The Curse of the Giant Hogweed Read Online Free

back, I be forever banished from the kingdom and Great-uncle Sfyn will marry off my darling Syglinde to yon scurvy, stinking, caitiff louse Owain.”
    “Your cousin Owain is also interested in your—er—much-betrothed?”
    “She dealt him perforce a lusty buffet with a trencherful of boiled eels but four e’ens agone. Great-uncle Sfyn nigh brast a gut laughing.”
    “Then what are you blethering about? Lady Syglinde is obviously a young woman who knows how to handle herself in a clinch. And if the king is so partial to Owain, why would he have laughed?”
    “It was funny,” Torchyld replied. “I laughed, also. Then I wrapped a brace of eels around Owain’s neck and stuffed their tails down his ugly throat and made him eat them or choke. He broke out in spots next morning. Boiled eels always give Owain spots. Great-uncle Sfyn was still laughing about ye spots, until he found out Ffyffnyr was agone.”
    “How did Ffyffnyr go?”
    “How should I know, prithee? He went. One minute he was there trying to sneak a boiled eel off the banqueting board. The next minute he was gone. Poof.”
    “You observed this poof? That is to say, you actually saw the griffin disappear?”
    “How could I? Have I eyes to see what was and is suddenly not? Anyway, I was up on ye battlements at ye time.”
    “Getting in a spot of troth-plighting while you were fresh and rested, eh?”
    “Nay, I was on guard duty. A castle’s safety rests on its sentries’ eyeballs. We keep aye a sharp lookout for ogres and dragons and marauding armies and suchlike.”
    “See many of them around these parts?”
    “Off and on. Ye know how it be. Anyway, I was up there keen-eyed and vigilant, setting an example to ye lower ranks according to court protocol and military discipline. Had Ffyffnyr flown off, I could not but have seen him. I saw not, so he hath not.”
    “Was he in the habit of flying off?”
    “Nay, Ffyffnyr might take a little spin around ye turrets when he felt ye urge, like any normal griffin, but he cameth always back. Ffyffnyr be no grifflet, ye ken, and he hath been a pet all his life. Great-uncle Sfyn’s own father, Sfynwair ye Compassionate, found him in a cave barely out of ye egg, and brought him back to ye castle for Sfyn to play with. They were babes together, and they’ve grown old together.”
    Torchyld began to cry again. “Curses, it rotteth mine guts to think of yon fat old griffin in some ogre’s stewpot, and Great-uncle Sfyn back there alone in ye banqueting hall with his mustache dragging in his metheglin. He be like to pine away without Ffyff, damn it.”
    “You don’t suppose that’s what somebody had in mind?” Shandy ventured..
    “Ungh?”
    “I don’t want to raise unjust suspicions, Sir Torchyld, but might not one of your uncles, to raise a hypothetical question, have a hankering to become king in his father’s stead? After all, if Prince Edmyr, Prince Edwy, and Prince Edbert all have grown sons of their own, as you told me, they can’t be getting any younger themselves. The longer King Sfyn hangs on, the more likely it appears that certain of his heirs could die without ever getting a whack at me throne, doesn’t it?”
    “Mine uncles be not magicians,” Torchyld protested. “They be but princes. In sooth, they get fed up now and then. I gainsay ye not that it be possible one of them might wish to hurry Great-uncle Sfyn along a trifle gin he foundeth a chance, but look at ye facts. A mere prince wotteth not to make a griffin go poof. A prince can’t do much of anything except ride off on gestes and rescue beautiful princesses from monsters and evil wizards. My uncles have all been down that road long ago. Bethink ye, once a prince hath rescued one beautiful princess, that first princess be like to wax exceeding wroth gin he goeth off and rescueth another. I know because Uncle Edwy tried it. Aunt Edelgysa found out and beaned him with ye thighbone of a sheep.”
    “Gad,” said Shandy. “I