Through Wolf's Eyes (25 page)

Seeing that Firekeeper still looked confused, she clarified, "This is the Year One Hundred Five."

"It is?"

"Yes. One hundred and five years ago, Queen Zorana
the Great won her last battle with her enemies and founded the Kingdom
of Hawk Haven. The losers settled for becoming the Kingdom of Bright
Bay."

Firekeeper had understood about a third of this, but
the key words, combined with Derian's brief dissertations on the
importance of kings and queens, were enough to give her the essential
gist.

"So why is Kenre's father a merlin?"

Kenre answered, "My family's name is Trueheart—just like yours is Norwood."

Firekeeper remembered being told something of the
kind following a long session with Earl Kestrel and a woman he called
Mother and everyone else called Duchess. She nodded encouragement.

"Speak on."

"When King Chalmer—that's King Tedric's
father—married Rose Rosewood, he gave titles to the Great Houses as a
wedding gift," Kenre said, foundering somewhat.

Citrine came to his aid. "The Great Houses back then
weren't happy that the king didn't marry into one of their families."

Firekeeper nodded, though she understood little of
this, hoping they would get back to how a two-legs could also be a bird
of prey.

"To make them happier," Citrine continued, "King
Chalmer gave them a special family name, like nothing anyone else would
have. So the Norwoods—that's your family— became the Kestrels."

"Earl Kestrel?" Firekeeper asked. "He is not a bird!"

"A kestrel is a type of falcon, like the peregrine but smaller."

From Firekeeper's fist, Elation shrilled laughter. "
Smaller, stupider, milder."

Firekeeper shook the bird slightly.

"So kestrel," she asked carefully, "is name for a bird?"

She remembered now the representations she had seen
on the earl's baggage, on his carriage, over the doorways of his manse.
Her eyes still had trouble seeing the pictures in human art, a thing
that had frustrated some of Derian's attempts to teach her written
words.

"That's right," Citrine said encouragingly. "Just like your falcon is a peregrine."

"I know that," Firekeeper answered. "Derian told me. He never told me kestrel was a bird."

"Maybe he didn't want to confuse you with too much
too fast," Kenre said with the humble wisdom of someone who often found
himself in that very situation.

"Just so," Firekeeper agreed. "He confuses me without trying."

All three of them laughed at this and looked at each
other, suddenly relaxed and at ease. Firekeeper remembered something of
human manners then.

"We sit," she offered, "over by brook, maybe? You tell me more about fathers who are birds?"

The children readily agreed. Elation soared again to
a treetop from which she could keep watch and Blind Seer, quietly
amused by all of this, vanished within the tall grass.

"I will run, scout, maybe hunt,"
he said as he moved
away. "
Ox fetches much meat, but it is all dead cold.
"

"Go," Firekeeper replied, "but stay from the town."

"Gladly,"
the wolf laughed.
"It stinks."

When the three humans were seated, bare feet trailing in the water, Citrine resumed her explanation.

"So Kenre's father isn't really a merlin. It's his father's family's symbol."

" 'Symbol,' " Firekeeper repeated carefully. "What is symbol?"

Citrine tapped at her headband, rubbing the stone as if it would help her to construct a definition.

"A symbol is something that stands for something else. My name is Citrine."

"Yes?" Firekeeper said, confused at this sudden switch of subject.

"Citrine is also the name of this stone." The girl
indicated the translucent reddish-orange stone in her headband. "The
word stands for both me and this stone. Do you understand?"

Firekeeper might have had more trouble if wolf names were not essentially symbolic, though more literally so. She nodded.

"Yes, I think I do. So Kenre's father is not merlin. He is just called Merlin."

"Right!" Citrine beamed. "Kenre's family uses his
father's name, rather than his mother's, because the Great Houses
outrank those of lesser nobles and Zorana's father was a common archer
before King Chalmer made him a noble one."

Firekeeper decided to ignore this for now. It sounded
rather too much like some of the lessons that Derian had tried to teach
her and she had dismissed as irrelevant to her situation.
Uncomfortably, she realized that she might have dismissed the matter of
Great Houses and precedence too quickly.

"Easier to know," she said, thinking aloud, "with wolves. Who is first is fastest and strongest."

"Your dog," Kenre said, glancing around nervously, noticing for the first time that Blind Seer was gone, "really
is
a wolf? You're not just saying so?"

"Really wolf," Firekeeper said, having had similar
discussions with Derian and Race along the road to Eagle's Nest. "Three
years born in my family."

"Your family?" the two children said together.

"Not Earl Kestrel's!" Citrine added.

"No. I am wolf-raised," Firekeeper explained. "Human born. After big fire, my mother gives me to wolves."

"What happened to her?" Kenre asked.

"She died," Firekeeper said, callously blunt toward
the memory of this woman she remembered only in dreams. "Wolves say of
fire burns."

"Were you very old then?" Citrine asked, pity and horror in her voice.

"Very small," Firekeeper answered. "Smaller than you or Kenre. Little. Young."

Vocabulary exhausted, she shrugged. "So I am wolf."

"And your father?"

"Wolves not say."

"Was he Prince Barden?"

"Earl Kestrel say so." Firekeeper frowned thoughtfully. "I cannot remember."

From the looks the children traded she wondered if
she had said too much. Then she shrugged. Let Earl Kestrel deal with
it, if the little bird-man could. She didn't want to be queen. At least
she didn't think she did.

"Where did you get your knife?"

No one had bothered ask her that before, but
Firekeeper knew that the knife was somehow important to the earl and
his plans. Since the man had not been precisely unkind to her, she
hedged:

"From the One Wolf when I was young, but I do not know where he get. Maybe Prince Barden give to him."

Their elders might have scoffed at such fanciful
tales, but Citrine and Kenre were young enough to live on the borders
of fantasy. To them, a girl raised by wolves did not seem at all
improbable, especially when they had seen for themselves the impossibly
huge wolf who shadowed her and the equally large hawk who obeyed her
commands though unhooded and unjessed. Moreover, Citrine's mother was
reputed to be a
sorceress, a thing both of them implicitly believed though the evidence for that belief was shared in whispers.

"That's why you talk funny," Citrine said with the bluntness of the young, "and why you eat . . ."

She stopped herself just in time, but Kenre sniggered
and they both fell into uncontrolled giggles before stopping, suddenly
aware of the coolness of Firekeeper's dark gaze.

"Like a wolf?" the woman offered dryly.

Citrine nervously tugged a lock of red-gold hair and Kenre paled.

"Well . . ." the girl stammered.

"I do," Firekeeper said, "but I learn human ways. Can you do this?"

In an instant she was on her feet and up into the upper boughs of a gnarled apple tree.

"Or this?"

She hung upside down from bent knees and, in one
smooth motion, unsheathed her knife and threw it, burying the blade to
the hilt in the soil between the two children.

"Or this?"

She was down again, knife back in her hand, dark eyes
wild. In a single bound she was across the brook, crouched on the other
bank. Wolves played such bragging games among their kind and she hadn't
realized how much she missed showing off.

"I learn human ways," Firekeeper repeated. "Can you learn wolf ways?"

The two children stared in amazement and admiring awe.

"We could try," Kenre offered, eager and intense.

"If our mothers let us," Citrine added, more dubious.

"Those birds of prey symbol humans!" Firekeeper said
scornfully. Then she recalled the power they wielded and softened her
tone. "Maybe they will let you."

"We didn't realize that you really meant you were a
wolf," Citrine said, eager to apologize. "We thought you meant as a
symbol. There is a Wolf Society, you know."

"Derian say something of that," Firekeeper admitted. "But I not understand. More symbols?"

"More," Kenre said with another sigh. "My society is the Horse Society."

"Mine is the Elk," Citrine offered.

"But you are not horses or elks," Firekeeper asked, wanting to be certain.

"I wish!" Kenre said wistfully. "When I was really
small I thought that was what would happen when I got older, that I'd
learn how to become a horse. I went to my first meeting last year and
there was nothing like that, just people in fancy costumes."

"Can," Firekeeper asked, her heart pounding very fast
at this new and wonderful thought, "can humans become animals for
truth, not symbols?"

Her question was awkwardly worded, but neither Kenre nor Citrine had any doubt what she meant.

"Maybe," Kenre said, his voice suddenly soft. "There
are stories of sorcerers from the days before the Plague when the Old
Country ruled here."

"My nurse," Citrine added, her tones equally hushed, "hints that such magics can be done."

"Oh!" Firekeeper swallowed hard, unable to manage
more words around the sudden lump in her throat. To be a wolf, for real
and not just in heart!

"It may be," Citrine said quickly, "just a fireside story. That's what my sister Ruby said."

"Ruby," Kenre retorted, speaking what he had heard
his older sister Deste say, "is scared of her own shadow. Of course she
wouldn't want to believe in magic. It would scare her. Especially with
your mother being . . ."

They shuddered together, but didn't offer
clarification and Firekeeper asked for none. There were too many new
words here, too many new concepts. She held on to just one, one that
filled her with delight and made her more determined than ever to learn
the ways of humankind.

Somewhere out there might be one who would know how
to give her wolf's heart a wolf's body. That was more than enough
incentive to make her go on, even if she must win the throne of Hawk
Haven to attain her goal!

T
HE DAY FOLLOWING
the grand banquet, Elise Archer sat at home reviewing correspondence
and considering how to spend her day. Queen Elexa had requested that
Lady Aurella wait upon her and Ivon Archer was once again in conference
with his mother and sister, so Elise was alone.

Secretly she was rather glad. Despite her father's
ambitions, Elise suspected that either Aunt Zorana or Lord Rolfston
Redbriar would be named King Tedric's heir. Further intrigue, on top of
last night's session, seemed rather ridiculous.

She was folding a polite refusal of a dinner invitation when her maid came to the door of her solar.

"M'lady, you have a caller."

"Who is it, Ninette?"

The maid, a poor relative several years her senior,
meant to serve as her chaperon as much as her maid, frowned slightly
before replying.

"A young man. Your cousin, Jet Shield."

"Jet!" Elise considered not whether but where to
receive him. "Take him to the summerhouse near the duck pond and have
cool drinks and light refreshments brought to him. I will attend him as
soon as I have changed into something more fitting."

As soon as enough time had passed that she would seem neither eager nor rude, Elise walked down to the summer
house.
She had combed her hair and donned a pale yellow muslin gown perfect
for informal entertaining on a summer morning that already promised to
become quite hot. When she was a few steps from the summerhouse, she
told her maid:

"Wait for me on that bench, Ninette. I promise not to stray from sight, but Cousin Jet may speak more freely to my ears alone."

Ninette was neither silly nor stupid. She knew as
much about the recent political maneuvering as could anyone who was not
immediate family and, unlike Elise, still treasured dreams of herself
residing within the castle, an intimate of King Ivon's family and,
later, confidant to Queen Elise.

"Very good, Lady Elise."

Elise greeted Jet with both hands outstretched, a
relaxed informal gesture quite appropriate between cousins. She was
slightly taken aback when he instead met her with a deep bow and
lightly kissed the air above the hand he gracefully captured in one of
his own.

The greeting wasn't precisely incorrect. Indeed, it
would be perfectly correct in some settings. However, a summer-house in
the midmorning hours was not one of these.

"Cousin," Elise said, retrieving her fingers. "May I pour you something cool to drink?"

"Thank you, Elise. Whatever you are having," Jet
replied. "You look lovely this morning. Cool, peaceful, and
tranquil—everything that my father's house is not."

Elise smiled, acknowledging both the compliment and the neat transition into current problems.

"I would be lying," she said, knowing that the same
information could be learned from the servants, "if I said that my
parents were particularly tranquil this morning."

"Great-Uncle Tedric," Jet said with a small laugh,
"pulled a nice one last night. Introducing that girl in such a fashion
that we could not question her origin without insulting House Kestrel
was brilliant. He is a master of his craft."

"Tedric is," Elise agreed, "a great king."

"Would that I could be as certain," Jet said, his black eyes shining, "that his successor would be as well prepared for
the
throne. Tedric was King Chalmer's second born, but Crown Princess
Marras died a year before her father. King Chalmer had time to prepare
his new heir for his role."