Through Wolf's Eyes (47 page)

"I follow," the wolf-woman said, "practicing cities.
It isn't too hard at night once the people go inside, but in the crowds
. . ."

She ended with an eloquent shudder.

"And Blind Seer?"

"He stay in the narrow places between buildings mostly," she said. "Is there a word, Derian?"

"Alley," he supplied automatically. "Why didn't you join us sooner?"

"You were doing so well," she said with a fey grin.
"I not want to hurt your fun. Then the man you fight hit you in the
head . . ."

"Is
that
what happened!" he muttered, remembering how everything had gotten dreamy.

"And Mistress Sapphire was giving a good fight to her man, so we came to help."

"We?" Derian asked carefully, remembering the
nightmare vision of the bandit with his throat torn out, of
Firekeeper's face smeared with blood.

"Blind Seer kill the man," Firekeeper said with indignant self-righteousness. "You tell me this not a thing to do!"

Sapphire had softened at Firekeeper's compliment to her skill. "Were you hurt?" she asked, refreshing Firekeeper's tea.

"No." Firekeeper looked almost disappointed. "I not get to fight."

Sapphire looked at her own dented shield, at the bandages on her side and hands. "It isn't nearly as much fun as it looks."

Jared and Derian nodded agreement. The wolf-woman did
not seem at all convinced and the great shaggy beast at her side opened
his fanged jaws in what Derian could swear was laughter.

B
ARON IVON ARCHER HAD TAKEN
full advantage of his rank to insist upon a good position for the Archer pavilion, although he himself would be splitting his
time
between his command and numerous conferences, returning there only to
sleep. Given her strained relations with both Sapphire and Jet Shield,
Elise had ample reason to be grateful for this.

Along the road, she and Ninette had shared a fairly
small tent pitched between her father's tent and Aunt Zorana's. It was
a very proper arrangement, one that offered some protection from Jet's
increasingly impatient advances, but one that also guaranteed that she
would hear every noise in the surrounding tents.

Her father, she discovered, snored—as did his
manservant. Aunt Zorana insisted on being sung to sleep by her maid.
Ninette rose repeatedly during the night to answer nature's call. After
these intrusions, Elise felt a certain guilty pleasure that the heir to
a barony could command not only room for a large pavilion, but a
certain degree of space surrounding it. Ninette still chaperoned
her—and Elise was glad for her company—but at least with her on the
other side of a curtain Elise was not so aware of the other woman's
nocturnal micturitions.

On the first morning following their arrival, Elise
woke after the sun had risen. She was trying to guess the hour by the
position of the sun shining through the pavilion's canvas when Ninette
lifted the dividing curtain and peeped around it. The other woman's
eyes were shining with excitement and Elise was certain she had some
interesting gossip.

"Good morning, Ninette."

"Good morning, Elise. I have water on for tea. Would you like some?"

"I'd be grateful," Elise said, swinging her feet to the carpet at the side of her cot.

The camp bed had been an improvement over sleeping on
pads on the floor of a tent barely large enough to stand in, but still
some of her muscles protested. Stretching and enjoying the luxury of
being able to spread her arms over her head, Elise slipped into her
morning robe and went to join Ninette in the pavilion's common area.
The curtain in front of Baron Archer's sleeping niche was lifted,
revealing the section to be empty.

"My father?" she asked Ninette, crossing to where tea is brewing in a cozy pot.

"Rose before dawn," Ninette replied, "and has gone to
inspect his men. He said to remind you that the contingent from Bright
Bay is expected this evening. You are to stay within the bounds of our
encampment unless expressly summoned into the city."

"As if," Elise said, sipping the raspberry leaf tea,
"I would want to go there. Doubtless it's full of rascals looking to
take advantage of this situation."

"Your cousin Sapphire," Ninette said, lowering her
voice and glancing at the canvas walls for shadows that might indicate
listeners without, "went to town last night. She had quite an
adventure."

With Elise's encouragement, Ninette told the full
story of Sapphire's encounter with the bandits. She'd already been over
to Earl Kestrel's encampment and coaxed a few details from
Derian—prompting him to tell her the truth by offering him some of the
rumors that were already circulating within the small servants'
community among the nobles' pavilions.

"Lady Melina," Elise said thoughtfully, "must be
furious. I wonder whether she's more angry at Sapphire for getting
attacked or at Jet for leaving his sister?"

"I couldn't say, Elise," Ninette admitted. "I have
gone out of my way to avoid her. Lady Melina's lady's maid had a red
mark on her cheek the shape of a hand and little Opal had clearly been
crying."

"Wise," Elise said. "What time is it?"

"An hour past full sunrise, my lady."

"And we are not expected anywhere?"

"Sir Jared Surcliffe indicated that he would be at
the hospital center until midday. After that, he would be happy to
continue your and Lady Blysse's tutorial in the treatment of wounds."

"Send him a message saying you and I would be glad to
take him up on his kind offer. Say that unless we hear otherwise we
will meet him at the Kestrel encampment."

"Very good."

"Then why don't we have breakfast here in the pavilion?
Afterwards, perhaps, we can use the luxury of being stopped in one place for longer than a night to bathe and wash our hair."

Having finished these pleasant domestic tasks, the
two women, their hair still wet and scented with the marigold petals
and rosemary leaves with which they had rinsed it, stole away to a
natural solar created by a grouping of boulders near one edge of the
camp. By climbing over the outer rocks, they found a little hollow,
perfect for two, open to sun and sky though invisible from without. The
walls of the Watchful Eye loomed to their south, between them and the
river. Wise tactics dictated that a clear zone be kept around the fort,
so no troops were stationed anywhere near their refuge.

"Doubtless," Elise explained to Ninette, spreading
her hair on a flat rock to speed its drying and pillowing her head on
one of the cushions they had brought with them, "the army would have
removed these rocks but for their great size and their distance from
the walls. Even a good archer would be pressed to make an accurate shot
from here."

"I hadn't thought of that, Elise," Ninette said,
spreading out her own hair to dry. "I simply noticed these yesterday
when we were pitching camp and decided to investigate, thinking they
offered possibilities for discreet privacy within limits."

Elise, knowing her ever-romantic cousin had been
thinking of rendezvous with Jet, colored slightly. She hadn't quite
been able to explain her changing feelings toward him, even to
Ninette—perhaps especially to Ninette, knowing how the other woman
dreamed of Elise as queen.

She settled for murmuring something grateful but
noncommittal and gazing into the sky. There was much to consider, both
regarding her own personal predicament and the impending conference.
Elise was weighing the advantages and disadvantages of being invited to
the initial conferences when voices interrupted her meditations.

Ninette started to her feet, but Elise cautioned her
to silence with a finger raised to her lips. There had been something
in those voices, something familiar, something angry,
that
made her wish their presence to remain unknown. Rolling over, her
drying hair chill against her neck, Elise crept to one of the gaps
between the towering rocks and peered out. Sight confirmed what her
ears had told her. Lady Melina Shield stood without preparing to pass
judgment on her son and daughters.

Already it was too late to make a graceful exit, for
the words streamed from Lady Melina, pungent and furious. In any case,
Elise was not certain she wanted to depart. Jet had taken advantage of
his position as her betrothed to listen at Archer family conferences.
Certainly she had as much right as he did!

Ignoring Ninette's trembling gestures that they could
get away by climbing over some other rocks, Elise instead motioned for
her to begin braiding her wet hair.

"We will not skulk away," she said softly into
Ninette's ear. "That would be a confession that they have greater
rights than I do—and no matter how well Lady Melina thinks of herself,
they do not!"

Ninette subsided and began plaiting Elise's long hair
into a pair of thick braids. Elise ignored the tugging at her scalp,
all her attention on the drama unfolding without.

"I wonder," Lady Melina was saying, evidently not for
the first time judging from the sulky expressions on her three
children's faces, "that a woman as closely descended from the family
that produced Queen Zorana the Great could bear such foolish children.
It must be your Redbriar father's contribution."

"Our father's great-grandmother was Queen Zorana
herself," Jet growled. His dark eyes beneath his handsome brow were
bloodshot. Elise might have felt more pity for him if she hadn't
suspected he was nursing a hangover. "She is our
great-great-grandmother. Can you claim closer kinship?"

"Impudence," Melina sighed. "A shame you have so
little cause for it, my stupid son. Doubtless when Queen Zorana married
Clive Elkwood, the strength of the Shields was diluted and diluted
again when King Chalmer insisted on marrying a commoner. Pity that King
Tedric's lot all died. My
brother Newell might have returned Shield strength to the royal line."

Elise could tell that Melina was toying with her
brood, taunting them, insulting them. She wondered that the elder two
took it so calmly, for neither was known for patience. With a slight
shiver, she realized that they feared the little woman who stood there,
her gaudy gemstone jewelry glittering in the midmorning sunlight.

"But Tedric's children are dead and Newell never got
a legitimate heir." Lady Melina drawled the word "legitimate" with a
special glower for her son. "Doubtless like some he has spilled enough
seed into anonymous loins."

Elise felt her face grow hot. Though Jet had never gotten that close to her, she felt herself shamed by implication.

"Sowing wild oats," Melina continued in her silky,
furious voice, "is well enough for common soldiers but for a boy whose
only hope for the crown is his betrothal alliance with another family
it is not only irresponsible, it is near treason!"

She grasped the jet pendant depending from the
multi-stone necklace around her throat and closed her fingers around it
as if those slender fingers could crush it. Jet's eyes widened in
unfeigned terror and Elise imagined that she felt heat from where her
betrothal gem rested against her skin.

"Treason against the crown you could wear and treason to the father and mother who would wear it before you!"

In a single easy, graceful movement Lady Melina
removed a fine chain silver bracelet. Then she took the jet pendant
from its place on her necklace and attached it to the chain. Swinging
it pendulum-like, she crooned in a voice that transfixed her listeners.

"From this moment forth, Jet, my son, your loins are
bound. Your staff shall not rise. Your blood shall not heat. Until you
prove yourself worthy of power, know yourself impotent! This is my
curse!"

Elise bit her lip to hold back an involuntary cry of
fear. She should be grateful, but this ritual gelding spoke of black
sorcery she had thought vanished from the land.

A small whimper of what might have been laughter, but could equally be a strangled scream, slipped from Sapphire
Shield's
lips. Melina turned her gaze upon her eldest daughter, pitiless despite
the bandages visible beneath the bodice of the young woman's gown and
the gloves that offered mute testimony to the cuts and bruises on her
hands.

"And you," Melina sneered with even more contempt,
"you pitifully ambitious chit! I've watched you riding your great blue
stallion, armed and armored like some warrior maiden from a nursery
tale. How did you like your first taste of battle?"

"I won," Sapphire retorted, clearly speaking with effort. "Two of the three men fell to my blows."

"Yet you screamed for help like an infant," came the
cold reply, "screamed and brought to your aid our greatest rival for
the throne: Lady Blysse herself, that flea-bitten waif who has
insinuated herself into King Tedric's favor. You brought Lady Blysse
and her lackeys."

Sapphire tried to protest, but Melina surged on, her hand coming to rest on the blue stone in her necklace.