Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart (20 page)

Since the trip out from Eagle's Nest had taken King Tedric's party six days, Allister had hoped that his group—which after all contained no invalids—could do it in less.

One look at the long train of horses and carriages, baggage wagons and overburdened mules quenched that hope. Allister had not been king long enough to feel he could do as he desired—stride down that line like a captain inspecting his officers and strip those traveling with him down to bare essentials.

Don't forget, Allister
, he told himself,
that they are making a brave venture into enemy territory. They'll want to make a good show, put on their best finery for our new allies. Don't ruin their pride
.

Shad, still holding his left shoulder somewhat stiffly, rode up beside Allister.

"Don't worry, Father," he said, his words for the king alone. "We'll make it there no later than the evening of the seventh. Sapphire and I have discussed tactics, and have decided that we'll ride to the point, keeping up the pace and shaming those who would go too easy."

Allister chuckled.

"You can do that where I can't," he admitted. "You're still touched with the glamour of your newlywed state."

"And what better way," the prince added, showing that he too had been thinking of how vulnerable their position was, "to quell any rumors that Sapphire and I might not like either each other or this arranged marriage than to be urging everyone on?"

"You're a good son," Allister said almost complacently.

"And Sapphire is a fine wife!" Shad nearly glowed in his enthusiasm.

Allister followed the direction of Shad's gaze and saw his new daughter-in-law swinging into her horse's saddle. Gone was the elegant bride, gone the pale invalid. Here was the warrior whose appearance had enchanted the troops fighting before the walls of Good Crossing. Today she didn't wear armor or sword, only a hunting knife at her belt, but her steed was the mighty Blue she had ridden into war.

The Blue was actually a pale grey, but Lady Melina's desire that her children be clad and accoutered in keeping with the theme of their names had extended to horses. If there were no blue horses, then one must be created—in this case, by means of dye.

When the Blue had been relocated some days after the final battle of King Allister's War—he had fled during a particularly bad press—Sapphire had reclaimed him, treated his wounds, and then permitted her mount to go back to his former color. To her evident delight, the Blue's mane and tail turned out to be a smoky blue-grey, quite striking against his paler coat—and an ample reminder of his former gaudy glory.

"Lead on, son," Allister said. "Gather up your lady and tell whoever Whyte has assigned to point guard that we're to get under way. There's no better way to convince the stragglers to stop straggling than to give them no choice."

Shad trotted his own mount—a dark bay with off stockings white almost to the knee—to join Sapphire. Allister accepted a hand up into the carriage that had been prepared for him. Later, he would ride up and down the line, visiting with his companions and consolidating his reign a bit more. However, he had agreed with Whyte Steel's recommendation that to begin the journey in that fashion would be to invite trouble.

And not just from assassins
—
if any are about
, Allister thought.
Too many would press for the honor of riding in my vicinity. The main roads of Silver Whale Cove are wide, but we'd bottleneck them just the same
.

For the first several days of their journey the weather remained clement and the king kept to his resolve to mix with his entourage as much as possible. The autumn air was crisp and his mount—a sorrel with the undignified name of Hot Toddy—was smooth-gaited at both walk and trot. Toddy's canter was like flying, but Allister rarely had the excuse to press the horse that fast.

Instead he rode at easy pace, always dogged by one or more riders—even if his own court had not taken advantage of the king's availability, Whyte Steel would not have left him unprotected. Nor were the members of his own entourage the only ones who sought to get close. The passage of the royal group from Hawk Haven had not quelled the enthusiasm of those who lived anywhere at all near the road for spectacle.

So many people crowded the verges, especially whenever the group passed near a town or village, that Allister idly wondered who precisely was left to get in the harvest. If the baskets of hand-polished apples and other fresh goods—from pastries to eggs—they were offered were any indication, it had been a good harvest, despite the fighting farther west.

They were forced to turn away many of the gifts, or no people, only groceries, would have arrived in Hawk Haven for the wedding. Still, at night when the temperatures dropped, Allister found himself glad for a mug of hot cider to warm his insides.

The day after they crossed the Barren at Rock Fort and left Broadview behind them, the weather turned ugly. Rain washed down in torrents, turning the packed road sticky with mud. The sailors among them pulled out foul-weather gear and rode on as if this were nothing more than a squall at sea. Sea chanties were bellowed out to answer the force of the wind until even the horses seemed encouraged.

Uncle Tedric should be home by now
, Allister thought as he guided Hot Toddy around the puddles. He'd long ago left the singing to those with better voices and fallen to daydreaming about what awaited them in a day or two more.
And there will be fires blazing in all the hearths and thick quilts on the beds
.

That evening, when they made camp in a farmer's barns, Whyte Steel reported to the king that the people much admired his fortitude and noble bearing against the elements.

"They're saying that you contemplate great matters of state," the guard captain said, "and so ride as if through a soft spring day."

Allister laughed. Truly the mystique and aura of a king held a unique power if it could make people believe such nonsense.

"Don't tell them, Whyte," he said, still laughing. "I'm just sealing my lips to keep from drinking rain by the gallon."

"I won't," Whyte replied with frightening sincerity. "I most certainly will not."

W
alnut Endbrook hated his given name. He'd never gotten straight just why his mother had saddled him with it. Whenever he'd asked he'd never gotten the same story twice in a row.

The worst times were when she just giggled. Other times she offered him a fanciful tale by way of explanation: walnuts had been her favorite food when she was pregnant with him or he'd been conceived under a walnut tree or his wrinkled infant face had reminded her of a nutmeat.

Walnut couldn't ask his father, because his mother wasn't precisely sure who
was
his father. That lucky gentleman had gotten away from Honey Endbrook long before Walnut had been born, maybe even before he'd been conceived. There had been other men since. Many others.

Before he was eight, Walnut had beaten bloody anyone who dared call him "Walnut." On children he used his fists. Adults he bit or kicked. "Waln"—never "Nut"—became an acceptable diminutive. He would have preferred to adopt some other name entirely, but though lots of people were nicknamed as they grew older no one ever renamed him—not even a common nickname like "Tiny" or "Salty." Perversely, the hated name remained with him as stubbornly as walnut-rind stain remained on the hands.

Waln left his mother's home on Dog Island shortly after his eleventh birthday, sailing out as cabin boy on a merchant ship. When he returned, three years later, Honey Endbrook had vanished. No one seemed to know where she had gone or even whether she was living or dead. Far too many people in his old hometown called him "Walnut," though. Waln left, the money he had meant to give his mother as proof of his new worth heavy in his pockets.

He used the better part of three years' wages to buy into a cargo; the profits from that venture bought him a share in a ship. By the time he was twenty, he was co-owner. By the time he was twenty-five, he owned the vessel and another beside. By the time Waln turned thirty, he let others risk storm and pirates. While he waited for his ships to come in, he established a clearinghouse for various goods on Thunder Island.

Waln was forty and wealthy when the news came that the Isles had just become a kingdom of their own. He had grown into a big man, somewhat fleshy but not in the least fat. Just a few years before, his light brown hair had started retreating from his forehead and thinning at the top, but he accepted this change philosophically. A peaked-brim sailor's hat hid the deficiency as well as protecting his fair skin from burning.

He was wearing that hat, squinting out from under the brim's shadow in a way that had become habitual, while he listened to the news that had come via fast ship to Thunder Island Harbor. The royal governor appointed by Bright Bay was to be replaced by Queen Gustin IV—now to be known as Queen Valora—as their monarch.

Waln Endbrook was a well-known man on Thunder Island. In addition to his warehouses along the docks, he owned a fine estate on the coveted high ground above the harbor. He could have stood for town major and found no one willing to stand against him, but politics would have cut into time for making money.

He had married the daughter of one of his early partners soon after giving up the sea full-time, and now had two daughters about whom he was quite silly and a three-year-old son whose current ambition was to be a pirate. Waln had finer dreams both for his children and for himself.

When the advance party for Queen Valora arrived on Thunder Island, Waln Endbrook was among those who met them at the harbor. He offered them rooms at his estate, and made himself quite useful in convincing the royal governor to peacefully accept his demotion from effective monarch of the five Great Isles and the numerous small. Waln even persuaded the governor that the man's own best interests would best be served by accepting the offered appointment as prime minister to the new queen.

Prime minister wasn't a post Waln coveted in the least. He wanted to be more than a court attendant, a flunky chained down by custom and duty. He wanted to be invaluable.

Queen Valora recognized Waln's abilities as soon as he brought himself to her attention. Her first award to him was the title "lord"—with hints that he might be promoted to baron or even duke when she had decided how to reassign territories within her new holdings. Intellectually, Waln knew that a title and a promise cost Queen Valora nothing, but he was pleased nonetheless.

Lord Waln's first major duty for his new queen was diplomatic and quite dangerous. About the time that Bright Bay was preparing for the marriage of Crown Prince Shad to Crown Princess Sapphire, Waln sailed north on a fast, light ship. In the dead of night, he debarked at First Harbor, Waterland's capital.

Waterland had not yet decided the status of the newly made kingdom of the Isles, but in this well-watered land wealth was the supreme ruler. One of Waln's trade contacts could be trusted to stay bought, and she arranged for him to travel west, to cross the Sword of Kelvin Mountains, and finally to reach Dragon's Breath, the capital city of New Kelvin.

The tales Waln brought back from that trip—of houses made of glass and crystal, of veiled women wearing silk and gold to the market, of horses wearing helmets designed to make them look like strange beasts from forgotten legends—would make him popular around any fireside, even among a sailing people who pretended to be jaded beyond any wonder. Yet the first tale that Waln told after returning from that journey was one of failure.

The New Kelvinese rulers would not meet with him—not even when he presented his credentials as ambassador for the Queen of the Isles. He thought he had caught a glimmer of interest in the eyes that gazed out at him from the fantastically dyed and painted features of the official who interviewed him, but he couldn't be sure.

Only when Waln whispered a hint about what business had brought him so far and through such hardships at a time of year when many travelers stayed close to home was Waln certain of the interest. Even the official merely recited in cadences that turned his accented speech into strange poetry:

"You speak of sorcery, Ambassador, but you have no taste of that sacred art about you. We can no more speak of sorcery with you than we could discuss color with one blind from birth. Return only with one who has eyes to see those arcane hues, return only if you bear with you that which you wish to discuss. Otherwise, cross not our threshold again. Be warned. The penalties for disobedience would make you welcome death."

No matter how he blustered, bribed, or even—just once—bullied, Lord Waln could get no better answer. He returned to Thunder Island to report his defeat and found Queen Valora in a curiously cheerful mood.

Queen Valora was a lovely woman, neither tall nor short, but some feminine compromise of the two that permitted her to be both slender and strong. More than one figurehead had been carved with her upper torso as inspiration, but although buxom, Valora was not in the least bovine. Her aristocratic features were framed by golden hair just touched with a warm glow, like the first touches of a glorious sunset. Eyes the clear blue of the sea saw deep into a man and then right through him.

Seated next to his queen at a council table, Lord Waln felt his height and strength transformed into awkward bulk. His expensive clothing—including a waistcoat cut from a New Kelvinese brocade purchased in one of their markets and of an ornate beauty never before seen on the Isles—became the mere gauds adorning a rusty feathered crow.

In short, Valora's heritage as a daughter of monarchs reduced Walnut Endbrook to what he had never ceased to be deep inside—a prostitute's child who had never known his father and whose mother was perhaps an even greater mystery.

Queen Valora listened to Lord Waln's report with perfect composure. They were alone—even her secretary and bodyguards had been told to wait outside. When Waln finished, the queen touched his hand lightly, a gentle caress that made his weathered skill tingle.