Gryphons are pesky creatures. They start off small, eating rats in the barns, and sharing the milk farmers set out for the cats. But pretty soon they get bigger and start eating the cats, the chickens, and pretty soon the young calves and sheep. I’d heard rumors from the south that a gryphon could grow large enough to carry off a mature stallion.
So naturally when I found one hissing at me from under a bale of hay in the barn, my upbringing taught had me to drive it out, or poison it. If John had been there, he would have attacked it with the hoe and finished it painlessly. But something about the golden, downy feathers that lay against the quivering side as it squeezed under the hay, as far from me as possible, made me stop.
I put the plow away and brushed the mule. Then I fetched a pan of milk and a strip of pork from the storehouse and laid it out in front of the hole in the hay bale where the pest had been laying the whole time, watching me. It wouldn’t go near it as long as I stood there, but as soon as I closed the door behind me, I could hear it scurrying out to slurp desperately at the now warm liquid.
I went back inside and went to sleep. I was exhausted and dreamed of John that night. I dreamed of having his meals ready when he came in from the fields, and going to bed next to him, his hot breath on my back. No field to plow, or hot sun on my face, or flying lions in the barn.
But the next day, there were still two fields to go, the animals and house to tend, and that tiny terror standing over an empty bowl of food, looking up at me pitifully. I kicked the dish away and went about my day, but the gryphon youngling followed me. It didn’t hover close, like a dog, but it was always nearby. It tried to climb the trees by the creak when I got water. It chases the mice while I milked the cows. It basked on a fencepost while I plowed. I chose not waste energy paying attention to it. But at the end of the day, I found myself putting another dish of milk out.
I found it on the doorstep in the morning the next four nights. At first I found this behavior strange and annoying, especially with the clusters of gold down it shed all over the yard as its feathers grew in at an amazing rate. But when Michael came to visit, and tell me about the thief that had been raiding farms all over, it was a strange comfort to have my bright yellow guardian. When Michael asked about the numerous feathers in the yard, I told him that the cats had caught some bright forest bird and eaten in the yard.
It felt so strange, lying to my nephew, especially about a simple barnyard pest. It was like someone else was telling me what to say it. But I knew if I told him, he would want to get rid of it as a favor, and I had no idea how to explain why he shouldn’t. It made perfect sense to kill the thing before it became a problem. But in my own way, I respected the sharp taloned beast. It went about its business, as I did mine, and it had been rather helpful so far. Besides I could always catch it and break its neck later if its ceased being useful. It seems silly now, but that’s how I thought, back before the rumors of the Dragon-Riders rebellion were just beginning.
