Wolf's Blood (23 page)

Firekeeper knew in which wing Doc and Elise had their quarters, and was looking in that direction when the runner returned, Doc walking briskly beside him.

Sir Jared Surcliffe—or Doc, as he preferred to be called—was a slightly built man who shared the distinctive hawk-like nose of his cousin Earl Kestrel. This relatively small build and the nose were all but a certain familial fondness that Doc shared with his cousin. In terms of temper and ambition, Doc was the earl’s antithesis.

Yet, Firekeeper thought as she stepped forward and gave Doc a fierce embrace, that wasn’t true either. Where Earl Kestrel was ambitious for his family and his name, aware that his was the lowest ranked of the seven Great Houses of Hawk Haven, Doc’s ambitions were more personal. Among these had been to do something to make him worthy of the lovely and intelligent heir to the Archer Barony.

Despite his relation to House Kestrel, within Hawk Haven’s strict hierarchical structure, Doc was not considered nobleborn. Nor was he one to trade on relationships. Firekeeper had met Doc—along with Derian—as one of the members of the expedition Earl Kestrel had mounted in hopes of finding Prince Barden alive. The position had not been a mere sinecure. Doc was one of the best physicians and surgeons Firekeeper had met, his studies of the medical arts enhanced by a magical talent that permitted him to speed healing or to sustain the strength in an injured body.

As a member of his cousin’s entourage, Doc had reencountered Elise Archer, whom he had met when both were hardly more than children. A romance had flowered, but had taken—at least by Firekeeper’s wolfish sense of these things—a long time to be acknowledged by the participants. Even more time had passed before the romance had borne fruit, but now, padding beside Doc toward the quarters he and Elise shared, Firekeeper could hear that fruit shrieking protest at some indignity.

“Nothing wrong with her lungs,” Doc said indulgently, but with a certain pride as well.

Firekeeper understood the reason for this. Little Elexa had been born early, and her early cries had been weak and feeble. Firekeeper thought that she, too, might hear music in these cries were she the child’s parent, but for now she wished that she, like Blind Seer, had ears she could flatten to deaden some of the sound.

The cries ebbed as they approached and Blind Seer commented,
“The pup was hungry. I smell milk.”

And when they entered the front room of the suite, Elise did indeed hold the infant to her breast. Her beatific smile of maternal pleasure warmed with welcome as they entered.

“I’ll give you a hug as soon as Elexa is done nursing,” Elise promised.

When Firekeeper had first met her, Elise had been a young woman with sea-green eyes and fair hair, her ripening body verging on beauty—at least as humans measured these things. Now the strain of her difficult pregnancy and the numerous duties she had attended to as long as she could had diminished that youthful flush, revealing an underlying strength and tenacity of character that in no way made her less attractive—at least to Firekeeper’s way of thinking.

Elise looked down at the suckling infant. “Elexa couldn’t seem to decide if she was hungry or simply bored, but I think she’s made up her mind.”

“Think so, too,” Firekeeper agreed.

The wolf-woman settled on the hearth rug, Blind Seer beside her. Doc took a chair from which he could see both his wife and his guests, then realized he had been remiss as a host.

“Can I get you some water or tea? We have both here already. The kitchens are closed, but I can raid the pantry. There was a good chicken stew for dinner tonight.”

Firekeeper shook her head. She was familiar with Liglimom cooking and usually found the spices got in the way of her pleasure in her meat.

“We eat,” she said, “before. Thank you.”

“Besides,
” Blind Seer said,
“you of all people don’t want to eat before getting on a boat.”

Doc and Elise didn’t quite share Derian’s sensitivity to when Blind Seer was talking, but they couldn’t miss the punch Firekeeper gave to the wolf’s shoulder.

“What did he say?” Elise asked.

“We go on boat later,” Firekeeper said, “to Misheemnekuru. After dark is full.”

“Probably better, then,” Doc agreed, “that you don’t have anything to eat. Do I need to mix you anything?”

“Harjeedian give me powder to put in water,” Firekeeper said, patting her waistband. “But if you have here, then I have this for come back.”

“Return voyage,” Elise said. “Honestly, Firekeeper, your Pellish is getting worse.”

“My Liglimosh is getting much better,” Firekeeper said in that language. “It is the human tongue I use most often lately.”

“Nice,” Elise said. Then she grinned. “But I bet you take shortcuts with that, too, when you’re not trying to impress someone. Tell us how Derian is. What are you up to there in the south?”

Her tone was casual, a friend asking after a mutual friend, but to Firekeeper, who knew Elise well, and who had been trained to hear the different inflections in a robin’s song, there was a false note. Was it only that Elise was still unsettled by Derian’s changed appearance, or was there something more?

She decided not to let on that she’d noticed anything, but she saw from the twitch of Blind Seer’s ear that he, too, had noticed the odd note in Elise’s voice.

Firekeeper told what truth she could about their life on the Nexus Islands, but really there wasn’t much she could say without giving away what she had promised to keep secret. Derian had gone south with Firekeeper last autumn, on the trail of something Firekeeper and Blind Seer had discovered when assisting the jaguar Truth. His role then had been to keep Firekeeper out of trouble, but here she was, and he remained south.

Elexa finished nursing, and Elise handed the drowsy infant to Doc while she tidied herself and drew up the bodice of her housedress. Doc, meanwhile, draped a cloth over his shoulder and patted the infant on the back until it burped and drooled. Firekeeper pretended to be distracted by these domestic details, and let her account fade into silence. In truth, she was rather fascinated. No one ever bothered to burp wolf pups, although their mothers often licked their bellies. Maybe a similar purpose was served.

“Firekeeper,” Elise said, her tone a touch more crisp, that of the assistant to the ambassador she had been since Derian’s departure, “I know you’re not telling us everything. I should be accustomed to that by now. What has me bothered is how secretive Derian has become. What is he doing in the city-states?”

“
Hiding,
” Blind Seer suggested. “
Hiding because of what the ‘curse’ did to him
.”

Firekeeper laid her hand on the wolf’s shoulder in mute thanks for his counsel.

“Hiding. He not think looking like a horse is very good.”

Elise nodded, glancing at Doc. Clearly Blind Seer’s proposal was one they had already considered.

“He can’t hide forever,” Elise said. “What about his family?”

“He write them,” Firekeeper said. “Now that the yarimaimalom and the Royal winged folk is a little friends, messages can go to Hawk Haven.”

“But writing won’t hold them forever.” Elise persisted. “They’re going to want to see him. The seas won’t be open forever either. You know that summer is the best time for long voyages.”

Fleetingly, Firekeeper thought of the gates, how they could eliminate the need for worrying about weather or ships. If the gate in Hawk Haven still existed, Derian could be home in a few strides, and back to the Nexus Islands in time to share dinner at the common table.

“I not think he sail this summer,” Firekeeper said. “Young humans, like young wolves, often disperse to find their strength. Surely his parents understand this.”

“You can talk well when you choose,” Doc said. “That was almost poetic. Firekeeper, Derian’s parents are only part of the situation—or rather, they’re related in a fashion you can’t possibly guess. Lately, Ambassador Sailor has been dropping broad hints that Derian should be here, doing his job. Only the fact that Harjeedian has also not returned has kept the ambassador from getting quite indignant over the matter.

“Why need Derian?” Firekeeper asked, genuinely confused. “He have you, Elise. When we here before I see others with northern features.”

“He needs Derian because Derian is one of the few who speak Liglimosh well,” Elise explained. “The language gap keeps us relying on translators far more than we’d like. If Fairwind knew you were as fluent as I’ve just learned, he might try and keep you here to help.”

Firekeeper’s eyes widened in horror, and Elise laughed.

She went on more seriously. “Derian also understands the local culture and religion as well as any of us do, and far better than most of us.”

“And,” Doc said, “the Liglimom owe Derian a favor or two. We don’t know exactly what went on here last year, but one of u-Liall died suddenly, and apparently a fair number of wellplaced people were disgraced. Derian is still spoken of with a certain respect and even fondness—and not merely by Junjaldisdu Rahniseeta.”

“Because,” Firekeeper said pointedly, “he not talk about favors he do then.”

“And because he did them,” Doc agreed. “You have a good reputation, too, but clearly they see you more as one of the yarimaimalom than as a citizen of Bright Haven. You just aren’t the same type of playing piece on the diplomatic board.”

Firekeeper was trying to decide if she liked this or not when Elise cleared her throat and lowered her voice.

“Firekeeper, Ambassador Fairwind has been making quiet inquiries about what Harjeedian and the rest of you have been about in the city-states. He thinks I don’t know, but it’s pretty easy for me to find things like this out.”

Firekeeper tried hard not to stiffen. Had anyone learned about the Nexus Islands? She had thought they were safe from spies, but many of the yarimaimalom viewed themselves as part of the Liglim community rather than of the wild. An eagle or raven might have seen a great deal, and if they then took the time to communicate to an aridisdu … The process was laborious and prone to error, but a wealth of information might be shared in that way.

Blind Seer licked her hand and Firekeeper remembered to speak.

“What questions Fairwind Sailor ask?” Firekeeper said as casually as she could.

“Enough to learn that you and your group passed through the city-states last year, visiting several, inquiring about certain emblems.”

“So,” Firekeeper shrugged. “You knew we is going to do this.”

“We did,” Elise agreed. “But what Fairwind finds interesting is that apparently in the city-state of Gak, you found what you sought, information that led you to go after a pair of twins, brother and sister, missing for a year even then.”

Firekeeper shrugged again. “I think we tell you this when we come to see baby.”

“You did,” Elise agreed, “but what Ambassador Sailor finds even more interesting is that no sign of you or your group has been seen further south or east than Gak. However, a few times Harjeedian has gone into Gak for supplies or to speak with local theologians.”

“And so this troubles ambassador?” Firekeeper asked.

“It troubles the ambassador,” Doc said, taking up the thread when the urgency in Elise’s voice made the baby start to fuss, “because—not knowing anything about the curse Derian encountered—he thinks that Derian has abandoned his post. When Fairwind learned one of the twins in question was a young lady, and apparently a young lady of property, the ambassador decided that Derian has decided to settle down with her and raise horses or something.”

“Closer to the truth than he knows,”
Blind Seer said,
“at least Derian would be raising foals if Isende could get him to notice how she lifts her tail at him.”

Firekeeper swatted him, and shook her head, deciding to try misdirection.

“Derian not do that. Isende like him, sure, but he not see this. I think his heart still sore from Rahniseeta.”

Elise was not to be distracted.

“Firekeeper, we can’t tell the ambassador that without telling him about how Derian was cursed, and I doubt he’d believe that unless he saw the evidence himself.”

“Derian not want that!” Firekeeper said. “He nearly hide for days after you see him he so upset that you think him strange.”

“I hoped we hadn’t hurt his feelings,” Elise said. Her seagreen eyes narrowed in pain. “But I won’t deny that his appearance was a shock. However, how we reacted to Derian’s new appearance isn’t the most important thing.”

“What is?”

“Firekeeper, I think you’ll understand this. Derian’s actions reflect not only on him, but on Hawk Haven, and even on his birth family. If Ambassador Sailor decides that Derian is shirking, he may decide that Hawk Haven is also shirking.”

“You here!”

“I know, but Fairwind was a ship’s captain, and he thinks in terms of chains of command and assigned posts.”

“King Tedric know Derian is good,” Firekeeper said.

“King Tedric is an old man. More and more he leaves the responsibilities of ruling to Sapphire and Shad. My mother thinks he’s preparing them for his death.”

Firekeeper winced at this. She knew the old king couldn’t live forever—and she respected, even loved him. Far more rapidly than many humans, King Tedric had accepted her for what she was, and his favor was one of the reasons—in addition to her own fierce disapproval of the idea—that no one had tried to lay more than a veneer of civilization on her.

Doc patted Firekeeper on the shoulder.

“I know. We don’t like the idea either, but the reality is that Derian cannot hide forever, not without hurting his country at a sensitive time, not without hurting his family. Can you explain this to him?”

“I try,” Firekeeper said. “You try, too. Write this for me, and I carry it when I go back.”

“Deal,” Doc said. “Now. How long until you catch your boat?”

Firekeeper shrugged. “I tell sailors I come after dark. I stay a little more. Is not too dark, too long.”

“Then I’ll mix you something to help with the seasickness,” Doc said, “and you can tell us what brings you all the way to Misheemnekuru.”