Through Wolf's Eyes (69 page)

There were many more tents here than in her own doss:
a smallish one for Jet, one large enough to stand in for Sapphire and
Opal, a square-bodied one for Lord Rolfston, and a fine pavilion for
Lady Melina. Sometimes Opal slept with her mother. Other times Nanny
did so. Only Lord Rolfston
must negotiate to share his wife's sleeping space. Lady Melina claimed he snored.

When she passed his tent Elise had to agree. The
deep, steady vibrations shook the air even through the muffling of
thick canvas. Within, the noise must be terrible. Elise fought down a
nervous desire to giggle. Then the realization of what she was about to
do hit her and she sobered instantly.

Reaching Lady Melina's pavilion, Elise ducked inside
before she could lose her nerve. The air was thick and muggy with
trapped breath. The interior of the pavilion seemed so dark and close
that she nearly panicked and ran outside again, never mind her mission.
Then she stilled herself.

Over the last several days she had been in here many
times, usually fetching something Lady Melina had forgotten. Opal hated
running errands for her mother and such a menial task was beneath
Nanny's dignity. Both had been happy that the newly dutiful
daughter-in-law was willing to do it.

Now Elise called the floor plan into her mind's eye,
counted the steps as she had done earlier when she had intended to pass
the information on to Firekeeper, never dreaming she would need it for
herself. At six steps, just as she had estimated, her hand touched the
curtain. Another three steps and she could hear Lady Melina's
breathing. There was no mistaking the characteristic scent of lilacs
that permeated her bed linens.

Firekeeper claimed to know how to see in the dark,
but Elise had no such skill. Instead, she moved her hand to where the
top of Melina's head should be. Slowly, carefully, she brought it down
until she touched ever so lightly the top of the older woman's head.
Tracing her fingertips along the sleeping woman's hair, Elise estimated
where her throat must be.

The next step was something she never would have
dared if she hadn't known Melina was drugged. She touched her again,
hoping to feel the body-warmed silver of the necklace. Instead she felt
skin. Again. Again skin. A desperate terror rose within her. What if
Lady Melina took the necklace off
after all and stowed it away? What if this was all a terrible mistake?

Resisting the impulse to flee, Elise tried again. On
her fourth try, she touched metal. A sob of relief rose unbidden in her
throat. She swallowed it before she made any but the faintest sound,
then stood like a stone, listening. All she heard was the steady,
distant roar of Lord Rolfston's snoring.

Reaching with both hands now, Elise slid her fingers
along the necklace until she felt the clasp. Undoing this without being
able to see it proved nearly impossible. Her hands fumbled until she
pretended that she was reaching up behind her own neck, undoing a
similar clasp as she had hundreds, even thousands of times before. The
clasp opened and she slipped the necklace off.

Grasping the necklace in her teeth, Elise quickly
took the counterfeit from her waistband. Thankfully, it was warm from
contact with her body. She placed it against the sleeping woman's
throat. Melina stirred restlessly, muttered something.

Hurriedly, Elise fastened the clasp. The original
necklace still held between her teeth because she did not trust herself
not to drop it, Elise turned slowly, walked three steps, and found the
curtain.

The doorway out of the pavilion was comparatively
easy to find, the variance between dark and darker easy for her
adjusted eye to see. Six steps and she was to the pavilion door and
outside. Not wanting to cross the Shield compound again, she slipped
behind Lady Melina's tent. Now she dropped the necklace into her hand,
holding it so tightly the metal dented the skin. Elise was nearly back
to her own tent when she realized someone had followed her.

Sapphire Shield, clad in a long sleeping gown that
looked black in the faint starlight but was almost certainly dark blue,
stood in the open ground in front of the Archer tent watching her. She
motioned Elise into Elise's own pavilion. Elise obeyed, not because
Sapphire held her bare sword in her hands but because she wanted the
relative privacy. Her father and his man were with Baron Archer's
command. Only Ninette was within and she knew everything of importance.

When they were inside, Sapphire said in low tones:

"I saw you coming out of my mother's tent."

"Yes," Elise said calmly, revealing what she held in her hand. "I've stolen your mother's necklace."

Sapphire's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Even in light
from the single candle on the table, Elise could see her hand move
restlessly along the hilt of her sword. A pang of pure terror soured
Elise's stomach. What other controls might Melina Shield have put on
her children? But Sapphire said only a single word.

"Why?"

The truth rose unbidden to Elise's lips. "I want to set you free."

Sapphire's eyes widened. "How much do you know?"

"Enough. Enough to know about pain that never fades from wounds that seem to be healing and about the biting of ants."

"We must do it tonight," Sapphire said. "Before my mother learns anything is different."

"I left a substitute," Elise said with pardonable pride.

"I'm certain it is beautifully crafted," Sapphire said, "but can we be certain it is enough?"

Elise shook her head. "No, we can't, but I know nothing about how to perform a disenchantment."

A husky voice spoke from the doorway. "Hazel Healer may know. We must ask her."

Firekeeper stood in the doorway, the oval river rock in her hand.

"I only just come," she explained, "from across the river. I see this, then I hear. You not need me after all, Elise."

Elise nearly crumpled, her knees suddenly weak as she realized that all her risk had been for nothing. Then she straightened.

"I handled it," she said simply. "And my cousin is right. We need to do something with this as soon as possible."

Firekeeper turned. "Then I am away to Hazel. Can you two come to her house or do I bring her here?"

Elise glanced at Sapphire. Sapphire frowned thoughtfully. "The road to town is going to be watched and we'll be
obvious.
There's no rule against our going to town, but I'd prefer not to raise
comment. These tents with their canvas walls are as public as a street."

A wicked grin lit the wolf-woman's face. "Why not the
forest? I think every sort of thing goes on in that forest. I meet you
there with Hazel."

"Do you think she'll come?" Elise asked.

"Oh, yes," Firekeeper grinned again, and Elise found
herself thinking what a predatory thing a smile could be. "I will ask
her very nicely."

E
LISE TOOK ADVANTAGE OF THE WALK
to the edge of the forest to tell Sapphire everything she knew,
including what they had learned from Hazel about both trance induction
and enchantment. In return, Sapphire told her a little about what it
was like being a daughter of Melina Shield.

"I'm not certain I have ever had a choice of my own
in my entire life," Sapphire said. Her tone was blunt, without a trace
of whining. "And much of the time I'm not certain I even minded. While
others worried about what color to wear, I always knew. My jewels, my
horses, my pets, even my playmates were all neatly chosen within two
parameters: whether they were blue and whether they fit the traditions
and mystique of my noble ancestors."

"And you never minded?" Elise asked hesitantly.

Sapphire shrugged. "It didn't seem much different
from how everyone else I knew lived. My parents didn't encourage us to
cultivate friends outside of the Great Houses. There was even some
debate about your suitability, you know."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Archer
is
a lesser house, but in the
end Mother decided that the close relationship to the Crown could not
be ignored. Moreover, your mother is a Wellward and intimate with the
queen."

"I see."

Sapphire's tone was so matter-of-fact that Elise
found it easy not to take offense. Her cousin was reporting history—
past history—not getting in a subtle dig.

"When did you start," Elise asked, changing the subject, "resenting your mother's control?"

"Not until recently," Sapphire admitted, "not until
you and Jet pushed me down in the running for the Crown and diminished
me in her eyes. Then I got angry at her as well as at you."

"Not at your father?"

"Father," Sapphire said in those same level tones,
"doesn't matter. He has never mattered. He may be the king's nephew,
the only son of Grand Duke Gadman, but he doesn't matter—except that he
has good connections and came with generous holdings."

They had reached the forest trail by then. Casting
about with the narrow beam from their lantern, they found a fallen tree
trunk set alongside the path several paces within the fringe of trees.
The lack of bark and low polish along its upper surface testified that
they were not the first to employ it as a bench.

Once they were seated, they turned the lantern low so
as not to waste oil. A chance play of light touched the faceted
sapphire set in the band on Sapphire's forehead.

"I never asked," Elise said, "but I've always wondered, doesn't that headband get uncomfortable?"

Sapphire laughed softly. "You know, I don't even
notice it, no more than you notice your shoes if they fit well. I've
been wearing it—or one like it—since I was a year old. I'd feel strange
without it—naked."

"You wear it even to sleep or bathe?"

"Always," Sapphire assured her. "The only time I
haven't worn a headpiece like this is when I removed one to replace it
with another."

"Does your mother make any sort of fuss then?"

"You're thinking of sorcery, aren't you?"

"Well, yes."

"She does, actually," Sapphire admitted. "The stone from one headband has to be set into the new one—even
our
family can't afford to replace precious stones of the first water as fast as children grow."

Snob!
Elise thought defensively. Then she
felt rather bad. Sapphire was taking a stand against her mother, the
person who had defined every waking moment of her life. Certainly, she
had the right to hold on to some scrap of pride. Then an uncomfortable
thought slipped its way in beneath Elise's sympathy.

What if she isn't taking a stand? What if she's just trying to learn what we know and then plans to turn us over to Lady Melina?

Unbidden, Elise's hand touched her lips as if already
the fiery bites of red ants were lacerating the tender flesh. And
Sapphire continued, her voice soft but steady in the darkness:

"Mother had studied how to set the stones herself and
while she did so I had to sit by and wait. She always gave me something
to drink, something rather sweet, that made me feel dreamy. After a
while, I'd stop feeling anxious about the funny feeling along my brow
where the sapphire should rest."

Sapphire paused for a moment, then whispered, her
words barely audible, "When I was very small, I thought I stopped
existing when the stone wasn't there. I was Sapphire—somehow that stone
was me—when it wasn't touching me, I was no longer myself. I wasn't
anyone."

"It hasn't always been the same stone," Elise said, "has it?"

"No." Elise felt her cousin shudder so violently that
the log vibrated beneath them. "Until I was about Citrine's age it was
a different stone, a smaller one. Then Mother decided that the smaller
one didn't make the same impression. I still remember when she took the
band off and, instead of removing the stone to set in the new band, put
it to one side.

"I screamed when she started setting the new stone. What I felt was raw panic. I shook. I was nauseated. Tears nearly choked me.

"Only when Mother let me hold the little stone did I
calm down. For a while, she let me carry it in an amulet bag like the
common folk use. Then she took it away. By then I was comfortable with
the new stone, even liked it better. The
color was more vibrant and the cut better. People admired it. I didn't miss the old stone anymore."

"And the new stone," Elise asked, "that's the one you're wearing now."

"That's right."

"I hope you can give it up," said Hazel Healer,
stepping out from the shadows, Firekeeper a pace behind her, "because
that is going to be the first step, whatever we do."

The cousins jumped and Sapphire asked, "How long have you been there?"

"Longer than you have," Hazel answered easily.
"Fire-keeper was probably to my house before you changed out of your
nightdress and found a lantern. She is very direct, she is. My mare is
used to night calls, and I keep my bag packed and beside her in the
stables. Even with taking the road around the camp, we made good time.
No one stops a healer, you see, not even army pickets."

Elise felt Sapphire relax slightly and smiled. Her
own heart was thudding in her chest but she was obscurely relieved now
that someone else was there to share the responsibility.

"You were doing so well," Hazel continued, "telling
Elise about your mother that I didn't want to interrupt, but time is
running short. The sleeping draught Elise gave your mother should last
all night, but varying metabolisms react differently to drugs.
Therefore, I interrupted as soon as our course of action became clear."

"Clear?" Elise asked.

"That's right." Hazel didn't elucidate further.
"Firekeeper said there is a glade a bit deeper in where a light
wouldn't be seen so we can turn up the lanterns. She's gone ahead to
kindle a fire."

Elise looked around and, indeed, the wolf-woman had disappeared.

"Still with us?" she asked Sapphire.

When Sapphire bent to pick up their lantern, Elise
saw that her cousin was dreadfully pale beneath her tan, but when she
replied her voice was steady. "I'm with you. I'll walk first with the
lantern. Let Mistress Healer come last leading the horse."