Through Wolf's Eyes (27 page)

Derian paused, his hand on the latch of the
white-painted board gate, feeling uncomfortably the stranger. The
sensation was not relieved when Damita glanced over and, seeing him,
said in polite, bored tones meant to cover her embarrassment at being
found barefoot and doing kitchen work:

"May I help you, sir? Business enquiries should be made at the side . . ."

She stopped in midphrase, then erupted to her feet,
pea shells flying everywhere. Nearly spilling the stoneware bowl on the
step next to her, she darted down the flagstone walk, familiar again.

"Deri! Deri! You're back."

Derian didn't remember opening the gate, but somehow
he was inside, hugging her to him. Brock threw one arm around his older
brother's waist and hammered on his shoulders, crowing happily.

The initial chaos past, they settled on the steps. Damita
automatically
began shelling peas again, but her mind wasn't on the job and several
times Derian rescued a pod from amid the shucked vegetables.

"I hardly knew you," Damita repeated, "you look so fine."

Of course the leather breaches and heavy woolen
shirts he had worn on the journey west wouldn't have done once the
expeditionary party was settled at the keep and later at the Kestrel
Manse. Earl Kestrel (or Valet, Derian suspected) had sent a new
wardrobe along, some of the items not too different from the clothes
Derian had worn in his parents' service, some so elegant that they
would be out of place anywhere but in court.

For his visit home, conscious that he was
representing his new employer, Derian had donned knee-breeches and
waistcoat, both of good cotton dyed walnut brown. These were worn over
a bleached linen shirt, fine-knit socks, and matching brass-buckled
shoes. A striking tricorn hat of dark brown felt topped the assembly.

Damita ran a critical hand over the fabric of his
waistcoat and nodded approvingly. "You look like a young gentleman,
Deri. That's what I thought you were, standing there at the gate. I
thought you'd come about hiring a horse or carriage."

"And you look like a young lady," Derian replied,
happy to banish that initial strangeness by voicing it. "You're wearing
your hair up now."

"Mother bought me some barrettes for my birthday,"
Damita answered, ducking her head so that he could admire the carved
doe running through her copper locks, "and said that I could wear my
hair up for occasions. I thought I was going to the market with Cook .
. ."

She paused to glare at Brock, and Derian, remembering the scene he had interrupted, wisely kept silent.

"But Mother said these peas had to be shelled."

Derian, who knew his mother's disciplinary tactics
perfectly well, having been on the receiving end of them many times,
filled in the picture. Damita had undoubtedly sassed Mother and, as a
penalty, had not only been told she could not go to market, but that
she must shell the vegetables.

He took a handful of peas from the basket resting between his sister's feet.

"Well, let me give a hand. C'mon, Brock, something wrong with you?"

Brock protested, "It's her job, not mine! I did my
jobs: fed the chickens, weeded the kitchen garden, ran messages to the
stables . . ."

Derian interrupted. "True enough, but one thing I
learned when venturing west with the earl is that when there's a job to
be done, everyone pitches in. Many's the night I've sat mending shirts
by firelight so that we could hit the trail with the dawn."

Brock, hearing the promise of a story, dropped onto the step on Derian's other side and dipped his hand into the basket of peas.

"Tell us all about it," he commanded.

Vernita Carter found them all there about an hour later.

"Damita," she said, her footsteps light as she
crossed the stones of the kitchen floor, "the peas look wonderful and
the carrots, too. Since you've finished the potatoes, I suppose you can
go to the market for . . ."

She stopped, a sudden smile lighting her face. In her
day, Vernita Carter had been regarded a great beauty. Even bearing
several children and long days managing the family business had not
robbed her of a certain grace and dignity.

"Derian," she said softly, "why didn't you let me know you were home?"

"You had a client, ma'am," he said, rising and giving
her his best bow before impulsively hugging her. When had she grown so
small? "And I was always told that nothing short of an emergency should
interrupt that."

"I think," Vernita replied, drawing back to look him
over proudly, "that the return home of my eldest son would qualify.
Damita, has Cook come back?"

"No, Mother," Damita said. "If you wish, I could run and find her."

"Do. Tell her we will have an extra mouth for dinner." Vernita gave her son an anxious glance. "You can stay, can't you, Deri?"

"For dinner, Mother, but I must return by bedtime."

Vernita looked temporarily disappointed, but nodded.
"Go then, Damita. Take a few spare tokens and buy us all something
special for dessert."

"Deri brought blackberries," Brock informed her,
bringing the willow basket from the cool room to display the prize,
"and candy."

"Then buy something that will go well with them,
Dami. I trust your judgment." Vernita turned to her younger son.
"Brock, run to the stables and tell your father Derian is here and that
he's to come home early for dinner."

"Yes, Mother."

Like a little tawny whirlwind, the boy was gone. Vernita smiled.

"Let me shut the office door and put the sign out
referring emergency business to the stables. Then we can have tea and
you can tell me everything that has happened since you've been gone."

"Three moon-spans in a few hours," Derian protested with a grin. "Didn't you read my letters?"

"I did," she said, pulling a grubby bundle from a
drawer to show him. "We all did. Now you can tell us everything you
didn't write."

Derian, thinking how Earl Kestrel had sworn them all to secrecy regarding Firekeeper, nodded.

"There's more there than you might think," he said.

Vernita grinned, a grin to match his own. "Oh, I
don't know. We hear things, those of us in trade. And the rumors have
been flying thick and fast today."

Derian grinned back and began, "Our expedition did succeed, but only in a way . . ."

Leaving out nothing, for Norvin Norwood's version of
the tale must already be leaking from the castle into the city, Derian
told of his adventures, repeating a bit when his father and siblings
returned, and talking steadily through dinner.

When he ended, there was silence. Then Vernita said softly, so softly that Derian wondered if he was meant to hear:

"Poor child . . ."

At first he thought she meant Firekeeper; then,
catching her gaze, he had the uncomfortable feeling that she was
thinking of him.

L
ATER THAT EVENING
,
Derian walked toward the outer gates of the king's castle with his
father. Colby Carter was a thick, broad-shouldered man with a deep
inner stillness that came from understanding and working with draft
horses and oxen. Brock took after him, while Derian and Damita more
resembled their mother.

"I never thought I'd see a son of mine living here," Colby admitted, "except maybe as a groom."

"I'm hardly more, Father," Derian reminded, "but tending to a wolf-woman and her beasts instead of to horses."

"Maybe so," Colby said. He thrust out a muscular, callused hand. "Don't stay away more than you must."

"I won't," Derian promised, wishing suddenly that he could remain longer with his family. "But my duty is yet to Earl Kestrel."

"I know, son." Colby started to turn away, then swung back. "Will your master be expecting you yet?"

"I have some time before I will be quite overdue," Derian replied, puzzled.

"There are matters," Colby continued heavily, "that I
had thought to raise with you, but I preferred not to in front of the
younger children. Damita is at a flighty age, quick to become moody.
Better not give her more to brood upon than the imagined wrongs a girl
her age is prone to. Brock is a good boy, but too inclined to chatter."

"And Mother?"

"Knows all that concerns me in this matter," Colby
assured his son. "Even that I hoped to speak with you tonight. She
won't be worrying if I don't come home at once."

Derian looked down the road back toward the town. "We walked by several alehouses on our way."

"Just what I was thinking," Colby agreed.

A few minutes later found them seated in an out-of-the-way corner in a tavern still busy with the later elements of
the
market day trade, mostly visitors from out of town who had hawked their
wares until dusk and would head for home with dawn. After the potboy
had set two mugs of new summer ale in front of them and hurried off,
Colby cleared his throat.

"Kings and earls," he said, "are not the only ones
interested in this matter of succession. Honest guild members have
their concerns as well, as do factions outside our own kingdom."

Derian nodded, having considered some of this himself
but, frankly, having been too close to the concerns of his own earl to
think much beyond that immediate focus.

"Yes, Father. There's much talk about a candidate for
the throne born outside of our kingdom entirely—one Allister Seagleam
of Bright Bay. I think, though, you have more than him in mind."

Colby sipped his ale. "True, but let us start with
this Allister Seagleam. There are many among the guilds who favor his
candidacy above all others."

"Above our native born?" Derian asked, amazed.

"Not so long ago, a bare hundred years," Colby
reminded him, "we were one land, the remnants of the colony of
Gild-crest. Before the Civil War, we were that colony itself. A hundred
years is a long time, true, but not so much that one man cannot easily
comprehend it.

"There are those," the older man continued, "who tire
of the constant war between Hawk Haven and Bright Bay, those who
remember that King Chalmer meant Princess Caryl's marriage to a prince
of our rival power to be a pledge for lasting peace among us."

"That peace didn't last much beyond this Allister's birth," Derian reminded his father sourly.

"I'm not denying that," Colby said, "but still, that
is the reason for which Allister was born. Many say that since King
Tedric's line cannot continue directly, this pledge child should be
permitted his destiny. Some go so far as to say that this is why all
three of King Tedric's own begetting have died before their father—to
clear the way for our great ancestor's vision to come true."

Derian stared at him. "Do you believe this, Father?"

Colby shrugged. "I don't know what to believe. There
is sense in that way of seeing things, though, sense that many common
folk understand. It doesn't hurt that Duke Allister is the son of the
woman who would have been next in line for the throne if she had
remained in Hawk Haven. Nor was she ever disinherited, as Prince Barden
was. Therefore, her family's claims are strong."

"And if a member of Bright Bay's royal house took the
throne of Hawk Haven," Derian said slowly, "there might be an end to
war between our lands."

"Should be," Colby agreed, "for there is no
indication that Allister Seagleam is unfavored in his own land. They
title him duke there and have given him lands like those of a scion of
a Great House. Peace would be good for most of the trades. Farmers
could live without the fear that their fields may be trampled or
plundered by roaming soldiers. The guilds could enforce their standards
more effectively. Even such as myself would gain great opportunities
from seeing travel open up. Only those few who have made their livings
in war would be unhappy, and even if Bright Bay and Hawk Haven were at
peace there would not be an end to watchfulness."

Derian frowned. "On other borders, you mean."

"That's right. Up until now, those countries that
share borders with ourselves and Bright Bay have been content to let us
weaken ourselves by fighting each other. If we were reunited—as one
kingdom or as allies through related monarchs—they would be less easy."

"During past conflicts," Derian said, remembering
things Ox had told him, "Waterland has sent advisors and marines to
supplement our own forces. This is not widely known, but a friend of
mine who has served in the military told me about them. The reason
given for their presence was training—that Waterland prefers to have
some blooded troops among their companies."

"I had heard something of the sort," Colby agreed,
"working as I do among traveling folk, tending their animals and gear.
Did you know that Stonehold has made a similar agreement
with
Bright Bay? Ostensibly their reasoning is much the same as that given
by Waterland, but I'll tell you, rulers don't worry so much about
having blooded troops unless they anticipate a need to use them.
Whether Bright Bay and Hawk Haven are reunited by conquest or by
peaceful means, our neighbors see us as a possible threat."