Children of the Wolves (17 page)

“How do you know this?” he asked, hoping she merely repeated an unfounded rumor.

“I saw them.”

“You
saw
them?”

“I did. And the rememberer says — ”

“I know what has happened in the past.” Now he wondered if Teresa and Rodrigo's passion would destroy the tribe's future.

“Then by all that's good, Michael! You have to do more than hope for the best.”

“I know, Jelena,” he said softly.

“And tell your people to stop killing my wolves!”

The door slammed behind her. He could hear the echoes reverberate through the meeting hall. Jelena faulted him for not acting quickly enough. So full of energy and movement herself, her patience and watchfulness had been hard earned, at great cost. She couldn't understand that other people naturally needed to think and reflect before acting.

He lay with his arms crossed behind his head, considering her words.
His people
. He wondered when they had become
his
people, no longer
our
people.
My
wolves, she had called them. That was most interesting. When had they become
her
wolves? He pondered the ceiling and wondered what he was going to do next.

• • •

Later that morning, Bertha told him that Jelena had gotten permission to move into Isolde's now-empty cabin in the remote northwestern corner of the village. She'd moved out of her sleeping room off the kitchen to make room for a group of trueborn being started in the kitchen.

“She's bringing her things there now,” Bertha finished, giving him a meaningful glance. He supposed she was encouraging him to find Jelena there, where they might have a private conversation. But he didn't know what to say to Jelena anymore.

In the following weeks, Michael found the hall empty without her, even though he knew she could be found in the kitchen during the day, without fail. But somehow it seemed as if she were just visiting. He told himself he was feeling the way a parent would when the child declared itself ready to stand on its own two feet.

She doesn't need me anymore, and I'm just melancholy
, he thought and tried not to admit that he had always hoped, even expected, that one day they would be partners. He had always believed she would awaken and find her calling, and their callings would be compatible and then he would be able to do the things he had always sternly resisted: take her in his arms, kiss her hard on the lips, undress her slowly and make love with her until they cried out their completion. They would possess each other in a way few others ever achieved.

They would touch each other not only with their bodies but their minds, hearts, spirits. Letting go the watchfulness to partake of unfettered passion, not bounded by duties and proscriptions.

But it looked as if he had been wrong. There she was, peeling carrots in the kitchen and here he was telling people about the Way, without any meaningful connection. They might have been strangers for their impersonal greetings when they unexpectedly encountered one another in the hall. One would think he had not spent seven years at her side, dreaming of being more than her protector.

His recompense was that sometimes she consented to take a mug of ale at table with him and ask how things were going. It didn't seem adequate.

She had done that after meal today, but the silence had grown between them, not companionable, and she'd gotten to her feet again, quickly, and cleared the used dishes.

Now he sat in the council room listening to the elders talk. He wished — no. No more wishing, no more longing. Planning and action. That was the useful way.

A soft knock sounded at the door and Danielle entered the room. She gave Michael a shy smile, but her face hardened as she caught Cara's gaze. Tightening her jaw, she lowered herself a trifle awkwardly to the bench along the wall, her belly swollen and ungainly.

“We asked Danielle here today to discuss her situation,” Archibald said.

“We would like for your child to have a father,” Cara said. “Although all the people will be the child's family.”

“I have no wish to partner with the father of my child,” Danielle said, crossing her arms over her chest. In other circumstances, her defiance would have been dealt with severely, but no elder would dare risk the health and well-being of a trueborn child by punishing its mother.

“We have discussed the matter at length,” Cara said, indicating the other elders with a graceful movement of her hand. “And we are willing to accept that the trader was the father of your child.”

Danielle lifted a brow at that. “And?”

“And you may pick your partner. But we would very much like you to partner with someone.”

Michael knew — as Danielle surely did — that this request could not be ignored. Danielle glanced at Michael and shifted uneasily on the bench.

“Who do you have in mind?” she asked.

Cara folded her hands in front of her. “Joe or Alaric would be acceptable, if they would agree. Michael?”

He'd expected that. Now that Jelena had passed from his protection and Teresa had become Rodrigo's protector, he was a logical choice.

Well, why not? He wasn't going to have Jelena. Why not partner with Danielle and raise a trueborn child for the tribe? The tribe would appreciate him. He could train Charmaine as his replacement as head of the riders and spend his time on his duties as the pastor and with being a father. It would suit him.

“Let Danielle reflect on her choices for a time,” he said. “I would accept the responsibility but I know Joe or Alaric would be equally pleased.”

Danielle gave him another shy smile. He knew she preferred him to the others, if only because she knew him better. She took her leave, squeezing his shoulder in thanks as she passed by his place, shutting the door quietly behind her.

“Well, that is fine, then,” Archibald said.

It seemed to Michael to be the least pressing matter, but he wasn't an elder, so he waited patiently for a chance to ask again what they planned to do against the threat that harried them.

“What if Rodrigo is not our warrior chief? What if he does not awaken in time?” he demanded when the opportunity arose.

Cara eyed Archibald and said calmly, “Some among us say we should give up these lands and re-settle elsewhere.”

“
What
? Where? What of all the years of work we have given to this land?”

“We can find fruitful land elsewhere,” Archibald said.

Abandon the protection of the trees? Michael sucked a breath in. “What of the unborn in the caves?” he asked. “You would abandon the saved that the makers left in our care?”

Cara slanted a glance at Archibald. “We have not reached that level of desperation yet,” she said.

“The unborn are our future,” Michael objected.

“The trueborn are our future,” Cara said flatly.

Michael leaned back in his seat. The trueborn were important to the tribe, but the unborn, waiting to be newlyborn — they couldn't be abandoned so callously.

Since the death of the trader, Michael had begun to doubt the wisdom of the elders. For the first time, he now thought they were wrong.

• • •

The night was clear — another full moon. Michael sighed and breathed in the night air. The last time he'd stood out here like this, Jelena had been upset about her seventh anniversary. The night breeze was cooler now. Beyond that, little had changed as he looked out across the courtyard. Everything had changed.

The sentry standing guard, a little more nervous now, a little more alert to wolves, raised a hand to acknowledge his presence. Perhaps Jelena was right and he should tell the tribe what he thought was the truth. But his was a peaceable tribe. They could swing a sword and shoot a bow but they weren't warriors. They wouldn't survive battles — wars.

A sharp howl pierced the night air. The sentry closest to him said something to his partner and made a move to investigate.

“I'll take care of it,” Michael said, waving the sentry off, glad of the distraction. He lifted the iron lantern from its bracket. “You stay here.”

The howl sounded as if it had come from the compost pile, so he headed in that direction. He unsheathed his dagger and kept the lantern aloft as he moved forward. Despite Jelena's affection for the creatures, he didn't trust them and would rather scare them off with the light and loud walking than unexpectedly encounter one in the dark.

“By all that's good!”

“Jelena,” he whispered.

“Hold the light there,” she said, just as if she'd been expecting him. “I've almost got it.”

“What?” He looked at her, saw the wolf pup she held, one hand clamped securely around its muzzle, the other working the spring on a mechanical saw-toothed trap.

“Dammit. Doesn't the mechanic have anything better to do?” she said through gritted teeth. “Bring that light a little closer.”

He lowered the lantern, then hissed through his teeth. “Jelena, you're bleeding. Did the wolf — ”

“No, the trap. Sharp as broken glass. Put your thumb there.”

“Where?”

“On that latch. Yes, that's it. I was trying to do that with my elbow but it's a little hard to manage that way. Here we go.” The trap opened and she gathered the wolf pup in her arms. Michael got to his feet, letting the trap snap shut.

“Jelena, what are you doing?”

“I'm taking care of this pup. She can't be released like this. She may have a broken leg.”

Michael opened his mouth to protest — surely she didn't plan to nurse the wolf pup back to health — but she'd already taken off at a swift pace, the bundle of fur squirming in her arms. He followed her to Isolde's cabin, lighting the dirt path with the lantern.

Once inside the cabin, she moved quickly and competently to treat the injured animal. She sacrificed the hem of a tunic and found some short lengths of wood to splint the wolf's leg. Michael, a feeling of unwilling admiration affecting his better judgment, helped hold the wolf as she worked. She created a nest in a corner, emptying her clothing chest and tucking the remains of the tunic in as bedding. She placed the wolf inside and set a dish of water near it. She fed it leftover cheese and bread from the cupboard, straight from her hands as if there were no fear in her. After it had eaten, the wolf curled into a ball, closing its eyes and tucking its muzzle into its tail.

“I'm just going to let her heal, then send her on her way,” Jelena promised, running her hand over the animal's fur. He knew that despite the fact that she had a comfortable pallet up in the loft she would sleep down here, curled up next to the wolf. She looked up at him, a pleading expression in her eyes. “Please don't tell anyone.”

“I won't.”

“Thank you, Michael. Good night.” Already she turned back to the wolf.

“Good night, Jelena,” he said. Her dismissal rankled, but he would never show it. She'd already made it plain that their relationship no longer mattered to her.

Jelena watched Michael stride off into the night, never once looking back, the lantern in his hand a yellow glow that diminished as he walked away, until it disappeared, until he disappeared. Not a glance, not a lifted hand, not a smile.
Seven years
, she thought. Every minute of seven years and one would think it was nothing.

She stood on the threshold in the darkness. Only a silver thread of light from the crescent moon illuminated the night. Silence and emptiness. But no, not quite silence. Still, work to do.

She lit her own lantern and set off into the night again. She was certain there was a litter of wolf pups nearby, that the one caught in the trap had been only one of several. The mother had probably been killed by the villagers — the pup otherwise wouldn't have tried foraging on its own; it was too young.

Not far from the trap, she found four other wolf pups fussing and squalling. Hoping the sentries wouldn't investigate the noise before she could effect a rescue, she carried the animals to Isolde's cabin where she fed and watered them. She promised herself that she would release them when they were a little older and could survive on their own. Just as soon as they were strong enough. But she couldn't abandon them now; not when the people were responsible for their distress. She hoped Michael would be as good as his word, and this his loyalty to her and the promises he made her would outweigh any loyalty he felt to the elders.

But when had it ever?

• • •

“Alaric said he heard wolves howling out in the direction of Isolde's cabin,” Bertha remarked, stirring the iron pot of stew.

When would it become “Jelena's” cabin? Jelena supposed it would take many months before anyone began to think of it that way.

“I haven't noticed anything,” she said with a shrug. She didn't like to lie to Bertha but no good could come of telling the truth.

And wasn't that exactly the kind of thinking the elders engaged in? Jelena sighed and tackled her scrubbing with renewed energy.

Bertha grunted her disbelieving response. “Child, Joe says he saw you on the path near the river, hunting.”

Jelena's hands stilled at her task. “Me?”

“You, Jelena.” Bertha kept her attention on the bubbling stew.

“I don't eat meat,” Jelena said. Which was true. But because Bertha would have noticed the missing food — enough to feed five hungry wolves was quite a lot of meat — Jelena had borrowed a bow and arrows from the supply the riders used and began hunting in the woods behind her cabin, bringing home food for the wolves. She picked up the skill quickly enough although she found the chore distasteful. For her wolves, she learned to use the bow, and hunted and fished in the river and even trapped small rodents patiently, letting the wolves out at night when they wouldn't be spotted by the others, keeping them closed in the cabin by day so they would not be hurt by the fearful villagers.