Free Crystal Gryphon by Andre Norton Page B

I had been absent from Ulmskeep for perhaps only an hour or two, not for all my life.
    Since I was still considered but a boy and, by custom, of little importance, 1 was able speedily to withdraw from the company of my elders and go to that section of the barracks where the unmarried men of the household were quartered. In deference to my heirship, I was given a small room to myself—a very bare room in which there was a bed, narrow and hard, two stools, and a small table, far less comfortable than my room in die forester's holding.
    A serving lad brought in my saddle bags. I noted that he watched me with open curiosity when he thought I did not mark him, lingering to suggest that he bring me hot water for washing. When I agreed, I thought that he was determined to make the most of his chance to view the “monster” at close quarters and perhaps report his discoveries to his fellows.
    I had laid aside my jerkin and mail by the time hereturned, standing in my padded undercoat, sorting through my clothing for my best tabard with its gryphon symbol. He sidled in with a ewer from which steam arose, watching me as he placed it and a basin on the table, and twitched off a towel he had borne over one shoulder to lay beside it.
    “If you need service, Lord Kerovan—”
    I smoothed out the tabard. Now I deliberately unhooked my undercoat, letting it slide from my body, which was thus bared to the waist. Let him see I was not misshapen. As Jago said, if I clung to my boots, no man could miscall me.
    “You may look me out a shirt—” I gestured toward my bags and then saw he was staring at me. What had he expected? Some horribly twisted body? I glanced down and saw what had become so much a part of me I had forgotten I still wore it—the crystal gryphon. Lifting its chain over my head, I laid it on the table as I washed and saw him eyeing it. Well enough, let him believe that I wore a talisman. Men did so. And one in the form of the symbol of my House was proper.
    He found the shirt and held it for me as I redonned the gryphon. And he hooked my tabard, handed me my belt with its knife-of-pride before he left, doubtless with much to tell his fellows. But when he had gone, I drew the gryphon from hiding and held it in my hand.
    As usual when I held it so, it had a gentle warmth. With that warmth came a sensation of peace and comfort, as if this thing, fashioned long before my first ancestor had ridden into the south dales, had waited all these centuries just to lie in my hand.
    So far all had gone as it should. But before me still lay that ordeal from which my thoughts had shied since first I had known that I must come to Ulmsdale, the meeting with my mother. What could I say to her, or she to me?There lay between us that which no one could hope to bridge—not after all these years.
    I stood there, cupping close the crystal ball and thinking of what I might do or say at a moment which could be put off no longer. Suddenly it was as if someone spoke aloud—yet it was only in my mind. I might have looked through a newly unshuttered window so that a landscape hitherto hidden lay before me.
    The scene was shadowed, and I knew it was not mine to ever walk that way, just as there could be no true meeting between us which would leave us more than strangers. Yet I felt no sense of loss, only as if a burden had been lifted from me, to leave me free. We had no ties; therefore I owed her no more than she willed me to. I would meet her as I would any lady of rank, paying her the deference of courtesy, asking nothing in return. In my hand the globe was warm and glowing. But a sound at the door made me slip that into hiding before I turned to face who stood there.
    I am only slightly over middle height, being slender-boned and spare-fleshed. This youth was tall enough that I must raise my eyes to meet his. He was thick of neck and shoulder, wide of jaw. His hair was a mat of sandy curls so tight he must battle to lay it smooth with any comb.