Through Wolf's Eyes (19 page)

"Yes for horse," she said. "No for Blysse. My name not Blysse. Wolf call me Firekeep. Firekeeper."

Derian had eventually been able to teach her the verb
"to keep"—not an easy concept, but one made easier to explain once they
were settled where so many things were kept: keys at the Steward's
belt, food in the pantry, clothing in a press.

"Firekeeper," he repeated. Then, realizing he sounded much like her, he asked, "Why? Why Firekeeper?"

She touched the bag containing flint and steel hanging around her neck. "King Wolf, Queen Wolf, give me. Teach me."

She scowled, perhaps reading the disbelief in his
eyes. Quickly Derian schooled his expression to polite attentiveness
and hoped that Race would do the same. He'd gone to great trouble to
teach Firekeeper hierarchical titles and had found that she grasped the
concept, if not the words, with amazing ease. If she said King Wolf,
she meant the wolf with the most authority.

"King Wolf," he prompted, "gave them to you."

"King Wolf, Queen Wolf," she insisted. "No wolf make fire but me. I am Firekeeper."

Derian let this go, his head reeling with the
implications of this simple statement. Not only was he to believe that
Blysse could understand what wolves said, he was also to believe that
they could teach her how to strike fire with flint and steel.

More disturbing still was Blysse's repeated identification of herself with these wolves.

"Blysse . . ." he began, then corrected himself when
she growled and the wolf beside her raised his hackles. "Fire-keeper,
you are not a wolf. You are a human, like me, like Race."

"I am wolf," she said placidly. "Wolf with two legs and no fur, but wolf in blood."

Race put his hand on Derian's arm. "Leave it, Derian.
Leave it. We must get on the road and before we do so, you'd better
decide whether or not you want to warn Earl Kestrel about this new
development with his niece."

"Or if I want to risk Steward Daisy sending word
ahead by pigeon." Derian pressed at his eyes, feeling a headache coming
on. "How can I tell Earl Kestrel that Blysse . . . I mean Firekeeper .
. . thinks she's a wolf?"

"Don't," Race said practically, "but warn him about
her unusual companions. We have at least a week on the road to figure
out what to do about the rest. More if the weather's bad."

"At least a week," Derian repeated, turning blindly
back toward the keep, mentally drafting his message. "This is going to
be a very, very interesting ride."

U
SUALLY, ELISE ENJOYED
a chance to meet with her cousins. Being related to the king, even so
relatively distant a relation as a grandniece, was a difficult role.
There were so few people to whom you were just another person, who
could forget that royal shadow looming over you. Being heir to House
Archer only complicated the matter.

In all honesty, she admitted, the barony hardly
mattered right now. Neither her grandmother Rosene nor her great-uncle
Gadman had ever let anyone forget that they and their descendants were
royal kin. Theirs had been a harmless enough pretention, one good for
the best seats at public games and partners at dances until Crown
Princess Lovella had been killed in battle. Then the entire succession
affair had opened up, quietly at first, then with greater and greater
intensity when King Tedric refused to name a new heir quickly.

Now a gathering of cousins was a little like a
gathering of wolves, each knowing that there could be only one head of
the pack. Even those like herself who weren't certain they wanted to be
that head were even less certain that they wanted anyone else to be so.

"You can almost hear the growling," she murmured to
herself, taking a goblet of wine from a tray held by a polite servant
and going to sit beside her cousin Purcel.

Named for their mutual grandfather, the war hero Purcel
Archer,
Purcel Trueheart was a powerfully built youth of fifteen, who had
already distinguished himself in several skirmishes, earning himself
the rank of lieutenant.

Courage was not Purcel's only asset. His budding
tactical sense had also been tested several times. These days, when he
was called to his commanders' tents, it was not mere flattery that gave
him a place at their councils. Many argued that Purcel was the single
best reason for his mother, Lady Zorana, to be named crown princess,
for at her death she would be succeeded by a proven battlefield
commander.

Watching Purcel slurp down his beer and munch peanuts
in ill-concealed boredom, Elise wondered. Warlord, yes, and welcome to
it. King? As King Tedric had proven, a good king must be able to reign
as well as to command. Both Aunt Zorana and Great-Aunt Rosene argued
that Purcel would learn patience and discretion as he matured. Given
the familial longevity—the descendants of Zorana the Great seemed to
live long lives if they survived their childhoods— Zorana would reign
for many years herself before joining the ancestors, and Purcel could
learn the skills necessary to be a monarch from her.

Elise wondered, though, if a man who from his
youngest years had been praised for quick, decisive action could learn
to reflect and consider rather than charge ahead.

Purcel brightened visibly as she seated herself next
to him. Two years apart in age, they had become close playmates once
she had stopped dismissing him as a baby. Even when he was three and
she a mature and thoughtful five, he had loved to trot about on a pony
as chubby as he was, playacting the role of a soldier protecting his
lady cousin.

"Elise," Purcel said warmly by way of greeting, "want a peanut?"

She took one to please him, though the oily things
tended to make her face break out. Purcel seemed immune to this bane of
adolescence, though she still nursed hopes.

"Thank you, cousin." She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "How was your ride into the capital?"

"Not bad, the roads were muddy, but we managed . . ."

What followed was a long dissertation on thrown
horseshoes,
partially washed-out bridges, troops needing to be kept from foraging
in newly planted fields, and other minutiae of military life. Elise
listened with one ear, nodding when appropriate, her gaze surveying the
others gathered in the room.

They were a small enough group given that King
Chalmer fathered five children and that each of those children had at
least one child. However, Princess Marras's little ones had died as
babies. King Tedric's three were gone now, all dying without issue
except for Barden, whose name was still a curse to his father.

Princess Caryl, King Chalmer's third child, had been
married away into the kingdom of Bright Bay, her father's pledge to a
peace that lasted only a few years. Caryl's departure meant that just
Grand Duke Gadman and Grand Duchess Rosene remained. Each of these had
produced two children, but Grand Duke Gadman's Nydia had died long
before Elise herself was born. In memory, Elise's aunt Zorana had named
her first daughter Nydia, though the girl was more commonly called Dia.

Just ten of them, unless one counted Allister
Seagleam's four children, far away in Bright Bay. Elise found it odd to
think that those four—one older than her, the rest all younger—were as
close kin to her as were Lord Rolfston's four: grandchildren of her
grandmother's brother.

Banishing the faraway Seagleams from consideration,
Elise concentrated on the ten gathered here. Any one could become crown
prince or princess of the kingdom of Hawk Haven if luck was with them.
The chief contenders for that honor were Purcel, as his mother's
eldest, Sapphire, as Lord Rolfston's eldest, and herself. However, some
courtiers whispered that if King Tedric was going to name an heir why
did he need to follow the strict order of precedence? He should choose
instead some young grandniece or grandnephew, someone he could shape
and teach during whatever years remained to him.

A voice, loud and piercing, cut into Elise's revery.

"Elise! Elise! Darling cousin, you look wonderful!"

Quickly Elise set down her wine goblet, knowing that this
gushing
greeting would be followed by an equally enthusiastic embrace, and not
really wanting to spill wine on her new pale pink, rosebud-embroidered
gown.

Sapphire Shield was the eldest of their generation, a
buxom young woman of twenty-three with dark, blue-black hair, a pointed
chin, and eyes the color of her namesake gem. She had been engaged
several times, always into very advantageous matches, but had never
taken her vows.

Elise knew perfectly well that politics, not romance,
had ruled each of these arrangements, but Sapphire enjoyed mooning
about after each broken engagement, acting as if her heart were truly
broken. Such behavior might make those who didn't know her dismiss her
as flighty and shallow, but Elise was not fooled.

Sapphire Shield was heir to the comfortable holdings
accumulated through both her Redbriar and Shield family connections.
Riki Redbriar, a scion of House Goshawk, had brought a considerable
dowry into her marriage to Grand Duke Gadman, a good thing since
members of the House of the Eagle were all essentially landless—merely
comfortable life tenants on crown-held lands.

Their son Rolfston Redbriar had made a good marriage
to Melina Shield. Melina's dowry had included several nice holdings
adjoining lands Riki Redbriar would eventually pass on to her son.
Although claiming no title higher than Lady, Melina also brought with
her the prestige of the Shield name and membership within the House of
the Gyrfalcon for her children.

Queen Zorana the First had been a Shield and the
Gyrfalcons were still considered first among the Great Houses.
Therefore, as Lady Melina never wearied of telling anyone who would
listen, her children were kin to the first queen of Hawk Haven both
through their father, who was her great-grandson, and through their
mother, who was some sort of cousin.

No
, thought Elise,
Sapphire never forgets who she is, no matter how flightily she behaves at functions like this
.

As of this moment, that behavior included a crushing hug,
compliments on Elise's dress (including insincere wishes that
she
could wear pink), and other such prattle.

Elise politely prattled back, though she rather
wished she could snort, as Purcel did, and stalk off on the thin excuse
of needing another tankard of beer.

"So tell me, Castle Flower," Sapphire said, bending
her head close to Elise's, "why do you think Uncle Tedric has summoned
us all here?"

King Tedric, was, of course, Sapphire's great-uncle,
as he was Elise's, but Sapphire often chose to minimize the degree of
their relation. Among her peers, she had made no secret that she
considered herself practically crown princess already. After all, her
father was Grand Duke Gadman's only surviving child and Grand Duke
Gadman should have been named King Tedric's heir immediately following
Crown Princess Lovella's death two years before.

Elise thought Sapphire overconfident, but there was
no gain in telling her so, especially since Sapphire was more likely to
become crown princess than Elise herself was, no matter that their
relationship to the king was the same. Simply speaking, Sapphire had
better connections.

Instead of making excuses to escape after Purcel,
Elise considered the best way of answering Sapphire's question. As the
nickname "Castle Flower" suggested, Sapphire was among those who
assumed that Elise's familiarity with the structure had made her privy
to all its occupants' secrets.

"Well," Elise said, looking into her goblet as if the
dark red wine held mysteries, "I think it must have something to do
with Earl Kestrel, don't you?"

Sapphire, torn between a desire to probe further and
a desire to seem to know more than her younger cousin, gave in to the
latter impulse.

"I do think so." She leaned so she was nearly
whispering into Elise's ear. "The senior porter at the Kestrels' city
manse fancies my maid. He told her that a week ago a closed carriage
came to the manse. The courtyard was cleared and Earl Kestrel ordered
everyone away from the windows. Then someone or something was brought
into the manse, cloistered in one ground-floor wing. No one but four
servants and Earl
Kestrel's cousin, Sir Jared Surcliffe, have been allowed in there since."

Sapphire looked at Elise, but Elise refused to show
the least sign that she, too, had heard some version of this tale. Let
Sapphire think she knew more than the Castle Flower. She might give
away something Elise didn't know.

"They do say," Sapphire continued with relish, "that
strange sounds are heard from the closed wing and that Earl Kestrel's
bodyguard has been seen in the public markets purchasing great
quantities of raw meat."

Elise raised her eyebrows. This last
was
indeed news.

"Truly?" she asked, playing the sycophant gladly.

"Truly," Sapphire confirmed. "My maid's sister is
married to the cook for a large tavern in the city and he has seen the
bodyguard with his own eyes."

Elise swallowed a flippant impulse to ask with who else's eyes might the cook be expected to see.

"So, what surprise do you think Earl Kestrel has brought?"

But Sapphire had given away as much as she would without getting something in return. She shrugged her pretty white shoulders.

"I have no idea."

Elise was about to suggest something in the line of a
bear for the king to hunt when Jet, Sapphire's younger brother,
sauntered over to join them.

At twenty, Jet Shield looked five years older, his
features rugged under heavy black brows, his hair so thick that it
resisted being tied back in a fashionable queue. His eyes were so dark
that pupil could hardly be distinguished from iris. When his blood was
up, they glittered like the stone for which he was named.