Crystal Gryphon by Andre Norton Read Free Book Online Page B

a dalesman. He possessed a quick wit and a gift of song that he used to advantage in the hall at night.
    I heard Dame Math say to one of her women that that one, meaning Toross, could well carry a water horn through life to collect the tears of maids sighing after him. Yet he did nothing to provoke such admiration; never courted their notice, being as ready in riding and practice of arms as any of the men, and well-accepted by them.
    But to me he was a friend such as I had not found before. He taught me the words of many songs and how to finger his own knee-harp. Now and then he would bringme a branch of brilliant leaves clipped at their autumn splendor, or some like trifle to delight the eye.
    Not that he had much time for such pleasures, for this was a bustling time when there was much to be done for the ordering of supplies against the coming of cold days. We stewed some fruits and set them in jars with parchment tied firmly over the mouths; dried other such; brought forth heavy clothing and inspected it for the need of repairs.
    More and more of this Dame Math left to my ordering, as she said that now I was so nigh in years to becoming the lady of my lord's household I must have the experience of such ways. I made mistakes, but I also learned much, because I had no mind to be shamed before strangers in another keep. And I felt more than a little pride when my uncle would notice with approval some dish of my contriving. He had a sweet tooth, and rose and violet sugars spun artfully into flowers were to him an amusing conceit with which to end a meal, and one of my greater triumphs.
    Though I busied myself so by day, and even a little by lamplight in the evening when we dealt with the clothing, yet I could not altogether thrust out of mind some of the thoughts Yngilda had left with me. Thus I did something in secret that otherwise only a much younger maid would have thought on.
    There was a well to the west in the dale that had a story about it—that if one went there when the full moon was reflected on its water surface and cast in a pin, then luck would follow. Thus, not quite believing, yet still drawn by some small hope that perhaps there was luck to be gained by this device, I stole away at moonrise (which was no small task in itself) and cut across the newly harvested fields to the well.
    The night was chill, and I pulled high the hood of my cloak. Then I stood looking down at the silvered reflections in the water and I held out my pin, ready to drop itinto the disk mirrored there. However, before I released it, the reflection appeared to shiver and change into something else. For a long moment I was sure that what I had seen there had been far different from the moon, more like a crystal ball. I must have dropped the pin without being aware, for suddenly there was a troubling of the water, and the vision, if vision it had been, was gone.
    I was so startled that I forgot the small spell-rhyme I should have spoken at that moment. So my luck-bringing was for naught, and I laughed at my own action as I turned and ran from the well.
    That there is ensorcellment and spell-laying in the world we all know. There are the Wisewomen who are learned in such, as well as others, such as the Past-Abbess, who have control over powers most men do not understand. One can evoke some of these powers if one has the gift and the training, but I had neither. Perhaps it is better not to dabble in such matters, Only—why at that moment had I seen again (if I had in truth seen it) that englobed gryphon?
    Gryphon—beneath the folds of my cloak my fingers sought and found the outlines of that beast as it was stitched upon my tabard. It was the symbol of the House of Ulm, to which I was now bound by solemn oath. What was he like, my thoughts spun on, this unseen, unknown lord of mine? Why had he never sent to me such a likeness of himself as Yngilda carried? Monster—Yngilda had no reason to speak spiteful lies, there must lie some core of