back to me.”

  He uttered something very like a squeak, and bolted.

  She sighed and put her head down on her foreclaws again. Poor silly man. Doesn’t anyone tell these people about us? It wasn’t that the Haighlei were prejudiced, exactly, it was just that they were used to seeing large, fierce, carnivorous creatures, but were not used to them being intelligent. Sooner or later she and Skan would convince them all that the gryphons were neither dangerous, nor unpredictable, but until they did, there would probably be a great many frightened servants setting new records for speed in exiting a room.

  Those who accept us as intelligent are still having difficulty accepting us as full citizens, co-equal with the humans of White Gryphon, she reflected, wondering how they were going to overcome that much stickier problem. At least I don’t have to worry about that. Skan does, but I don’t. All I have to do is be charming and attractive. And the old rogue says I have no trouble doing that! Still, he has to do that himself, plus he has to play “Skandranon, King of White Gryphon.”

  The sound of someone else discreetly clearing her throat made Zhaneel raise her head again, wondering if she was ever going to get that nap.

  But when she saw who it was, she was willing to do without the nap. “Makke!” she exclaimed, as the old, stooped human made her way carefully into the garden. “Can it be you actually have nothing to do? Can I tempt you to come sit in the garden?”

  Makke was very old, and Zhaneel wondered why she still worked; her closely-cropped hair resembled a sheep’s pelt, it was so white, and her back was bent with the weight of years and all the physical labor she had done in those years. Her black face was seamed with wrinkles and her hands bony with age, but she was still strong and incredibly alert. Zhaneel had first learned that Makke knew their language when the old woman asked her, in the politest of accented tones, if the young gryphlets would require any special toilet facilities or linens. Since then, although her assigned function was only to clean their rooms and do their laundry, Makke had been Gesten’s invaluable resource. She adored the gryphlets, who adored her in return; she was often the only one who could make them sit still and listen for any length of time. Both Zhaneel and Gesten were of one accord that in Makke they had made a good friend in a strange place.

  “I really should not,” the old woman began reluctantly, although it was clear she could use a rest. “There is much work yet to be done. I came only to ask of you a question.”

  “But you should, Makke,” Zhaneel coaxed. “I have more need of company than I have of having the floors swept for the third time this afternoon. I want to know more about the situation here, and how we can avoid trouble.”

  Makke made a little gesture of protest. “But the young ones,” she said. “The feather-sheath fragments, everywhere—”

  “And they will shed more as soon as you sweep up,” Zhaneel told her firmly. “A little white dust can wait for now. Come sit, and be cool. It is too hot to work. Everyone else in the Palace is having a nap or a rest.”

  Makke allowed herself to be persuaded and joined Zhaneel, sitting on the cool marble rim of the pond. She sighed as she picked up a fan and used it to waft air toward her face. “I came to tell you, Gryphon Lady, that you have frightened another gardener. He swears that you leaped up at him out of the bushes, snarling fiercely. He ran off, and he says that he will not serve you unless you remain out of the garden while he works there.”

  “He is the one who entered while I was already here.” Zhaneel snorted. “You were in the next room, Makke,” she continued in a sharp retort. “Did you hear any snarling? Any leaping? Anything other than a fool fearing his shadow and running away?”

  Makke laughed softly, her eyes disappearing into the wrinkles as she chuckled. “No, Gryphon Lady. I had thought there was something wrong with this tale. I shall say so when the Overseer asks.”

  Zhaneel and Makke sat quietly in easy silence, listening to the water trickle down the tiny waterfall. “You ought to be the Overseer,” Zhaneel said, finally. “You know our language, and you know more about the other servants than the Overseer does. You know how to show people that we are not man-eating monsters. You are better at the Overseer’s job than he is.”

  But Makke only shook her head at the very idea, and used her free hand to smooth down the saffron tunic and orange trews that were the uniform for all Palace servants, her expression one of resignation. “That is not possible, Gryphon Lady,” she replied. “The Overseer was born to his place, and I to mine, as it was decreed at our births. So it is, and so it must remain. You must not say such things to others. It will make them suspect you of impiety. I know better because I have served the Northern Kestra’chern Silver Veil, but others are not so broad of thought.”

  Zhaneel looked at her with her head tilted to one side in puzzlement. This was new. “Why?” she asked. “And why would I be impious for saying such a thing?”

  Makke fanned herself for a moment as she thought over her answer. She liked to take her time before answering, to give the question all the attention she felt it deserved. Zhaneel did not urge her to speak, for she knew old Makke by now and knew better than to try to force her to say anything before she was ready.

  “All is decreed,” she said finally, tapping the edge of her fan on her chin. “The Emperors, those you call the Black Kings, are above all mortals, and the gods are above them. The gods have their places, their duties, and their rankings, and as above, so it must be below. Mortals have their places, duties, and castes, with the Emperors at the highest and the collectors of offal and the like at the lowest. As the gods do not change in their rankings, so mortals must not. Only the soul may change castes, for each of the gods was once a mortal who rose to godhood by good works and piety. One is born into a caste and a position, one works in it, and one dies in it. One can make every effort to learn—become something of a scholar even, but one will never be permitted to become a Titled Scholar. Perhaps, if one is very diligent, one may rise from being the Palace cleaning woman for a minor noble to that of a cleaning woman to a Chief Advisor or to foreign dignitaries, but one will always be a cleaning woman.”

  “There is no change?” Zhaneel asked, her beak gaping open in surprise. This was entirely new to her, but it explained a great deal that had been inexplicable. “Never?”

  Makke shook her round head. “Only if the Emperor declares it, and with him the Truthsayer and the Speaker to the Gods. You see, such change must be sanctioned by the gods before mortals may embrace it. When some skill or position, some craft or learning, is accepted from outside the Empire, it is brought in as a new caste and ranking, and remains as it was when it was adopted. Take—the kestra’chern. I am told that Amberdrake is a kestra’chern among your people?”

  Zhaneel nodded proudly. “He is good! Very good. Perhaps as good or better than Silver Veil. He was friend to Urtho, the Mage of Silence.” To her mind, there could be no higher praise.

  “And yet he has no rank, he offers his services to whom he chooses, and he is one of your envoys.” Makke shook her head. “Such a thing would not be possible here. Kestra’chern are strictly ranked and classed according to talent, knowledge, and ability. Each rank may only perform certain services, and may only serve the nobles and noble households of a particular rank. No kestra’chern may offer his services to anyone above or below that rank for which he is authorized. This, so Silver Veil told me once, is precisely as the kestra’chern first served in the north, five hundred years ago, when the Murasa Emperor Shelass declared that they were to be taken into our land. I believe her, for she is wise and learned.”

  Zhaneel blinked. Such a thing would never have occurred to her, and she stored all of this away in her capacious memory to tell Skan later. No one can rise or fall? So where is the incentive to do a good job?

  “We are ruled by our scribes in many ways,” Makke
continued, a little ruefully. “All must be documented, and each of us, even the lowest of farmers and street sweepers, is followed through his life by a sheaf of paper in some Imperial Scribe’s possession. The higher one’s rank, the more paper is created. The Emperor has an entire archive devoted only to him. But he was born to be Emperor, and he cannot abdicate. He was trained from birth, and he will die in the Imperial robes. As I will be a cleaning woman for all this life, even though I have studied as much as many of higher birth to satisfy my curiosity, so he will be Emperor.”

  “But what about the accumulation of wealth?” Zhaneel asked. “If you cannot rise in rank, surely you can earn enough to make life more luxurious?” That would be the only incentive that I can imagine for doing well in such a system.

  But Makke shook her head again. “One may acquire wealth to a certain point, depending upon one’s rank, but after that, it is useless to accumulate more. What one is decrees what one may own; beyond a certain point, money is useless when one has all one is permitted by law to have. Once one has the home, the clothing, the possessions that one may own under law, what else is left? Luxurious food? The company of a skilled mekasathay? The hire of entertainers? Learning purely for the sake of learning? It is better to give the money to the temple, for this shows generosity, and the gods will permit one to be reborn into a higher rank if one shows virtues like generosity. I have given the temple many gifts of money, for besides dispensing books and teachers, the temple priests speak to the gods about one’s virtue—all my gifts are recorded carefully, of course—and I will probably give the temple as many more gifts as I can while I am in this life.”

  Zhaneel could hardly keep her beak from gaping open. “This is astonishing to me,” Zhaneel managed. “I can’t imagine anyone I know living within such restrictions!”

  Makke fanned herself and smiled slowly. “Perhaps they do not seem restrictive to us,” she suggested.

  “Makke?” Zhaneel added, suddenly concerned. “These things you tell me—is this forbidden, too?”

  Makke sighed, but more with impatience than with weariness. “Technically, I could be punished for telling you these things in the way that I have told you, and some of the other things I have imparted to you are pieces of information that people here do not talk about, but I am old, and no one would punish an old woman for being blunt and speaking the truth.” She laughed. “After all, that is one of the few advantages of age, is it not? Being able to speak one’s mind? Likely, if anyone knowing your tongue overheard me, the observation would be that I am aged, infirm, and none too sound in my mind. And if I were taken to task for my words, that is precisely what I would say.” Makke’s smile was wry. “There are those who believe my interest in books and scholarly chat betokens an unsound mind anyway.”

  “But this is outside of my understanding and experience. It will take me a while to think in this way. In the meantime, what must we do to keep from making any dreadful mistakes?” Zhaneel asked, bewildered by the complexity of bureaucracy that all this implied.

  ‘Trust Silver Veil,” Makke replied, leaning forward to emphasize her advice and gesturing emphatically with her fan. “She knew something of the Courts before she arrived here, and she has been here long enough to know where all the pit traps and deadfalls are. She can keep you from disaster, but what is better, she can keep you from embarrassment. I cannot do that. I do not know enough of the higher stations.”

  “Because we can probably avoid disaster, but we might miss a potential for embarrassment?” Zhaneel hazarded, and Makke nodded.

  And in a society like this one, surely embarrassment could be as deadly to our cause as a real incident. Oh, these people are so strange!

  “There is something else that I believe you must know,” Makke continued. “And since we are alone, this is a good time to give you my warning. Something of what Gesten said makes me think that the Gryphon Lord is also a worker of magic?”

  Zhaneel nodded; something in Makke’s expression warned her not to do so too proudly. She looked troubled and now, for the first time, just a little fearful.

  ‘Tell him—tell him he must not work any magics, without the explicit sanction of King Shalaman or Palisar, the Speaker to the Gods,” Makke said urgently but in a very soft voice, as she glanced around as if to be certain that they were alone in the garden. “Magic is—is strictly controlled by the Speakers, the priests, that is. The ability to work magic is from the hands of the gods, the knowledge of how to use it is from the teachers, and the knowledge of when to use it must be decreed by priest or Emperor.”

  Zhaneel clicked her beak. “How can that be?” she objected. “Mages are the most willful people I know!”

  Makke only raised her eyebrows. “Easily. When a child is born with that ability, he is taken from his parents by the priests before he reaches the age of seven, and they are given a dower-portion to compensate them for the loss of a child. The priests raise him and train him, then, from the age of seven to eighteen, when they return to their families, honored priests and Scholars. I say ‘he,’ though they take female children as well, though females are released at sixteen, for they tend to apply themselves to study better than boys in the early years, and so come to the end of training sooner.”

  “That still doesn’t explain how the priests can keep them under such control,” Zhaneel retorted.

  “Training,” Makke said succinctly. “They are trained in the idea of obedience, so deeply in the first year that they never depart from it. This, I know, for my only daughter is a priest, and all was explained to me. That, in part, is why I was given leave to study and learn, so that I might understand her better when she returned to me. The children are watched carefully, more carefully than they guess. If one is found flawed in character, if he habitually lies, is a thief, or uses his powers without leave and to the harm of others, he is—” she hesitated, then clearly chose her words with care. “He is removed from the school and from magic. Completely.”

  A horrible thought flashed through Zhaneel’s mind at the ominous sound of that. “Makke!” she exclaimed, giving voice to her suspicions, “You don’t mean that they—they kill him, do you?”

  “In the old days, they did,” Makke replied solemnly. “Magic is a terrible power, and not for hands that are unclean. How could anyone, much less a priest, allow someone who was insane in that way to continue to move in society? But that was in the old days—now, the priests remove the ability to touch magic, then send the child back to his family.” She shrugged. “It would be better for him, in some ways, if they did kill him.”

  “Why?” Zhaneel blurted, uncomprehendingly.

  “Why, think, Gryphon Lady. He can no longer touch magic. He returns to his family in disgrace. Everyone knows that he is fatally flawed, so no one will trust him with anything of any consequence. No woman would wed him, with such a disgrace upon him. He will, when grown, be granted no position of authority within his rank. If his rank and caste are low, he will be permitted only the most menial of tasks within that caste, and only under strict supervision. If he comes from high estate, he will be an idle ornament, also watched closely.” Makke shook her head dolefully. “I have seen one of that sort, and he was a miserable creature. It was a terrible disgrace to his family, and worse for him, for although he is a man grown, he is given no more responsibility than a babe in napkins. He is seldom seen, but the lowest servant is happier than he. He is of very high caste, too, so let me assure you that no child is immune from this if a flaw is discovered in him.”

  Zhaneel shook her head. “Isn’t there anything that someone like that can do?”

  Makke shrugged. “The best he could do would be to try to accumulate wealth to grant to the temple so that the gods will give him an incarnation with no such flaws in the next lifetime. It would be better to die, I think, for what is a man or a woman but their work, and how can one be a person without work?”

  Zhaneel was not convinced, but she said nothing. At least the Black Kings c
ertainly seemed to have a system designed to prevent any more monsters like Kiamvir Ma’ar! There was something to be said for that.

  Almost anything that prevented such a madman from getting the kind of power Ma’ar had would be worth bearing with, I think. Almost. And assuming that the system is not fatally flawed.

  “Have the priests ever—made a mistake?” she asked, suddenly.

  “Have they ever singled out a child who was not flawed for this punishment, you mean?” Makke asked. Then she shook her head. “Not to my knowledge, and I have seen many children go to the temples over the years. Truly, I have never seen one rejected that was not well-rejected. This is not done lightly or often, you know. The one I spoke of? He has no compassion; he uses whomever he meets, with no care for their good or ill. Whilst his mother lived, he used even her for his own gain, manipulating her against her worthier offspring. There are many of lesser caste who have learned of his flawed nature to their sorrow or loss.”

  Zhaneel chewed a talon thoughtfully.

  ‘There is one other thing,” Makke said, this time in a softer and much more reluctant voice. “I had not intended to speak of this, but I believe now perhaps I must, for I see by your face that you find much of what I have said disturbing.”