Through Wolf's Eyes (29 page)

"Couldn't the wolf," Elise hazarded what many had stated openly, "be put in the kennels?"

Derian laughed. "The dogs would go mad. Our scout had
a bird dog with him on our journey west through the gap. I don't think
poor Queenie stopped cringing for a moment— and that was even before
Blind Seer started traveling in our
company. In any case, I don't think you could get him to leave Firekeeper."

"Or Firekeeper him," Lady Blysse said calmly.

"Oh."

Elise was temporarily at a loss, but fortunately keeping the conversation going was not up to her.

"Firekeeper has an idea," Citrine chattered. "She wants to meet the rest of the family, but she doesn't like banquets."

"Who does?" Elise said with a pose of adult boredom.

Actually, she still found banquets fascinating,
especially those attended by embassies from the neighboring kingdoms of
New Kelvin and Waterland. The foreigners with their odd mannerisms and
turns of phrase—for their initial colonies had not been from the same
Old Country as Gildcrest—were infinitely interesting. A career in the
diplomatic service was impossible for her, since she was destined to
become the Baroness Archer and be responsible for the family estates,
but back before she realized no little brother or sister was likely to
follow and share the job, this had been her favorite dream.

"Wolves fight each other for their food," Kenre added. "So Firekeeper thinks eating and talking at the same time is silly."

"She has a point," Elise laughed. "What is her idea?"

"Hunting with birds," Lady Blysse said, her tone slightly miffed.

No wonder.
Elise thought.
Since we keep talking about her as if she's an idiot. Uncivilized she may be, but she's no idiot.

"Falconry," Derian said in a tone Elise immediately
recognized as that of a teacher reminding a student. Fleetingly she
wondered how he came into the job.

"Falconry," Lady Blysse repeated. "Hawking. We go. Me, some of nobles, on horses or walking. Hunt. Talk."

Elise turned to her. "That's a good idea, actually.
Most of the nobility of Hawk Haven are fascinated with falconry. I
think it comes from the names King Chalmer gave the Great Houses to
keep them from fussing when he married a commoner. Anyhow, it is easier
to get to know people when
you're not sitting around a table or trapped in a parlor."

"Parlor?"

"A room for sitting," Elise laughed.

"So many rooms," Blysse mused. "Wolves have dens for pups. Nothing else. In winter, I use den for fire."

Elise puzzled this out then nodded. "You would need shelter, wouldn't you?"

"No fur." Blysse shrugged. "Cold."

"But you had fire?"

Kenre interrupted. "That's why her name is Firekeeper. She could make fire, but none of the wolves could. They respected that."

Elise glanced at Derian. "Did she really live with wolves?"

The redhead grinned. "She says so. Doc—excuse me—Sir
Jared Surcliffe, Earl Kestrel's cousin, said that there's evidence of
it. Firekeeper, show Lady Elise your scars."

"All?" Blysse bared her teeth in a brief smile. "If so, then Derian get red."

She thrust out one arm for Elise's inspection.
Beneath the fine hairs, her skin was silvered with numerous tiny scars.
A few larger ones testified to considerable injuries recovered from in
the past.

"Little bites," Blysse dismissed them, dropping her
arm. "Also cuts. No fur. Only," she poked at the material of her vest,
"bad leather."

"Badly tanned leather," Derian clarified
automatically. "Somehow Firekeeper figured out the basics, but while
she could keep the leather from going completely stiff, the stuff
wasn't good for much."

Citrine and Kenre had dropped to the grass and were
sitting in identical attitudes, arms wrapped around knees, their
expressions glowing with interest and proprietary pride. Doubtless they
saw the newcomer as their special discovery.

Elise shook out her shawl, spread it on the grass to
protect her walking dress from stains, and joined them. Only once she
was seated did Lady Blysse and Derian resume their seats on the ground.

"Now," Elise said to the general company, "tell me what Lady Blysse has in mind."

"I have falcon," Blysse replied carefully, pointing to the magnificent blue-grey peregrine.

"So I see," Elise agreed. "A peregrine, the emblem of the Wellward house—my mother's house."

"Emblem?"

"Symbol," Citrine said quickly. "It means the same thing, Firekeeper."

Lady Blysse gave a gusty sigh and Elise couldn't
blame her. From her own foreign-language lessons, those words that
seemed to mean the same thing were the most annoying—especially when
you later discovered the subtleties of difference.

"You fly peregrine?" Lady Blysse asked her.

"No," Elise replied ruefully, "though my mother would
be pleased if I did. I really don't fly anything these days. Our
falconer keeps a little merlin for me. It's more his bird than mine. I
don't fool myself."

Derian eased into the flow of her speech so smoothly that he didn't seem to be interrupting.

"Mistress Citrine was telling Firekeeper about how
people here fly their hawks. It gave Lady Blysse the idea of having her
falcon, Elation, demonstrate her skill."

Elise nodded. "That's a good idea. A few other birds could be flown in their own turn—not too many or they would get upset."

She was out of her depth here and knew it. Falconry—
with its bloody successes, the feeding the bird a bit of flesh or warm
brains from the kill—had been something she had participated in only
reluctantly. To avoid having to reveal her ignorance she turned to her
young cousin.

"Citrine, who do you think would choose to go along if Lady Blysse offered to fly her hawk for them?"

"Everyone, I think," Citrine said, momentarily more
cynical than an eight-year-old should be. "Even those who don't like
blood sport would want to go to get a look at Lady Blysse."

"Good point," Elise said, thinking that if a hawking
party was arranged she would definitely see Jet again. She was certain
he practiced the art. Perhaps he would fly his own
bird, though more likely Sapphire would insist on the honor of representing their family.

"Maybe Opal and Ruby would stay home," Citrine added
after reflection. "They don't like getting dirty and even Mother
doesn't see us little girls having a chance at the throne. What about
your sisters, Kenre?"

"Dia and Deste might want to stay home," Kenre said
honestly, "but Mama wouldn't let them. She has no patience with weak
stomachs."

He looked a little forlorn as he said this, having
recently graduated to an age where his mother no longer accepted
weakness even in her baby boy. Lady Blysse nodded agreement with
Zorana's policy.

"Weak die," she said. "Strong live."

Looking at Blysse, so confident in her own strength
as she sprawled in the grass, an arm flung once more about her wolf,
Elise wondered how her relatives would perceive the stranger when they
came to know her better. Not all of them, she thought ruefully, would
be as fascinated as Citrine and Kenre. Most of them, in fact, would see
her as a threat.

T
HE HAWKING EXPEDITION
,
when it set out a few days later, was somewhat smaller than Elise and
Citrine had dreaded. Of the five children of Lord Rolfston and Lady
Melina, the two middle girls, Ruby and Opal, were permitted to remain
home. This might have encouraged Zorana to make similar allowances, for
neither Deste nor Nydia were forced to attend.

Accompanied by Earl Kestrel, the host of this
expedition, King Tedric rode near the front of the party, deep in
discussion with his personal falconer about the condition of his
magnificent golden eagle, a bird known to be temperamental. Tedric's
absorption in this matter—or apparent absorption—
effectively prohibited any member of the party from thrusting him or herself into his company.

Derian wondered cynically if this wasn't exactly what
the old king had intended. Certainly Sapphire Shield—a stunning young
woman who, with her flashing eyes and tendency to flare her nostrils,
reminded him uncomfortably of the first horse ever to throw him—would
like to remind her great-uncle of her presence. Her brother Jet,
however, hardly seemed to notice the king. His attention was wholly on
Lady Elise.

Elise looked even prettier than she had at their
earlier meetings, Derian thought ruefully, her fair skin flushed pale
rose and her golden hair glinting brighter than the light mesh net she
had tucked around it. Her laughter reminded him of silver bells or the
ringing of crystal goblets. It also reminded him that she didn't even
know he existed.

Firekeeper was riding off to one flank on the same
patient, if boring, grey gelding who had carried her from West Keep.
Much to Derian's surprise, she had agreed to leave Blind Seer in the
castle—on the condition that the wolf was not locked in. She hadn't
liked leaving him, but she had to admit that the wolf still upset any
horse but grey Patience, Roanne, and Race's Dusty. Since the hawking
party had been her idea, Firekeeper would compromise to make it work.

That compromise hadn't extended to her agreeing to
wear the riding frock Earl Kestrel had suggested, but she wasn't alone
in finding skirts awkward for riding. Sapphire and Citrine both wore
women-tailored breeches and pretty white blouses, similar to the outfit
that Valet had mysteriously managed to procure for Firekeeper. Those
worn by the Shield sisters were far more elaborate, embroidered with
flowers and birds, perhaps the result of winter labor by the fireside.

Lady Elise had chosen a light gown similar, to
Derian's masculine assessment, to the ones she had worn before but
somehow subtly more attractive, a thing of pale lavender, laced tightly
at the breast. Fleetingly, Derian wondered how well Elise's legs—long,
he imagined—and rounded hips might shape up in riding breeches and
decided that she would probably look stunning.

The older women in the party—Aurella Wellward, Zorana
Archer, and Melina Shield—also wore gowns and rode sidesaddle. All but
Zorana seemed to be treating this as a general outing. Zorana alone
followed the preparation of the birds, pausing in her conversation with
a weatherbeaten man who— for all his undeniable handsomeness—somehow
reminded Derian of a rat.

From one of the grooms, he had learned that this was
Prince Newell Shield, the widower of Princess Lovella, just returned
from a voyage on
Wings
, the flagship of the Hawk Haven Navy.
Although Newell should have reverted to his Shield family title on the
death of his wife, King Tedric had deemed it a courtesy to permit his
son-in-law to retain the title he had assumed when Lovella had become
crown princess.

A tough man, slightly older than his sister Melina,
Newell had been an ideal match for the ambitious warrior princess.
Although the couple had been childless, rumor said that this had not
been for any lack of shared passion, rather because Lovella did not
wish to risk the illnesses suffered by her mother during pregnancy
until her deeds were as legend.

Although no stories of sorcerous practice were told
about Newell as were told about his sister, still, finding the prince
gazing at him with curious intensity, Derian felt a cool chill slide
down his spine. Newell's pale gaze was fixed yet somehow absent, and
Derian found himself booting Roanne in the ribs to remove himself from
the direct line of that stare.

Firekeeper rode over to join him, flushed with barely
restrained excitement. The falcon Elation sat—unhooded, unjessed,
unrestrained in any way—on a perch rigged to the back of the grey's
saddle. Only her occasional sardonic squawk as she surveyed her avian
competition confirmed that a living bird was perched there, not a
product of the taxidermist's art.

"Elation say," Firekeeper commented as soon as they were close, "that men ahead with birds in cages."

"That's for the hunt," Derian said. "Earl Kestrel made the arrangements."

"Hunt? Men?" Firekeeper looked troubled at this, as well
she
might. Derian had drummed into her that there were numerous
ramifications—some vague and terrible, some concrete and
demonstrable—for even hurting a human, much less hunting one.

"No, no," Derian laughed. "The birds are to be
hunted. This many people on horseback accompanied by attendants and
grooms will scare every real piece of game off for miles."

"Yes. Too many," Firekeeper agreed.

"So when we are ready, the gamekeepers will release birds one at a time and the hawks will go after them."

Firekeeper nodded, but he could tell that this was
yet another bit of incomprehensible human behavior. Dismissing the
mysteries of hunting already caged birds, Firekeeper quickly focused on
the real reason for this gathering.

"How, Derian, how I talk with these here like I talk with Citrine and Kenre? How I do?"