“No, no, this would have been seven days, maybe six, maybe eight. Just past the fat moon.”

Elen choked down an exclamation. “And?” she said as coolly as she could, although her heart pounded.

“She’d gone to see if there were cloudberries left to pick. She came home to tell me there were three ripe patches the archon’s people had missed. She told me she’d seen a griffin scout circling above the ruins of Olludia Halt.”

37 FIVE BASKETS FULL!

The words hit like a spark, hot with import.

A griffin scout.

Elen’s fingers closed over the ornament.

Oflidu went on. “I thought it was childish dreaming. Ever since she first heard stories of the griffin scouts, just a little thing as she was then, she has always said she will grow up to ride a griffin. But that’s impossible for a person of our station. So I thought she was telling a tale about seeing a griffin scout, like she does. We went up the next day, sneaked up. There was a rich haul of berries, just as she said. After we’d gleaned them—five baskets full!—I explored down the slope to where I thought was a fresh mound of tufted feather-grass. I can use that to weave—” Her expression changed, and she bent as if waiting to be whipped. In a ragged whisper, she said, “It … It … It was…”

Elen knew the only ending that made sense. “It was a scout and their griffin. Both dead?”

“Oh. Oh.” Oflidu clutched her stomach as if in pain. “Dead. Yes. Dead. I didn’t look close at the beast. It was so big. So big, and its claws. The scout had been thrown a little ways away. I think the fall killed her. There was so much blood. Head crushed. Brains … what was left. Animals had been at it.”

“You cut off this ornament? It must have been part of the scout’s harness.”

“I did. I don’t know why. I knew I couldn’t sell it.” The shadows under her eyes and the exhausted slump of her shoulders betrayed her desperation. “I can’t even report it. I’ve been so afraid. I didn’t tell my girl, just told her the feather-grass was too old to be of use. Like me. Please don’t let her know. It’s better she not know.”

Elen had never met Oflidu’s grandchild. She only saw the charwoman at the hostel, tending to the fires and the latrines. A sour smell rose from the old woman now, part of it the ash and waste a charwoman dealt with daily, and part of it a miasma of fear. Of vulnerability. Maybe it was the viper in Elen that recognized the scent of prey, she thought with bitter humor, thinking of the haunt and the moon mirror he’d made.