Firekeeper Saga - Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart Part 24

"When do you leave for the seaside?"

"Tomorrow or the day after," Citrine replied. "I've only stayed this long because Mother thought I should be seen at the party."

Once again, the little girl was clearly echoing her mother's words, but without Elise's broader knowledge of the intrigue in which Lady Melina might be involved they did not trouble her. To Elise, however, that "should be seen" had a distinctly ominous ring. She put her worries from her with an effort.

"Well, then," Elise said brightly, "you should indeed be seen. Come with me and we'll wash that smudge off your nose and then we'll see if we can't find a pair of gallant souls who want to dance."

Citrine glowed and put her fingers confidently in Elise's hand. As they went on their quest for partners, Elise found herself wishing that she had a brother for Citrine to marry. Then she chuckled to herself: There you go, arranging other people's lives in the same fashion you yourself have been resisting.

Maybe Citrine wouldn't want to marry your brother-if you had one-or maybe he wouldn't want to marry her!

Still, though she laughed the thought away, Elise felt vaguely awkward, understanding for the first time from her heart-rather than merely from lessons in etiquette and procedure-how and why her parents might want to arrange their only daughter's life.

It was not comfortable to realize that their interests might be directed toward insuring Elise's own happiness, rather than merely working toward their own gain. And this realization made it even harder for Elise to resist their desires.

With Citrine trying hard to walk in a dignified fashion beside her-but nonetheless bouncing just a bit-Elise made her way to where two young scions of Bright Bay's n.o.bility stood sipping punch and studying the dancers.

"I understand," Elise said, smiling, "that the next dance is Clover in Springtime. My cousin and I thought you might not know it and would enjoy showing you the steps."

Both of the young men-boys really would be a fairer term-colored while still managing to look quite pleased.

"We'd be honored," said the elder of the two-a youth of perhaps fifteen. "We've seen it danced at a few other events here in Eagle's Nest, but it isn't done in Bright Bay."

"Though," his friend said with an almost scholarly thoughtfulness, surprising in one who couldn't be more than thirteen, "it does resemble the dance we call Dolphin Pod-at least in some steps and the general cadence of the music."

Conversation came easily as-after introducing themselves-Elise and Citrine showed the young men what they would need to know to comport themselves with sufficient skill. When the current dance ended and the two couples proceeded out onto the floor, Elise glimpsed an expression of proud satisfaction onher father's face before Baron Archer returned to his conversation with another of the foreign guests.

Not all our victories are won on the battlefield, Elise thought as the music began and she subtly steered her partner through the first steps. The most important ones may be won in places like this.

Elise's satisfaction at this thought, however, was muted by a glimpse of Lady Melina entering the room, attended by a small entourage of men-Baron Endbrook of the Isles among them. Elise concealed a shiver, thinking that Lady Melina was far more skilled than she at manipulating the social battlefield and wondering what victories the older woman might have already achieved.

Baron Endbrook had stopped feeling in the least bit nervous. Arranging for horses, driver, and wagon had been so much like tasks he had performed dozens of times before in the course of his varied shipping ventures that the entire realm of international intrigue was beginning to seem simply like another business deal.

Indeed, why shouldn't international politics be conducted so? Wasn't the principle much the same?

Queen Valora, Lady Melina, the New Kelvinese-even himself-each wanted something, each had something to trade. In the end, with a bit of give-and-take, a touch of compromise, everyone should be more or less satisfied.

Even the element of secrecy wasn't unfamiliar. Too many good trades could be queered if the information got out too soon. Most of the deals that had made Waln's fortune had been conducted in secret.

The day following the Redbriar/Shield fete, Baron Endbrook joined Duke Marek and his diplomatic entourage in departing for Port Haven. Although he had not said he was leaving the mainland, it was to Baron Endbrook's taste that most think he was gone. In this way he would avoid the complications of continued social and business invitations. He'd been surprised at how eager Hawk Haven's monied elements had been to talk the possibilities of seaborne trade. They might have been from Waterland rather than genteel, nearly landlocked Hawk Haven.

There was a good, straight road between Hawk Haven's one port and her capital city. After the Isles diplomatic party had ridden a few hours out from the capital, Waln changed to a fresh horse and picked up his pace. He had many reasons to get to the port before the others, and his companions-knowing the queen's favor was upon the baron-asked no questions.

Waln's first task upon arriving in Port Haven would be to finalize arrangements for Citrine Shield's captivity. After some rather heated argument with Lady Melina, Waln had agreed that the little girl would not be taken to the Isles-her mother had expressed reasonable enough concern regarding the late-autumn storms.

What Lady Melina did not know, nor did Waln feel she needed to know, was that Baron Endbrook had never intended to take Citrine across the waters. It would actually be more difficult to hide her on the Isles rather than in her native land. Instead, he had arranged to stow her in an isolated tower-a failed lighthouse in the swamps north of Port Haven near the Waterland border and more accessible from the ocean than from the land.

The tower might have failed as a lighthouse, but it had succeeded admirably as a drop point for smuggled goods going into Waterland across the swamps. Hawk Haven was traditionally weak at sea, so it could not effectively prevent traffic in those tricky waters. Waterland, in her turn, risked violation of its alliance with Hawk Haven if it was too blatant in its fleet's attacks in the neighboring waters.The swamps made an effective barrier by land, though when Princess Lovella had been alive, she had trained some of her elite forces in the area and had nearly vanquished the smugglers for a time. But Lovella was dead these two or more years and no one else had cared to take up the challenge-especially since the pirates scrupulously left Port Haven alone and concentrated their force on Bright Bay and, when necessary, Waterland.

Therefore, the tower had become a pirate stronghold: a mainland base for those who raided the waters in the region and a point from which they could disperse at least some of their goods without fear of retaliation-and without paying the high' prices charged by go-betweens ash.o.r.e.

The swamp dwellers had long learned to avoid Smuggler's Light, as it had come to be called, no matter what they heard or saw in its vicinity, so Citrine should be quite secure.

That the smuggled goods included slaves was all to Waln's taste. Should Lady Melina betray him, Citrine could vanish into the Waterland markets none the wiser. That her mind might be damaged by numbing drugs or her tongue cut to keep her from telling who she was certainly was a pity, but if her mother kept her word, Citrine would be safe as a clam in its sh.e.l.l.

Baron Endbrook had made certain that Lady Melina knew what her daughter was risking as an added a.s.surance that Citrine would indeed prove bond against her mother's treachery. He thought he owed the little girl at least that much consideration.

Perhaps there would be some in Hawk Haven who would be surprised to learn that a respectable merchant had contacts with pirates and smugglers, but none would be in Bright Bay. It had long been a problem for the Bright Bay navy that some otherwise respectable Islanders worked with the pirates-sometimes merely by hiding them, other times by shipping stolen goods under legitimate seal, still other times by joining in the occasional sea battle on the side of the pirates.

The Islanders justified this as insurance against pirate actions directed toward their own vessels-a form of patriotism-for it meant that the pirates chose to prey on mainlanders instead.

In addition to arranging for Citrine's incarceration, Baron Endbrook must also retrieve the precious artifacts he had stored in a secure warehouse in Port Haven. The warehouse owner's register showed that he was holding a crate of dried fish. If he believed that there was anything more within the crate, he had been paid to look the other way. However, if despite that payment he had looked, he would have discovered a couple of casks of very expensive, highly tariffed wine from a land south of Stonehold. The box with the enchanted objects was within one of these casks, hidden in a secret compartment around which liquid sloshed quite convincingly.

Waln had checked and found that each of the three artifacts was packaged separately, each so securely that the contents did not rattle. As the largest of the boxes was only about the length of his shoe-though much flatter-Waln had arranged to stow the boxes in a st.u.r.dy leather bag with straps that permitted him to carry his burden over his shoulder or across his back.

After the boxes were in his saddlebags, Waln planned to proceed north and west-roughly parallel to the swamps. There he would rendezvous with Lady Melina and receive her securities. After these were delivered to their hiding places it would be a simple enough matter to make their way into New Kelvin.

Baron Endbrook was pleased with his arrangements, very pleased. At the close of his most recent letter to Oralia, he had asked his wife what colors of silk she would like for her new gowns and which shades she thought would best suit the girls. He himself would choose the colors for his son.

After all, his family must be well attired when the queen invited them to court.In the middle of their second day of travel Blind Seer slunk up to Firekeeper. The small group had paused in order to let the elk find something to drink and to enable Firekeeper to eat a quick mouthful of cold rabbit and waxy honey.

The feral woman was appalled by the fashion in which the blue-eyed wolf hung his head and by the droop of his tail. For a moment she thought that the One Female must have been reprimanding him; she saw no blood nor even a damp saliva trail on his thick grey fur, so that guess must be wrong.

"What makes your tail droop, dear heart?" she asked, dropping to her knees beside the wolf.

"I must tell you something that makes me sorrowful," Blind Seer replied.

Firekeeper's heart raced with fear. Surely the One Female had not forbidden him to accompany her back into the human lands. True, he did attract attention-attention that she now understood that the Royal Beasts had avoided for many years-but he had been seen, he was known! Concealment at this late date would be like digging after the rabbit once it had bolted out a back tunnel from its burrow.

"Tell" was all she could manage to say, and her tone was unwontedly severe.

"I have lied to you, sweet Firekeeper," the blue-eyed wolf confessed, raising his head so that their gazes must meet.

Normally, Firekeeper would have been horrified, for her faith in the basic honesty of wolf-kind-except perhaps when it came to confessing where they had stashed some h.o.a.rded bit of food-was a belief so deep that she did not even think of it as a belief but instead as Truth.

Now, however, she was so relieved that he didn't plan to leave her that she laughed lightly and punched him in the shoulder.

"Tell me, two-tongued wonder. Tell me of this lie! Have you been too much among humans and so have learned their ways?"

"It was a wolf who taught me to lie," Blind Seer said, something in his folded ears and raised hackles showing that he, too, had been shocked by this violation of Truth. "When first I decided to run east with you and see what lay across the mountains, the One Male came to me."

"He came?" Firekeeper said. "I never knew!"

"He came one of those long afternoons when you believed me asleep and you sat in the human camp learning of their ways. He told me not to tell you of his coming, for he feared a weakening of your resolution. For the same reason, none of our family came to see you off on your journey."

"I wondered at that," Firekeeper admitted, "afterwards, but thought that the pups were so tiny that the pack could not range far."

"My lie," Blind Seer continued, dragging them back to the subject with an almost physical effort, "made you a liar, too, though unknowing, and will force you to continue as one all-knowing."

"For you, dear one, anything," Firekeeper promised. "Now spit out this lie lest it poison you like rotted meat unvomited."

"Before I left with you for the lands east of the Iron Mountains," Blind Seer said, "the One Male came to me and told me thus:" 'Son,' he said, 'when you go east, you may see those who are of Royal-kind-winged folk mostly, but perhaps some others. I bind you to never speak of them to Little Two-legs. She is too young and faces too many challenges to her ideas of the world to be confronted with this as well. Let her believe that the only creatures of our kind who dwell east of the Iron Mountains are those who travel with her-you and the falcon Elation.'

"I agreed readily, nor was it a difficult vow to keep. Even I saw few that I could feel certain were of Royal-kind and these never spoke to me. But on the day that Sapphire and Shad were first wed and I stood on the parapet outside our room longing to be with you and see you in your glory, a gull flew up to me.

"In a few words he told me how Queen Valora and some of her trusted allies waited in the bay, waited in hope that a coup attempt would succeeded. The gull suggested that I warn you of their presence, that I put you on your guard. When I asked how I should do this without telling you how I knew-when later you asked as you surely must-the gull pecked me on my nose and said: " 'I suggest you claim to have scented the queen. Humans are nose-dead and the child'-by which the gull meant you-'is credulous regarding the power of wolves.' I protested, but could not think of any better solution. Moreover, I felt I must warn you lest your death come from my failure."

He finished and his great head hung so low that it touched the ground. Firekeeper seized it and pressed it to her heart.

"I forgive you your lie, dearest. You were trapped between honorable obligations."

She laughed, still light-headed from her relief.

"And I was not so credulous as the gull believed-I simply thought you the best at scenting distant odors of any wolf ever born."

Blind Seer shook his head from her hold and licked her cheek. They rolled together in play, as if for a moment both were puppies again. Too soon did the One Female summon them, and Firekeeper hauled herself onto the elk's back once more.

Her muscles seemed to ache less; however, a new uneasiness had entered her thoughts following Blind Seer's tale. If the wolves had lied to her-even if merely by omission-what about those other interesting gaps in the various stories she had heard during the last few days, what about the times the teller had paused and then hurried on?

Firekeeper might have agreed to do as the Royal Beasts commanded her, but in the silent depths of her heart she was uncertain. She remembered what King Tedric and King Allister had said about the risk of war if Queen Valora felt herself threatened. Firekeeper didn't know if she could face the brutality of another war-especially since this time she would know herself its creator.

Caught within a mesh woven of old fears and new, she was relieved when Blind Seer reminded the One Female of her promise to tell the story of the songbirds. Perhaps the defiant note in his request came from similar uneasiness or, perhaps, his conscience now clear, he simply wanted entertainment for the way.

Whatever the reason, when the One Female tried to put off the tale, the blue-eyed wolf pressed.

"You said we might hear, Mother."

The One Female ran on, as mute as the day's old snow.

The elk, surprisingly, forced the issue."Let the little ones hear the story of the songbirds," he said, "for it is a part of our history they should know-an ugly tale, but no less useful for that. They are your pups, so I will give you precedence in their teaching, but if you refuse, I shall tell them."

The One Female snarled so that all her fangs showed and her hackles were stiff along her neck, but though Firekeeper felt the elk tense for flight, the she-wolf did not spring.

"Very well," the One Female conceded. "I am fairly trapped between a swift river and a raging fire. I will teach my pups, though among our people such stories are not told to any but the Ones."

"And are these not," the elk said with a mildness that bespoke a desire to save face for the wolf, "these two as Ones when they venture east alone? Surely they will have no pack heads to guide them. If we do not give them wisdom, we are dooming them to failure."

The she-wolf's hackles relaxed and her expression became thoughtful.

"I had not considered that point. To our pack, Little Two-legs has been our pup forever, but you are right, Steady Runner. I owe these two a teaching and suspect I resist because the tale does no credit to any of our kind."

Without further delay, the One Female began: "Long ago, so long ago that even the fixed stars have moved since those days, the Royal Beasts were the rulers of this land-even into the reaches beyond the broad river to the west and to the ocean beyond it.

Through the winged folk and the water folk we sent out emba.s.sies to other places and were regarded as great among the powers of the earth.

"But great powers must sometimes fight to keep their greatness and so the Royal Beasts fought. Those wars are not part of this tale, however. Suffice to say that because of the fighting certain of our kind became very important-among them the raptors of the air and the hunting beasts of the land.

"Now, in those days, there were Royal-kind such as are not seen in these lands today. These were the songbirds and the smaller game animals. Like all others of Royal-kind, they were gifted with somewhat greater size, somewhat longer lives, and occasional magical talents.

"The hunters among the Royal Beasts considered these fair game, fair but difficult to catch. Usually, hunting Cousin-kind was a better return on effort.

"But in those long-ago days, the hunting beasts of air and land became arrogant. They said to each other: 'Why should we make our meals mostly on those creatures of Cousin blood? They are smaller and less filling. Nor does hunting them hone our skills as they must be honed for us to serve as the warriors for our land. The Royal deer, elk, rabbits, and squirrels-as well as the song and game birds-were clearly created for our meals.'

"They spoke thus only to each other and soon the idea spread. At first, the songbirds and herbivores were none the wiser-accepting their losses as part of the natural order. However, eventually the bears and racc.o.o.ns and other such who ate both meat and plants learned of the concerted effort being made to exclusively hunt Royal-kind. They became uneasy, for they did not know whether they would be grouped with the prey or the predators.

"Thus these in-betweens spoke to the herbivores and the songbirds and the game birds, and these were horrified to learn that they were now being sought out as prey rather than falling to the hunter as in the normal course of things. In fact, in the flurry to hunt only Royal-kind, many of the Cousins were slain andleft to rot as not fine enough for Royal stomachs.

"The songbirds protested both this abuse and the waste, but to no avail.

" 'What use in a songbirds?' gibed the raptors. 'What use is a grouse or rabbit?' laughed the wolves and pumas. 'We shall eat them and grow fat and-well-if some escape, all for the good for that means more interesting hunting in the future.' "

The One Female fell silent, using as an excuse for her silence the fact that the terrain they were crossing-a pa.s.s between two low mountains-was steep and that she and Blind Seer must break a path in the snow so that the elk could follow with greater ease.

Firekeeper, however, could see the silver wolf's embarra.s.sment at reporting this ancient folly. However, when they were through the worst of the snow and into better land, the One Female conquered her embarra.s.sment and resumed: "In time spring pa.s.sed into summer and around the seasons until spring again, but this spring brought with it hordes of insects. There were little ones of the air that bit noses and swarmed in eyes; there were fat gra.s.shoppers who stripped the land of gra.s.s and the trees of leaves.

"Needless to say, without sufficient grazing and browsing, the deer and elk and other game animals grew thin. Even fish became difficult to catch, for the starving herbivores had stripped the riverbanks of every growing thing. Thus, when the rains beat down their water they flayed the soil from the banks, turning the swiftly flowing streams to mud torrents, and choking the creatures who lived within them.

" 'What use is a songbird?' sang the few surviving songbirds. 'What use a grouse or a rabbit?' And the wolves grown lean and hungry, the pumas grooming tatty fur over jutting ribs, listened to the song and were humbled.

"As a token of their change of heart-their admission of the waste and destruction they had permitted-the Royal hunters ceased hunting the Royal songbirds and game birds and the land-bound herbivores though they were starving for a good feed."

Firekeeper felt as much as heard the indignant snort of the elk who carried her. The One Female must have as well, for she moderated her fierce enthusiasm for this particular element in her account.

"Yet," the One Female went on with an unreadable glance toward the elk, "this admission of wrongdoing was not sufficient-still the hunters must be punished.

"The surviving songbirds-made fat on gra.s.shoppers and other insects or on gra.s.s seed too small for others to find-guided flocks of their Cousin-folk to sheltered places where the raptors could not see them. The rabbits fortified their Cousins' burrows with clever twisting and turning. The grouse and other ground birds played decoy for their less clever kin-and often led the exhausted hunters on a meatless chase. The elk and deer hid their Cousin-folk in their own secret yards. So it seemed that the Royal hunters must all starve."

The elk muttered, "Fair enough, for-as our senior cows tell this part of the story-we were starving alongside our tormentors though we were guiltless. Realizing that the wolves and pumas would slay the weakest and so survive while we still died, we struggled to punish those who had violated ancient custom and brought this doom upon guilty and innocent alike."

To Firekeeper's surprise, the One Female did not growl at this interruption or take offense at this criticism. Instead, she gave a single low wag of her well-furred tail in acknowledgment of the other's pointof view.

"I did say," the One Female said, "that we hate this tale."

The elk bugled shrilly in laughter. "But you tell it well, with only the least flavoring of self-pity. Speak on, she-wolf, you are almost come to an end."

"Even the carrion vanished," the One Female continued, "gobbled up at a fantastic rate by the crows and ravens and jays, for corvid kin had sided with the seed-and bug-eating members of the winged folk, turning away from those of us who had long permitted them to share our hunting.

"The bears and racc.o.o.ns and wild pigs helped drive us from even these poor meals-for less restricted in what they could eat they were stronger than we-and they stood us off when we would have sacrificed eyes and ears to the beaks of the corvid kin in return for a mouthful of rotting meat.

"And when the starving was nearly complete, when the ribs of every wolf stood out like tree branches in winter, when the pumas lacked the strength to groom even the paws they rested their heavy heads upon, when the foxes considered their own fleas fine dining, then an emba.s.sy came to the eaters of meat, an emba.s.sy of those we had in our arrogance taken to be our rightful prey.

"A fat robin sat upon a tree branch and whistled, 'What use a songbird?' A wolf replied, 'We have ceased to hunt the Royal Beasts. We are humbled to death. What do you want?'

" 'A promise,' said the robin, 'that you will never do this again, that you will teach your children of your folly.'

"The wolf, speaking for all the hunters, said, 'We gladly give this promise. From this day forth, no Royal Beast will be preferred game, but will only be hunted as before-when made vulnerable by the course of life.'

"The robin bobbed acceptance, but was not yet content. 'And we demand an apology from all of you for thinking that simply because you could slay our enemies you had earned the right to view any living thing as your enemy. We want an apology for the wasted lives-both kin and Cousin-that were spent in your pride.'